Hospitals' IV fluid shortage, Bill Nye, and AI skeptics

Plus: Fewer life sciences Ph.D.s are fleeing academia

October 10, 2024 Check out STAT+

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By Timmy Broderick Disability in Health Care Reporting Fellow

We've got a hurricane-centric newsletter for you this morning. I am writing this hours before Milton makes landfall — stay safe, everyone.

weather disruptions Hospitals are giving patients Gatorade instead of IVs to stretch supplies... Adobe  Hospitals across the country are conserving their supplies of IV fluids after a Baxter facility in North Carolina that produces more than half the nation's IV solutions closed in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Some doctors are using Gatorade instead of IVs to compensate and waiting longer to change out IV bags.  The episode is the latest in a series of weather disruptions that demonstrate the nation's fragile medical supply chain. Several medical manufacturing plants in the southeastern U.S. and Puerto Rico have been damaged by tornadoes and hurricanes in recent years.  Further complications could arise with Hurricane Milton. A plant owned by B. Braun, the nation's second-largest supplier of IV solutions, is located in the storm's projected path. The disruption of IV production and shipments could delay elective medical procedures in the near future, too. Hospitals may have to mix their own fluids to temporarily ease the shortage. Read more about the situation from Usha Lee McFarling. shortages, continued   ...And should IV hydration bars shut down? There's one easy solution to start conserving IV fluids, says family medicine physician Andrew Pasternak. Elective IV hydration bars and spas should cease operations until the shortage is over. The shortage is affecting Pasternak's patients at his Reno clinic who need IV fluids for cancer chemotherapy or surgeries. The doctor himself is getting elective neck surgery performed this winter and is unsure if his hospital will have enough IVs by then. During this IV emergency, he argues, it is frankly a waste to help someone with a hangover feel better while critically ill patients may experience delays in care. While there are not that many IV bars in the United States — just shy of 500, by one estimate — every drop counts in a moment like this. Read more. life sciences Fewer Ph.D.s are fleeing academia for biotech The years-long trend of early-career life scientists spurning academia for lucrative industry jobs is finally slowing down. Fewer biomedical Ph.D. grads are opting for the industry amid a rough job market, new data show. The latest numbers from the Survey of Earned Doctorates show that 61.6% of biomedical scientists who had a job lined up were bound for industry in 2023 — a sizable dip from 66.5% in 2022. This reversal breaks a decade of nearly continuous annual increases in the share of graduates headed for the private sector. Graduates headed for academia are more likely to secure non-tenure track positions compared to the past. Read more from Jonathan Wosen.

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The science guy Bill Nye on the rare neurological disease that runs in his family Rob Kim/Getty Images for Global Citizen In what will surely be a tough ask for millennials, Bill Nye the Science Guy is temporarily rebranding. But it's for a good reason: The professional science celebrity wants to be known as, "Bill Nye the Ataxia Advocate Guy" to raise awareness about a brain disease that has affected his family for generations. Nye has previously spoken about ataxia, a genetic disorder which makes it difficult for people with the condition to control their muscles and often leads to problems with walking and speech. He's said he didn't have children because he was concerned about passing on the disease to them. Anil Oza spoke with Nye about his history with the disease and what made him interested in talking more about it publicly. artificial intelligence Is AI all hot air?  Aravind Narayan and Sayash Kapoor have established a reputation for throwing cold water on at least some of the claims about how AI will transform people's lives. The Princeton University colleagues have a new book out about this subject, 'AI Snake Oil.' STAT's Anil Oza talked with Kapoor about the new book and why, despite their perpetual skepticism, the academics are cautiously optimistic about the future of the technology with respect to health care. "It's easy to look at all the flaws and misuses of chatbots and conclude that the world has gone mad for being so gaga about a technology that is so failure prone," they write. "But that conclusion would be too simplistic." Read more about Kapoor's thoughts on his new book.

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Thanks for reading! More tomorrow — Timmy

timmy.broderick@statnews.com

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