Pathology's legal tightrope, biotech, HIV, addiction, mental health and weight loss drugs, and much more!

Welcome to another Thursday — January is flying by! STAT’s engagement team, Ryan Fitzgerald and Alexander Bois-Spinelli , here with another edition of “Weekly Update.” We’ve been busy here at STAT, so let’s get you updated.?

***Before we jump into everything, I, Alexander, want to break our joint narrative to tell you all Ryan had his debut STAT article today! He doesn't know I'm writing this and will find out at the same time as all of you (ha). But, if you've loved our work here, please check it out. I would personally, really appreciate it.

His story: A new study links social media use to changes in teen brains. Is that a bad thing?

A social media editor writing about social media — redundant, I know. But also, who better than him?

Do you know about perinatal pathology?

Perinatal pathology is an overlooked and underfunded field tasked with analyzing fetal tissue, placentas, and other so-called products of conception to sleuth out why a mother miscarried — and hopefully, prevent further losses. Hospital pathologists also try to offer comfort to those who experience pregnancy loss — in the U.S., as many as 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth.?

But pathologists with perinatal expertise are increasingly worried about the pressure they face from law enforcement officials to produce definitive cause of death determinations in a post-Dobbs world.?

Biotech

Competition in the RSV vaccine market is heating up. Moderna announced Tuesday that its vaccine against the virus reduced the rate of lower respiratory disease in people over 60 in a Phase 3 trial. Meanwhile, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have already presented results for their RSV vaccines in older individuals, and have been preparing for a potentially brisk marketing battle.

Our colleague Jonathan Wosen sat down with Invitae CEO Ken Knight during the #JPM Healthcare Conference last week for one of Knight’s first conversations with reporters about the company’s struggles, its plans to rebound, and how he thinks his unorthodox background has prepared him for this moment. You’ll want to read more about this conversation.

In an interview with our colleague Jason Mast , Sana CEO Steve Harr said the mega startup today “is pretty similar to what I hoped we would be” but acknowledged the company faced setbacks. After four years of big talk, it’s time for Sana to deliver on some data.?

HIV, addiction, mental health and weight loss drugs?

Bad news: another experimental HIV #vaccine has failed. Our colleague Helen Branswell reported this week that a Phase 3 clinical trial of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine was stopped because the vaccine was ineffective at preventing #HIV infection.?

Drug deaths are hovering at an all-time high and endocarditis cases among drug users are up nearly tenfold in the last decade. Physicians, researchers, and health officials have begun to confront the problem with more urgency and doctors are coming to terms with a basic reality: Their hospitals often have few protocols for treating endocarditis patients who use opioids and the withdrawal they’ll likely experience upon admission.

Big news from our colleague Theresa Gaffney this week. A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine confirms that trans and nonbinary teenagers who receive gender-affirming hormones experience less depression and anxiety and more satisfaction with life than before the treatment.?

DIY weight loss drugs? Believe it or not, it’s a thing. Online chemical suppliers are now offering chemicals that are active ingredients in a new generation of diabetes and obesity drugs that have become immensely popular. The websites say their chemicals should only be used for lab research purposes and not for human use, but people have been ordering supplies to make their own injections at home. Don’t miss this piece from our colleague Elaine Chen .?

The latest from Washington

A federal watchdog released a report this week concluding that HHS oversight of research that could enhance dangerous pathogens has vague parameters, a lack of transparency, and “does not fully meet the key elements of effective oversight.”?

The #FDA’s decision earlier this month to remove the restriction that only doctors could dispense mifepristone, which is approved for abortions up to 10 weeks, opened the door for pharmacists to supply the drugs and allowed protections for mail orders, which have become an important channel for abortion access in a post-Roe world. But it also puts abortion pills in a legal gray area in 12 of the country’s most abortion-restrictive states, where the procedure is banned starting as early as conception to six weeks.

Hospitals gear up to raise prices?

More than a dozen of the country’s large not-for-profit hospital systems had a subtle but clear message for bankers and municipal investors at this year’s JPM conference: Higher costs in 2022 slowed them down, but they are adamant about increasing revenue by expanding their footprints and hiking prices. The messaging from hospital executives comes as Americans still struggle to pay their hospital and doctor bills. Our colleague Bob Herman helps explain the conflict.?

Thank you so much for reading this week!

Join us next Thursday for another edition of “Weekly Update.”?

As always, if you enjoyed this news roundup, we suggest you subscribe to our flagship newsletter, Morning Rounds, which arrives in inboxes every weekday at 6 a.m. ET. You can also sign up for any and all of STAT’s other free newsletters here: https://www.statnews.com/signup/

— Ryan and Alexander