The "pink tax" for women applies to medical expenses, too

Plus: Life science graduates are leaving academia in droves, and the CDC reports Covid vaccines for pregnant women help protect newborns

September 29, 2023 Check out STAT+

Sponsored By

By Jonathan Wosen West Coast Biotech & Life Sciences Reporter

Good morning! This is Jonathan Wosen filling in for Liz. We've got a lineup chock-full of great STAT stories to help you kick-start your weekend. Enjoy!

Health Care The "pink tax" also applies to health care expenses Adobe Wander through any retail store and you might notice that products like razors and body wash cost more when they're marketed to women. This "pink tax" apparently extends to health care, too. A new report by Deloitte found that women collectively pay a total of $15.4 billion more than men each year for out-of-pocket medical expenses. In 2021, STAT's Theresa Gaffney writes, women paid about 20% more than men, only 2% of which could be accounted for by maternity care. Pinning down the exact reason for this discrepancy is tricky. One possibility, experts say, is that women overall have worse insurance plans with higher deductibles or copays. The report's authors argue that insurers and employers who provide insurance need to run their own analyses to figure out whether needed services are being equitably covered for their members or employees. Read more. health Covid vaccines for pregnant women benefit infants: CDC Infants younger than six months can't get a Covid-19 vaccine, but they can benefit from someone who has: mom. In a recent Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed vaccination and health record data across 20 states between March 2022 and May 2023, when the Omicron variant of the coronavirus was the dominant strain. They found that the infants of mothers who'd received at least one vaccine dose while pregnant were less likely than the infants of unvaccinated mothers to be hospitalized with Covid-19, with an estimated vaccine effectiveness of 35% among infants less than six months and 54% among babies younger than three months.  The findings, the study's authors write, underscore how staying current with your Covid-19 shots can protect those who otherwise can't protect themselves. in the lab Life science graduates are leaving academia at historic rates Over the past year, STAT has reported in detail on the unprecedented numbers of life science Ph.D. graduates and postdocs who are leaving academia for industry, often for jobs in biotech. New data released by the National Science Foundation show this exodus is deepening. In 2022, about 53% of life science graduates went on to do postdoctoral research, down from 58% in 2021 and dipping to the lowest level in nearly 30 years of data STAT reviewed dating back to 1995. And the percentage of graduates going into industry reached a record high despite an ongoing slump in the biotech market.  It's yet another example of how long-standing problems in academic science are reaching a tipping point. For decades, the numbers of postdocs and graduate students grew faster than the number of faculty spots available to these young scientists. You can read more in my latest story.

---

---

Closer Look When patients stay on dialysis for too long Constanza Hevia for STAT Dialysis can be a life-saving procedure for patients whose kidneys don't adequately filter out their blood, which causes toxic waste to build up. But a new study suggests that for some patients, the procedure is used for far too long and might even be harmful, writes STAT's Usha Lee McFarling. The study, published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, found that 70% of acute kidney injury patients who underwent dialysis eventually stopped without being weaned off the machine, suggesting that they could have had fewer or shorter appointments earlier. The study's authors argue that acute kidney patients are incorrectly being treated the same as those with end-stage disease. It's an issue Melissa Lawson knows all too well. The 36-year-old found herself in a dialysis room three times a week, and came out of each session freezing and nauseous. "They don't realize how difficult it is," Lawson told STAT while rubbing the welt near her shoulder where her dialysis catheter used to be. Read more. health Pharmacists as secret weapons in patient care  You might think of them as the person in the white coat who fills up your prescription, but pharmacists can do much, much more, as a new study reminds us. Researchers recruited 931 Hispanic adults with type 2 diabetes and tested an approach known as pharmacist-led intervention, in which a clinical pharmacist reviews a patient's vital signs and lab results, orders any additional tests, and helps patients come up with a plan to help ensure they're taking their prescribed medication — all tasks usually associated with physicians. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, showed that, compared to usual care, this pharmacist-led approach significantly reduced participants' hemoglobin A1c levels, a commonly used measure in diabetes care that reflects a person's overall blood sugar levels over the past several months, though the intervention didn't significantly improve patients' blood pressure. Pharma Pharma and biotech lag behind other industries on climate action The drug industry has a ways to go when it comes to understanding and cutting down on its climate impact. Case in point: Only 33 of the 100 largest biopharma firms publicly report greenhouse gas emissions or have committed to reducing emissions to specific levels, as Betsy Ladyzhets writes for STAT. Read more and check out the full STAT Report.

---

More around STAT

Check out more exclusive coverage with a STAT+ subscription Read premium in-depth biotech, pharma, policy, and life science coverage and analysis with all of our STAT+ articles.

---

What we're reading Philips kept complaints about dangerous breathing machines secret while company profits soared, ProPublica Flu, Covid vaccination rates decline, as U.S. health officials make new push for inoculations, STAT Japanese scientists race to create human eggs and sperm in the lab, NPR Forget about living to 100. Let's live healthier instead, New York Times Machine learning could help predict risk of preterm birth using wearables data, STAT

---

Thanks for reading! See you Monday — Jonathan

jonathan.wosen@statnews.com

---

Enjoying Morning Rounds? Tell us about your experience Continue reading the latest health & science news with the STAT app Download on the App Store or get it on Google Play

STAT, 1 Exchange Place, Boston, MA ©2023, All Rights Reserved. I no longer wish to receive STAT emails

Update Newsletter Preferences     •    Contact Us     •    Advertise with Us     •    View in Browser