Misinformation is here to stay; some ‘shocking’ telehealth data sharing; Becerra taps comms aide for new role

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Sponsored by     Happy Tuesday, DCD readers! Last week felt very social between the Milken Summit and our latest STAT Locals event. I’d love to hear your Milken highlights and anything you’re looking forward to as the year ends, at sarah.owermohle@statnews.com The misinformation is coming from inside the house  Nearly three years into the pandemic, some early hits in the misinformation sphere are finding their way back, with the help of powerful voices and major platforms. The antiparasitic drug ivermectin was trending on U.S. Twitter Monday morning, prompted at least in part by news that major publishing house Simon and Schuster would in February distribute a book called The War on Ivermectin: The Medicine That Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the COVID Pandemic. Penned by vocal ivermectin proponent Pierre Kory, the book touts the generic medicine as a Covid fix that the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t want to see — despite multiple international studies showing it has no effect on the virus. (Neither Simon and Schuster nor publisher Skyhorse Publishing responded to requests for comment). Meanwhile Twitter CEO Elon Musk tweeted “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci” over the weekend, taking a swipe at both the outgoing federal health official and gender-affirming language. Musk had a busy weekend, also meeting with Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya, an early and vocal proponent of herd immunity strategies that would intentionally infect healthy with the virus. (Bhattacharya also met with Trump officials in 2020, before the administration threw distance between them). “[Misinformation] has gone from being something novel to something that we have accepted as part of everyday life now, beyond vaccines,” Melanie Kornides, a University of Pennsylvania assistant professor who studies internet spread of medical misinformation, told STAT. That’s partly because it’s a content machine: In a recent study on misinformation around HPV vaccines, Kornides and her team found that alarmist tweets had five times the rate of audience engagement like retweets. “Elon Musk is almost an absurd caricature of this. We know he wants to drive traffic to Twitter,” Kornides said. Of course, the effect goes far beyond viral tweets and stock prices. Americans’ vaccine rates (for Covid-19 and others) are stagnant and trust of scientific institutions is at an all-time low. While federal officials and public health experts agree that most Americans still get their most trusted information from their own physicians, that’s still led to shifts in communication strategies. Kornides’ team, for instance, is developing language to promote pediatric flu vaccines — and intentionally avoiding any mention of CDC.  Telehealth data becomes corporate treasure trove  (Molly Ferguson for STAT) While millions of Americans turn to telehealth services to get a quick-and-easy prescription, it comes with a hidden cost: Dozens of providers are selling patient information to the world’s largest advertising platforms, according to a joint investigation by STAT and The Markup.  STAT and The Markup set up trackers to monitor where information went after patients logged onto the sites, finding that in all but one case, telehealth providers send users’ visited URLs and IP addresses on to at least one tech company. For some, it was far more than that: One site called WorkIt, for example, sent users’ responses about self-harm, drug and alcohol abuse on to Facebook.  The investigation throws a glaring light on the lack of privacy laws and ethical gray areas surrounding a relatively new branch of care that has nonetheless soared in popularity during the pandemic. “I thought I was at this point hard to shock,” said Ari Friedman, an emergency medicine physician at the University of Pennsylvania who researches digital health privacy. “And I find this particularly shocking.” Read more from STAT’s Katie Palmer and The Markup’s Todd Feathers and Simon Fondrie-Teitler here. Becerra names media adviser  HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra could become more visible in the coming months after naming press shop veteran Adrian Eng-Gastelum an adviser on media strategy for events, national broadcasts, and travel. Eng-Gastelum takes on the newly created role just as the House shifts to GOP control, with some Republicans pledging to interrogate the health secretary on agency spending and the Covid-19 response. Also, Becerra’s assistant secretary of public affairs and longtime communications aide Sarah Lovenheim is set to leave by the end of this year, The Washington Post’s Health 202 first reported. Eng-Gastelum most recently worked as acting-deputy assistant secretary for public affairs with a portfolio that included efforts to stand up the national mental health hotline, 988. Sponsored Insight by THE PHARMACEUTICAL CARE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION PBMs support a robust biosimilar market that increases competition, provides choice, and reduces costs for patients To unlock the savings potential of a robust biosimilar market, pharmacy benefit managers support policies that increase biosimilar uptake by eliminating drug manufacturers’ patent abuse practices that block competition. New research confirms that biosimilar competition drives lower prices, leading to increased coverage for patients. Learn more about the benefits of a robust biosimilar market and how PBMs’ policy recommendations would increase patient access to biosimilars and enable PBMs to negotiate for more affordable biologics medicines. The omnibus advent calendar  Congress is expected to pass another budget extension this week, buying a bit more time to hammer out legislative deals in talks that are likely to run right up until Christmas, or at least Dec. 23.  Politico reported Monday that Democrats scrapped a plan to go their own way and are back at the bipartisan negotiating table. But few end-of-year priorities have been settled so far, with various lawmakers vying to finalize reforms to diagnostic test oversight, Medicaid enrollment changes and funding boosts for everything from mental health care to addiction care and HHS’s tiny climate change office.  “We’re working hard to get [FDA reforms] into the end-of-year package,” Senate HELP Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told my colleague John Wilkerson. But: “I don’t have an update on what will remain in there.”  What we’re reading  Inside Google’s quest to digitize troops’ tissue sample, ProPublica Amgen’s $27.8 billion Horizon merger is latest industry bet on pricey rare disease drugs, STAT Anthony Fauci: A message to the next generation of scientists, The New York Times Cambodia halts exports of non-human primates, threatening drug discovery efforts, STAT The CEO of Anti-Woke Inc., Roivant Sciences founder and former CEO Vivek Ramaswamy, a profile in The New Yorker Continue reading the latest health & science news with the STAT app Download on the App Store or get it on Google Play Thanks for reading! More on Thursday, Tuesday, December 13, 2022       1 Exchange Pl, Suite 201, Boston, MA 02109 ©2022, All Rights Reserved. I no longer wish to receive STAT emails Update Email Preferences | Contact Us | View In Browser