policy
Magic mushrooms decision suggests possible discord within Trump administration
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In October, hours before HHS announced the first recipients of the Commissioner's National Priority Vouchers, Trump administration officials vetoed one of the drugs. A psilocybin treatment from Compass Pathways made the FDA's list of promising medicines to be granted a speedy regulatory review, but when the list was presented to HHS and the White House for sign-off, it was shot down.
"There are a few pretty conservative folks among the President's advisers that have old school viewpoints on drugs," said Melissa Lavasani, founder of the advocacy group Psychedelic Medicine Coalition. "That's been the challenge, trying to crack the egg with getting to those folks who have the president's ear on this."
Read more from an all-star trio of STAT reporters on how Compass lost the voucher and the psychedelic state of play under the Trump administration.
medicine
Plastic surgeons take a stance on gender-affirming procedures
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons released new recommendations yesterday advising that gender-affirming surgeries be delayed until a patient is at least 19 years old. The statement represents a break from major U.S. medical groups that support the care, and applies to facial, chest, and genital procedures performed for transgender and nonbinary patients.
Some interesting numbers for context: In 2024, an ASPS report found that more than 23,000 people aged 19 and under received some sort of plastic surgery. A study of transgender adolescents found that between 2016 and 2020, about 4,000 people total received any gender-affirming surgery.
Read more from STAT's Daniel Payne and me about why the recommendation is coming now, the Trump administration's response, and how the group makes ethical considerations for surgeries on cisgender and transgender adolescents.
cardiovascular health
How diabetes in pregnancy may be linked to epilepsy in babies
Diabetes before or during pregnancy — whether pre-gestational, type 1, or type 2 — was associated with a higher risk of children developing epilepsy, a large new Canadian study reports. Having type 2 diabetes before pregnancy had the highest increased risk (40%), followed by type 1 (32% higher), and gestational diabetes (14% higher).
Published today in Pediatrics, the study combed through medical records of nearly 2 million children born in Ontario between 2002 and 2018. After 10 years, just under 18,000 children, half under age 3, had been diagnosed with epilepsy, with higher risk among those exposed to maternal diabetes.
A connection between diabetes and neurodevelopmental disorders has been made before, but what's new in the study is the distinction between the different types of diabetes. The cause and the mechanism behind this link isn't known, but prenatal metabolic factors — hyperglycemia in particular — have been implicated in fetal brain development in ways the authors suggest might influence epilepsy.
"Diabetes is linked to more preterm birth, more congenital anomalies, preeclampsia, etc, etc., so that could be also an explanation," lead author Bénédicte Driollet told STAT. It's an urgent question because rates of type 2 diabetes are rising, particularly among young people. For now, the study's authors urge neurological monitoring of young children early and more often if they were exposed to diabetes in utero. — Elizabeth Cooney
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