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It’s Pride Weekend here in New York City, so a big gay hello to everyone else celebrating this June. Stay hydrated!
Did Trump use Eli Lilly’s obesity drug? Democrats are asking
The fallout from STAT reporter Lizzy Lawrence’s scoop continues.
Democratic lawmakers are publicly asking questions about the 79-year-old patient who received special access in April to retatrutide, Eli Lilly’s experimental obesity drug, and are pressing the Trump administration on whether the person is the president.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) sent a letter yesterday to health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeking the patient’s identity, while Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) suggested at a press conference that “side effects” of the drug may have led Trump to cancel the signing of a bipartisan housing bill.
Lizzy dropped a bombshell on Tuesday that Lilly and the Food and Drug Administration offered retatrutide to a patient — whose age and health demographics resemble the president — via the FDA’s “compassionate use” program. Read more.
Supreme Court rules in weedkiller cancer case
In a blow to the Make America Healthy Again movement, the Supreme Court ruled that the maker of Roundup weedkiller cannot face failure-to-warn lawsuits in state courts, because federal regulations have found a cancer link unlikely and do not require a warning label.
The ruling announced yesterday is expected to block thousands of lawsuits alleging that agrochemical manufacturer Bayer failed to warn people that the product could cause cancer. The company disputes the cancer claims but previously set aside $16 billion to settle cases, and earlier this year it proposed a $7.25 billion class-action settlement. It also removed glyphosate as an ingredient from Roundup in the U.S.
The victory is in line with the public views of the Trump administration, but it exposes the cracks between the MAGA and MAHA movements, as the latter has sought to rein in pesticide use. Read more.
An interesting month for the ‘baby designer’ crowd
A new genome-editing tool used in early embryos has illuminated the role of a key gene overseeing the first stages of human development — and heightened the ongoing debate about whether such tools could or should ever be used to make a baby.
The new research, published yesterday in Nature, revealed that next-generation genome-editing tools are more precise and less destructive than earlier forms of the revolutionary CRISPR technology, suggesting that an embryo can tolerate editing and still develop to the point whereby it could be implanted in a uterus.
Which is ethically tricky, to say the least.
We’re not yet at gene editing’s all-brakes, no-gas moment. There are some technical hurdles scientists will need to work out. But STAT’s Megan Molteni and Andrew Joseph deliver an expert dive into the new paper and several others in recent weeks that have reignited the long-standing ethical debates around embryonic gene editing. Read more.
The worrisome drug withdrawal popping up in jails
A powerful tranquilizer has started to accompany fentanyl in the country’s illicit opioid supply, and jails are struggling to handle the drug’s excruciating, complicated withdrawal symptoms.
Jails already have a poor record safeguarding prisoners who go into withdrawal upon incarceration. They now face the added challenge of medetomidine withdrawal, which can require complex treatment with both oral and intravenous medications, some so heavily controlled they are available only in intensive care unit settings. And rapid urine toxicology panels are not even designed to detect medetomidine.
Medetomidine, also called “dex” for dexmedetomidine, has been found in drug samples across 20 sites, with highest prevalence in the Northeast and lowest in the West, according to the CDC. Read more about this new drug and the fight to treat withdrawal from it.
Trump admin eyes tighter political control over CDC with new office
Political appointees may soon have more control over the information and research coming out of the CDC under a proposal to add a separate science office atop the agency.
In April, the agency published a notice seeking contractors to support the creation of the Executive Advisory, Science, and Operations Unit. The new office would review scientific publications, including Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, intended for peer-reviewed journals, or briefings by the director on preparedness activities.
It’s not yet a done deal because no funding has been found. But if the agency does find the funding, it will continue the Trump administration’s quest to control the information coming from the CDC. Read more for the inside scoop about the agency, from STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo.
New vaccine committee charter takes shape
Speaking of tighter political control, we finally have a new charter for the panel that advises the CDC on vaccine use, and it dramatically reshapes the committee to downplay its role in recommending the use of new vaccines and giving it responsibility to assess alternatives for disease prevention.
The new version, posted to the CDC’s website on Thursday, stipulates that the panel as a whole should represent a balanced range of scientific, clinical, and public health expertise — a broad umbrella under which people with little experience in vaccines or vaccination policy might conceivably fit.
Public health experts say the new document paves the way for Kennedy to circumvent a court challenge to his reconfiguration of this committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Read more about the new charter from STAT’s Helen Branswell and Anil Oza.
What we’re reading
- White House, RFK Jr. tried to push third-party candidates out of tight House races, Washington Post
- Cassidy proposes bill to rein in 340B drug discount program, STAT
- Medical students are using a popular research tool to pump out misleading studies, Science
- At BIO 2026, industry wrestled with Washington politics, and making AI work better, STAT
- ‘Everyone who has a cervix is at risk’: Transgender people often miss out on cervical cancer screenings, CIDRAP