public health
How a laid-off government scientist is still trying to fight lead contamination
DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images
The city of Milwaukee was in the middle of a public health crisis when the Trump administration abruptly laid off 10,000 federal health workers last month. A lead crisis, to be exact: Late last year, a student had a concerning blood test, and the source turned out to be their school. The city took on the case, but investigating more than 100 schools is much more complicated than the typical exposure that occurs inside one family's home. The local team would often turn to CDC scientists for both strategic planning and step-by-step guidance. Then the layoffs occurred, and all of those federal scientists were gone.
Weeks later, one laid-off worker reached out to the city's public health commissioner, offering his professional expertise "as a concerned private citizen." There were risks to offering that help, and there were risks to accepting it. "There's this sense like, we can't keep doing the work that is being cut, because then there's no sign that the work has been cut," a different laid-off worker said to STAT's Eric Boodman. "But then all of us are public health servants, and we want to continue regardless." Read more from Eric about the situation in Milwaukee, and the people trying to address it in the midst of this national tumult.
decisions
A consensus on Covid vaccines?
Meanwhile, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his lieutenants have sent multiple signals in recent weeks that they envisage a world in which far fewer people are urged to get Covid-19 shots each fall. They aren't the first ones to suggest it.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the expert panel that has, until now, guided the nation's vaccine policies — is already talking about changing policy in ways that would have this exact effect. A presentation from the group's meeting last month suggests that, if they're allowed to meet this summer, they'll recommend annual shots for adults 65 and older, some younger adults with medical conditions that increase their risk of severe illness from Covid infection, including pregnant people, possibly health care workers, and some very young children. Read more from STAT's Helen Branswell on how Kennedy might have one thing in common with the committee he says he distrusts.
science
Correlation ≠ causation (stimulants for ADHD version)
As diagnoses of ADHD and prescriptions for drugs like Ritalin to treat it have both increased over the decades, there's been a concern growing alongside those trends: that stimulants could increase someone's risk for psychotic experiences like hallucinations. While some observational research has lent credence to that idea, a study published today in Pediatrics found no causal relationship between stimulants and psychosis among young people with ADHD.
A prescription for stimulants was, indeed, a predictor for a psychotic experience. But a previous experience with psychosis was also a predictor for stimulant prescription, the researchers found. The analysis, based on data from more than 8,300 youths ages 9 to 14, suggests that characteristics like more intense ADHD symptoms or other mental health symptoms may be driving the association.
"We know that many children with ADHD can benefit from medication treatment," lead author Ian Kelleher wrote in an email. "The results of our study are reassuring for young people and their families that routine ADHD medication treatment is unlikely to cause psychotic experiences."
The results also come at a time when more and more experts are questioning the way we think about defining, diagnosing, and treating the disorder. "I've invested 35 years of my life trying to identify the causes of ADHD, and somehow we seem to be farther away from our goal than we were when we started," researcher James Swanson told New York Times Magazine last month in a long but compelling feature on the state of ADHD science and treatment.
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