Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.
Good morning. Here’s a story you don’t want to miss: Inside Moderna and Merck’s cancer vaccine triumph.
New clues to RFK Jr.’s vaccine plans
Less than two weeks after President Trump signed an executive order questioning the childhood schedule, the administration posted a request for information on Friday that asks the public for feedback on a wide range of vaccine ideas. Everyone (including you!) has 30 days to comment.
Among the considerations: whether there should be new categories to the vaccines framework, which currently includes universal recommendations, recommendations for certain risk-based groups, and recommendations based on shared clinical decision-making. Read more from STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo about the latest efforts to change how kids in the U.S. get their shots.
12%
That’s how much soda purchases declined among SNAP users in 10 states that recently enacted new restrictions, according to a new study. That translates to one person drinking about 34 fewer 12-ounce cans of soda per year, the researchers calculated. It’s not nothing, but experts still aren’t sure it’s the best approach. Plus, there was one major caveat regarding what people have been buying in place of soda. Read more from STAT’s Sarah Todd for the details.
FDA plans to regulate generative AI
The FDA says it is developing a plan for how to regulate medical devices that use generative artificial intelligence, STAT’s Mario Aguilar reports.
“The ecosystem is expecting clarity,” Rick Abramson, director of the agency’s Digital Health Center of Excellence, told Mario. “We seek to provide that clarity, and I’ll also throw in that I think the ecosystem can expect not only broad guidance on the overall topic of generative AI, but also some more narrowly constructed specialty guidance on particular generative AI topics of special interest or special complexity.” Read more on what sort of approach the agency is taking.
A dearth of supervisors for nurse practitioners
In our straining health care system, nurse practitioners are seemingly well-positioned to fill the gaps. After receiving a master’s degree and working at least 500 hours in a clinical setting with a supervisor, they’re able to perform many of the same duties as a doctor. But as The Hechinger Report’s Colleen Connolly reports, there’s a major bottleneck for would-be nurse practitioners.
There are not nearly enough supervisors, known as preceptors, willing to take on students for those 500 hours of training. Accredited schools are required to either provide clinical placements or help students find them, but many skate by doing the bare minimum, leaving students to fend for themselves. Preceptors aren’t typically paid, but it’s becoming increasingly common for students to offer money — sometimes even cash — to get their hours. Read more from Connolly on this complicated, consequential problem.
Shaking hands, learning lessons
We’ve got two heartfelt First Opinion essays this morning from doctors on the daily practice of medicine:
During a recent shift in the emergency room, Zain Khawaja saw a patient with a suspected cancer-related emergency. Her life was potentially about to be upended. The first thing Khawaja did when he walked into the room was shake hands with the patient and her family members. “The handshake did not change her diagnosis,” Khawaja writes. “But it seemed to remind her (and me) that she was not merely the patient in the room with the concerning test results. She was a person experiencing one of the most frightening days of her life.” Read more.
Cardiologist Benjamin I. Lee retired from medicine four years ago, but he missed using his knowledge and skills. He started volunteering at a community clinic, where he realized there was a lot left for him to learn after a career in private practice. “It was only after retiring from mainstream medicine when I fully comprehended the callous limitations of our health care system and how it impacts the most vulnerable among us,” he wrote. Read more.
What we’re reading
-
9 vulnerable moments in the life of a bagged salad, New York Times
-
Reggie Watts is a prominent ketamine advocate. Was it his ex’s ‘undoing’? Rolling Stone
- Medicaid transgender care rule sets precedent that could restrict coverage of other drugs, STAT
- AI chatbots are becoming experts at changing people’s minds. What gives them an edge? Science