Good morning. Tonight "Augmented," STAT's documentary exploring how to engineer better prosthetic limbs, premieres on PBS NOVA at 9 p.m. ET. Here's a preview and here's an invitation to join a virtual discussion at 1 p.m. ET Friday.

Special report: 20 years after report exposed racism in medicine, why has little changed?

Brian Smedley, lead editor of "Unequal Treatment," said, “We are still largely seeing what some would call medical apartheid.” (ANDRÉ CHUNG FOR STAT)

In 2002, “Unequal Treatment” was the first major report to point to longstanding systemic racism — not poverty, lack of access to health care, or other social factors — as a major reason for the nation’s deeply entrenched health disparities. The blue-ribbon panel of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine hoped its work would kickstart a national discussion and lead to much-needed change. That this hoped-for change has not come is a grim truth made startlingly clear by both the pandemic and by statistics that show Black Americans continue to die up to five years earlier than those who are white. STAT's Usha Lee McFarling spoke with the people who created the landmark report about why the disparities they highlighted have remained so intractable — and whether renewed attention because of the pandemic will also fade away. Read part 1 of 2 in Usha's special report here.

We must sequence Covid-infected animals, too

SARS-CoV-2 has shown itself to be a promiscuous virus, able to infect a startling array of animals. Those cross-species jumps can lead to important changes in the virus that could pose a threat to people if they spill back, so monitoring how the virus evolves when it transmits among big cats or farmed mink or white-tailed deer is crucial, WHO officials told journalists earlier this week. Soumya Swaminathan, the agency’s chief scientist, noted that while there are now some 8 million viral sequences from human infections available, there are only roughly 1,500 from animals. “It is difficult, because there have been a number of different species, including mice, that have been implicated,” she said. “But if we want to understand the evolution … we need to do more sequencing and put it on the same platform that we use for the human sequences.”

1 out of 1 million vaccinated adolescents developed rare Covid syndrome, study says

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children is a rare but serious complication of Covid-19, causing fever and inflammation affecting organs throughout the body after what may be an overactive immune response to the coronavirus. The CDC has recorded 6,851 cases since tracking began in May 2020. The syndrome is even rarer in children over age 12 who’ve been vaccinated against Covid, a new study in Lancet Child & Adolescent Health reports, documenting 21 cases in more than 21 million adolescents who received at least one dose of Pfizer’s vaccine in the first nine months it was available. Fifteen of those adolescents were diagnosed with Covid despite being vaccinated. The researchers cannot say why the other six developed the inflammatory syndrome, but they also cannot rule out an incorrect Covid test or another cause for the inflammation.

Closer look: This preacher's latest calling connects neuroscience and social justice

Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr. preaching at Union Baptist Church in Baltimore. (david mcdaniels)

After stepping down as pastor of Union Baptist Church in Baltimore in 2021, Rev. Alvin C. Hathaway Sr. has served his community in a different way: ensuring that the benefits of neuroscience reach more people of color by ensuring they are leading research as well as participating in clinical trials and research. In a STAT First Opinion, he maps his winding path to this work, spurred by childhood experiences as well as his encounter with a young woman who turned to him when she wanted to be a cancer researcher. “Over the years, as I’ve interacted with African American scientists in my church and across Maryland and beyond, I’ve come to realize that if medical science is to benefit everyone, it is essential to engage a more diverse group of people to participate in and lead research,” Hathaway writes. Read more.

Global trial will test fractional dosing of Covid-19 vaccines

While much of the world waits for its first Covid-19 vaccine doses, an international coalition is testing the use of smaller booster doses to spread scarce supply in low-income countries. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute have launched a clinical trial that will administer fractional boosters to 3,300 healthy adults across Australia, Indonesia, and Mongolia. Reduced boosters could prolong protection for vaccinated people while easing the strain on supplies of first doses, the thinking goes, as STAT’s Helen Branswell explored last summer. The trial may also answer questions about side effects and mix-and-match approaches to multiple doses. “To prevent the further spread of this unforgiving virus and its troublesome variants, we need to achieve vaccine equity, fast,” CEPI’s Jane Halton said.

Young adults face highest racial disparities in kidney failure treatment, study find

Mounting evidence has shown wide racial and ethnic disparities in kidney disease and treatment. We know that Black and Hispanic people develop kidney failure at younger ages than white people, at rates nearly three times higher for Black individuals than for white individuals and 32% higher for Hispanic individuals than for non-Hispanic individuals. A new study in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases looks deeper into these gaps, finding an age differential, too. Patients who were 22 to 44 years old faced the biggest disparities in care, according to the analysis of 830,402 adult patient records from 2011 through 2018. While 10.9% of white patients with kidney failure received kidney transplants, only 1.8% of Black and 4.4% of Hispanic patients did. The authors say lack of insurance and access to health care are likely behind the disparity.

Tweet of the day

On this week's episode of the "First Opinion Podcast," First Opinion editor Patrick Skerrett talks with science journalist Faye Flam, unpacking the three-hour exchange about Covid-19 between scientist-turned-misinformant Robert Malone and Spotify podcaster Joe Rogan. Listen here.

What to read around the web today

FDA asks Congress for more power to regulate certain diagnostic tests, including prenatal screenings. STAT+
Ambulance rides are getting a lot more expensive. Axios
A global health legend perpetually in need of socks. The Atlantic
The ‘nation’s psychiatrist’ takes stock, with frustration. New York Times
Patient advocates sue South African government over access to Covid-19 vaccine contracts. STAT+