What happened to once-mighty PhRMA?

(MIKE REDDY FOR STAT)

PhRMA has a reputation in Washington for might, for money, for scorched-earth tactics, and for fighting even the tiniest of policy changes. Over the last year, however, something changed, STAT’s Rachel Cohrs writes in a special report. Although the trade group blared for years that allowing the government to negotiate drug prices would threaten the industry’s very existence, the organization couldn’t muster the money or the clout to actually stop the policy in the final stretch before becoming law.

Rachel spoke with 22 drug industry lobbyists, health care consultants, and academic experts to understand the tone shift and the defeat. “To stay a winner you gotta win, and to stay feared you gotta win,” Joseph Grogan, a consultant and former Gilead lobbyist who worked for the Trump White House, told her. Read more.

WHO moves to make it ‘mpox,’ not ‘monkeypox’

Citing racist and stigmatizing language in response to an ongoing global outbreak, the WHO said yesterday it would phase out the name of the disease monkeypox over the next year, replacing it with the term mpox. The decision follows widespread calls to change the name after both individuals and countries raised concerns. The WHO has the authority to name and on occasion rename diseases under the International Classification of Diseases, the global bible of diseases that containts codes used for health billing purposes and research data.

Transitioning to a new name will take a year, but it will not erase the word from the scientific literature. That’s because the name of the virus itself does not appear to be changing. STAT’s Helen Branswell has more.

China eases some Covid rules after wave of protests

Deep in the pandemic, China’s “zero Covid” strategy is igniting massive protests against the ruling Communist Party. Authorities did loosen some restrictions yesterday on access to apartment compounds — without comment — after protesters demanded President Xi Jinping resign, the Associated Press reported. Even so, analysts don’t expect the government to back down on its Covid strategy or on its policy of stifling dissent.

Demonstrations against lockdowns began Friday and spread to cities including Shanghai, the country’s financial center, and its capital, Beijing. The country’s 1.4 billion people have faced snap lockdowns of apartment buildings, entire cities, or whole regions in addition to quarantining and testing. Yesterday, the number of new daily cases rose to 40,347, including 36,525 with no symptoms. The "zero Covid" policy has kept cases far below levels in the U.S. and other countries with much smaller populations. Read more.

Closer look: Mailing back unused opioids draws resistance from a surprising source

(Adobe)

The problem: leftover prescription painkillers. The proposed solution: prepaid envelopes distributed with the potentially addictive opioids so people can send them back. The surprise: Opposition from the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America, a powerful nonprofit organization that dominates drug policy advocacy in Washington. CADCA says putting the pills in the mail creates opportunities to steal them. Instead, the group says, prescriptions should include “environmentally safe drug deactivation devices,” or at-home kits to make drugs inert.

Drug policy advocates told STAT’s Lev Facher there’s something else at work. They said CADCA has a cozy relationship with Deterra, a private company that manufactures and markets drug deactivation devices. “There’s very clearly a conflict of interest,” said Jim Crotty, the former DEA deputy chief of staff. CADCA's president and CEO pushed back on that assertion, and a Deterra spokesperson declined to comment. Read more.

Organ donations spike during motorcycle rallies

It's a grim fact that motorcycles riders are less likely to survive crashes, thus making their organs available for transplant. Researchers have now compared organ donations at the time of seven major U.S. motorcycle rallies to donations in the month before and after. From 2005 to 2021, they report in JAMA Internal Medicine, there were 21% more organ donors and 26% more transplant recipients each day during the motorcycle rallies in regions near those rallies, compared with the four weeks before and after these bike weeks took place.

While lamenting the loss of life from all vehicle crashes and the motorcycle deaths that helmets might have prevented during those times of soaring road traffic, the authors of an accompanying editorial urge people to opt in to organ donation: “From this tragedy, organ donation offers the opportunity to save lives.”

Healthy plant foods linked to lower risk of colorectal cancer in some men

There are healthy plant foods and there are unhealthy plant foods, and a new study in BMC Medicine found an association between healthy plant-based diets and the risk of colorectal cancer. Whole grains, vegetables, and legumes were tied to a a 22% lower risk of colorectal cancer in nearly 80,000 American men but no such link was found in nearly 94,000 American women who were also followed for an average of 19 years in Hawaii and Los Angeles. While noting their observational study can’t establish cause and effect, the researchers suggested the difference might stem from men’s higher risk of colorectal cancer.

There were racial differences, too: Colorectal cancer risk was 20% lower for Japanese American men and 24% lower for white men. Risk was not lower for African American, Latino, or Native Hawaiian men eating a healthy plant-based diet, perhaps reflecting differences in other risk factors for the cancer.

What we're reading

Covid deaths skew older, reviving questions about ‘acceptable loss,’ Washington Post
‘Skinny labels’ on biosimilar medicines saved Medicare $1.5 billion over a recent five-year period, STAT
An oral history of the time six doctors swallowed Lego heads to see how long they'd take to poo, Defector
Axsome drug reduces agitation in Alzheimer’s patients, data show, STAT
Opinion: Anti-amyloid drugs and the mystery of treatment-associated brain shrinkage, STAT