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Everyone’s talking about egg prices, but what I’m most worried about is my apartment’s heating bill. Apparently I’m not alone.
Special thanks to my three colleagues who contributed items to today’s newsletter. We love guest stars!
How UnitedHealth is taking on its critics
In the wake of Brian Thompson’s killing, UnitedHealth is a company under siege. There’s been increased security and threats to other executives. At the same time, the company has also been thrust into the center of surging public anger over care denials, unexpected bills, and unending hassles — and is now widely seen as the poster child of a dysfunctional health care system. Beyond public relations concerns, the company is facing potential shareholder lawsuits and multiple government investigations.
While it largely remains in a defensive crouch, UnitedHealth has begun pushing back: It has enlisted libel attorneys to go after online critics, attempted to squelch dissent from shareholders, blamed hospitals and drug companies for high prices, and moved to align itself with the new Trump administration.
Some experts say that the strategy has missed the mark. “You can’t humanize a company when everyone is an unnamed source and you’re hiding all the executives and you’re trying to create a nameless, faceless entity,” said Evan Nierman, the founder and CEO of a crisis communications firm.
Read more on the details of how United Health is fighting to protect its employees, its reputation, and its profits. A team of STAT reporters examined police reports, federal records, company communications, and interviewed patients, current and former UnitedHealth employees, and outside experts. (It’s Part 7 of the Polk-Award-winning series Health Care’s Colossus — catch up here on the first six parts.)
A win for bulk milk testing
A new spillover of H5N1 bird flu into cows in Nevada that the USDA reported in early February probably occurred two months earlier, scientists have concluded in an analysis posted online. But it was about eight weeks before the virus was detected and the infected herds were identified and quarantined, allowing the virus to spread. Eight Nevada herds have been infected so far in this outbreak, which involves a slightly different version of H5N1 than the one responsible for the ongoing multi-state outbreak.
Michael Worobey, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Arizona, said the discovery was a success for USDA’s National Milk Testing Strategy, which tests bulk tanks looking for H5N1. But he and colleagues argue the system needs to be faster if it’s going to help stop transmission in cows. A positive test at a silo should trigger the immediate quarantining of all farms that contributed milk to it, they say. “If we do want to be serious about actually getting rid of this, as USDA has said, I don’t think what’s happening now is timely enough,” Worobey said. — Helen Branswell
44%
That’s the percentage of U.S. adults that expressed interest in medical aid in dying should they become terminally ill, according to an online survey study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open. But there’s another important number: about 51% of respondents (of whom there were more than 3,200 total) didn’t know if medical aid in dying was legal in the U.S. or their state.
The study authors write that it’s important to improve people’s knowledge of all end-of-life care options, including medical aid in dying. If you’re interested in great reporting on this subject, I recommend the book “The Inevitable,” by Katie Engelhart.
What’s behind the steep drop in Native American med school enrollment?
Just 201 out of more than 21,000 students accepted to medical schools across the country last year were Indigenous. Low numbers have long been a concern, but Native American medical leaders were taken aback to see 22% fewer American Indian or Alaska Native students had enrolled last year when numbers were released in January.
For some, it’s just more bad news. “The bigger picture is we have had no increase in decades. We’re going nowhere,” Tlingit physician Mary Owen said. A 2023 Lancet paper predicted it would take more than a century for Native American physicians to reach parity with their percentage in the national population, which is 3%.
Read more from STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling, who talked to leaders in Native American medical education and students themselves, who said the declines were due to factors like the pandemic, inflation, and a recent Supreme Court decision.
The good news rolls on for deafness research
Ten out of 11 kids who received gene therapy for a rare variant of congenital deafness saw significant improvements when tested a year after the surgery, according to data presented Monday at an otolaryngology conference.
The trial, backed by Regeneron, is one of a handful of studies evaluating the safety and efficacy of gene therapy in children and adolescents with otoferlin variants, which affects 1% to 8% of deaf people globally. Three participants experienced improvements that boosted their hearing levels to “nearly normal” or “normal.” No significant adverse effects were reported, though one participant had not experienced any changes to their baseline hearing after 24 weeks post-dosing.
While the promising results only apply to a small, rare variant of congenital deafness, the research could have a profound impact: more than 12,000 kids are born with hearing loss in the United States every year.
Deaf communities are skeptical of this research, but it may not matter. The therapy’s success across multiple teams has researchers and investors hungry for more, and the ear often escapes the notice of the immune system, making it an ideal environment for gene therapy. — O. Rose Broderick
How people with rare diseases connect with each other
The internet can be a lifeline for people with rare diseases. How else can those with shared experiences on opposite ends of the world find each other? Researcher Susannah Fox, a former Chief Technology Officer for HHS, has spent decades documenting the evolution of online patient communities.
A new survey she conducted offers more detail on rare disease in the U.S. Among the findings: 63% of those with a rare disease in their household used telehealth in the past year (versus 45% of those not in a rare disease home). Half of rare disease respondents went online in the past year to find people with similar concerns, and 38% used AI to learn about a condition or treatment.
Fox’s report, out Tuesday, also estimates 15% of U.S. households — some 20 million people — are affected by a rare or undiagnosed illness. Relatedly, Rare Disease Day has been postponed amid chaos at federal agencies. “A punch in the gut for a community that is too often dismissed or forgotten,” Fox told STAT in an email. — Isabella Cueto
What we’re reading
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A farewell to HPH readers, Harvard Public Health Magazine
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Human therapists prepare for battle against AI pretenders, New York Times
- U.S. joins WHO-led flu vaccine meeting, despite planned withdrawal from agency, STAT
- Doctors and and medical schools are changing treatments and training to respond to the warming climate, Inside Climate News
- ‘Ultra-processed food’ is too broad a term to be useful, STAT