I saw the “Wicked” movie last week and haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Just know that every word I’ve written this week has been typed while fighting against the re-orchestrated Jonathan Bailey rendition of “Dancing Through Life” wending loudly through my brain.
You know what else I can’t stop thinking about? How good a deal STAT’s Cyber Week sale is: 50% off of 12 months of STAT+. Get it before it’s gone at midnight tonight.
H5N1 is one mutation away from becoming more infectious to humans
STAT’s Helen Branswell brings us two concerning stories about viruses:
Yesterday, researchers published a new Science paper about a single mutation in the H5N1 virus currently circulating in cows. This mutation would switch the virus from preferring receptors in birds to those found in the human upper respiratory tract.
In previous H5N1 viruses, three or more mutations were needed to change the virus’s receptor binding preference, exponentially decreasing the chance that would happen. One immunologist told Helen that she’s already worried the U.S. isn’t taking H5 seriously enough, “But if it helps remind others that it’s important, great.” Read more here.
Helen also reports on the outbreak of an unknown respiratory disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, first reported on Oct. 24. So far it’s involved 382 cases, of which 79 have been fatal. Over half of the cases have been in children under the age of 5. It might not be until Saturday that authorities will get any test results that can help determine what it is. Read more here.
UnitedHealthcare CEO’s shooting raises security concerns for health care executives
The health care world is still reeling from the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive on Wednesday. STAT’s Annalisa Merelli and Jonathan Wosen analyzed UnitedHealth and other health care companies’ financial statements to get an idea of the security measures these institutions take. Though companies’ headquarters sometimes get panic buttons and enhanced security, Brian Thompson was alone when he walked toward the hotel hosting UnitedHealth’s investor conference.
Yesterday, law enforcement reported that the bullet casings found at the crime scene had the words “deny,” “defend” and “depose” written on them in permanent marker, according to the Associated Press. Those words echo the title of a 2010 book, “Delay Deny Defend,” that criticized the insurance industry’s tactics for avoiding paying claims. NYPD has shared photos of the suspect, who has not yet been found.
Many social media users’ reactions lacked sympathy for Thompson’s death, with some making dark jokes or suggesting the death may have been retribution for patients who were unable to get care when the insurer declined to pay for it. Read more from STAT here.
Cracks begin to appear in the MAHA movement
Last week we brought you the story of how the MAHA movement encompasses people of surprisingly different stripes: Both ex-Bernie diehards and conservative moms have found a place within RFK’s health-focused movement.
But cracks are beginning to show as RFK and Trump staff the new administration’s health roles. In particular, some MAHA followers — who care most about Kennedy’s work challenging vaccines — think nominees aren’t outspoken enough about vaccines and Covid.
On the flip side, those who are keen to see reforms of the food supply and public health agencies are worried the vaccine issue will overtake MAHA’s broader goals. Even some of the people who helped popularize MAHA, such as siblings Calley and Casey Means, have come under more intense scrutiny in recent weeks by the Covid contrarian faction of the movement.
Read more from STAT’s Isabella Cueto, including concerns from those unconvinced MAHA is anything more than a “Trojan horse for anti-vaccine ideology.”
Portrait of a Nobel-winning marriage
When this year’s Nobel in medicine was awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, many online expressed outrage that yet another woman named Rosalind had been overlooked for the prize: Ambros’ wife, Rosalind “Candy” Lee, was first author on the paper that netted the Nobel.
But Lee doesn’t see it that way. A part of her was relieved decades ago when her lab head didn’t have the money to take her on as a graduate student, cutting her academic career short. At the time, a lot of the women in academia that Lee knew didn’t have children, she said. “And I really wanted to have children.”
Megan Molteni brings us the never-before-told story of Lee and Ambros’ partnership, and the complicated relationship academic scientists of any gender have with family. If you read a single STAT story this entire year, make sure it’s this one.
Teenage girl gets long-awaited Duchenne treatment
Sarah Jenssen is the rarest of the rare — a girl with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which almost always afflicts boys, as STAT wrote about in 2019. She wasn’t eligible to enroll in clinical trials for cutting-edge Duchenne therapies, but her family was elated when the FDA this year approved a gene therapy called Elevidys from Sarepta Therapeutics for nearly all patients, and didn’t limit it to boys.
As STAT wrote in September, Sarah’s insurance initially denied her the treatment, saying it was considered experimental for patients whose conditions had progressed to the point that they depended on wheelchairs — patients like Sarah, now 15.
After the family appealed, however, the insurer reversed the decision. Earlier this week, Sarah received a dose of Elevidys from her specialists at Vanderbilt. Sarah’s mom, Deb, told STAT she knew of one other girl who had been treated so far.
The debate continues over the quality of evidence underlying Elevidys’ approval, which patients should get it, and whether the FDA erred in approving it at all. But for the Jenssens, the hope is that the gene therapy can halt or at least delay any further progression of Sarah’s disease and give her a longer life. As Deb told STAT in September, “Even though she’s in a wheelchair, she can eat, she can use the bathroom by herself, she can get herself dressed in the morning. She’s still a pretty independent person. But I think we’re months away from losing all that.” — Andrew Joseph
U.S. life expectancy to dip below other high- and some middle-income countries
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington published new life expectancy projections in The Lancet yesterday, and the outlook for Americans is not good: Between 2022 to 2050, Americans’ life expectancies will only increase from 78.3 to 80.4 years. The modest increase will drop the U.S. life expectancy ranking from 49th to 66th of 204 countries.
The biggest risk factors are familiar to all of us: high BMI, high blood pressure, diets high in sodium and processed meat, and alcohol intake. The researchers forecasted that reducing smoking and drug use would also improve mortality dramatically — by 2050, they calculated, the U.S. will have the highest drug-related mortality in the world, more than twice as high as the second-ranked country, Canada.
