You might want to hold off on that flu shot

If you’re planning to double up your new Covid booster with your annual flu shot in one visit this month, you might want to reconsider. Even though White House Covid coordinator Ashish Jha believes “this is why God gave us two arms — one for the flu shot and the other one for the Covid shot,” it’s still early to get a flu shot, STAT’s Helen Branswell warns. That’s because protection generated by flu vaccines erodes pretty quickly over the course of a flu season.

A flu vaccine dose given in early September may offer limited protection if the flu season doesn’t peak until February or even March, as it did during the unusually late 2021-2022 season. “You’ve got about four months of pretty solid protection,” Emily Martin, an epidemiologist who specializes in flu at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told Helen. Read what other experts had to say.

FDA under fire for missed vaping deadlines

A year past a court-ordered deadline for the FDA to decide which e-cigarette products can be sold in the U.S., a top Washington lawmaker has some particularly harsh words for FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, my colleague Nicholas Florko reports. “The FDA continues to fail our children with its missed deadlines, failure to enforce orders, and general lack of urgency,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) wrote in a letter to Califf and his boss, health secretary Xavier Becerra, which was shared first with STAT. The letter extensively cites STAT’s recent investigation revealing that e-cigarette companies are openly ignoring the FDA’s orders.

“It is bad enough that FDA is now one year delinquent in finalizing review of e-cigarette applications, but it appears as though — even when FDA has actually completed review of a product and denied an application — many vaping companies regularly flout the agency’s orders. And FDA does nothing to stop them,” Durbin continued.

Revising a Trump rule will ease access to health services for immigrants

The Department of Homeland Security will no longer classify non-citizens as “public charges” — possibly jeopardizing their green card chances — based on their use of health-related benefits and government services. The new rule, issued yesterday, reverses a Trump administration policy that effectively discouraged non-citizen immigrants from using government-funded health services. The old rule did have a chilling effect on non-citizens seeking health care, a 2019 study and a 2021 survey found.

Under the 2019 Trump administration rule, vacated by a federal court in 2021, a “public charge” was redefined as an “alien who receives one or more public benefits for more than 12 months in the aggregate within any 36-month period.” The new rule, which takes effect Dec. 23, protects Children’s Health Insurance Program, several housing programs, and other health and nutrition programs. STAT’s Brittany Trang has more.

Closer look: How homicides and suicides in pregnancy happen

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When we think of pregnancy complications and maternal mortality, we might not imagine the leading cause of death during pregnancy and postpartum is homicide — with suicide rates in the months around pregnancy on the rise. Beyond those grim statistics, there hasn’t been much in the way of data to better understand the problem before addressing it. A study published yesterday in Obstetrics & Gynecology comes up with troubling numbers:

Among female homicide victims whose pregnancy status was known, 20% died in the time leading up to or soon after giving birth; among suicide victims, 9%.
Firearms were used in 68% of homicides and 35% of suicides that took place around pregnancy.
Intimate partner violence factored in 71% of the homicides and 45% of suicides.

“It’s a call to action,” Naima Joseph, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a study co-author, told STAT’s Eric Boodman. Read more.

A surgeon set a record for malpractice suits while his hospital marketed his skills

A celebrated cardiac surgeon at a community hospital in New Hampshire accumulated one of the nation’s worst medical malpractice settlement records, alarming colleagues and devastating families while hospital administrators promoted his services, an investigation from the Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team has found. Yvon Baribeau began operating 30 years ago at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, N.H., where the public has virtually no way of knowing his troubled history. Baribeau has settled 21 medical malpractice claims, including 14 alleging he contributed to a patient’s death.

“He’s not the most culpable here, it’s the administration that let him do it and protected him,” Weldon Sanford, chief of pathology at CMC, said in part one of the series. “If you have a lion loose in a zoo, is it the lion’s fault? The lion is going to do what a lion does.” Today’s part two documents the extraordinary measures that some medical staff took to stop Baribeau.

NIH launches trial of different regimens for monkeypox vaccines

To counteract the current monkeypox outbreak, U.S. health officials have authorized fractional doses — one-fifth of a normal dose, per person — to stretch supplies of Jynneos, based on a clinical trial from 2015. That study showed that two fractional doses administered intradermally (into the skin) generated a similar immune response to two standard doses administered subcutaneously (under the skin). Now NIH will evaluate the intradermal delivery method in a new study that compares not two, but three approaches: the standard subcutaneous two doses, the intradermal one-fifth dose, and an even smaller intradermal one-tenth dose.

“We think we can go lower with [intradermal], John Beigel of NIAID told STAT’s Helen Branswell. “Right now, that may not be needed in the U.S., but the situation may change. Also, there is still a need globally to extend the vaccine supply.”

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. For TTY users: Use your preferred relay service or dial 711 then 988.

What to read around the web today

U.S. may expand monkeypox vaccine eligibility to men with HIV, Associated Press
Money was promised to her after brain injury. But S.C. judges let most of it go to companies, Myrtle Beach Sun News
Opinion: Health care’s shift from covenant to commodity comes with consequences, STAT
Perspective: Myalgic encephalomyelitis and long Covid have overlapping presentation, Science
Even before Covid-19, remote trials saved money. Will pharma now rely on them more than ever? STAT