For-profit chains stealthily operate psychiatric hospitals under nonprofits’ names

Plus: All the news you need to catch up on from last week.

July 8, 2024 Check out STAT+

Sponsored By

By Theresa Gaffney Morning Rounds Writer and Podcast Producer

Good morning! I hope you had an excellent weekend. Did you know that last Thursday, July 4, was the 100th anniversary of the invention of the Caesar salad? If that's not a cause for celebration, I don't know what is. We've got a ton of news to catch you up on after the newsletter took a break last week, so let's dive in.

stat investigation Troubled for-profit chains are running dozens of nonprofit psychiatric hospitals Andrew Spear for STAT With the mental health crisis overwhelming emergency rooms in the U.S., nonprofit hospital systems are turning to troubled for-profit psychiatric hospital operators for help, despite their records of short staffing, insufficient training and violent incidents among patients and personnel. The partnerships are mutually beneficial, reports STAT's Tara Bannow: For-profit chains that have been hit by lawsuits and seen their reputation tarnished get to operate under the name of locally respected nonprofits, while the nonprofits get the increased capacity they desperately need, and a cut of the profits. But the ventures have the same problem of other investor-owned hospitals in that they prioritize revenue over care, typically by keeping staff spending to a minimum while maximizing patient admissions. "The culture, the management, how people are treated — it will make you sick," said a former staffer. The investigation is based on interviews with more than 50 former staffers, patients, and experts, as well as a review of court records, and highlights some of the more troublesome outcomes of the partnerships, which include cases of violence, rape, even a death. Read more. h5n1 bird flu This week's bird flu snapshot Last week, following an unusually udder pun-laden discussion, lawmakers in Delaware voted to become the latest state to legalize the sale of raw milk. Not part of the discussion was the fact that an ongoing outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in U.S. dairy cattle has scientists increasingly concerned that the virus could be transmitted to humans through raw milk. While there have not yet been any confirmed human cases of bird flu transmission as a result of raw milk consumption, with the number of affected herds continuing to rise — the figure hit 141 in 12 states at the end of last week — public health officials worry it's just a matter of time. (The USDA's count was 140 on Friday, which did not include the latest detection in Iowa.) Results of a recently released study conducted by the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture show that commercial pasteurization techniques effectively reduce virus in milk to undetectable levels. But the study — which was released as a preprint, meaning it has not yet been peer-reviewed — also found an alarming amount of infectious virus is getting off of farms in contaminated milk. Read more in this week's full bird flu snapshot. - Megan Molteni recap Three great STAT stories you might have missed last week We forgive you if you were too busy prepping the grill last week to catch all the news. Here's a few stories you'll want to circle back to: Medicare's big experiment to fix kidney failure care hasn't worked so far: A few years ago, CMS began testing financial incentives and penalties for dialysis providers. It's a historic effort, but there's just one problem — it's not working. STAT's Isa Cueto has the story on what experts think should happen next. This AI chatbot was trained on drag queens: "Oh, honey," it might begin. The AI-powered chatbot from a nonprofit that offers sexual health and HIV care was fine-tuned using vocabulary from interviews with drag performers and shows like "RuPaul's Drag Race." It's an early case study on the vast potential, and limitations, of AI tools that reach patients directly without immediate human oversight. STAT's Mohana Ravindranath has more. Post-debate chatter: What is "normal aging," anyway? The first presidential debate between President Biden and former President Trump left major lingering questions about both candidates' age and capacity. STAT's Nalis Merelli spoke to aging experts on how to tell if a person is aging well or not. And physician Lawrence K. Altman, who has reported on presidential health since Ronald Reagan's terms, argued in a First Opinion that Biden needs to take a full medical evaluation, and voters deserve to know the results.

---

---

first opinion Scientists are unsettled by Elon Musk's approach to medical science Adobe  Elon Musk has made it clear that his goal for Neuralink, the Tesla CEO's neurotechnology company, isn't strictly to benefit patients. He's also hoping to advance humanity's capability to achieve symbiosis with artificial intelligence. In step with this more unconventional aim, the company takes a different approach to research than most of medical science — and it's rattling the scientific community.  Neuralink keeps details about its ongoing clinical trial tightly guarded, until suddenly broadcasting medical milestones through tweets and YouTube demos. It's only published one peer-reviewed paper, in a journal unrelated to neural engineering. In a new First Opinion essay, medical ethics professor and researcher Anna Wexler explores the pros and cons of Musk's methods, and the importance of disentangling cultural norms from ethical standards. Read more. clinical trials Studies of summer: The latest research you also may have missed Here's another quick rundown from last week. Research on research on research! A new surgical technique for below-the-knee amputations could improve walking and help people better control their prosthetics, per a Nature Medicine study. STAT's Timmy Broderick has the story. No transgender youth age 12 or younger received gender-affirming surgery in 2019, and any procedures received by minors older than 12 were rare, and mostly chest-related, according to a study in JAMA Network Open. I wrote last summer about a similar study that found even though surgeries tripled between 2016 and 2019, it's an extremely rare intervention for youths. Using financial incentives (in addition to standard counseling and drug treatments) can help people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged to quit smoking, according to a randomized clinical trial also published in JAMA Network Open. A "visionary" study found long-lasting immune activation in study participants months, and even years, after an initial Covid infection. Researchers even found signs of the virus lingering in people's gut. STAT's Isa Cueto has more. Higher inflammation — associated with physical inactivity, chronic illness, and stress — in one's 20s was linked to worse performance on cognitive testing in one's 40s in a research abstract published in Neurology. Great!  obesity The risks and rewards of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, per two studies The bad news: There's a potential link between Novo Nordisk's GLP-1 drugs Ozempic and Wegovy and an eye condition that can cause vision loss, according to an observational study published last week. Researchers analyzed data from a cohort of patients with type 2 diabetes and another including patients with obesity. In both groups, the researchers found that NAION cases occurred most frequently in the first year after the medications were prescribed. STAT's Elaine Chen has more on the risk. But there's some good news too: Separate research published last week found that GLP-1 drugs are more effective in mitigating the risk of 10 obesity-associated cancers than the type 2 diabetes drug alternatives. The retrospective study, published Friday in JAMA Network Open, measured results for a cohort of more than 1.6 million patients with type 2 diabetes from 2005 to 2018 who were prescribed GLP-1s, insulin, or metformin. STAT's Rohan Rajeev has the details on the benefits.

---

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 Constructing an atlas of human biology in space: Q&A with Christopher Mason, STAT A decade ago, my husband killed himself. Could I have stopped it? Wall Street Journal AbbVie dramatically outspent its pharma company rivals in 2023 to promote its drugs to doctors, STAT Cancer deaths are down, so why does cancer scare us so much? Washington Post First Opinion readers respond to psychiatry and social contracts, Medicare and weight loss meds, and more, STAT Pattern of brain damage is pervasive in Navy SEALS who died by suicide, New York Times

---

Thanks for reading! More tomorrow,

theresa.gaffney@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 ©2024, All Rights Reserved. I no longer wish to receive STAT emails

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