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Monday, May 1, 2017
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Good morning, and welcome to May. STAT reporter Andrew Joseph here, filling in for Megan for the week. Got an idea? Find me at [log in to unmask] or on Twitter:
@DrewQJoseph
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Congress reaches broad spending deal
Congress on Sunday reached a bipartisan
spending deal to fund the government through September. Among the health-related spending items: a $2 billion boost to the National Institutes of Health (despite President Trump's proposal to
cut the agency's budget) and an extension of health benefits
for coal miners.
Congress had faced a Friday deadline for the spending measure, so the deal clears this week for a possible House vote on the GOP's replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act — if they can get the votes, that is. House Republicans are still trying to wrangle
enough support, and on Sunday, Trump was talking up the replacement plan. In
an interview on “Face the Nation” and on Twitter, he said the replacement measure would retain coverage for pre-existing conditions. The problem: the latest GOP plan would leave room for insurers to charge considerably
more to people with pre-existing conditions.
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New warning labels for anesthesia drugs
The FDA has approved new labels for anesthesia medicines that warn that repeated or lengthy exposure could be dangerous for children under 3. When regulators
proposed the labels last year, the warning also extended to pregnant women in their third trimester, but that language has been dropped. Some experts had raised concerns that the labels would dissuade pregnant women from
undergoing necessary medical procedures, and FDA officials said the revisions came from ongoing discussions with experts. The labels will, however, mention that lengthy exposure to anesthesia has caused fetal brain cell loss in experiments in pregnant animals.
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NAS president to speak this morning
This morning, Marcia McNutt will giver her first annual address to the National Academy of Sciences as the organization’s president. One thing to look for: whether she’ll address conflicts of interest.
The broader National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has faced criticisms in recent years that the authors of reports on genetically modified organisms and opioids did not
disclose corporate ties. In response, the organization
earlier this month announced it would be revamping its conflict-of-interest
policies, including noting reviewers' names in its reports and requiring staff to disclose any potential conflicts of interest. McNutt’s talk starts at 8:30 a.m. EST and can be watched
here. For more on McNutt, read
this.
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Inside STAT: The adults who still see their pediatricians
(Haejin Park for STAT)
A key milestone in growing up is when people stop seeing their pediatrician. But what if you never did? For some adults, sticking with the doctors who have treated them since birth provides a stability
and comfort, which is especially desirable if they have lifelong conditions. Jeff Vetor, 46, who has a congenital heart defect, has been a patient at Children’s Hospital of Michigan for most of his life — and for a time, he and his son even had the same pediatrician.
“I’m the biggest kid there,” he said with a laugh. STAT’s Leah Samuel has
the story.
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Who would donate a kidney to a stranger?
New research aims to understand
why some people are selfless enough to put themselves at risk by donating a kidney to a complete stranger. Participants in the study — 21 such donors and 39 control volunteers — were told they had a limited set of resources to allot to other people, ranging
from close relatives to strangers. The donors didn't say they felt any socially closer to strangers, but nonetheless they distributed more resources to distant connections than non-donors did. That suggests that these donors are “extraordinary altruists,”
the researchers say — they feel the same motives to give to strangers as they do to those close to them.
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A new solution for kidney shortages
Speaking of kidneys, new evidence supports the idea that organs from people with hepatitis C can help ease the shortage of kidneys available for transplant. Thanks to new medications that have high hepatitis
C cure rates and few side effects, doctors have started to transplant infected organs into uninfected people and then treat them for the virus. In a recent pilot program
described in the New England Journal of Medicine, 10 patients who received infected kidneys showed signs of the virus within a few days, but all were cured after being given a hepatitis C medication. As it stands, more
than 500 infected kidneys are thrown away every year. For more background on the trials, read
this.
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New clues to how our DNA is repaired
When cells produce energy, they also generate some toxic byproducts,
called free radicals,
that attack DNA. Thankfully, our cells have some built-in repair mechanisms
that cut out and replace mutations created by free radicals. But much of the focus so far has been on repair mechanisms within the nucleus;
less has been known about how the small amount of DNA that humans have in their mitochondria is repaired. Now, researchers have
identified the enzymes responsible for repairing mitochondrial DNA. One of them, called TDP1, appears to protect and mend DNA in both the nucleus and mitochondria.
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Thanks for reading! More tomorrow,
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