Ben Lokshin

Health secretary RFK Jr. shuts door on U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research Vaccine experts and people steeped in pandemic preparedness expressed horror at the news that RFK Jr. has shut the door in U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research.

Pandemic preparedness in the US has been leveled a crippling blow with the cancellation of multiple #BARDA contracts to help develop mRNA vaccines. No other vaccine platform produces vaccine so quickly; without mRNA, Americans will have a long wait for pandemic vax. www.statnews.com/2025/08/05/m...

‘The Pitt’ Showed What Abortion Pill Access Should Look Like The popular HBO show’s accidentally aspirational mifepristone plotline should inspire more emergency rooms to offer medication abortion.

Guest post!

The Pitt's medication abortion storyline was unrealistic—but it shouldn't be. Read @tsmendola.bsky.social and Jessica Army of the Women's Health in Emergency Medicine Division at Northwell Health:

California stem cell agency shutting down unique human tissue biobank The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and its partners are selling thousands of stem cell samples before many of them are discarded.

For sale: stem cells, never used.

www.statnews.com/2025/07/11/s... via @statnews.com

If your milk is neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the milk of the oppressor.

From boom to bitcoin: A device maker’s surprising pivot amid a Medicare crackdown Semler Scientific is now focused on bitcoin, after a series of escalating threats to its core artery-testing business.

"The more common and more dangerous a condition is, the greater the opportunity for profit"

www.statnews.com/2025/06/24/s... via @statnews.com

What can Trump and RFK Jr. actually do on health care? Republicans are brimming with changes they’d like to make to public health and pandemic preparedness.

In light of recent events, it’s worth revisiting this Nov 9 2024 analysis: What can Trump and RFK Jr. actually do on health care? www.statnews.com/2024/11/09/t... via @statnews.com

Trump tax will cost some African senders 10% of remittance According to the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the average cost of sending remittances to Africa is 7.4%, even before the Trump tax kicks in.

President Trump’s so-called “big beautiful bill,” includes a 3.5% tax on remittances by non-citizens. New analysis by The Continent shows this could raise transaction costs to over 9% in at least eight African countries, especially for small transfers.

A songbird with yellow-green wing and tail feathers and an orange crest opens its beak to sing

🪶 Green-tailed towhee. Summit County, UT

Cut Research Funding, Weaken the Nation I am alarmed by the proposed cuts to U.S. funding for basic research, analyzed here, and the impact this would have for U.S. competitiveness in AI...

Andrew Ng using his weekly newsletter to speak out against cuts to scientific research funding

www.deeplearning.ai/the-batch/cu...

RFK Jr. rolls back Covid vaccine recommendations for healthy children, pregnant people HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he has unilaterally struck the recommendation that healthy children and healthy pregnant people get Covid booster shots.

“It’s common sense, and it’s good science,” said Bhattacharya, whose agency has no involvement in the regulation of vaccines, or in decisions on who should get them.

Great Salt Lake dust isn’t being measured accurately. Here’s what the state is doing about it. The Great Salt Lake Collaborative is a group of organizations that have come together to better inform and engage the public about the Great Salt Lake.

Great Salt Lake dust isn’t being measured accurately. Here’s what the state is doing about it.

xAI saw Stephen A. Smith get $100m to be a sports “reporter” and decided: that’s the kind of truth-seeking the world wants.

The Signal Clone the Trump Admin Uses Was Hacked TeleMessage, a company that makes a modified version of Signal that archives messages for government agencies, was hacked.

New from 404 Media: the Signal clone the Trump administration uses was just hacked. TeleMessage makes a modified version of Signal that archives messages for government agencies, Waltz used it. A hacker got some users' messages, group chats. Hugely significant breach www.404media.co/the-signal-c...

Are you affected by the HHS cuts and restructuring? HHS is set to cut 10,000 jobs and consolidate divisions — have you been affected? @statnews would like to hear from you.

If you've been impacted by the HHS layoffs we want to hear your story. Get in touch with STAT here: www.statnews.com/2025/03/27/h...

Take a look at the size of the federal workforce to help contextualize today's news about planned layoffs at HHS.

National Science Foundation suspends salary payments, leaving researchers unable to pay their bills An NSF online payment system remained down after the federal funding freeze was lifted, leaving early-career scientists scrambling to pay bills

National Science Foundation suspends salary payments, leaving researchers unable to pay their bills. Exclusive from @statnews.com

Cancer therapy’s new ‘gold rush’: bispecific antibodies that hit key combination of targets Recent results raise hope of new "broad, pan-tumor platform" like Keytruda. The emerging drugs are bispecific antibodies that bind to a key pair of proteins.

I hear there's other news this week, but still worth reading about these new drugs that, in sci-fi terms, take out the cloaking devices and cut the supply lines that keep cancer cells alive. Perhaps the next generation in cancer treatment. 🖖

RFK Jr., an investor in a CRISPR biotech, has raised alarms about the technology RFK Jr.'s comments about the gene-editing technology raise a question about how he would regulate it as head of HHS.

RFK Jr., an investor in a CRISPR biotech, has raised alarms about the technology

www.statnews.com/2025/01/22/r...

Using lab-grown human mini-brains, scientists find links between head trauma, herpes, and Alzheimer’s Research published Tuesday is the first to connect the dots between a common herpes virus, head injury, and Alzheimer's.

"...the donut-shaped ball of living brain tissue floated in a warm, salty bath, its neurons whispering to each other in the darkness. Then a piston struck the platform, whipping it back and forth, and sending the mini-brain sloshing."

Read @mmolteni.bsky.social to find out what came next...

How Jimmy Carter's global health efforts elevated 'the art of the possible' Former President Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, gave visibility to devastating health problems that are often invisible.

Jimmy Carter hoped to outlive the last Guinea worm. He came very close.

We wish we’d written that: STAT staffers share their favorite stories of 2024 In STAT's "jealousy list" for 2024, STAT staffers explain what makes a selection of stories they read in other publications so compelling.

Some great winter reading on this list, including @sarahzhang.bsky.social's excellent piece on how Trikafta changed the lives of people with CF

A large vulture with black feathers and a bare, purple-black head perches on a rocky crag and peers over her shoulder. Her orange wing tag has the number 19 written on it.

Condor 1019, "Jane". Hatched at a breeding facility in Idaho, she's one of ~350 California condors living in the wild today. Photographed at Pinnacles National Park 🪶

New on @statnews.com: click the button, share to Bluesky. Easy as that.

Wreather madness

ruby-crowned kinglet perched on a bush, twisting its body around to look quizzically at the camera

they're such expressive little birds!

Mental health apps need a complete redesign Opinion: Users simply don’t stick with most mental health apps. It’s time for fresh ideas.

It's not just you: an estimated 96% of people who download a mental health app will have entirely stopped using it just 15 days later.

www.statnews.com/2024/12/09/d...

Everything is an ad network

Chart showing mentions of "value-based care" in earnings calls. Line goes up dramatically after 2014, peaking in 2022.

Great chart from @bobjherman.bsky.social and @jaspar.bsky.social. Everyone loves "value-based care" 🥰

In case you missed it: Bluesky runs on-prem. They migrated off of AWS months back.

So yeah, they DO need to put orders in for servers! (Good luck to the dev team!)

More on their architecture: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/bluesky

‘Worst imaginable’ brain tumor yields, in some young people, to CAR-T therapy A CAR-T trial is one of several efforts that suggest there’s hope of treating the “worst imaginable childhood brain tumor,” known as DIPG.

CAR-T might help treat one of the worst cancers we know: a tumor that attaches to young people's brainstems and is resistant to both chemotherapy and surgery.

"My entire career, it was my dream to see this even once."

www.statnews.com/2024/11/15/d...