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So much news today that I didn’t have space to write an item about hot tubs as a breeding ground for Legionnaires’ disease. Here’s the CDC report, if you’re curious.
Where is Kennedy’s ‘publicly available calendar’?
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Wednesday that his “publicly available calendar” is an example of his commitment to transparency and to beat back unfavorable reporting. If this calendar exists, we’d love to see it.
STAT has been asking the Department of Health and Human Services for Kennedy’s calendar for more than a year, including multiple requests for the calendars of Kennedy and his principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear.
Kennedy, who started his secretarial tenure promising “radical transparency,” has overseen a department facing lawsuits over failures to release information, cut staffers who handle FOIA requests, and drawn anger from lawmakers who can’t get responses to their queries, either. Kennedy has even acknowledged that HHS blacklists certain journalists because leaders disagree with their work. Read more from STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne.
Speaking of unmet promises …
Kennedy has had 16 months as health secretary to tackle various public health challenges, and he’s made numerous promises about how he’ll make Americans healthier.
STAT’s Isabella Cueto and Emory Parker have been tracking these plans, including Kennedy’s progress on hospital price transparency, bringing new sunscreens to the U.S., getting more nutrition education in medical training and healthier food in hospitals, and repurposing approved drugs to treat different conditions.
But of the 80 pledges Isa and Emory are tracking, roughly two dozen have been kept or are in progress. The rest have either been abandoned, broken, not started, or their status is unclear based on publicly available information. If you want a full breakdown, check out the latest update to our RFK Jr. promises tracker.
Chile offers new data on food warning label efficacy
Chile’s restrictions on food packaging, labeling, and marketing have been called “the world’s most ambitious attempt to remake a country’s food culture” and lower childhood obesity rates. A new analysis published in The Lancet offers promising data about the impact of the first wave of regulations, which rolled out in 2016 and required black octagonal warning labels on packaged foods high in ingredients like sugar, salt, calories, and saturated fat.
Just 18 months after the labels were introduced, girls ages 4 to 6 had a 2.9% lower risk of being classified as overweight or obese. Boys had a 2.4% lower risk. To put that in context: Recent data shows that about one-quarter of Chilean children qualify as obese and more than 50% as overweight. The study looked at national data on more than 300,000 children and was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies. (STAT also accepts funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which is not involved in our editorial decisions.)
“Even a small weight reduction for children who have overweight or obesity is likely to bring meaningful long-term health benefits,” economics researcher and study co-author Nieves Valdes said in a press release. The researchers also say they expect to see even stronger results after 2018 and 2019, when Chile enacted stricter requirements around warning labels. — Sarah Todd
Diabetes debacle in the Big Easy
If you’re a regular Morning Rounds reader, you’ll remember that last weekend security officers escorted diabetes experts out of the American Diabetes Association meeting in New Orleans. STAT’s Alex Hogan spoke with Liz Cooney about this altercation, its fallout, and her experience at this meeting.
CDC confirms what STAT readers already know
New CDC data released Wednesday suggest the prevalence of drinking during pregnancy increased in recent years. National survey data show about 15% of pregnant women reported current drinking (use in the prior 30 days) between 2021 and 2024. That rate was higher than the 13.5% of women who reported the same between 2018 and 2020.
Those numbers point to an ongoing issue, even though drinking during pregnancy is usually thought of as a problem of the past. STAT’s recent reporting on U.S. alcohol woes examined evolving attitudes toward drinking in pregnancy, and how women’s unaddressed alcohol use may be contributing to widespread intellectual disability. STAT’s analysis of CDC data showed alcohol use during pregnancy ticked down slightly in 2024, but additional data are needed to know whether that is a continuing trend.
Routine screening for alcohol consumption and mental health conditions during pregnancy could help, the report authors say. So could things like “point-of-sale warning signs or alcohol sales taxes,” they wrote. Read my story for more details about the CDC’s report. — Isabella Cueto
How does socioeconomic status affect brain development?
An analysis of brain scans from nearly 12,000 children ages 9 and 10 has found that the leading environmental factor influencing brain structure and function is the socioeconomic status of a child’s family, according to a new report published yesterday in Science.
Household income, local poverty rates, and other neighborhood-level measures of economic activity accounted for about 16% of the variability in children’s brain function. Scientists have long debated which aspects of childhood most influence neural development, as building a brain — all the neuronal connections that form memories, store language, perceive the world, control bodily movements — is an energy-intensive act of singular creation.
The researchers suggest that socioeconomic status is mainly a proxy for sleep and stress. So if you want healthy kids, make sure they hit the hay early and face minimal stress, though some experts cautioned against jumping to this conclusion. Read more about the intriguing study from STAT’s Megan Molteni.
What we’re reading
- A cracked coffin, a funeral and the hunt for Ebola’s patient zero, Reuters
- Nonprofit buys experimental cancer drug to maintain patient access, STAT
- Possible hantavirus case at San Quentin prompts testing, decontamination, San Francisco Chronicle
- The researcher who didn’t want to know, New York Times