How a culinary medicine pioneer thinks about food

Plus: Which health care CEOs harvested billions last year

August 18, 2025 Check out STAT+

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By Theresa Gaffney Morning Rounds Writer and Podcast Producer

Good morning. What sort of treat will you get yourself on this Monday? I'm thinking latte, pastry, etc. Here comes the week.

politics Inside the leaked MAHA report draft John Moore/Getty Images STAT reporters have reviewed a draft of the much-awaited follow-up to the MAHA commission's May report. The document (which has not officially been released; the White House called it "speculative literature") provides a game plan for how the Trump administration will combat chronic health issues while largely steering clear of policy recommendations. "So much of the draft report is just recommending more study of things, including issues we have a firm grasp on, like how air quality impacts health," STAT's Isabella Cueto told me over Slack. The report largely focuses on familiar topics like childhood vaccine schedule reform and nutrition. But a call for research on electromagnetic radiation surprised Isa, who wondered if this fringe concern would remain in the final version. Perhaps the most forceful regulatory proposals in the report focus on marketing, including direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs — though these recommendations are actually less stringent than expected. Read more on what's in the report and on what major causes of death for children aren't addressed at all. It's really thorough reporting from a stellar team of STAT reporters led by Isa.  chronic health Can ketamine ease chronic pain? A new review says not enough evidence  Over the last few years, doctors have turned in increasing numbers to ketamine to ease chronic pain. But a review published yesterday in Cochrane finds no clear evidence that this treatment works for patients. Instead, researchers found that ketamine use was associated with an increased risk of side effects such as delusions, delirium, paranoia, nausea, and vomiting.  The review analyzed 67 trials in total, 39 of which tested ketamine as a treatment for a range of chronic pain conditions. Researchers said some studies have shown that certain patients do feel better after taking the drug, but urged caution and emphasized the need for larger, high quality research. "We want to be clear – we're not saying ketamine is ineffective, but there's a lot of uncertainty," first author Michael Ferraro said in a press release. "The data could point to a benefit or no effect at all. Right now, we just don't know." stir fry How a culinary medicine pioneer thinks about food As David Eisenberg puts it: If you know how to make one stir fry, you can make a thousand. Eisenberg is a doctor and the director of culinary nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. While he's been working to fight chronic disease with healthy cooking for about 25 years, the MAHA movement has placed renewed emphasis on the ingredients in our food. "The ways we learn to eat and control our thoughts not only impact our health, but determine our recuperative capacity," Eisenberg told STAT's Sarah Todd in an interview. Read their conversation, in which Eisenberg talks with Sarah about why teaching kitchen skills matter, how motivational interviewing helps patients make lifestyle changes, and how growing up in his dad's Viennese-Jewish Brooklyn bakery influenced his career.

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pay day These are the richest people in health care In case you had any doubt that health care was still a profitable industry: A STAT analysis of corporate filings found the people leading 275 of the most prominent health care companies made a combined $3.6 billion in 2024, surpassing the $3.5 billion that a bigger group of CEOs made in 2023. That's true even as health care continued to disappoint its investors last year, and a few CEOs lost their jobs as a result.  Read the analysis from STAT's Bob Herman and J. Emory Parker for the full picture. In the SEC filings that they looked at, companies list executives' pay in a "summary compensation table." But Bob and Emory use "actual realized gains" data that is buried elsewhere in the documents, which is a more accurate representation of someone's taxable income. one big number 1 in 10 That's how many emergency department visits made by kids and teens for mental health conditions end up with the patient being held there for three to seven days while they wait for an available bed elsewhere, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum. Researchers looked at data on more than 255,000 ED visits made in 2022 by Medicaid enrollees ages 5 to 17. This rate varied depending on the state — in Montana, North Carolina, Maine, Florida, and Iowa, more than 1 in 5 visits ended in boarding. Besides the emotional toll that boarding can take on kids and parents, the practice demonstrates an inability to provide prompt, appropriate care for people who may be suffering a mental health crisis. first opinion 'Public health's Jan. 6' It would be easy to treat last week's shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta as an isolated incident. Like other assailants, the gunman was struggling with mental illness and enabled by easy access to guns. But in a new First Opinion essay, two public health experts argue that the shooting is part of the same trend as Jan. 6 and other recent acts of "stochastic terrorism," which hinges on rhetoric intended to stir political violence against a particular target.  It's critical to frame the shooting this way to prevent more violence in the future, the authors argue. "If violent rhetoric is denounced but never deplatformed, it will only become bolder — and more violent. In RFK Jr.'s America, it will never be safe to practice public health or medicine." Read the essay.

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What we're reading Costco won't be selling abortion pills. Here's why that matters, MSNBC One neurosurgeon, 8 million patients, NPR Former CDC director: How public health can fight back in a time of dangerous nonsense, STAT These parents don't only fear the death of their child. They fear dying first, USA Today First Opinion: End the unchecked growth of publishing fees and the overreliance on unpaid peer review, STAT

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Thanks for reading! More next time,

theresa.gaffney@statnews.com

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