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The Ig Nobel awards just happened, but I’d like to pitch this study — which found that a man’s shouts will scare gulls away from food — for next year’s consideration.
A baby formula maker’s ‘bizarre’ response to the infant botulism outbreak
ByHeart recalled all of its products across the U.S. this week after 15 infants were hospitalized with botulism after consuming the company’s formula. But despite the established link, ByHeart initially pushed back against the regulators’ findings in their response to the recall — leading customers to say the company has “downplayed, buried information, and misled parents at every step.”
Backed by $908 million in venture capital, ByHeart exploded onto the scene in 2016 with a formula rich with “clean ingredients” marketed to health-conscious, crunchy moms. The formula has also become popular with the Make America Healthy Again movement.
But the company has a worrisome history: a previous recall in 2022 and a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration after an inspection the following year. What did they say during this week’s nationwide recall? Read more from STAT’s Sarah Todd.
More Americans use weight loss drugs like Ozempic than live in Texas
Weight loss drugs have skyrocketed in prevalence in recent years, according to a new KFF poll on GLP-1 drugs and drug prices. Nearly 13% of adults say they take a GLP-1 such as Ozempic or Wegovy to treat a chronic disease, lose weight, or both — more than double the poll’s finding from last year.
The drugs’ cost hasn’t hindered their soaring popularity. Nearly 30% of users with health insurance had to eat the entire bill — potentially hundreds of dollars a month. The poll arrives just a week after Trump’s deal to make the popular drugs more affordable to everyday Americans.
Want to learn more about GLP-1’s, the wonder drug prescribed for diabetes, obesity, addiction, and more? Start here. And if you missed STAT’s Alex Hogan’s explanation for why Ozempic’s widespread name recognition could make it susceptible to “genericide” — all while grinding rails — watch this video.
Wild polio, continued
More information has emerged about the discovery of wild poliovirus in wastewater in Germany. Authorities in Hamburg revealed that Type 1 virus was found in sewage there. And the German public health agency, the Robert Koch Institute, reported that the genetic sequence of the virus was “very similar” to viruses that have circulated in Afghanistan, one of only two remaining countries where wild polioviruses are still endemic. (Pakistan is the other; the two countries have recorded 39 cases of paralytic polio so far this year.)
In its update, the Koch Institute said the most likely scenario is that at least one person who was infected excreted poliovirus in their stools while in Hamburg. No symptomatic cases have been reported. But most people infected with polio do not become ill; paralysis occurs only in about one out of every 200 infections. Others do shed the virus, though, contributing to its transmission. Polio vaccination rates in Germany are high, and health officials assess the risk of onward spread resulting in cases as “very low.” — Helen Branswell
Former FDA commissioner talks new drug director, building trust
Robert Califf, FDA commissioner during the Biden and Obama administrations, joined STAT’s Matthew Herper for a conversation about trust and medical ethics on Thursday night. Califf weighed in on the recent appointment of longtime cancer therapy chief Richard Pazdur as top drug regulator at the FDA, calling it a sign that FDA leaders are trying to stabilize the agency amid declining morale and staff departures.
“What I really admire about Rick is that he has fidelity between his beliefs and his actions,” Califf said at the Greenwall Foundation lecture. “He’s an honest person and deeply driven to try to do what’s right.”
Califf also expressed concern that politics are increasingly influencing science within U.S. health agencies, and noted that the medical establishment has a long way to go in restoring trust with the American people. He said health care professionals might learn a lesson or two from Mr. Beast — the most-followed YouTuber — about how to capture people’s attention.
“My grandkids all follow Mr. Beast carefully, and whatever he says, a few million people are likely to try to do it,” Califf said. “Now we can say, ‘That’s ridiculous,’ or we can say, ‘wait a minute, this is affecting what people do.’”
Precision medicine — but for psychiatry
The pharmaceutical industry’s approach to mental health treatments has been conservative, resulting in a market saturated with slight variations on existing antidepressants and antipsychotics with similarly modest returns. But that playbook is being thrown out, writes Khutaija Noor, a corresponding member of the scientific committee at the American Psychiatric Association.
Older drugs cast a wide net over brain chemistry, but the new drugs being developed today are like “precision tools,” targeting novel pathways such as muscarinic receptors in conditions like schizophrenia. And updated FDA guidelines have altered the cost, timeline, and strategic planning for drug development. Read more to learn about the changes that signal the end of safe bets in psychiatric medicine and how it could lead to “profound implications for investors, insurers, and the entire health care economy,” writes Noor, the clinical trial lead for studies at Amicis Clinical Trials.
What we’re reading
- Life in beige, The Cut
- US bishops officially ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals, AP
- Going against the gut: Q&A with Kevin Mitchell on the autism-microbiome theory, The Transmitter
- Republicans want to replace enhanced ACA tax credits with direct payments. Their think tank allies aren’t so sure, STAT
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