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Good morning! At 11 am ET today, my colleagues Brittany Trang and Casey Ross are doing a LinkedIn Live event, where they’ll discuss AI’s role in the future of health care. You won’t want to miss it, especially after reading Brittany’s great story below.
NIH slashes indirect costs (and STAT explains what those are)
The NIH — the nation’s premier funder of biomedical research — announced late Friday that it will immediately slash support for “indirect costs” paid to universities, medical centers, and other research grant recipients. The agency noted that it has historically supported indirect costs with funds that averaged at around 27% of the cost of a research grant. Going forward, that rate will be 15% for new and existing grants. The cut is a major blow to the nation’s most elite research universities, which often get a rate of more than 50% to cover indirect costs. STAT reporters have the story. In a follow-up piece, my colleagues Jonathan Wosen and Angus Chen assessed the potential impact of these changes by examining publicly available financial records.
But what are indirect costs? Well, direct research costs are expenses like scientists’ salaries, lab equipment, supplies, and other expenses that can be linked to one specific project. That makes indirect costs sort of everything else. There are so many expenses that can’t be tied to a specific project, like keeping the lights on in the lab, water and heating, shared equipment and maintenance, and more. In another weekend story, Jonathan and Angus explain the basics on indirect costs, why funding rates vary among institutions, and whether or not the NIH cut is legal.
The Super Bowl ad under fire from lawmakers
On Friday, two lawmakers sent a letter to the FDA arguing that a Super Bowl ad from the telehealth company Hims & Hers could potentially be misleading people by omitting information on safety or side effects. The two senators — Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican Roger Marshall of Kansas — also believe that the FDA could already have the authority to take enforcement action like warning letters or civil penalties.
The commercial, which was released online ahead of its television slot during the game, condemns the weight loss industry for generating big profits without actually helping people. Yet the pharmaceutical industry the ad takes shots at is paradoxically held to higher marketing standards than Hims & Hers, which sells compounded versions of the blockbuster GLP-1s. Immediately after its release, observers told STAT’s Katie Palmer that they were “shocked” by the “irresponsible” ad.
Read more on the latest from STAT’s Mario Aguilar. (And for a refresher on what the deal is with compounded weight loss drugs, watch our video explainer.)
A local clinic tries to address pediatric weight loss
Almost two years ago, my colleague Isa Cueto wrote a characteristically thoughtful feature about a 9-year-old girl, LR, who went weekly to a weight loss clinic in Los Angeles. LR was getting the type of intensive lifestyle treatment with doctors, dieticians, and counselors that the AAP recommended earlier that year for basically any kid with higher weight. But there are only a few clinics like these in the country, which means they’re both expensive and hard to get into — LR was on the waitlist for a year at the clinic she eventually attended.
In an effort to address disparities in access, a study published today in Pediatrics examines the effectiveness of a similar program created in partnership with a local parks and recreation department. In Durham, NC, kids had monthly visits at a pediatric clinic to meet with doctors, dieticians, counselors, and more. They also visited a local rec center around twice a week for physical activity and nutrition programming. The study enrolled 255 kids and their families for six-month intervals between 2018 and 2021. A majority of the kids were either Hispanic or Black.
Kids who participated saw significant decreases in BMI relative to the 95th percentile when compared to the control group, but no improvement when it came to submaximal heart rate, which suggests that the programs did not improve fitness. For groups that transitioned to telehealth and online fitness sessions during the pandemic, there was no difference in BMI or heart rate between the intervention and control groups. The results show how challenging this type of care can be. I encourage you to revisit Isa’s profile and the story we wrote together about the AAP guidelines on pediatric weight loss.
Can these companies really use AI to conjure drugs from scratch?
Photo illustration: Christine Kao/STAT; Photo: Adobe
For years, a small group of protein engineers and drug developers have dreamed of being able to fashion new antibody drugs from scratch on a computer. Recently, a cohort of protein AI startups have hinted that they may be on the verge of such a breakthrough. A couple, most notably Absci and Generate Biomedicines, have said that they have this capability today, a premise that has helped them raise hundreds of millions of dollars and strike lucrative partnerships.
But others in the industry have pushed back, and a STAT examination of company documents and expert interviews reveals that AI-powered biotechs like Absci and competitor Generate routinely aggrandize their AI abilities.
Read more in the investigation by STAT’s Brittany Trang.
More evidence re: bird flu transmissibility
Genetic analysis of H5N1 bird flu viruses recently detected in dairy cows in Nevada shows at least some developed a mutation that has been seen in some human cases of H5N1 and is associated with adaptation of the virus to spread in mammals, the USDA reported Friday. That change hasn’t been seen in the version of the virus responsible for the large outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows, which has been ongoing for the past year. Citing an unnamed source, CNN reported on Saturday that a Nevada dairy worker tested positive for the virus, though that test needs to be confirmed by the CDC.
The new Nevada herds were infected with a different version of the virus, one labeled genotype D1.1. (The one responsible for the main outbreak is B3.13.) Florian Krammer, a flu virologist at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, said it’s likely there will be more spillovers. “The first seemed like a black swan event. But if it happens twice, I am sure it happens more often.” Krammer said it will be important to study the transmissibility and severity of this version of the virus in ferrets, the best animal model for flu in humans. — Helen Branswell
U.S. DOJ switches position on trans Supreme Court case
In December, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, which challenges Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. Department of Justice argued that the ban constituted sex discrimination and asked the justices to send it back to a lower court to be assessed with a higher level of judicial scrutiny. On Friday, the DOJ, now under the Trump administration, sent a letter to the Supreme Court reversing its position.
While Trump’s DOJ has determined the ban is not sex discrimination, it is not asking for the case to be dismissed, deputy solicitor general Curtis E. Gannon writes. Rather, the court should decide the case, in part because the ruling could have an effect on other, similar cases currently in lower courts.
The court is set to decide on the case later this spring. Before the arguments, I wrote about the implications the ruling could have, not just on access to gender-affirming care for trans people, but on how states are able to regulate health care more broadly. Read that story here.
What we’re reading
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Health care is key for youths getting out of prison. A new law helps them get it, NPR
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A sweeping ban on DEI language roils the sciences, New York Times
- The FDA’s misguided thinking on antibiotics, STAT
- My life with left-handed women, New Yorker
- Amid shakeup in U.S. science, researchers express alarm over integrity of key genetic databases, STAT