Good morning. We've got vaccine hesitancy vs. therapeutics enthusiasm, biotech stock apocalypse, and a connection between chemo brain and Covid fog. Then there are squirrels and astronauts. Happy Friday.

Vaccine hesitant but all-in on unproven treatments

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has refused to say whether he’s received a booster shot. He’s suggested, misleadingly, that Covid-19 vaccines cause infertility. He hired a surgeon general who has questioned the data surrounding vaccines and called those who refuse to be immunized “brave.” But when it comes to experimental Covid therapeutics, DeSantis and his government are all-in — even when outside researchers, the FDA, and the medicines’ own manufacturers say they don’t work. The Florida controversy underscores a bizarre phenomenon: While vaccine hesitancy has hindered the U.S. pandemic response, Americans are tripping over themselves to take therapeutics that are experimental, expensive, and ineffective — precisely the characteristics that anti-vaccine advocates falsely ascribe to Covid immunizations, which are proven, free, and effective. University of Washington pulmonologist Vin Gupta ascribed this to a fundamental flaw in Americans’ view of health care: that most people see doctors’ role as treating illnesses, not preventing them. STAT’s Lev Facher has more.

'Nowhere to hide': Plummeting biotech stocks reshape the industry

(mike reddy for stat)

Biotech investors, once the envy of Wall Street, have slipped into despondency. After a double-digit decline in 2021, the sector has fallen another 20% in the new year, erasing billions in value and leading even the most seasoned investors to question whether biotech has further to fall. “I’m 51 and I had retirement in my head. I just went through a life-changing two years and got very wealthy,” said the principal of a mid-sized biotech fund, speaking on condition of anonymity to be candid. Now, “my screens have been red in biotech for nine months. … There’s nowhere to hide.” For years, biotech handily outperformed the broader market. That success has made the ensuing downturn that much more painful. STAT’s Adam Feuerstein, Damian Garde, and Matthew Herper plumb those depths and ask if this is the new normal. Read more.

Agreed: We're tired and frustrated

Two years into the pandemic, three-quarters of Americans are both tired and frustrated, a new KFF Vaccine Monitor poll reports today, with no partisan split in sight for these emotions. More than three-quarters of people also say they think Covid-19 infection is inevitable for most people, again with relative unanimity across party lines. Party-line differences in opinion show up when people are asked what the most pressing problem facing the nation is. Republicans (44% vs. 13%) say inflation while Democrats (51% vs. 19%) say it’s the pandemic. On vaccination rates:

42% of adults (70% of those likely eligible) have gotten a booster.
77% got at least one dose (up from 73% in November).
23% of adults tested positive at some point, including 8% in the past month; 1% of all adults used only an at-home test, so their results are unlikely to show up in official counts.

Inside STAT: ‘Chemo brain’ could hold clue to long Covid’s brain fog

Advances in fundamental neurobiology mean "we’re not starting from ground zero," Michelle Monje, a neuro-oncologist at Stanford, said. (stanford)

Back in the pandemic’s first wave, Michelle Monje was worried about Covid-19’s power to muddle the brain. Seeing the massive inflammatory response to the virus and early signs of long Covid’s brain fog, she told me, reminded her of “chemo brain,” that mind-numbing side effect cancer patients endure when therapy to burn tumors away also inflames the brain. Monje, a neuro-oncologist at Stanford who has studied the neurobiological underpinnings of cognitive impairment after cancer therapy for 20 years, and her team discovered that chemo and Covid spark neuro-inflammation in much the same way. Their study, based on mouse experiments and autopsy findings, was recently published as a preprint, so it hasn’t been peer-reviewed yet. But the comparison offers new insights into long Covid and raises hopes that a treatment could put out the fire in the same hot spots in the brain. Here’s my story.

Opinion: Maybe the doctor shouldn't see you now

The electric engine, invented in 1834, was touted as the productivity booster that would revolutionize manufacturing. Yet it took three decades before it had a real impact. In health care, the equivalent of replacing the steam engine with the electric motor is removing the stranglehold of the doctor-patient visit, Jennifer Goldsack of the Digital Medicine Society and Soujanya (Chinni) Pulluru of Walmart Health and Wellness write in a STAT First Opinion. “The health care system must make the most of the new technologies that allow clinicians to communicate with their patients on patients’ terms, meeting them where they are,” not necessarily in the doctor’s exam room. “That means making the most of new data sources that can be captured passively using sensors that measure motion or breathing rate or blood sugar and leveraging the power of modern computing to analyze and gain insights into patients’ unique experiences.”

Maybe astronauts could learn from squirrels

How do hibernating squirrels keep up their muscle mass? And what could that possibly mean for astronauts in low gravity? Researchers reported in Science yesterday that they confirmed a 1980s hypothesis that squirrels survive their winter fasts with the help of gut microbes that recycle nitrogen from urea, a waste compound usually excreted as urine but used to build new tissue proteins during hibernation. If astronauts could salvage nitrogen in this way — perhaps with the help of special probiotics — they might be able to keep their muscles stronger than through exercising, study author Matthew Regan suggested in a press release (astronauts are not in the study itself): “If there is an overlap between the proteins in spaceflight and the ones from hibernation, then it suggests this process may have benefits to muscle health during spaceflight."

On this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," First Opinion editor Patrick Skerrett talks with nurse and researcher Jane Muir of the University of Virginia about how burnout at the bedside is causing a crisis in nursing. Listen here.

What to read around the web today

Delta's not dead yet. The Atlantic
There's no free lunch with drugs': Janet Woodcock talks Covid monoclonal antibodies and pediatric vaccines. STAT
Two powerful drugs now adding to US overdose crisis. Associated Press
Out with FaceTime, in with one-stop-shops: Hospitals scrap telehealth stopgaps for more streamlined platforms. STAT+
Covid-stunted educations dim prospects for India’s economy and its youth. New York Times