At long last, new rules are coming from EPA for ‘forever chemicals.’ They’ll draw fire

(Hyacinth Empinado/STAT)

By the end of this year, the EPA has promised to propose new national drinking water standards for two of the most studied pollutants among compounds known as PFAS, or "forever chemicals." PFAS are manmade chemicals not only in nonstick pans and firefighting foams, but also found in cosmetics, paper straws and takeout containers, and waterproof fabrics. The same properties that make them work also make them resist degradation, so they pile up in the environment and in our bodies, vastly increasing the risk of cancers, birth defects, and many more health problems.

They threaten drinking water, in some cases at concentrations thousands of times higher than the EPA’s guidelines. A 2007 study showed that over 98% of Americans had detectable levels of PFAS in their blood, regardless of demographics. STAT’s Brittany Trang looks at why whatever rule the EPA proposes will be contentious, for environmentalists protecting human health and for water treatment plants paying the price. Read more.

Do you know who owns your hospital?

Amid mounting concern over private equity ownership of hospitals and other health care facilities — often difficult to discern but with major implications for the cost and quality of care — the Biden administration yesterday released a massive spreadsheet with ownership data on all Medicare-certified hospitals in the country. The new data span more than 7,000 hospitals and include such details as whether the owner is an individual or an organization.

Private equity groups owned almost 7.5% of non-government, acute-care hospitals in 2017, accounting for 11% of all patient discharges that year, a Health Affairs study from last year found. Evidence continues to accumulate around the damaging effects of this type of ownership. A leading credit rating agency recently disclosed that nine of out 10 heath care companies it deemed to be under financial stress are owned by private equity. STAT’s Tara Bannow has more.

Diabetes treatments are getting better, but disparities are getting bigger

Treatments have improved for people who take insulin to control their type 1 or type 2 diabetes, but the gap between groups that depend on it has widened. A new JAMA Network Open study found that while the proportion of non-Hispanic white people with good blood-sugar control sits at 33%, the share of Mexican Americans with good blood-sugar control dropped from 25% during 1988 to 1994 to 10% during 2013 to 2020. Just under a quarter of Black people and Mexican Americans experience hyperglycemia, or very high blood sugar, compared to just under 1 in 10 white people. (The study didn’t include Asian Americans.)

Groups with lower proportions of glycemic control may not have access to technologies that help manage and monitor blood sugar, such as continuous glucose monitors, the authors say. Or they may be skipping doses as insulin prices have surged. STAT’s Elaine Chen has more.

Closer look: ‘She was losing him before she even got a chance to meet him’

(CONSTANZA HEVIA FOR STAT)

His name was Kai. He was due on December 18. L. (above) knew the way he moved, and later, after a worrisome ultrasound, she wondered if he was in pain. She worked in the ICU, she knew about pain, and she knew she didn’t want his life to be IVs and intubations and chest drainage tubes. She didn’t want to end the pregnancy, but her own health was also at serious risk.

She and her husband live in California, not one of the states to limit abortion post-Roe. The influx of people from restrictive states seeking care filled every clinic near her home. She finally found a medical resident at her hospital who was willing to help her and others in need. The procedure left her with a mix of gratitude and anguish at “losing him before she even got a chance to meet him,” STAT’s Eric Boodman writes in this snapshot from post-Roe America.

‘Severe gaps’ in diversity of medical school faculty

STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling brings this report: The number of Hispanic faculty at medical schools has decreased in recent years, according to a new JAMA Network Open analysis of how the racial, ethnic, and gender compositions of medical school faculties compare with the populations of counties those medical schools are in. The study of more than 120 medical schools found that the number of faculty who are women increased markedly between 2009 and 2019 but that the number of faculty from groups underrepresented in medicine stagnated and that “severe gaps” remain.

The study found wide variability in racial and ethnic diversity among faculty ranks of different medical schools and showed that resources alone did not help increase diversity. Schools with the least diversity included those at the top of U.S. News and World Report rankings and those with large faculty rosters, perhaps because those schools were located in urban counties where the faculty did not reflect the more diverse surrounding populations. The fact that some schools markedly improved diversity, the authors wrote, shows that “deeply rooted directives and a culture dedicated to promoting diversity” can work to effect change.

Opinion: The U.S. needs to realign its moral compass for sickle cell disease. Centers would help

Sickle cell disease is the most common inherited blood disorder worldwide. That includes more than 100,000 Americans, most of whom are Black or Hispanic American, as STAT’s Jason Mast told us earlier this week in stories exploring why new drugs to treat the painful condition aren’t in wider use. Hematologists say it’s disheartening to see sickle cell disease receive only a fraction of the attention and resources that other inherited disorders receive.

Case in point: Cystic fibrosis, which affects approximately 30,000 Americans, receives 10 times the federal funding. And people with sickle cell disease often aren’t believed when they describe their pain, with some being falsely labeled as drug seekers. “For meaningful progress to be made, the U.S. needs to fund comprehensive care centers for sickle cell disease,” hematologists Amar Kelkar, Julie Kanter, and Payal Desai write in a STAT First Opinion. Read more about what that could mean.

What we're reading

Police seize on Covid-19 tech to expand global surveillance, Associated Press
Many hospitals get big drug discounts. That doesn’t mean markdowns for patients, Wall Street Journal
Kite to buy Tmunity Therapeutics, Carl June's troubled CAR-T startup, STAT
For 'time cells' in the brain, what matters is what happens in the moment, NPR
Adam's Take: CytoDyn’s former CEO indicted for securities fraud. His misleading statements hurt patients even more than investors, STAT