Good morning! Another health care case comes to the Supreme Court today. See my preview below, and keep an eye out for more coverage later today. STAT’s Sarah Owermohle will be on the ground in D.C., and I’ll be following the arguments virtually.
Trans health care case arrives at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court will hear arguments this morning on Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for youth. In recent years, half of U.S. states have enacted bans on puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery for trans youth. Tennessee’s ban, which asserts that the state has a “legitimate, substantial, and compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex,” is the first to come before the country’s highest court.
The case has major implications for trans people of all ages, but experts also told me that the case could affect future attempts to regulate other areas of health care like reproductive health, and how the federal government interprets the Affordable Care Act’s nondiscrimination rule.
“The medical community at large really needs to understand how health regulation is changing,” said Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale. Read my latest on everything you need to know about the case, and keep your eye out for more coverage after the arguments from me and STAT’s Sarah Owermohle.
1 in 3
That’s how many retail pharmacies have closed since 2010, according to a study published yesterday in Health Affairs. Between 2018 and 2021, more pharmacies closed than were opened. Those in Black and Latinx communities were at higher risk for closing than in white communities, and independent pharmacies were at higher risk compared to chains.
Dr. Glaucomflecken reviews NBC’s new medical sitcom
For nearly 20 years, TV audiences have followed along in horror as the fictional, god-like surgeons of ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” survive (or don’t) shipwrecks, bombs, shootings, plane crashes, car crashes, and more. “We’ve been inundated by so many medical dramas over the years, it felt like the world forgot health care can be outrageously funny,” writes Will Flanary — a.k.a. the internet-famous Dr. Glaucomflecken — in a new First Opinion essay.
Perhaps that changes with NBC’s new comedy, “St. Denis Medical.” The show’s pilot provides plenty of laugh-out-loud moments, Flanary says, and for the most part sticks to one of his favorite comedy axioms: Don’t punch down. (That means no making fun of patients.) Read Flanary’s review of the show.
Why is health care cybersecurity so bad?
Part of the problem right now is that health care data privacy laws are better at keeping a corpse’s health information private than keeping patients alive, experts told STAT’s Brittany Trang earlier this year. Health savings accounts, pharmacies, and major hospitals have all been attacked in 2024. But a single data breach accounted for the vast majority of people’s data being exposed: Change Healthcare.
Watch the video explainer from Brittany (with amazing production and animation from STAT’s Hyacinth Empinado) on why health care cybersecurity is so bad — and what the government and health care industry are doing to fix it.
U.K. buys five million bird flu vaccines
The U.K. has signed a deal for five million doses of an H5 influenza vaccine, a step the government is taking to bolster its preparedness for the possibility of a bird flu pandemic.
The H5N1 virus, which scientists have been watching with caution for nearly 30 years, has spread widely among wild birds around the world in recent years, often spilling into poultry operations. Concerns about the virus mutating in ways that would allow it to spread easily among people — grounds for a pandemic — have increased this year in particular as a bird flu outbreak among dairy cattle in the U.S. has persisted for months. Before this year, the U.S. had only documented one H5N1 infection in a person. So far this year, it’s confirmed more than 55, largely among dairy workers and people involved in culling poultry — a number that’s widely thought to be an undercount.
“It is important for us to be prepared against a range of different influenza viruses that may pose human health risks,” Meera Chand, a U.K. health official, said in a statement.
The vaccine that the U.K. will be receiving is made by CSL Seqirus. The U.K. Health Security Agency said the vaccines could be used immediately should H5 start spreading among people, while a vaccine that more specifically targets the pandemic strain is made.
Other governments, including the U.S. and the E.U., have also been investing in vaccine supplies and shoring up manufacturing and fill-and-finish plans.
— Drew Joseph, STAT’s Europe correspondent
New RFK Jr. tax docs just dropped
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made over $20,000 per week as chairman of Children’s Health Defense — his vaccine-challenging nonprofit group — before stepping away in 2023 to run for president, new tax filings show. Though he only spent three and a half months at the nonprofit last year, he walked away with $326,056 — more than doubling his pay rate for a shorter tenure.
STAT’s Isa Cueto has more.
