It's getting tougher to break into the market for new Covid vaccines

After the "freaking miracle" of rapid vaccine development, the world can now produce more Covid vaccine than it needs or can administer. For a number of existing manufacturers, purchases have plateaued. New players hoping to enter the market — like Novavax and a Sanofi-GSK partnership — with yet another vaccine that targets the original SARS-CoV-2 strain or that offers no advantages over existing products will be hard-pressed to find buyers, experts warn. Meanwhile, the virus is raising the bar. The earliest market entrants — Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Russia’s Sputnik V, and multiple Chinese vaccines — conducted their clinical trials when the only way to get vaccinated was to volunteer for a study. “Finding unicorns might be easier than locating people now who are both unvaccinated and willing to enter a Covid vaccine trial,” STAT’s Helen Branswell writes. Read more.

When AI takes a human touch: a team effort to improve patient care in hospitals

The project began with a vexing problem. Imaging tests that turned up unexpected issues — such as suspicious lung nodules — were being overlooked by busy caregivers, and patients who needed prompt follow-up weren’t getting it. After months of discussion, Northwestern University’s health system enlisted AI to identify these cases and quickly ping providers. What came next, however, was anything but a direct path. Developing accurate models was the least of the team’s problems. The real challenge was building trust in their conclusions and designing a system to ensure the tool’s warnings didn’t just lead providers to click past a pop-up, and instead translated to effective, real-world care. Their experience underscores that AI’s success in medicine hinges as much on human effort and understanding as it does on the statistical accuracy of the algorithm itself. STAT’s Casey Ross has more.

Transplant surgeons place vaccination requirement in context of a 'good steward'

Timothy Pruett and Lewis Teperman hoped they wouldn’t have to weigh in on Covid vaccination and transplant surgery, but the co-leads of the American Society of Transplant Surgeons’ Covid-19 Strike Force felt compelled to do so in the pandemic’s third year. The group has recommended vaccination against Covid for anyone anywhere near transplantation: candidates, recipients, live donors, and family members, as well as staff and physicians. Transplant centers must be good stewards of the transplanted gift of life, they write in a JAMA Surgery commentary. That has traditionally meant transplant patients must have up-to-date vaccinations or they are removed from the transplant waiting list. “This is what transplant programs do,” they write. “We have an obligation to lessen the rhetoric over vaccination, masks, and mandates and put the issues in the light of routine transplant practice.”

Closer look: How mistreatment creates mistrust in American medicine

(KEISHA OKAFOR FOR STAT)

In 2020, STAT’s Nicholas St. Fleur wrote about the huge backlash two HBCU presidents in New Orleans got after suggesting their communities enroll in a Covid-19 vaccine clinical trial. While surprising to some, this reaction is emblematic of medical mistrust in the Black community after a legacy of racism and inequity. STAT's newest podcast, "Color Code," hosted by Nick, aims to illuminate the history of racism in the health care system and its continuing impact on people of color and underserved communities. The first episode takes a look at mistrust and its effects today. Many people are familiar with the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment, a 40-year study in which Black men with syphilis were not offered widely available treatment for the disease. As the episode explains, that tragedy is just one example out of many, many more. Listen here.

Opinion: Is it time for drugmakers to cut off essential medicines to Russia?

As the war in Ukraine intensifies, pharmaceutical companies are cutting ties to Russia, winding down clinical trials, curtailing investments, and withholding medicines that are not lifesaving. But STAT’s Ed Silverman asks in his column if that's enough. Should drug companies continue sending medicines for diabetes, infections, and cancer to a country that is killing innocent civilians? Jovana Davidovic, a military ethicist advising companies about Russia, told Ed that because denying medicines results in death, that’s the same as the Russian government targeting civilians. Companies don’t have the moral authority to impose that violence, she argues, so they should follow the lead of the Western governments. “For now, I agree with her thinking and that shipping lifesaving medicines makes sense,” Ed writes. “As a kid, I was taught that to save a life is to save the whole world. I still believe that.”

How Covid vaccines held up during Omicron

We’re very much on the downslope of Omicron infections (see charts below), at least those from the BA.1 coronavirus subvariant while BA.2's uptick is causing concern — and vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna are seeking FDA approval for a fourth dose. The latest CDC data tracking how well vaccines protected people against hospitalization and death show that while hospitalizations were up for all adults, unvaccinated people were 12 times more likely than fully vaccinated people to be admitted to hospitals (and three times more unlikely than unboosted people). Differences by race persisted: Non-Hispanic Black adults had the highest hospitalization rates, nearly four times as high as white adults during the Omicron peak. A second CDC report says people who got their third mRNA vaccine dose reduced their risk of dying or of needing a ventilator to help them breathe by 94%.

What to read around the web today

5 tech strategies health systems are testing to combat clinician burnout. STAT+
How long should it take to grieve? Psychiatry has come up with an answer. New York Times
Oxford Covid jab gears up for final act: saving the rest of the world. The Guardian
Surrogate babies born in Ukraine wait out war in basement.
Associated Press
10 strangers come together for a life-changing kidney swap. NPR