Good morning! Health care challenges like anti-microbial resistance have long created narrative tension for shows like Grey’s Anatomy. But what about an entire musical about it? Ask and ye shall receive.
The wheels on the anti-pharma bus … echo GOP talking points
A new, dark money group called Americans for Pharma Reform is aiming to bring awareness to what they call bad behavior by the pharmaceutical industry. How are they doing this? A multi-state bus tour through the nation’s electoral battleground states. In Green Bay, Wisc., the bus parked outside a Packers football game. Group members handed out free coffee and donuts while supporters signed their names on the outside of the bus.
The basic idea isn’t out of the ordinary — more than 60% of Americans view the pharmaceutical industry negatively. But the group’s website also includes references to more extreme positions, like reinstating vaccine manufacturer liability and the idea that gender-affirming care profits the industry. And whoever is bankrolling the group is working hard to keep their identity secret, STAT’s Rachel Cohrs Zhang reports. Read more about the bus.
Is bird flu spreading in Missouri? Here’s what we know
A second health worker developed milk respiratory symptoms after caring for a person hospitalized in Missouri with H5N1 bird flu, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday. The person was not tested for influenza, as health officials didn’t learn about the symptoms until after the person recovered, meaning it was too late.
For those keeping track: This is the second time that possible cases associated with the confirmed case have come to light well after the fact. Earlier this month, it was disclosed that a household contact of the confirmed case and a health worker who had cared for the individual had also been ill. That first health worker tested negative for influenza. Read more from STAT’s Helen Branswell on the latest.
At 40, does the Hatch-Waxman Act need an overhaul?
Earlier this month, I learned about the Hatch-Waxman Act from an explainer video by my colleague Anna Yeo. You may already know, but basically, the 1984 bill reshaped the pharmaceutical landscape to get more affordable, generic drugs on the market. Lawmakers were juggling two conflicting priorities: increasing access to affordable generics while maintaining incentives for companies to develop new drugs.
The bill has long been praised as a successful balancing act, but not everybody agrees. In a First Opinion essay, two experts focused on lowering drug prices and monitoring political influence argue that the Hatch-Waxman Act “has become a monopoly-extending machine that prioritizes pharmaceutical profits over public health.”
Is it time to take action and once again reshape the system? “A 40th birthday is a good chance for anyone to rethink where their life is headed — and major legislation is no exception,” the essay authors write. Read more.
Drugmakers and the FDA are failing Americans who want to stop smoking
Around 15 million Americans tried to quit smoking in 2022 — most of them failed. Every year in the U.S., seven times as many people make the attempt than are diagnosed with any cancer. Yet there hasn’t been a new class of drug approved for smoking cessation in almost 20 years.
For the most part, pharma companies would rather focus on making drugs for cancers. Experts say that the FDA’s drug center also delayed approval of two potential new treatment options in the last five years alone.
“Maybe after I die, they will pick up some of those ideas,” said Olivier George, a psychology professor who has done research on a nicotine-blocking enzyme. Read more in Nick Florko’s last story for STAT.
Early research: Black patients with aggressive breast cancer less likely to get immunotherapy
Black people who have triple-negative breast cancer (a particularly aggressive form that Black women are disproportionately affected by) received immunotherapy at significantly lower rates than white patients in a study of data from more than 10,000 patients. The results, presented at an American Association for Cancer Research conference on health disparities this week, showed that Black patients had an 11% lower rate of immunotherapy compared to white patients between 2017 and 2021. Socioeconomic factors like being enrolled in Medicare and receiving care at community programs as opposed to academic centers may have been a major influence, the researchers found.
More research is needed to get to the bottom of the disparities. And the stakes are high: Immunotherapy has quickly become a standard treatment for this type of cancer after entering the scene in 2019. In 2017, just 4.2% of patients with early-stage TNBC received immunotherapy. By 2021, that number jumped to 48%.
What if we tried to starve cancer to death?
More cancer news: Like you and me, cancer cells need to eat. But they aren’t feasting on instant ramen or egg and cheese sandwiches — instead, they have a taste for glucose. Previous efforts to stop cancer cells from digesting the simple sugar, which helps them grow, have been ineffective. But in a study published Friday in Science Advances, researchers discovered that might be because when you take away one favorite food, cancer cells simply find others. In this case: glutamine and lactate.
In order to effectively starve cancer cells, at least two of these three nutrients must be blocked, the researchers found. STAT’s Angus Chen spoke with two study authors about the potential for new therapeutics that could starve tumors. Read more.
What we’re reading
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They rallied around ‘our boys’ as they pushed for a Duchenne cure. Where did that leave girls? STAT
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Doctors ‘fight like hell’ against a second Trump admin: ‘Elections do matter for your health,’ Politico
- New HHS rules can’t address the primary reason for research misconduct, STAT
- The power of a smaller breast, New York Times
- The human cost of ghost networks, NPR