May, 2024

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NIH documents show how $1.6 billion long Covid initiative has failed so far to meet its goals

STAT

More than three years ago, the National Institutes of Health launched a $1 billion-plus initiative to find the root causes and potential treatments for long Covid , the chronic disease that has quickly changed the lives of millions of Americans. But a lack of visible progress from the initiative, called RECOVER, has drawn months of criticism from patient advocates, researchers, and lawmakers, including at a Senate hearing last week on the NIH’s budget.

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Why AlphaFold 3 is stirring up so much buzz in pharma

PharmaVoice

The “Nobel Prize-worthy invention” could be worth hundreds of billions commercially — and have a deep impact on drug R&D.

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STAT+: For one rare type of lung cancer, Pfizer pill reduces progression by 81%

STAT

There are a lot of reasons why updated data on Pfizer’s Lorbrena, a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer, might not seem to be a big deal. The results are an update on the clinical trial that resulted in the Food and Drug Administration granting Lorbrena full approval in 2001, so in a sense they are not even that new. For Pfizer investors, Lorbrena isn’t that big a deal, either.

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A third U.S. farm worker infected with bird flu is the first to experience respiratory symptoms

STAT

A third human case of H5 bird flu tied to the ongoing U.S. outbreak in cattle has been detected in a farm worker in Michigan, state health authorities confirmed on Thursday. The unnamed individual worked on a dairy farm and was in close contact with infected cows, the state health department said in a statement. The farm involved is different from the one where an earlier human case was detected last week.

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From Diagnosis to Delivery: How AI is Revolutionizing the Patient Experience

Speaker: Simran Kaur, Founder & CEO at Tattva Health Inc.

The healthcare landscape is being revolutionized by AI and cutting-edge digital technologies, reshaping how patients receive care and interact with providers. In this webinar led by Simran Kaur, we will explore how AI-driven solutions are enhancing patient communication, improving care quality, and empowering preventive and predictive medicine. You'll also learn how AI is streamlining healthcare processes, helping providers offer more efficient, personalized care and enabling faster, data-driven

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The new menstruation: Girls are getting their periods earlier and less regularly

STAT

Menstruation is a critical indicator of health. Whether and when someone with a uterus gets their period — for the first time, and throughout their life — can reflect not only their reproductive health, but their risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer, miscarriage, and premature death. That also makes menstruation a useful measure of population health.

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Opinion: The world needs the new pandemic treaty

STAT

At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, 25 heads of government issued an extraordinary call for a new international treaty for preventing, preparing for, and responding to pandemics. For two years, World Health Organization member states have been negotiating an international agreement scheduled for adoption at the World Health Assembly this month. Yet, late Friday in Geneva, negotiations ground to a halt.

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New obesity drugs are seemingly everywhere. Black Americans feel left out

STAT

STAT teamed up with Word In Black, a network of 10 Black news publishers, to report over the past year on the impact of new weight loss drugs on Black America. Jonathan Gustave was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last August after decades of struggling with his weight. To help lower his blood sugar levels, his doctor prescribed Ozempic, the diabetes drug that has become wildly popular for its weight loss effects.

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STAT+: Gene therapies for deafness dredge up an old question: Do deaf people want a ‘cure’?

STAT

When Yilai Shu was training to be an otolaryngologist in Shanghai, in the mid 2000s, he often met parents with congenitally deaf kids. “They always asked me, ‘Do you have any drugs to treat our kids?’ said Shu, who is hearing and a professor at Fudan University in China. “That’s what really inspired me to think about developing a drug.

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Opinion: Stigma and the return of syphilis

STAT

Syphilis, one of the oldest infections known to humans, has returned to the U.S. at epidemic rates that have been climbing since 2001. In 2022, the last year with complete data, the highest number of infections were recorded in more than 70 years. It’s not yet clear why syphilis is spreading faster than other sexually transmitted infections. Recent shortages of single injection penicillin needed to treat this infection threatens to make matters worse.

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New evidence supports fear that drinking raw milk containing bird flu viruses may be dangerous

STAT

A new study published Friday provides more evidence of the potential danger of drinking unpasteurized, or raw, milk containing H5N1 avian flu viruses. The work , published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that mice that were fed milk from H5N1-infected cows became very ill.

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Why Every Small Business Needs an HCM Solution: A Comprehensive Guide

Managing HR tasks like payroll, compliance, and employee data can overwhelm small businesses. That’s where a Human Capital Management (HCM) solution comes in. Our eBook, Why Every Small Business Needs an HCM Solution: A Comprehensive Guide , shows how an HCM system automates tedious processes, ensuring your business stays compliant and efficient. You’ll learn how to simplify payroll, eliminate costly errors, and empower your employees with self-service tools.

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New data show the HPV vaccine prevents cancer in men, too. Why don’t more people get it?

STAT

You’d think if there were a vaccine that would prevent tens of thousands of cases of cancer a year, people would want it for themselves and for their kids. But new data being released Thursday ahead of the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology show that just isn’t the case.

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Black voices, Black bodies: Life in the age of Ozempic

STAT

STAT teamed up with Word In Black, a network of 10 Black news publishers, to report over the past year on the impact of new weight loss drugs on Black America. When was the last time you thought about your weight?

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Wastewater testing specifically for bird flu virus will scale up nationally in coming weeks

STAT

Less than a month ago, researchers reported for the first time the ability to scan wastewater for signs of the H5 influenza virus currently sickening dairy cows in at least nine states across the U.S. That technology is now at the threshold of real-world use. WastewaterSCAN, an infectious disease-tracking sewage surveillance network led by Stanford University and Emory University in partnership with Verily Life Sciences, has begun scaling up H5-specific testing of samples from all of its 190 sit

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Michigan reports a human case of bird flu, the nation’s second linked to H5N1 outbreak in dairy cows

STAT

A second human case of bird flu infection linked to the current H5N1 outbreak in dairy cows has been detected, in a farm worker who had exposure to infected cows, Michigan state health authorities announced on Wednesday. In a statement , health officials said the individual had mild symptoms and has recovered. Evidence to date suggests this is a sporadic infection, with no signs of ongoing spread, the statement said.

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Best Practices to Streamline Compensation Management: A Foundation for Growth

Speaker: Joe Sharpe and James Carlson

Payroll optimization can be one of the most time-consuming and complex factors of small business management. Yet, organizations that crack the code on streamlining employee compensation often discover innovative avenues for growth. With the right strategies in place, outsourcing and streamlining payroll processes can result in substantial time and resource savings.

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UnitedHealth argues algorithm lawsuit should be dismissed because patients didn’t spend years appealing denials

STAT

UnitedHealth Group should be released from a lawsuit that alleges its algorithm-based technology prematurely cut off care to its Medicare Advantage members, the company said in court filings this week, because patients and their families did not finish Medicare’s appeals process. “Plaintiffs have failed to exhaust the exclusive administrative appeal process set by the Medicare Act,” UnitedHealth’s lawyers argued.

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When should we start making H5N1 vaccine, and who will make that decision? In short, it’s complicated

STAT

If the H5N1 bird flu virus ever acquires the ability to transmit easily to and among people — keep your fingers crossed that it doesn’t — the world is going to need serious amounts of vaccine. Like, lakes of the stuff. Some manufacturers have been working with H5N1 viruses for years, producing small batches of doses that have undergone preliminary human testing.

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Move over, wastewater. Store-bought milk could be another way to track the bird flu outbreak in cows

STAT

Scientists from the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center have managed to generate a full genetic sequence of H5N1 virus from milk, a development they suggest means commercially purchased milk products could be used to monitor the progress of the bird flu outbreak in dairy cattle and to check for important changes in the virus over time.

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How doctors are pressuring sickle cell patients into unwanted sterilizations

STAT

BATON ROUGE, La. — The surgery was supposed to alleviate worry, but now, years later, Whitney Carter’s mind kept flicking back to it, wondering if it could be undone. She sometimes descended into these moods, taciturn, withdrawn, as if all hope had gone extinct. She sat on the couch in the half-light, blinds shut against the heat. The whole thing made her feel less than, like some essential part of her had been removed.

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Position Your Pharmacy for Expansion

Speaker: Chris Antypas and Josh Halladay

Access to limited distribution drugs and payer contracts are key to pharmacy expansion. But how do you prepare your operations to take the next step? Meaningful data: Collect and share clinical data regarding outcomes, utilization, and more Reporting: Limited distribution models require efficient tracking and reporting systems Workflows: Align workflows with specific pharma and payer contractual requirements For in-depth, expert insights on pharmacy expansion, watch this webinar from Inovalon.

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CDC asks states and cities to keep flu surveillance at peak levels because of bird flu threat

STAT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked local and state health officials Tuesday to maintain flu surveillance operations at peak-season levels over the summer in a bid to remain watchful for any signs of human-to-human spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus. Flu surveillance activity is generally conducted at low levels during the late spring and summer months, in recognition of the fact that as temperatures rise, transmission of seasonal flu viruses drops to minimal levels in the Northe

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STAT+: Many docs who tweeted product endorsements also took money from manufacturers, analysis shows

STAT

Most physicians who endorsed a prescription drug or medical device on X — formerly known as Twitter — also received payments from the manufacturers of these products, according to a new analysis that highlights ongoing concerns about financial ties between doctors and industry. The study found 26 of 28 physicians, or 93%, received at least one payment, and the average was more than $27,400 for such things as food and beverages, speaking, consulting, or travel.

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The only tribal medical school in the U.S. graduates its first Native American doctors

STAT

There are so few Indigenous physicians in the United States — just 0.3% of doctors — that their numbers barely show up in charts and graphs depicting the diversity of the medical workforce. But as of Thursday, there will be at least nine more. Thursday is graduation day for the first class of the nation’s only tribally affiliated medical school, the Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation.

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My rendezvous with the raw milk black market: quick, easy, and unchecked by the FDA

STAT

WASHINGTON — It’s Friday May 10, and I’m on my way to what feels like the world’s weirdest drug deal. I received a text the day before from a man named Karl. My order would be arriving from Maryland between 2 and 4 p.m. at the northwest D.C. drop site. It’ll be safely wrapped in ice packs, he assured me.

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Enhance Healthcare Efficiency With Top Payroll & HCM Services

Running a healthcare facility requires precision and care, not just for patients but also for your staff. Our guide, "A Buyer’s Guide to Payroll & HCM Services," helps healthcare providers choose the best provider. Efficient payroll management ensures timely, accurate payments, critical for maintaining staff morale and trust. Compliance support helps navigate complex healthcare regulations and avoid costly fines.

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USDA, FDA turf battles hamper responses to outbreaks like H5N1 bird flu

STAT

WASHINGTON — On a bright June day in 2018, one of the nation’s top regulators waved groceries in the air, quizzing the secretary of agriculture on which agency is charged with monitoring different types of food. Scott Gottlieb, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration at the time, grinned widely as he held liquid egg whites and a carton of eggs.

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CDC launching wastewater dashboard to track bird flu virus spread

STAT

Reluctance among dairy farmers to report H5N1 bird flu outbreaks within their herds or allow testing of their workers has made it difficult to keep up with the virus’s rapid spread , prompting federal public health officials to look to wastewater to help fill in the gaps. On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to unveil a public dashboard tracking influenza A viruses in sewage that the agency has been collecting from 600 wastewater treatment sites around the

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In military medicine, study shows rank and race affect care

STAT

Higher ranking military officers receive more resources and better care than low ranking military officers, according to an analysis of 1.5 million military ER visits published Thursday in the journal Science. The study also showed that white physicians expended less effort on Black patients, even when rank was taken into account: Higher ranking Black officers received care from white physicians that was similar to that received by lower ranking white officers.

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STAT+: Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug from Nippon Shinyaku fails in rare confirmatory trial

STAT

Japanese drugmaker Nippon Shinyaku said on Monday that its Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug, Viltepso, part of a controversial class of treatments for the rare disease, had failed to reach its primary endpoint in a placebo-controlled confirmatory trial. Children who received the drug could stand up faster from the floor at the end of the study, but so could children who received a placebo.

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5 Reasons to Upgrade Your Pharmacy Management Software

Are you still using workarounds to manage your daily operations? To achieve peak performance, it's time to explore other options for specialty and infusion pharmacy software. Streamline pharmacy operations and improve clinical performance with automated processing, real-time data exchange, and electronic decision support. Download this helpful infographic to: Drive efficiency and patient adherence from referral receipt to delivery and ongoing care – all with our Pharmacy Cloud.

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Removing race adjustment from lung test could mean higher disability payments for Black vets

STAT

Removing a patient’s race from an equation used to assess lung function — a change called for by health equity advocates — would mean that the lung disease of nearly half a million Black Americans would be reclassified as being more severe, and that Black veterans could receive more than $1 billion in additional disability payments, according to a study published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Farmers resist push for workers to wear protective gear against bird flu virus

STAT

WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended this week that dairy and poultry farms with infected animals supply protective gear to workers in a bid to stave off human transmission of the H5N1 virus. The challenge now is making it happen. The CDC has no legal authority to order those protective measures, and health officials in some of the nine states with reported outbreaks in cattle have had little luck getting farmers to take them up on offers of free persona

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STAT+: Sanofi enters vaccine licensing deal with Novavax, giving beleaguered biotech a lifeline

STAT

LONDON — Novavax, the beleaguered maker of a Covid-19 vaccine, just got a boost of its own.   The French pharma company Sanofi on Friday said it had reached a licensing deal to sell Novavax’s Covid shot going forward as well as to try to combine the vaccine with Sanofi’s own flu shot. The pact includes a $500 million upfront payment, with up to $700 million more on the table if certain regulatory and launch milestones are reached.

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Federal officials will fund farms’ protective measures to contain H5N1 bird flu

STAT

WASHINGTON — The federal government will provide livestock farms as much as $28,000 apiece to bolster protective measures and testing for the avian flu virus spreading among dairy cows, officials said Friday. The Agriculture Department also allotted $98 million to aid states restricting the interstate movement of affected cattle, and health officials announced they would put an additional $101 million toward expanded surveillance, tests, treatments, and vaccines for the virus, which has n

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Bird flu keeps rewriting the textbooks. It’s why scientists are unsettled by the U.S. dairy cattle outbreak

STAT

Twenty-seven years ago today, a 3-year-old boy in Hong Kong developed a sore throat, spiked a fever, and started to cough. Six days later, he was hospitalized; six days after that, he died of acute respiratory distress caused by viral pneumonia. Testing showed the toddler, who’d had contact with sick chickens before becoming ill, had been infected with H5N1 bird flu.

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