View this email in your browser<http://mailchi.mp/statnews/nthotlrz02?e=4aad33fd68> [STAT]<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=3adc656770&e=4aad33fd68> Thursday, June 1, 2017 [Morning Rounds by Megan Thielking] Sponsored by [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/f8609630ae206654824f897b6/images/a0a74d24-2d5a-42cf-8462-9f59503d6c9d.png] Welcome to June! And welcome to Morning Rounds, where I get you ahead of the day's top stories in health and medicine. I'll be away tomorrow, but look out for your Friday newsletter from my colleague, Casey Ross. Ohio attorney general's office sues opioid makers The Ohio attorney general's office is suing<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=452afcb723&e=4aad33fd68> five major drug manufacturers, accusing them of spurring on the opioid epidemic. It's the latest in a string of such lawsuits in West Virginia, California, Illinois, and a handful of other states. Ohio is suing Purdue, Janssen, Teva, and two other pharmaceutical companies. State officials allege that the drug manufacturers didn't accurately represent the risks of prescription painkillers and should be held responsible for the addiction epidemic. Janssen told the AP it had acted appropriately and responsibly, and that its actions were in the best interest of patients. Syrian hospital gets stability with the help of solar power A hospital in Syria has a new way to provide more reliable care to patients, thanks to a pilot project that put solar panels on its roof. Six years of conflict have devastated not only hospital buildings, but also much of the electrical grid in Syria. That has left hospitals reliant on diesel generators, but frequent diesel shortages and high prices make it difficult to keep a hospital’s power source stable. A health aid organization drummed up a plan to take advantage of the sun in Syria and installed solar panels that can fully power the ICU, operating rooms, and emergency ward when the diesel supply is low. They're now working on plans to put a solar energy system in five other vulnerable hospitals in the country. Lab Chat: A prosthetic that can sense without sight [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/f8609630ae206654824f897b6/images/46b6f6f1-2148-4e29-a363-b19fc0695f00.jpg] researchres are working on a hand with better "muscle sense." (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University) Engineers are working on a new generation of prosthetic limbs that might one day mimic how the body’s muscles sense their surroundings, even when we can’t see. Researchers at Rice are turning to tactile feedback to cue to the brain how big an object a prosthetic hand is holding while its wearer is blindfolded. Here’s what mechanical engineer Marcia O’Malley of Rice University told me about the work<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=c0a4444c1c&e=4aad33fd68>. What is “muscle sense?” [It’s] the sense of proprioception, in other words the notion of the relative position and orientation of our arms, hands, bodies that we sense without vision. For example, you can easily reach into your pocket to retrieve your phone, or scratch your nose in the dark without missing your target. Sensory receptors in our muscles and tendons translate this information to our brain. How did you build that sense into a prosthetic hand? The prosthetic hand that we use, the SoftPro, has embedded sensors that can provide us with knowledge of the degree to which the prosthesis is open or closed. We have mapped that information to [a] small device that is worn on the upper arm, above where the prosthesis is connected. That provides gentle stretching of the skin of the arm. The degree of stretch is proportional to the amount of closure of the hand. We found that when subjects were denied visual feedback during a task, they were able to interpret the skin stretch cue and understand the current state of the prosthetic hand quickly and reliably. Sponsor content by Cancer Research Institute Looking ahead to what’s next in the evolution of cancer immunotherapy With eyes across the industry turning to ASCO to follow the latest cancer data presentations, the burning question is, "what’s next?” The Cancer Research Institute<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=11d7c93c57&e=4aad33fd68> is focused on accelerating a cure for all cancers through immunotherapy research in an effort to answer that question. Tapping into a global network of immunotherapy experts, their Anna-Maria Kellen Clinical Accelerator<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=b8c0a219c2&e=4aad33fd68> program is conducting early-phase immunotherapy combination trials to identify the most promising combinations of existing and novel immunotherapies. Inside STAT<http://statnews.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=dad05d2027&e=4aad33fd68>: The kratom machine in a Tucson sub shop [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/f8609630ae206654824f897b6/images/feed3419-bfbd-4d1a-ab95-1b2ce1497a24.jpg]<http://statnews.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=d5fd3973f7&e=4aad33fd68> (Ilana Panich-Linsman for STAT) The door keeps swinging open all afternoon at East Coast Super Subs in Arizona. It’s the afternoon lull, after the lunch rush, and the new arrivals aren’t headed to the sandwich counter. They walk past the dusty shrine commemorating the Philadelphia Flyers’ Stanley Cup wins in ’74 and ’75 and toward a vending machine stocked with drugs. They’ve taken heroin, hydrocodone, and Oxycontin, but are hopeful that a drug called kratom can help them escape the cycle of addiction. The DEA nearly made kratom highly illegal last year, which would’ve put an end to the trade in this sandwich shop. STAT’s Eric Boodman has the story <http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=b3355fdc2a&e=4aad33fd68> from Tucson. The sports where you're most likely to get hit by a ball Here's a warning if you, like us here at STAT, are lacing up your sneakers for workplace softball season. A new study<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=8d95cd7681&e=4aad33fd68> finds softball is the most dangerous sport for ball-contact injuries. Researchers looked at injuries in the slightly higher-stakes world of college sports between 2009 and 2015. Injury rates from being hit by a ball were highest in women's softball, followed by women's field hockey and men's baseball. About one-third of those injuries were to the hand or wrist, with beelines to the face coming in as the second most common injury. The study's authors say that getting players to stick to the rules could help cut down on those injury rates. Scientists spy on how experimental flu treatments work NIH scientists have crafted a new method<http://statnews.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=ebfd7b8141&e=4aad33fd68> to monitor influenza infection in living mice in real time. The technique relies on a “reporter virus,” which lights up in the presence of the flu virus. With optical imaging, scientists could then see the prevalence of influenza in the mouse's tissues. Researchers used that ability to test the efficacy of different experimental flu vaccines and antibodies. They were also able to watch how factors unique to the mouse itself, like inflammation, could affect the imaging process. That’s a helpful tidbit for researchers who want to use the same technique to study other viral infections in an animal model. What to read around the web today § Dialysis firms get help from Congress to lift charity ban. Bloomberg<http://statnews.us11.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=49c7c66b05&e=4aad33fd68> § 'Like brain boot camp': Using music to ease hearing loss. NPR<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=6ede11cea6&e=4aad33fd68> More reads from STAT § A controversial trial to bring the dead back to life<http://statnews.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=83530d9977&e=4aad33fd68> plans a restart. § Mylan may have overcharged taxpayers by $1.27 billion<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=f0554382e8&e=4aad33fd68> for EpiPens, HHS says. The latest from STAT Plus § Spending on cancer drugs is forecast to rise<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=65e825be00&e=4aad33fd68> in the single digits. § Telling biopharma’s story in plain English<http://statnews.us11.list-manage2.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=ea2b781915&e=4aad33fd68> (even when that sparks a fight). Thanks for reading! [Megan] Subscribe to more STAT Newsletters<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=8d05b266fb&e=4aad33fd68> and check out our job board<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=244ffafe4b&e=4aad33fd68> [Facebook]<http://statnews.us11.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=bd7489c9a6&e=4aad33fd68> [Twitter]<http://statnews.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f8609630ae206654824f897b6&id=873ce15db4&e=4aad33fd68>