politics
JD Vance tries to clarify Trump's 'concept of a plan' for health insurance
Matthew Hatcher/AFP via Getty Images
Former president Trump memorably said that he had a "concept of a plan" to replace the Affordable Care Act in the recent presidential debate with Vice President Harris. Trump's running mate JD Vance attempted to elaborate on that in a recent NBC interview, saying, "You want to make sure that pre-existing coverage — conditions — are covered." Then he said people should be sorted into risk pools, instead of a "one-size-fits-all approach that puts a lot of people into the same insurance pools."
It's unclear what kind of system Vance was envisioning, and Trump's platform doesn't actually mention the ACA at all. The confusion has provided Democrats with a new line of attack, STAT's John Wilkerson and Sarah Owermohle report.
"Here's what it means," said Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on Tuesday. "The concepts proposed by JD Vance are a prescription for discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions."
Read more from John and Sarah on the back-and-forth. And for more D.C. news, read another story from Sarah on yesterday's failed vote on IVF protections in the Senate.
medicine
Should near-sightedness be an official diagnosis?
It's hard to pinpoint exactly how many people are near-sighted today, but the number is increasing. Yet clinicians don't have a clear consensus on diagnostic criteria for myopia (the more romantic name for near-sightedness), and data collection isn't standardized. A new, hefty report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends that CDC and WHO coordinate to streamline medical understanding of the condition. The authors also recommend that Medicare and Medicaid classify myopia as a disease that requires an official diagnosis so that health agencies and other stakeholders invest more in prevention and treatment.
In the meantime, the authors pointed to the importance of time spent outside for children (at least 1 hour per day!) to strengthen vision. Kids use electronic devices like smartphones earlier and more frequently than ever before, and research shows that screen time and time spent outdoors are negatively correlated. But the evidence is complex when it comes to how much of a problem the screens themselves pose. "Near work" at white-collar desk jobs has long been correlated with near-sightedness. More research is needed to better understand the impact of all types of screens on myopia in youth, the report concluded.
research
The study was retracted last year. We're still seeing the fallout.
A Springer Nature journal published an online survey of 1,700 parents whose children had gender dysphoria in late March last year. By mid-June, the piece had been retracted. Outside researchers had quickly pointed out that the study authors didn't obtain proper consent from the parents. On top of that, it was a self-selecting group of people, who had all reached out to a website that clearly expresses biased opinions on gender-affirming care.
"Yeah, there are certain things that could have been done better," Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University who co-authored the retracted study, told STAT's Anil Oza. "[But], all research is imperfect."
The story gets more complicated from there, culminating in the resignation of an editor at a different Nature journal. Experts say that the saga exemplifies an important shift in how academics consider research on trans people and other marginalized communities. It's the idea of "nothing about us without us," which aims to ensure that the subjects of scientific research play a central role in shaping it. Read more.
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