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Good morning, and happy tenth anniversary to STAT! That’s a decade of incredible, award-winning journalism, wonderful colleagues, and delicious snacks shared at the office. We’ll be celebrating for the rest of the year and have some some cool stuff coming soon that I won’t spoil yet. Watch this space.
The next MAHA Commission report will publish today
This afternoon, the MAHA Commission, led by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will release its report on how to reduce chronic disease among children. It’s a long-awaited follow-up to a controversial May report that contained citations to nonexistent studies and mis-cited others. We’ll have more details on the new report later today, but here’s a recap of what we know so far:
STAT reporters reviewed a leaked draft of the report in mid-August, which the White House referred to as “speculative literature.” That draft called for more research on familiar topics like childhood vaccine schedule reform and nutrition, largely steering clear of explicit policy recommendations. There were some surprises, including a call to look into the “potential benefits of select high-quality supplements,” as well as for research on electromagnetic radiation, which is more of a fringe concern.
Keep an eye on STAT for more coverage on what was kept in the final version of the draft and what may have gotten cut.
FDA greenlights trial of gene-edited pig kidneys
It’s been almost three months since Bill Stewart received a kidney transplant from a pig. He’s back at home, at work, and has even been able to go e-biking on a lakeside trail with his wife, untethered to the grueling schedules of dialysis for the first time in years. He’s the latest of a small number of people who’ve gotten a kidney from a donor pig that’s been CRISPR’d to make its organs more human-friendly.
“My pig kidney and I had a little conversation while I was laying there,” Stewart told STAT. “I just basically said, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that you stay healthy, and I appreciate you doing everything you can to keep me upright and breathing.’”
These experiments and others like them have proceeded through an expanded access program at the FDA that’s focused on patients with life-threatening conditions. But that’s about to change. Yesterday, eGenesis, a Cambridge-based biotechnology company, announced that it had been cleared by the FDA to begin a broader trial of kidneys from the CRISPR’d pigs. Read more from STAT’s Eric Boodman and Megan Molteni on what’s ahead.
Florida vs. Trump vs. RFK Jr.
Last week, Florida became the first state in the country to plan to eliminate school vaccination requirements. Kennedy has a long history of opposing such mandates, and both NIH director Jay Bhattacharya and CMS administrator Mehmet Oz praised the decision out of Florida. But President Trump offered a different view. “I think we have to be very careful,” he told reporters in the White House on Friday.
It’s another example of the growing public divide between Trump and his health secretary over vaccines, which could threaten Kennedy’s plan to upend business as usual at the federal health agencies, especially for vaccines, STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne report. Read more on what’s at stake.
In the meantime, two local public health officials — one from Texas, another from Ohio — write in a new First Opinion essay that they’re worried their states could be next to drop the mandates.
“We have seen firsthand in our communities how viruses do not respect borders,” the authors write. During the last school year, state laws exempted 3.6% of children nationwide from vaccine requirements. But in parts of Texas and Ohio, that rate is often even higher. Some Texas schools at the epicenter of the state’s measles outbreak had MMR vaccination rates under 50%. In Ohio, only 85% of kindergartners received MMR vaccines last year. Read more on what public health authorities are bracing for if more states follow Florida’s lead.
Why do men die so much earlier than women?
Two principal reasons that often get cited when it comes to lower life expectancies for men are Covid-19 and “deaths of despair” such as suicide and drug overdoses. But this isn’t a new problem — government data shows that in 1921, the life expectancy at birth was 1.8 years longer for women than men. The disparity ballooned to nearly 8 years by 1979, then began falling, reaching under 5 years in 2010. By 2023, it had shot up again, at just over 5 years.
The gap has myriad causes, including men’s higher smoking rates and reluctance to go to the doctor. You might notice the element of personal responsibility in those two examples. “We think about men’s health as a problem of men’s misbehavior,” population health professor Derek Griffith told STAT’s Olivia Goldhill. “We haven’t looked at the social and structural drivers, and commercial and political drivers. We have to broaden the way we think about it.” In her latest story, Olivia digs into these societal influences. Read more.
A promising new treatment for a tough cancer
Small cell lung cancer is a bleak diagnosis with a dismal survival rate. But finally, researchers might be making some progress. On Monday, BioNTech presented at the World Conference on Lung Cancer some promising Phase 2 data on a novel immunotherapy that targets two key proteins, PDL1 and VEGF.
During the trial, the tumors of all 43 patients either shrank or did not progress, and 76.3% of patients saw significant tumor reduction. The average amount that tumors shrank was 56.7% in the trial. “These are impressive but small numbers,” said Roy Herbst, deputy director of the Yale Cancer Center, who did not work on the study, adding that it will be key to see whether the benefits persist. “But good forward progress so far.”
BioNTech presented data showing that the same treatment was also effective in treating triple negative breast cancer last year. With the combined early successes in difficult cancer types, the company believes that the drug may be the future “immune-oncology backbone across tumors,” said Özlem Türeci, the company’s cofounder and CMO. — Angus Chen
What we’re reading
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This is what could happen to a child who doesn’t get vaccinated, NPR
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NY attorney general will intervene in Texas abortion pill access lawsuit, Texas Tribune
- Epic must face claims it used monopoly power to harm a rival business, judge rules, STAT
- She started the debate about kids and phones. Now she wants to end it, New York Times
- Former top FDA digital leader lands at Mayo Clinic, STAT
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