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Good morning. I didn’t have space to mention it yesterday, but can you believe Nathan Fielder made an Elizabeth Holmes documentary? Variety called it shameless and fascinating. I may need to see for myself.
Can AI fix health care?
It depends who you ask! But in the current chaos of emergency rooms, the technology has not yet changed the status quo, STAT’s Brittany Trang reports. While AI documentation may help a physician focus on the patient in front of them and figure out what’s wrong, scribes are doing “almost nothing” to improve care, one ER doctor told her. Think about it: ERs are loud, the workflow is fragmented, the patients are waiting longer for more urgently needed care. Read more from Brittany on what AI can and can’t do to help.
Still, some people are optimistic about AI. We’ve got a pair of First Opinion essays offering a point/counterpoint on whether or not AI will replace doctors. The first, written by bioethicist and oncologist Ezekiel Emanuel with researcher Abe Baker-Butler, argues that AI is far more capable than skeptics think. John Whyte, CEO of the American Medical Association, counters that while AI can master medical tasks, practicing medicine is about much more than that.
In CDC restructuring, Covid now part of flu division
The CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases is undergoing a reorganization, with Covid-19 and other respiratory diseases operations being consolidated under the influenza division. The change, which went into effect on Sept. 4, was revealed Tuesday in the Federal Register.
Though anything related to Covid is politically charged with the current administration, former CDC staffers — including Demetre Daskalakis, a former director of the NCIRD — say this change had been in the planning since the Biden administration and makes organizational sense. Funding for Covid has dropped as the disease burden from the virus has declined; putting its operations into the flu division will leverage resources both use. Daskalakis and others, though, warned that the consolidation itself could be rocky; NCIRD has had a series of acting directors since Daskalakis quit in August 2025. And the change is coming into effect when the country is heading toward the flu and respiratory virus season. “Not my favorite timing,” Daskalakis said. — Helen Branswell
Telemedicine company offers GLP-1s for addiction
A new company, Quel, announced yesterday that it is launching as the first telemedicine venture built around GLP-1s for addiction. The services, available in 41 states, are an extension of a treatment program first tested at Caron Treatment Centers in Pennsylvania. STAT’s Lev Facher wrote last summer about the elite center’s use of semaglutide for addiction, describing it as a journey into uncharted territory. Only a handful of clinical trials existed at the time to test the ability of GLP-1s to reduce substance use. Dozens more such studies exist now, many of which focus on alcohol use disorder.
The FDA has not approved GLP-1s for substance use, so the medications will be prescribed off-label. “We’re using something off-label under the umbrella of addiction, whether that be food, sex, alcohol, or opioids,” physician Steven Klein told Lev last year. Klein is a co-founder and chief medical officer at Quel. Reread Lev’s great story.
Residue on walls and open-toed sandals?
Shoolin Pharma in Gujarat, India, makes active pharmaceutical ingredients for more than a dozen medicines that are sold to compounding pharmacies in the U.S., according to the FDA, which sent a warning letter to the company last month regarding unsanitary conditions. The letter cited stains on production walls, floors, and manufacturing equipment, corrosion on a product line, and an employee who wore open-toed sandals.
The fact of the warning letter isn’t particularly notable. What is different: This letter included several photos to demonstrate the extent of the problem, STAT’s Ed Silverman writes. Read more on the warning and what it portends for compounding pharmacies.
WHO leader will not run for director-general
Jeremy Farrar, a global health leader who was long rumored as a potential candidate to become the next director-general of the World Health Organization, is definitely not entering the race. PATH, a leading global health NGO, announced Wednesday that Farrar is joining its staff on Oct. 1 to serve as chief of the Asia, Middle East, and Europe regional division, based in Geneva.
Farrar has a long history in global health work. He headed Oxford University’s Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam for 18 years — including during the 2003 SARS outbreak — before being named director of the Wellcome Trust, the London-based charity that funds biomedical research. Farrar left Wellcome in 2023 to become WHO’s chief scientist, later transitioning to assistant director-general for health promotion, disease prevention and care. The move to the WHO was perceived by some in global health circles as setting the stage to run for director-general when the term of the incumbent, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, expires on Aug. 15, 2027. But the PATH appointment confirms what Farrar has said in the recent past; he is not running. There are currently four candidates in the race; the nomination period closes Sept. 24. — Helen Branswell
Trust in Fauci is changing, but still higher than RFK Jr.
Fewer Americans view Anthony Fauci as a source of trustworthy public health information after his appearance before the Senate Homeland Security committee in which he invoked the Fifth Amendment, according to a survey of more than 1,900 people by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Fifty percent of respondents (who were surveyed in August about a week after the hearing) said they are somewhat or very confident that Fauci provided the public with trustworthy information on public health. That’s down from 55% in April and similar rates in surveys from the year before. The survey first asked about Fauci and trust in 2021, and confidence levels ranged from 63% to 71%.
The 5% decline is statistically significant, per Annenberg, but the proportion of Americans who trust Fauci is still far above the 38% who said they’re confident that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is providing trustworthy information. That number has remained essentially unchanged since early 2025, per the polling.
What we’re reading
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‘Nakedly political’: U.S. attempts to link trans support to authoritarianism in new health department report, The Guardian
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School vaccination rates reveal hidden measles outbreak risks. But access depends on where you live, Healthbeat
- FDA names acting heads of drug and vaccine centers to permanent roles, STAT
- Can humans get pregnant in space? National Geographic