Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here.
There was an overwhelming amount of news yesterday. Here’s a link to a recent story about the FDA choosing Vinay Prasad’s interim successor.
Trump Withdraws Casey Means’ Surgeon General Nomination
The White House has withdrawn its nomination of Casey Means for surgeon general, choosing Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and Fox News contributor, instead.
This decision highlights the Trump administration’s limitations in the Senate and is a setback for the Make America Healthy Again movement’s efforts to secure Means’ confirmation. However, Saphier’s focus on personal wellness and her skepticism about vaccine mandates may help her gain support from both MAHA and mainstream Republican senators.
President Trump made the announcement on social media, attributing the failure of Means’ nomination to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the committee overseeing the review of the surgeon general nomination. Cassidy was the pivotal vote in approving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary. Read more from my STAT colleagues, including insights from Saphier in her own words.
Should Clinical Practices Change if a Model Outperforms Physicians?
An OpenAI large language model surpassed physicians in simulated diagnostic evaluations, according to a study published Thursday in Science.
In an experiment, the model reviewed past cases from the emergency department at Beth Israel in Boston. In one instance, a patient with a blood clot in the lungs was correctly assessed by the model as having a history of lupus before two physicians reached the same conclusion.
However, the study’s authors and other experts caution against assuming AI should be immediately integrated into clinical care. They emphasize the need for AI models to undergo the rigorous safety and efficacy reviews that are fundamental to medicine.
STAT’s Katie Palmer offers an excellent analysis of the study’s findings and its ethical implications. For the medical professionals reading this newsletter, what are your thoughts? Read the story and respond to this email.
PFAS Still Present in Some Infant Formula
While most infant formula in the U.S. is deemed safe, experts and health officials suggest that regulators can enhance its safety.
The Food and Drug Administration recently analyzed more than 300 formula samples to check for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals.” The FDA found five types of PFAS, with the most common one present in half of the samples, albeit in trace amounts.
STAT’s Sarah Todd consulted with two experts to clarify the implications, as the FDA’s analysis lacks detailed explanations of the PFAS results. Read more.
Pioneer in Modern Genetics Passes Away
J. Craig Venter, a trailblazing scientist who transformed genetics into a large-scale information science, passed away from cancer at 79.
Venter’s life was marked by significant achievements: he competed with a government-funded initiative to sequence the first human genome, embarked on a global journey collecting genetic data from marine life, and successfully replaced a bacterium’s genome with a synthetic one.
STAT’s Matt Herper wrote a touching obituary detailing Venter’s contributions to science and biotechnology. Read more.
Mother Launches New Biotech for Personalized Medicine
If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again. Julia Vitarello exemplifies this spirit.
Eight years ago, her daughter Mila received a tailor-made medicine for her specific genetic mutation. Now, Vitarello is starting a new company to develop such personalized therapies on a larger scale.
Vitarello’s previous venture, EveryONE Medicines, closed after the FDA issued guidance that discouraged investors from supporting customized therapies. EveryONE had backed a U.K. trial for treating 10 patients with severe neurological conditions, aiming to gather enough evidence for regulatory approval.
Read more from STAT’s Andrew Joseph to learn why Vitarello believes this new endeavor will succeed.
U.S. Fertility Concerns Extend Beyond Family Planning
America’s concerns about fertility have historically been less about families and more about power and control over who can have children, according to Sonya Borrero and Rachel Logan, authors of the upcoming book “Reproducing Control: The Family Planning Framework’s Conflict with Reproductive Autonomy.”
Throughout U.S. history, reproduction policy has focused more on national strength and economic growth than personal choice. Although repackaged as “family planning” in the 20th century, its emphasis on preventing “unintended pregnancies” suggests reproductive freedom was never a primary objective.
This mindset persists even as the U.S. faces the challenge of a declining birth rate. Read more.
What We’re Reading
- Guns and bulletproof vests: How federal agents arrested Fauci aide, Science
- When natural disasters strike, another crisis hits those recovering from opioid addiction, KFF Health News
- FDA wants to exclude weight loss drugs from a compounding list, STAT
- DOJ, Elevance spar over access to top exec in Medicare Advantage fraud case, STAT
