What can we expect from ChatGPT, how the new obesity drugs work, & how the bivalent boosters are performing

OK, so robot doctors are not coming tomorrow, fired up by Chat GPT. But what could we expect in health and science from the program?‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

January 26, 2023 Check out STAT+

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By Elizabeth Cooney Reporter, Morning Rounds Writer

Good morning. STAT's Helen Branswell and Matthew Herper will be keeping us up to date during an FDA advisory panel's meeting on the next Covid vaccines. Look for their live blog here.

artificial intelligence The key questions about ChatGPT in health care OK, so robot doctors are not coming tomorrow, fired up by Chat GPT. But what could we expect in health and science from a program that already has authorship on multiple research papers and passed a version of the U.S. licensing exams for physicians? Experts told STAT's Brittany Trang they're concerned about how much trust to place in a tool that isn't flawless, and they also wonder about informed consent, lower barriers to misinformation, and possibly weakened credibility for medicine. This alone is chilling: Experts say "hallucination," the AI term for confidently making something up, is ChatGPT's biggest problem.  "AI has a history of massive overhype," Elliot Bolton of Stanford said. "I will get in huge trouble if I don't say there aren't going to be robot doctors tomorrow." Read more on how ChatGPT works, how it's been tested in health care, how it could be used, and what guardrails are needed. coronavirus Bivalent boosters are doing their job, two studies show  Bivalent boosters targeting the original strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as the BA.4/5 strains are performing well, outdoing the original vaccine and holding up against subvariants now spreading across the U.S., reports from the CDC and NEJM said yesterday. The NEJM study found the updated vaccine was significantly more effective at protecting against severe illness, hospitalization, and death from Covid than the monovalent vaccine previously used. The CDC study found the bivalent vaccine's effectiveness against the XBB and XBB.1.5 strains was similar to its protection against the BA.5 strain when it was circulating. People who got the updated booster had a 13-fold reduction in the risk of death compared to unvaccinated people and more than a two-fold lower risk of death from Covid compared to people who got only the original vaccine. "Quite reassuring," CDC's Brendan Jackson said. STAT's Helen Branswell has more. politics Guess who's joining forces to persuade Medicare to pay for obesity drugs Did you know that Medicare is legally barred from paying for the new drugs wildly popular for their potential to help people with obesity lose weight? Back in 2003, obesity drugs, along with medications for erectile dysfunction, hair loss, and fertility issues, were fenced off from the program's prescription drug benefit. That's enough to unite the pharmaceutical industry, the NAACP, a cancer center, and a nonpartisan think tank in a lobbying push to expand coverage. They argue obesity is a disease, one with implications in cancer and in health equity.  It took Novo Nordisk's two new drugs (see below for how they work) to unite these unlikely allies. But they are expensive, depending on how they are marketed: The list price for diabetes drug Ozempic (sometimes used off-label to treat obesity) is $892, while the list price for its weight-management drug Wegovy is about $1,349. STAT's Rachel Cohrs explores what's next.

Closer Look How do the new obesity drugs work?  Mallory Brangan for STAT We've been hearing a lot about new obesity drugs, from the dangers of DIY pharmacology to complaints that "60 Minutes" took too rosy a view of Novo Nordisk's Wegovy. If you've wondered how the (real) drugs work, this video is for you. STAT's Alex Hogan and contributor Mallory Brangan explain how two of them work: semaglutide, marketed as Ozepmic to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes, and Wegovy, approved specifically for weight loss. Both drugs stimulate the production of a hormone that slows down the stomach as it empties, making people feel full sooner, and tells the brain to mute signals for hunger and craving.  Weight loss was substantial in a Wegovy clinical trial run by Novo Nordisk. There are GI side effects, and weight can return after people stop taking the drugs. Competition is coming from other pharma companies. See more. infectious disease An unusual mpox case reminds us it's still with us Mpox isn't gone. It's gone underground, as STAT's Helen Branswell warned us. One example is this case of a woman with no risk factors who contracted the disease, the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases reports. That's in contrast to last year's global outbreak: About 95% of cases were attributed to close physical contact and more than 98% were among men.  The woman in question, in her 20s and living alone, had no sexual or close physical contact with anyone suspected of having mpox during the two months before a rash developed on her face and mpox was confirmed. She had two massages in the two weeks before the rash developed, each time lying face down on a massage table, on top of a circular pillow covered by thin linen or a towel. The researchers suspect she caught it from contaminated linen and urge doctors not to rule out mpox too quickly in cases like hers. health  More than 1 in 4 U.S. adults and kids have an allergy Almost 1 in 3 adults and more than 1 in 4 children in the U.S. have at least one allergy, from seasonal allergies that bring watery eyes and sneezes to eczema's rashes to life-threatening food allergies, two new CDC reports say. Here's more from the survey: About one-quarter (25.7%) of adults have a seasonal allergy, 7.3% have eczema, and 6.2% have a food allergy.  Nearly 1 in 5 children (18.9%) have a seasonal allergy, 10.8% have eczema, and 5.8% have a food allergy.  White adults (28.4%) are more likely to have a seasonal allergy.  More women (8.9%) have eczema. Black adults (8.5%) are more likely to have a food allergy.  Boys (20%) are more likely to have a seasonal allergy. Children 6-11 years (12.1%) are most likely to have eczema. Black, non-Hispanic children are more likely to have a food allergy. by the numbers

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