health
What's behind the steep drop in Native American med school enrollment?
Courtesy OHSU
Just 201 out of more than 21,000 students accepted to medical schools across the country last year were Indigenous. Low numbers have long been a concern, but Native American medical leaders were taken aback to see 22% fewer American Indian or Alaska Native students had enrolled last year when numbers were released in January.
For some, it's just more bad news. "The bigger picture is we have had no increase in decades. We're going nowhere," Tlingit physician Mary Owen said. A 2023 Lancet paper predicted it would take more than a century for Native American physicians to reach parity with their percentage in the national population, which is 3%.
Read more from STAT's Usha Lee McFarling, who talked to leaders in Native American medical education and students themselves, who said the declines were due to factors like the pandemic, inflation, and a recent Supreme Court decision.
disability
The good news rolls on for deafness research
Ten out of 11 kids who received gene therapy for a rare variant of congenital deafness saw significant improvements when tested a year after the surgery, according to data presented Monday at an otolaryngology conference.
The trial, backed by Regeneron, is one of a handful of studies evaluating the safety and efficacy of gene therapy in children and adolescents with otoferlin variants, which affects 1% to 8% of deaf people globally. Three participants experienced improvements that boosted their hearing levels to "nearly normal" or "normal." No significant adverse effects were reported, though one participant had not experienced any changes to their baseline hearing after 24 weeks post-dosing.
While the promising results only apply to a small, rare variant of congenital deafness, the research could have a profound impact: more than 12,000 kids are born with hearing loss in the United States every year.
Deaf communities are skeptical of this research, but it may not matter. The therapy's success across multiple teams has researchers and investors hungry for more, and the ear often escapes the notice of the immune system, making it an ideal environment for gene therapy. — O. Rose Broderick
health tech
How people with rare diseases connect with each other
The internet can be a lifeline for people with rare diseases. How else can those with shared experiences on opposite ends of the world find each other? Researcher Susannah Fox, a former Chief Technology Officer for HHS, has spent decades documenting the evolution of online patient communities.
A new survey she conducted offers more detail on rare disease in the U.S. Among the findings: 63% of those with a rare disease in their household used telehealth in the past year (versus 45% of those not in a rare disease home). Half of rare disease respondents went online in the past year to find people with similar concerns, and 38% used AI to learn about a condition or treatment.
Fox's report, out Tuesday, also estimates 15% of U.S. households — some 20 million people — are affected by a rare or undiagnosed illness. Relatedly, Rare Disease Day has been postponed amid chaos at federal agencies. "A punch in the gut for a community that is too often dismissed or forgotten," Fox told STAT in an email. — Isabella Cueto
No comments