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Good morning! This newsletter came together with extra help from my STAT colleagues today, as I spent yesterday afternoon listening to Bill Gates speak about the innovations in women’s health funded by his foundation. And then I moderated my first STAT panel with leaders from around the world doing critical work in research, development, and public health.
Editor’s note: Theresa, with some help from her fellow reporters, wrote this newsletter before, in between, and after participating in the STAT event yesterday! Shoutout to a true superstar on and offstage.
Bill Gates is concerned about vaccine skepticism
STAT hosted billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates live in Cambridge yesterday, at our event: Women’s Health, Unstuck. In a conversation with Matt Herper, Gates expressed concern over growing vaccine skepticism in the U.S. and the damage that can be done globally when those claims are exported. “Vaccine skepticism in the U.S. kills more children outside the U.S. — because it transfers that skepticism — than it does inside the United States,” Gates said. STAT’s Helen Branswell wrote about it.
Earlier in the day, the Gates Foundation announced that it will commit $2.5 billion through 2030 to support dozens of different approaches for improving women’s health, particularly focusing on research and development. At the event, I spoke to four leaders in women’s health about the promise of innovation in women’s health and the importance of making sure medical advances are made available to the people most in need. “Innovation is meaningless if people don’t access it,” said Bisola Ojikutu, Boston’s public health commissioner.
Scott Johnson, a biotech CEO working to address preeclampsia, agreed: “It’s invention, but doesn’t change the marketplace.”
There’s a man named Mark who can control an iPad with his thoughts. Others will soon join him, thanks to a new partnership between Apple and Synchron. It’s the latest step forward for a field that a 2024 Morgan Stanley report suggests could eventually grow to $400 billion in total market share.
The brain-computer interface company published a video Monday showing Mark, who has ALS, lying on a bed while he flicks through various applications on the device. In May, Apple announced a new protocol that would help companies such as Synchron and Neuralink link a person’s device with their phone or a computer. The device works via a stent threaded into a vein in the brain’s motor cortex. The electrodes pick up brain activity and send it to a small computer before beaming it via Bluetooth to the phone.
While not as flashy as Neuralink’s demo of an implantee playing Counterstrike, Mark clicking through applications on an iPad is much more in line with what people with disabilities say they want out of a brain-computer interface: increased independence and communication abilities. — Rose Broderick
New approach to infertility has backing of MAHA, but not science
A new approach to infertility, labeled restorative reproductive medicine, could “restore” women’s ability to conceive through natural methods. It could offer a solution to falling birth rates, medical practices which bypass the root causes of infertility, and women’s lack of control over their health. That is, according to proponents of the approach, which has been gaining legislative traction at both the state and national levels over the past year.
However, critics say that RRM is nothing new. Rather, they maintain that it is an ideological repackaging of ineffective and sometimes outdated techniques, such as exploratory surgery and hormone balancing. For many clinicians, the approach contributes little to the science of reproductive health, while spreading harmful, non-evidence based rhetoric about IVF.
And its political backing by MAHA supporters and conservative interest groups like the Heritage Foundation is also of concern for many. Read more about the approach and its scientific validity. — Veronica Paulus
Are ‘good-for-you’ ultra-processed foods actually good?
Short answer: Sort of yes, sort of no. To explain: Not all ultra-processed foods are bad for you. But if you’re trying to lose weight, it’s still probably better to opt for nutritious minimally processed foods over protein bars and high-fiber breakfast cereals. That’s according to a new study, published yesterday in Nature Medicine, which builds on a growing body of research investigating ultra-processed foods, which make up more than half the daily calories consumed by people in the U.K. and the U.S.
The study compared the results of two diets that each followed the U.K.’s nutritional guidelines. One diet was ultra-processed — think premade lasagna for dinner — while the other featured food prepared by an independent caterer, like spaghetti bolognese. Read more on how the two diets stacked up against each other from STAT’s Sarah Todd.
Mayo Clinic has been all in on AI since 2019, when it started investing heavily in the technology and established a 10-year cloud partnership with Google. In its neurology department, that vision folded into the development of a new tool called StateViewer that aims to help neurologists distinguish between nine types of dementia. This year, they made the call to roll it out to all of Mayo’s practices — from its big campuses of specialists to its community and rural practices.
“It really does delete my expertise,” said neurologist David Jones, who directs Mayo’s Neurology AI program and developed the tool. “I’ve made myself less useful.”
The next step, they say, is commercialization. But like all AI developed within the confines of an academic medical center, there are looming questions about how it can perform in different care settings. Read more about the tool from STAT’s Katie Palmer.
What we’re reading
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After ‘conflicting’ signals from FDA, rare disease drugmaker contemplates closure, STAT
- Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ next-generation non-opioid pain reliever failed to significantly outperform placebo in a Phase 2 trial, STAT
- The NYC shooter said his brain was damaged by football. Here’s what we know about CTE, Vox
- Chicago was supposed to warn residents about toxic lead pipes last year. Most still have no idea, Grist