Good morning! Right now STAT is publishing the ultimate installment within the “Embedded Bias” sequence. My colleagues Usha and Katie have accomplished some superb reporting over these seven tales. And lots of extra individuals throughout the newsroom labored to make all of it occur. I’m an enormous fan of the “credit” part on the backside of the sequence’ touchdown web page. Test it out.
Trump can’t land on an abortion reply
The primary Trump-Harris showdown introduced heated debate on abortion coverage (and a Taylor Swift endorsement) however little substance as former President Trump struggled to land on a stance that will enchantment to most voters and his get together’s stalwarts.
Trump stated he wouldn’t signal a nationwide abortion ban earlier than avoiding a query about whether or not he’d veto one. He maintained that Roe’s overturn was broadly standard, although that hasn’t been borne out in state poll initiatives, or polling.
Harris didn’t waste her alternative for assaults on a problem many Democrats see as a winner with voters. She warned once more in opposition to Undertaking 2025, main Trump to, once more, distance himself from the conservative assume tank proposal.
That wasn’t all. Trump additionally revealed he nonetheless doesn’t have a plan to switch the Reasonably priced Care Act, 8 years after he received the presidency vowing to repeal the well being legislation.
— Rachel Cohrs Zhang
1,104
That is the variety of U.S. counties in which there’s not a single birthing facility or obstetric clinician, in keeping with the annual March of Dimes report on maternity care deserts, launched yesterday. There are greater than 2.3 million girls of reproductive age in these counties who gave beginning to greater than 150,000 infants in 2022. Girls in these areas are at 13% greater danger of preterm beginning.
“There’s nobody purpose why we’re within the place that we’re in, and there’s no actually one silver bullet resolution to the change,” Stacey Stewart, the previous president and CEO of March of Dimes, instructed me in 2022. The issue isn’t restricted to rural areas, both, as STAT just lately highlighted in a narrative on how a wave of maternity ward closings is impacting look after pregnant individuals in Los Angeles.
A brand new research raises hopes and issues on giving GLP-1s to youngsters
A year-long trial of a GLP-1 drug discovered that the medicine helped to decrease BMI for younger youngsters with weight problems. Youngsters ages 6 to 12 who got Novo Nordisk’s Saxenda along with life-style interventions skilled a 5.8% lower in BMI in comparison with a 1.6% enhance within the management group. However the research additionally discovered that BMI began to rise once more when the youngsters stopped taking the drug, suggesting they could want to remain on the medicine as they develop.
Ought to these medication be given to youngsters as younger as age 6? Whereas some medical doctors see medicine as “a device within the toolbox” to fight weight problems, others are involved concerning the lack of longer-term knowledge on the way it might have an effect on improvement and puberty. Learn extra on the research from STAT’s Elaine Chen and Liz Cooney.
The peril and promise of AI in scientific algorithms
Of their “Embedded Bias” sequence, STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling and Katie Palmer have dived deep into the flawed algorithms that issue race into medical decision-making. However there’s one other downside — even when the algorithms have been good, what if the real-world knowledge plugged into them aren’t?
Take the heart beat oximeter. These instruments are infamous for delivering much less correct blood-oxygen readings for individuals with darker pores and skin tones, and a stark instance of how racial bias can sneak into seemingly goal medical knowledge. However basically, all scientific prediction instruments are constructed on the identical flawed knowledge. We’ve got restricted entry to details about deprived teams — whether or not racial and ethnic minorities, rural sufferers, or individuals who don’t communicate English as their first language.
With out motion, AI stands to cement bias into the well being care system at disquieting pace and scale. Learn extra from Katie within the final story of the sequence.
Higher medical health insurance and web entry related to decrease suicide charges
Almost 50,000 individuals within the U.S. died by suicide in 2022, making it the second main reason for demise amongst individuals ages 10 to 34. A report from the CDC launched yesterday highlights the ways in which Individuals’ socioeconomic realities might impression their danger of suicide. The report discovered that suicide charges have been lowest in counties with the very best ranges of medical health insurance protection, web entry, and family incomes. These similar components have been notably related to decrease suicide charges in populations which might be at disproportionately excessive danger for it, together with American Indian or Alaska Native populations, white individuals, and males.
It’s unclear precisely why these components correlated with decrease suicide charges, or why they appeared to have stronger associations amongst sure teams. However the knowledge reveal the significance of implementing packages and insurance policies that enhance the communities during which individuals reside and work, the authors wrote.
Additionally yesterday, HHS and SAMHSA introduced $68 million in funding for suicide prevention and psychological well being care packages. That cash will likely be divided to go to states and tribes, schools and universities, and different teams with a selected deal with suicide prevention for younger individuals.
The researcher who desires to supersize his research on ultra-processed meals
Kevin Corridor is a self-proclaimed “failed physicist,” and one of many solely researchers doing managed feeding trials for ultra-processed meals. With a small however constant stream of federal funding, his crew controls what research individuals eat for a month to higher perceive whether or not a weight loss plan of meals like rooster fingers and mac and cheese would possibly immediate individuals to eat greater than once they’re fed unprocessed meals.
Trying into industrial meals creations like sodas, breakfast cereals, and scorching canine is essential to enhance public well being, Corridor and different nutritionists imagine. However some vitamin scientists have challenged Corridor’s work. “Research on weight loss plan, power stability, and physique weight lasting solely two weeks are lower than ineffective as a result of they’re more likely to be critically deceptive,” Walter Willett, the most-cited nutritionist on the planet, stated about Corridor’s first research, which noticed individuals consuming ultra-processed meals for 2 weeks, then unprocessed meals for the following two weeks.
However Corridor forges forward. He’s hoping to realize curiosity in his analysis from the identical business leaders who create ultra-processed meals. Learn extra in a profile from STAT’s Nick Florko.
What we’re studying
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Dr. Glaucomflecken, the web’s funniest physician, is in on the joke, STAT
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Native-led suicide prevention program focuses on constructing neighborhood strengths, NPR
- How hospitals might earn money off of Kamala Harris’ medical debt reduction plan, STAT
- 10,000 Ft Up, Scientists Discovered Tons of of Airborne Germs, New York Times
- Why so many sufferers are confused about CPR and do-not-resuscitate orders, STAT
