first opinion
Discontinued inhaler creates a ripple effect for kids with asthma
GETTY IMAGES
At the beginning of the year, GSK discontinued Flovent — one of America's most popular asthma inhalers for the past three decades — replacing it with an authorized generic. Doctors and advocates were concerned about the impact the move would have on patients. A few months in, the consequences are already emerging, write a group of pediatricians and asthma specialists practicing in Philadelphia in a new First Opinion.
At least seven children have died from asthma complications in their region alone — a dramatic increase over prior years — and ICU admissions for asthma have doubled. The causes are multiple, and include lack of coverage of the new product as well as shortages of Asmanex, an asthma controller similar to Flovent. Read more about what the authors propose to fix the problem.
chronic diseases
More obesity meds, and perhaps weekly insulin, on the horizon
Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche announced on Thursday its recently acquired obesity drug (yes, yet another!) showed promising results in a phase 1, placebo-controlled trial, writes my colleague Andew Joseph. The injection, which targets GLP-1 hormone receptors along with receptors for another hormone called GIP, was able to generate weight loss of nearly 19% after 24 weeks. It's also being tested on patients with type 2 diabetes.
Meanwhile, two trials of Eli Lilly's experimental weekly insulin injection showed the product had effects comparable with those of a daily injection of insulin. Weekly insulin can be more convenient for diabetes patients — and it would line up with the weekly regimen of approved GLP-1 drugs for diabetes and obesity. But its levels also can't be as easily adjusted as those of daily injections, writes STAT's Elaine Chen.
H5n1
USDA says cooking beef — medium and well-done, please — inactivates bird flu
So far, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has seen no evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus in meat. While the FDA has found virus particles in commercial milk, USDA studies looking at commercially purchased meat and muscle meat samples taken from cows at slaughter have not turned up any positive samples. Still, it's good to know that proper cooking of ground meat will inactivate H5N1 flu viruses if they appear, the USDA said Thursday.
Agency scientists contaminated hamburgers with high levels of H5N1 to see if the virus would withstand the cooking process, STAT's Helen Branswell shares. They found that burgers cooked to an internal temperature of only 120 degrees Fahrenheit still had some active virus in them, albeit at much reduced levels. But burgers cooked to 145 F or 160 F — medium or well done, respectively — did not. The country's food regulatory agencies recommend cooking ground meat to 160 F.
Asked if he thought people should be cooking meat for longer in the context of the current bird flu outbreak in dairy cows, Eric Deeble, USDA's acting senior adviser for H5N1, said that if people are currently following recommended cooking practices, no changes are needed.
STAT SUMMIT
At STAT's Breakthrough Summit West, AI takes the stage
Health care leaders and scientists met on Thursday in San Francisco at STAT's Breakthrough Summit West. As one would expect given the location, technology was center stage — especially artificial intelligence.
In one of the panels, Microsoft's head of research Peter Lee said despite the great inroads ChatGPT and generative AI have made in healthcare, it's essential to draw hard lines marking where the technology can help, and where it should not, reports STAT's Mohana Ravindranath. A strong one is diagnosis: "In my view you should not use that to propose an initial diagnosis or treatment plan for a patient," Lee said.
What may come before an AI diagnosis is AI-supported drugs, according to leaders from NVIDIA and Google DeepMind. In the near term, AI is expected to identify drug candidates, improve trial design, and help with logistics and manufacturing. But in 10 to 15 years, NVIDIA's vice president of health Kimberly Powell said the expectation is AI will design an n-of-1 medicine. STAT's Katherine MacPhail and Mario Aguilar have more.
At the Summit, STAT reporters and panelists covered much more than AI: the use of telehealth for maternal health, a new crop of science watchdogs, and harm reduction in the opioid crisis.
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