| | | |   By Elizabeth Cooney | Good morning. Two diseases in the news other than Covid-19 are now worrying health experts: hepatitis and Ebola. | | | What science journalism can’t tell us about Covid-19 deaths 
(Maria Fabrizio for STAT)
As we approach a million officially counted Covid deaths in the U.S. alone, STAT’s Eric Boodman recalls the journalistic method he was taught to explain the unfathomable: Liken something unimaginable to something else. So the arithmetic of Covid casualties might go this way: Picture 17 Dodgers Stadiums, packed full of fans, each one mysteriously, wondrously alive. Now picture them all gone. Picture some 5,500 commercial airplanes crashing in a little more than two years. “That doesn’t do it for me,” he writes. “Instead, faced with that vast statistic, my mind conjures up the lost in the shape of people I know.” Eric has tried to do that for a few families grieving people lost to Covid, but there are limits. “Every interview, every sentence is an attempt, an act of striving. And then there are the things that remain private, wordless, untranslatable.” Read his reflection here. | 12 countries have reported unusual cases of hepatitis in children, WHO says Twelve countries have reported at least 169 unusual cases of hepatitis in children, with 17 of the children receiving liver transplants as a consequence and at least one child dying during the mysterious outbreak. “Although the numbers aren’t big, the consequences have been quite severe,” Richard Pebody, who heads a WHO team investigating the cases, told STAT’s Helen Branswell. The affected children range in age from 1 month to 16 years, though most are under 10 and many are under 5. Pebody would not say which country had reported a death. The U.S. has seen 11 cases — nine in Alabama and two in North Carolina. Severe hepatitis in previously healthy children isn’t common. Suspicion has centered on an unexpected suspect — adenovirus type 41. But several issues complicate the picture. “These are very early days” in the investigation, Pebody cautioned. Read more. | What’s in the binder full of Covid funding details?  White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki holds up the binder with documents about coronavirus response funding. (CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES) White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki waved a thick, 385-page binder as evidence that, contrary to Republicans’ accusations, President Biden had been transparent with Republicans about how his administration had spent billions of dollars to fight Covid-19. “You can have access to this for a prop if you would like it as well,” Psaki offered to reporters. “We’ll make copies for you.” But when STAT’s Rachel Cohrs took the White House up on the offer, officials refused to make copies. It wouldn’t let STAT take photographs of the contents. Instead, the administration gave Rachel one hour to look through its pages, under the supervision of a budget office employee. While the White House included documents in the binder that could be embarrassing for Republicans, documents that could have better illuminated the White House’s spending strategy were left out. Read her exclusive story. | The latest in cancer care: three scientific advances to watch For most of human history, our options for treating cancer were limited. Things changed with the emergence of new categories of medicines, particularly targeted therapies and immunotherapies, which now serve as pillars of cancer care. Cancer, however, is far from solved, and there remains an urgent need not just for new treatments, but for new pillars. That’s why we’re pursuing technologies we think have this potential. Here are three we’re especially excited about. | Closer look: There’s a new generation of ADHD drugs, but few answers on how they compare Parents and doctors now have more tools than ever before to help kids manage symptoms of ADHD. But experts say there’s a looming question about the next generation of treatments: Are these new drugs and devices any better than what’s come before? At least four new ADHD treatments — two drugs, a nerve stimulation device, and a prescription video game — have come to market in recent years. The condition, marked by an inability to focus, impulsivity, and hyperactivity, has historically been treated with stimulants. But experts say it’s difficult to grasp how different options stack up to one another because there are rarely any studies that compare ADHD treatments head to head. “There is very little data, most of which involves non-blinded clinicians,” pediatrician Lauren Kacir told STAT contributor Troy Farah. “There is no evidence for long-term success.” Read more. | New Ebola outbreak hits the Democratic Republic of the Congo Over the weekend health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared an outbreak of Ebola after a case was confirmed in Mbandaka, a city in the northwestern province of Equateur. The 31-year-old man died on April 21, just over two weeks after developing symptoms of the often fatal illness. He had a safe burial, his contacts have been traced, and the hospital that treated him has been decontaminated. But “time is not on our side,” Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, said. “The disease has had a two-week head start and we are now playing catchup.” This is the 14th outbreak of Ebola in Congo since its emergence in 1976, the sixth since 2018. Vaccination is set to begin in the coming days, the WHO said. STAT's Helen Branswell gives some background in a Twitter thread here. | Smoke alarms found in most homes don’t work as well for kids as adults, study suggests Should a fire break out at home during the night, you hope adults would rescue children, who are more difficult to rouse than adults. You also hope smoke alarms would wake those children up. But a new study in Pediatrics concludes not all smoke alarms perform as well for children as adults. Most home smoke alarms send piercing signals at high frequencies. But when the researchers analyzed other types of alarms in sleep lab experiments with children 5 to 12 years old, they found that even among 12-year-olds (who did better than the younger ones), only 56% escaped within a minute after a high-frequency alarm sounded. But a hybrid alarm combining a human voice with a low-frequency tone was more than 96% effective among kids 9 and up. “What works for adults or even teenagers,” the authors write, “may not work for younger children.” | | | | | What to read around the web today | Thanks for reading! More tomorroe,  | | | | Have a news tip or comment? Email Me | | | | | |
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