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Did you buy anything fun on Black Friday? Cyber Monday? I ordered a phone case that I’ve wanted for years, even though many, many friends have told me it’s “impractical” and “won’t fit in my pocket.”
Anyway. If you’re still itching to spend, but perhaps on something more meaningful, STAT is doing a cyber week sale. You can get half-off a whole year of a STAT+ subscription. I hope you’ll consider it.
Supreme Court hears case on flavored vapes
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for a case yesterday regarding the FDA’s decision to block several flavored vaping products from the market. Two manufacturers sued the agency after it denied their marketing applications in 2021. The companies argued that the FDA unfairly changed its standards in the middle of the application process by adding a requirement for long-term studies. But the agency maintains that it was right to deny the companies based on a lack of evidence of public health benefit.
The court’s decision next year could change the way the agency regulates tobacco and other products under its purview. Read more from STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence on what the justices had to say.
From an accounting of crisis pregnancy centers in the U.S.
“Do you regret your decision and wish you could reverse the effects of the abortion pill? We may be able to help!”
That’s part of the pitch on the website for Brazos Pregnancy Center — one of thousands of crisis pregnancy centers in the country that purport to provide medical care but exist mainly to discourage abortion. A study published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine analyzed the websites for 1,825 of these centers. Almost all of them (91%) advertised medical services, and almost one-third advertised abortion pill reversal services, which lack scientific evidence.
The invisible wasteland of health care data
Physicians spend almost two hours each day doing patient documentation, on top of actually seeing and treating those patients. There are clinical notes, lab results, structured data sets for billing requirements, and more. You’ve heard about this before, but it’s more than an issue of physician burnout or user errors. There are environmental implications to the enormous amounts of data that hospitals create.
In a new First Opinion essay, two physicians argue that the health care community must work to prevent the environmental damage caused by data storage and management. “Unbeknownst to many of us, our current practices are likely causing far-reaching harms that fly freely under our radars because they are supposedly better than the old practices,” they write. Read more.
Racial disparities in sudden cardiac arrest among athletes
Black athletes are five times more likely than white athletes to experience sudden cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death, according to a study published last week in The Lancet. Researchers reviewed 30 years of research specifically focused on these conditions among athletes. While most research focuses on young competitive athletes, the study authors found that most exercise-related sudden cardiac deaths occur in masters athletes, meaning those who are 35 or older.
The authors note that there’s no data suggesting that a race-based screening approach would mitigate the racial disparities. “Such an approach will likely cause more harm than benefit,” the authors wrote. (I wonder if they read STAT’s Embedded Bias series.) The racial disparities occur “without explanation,” they wrote, adding that, among competitive athletes, the influence of social determinants of health are still poorly understood.
Effective therapies for menopause symptoms are largely unused
Why? It starts with one study. The Women’s Health Initiative was a 2002 landmark study that suggested hormone therapy came with an increased risk of heart disease and breast cancer. The study specifically focused on older, postmenopausal women, most of whom were not experiencing symptoms like hot flashes anymore. But in its aftermath, both the media and policymakers construed the data as demonstrating a higher risk for menopausal women as well.
The use of hormone therapy subsequently plummeted. In 1999, almost 27% of menopausal women in the U.S. used estrogen. By 2020, less than 5% did. In my latest story, I talked to doctors about the latest research on the risks and benefits of hormone therapy, and about why patients might still be hesitant. Read more.
What we’re reading
How a billionaire’s ‘baby project’ ensared dozens of women, Bloomberg
You had a hysterectomy. What did the doctor leave behind? New York Times
- Private Medicare insurers are likely to benefit in Trump’s new administration, STAT
- RFK Jr. wants to eliminate fluoridated water. He used to bottle and sell it, New Yorker
- Is this the beginning of the AI-in-drug-discovery era, or the beginning of the end? STAT
