| | | |   By Elizabeth Cooney | Good morning. Psychedelics for mental health. Gene-edited pig organs for transplant. Radiation for low-risk thyroid cancer. Reminds me science and medicine don't necessarily move forward in a straight line. | | | Oregon wrestles with how to offer psychedelic therapy outside the health care system  Rebecca Martinez, executive director of the Alma Institute, at the fabric store she will convert into a psychedelic service center. (AYŞE GÜRSÖZ FOR STAT) As of Jan. 1, Oregon will be the first state with widely legalized psychedelics. Technically, the state didn’t approve psychedelic therapy, though the program was widely promoted as a way to treat depression and trauma. The legalization movement is progressing in parallel with a gold rush to develop these same drugs as medicine. "People will want mental health treatment but it’s not medical," psychologist Kimberley Golletz told STAT's Olivia Goldhill. Pharmaceutical companies and several nonprofits are studying psychedelics — including psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms — as a way to treat psychiatric conditions, with the goal of getting these treatments approved and overseen by the FDA. Businesses view Oregon as an opportunity to gain a foothold in the industry, turning the state into a test case, both for legalized psychedelics more broadly and the medical development of these drugs. Read more in Olivia's special report from Portland. | First person to get a pig heart transplant has died Two months after a groundbreaking experiment, the first person to receive a heart transplant from a pig has died, the hospital that performed the surgery with a gene-edited organ said yesterday. David Bennett, 57, died Tuesday at the University of Maryland Medical Center, the Associated Press reports. Doctors didn’t give an exact cause of death, saying only that his condition had begun deteriorating several days earlier. Bennett was a candidate because he faced certain death — ineligible for a human heart transplant, on life support, and out of other options. Previous attempts have failed when patients’ bodies rapidly rejected the animal organ. This time, the Maryland surgeons removed pig genes that trigger hyper-fast rejection and added human genes to help the body accept the organ. Bennett survived longer than Baby Fae, a dying infant who lived 21 days with a baboon’s heart in 1984. | Overturning dogma, study suggests radiation offers no additional benefit in low-risk thyroid cancer For decades, radiation has been a cornerstone of thyroid cancer care. But it may soon be phased out entirely for many thyroid tumors as emerging research casts doubt on whether it benefits patients. A study published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that surgery alone might be sufficient to cure the lowest-risk thyroid cancers, and that follow-up treatment with radioactive iodine offers no additional benefit for these patients. The study is the first hard evidence that postoperative radioactive iodine is very likely useless for these low-risk thyroid cancers, endocrinologist David Cooper of Johns Hopkins told STAT’s Angus Chen. He wrote a companion editorial about the research. “It’s almost a given that once patients have their thyroid taken out, they get radioactive iodine. Recently, people have been wondering whether it really does what it’s supposed to.” Read more. | How is Novavax addressing Covid-19? With 10+ years of vaccine technology built for today We are focused on developing investigational vaccines for diseases like Covid-19, SARS, and the seasonal flu — so your patients can focus on what matters most. Learn more. | Closer look: Patients say providers block access to their records. They want the government to act  (adobe) Patients, lawyers, developers, and others across the country have lodged more than 250 federal complaints against health care providers, alleging they have made it harder for patients to access their own electronic medical data. Now, pressure is mounting on the federal agencies investigating the claims to handle them faster — and to disclose more about what they find about “information blocking,” or interference with the exchange and sharing of patient data. But the agencies tasked with levying penalties against entities that violate the ban have yet to announce how they’ll do that or when enforcement will begin. A report released this month falls short, former deputy national coordinator of health IT Jacob Reider told STAT’s Mohana Ravindranath. “This is like the police department describing the quality, sources, and suspects of 911 calls. It’s interesting but doesn’t really tell us much.” Read more. | Congress’ plan for additional Covid-19 funding implodes Lawmakers’ plan to put $15 billion toward more therapeutics, vaccines, and tests to replenish the government’s empty Covid-19 coffers imploded spectacularly yesterday. Because of disputes over how to pay for the new spending, Congress may not pass any additional pandemic relief at all anytime soon, my colleague Rachel Cohrs reports. Democrats had hoped to put more Covid-19 relief funding in a sprawling government funding package moving fast, but that plan appears to be in big trouble. Democrats punted a vote in the House, but the bill they plan to consider doesn’t include policies Republicans have demanded to secure passage in the Senate. If Congress doesn’t pass any more funds for pandemic response efforts, it’s going to hamstring the White House’s ability to plan ahead for future Covid-19 surges, and to fulfill commitments it has already made to order more antiviral drugs. | Covid-19 effects spill over to non-Covid hospital patients in higher death rates Hospital admissions of Medicare patients for reasons other than Covid-19 plummeted in the pandemic’s first months — as hospitals were overwhelmed and patients delayed care — and stayed low through September 2021. But deaths after hospitalization were higher compared to 2019, especially in certain populations and hospitals. A JAMA Network Open analysis of more than 8 million Medicare claims notes that while mortality rates for Covid eventually improved, compared with 2019, the odds of death for non-Covid diagnoses were 17% to 28% higher in the final nine months of 2020; fell to 6% higher from April to June 2021; and were up 17% from July to September 2021. Death rates were higher if patients were Black or Hispanic or had low income, and at lower-quality hospitals or hospitals with a high census of Covid patients. A linked editorial puts it this way: "The Covid-19 pandemic strikes again and again and again." | | | | | What to read around the web today - The coronavirus’s next move. The Atlantic
- New York City will stop collecting Social Security money from children in foster care. NPR
- Dozens of towns and counties object to 'hush money' tied to Purdue opioid settlement. STAT+
- ‘They make sure you don’t die’: Inside NYC’s drug use sites. Associated Press
- Opinion: Gaslighting of Black medical trainees makes residency something to 'survive.' STAT
| Thanks for reading! More tomorrow,  | | | | Have a news tip or comment? Email Me | | | | | |
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