Good morning. First up, how abortion providers are turning to health tech.

How abortion providers are preparing for a post-Roe flood of patients

Abortion providers in states where the procedure remains legal are expecting a surge of patients from the 26 states where it’s banned or soon will be — and they’re turning to technology for help. That doesn’t mean replacing in-person visits, but turning to tools like virtual assistants, online scheduling, increased virtual visits, and asynchronous messaging to streamline access to abortion care.

“We’re working to try to figure out the best way to accommodate people,” Melissa Grant, of Carafem, which operates reproductive health care clinics in Georgia, Illinois, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., told STAT’s Mohana Ravindranath. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, Carafem’s daily call volume doubled to 500 requests from patients each day. Read more about how Carafem and other providers are responding to a post-Roe world.

FDA not cracking down on synthetic nicotine products — yet

The FDA has a congressional mandate to go after synthetic nicotine products now sold through a loophole in tobacco regulations. It has earned the outrage of advocates for not yet acting on that mandate. But will the agency crack down on vape companies skirting the agency’s rules by Wednesday’s deadline?

Some background: The law passed in March says synthetic tobacco companies must submit premarket applications by May 14 and any product not authorized by the FDA as of July 13 would be considered illegal. At issue are vaping products often sold in fruity flavors like “watermelon berry,” “banana ice,” and “rainbow cloud” popular with young people. But an FDA spokesperson told STAT’s Nicholas Florko on Friday that the agency has not taken action to date against any company selling synthetic nicotine that hasn’t submitted an application. Nick has more here.

Covid vaccine boosters helped some blood cancer patients, study says

People who have cancer or other immune-compromising conditions haven’t reaped the same benefits from Covid vaccination as healthier people. A small new study in Cancer offers a measure of hope about boosters in some cancer patients who didn’t respond to their initial Covid vaccination. Among 378 people with blood cancers — including leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma — fewer than than half developed detectable antibodies after their initial Covid vaccination, but more than half of those “nonresponders” did produce antibodies after getting a booster dose.

Two other findings:

The only deaths from Covid were among patients who had undetectable antibodies.
No patient who received prophylactic treatment with the monoclonal antibody combination Evusheld developed a Covid-19 infection.

Closer look: What investors are saying about health tech funding

Amid the stock market’s current swoon, some people won’t even look at their 401(k) statements. But what about hot sectors like health tech, which set investment records last year? A new Rock Health report covering the first half of the year confirms a slowdown in money raised ($10.3 billion compared to $15 billion in the first six months last year), a drop in mergers and acquisitions, and a dearth of companies going public.

Investors told STAT’s Mario Aguilar that some of the pullback reflects uncertainty as a result of broader market conditions rather than cooling confidence in the promise of technology to transform health care and reap profits in the process. There’s no bubble bursting — at least not yet. “Things are down but they’re down relative to 2021, which was what feels like somewhat of an anomaly year,” said Rock Heath CEO Megan Zweig.

What pain relief sounds like to mice

Have you ever wondered why there’s music in the dentist’s office? Some 50 years ago people noticed that music seemed to dull pain during dental operations. Scientists now know music and other sounds can ease pain after medical procedures, but how it works has been murky. A new paper in Science zeroes in on certain brain pathways — audio-somatosensory corticothalamic circuits in mice — through which sound can relieve pain. In their experiments, the scientists found that sounds with a low signal-to-noise ratio — think high intensity — worked the best to reduce pain mice felt from their inflamed paws.

Stress didn’t make a difference, nor did musical harmony, the scientists report. They duly note “the neural mechanisms underlying music-induced analgesia in humans are doubtlessly more complicated than those revealed in mice.” Still, they hope their findings might lead to alternative ways to treat pain.

Speaking the same language improves care for frail older adults in the hospital, study finds

Last month we told you about a study from Boston Children’s Hospital showing language barriers kept parents from asking questions about their hospitalized children’s care. A new analysis in the Canadian Medical Association Journal assesses how language affects care at the other end of the age spectrum. The researchers, who studied nearly 190,000 frail older patients admitted to Ontario hospitals over eight years, found that patients whose doctors spoke their primary language had shorter hospital stays, fewer falls and infections, and were less likely to die than those whose doctors didn’t speak their primary language.

Which non-English language mattered: French speakers treated by a French-speaking physician had 24% lower odds of death but speakers of other languages had 54% lower odds of death if treated by someone who spoke their language, perhaps because more French speakers also spoke English.

What to read around the web today

As the BA.5 variant spreads, the risk of coronavirus reinfection grows, Washington Post
How the end of Roe could hamstring medical research and the hunt for new treatments, Grid
‘You shouldn’t have used the D-word’, The Marshall Project
Biden signs order on abortion access after Supreme Court ruling, Associated Press
Opinion: Dobbs decision will rob many medical students of essential abortion training, STAT