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Good morning. It’s the last day of Pride Month. Here are some gay things I’ve enjoyed lately: the movie “Maddie’s Secret,” the new MUNA album, my gay pickup soccer group, and matcha lattes.
Conflict-of-interest concerns over FDA peptide panelists
Yesterday, the FDA published the names of eight new panelists who will serve on a committee advising the agency on the possibility of allowing compounding pharmacies to manufacture certain peptides. But STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence and Sarah Todd report that the majority of those new members are involved with businesses that promote and prescribe peptides — meaning they’ll be weighing in on rules changes that could directly benefit them.
“The key question seems to be whether this arguably ‘stacked’ [committee] will essentially overrule FDA staff who might continue to have concerns on a switch to listing of these peptides as permissible for compounding,” said Paul Knoepfler, a biologist and STAT contributor who wrote an essay this spring predicting a peptide committee overhaul. Read more from Lizzy and Sarah about the new members and their potential conflicts of interest.
Half of states sue over Medicaid work requirements
Twenty-six states sued the federal government yesterday to block work requirements for Medicaid enrollees. The new rules, set to go into effect next year, will require most adults on Medicaid to prove they work, attend school, or volunteer at least 80 hours a month. There are a few exemptions, and the new lawsuit takes issue with one in particular, for those who are “medically frail.”
Some of my STAT colleagues reported this month on the surprisingly harsh directive here: A person must have a serious medical condition to qualify for the medical frailty exception, and they also will be required to prove that the condition impairs their ability to work. Experts told STAT that the new rule upends planning work that state health officials had been doing and also creates more work for both beneficiaries and clinicians. Read more on the lawsuit.
Supreme Court agrees to another gender-affirming care case
Also yesterday: The Supreme Court granted six new cases to hear next term, including another case related to transgender care, this time on parental rights over adolescents who have run away from home and want to receive gender-affirming health care.
Since 2023, Washington state law dictates that if a young person staying in a shelter seeks gender-affirming or reproductive care, the shelter does not have to notify their parents if there’s a fear of parental abuse or neglect. A group of parents are challenging that law, along with another that allows adolescents to consent to outpatient mental health care.
An appeals court in San Francisco said the parents don’t have a strong enough claim that they’ve been harmed to bring the lawsuit. The Supreme Court has, in recent years, ruled against families who want to help their children access gender-affirming care. Many advocates and scholars say that a government ban on politicized health care is itself a ban on parental rights. Related: Later this morning, the Supreme Court will announce its decisions on two cases related to trans youth playing sports.
Trump admin and MAHA take a lax view on drinking
President Trump doesn’t drink alcohol — in 2018, he said he’d never had a beer in his life. Neither does health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has said he attends as many as eight Alcoholics Anonymous meetings per week. Despite these strong personal preferences, the Trump administration has downplayed alcohol’s risks and actively derailed efforts to understand and prevent drinking-related harms, a STAT investigation found.
“If you’re truly committed to improving all of these different ills in society, and you’re going to stay blind to alcohol, you’re not really that committed to it,” said Mike Marshall, CEO of the U.S. Alcohol Policy Alliance. In the latest installment of The Deadliest Drug, STAT’s Isabella Cueto and Lev Facher break down exactly how Trump officials have derailed alcohol research and prevention.
Study: Flu and Covid shots safe to get together
A new large study provides more evidence of both the safety of Covid-19 vaccines and of giving Covid shots simultaneously with influenza vaccine. Conducted at Washington University School of Medicine, the research looked at side-effect reports among veterans who had received either both vaccines in the same medical visit, or just a flu shot. The study analyzed side effects during three different time frames, from 2022 to 2025. There was no change in the safety profiles of the vaccines in those three periods.
The researchers studied a group of 2.5 million veterans, 1.8 million of whom received only a flu shot, and 700,000 of whom received both Covid and flu shots during the same appointment. The scientists looked for the incidence of 46 different potential side effects in the 90 days after vaccination. None of the side effects appeared at higher rates among the group that had received both vaccinations. This study did not investigate whether giving the vaccines in the same visit lowered the effectiveness of either or both. But other studies have shown that giving the vaccines at the same time does not meaningfully reduce the effectiveness of either, and potentially increases uptake. The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. — Helen Branswell
Why is Florida making high schoolers get EKGs?
Beginning this fall, Florida’s Second Chance Act will make it the first and only state in the country to require EKG screening for all high school athletes. It’s a well-intentioned law, but it will almost certainly lead to unnecessary stress and expense, writes medical student Katherine Hofmann in a new First Opinion essay.
Up to 15% of EKG screenings can produce false-positive results in healthy adolescents with no history of heart disease. That means as many as three in every 20 students will be sent for additional, unnecessary testing that the law doesn’t require school districts to cover. Read more.
What we’re reading
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Supreme Court rejects legal battle over New York’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, CBS News
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$22,000 per hour: Assistants use a legislative loophole to outearn surgeons, the New York Times
- The loophole in Trump’s obesity drug deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, STAT
- People are taking allergy and heartburn pills for PMS. Could it work? NPR
- 5 takeaways from STAT’s investigation into microhospital operator Nutex Health, STAT