Congress is missing a moment to address addiction, advocates say

Could addiction be the most bipartisan topic in Washington? For years, Democrats and Republicans alike have made speeches, authored bills, and issued statements decrying the national drug overdose crisis, STAT’s Lev Facher notes. The opioid epidemic ranks as one of the four elements of President Biden’s “Unity Agenda” — priorities supposedly so uncontroversial that Capitol Hill could tackle them quickly and without fuss.

But before we go too far down that road, Lev reminds us there's a gap between words and actions. With just weeks remaining in the current session, Congress appears poised to let Biden’s first two years in office come and go without enacting any significant reforms to the country’s system for preventing and treating addiction — a potential missed opportunity that advocates warn could cost thousands of lives. Read more about what measures might make it into a year-end spending budget — and why advocates say sights are set too low.

AliveCor and Apple battle over credit for heart monitoring in smartwatches

(molly ferguson for stat)

If you’re going to go to war with Apple, you’d better be ready to fight to the death, STAT's Mario Aguilar writes. But two years after a small company called AliveCor accused Apple of copying its heart-monitoring technology and putting it into millions of smartwatches, it may notch a legal victory as soon as next week. The allegations, raised in federal court and before the International Trade Commission, involve technologies AliveCor released in 2017 with the KardiaBand, a high-tech watchband that used the Apple Watch to monitor users for heart conditions. A year later, Apple launched a new version of its smartwatch with similar capabilities.

AliveCor’s challenge raises the nagging question of whether Apple should be able to claim all the spoils of the innovation it has aggressively advanced, or whether it should be better compensating others for innovations it has adopted along the way. Read more from Mario about the messy business of taking credit for innovation.

Respiratory illnesses are hitting U.S. hard

STAT's Helen Branswell has this report: The U.S. is socked in with respiratory illness outbreaks, with 47 jurisdictions reporting high or very high levels of influenza-like illness activity, the CDC reported yesterday. Hospitals across the nation are struggling to cope with people sick with flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and Covid-19, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during a press conference called to urge people who haven’t yet done so to get a flu shot and a Covid booster and to consider wearing well-fitted masks to reduce the chances of getting infected.

Walensky said the CDC is seeing evidence of Covid infections rising after the Thanksgiving holiday. RSV levels seem to have peaked in the South and Southeast and may be leveling off in the mid-Atlantic, New England, and Midwest regions. Walensky noted that flu shot uptake is lower so far this year in some key demographics, with a 12% drop in pregnant people in comparison to last year, and a 5% drop in children under the age of 17.

Closer look: Psychedelic therapy moves closer to a workplace perk

Remember when acupuncture and chiropractic care weren’t commonly covered by employer benefit plans? Now think about psychedelic-assisted therapy for mental health conditions. Health insurers are years away from covering the interventions, but employers — eager to offer whatever perks might entice talent — may be poised to do so much sooner. A Boston-based startup called Enthea wants to speed up the adoption of this benefit by self-insured employers.

As ketamine clinics proliferate for the treatment of conditions like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, their use is largely restricted to people with the means to shell out thousands of dollars. Enthea, a third-party administrator that charges businesses for access to its list of vetted providers, plan designs, and clinical policies, is hoping to make psychedelic-assisted therapy more broadly available. However, the data to support the effectiveness and safety of these treatments are still limited. STAT’s Tara Bannow and Olivia Goldhill have more on Enthea’s ambitions, the regulatory landscape, and market demand.

New concerns prompt closer look at paper co-authored by Stanford president

In the latest turn of events following allegations about altered images in research papers whose authors include Stanford University president Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Cell is opening its own review of a 1999 paper. Minor concerns had been raised about alleged alterations in three images in the past and a journal spokesperson confirmed that Tessier-Lavigne contacted Cell about it in 2015. At the time, the editors determined that no action was warranted. But last week, Elisabeth Bik, a scientific integrity expert who specializes in identifying manipulated images, identified more significant alterations in one of those images that appeared to have been intentional.

“It’s a more severe level of digital altering,” she told STAT. In a statement emailed to Stanford faculty members and posted on his lab’s website yesterday, Tessier-Lavigne said he is working with editors from both Cell and Science to determine the appropriate next steps. STAT’s Megan Molteni has more.

Covid trials miss the mark on diversity of their participants

Covid has hit some groups harder than others, a wealth of research has confirmed. A new analysis in JAMA Internal Medicine looks at Covid research itself to see how well it represents different populations. Among 122 studies that reported sex, race, and ethnicity, there are gaps between who’s participating in trials of Covid prevention and treatment and their share of the U.S. population. Females were underrepresented in treatment trials, Asian and Black participants were underrepresented in prevention trials, and Hispanic or Latino participants were overrepresented in treatment trials.

The researchers offer possible explanations: Pregnant women might be less willing to join a trial and Hispanic or Latino people could have been included in more treatment studies because they were disproportionately more likely to be hospitalized for Covid. “These findings highlight the ongoing struggle in the U.S. to provide equitable access to clinical studies,” the authors write.

What we're reading

Opinion: Pediatricians and parents on the brink: This is our March 2020, STAT
Cancer surgeons should avoid these three words, researchers warn, Washington Post
Mirati’s KRAS-blocking lung cancer drug clears safety hurdle in combination study, STAT
How smallpox inoculation united America, Nature
For patients with sickle cell disease, fertility care is about reproductive justice, WFYI