A Covid-19 version of this freakish tale is happening today. Instead of a fire company, the conspiracy gang is targeting an important, successful, decades-old nonprofit organization that researches viral epidemics and tries to predict and forestall future “fires” — new viral outbreaks — that might kill millions of people. It broke my heart to hear testimony in a hearing convened by the House of Representatives that staunch supporters of science like Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci have tacitly agreed to this witch hunt.

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The officer, a 27-year veteran of the department, knew that sending the February letter was an unusual thing to do, but meetings with hospital leaders had gone nowhere, and he was at his wit’s end. He gave a rundown of 911 calls from the hospital, more than 20 in six months. It was a grisly list. Rape. Punches to the head. A nurse attacked with a razor. A patient running onto the highway. A death.

It’s an astonishing level of violence for any hospital, but seems especially unlikely for one whose low-slung, gray exterior bears the maroon “Mount Carmel” logo of the local Catholic health system, the one founded by nuns in the 19th century. Although it’s impossible to tell from the street or its website, Mount Carmel Behavioral Health is actually run by Acadia Healthcare, a massive, publicly traded chain that’s widely accused of understaffing its psychiatric hospitals and undertraining its workers, to the detriment of patient and staff safety.

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Last week, following an unusually udder pun-laden discussion, lawmakers in Delaware voted to become the latest state to legalize the sale of raw milk. Not part of the discussion was the fact that an ongoing outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle has scientists increasingly concerned that the virus could be transmitted to humans through raw milk.

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Neuralink’s unconventional approaches to research have challenged many norms of medical science. Instead of attending scientific conferences and sharing interim progress, Neuralink has communicated information via social media, oscillating between extreme secrecy and openness. This strategy has left the scientific community playing catch-up, scrambling to glean insights from tweets and YouTube videos.

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To encourage robust, good-faith discussion about issues raised in First Opinion essays, STAT publishes selected Letters to the Editor received in response to them. You can submit a Letter to the Editor here, or find the submission form at the end of any First Opinion essay.

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The retrospective study, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, measured results for a cohort of more than 1.6 million patients with type 2 diabetes from 2005 to 2018 who were prescribed GLP-1s, insulin, or metformin. The researchers used data from the first time point, the prescription of any of the drugs, until up to 15 years after.

Rong Xu, a professor of biomedical informatics at Case Western Reserve University and study author, said the known efficacy of GLP-1 drugs in treating weight loss and managing type 2 diabetes prompted researchers to do the study.

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The massive sum spent by AbbVie, the maker of the mega blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug Humira, is the most a pharmaceutical company has spent on marketing to doctors since such data became available in 2017. The figure includes compensation for consulting and other services like speaking fees, lodging and travel for doctors, and meals, as well as a small number of payments made directly to hospitals.

The payments, made public by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, provide an insight into AbbVie’s marketing in the immediate aftermath of the company losing its monopoly on Humira, which dominated the company’s balance sheets for the better part of the last two decades. The payments show that the company is being far more aggressive in targeting doctors than competitors of comparable size.

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The company had argued before the U.S. District Court of Connecticut that the drug pricing law was unconstitutional under four different parts of the Constitution, and also that Medicare officials had violated procedural laws. Judge Michael Shea ruled against Boehringer Ingelheim on each point in a decision published late Wednesday.

Boehringer Ingelheim did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. The company’s diabetes drug Jardiance was one of the first medicines selected for the negotiation program.

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The most serious breach involved Novo Nordisk, which voluntarily admitted its failure to disclose approximately $10 million that was provided to more than 150 organizations and individuals — including health care providers and institutions, patient groups and members of the public, including journalists — between 2020 and 2022.

The company acknowledged “these were significant omissions and the situation fell far short of the required standards for disclosure,” according to a report issued by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, which is a self-regulatory body overseen by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. In all, Novo Nordisk breached more than a dozen voluntary codes.

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A new observational study reported for the first time a potential link between Novo Nordisk’s GLP-1 drugs Ozempic and Wegovy and an eye condition that can cause vision loss, STAT tells us. Among 710 patients with type 2 diabetes, there were 17 cases of nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, in those prescribed semaglutide (the ingredient in both drugs). This translated to a cumulative rate of 8.9% over three years. That compares with six cases in patients prescribed non-GLP-1 diabetes drugs, calculated as a cumulative rate of 1.8%. Through statistical analyses, the researchers estimate a 4.28 times greater risk of developing NAION in patients prescribed semaglutide.

A Connecticut federal judge sided with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in a challenge from Boehringer Ingelheim to Medicare’s drug price negotiation program, Pharmaphorum notes. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Shea denied all of Boehringer’s claims that the Medicare negotiation program, the key policy in President Biden’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act, is unconstitutional. In his order, Shea said that Boehringer’s participation in Medicare is voluntary, albeit with “considerable economic incentive,” adding that the federal government is entitled to place conditions on companies that benefit from its programs.

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Six months later, after dealing with symptoms like my left leg buckling unexpectedly and being extra tired hauling my tools around on the job, a doctor told me I had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — a 100% fatal disease. “What’s going to happen?” I asked. “You’re going to be paralyzed,” he said.

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Last month, Mason and researchers from more than 100 institutions released the Space Omics and Medical Atlas, the largest collection yet of health data gathered from astronauts and other civilians in space. The package, which consists of 44 published papers, includes data from the Inspiration4 mission, which was the first all-civilian space orbit, the Twins Study, and others. Data on human space biology from the Polaris Dawn mission, as well as from future lunar missions, are slated to be added to the repository.

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Micky Tripathi, the national coordinator for health information technology and acting chief AI officer at the Department of Health and Human Services, and Troy Tazbaz, director of Digital Health Center of Excellence at the Food and Drug Administration, have stepped down as nonvoting members of the Coalition for Health AI’s board of directors just four months after joining, CHAI confirmed to STAT. Tripathi and Tazbaz were the “federal liaisons” on CHAI’s board, meant to work alongside industry on new guardrails.

In a statement to STAT through the national coordinator’s press office, Tripathi said his roles across HHS put him in “situations that could present conflicts, so we thought it best that I withdraw.” Tripathi also leads HHS’ AI task force, established as part of a White House executive order on safe AI use.

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You wouldn’t have known that raw, unpasteurized milk has exposed people to dangerous salmonella, listeria and E.coli bacteria — or that scientists are increasingly concerned that the H5N1 bird flu virus could be transmitted to humans through the product. It never came up.

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Would-be health care AI regulators have been spinning in circles trying to figure out how to use AI safely. Industry bodies, investors, Congress, and federal agencies are unable to agree on which voluntary AI validation frameworks will help ensure that patients are safe. These questions have pitted lawmakers against the FDA and venture capitalists against the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI) and its Big Tech partners.

The National Academies on Tuesday zoomed out, discussing how to manage AI risk across all industries. At the event — one in a series of workshops building on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s AI Risk Management Framework — speakers largely rejected the notion that AI is a beast so different from other technologies that it needs totally new approaches.

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Ten health insurance companies, including UnitedHealth Group’s UnitedHealthcare and CVS Health’s Aetna, received critical upgrades in some of their offerings that will allow them to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in extra taxpayer-funded bonuses.

Last month, the federal government said it would recalculate this year’s Medicare Advantage star ratings, which serve as a shorthand for an insurance plan’s quality. Federal courts required the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to make changes after ruling the agency made mistakes with its own methodology.

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If finalized, the measure would protect an estimated 36 million U.S. workers from injuries related to heat exposure on the job — establishing the first major federal safety standard of its kind. Those affected by excessive heat in the workplace include farmworkers, delivery and construction workers, landscapers and indoor workers in warehouses, factories and kitchens.

Biden highlighted the proposed rule as one of five steps his Democratic administration is taking to address extreme weather as Hurricane Beryl is already ripping through the Caribbean in an ominous sign for the summer.

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He recalls the rush to study acute Covid infection, and the crush of resulting papers. But Peluso, an HIV researcher, knew what his team excelled at: following people over the long term. 

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But for that to happen, the public needs to be reassured that despite being physically feeble, there isn’t something medically wrong with Biden to explain the mental lapses, rambling, mid-sentence stumbles, apparent loss of concentration, open-mouth gaping, and flat facial expression that viewers saw during the debate.

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After hearing anecdotes of patients on the diabetes and obesity drugs experiencing nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, or NAION, researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear analyzed data from a registry of patients at their institution to see if there was a broad trend.

Among 710 patients with type 2 diabetes, there were 17 cases of NAION in patients prescribed semaglutide (the scientific name of both drugs). This translated to a cumulative rate of 8.9% over three years. That compares with six cases in patients prescribed non-GLP-1 diabetes drugs, calculated as a cumulative rate of 1.8%. Through statistical analyses, the researchers estimate that there was a 4.28 times greater risk of developing the condition in patients prescribed semaglutide, according to the study, published in JAMA Ophthalmology.

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