Flu season may be starting early this year

If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet, it may be time to book it. STAT’s Helen Branswell spoke on Friday to Lynnette Brammer, a flu epidemiologist and team lead for domestic surveillance in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's influenza division. Here’s a short excerpt from that conversation:

Is the CDC detecting signs that we might see an early start to the flu season?
I think we are. Nationally, flu positivity in the clinical labs last week was 3.3%, but it was over 10% in the Southeast. And in the South Central region, it was 5%. Flu hospitalizations are going up. And they’re going up in the same places where flu positivity is going up and ILIs [influenza-like illnesses] are going up.

If individuals start to feel crappy this winter, how will they know if it’s a cold? Flu? Covid?
I think testing is going to be really important given that, for flu and Covid, there are treatments that — particularly for high risk people — can make a huge difference in how well they are able to get through their illness.

Read more.

WHO appoints Henrietta Lacks's family as ambassadors for eliminating cervical cancer

Henrietta Lacks was 31 years old when she died of cervical cancer in 1951. But her body’s cells — used by researchers without her knowledge or consent — have continued to live on and replicate, becoming the basis for major medical breakthroughs. On Sunday, Lacks’s family, represented by her son, a grandson, and two great-granddaughters, was appointed as World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassadors for Cervical Cancer Elimination. The appointment is part of a larger, global strategy from the WHO to eliminate cervical cancer and the disparities that still persist in who is most affected by the disease. The symbolic appointment comes as the Lacks family continues to fight for financial compensation for the use of their matriarch’s cells: a year ago, the family filed a lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific, a company they say has profited off of the cells, despite never asking for permission to use them.

This experimental Alzheimer’s treatment is not (quite) like the others

The next big Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial readout is almost here. Roche is nearing the completion of a pair of trials involving its experimental treatment called gantenerumab, and will announce results from the studies within the next six weeks. In September, drugmakers Eisai and Biogen announced positive results for their own Alzheimer’s treatment, lecanemab. Gantenerumab, like lecanemab and the previously approved Aduhelm (aducanumab), is an antibody treatment targeting beta-amyloid, the toxic plaque whose gradual accumulation is thought to drive the memory-destroying effects of Alzheimer’s. But there are also key differences between the drugs. Unlike the other medicines, which are given intravenously, Roche’s treatment is injected through a small needle under the skin, and given half as frequently. A positive readout would shift the balance in Alzheimer’s treatment, though negative results certainly don’t mean the end of the road for Roche. As always with Alzheimer’s: it’s complicated. Read more from STAT’s Adam Feuerstein and Damian Garde.

Closer look: UpToDate has a racism problem. Its name is Dr. Stanley Goldfarb

Adobe

The University of Pennsylvania's Division of Renal-Electrolyte and Hypertension recently made a quiet update to its web page: it removed all references to its former co-chief, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. Goldfarb has long been a vocal critic of medicine considering social determinants of health and racism. In a new First Opinion, physician Eric R. Gottlieb points to another influential organization that has not yet accounted for Goldfarb’s outmoded opinions: UpToDate, the leading point-of-care medical reference for millions of clinicians.

Gottlieb writes: “UpToDate has a stated goal, in line with the policy of the American Medical Association, of ensuring that race is framed as a social construct and not as a biological variable. Yet many nephrology articles in UpToDate continue to discuss race as a biological risk factor. In Goldfarb, UpToDate has an editor who derides efforts to advance health equity and is unlikely to help bring UpToDate's content in line with its own policies and those of the AMA, or even to discuss these issues in a meaningful way.” Read more.

Older Americans are opting for Medicare Advantage plans with more coverage

If you haven’t yet had to compare Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans, you may not fully understand the differences between the two. The basic difference is that Medicare Advantage plans are private where traditional Medicare is, of course, public. Most people have historically chosen to enroll in Medicare, but the percentage of people choosing Advantage plans is rising — in 2022, 45% of Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Advantage plans.

According to a new national survey from the Commonwealth Fund, older Americans who enroll in traditional Medicare are looking for a wider range of providers, while those who choose a private Advantage plan are prioritizing more benefits, like vision and dental coverage, along with limited out-of-pocket costs. One-third of people used insurance brokers or agents to find the right plan, but marginalized populations like poor and Black beneficiaries were more likely to rely on potentially misleading marketing and advertisements.

Covid infections may lead to more health care visits down the line

A new study published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that people who had Covid-19 go on to use the health system more often than people who haven’t had it. Researchers looked at data collected on nearly 270,000 people in Ontario, Canada who had a positive PCR test sometime in 2020 or 2021, and matched each person with someone who had not tested positive, based on demographic and other health information. Two months after the infection, those who tested positive for Covid-19 were more likely than their counterparts to visit a clinic, emergency room, hospital; access home care visits; or need long-term care.

The difference wasn’t huge — just two more health care encounters overall, compared to people who hadn’t been sick. But there was a small subset of people, about 1%, who spent a week or longer in the hospital overall than their uninfected counterparts. As many have noted before, this can still be worrying. A small percentage of a large number is still many people.

What we're reading

How California fails to regulate gun ranges that spew toxic lead, poison workers, The San Francisco Chronicle
Several big U.S. grocery chains are failing to stop antibiotic overuse in their meat supply chains, STAT
How Volunteers Open Their Homes to Women Seeking Abortions, New York Times
Lawmakers push NIH to disclose steps being taken to ensure clinical trial results are reported, STAT
Coming out about my bipolar disorder has led to a new deep sense of community, NPR