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On Thursday was my two-year STAT-iversary. I can’t consider I’ve been right here for that lengthy!
As a present for the event, the STAT group made a particular code for you: By way of the top of the weekend, the code BRITTANY30 will provide you with 30% off your first yr of STAT+ (I really feel so cool!).
Now on to an enormous deal that I 100% didn’t find out about earlier than working at STAT: the Medicare drug worth negotiations from the Inflation Discount Act.
Medicare unveils its negotiated drug costs
Yesterday was an enormous day within the pharma and well being coverage worlds: Medicare launched the costs of the primary 10 medicine it has scrutinized beneath the 2022 Inflation Discount Act. The medicine embody drugs for blood clots, diabetes, coronary heart failure, and arthritis.
Our D.C. bureau was busy bringing you STAT+ protection:
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The negotiated medicine included Januvia, Entresto, and Enbrel, which every noticed greater than 30% reductions in comparison with their 2021 record costs. However that doesn’t imply seniors will see a 30% discount in what they pay. See Rachel Cohrs Zhang’s story for all the particulars.
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President Biden tweeted out a graphic exhibiting how a lot the negotiations saved Medicare in comparison with the record costs for the medicine. However Rachel tells us that the president is exaggerating: Medicare doesn’t pay record worth, and its present costs are secret.
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Talking of bragging rights, who will get them? John Wilkerson and Rachel (who was a busy beaver yesterday) inform us about how Harris and Trump are framing the offers.
When animals have solved well being points people haven’t
STAT’s Nicholas St. Fleur has a captivating Q&A with heart specialist and evolutionary biologist Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, who thinks about drugs by way of a “zoobiquitous” lens: tough-to-solve human medical issues and asking whether or not animals have already solved that drawback in methods people’ our bodies haven’t.
“[Evolution] is R&D on the best dose of steroids ever,” mentioned Natterson-Horowitz.
She gave the instance of what number of girls cease breastfeeding due to a painful an infection known as mastitis. She turned to dairy consultants for a way they’ve solved this drawback in cows. “There have been 100 occasions extra scientific research written about stopping mastitis in cows than in girls,” she advised Nick.
Learn on for extra about this recent perspective on drugs, together with trying to giraffes for coronary heart failure options, elephants for most cancers resistance, and why human satisfaction is retaining us from inspecting these potential cures.
The nice, the dangerous, and the not-great mpox information
- The dangerous: Swedish authorities have introduced that an individual who not too long ago visited the realm of Africa experiencing the not too long ago declared mpox public well being emergency has contracted a clade I version of the virus. That is the primary reported case of clade I exterior of the African continent. U.S. officers beforehand warned clinicians to be on alert for cases of mpox in individuals who not too long ago traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo or close by nations.
- The not-great: STAT’s Jason Mast tells us {that a} smallpox antiviral that authorities hoped can be efficient in opposition to mpox isn’t any higher than placebo. The drug tecovirimat, permitted by the FDA in 2018 as TPOXX, was a part of an NIH-co-sponsored trial within the DRC, the place mpox is endemic. Individuals contaminated with mpox who had been being handled within the hospital responded no quicker to tecovirimat than placebo — however each teams skilled lower than half the typical mortality price, suggesting that merely receiving care within the hospital helped.
- The nice: Helen Branswell additionally brings us a Q&A with the CEO of Bavarian Nordic, the maker of mpox vaccine Jynneos, in regards to the firm’s vaccine stock. Because the 2022 mpox outbreak, the producer has ramped up its manufacturing capability and says it might probably provide tens of millions of vaccines subsequent yr — although that relies on orders, of which it solely has one in the meanwhile.
Comply with STAT’s mpox reporting right here.
Summertime and the livin’ isn’t simple
Summertime warmth is an enormous drawback for individuals with disabilities — typically in methods that aren’t apparent to able-bodied individuals.
“Whenever you put on a man-made limb, it encases that residual limb with a sealed, air-tight materials,” mentioned David Gissen, an amputee. “You don’t wrap your arms or legs in plastic when it’s sizzling exterior. However while you’re an amputee, that’s the way you put on a leg.”
A longtime triathaloner, Patty Glatfelter noticed her relationship with the outside change when she was recognized with a number of sclerosis, which disrupts the physique’s potential to ship indicators down nerves and is even worse above 80 levels.
She has to know her limits. On a latest journey to Santa Fe, N.M., “we had been simply strolling down the road, ready at a cease gentle, and I may really feel myself beginning to get weaker, so I began on the lookout for a shady spot,” she mentioned. “After which, all the sudden, my legs simply went kaput, and I used to be falling to the sidewalk.”
Learn extra from STAT’s Timmy Broderick about how the warmth impacts individuals in tangible and arduous methods.
Brat summer season is ending, deer sausage fall is coming (together with renewed dangers)
I grew up in an space the place a couple of — however not all — children obtained taken out of college when deer season began. Who isn’t jealous of attending to skip faculty to do one thing enjoyable with your loved ones? New analysis in JAMA Community Open seems to be at shootings at the beginning of deer hunting season in rural counties to raised perceive the connection between the prevalence of weapons and gun violence — and the outcomes could also be stunning.
The evaluation, which mapped shootings within the Gun Violence Archive to the weeks earlier than and after deer looking season began in every of 854 counties, confirmed that there was a statistically vital improve in shootings within the first and second weeks after deer season began, which held even when looking accidents had been excluded.
On condition that the rise in shootings wasn’t because of looking accidents and in addition was extra pronounced for brief weapons than the lengthy weapons usually used for looking, the authors instructed that gun violence isn’t simply because of what number of weapons are in a sure place or inhabitants, however the elevated inflow of weapons into private and non-private areas.
How individuals with disabilities are locked out of medical trials
Earlier this week, the Nationwide Council on Incapacity launched a report describing how a number of federal businesses implicitly and explicitly exclude individuals with disabilities from medical trials. For instance, 90% of individuals with Down syndrome also develop Alzheimer’s, however they’re recurrently excluded from drug trials.
“How can this inhabitants profit from these doubtlessly life-changing therapies in the event that they’re excluded from the trials? And the way can anybody know what these therapeutics’ efficacy and security is on this inhabitants — and one of many populations most affected? Exclusion exacts too excessive a worth,” mentioned NCD Vice Chair Emily Voorde in a press launch.
Learn extra from STAT’s Timmy Broderick, together with the council’s proposed fixes for the issue.
What we’re studying
- A substitute for the Pap smear is right here, no speculum required, New York Times
- Most Black hospitals throughout the South closed way back. Their impression endures, KFF Health News
- Lykos Therapeutics cuts 75% of employees after FDA rejects MDMA-assisted remedy, STAT
- Working the proper cooling middle is more durable than it seems to be, Bloomberg
- The combat in opposition to DEI packages shifts to medical care, Wall Street Journal
- Gilead should be held accountable for the hurt attributable to ‘patent hopping’ an HIV remedy, STAT
