Hi there, it’s Sarah. Last night, STAT scored an awards hat trick, taking home a Gerald Loeb — the most prestigious honor in business journalism — for the third year in a row! This year’s Loeb recognized Lizzy Lawrence for her exceptional beat reporting on the Food and Drug Administration. This is also STAT’s fourth Loeb overall in our 11-year history. Not too shabby, y’all.
Does MAHA still matter to voters?
The Make America Healthy Again movement has been credited with helping to propel Donald Trump to a second term at the White House. But as midterm elections draw near, MAHA is nearly invisible on the campaign trail.
In today’s story, Isa Cueto, Daniel Payne, and Chelsea Cirruzzo take stock of MAHA’s current political influence, and its struggles to translate popular support for some of its core issues (like the dangers of ultra-processed foods) into policy. “This whole election in November is a contrast election. Democrats are making it about Trump, Republicans are making it about communists,” said Republican strategist Joel White. Read more.
What motivates two young scientists focused on breast cancer and abortion access
Amid relentless and sometimes depressing news cycles, one of the best things about working for STAT is that with projects like STAT Wunderkinds, we get to celebrate scientific achievements and the extraordinary talents who make them possible.
Yesterday, Allessandra DiCorato profiled cancer biologist and first-year resident physician Neal Carleton, whose work is focused on improving treatment for older patients with breast cancer. The hope, Carleton says, is to turn breast cancer into “more of a chronic disease” that can be managed with a daily pill and regular (but not too frequent) monitoring. And in today’s profile, Justin Chen interviewed researcher Betsy Pleasants, who’s using artificial intelligence to offer a more complete picture of online discourse about issues like abortion access and contraception.
Asking questions before we know why
Fifty years ago, researcher Robert Gallo and his colleagues made the landmark discovery of the protein interleukin-2, or IL-2. He reflects in a new First Opinion piece on the various reasons why that finding was so important. Not only did IL-2 make possible the discovery of the first human retroviruses, including HIV as the cause of AIDS, and become widely used in cancer cell immunotherapy, he writes, “its larger lesson is about the nature of scientific discovery.”
Gallo didn’t know all the things that IL-2 would make possible — and scientists shouldn’t be expected to answer questions about direct applications of their research in order to secure funding, he says. “If scientists must know the practical outcome before asking the question,” he writes, “they’ll never ask some of the most important questions.” Read more.
The census changes threatening public health
The Trump administration wants to make three big changes to the U.S. Census: eliminating questions about race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation; excluding anyone who is not a citizen or “lawful permanent resident”; and changing how it determines where people like college students or retiree “snowbirds” reside.
These changes, if passed, pose a big problem for both public health research and real-world federal assistance, social epidemiologist Nancy Krieger writes in a new First Opinion. That’s because things like race and ethnicity data are essential for how we track trends in U.S. morbidity and mortality and how federally funded programs determine who is eligible and where resources need to be allocated. This isn’t the first flaw to be highlighted in the census system, but Krieger suggests it’s what tennis fans might call an unforced error.
The future of mifepristone
Mifepristone, a pill used to terminate early pregnancies, has been caught in a tug-of-war throughout the second Trump administration as abortion opponents push for crackdowns on its use. Now the Food and Drug Administration say its safety review will continue into next year, with a report on findings expected by March 2027. Read more.
What we’re reading
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On the front lines of the vaccine wars, Rolling Stone
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For two sisters, a ‘biological age test’ became a ledger of their past, New York Times
- How public toilets explain America, Bloomberg
- Suicide is up among Black Americans. We need to talk about it, NPR
- Medical debt is crushing patients in Los Angeles. Health officials may have a fix, KFF