Supreme Court has voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, leaked draft opinion says

The U.S. Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and obtained by Politico. In the private vote, which would overturn the 1973 decision protecting abortion rights as well as a 1992 decision keeping that right, Alito wrote “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” He was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett; Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan were working on dissents, Politico said. It was not clear how Chief Justice John Roberts planned to vote. The final decision is expected in the next couple of months, and could vary from the draft opinion. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Alito wrote, according to the leaked draft that would end constitutional protection of abortion rights as states are tightening controls against the procedure.

Is the coronavirus becoming more like the flu?

You’ve probably heard people compare Covid to the flu or call it an ordinary seasonal infection. But SARS-CoV-2 remains a long way from being ordinary. It’s still capable of inflicting mass death and disability, but there are signs that the virus is shifting in subtle ways that make it more like seasonal flu than it was at the start of the pandemic. STAT’s Megan Molteni tracks one of the most intriguing shifts: how Covid now spreads from person to person. Early on, most new infections were caused by just 10% to 20% of cases, often in indoor superspreading events. Other data suggest that some people are “super-emitters,” releasing thousands of times more aerosols than the average individual. Scientists call this phenomenon of uneven transmission “overdispersion” and say understanding it is critical for developing effective infection prevention strategies. That's key as Omicron's easy spread in households suggests superspreading events may become less important as primary drivers of contagion chains. Read more.

State affirmative action bans appear to limit physician diversity

Increasing the diversity of the physician workforce has been a high priority for those hoping to make health care more equitable, but progress has been slow. New research shows the number of medical students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups may be further eroded by state affirmative action bans. In a study of 21 public medical schools from 1985 to 2019 published yesterday in Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers found state bans on the use of affirmative action were associated with 4.8% fewer students who were Black, Hispanic, Native American/Alaskan Native, or Hawaiian or Pacific Islander five years after the ban. States without affirmative action bans saw an increase of 0.7% of students from these groups. The study confirms a similar finding from a smaller 2015 paper. These bans, the authors say, may be one reason physician diversity — despite numerous national efforts — continues to lag.

Closer look: How the brain ‘learns’ to have seizures more efficiently and frequently over time

Myelinated axons from the brains of mice with seizures. (COURTESY JULIET KNOWLES AND MICHELLE MONJE)

Calculus. Ballroom dancing. The words to your favorite song. There’s practically no limit to what your brain can learn. But a new study suggests that same process could also make certain neurological diseases worse. Scientists found that mice and rats that suffered from seizures commonly seen in people with epilepsy developed changes in the wiring of their brains that advanced the disease. A closer look showed that the cementing of these signals was driven by a process that also supports learning, memory, and attention. The study, published yesterday in Nature Neuroscience, is the first to report that a key feature of the brain’s ability to change and adapt, known as activity-dependent myelination, can contribute to disease. Blocking this process reduced the number of seizures in the animals they studied, so they’re following up in people. STAT’s Jonathan Wosen has more.

Opinion: The road to burnout starts with medical school applications

Around 60,000 medical school applicants will finish a nearly year-long admissions process this month, close to the second anniversary of physician Lorna Breen’s suicide. Breen’s death inspired a new law to fund better mental health treatment and promote resiliency of health care providers, but that won’t prevent physician burnout, Anne Thorndike, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, notes in a STAT First Opinion. (Her words bring to mind an essay by Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu, a psychiatrist and a columnist for STAT: “‘Why would I want that?’: My sister’s simple question reshaped my physician job search.”) “Before the first day of medical school, aspiring doctors have already been exposed to prolonged toxic stress from an admissions process,” Thorndike writes. “Reducing the extreme stress experienced by nascent physicians should be as much of a priority as preventing disease spread.”

Telemedicine didn’t lag as much as feared for disadvantaged groups

Expanding telemedicine works, a new study in Health Affairs asserts. Researchers who analyzed more than 30 million Medicare claims found that when a pandemic-inspired waiver of restrictions on telemedicine went into effect, telemedicine visits increased 20-fold, improving more for people of color compared to white patients and more for people living in the least advantaged neighborhoods. In March 2020, Medicare allowed all providers, not just those in rural areas, to bill for telemedicine visits and to reduce or drop Medicare coinsurance charges or deductibles. Other research has shown that the pandemic widened health inequities, but this study, using a composite measure of income, education, employment, and housing quality, came to the opposite conclusion. “Our data suggest that the increase in telemedicine coverage has not worsened racial disparities in the Medicare population in the way some investigators feared,” they write.

What to read around the web today

He spurred a revolution in psychiatry. Then he ‘disappeared.’ New York Times
UnitedHealthcare restricts coverage of Aduhelm, following Medicare. STAT+
Cerebral’s preferred pharmacy Truepill halts Adderall prescriptions for all customers. Wall Street Journal
Amazon to reimburse U.S. employees who travel for abortions, other treatments. Reuters
Early cancer-detection market heats up as Guardant Health launches colon cancer test. STAT+