STAT's investigation on coercive sterilizations. Plus, a biotech's hope for heart disease, a warning label on social media, extreme heat, and more.

Happy Thursday — summer has arrived! And it is HOT outside. We can’t help with the heat but we can be a good reason to stay inside and catch up on the biggest STAT news this week.?

Let’s hop to it…?

STAT’s investigation into coercive sterilization continues?

Since the late 1970s, a federal rule has required any patient on Medicare or Medicaid to sign a consent form at least 30 days before a tubal ligation or vasectomy. The idea is to give people time to make a careful, fully-informed decision. But for some people, it does more harm than good.?

So how can we ensure true consent for a medical procedure as weighty as sterilization? Part 3 of Eric Boodman ’s “Coercive Care” investigation explores that question .

A biotech startup offers hope for heart disease?

Biotech startup Marea just raised $190 million toward developing a drug that could represent a new way of attacking cardiovascular disease. The story of that drug, the protein that it targets, and the gene that codes for that protein says a lot about why medicines are so tough to develop. Matthew Herper has this biotech feature you want to read.?

Extreme heat health hazards

“Many people do not realize how deadly extreme heat can be.” — Jennifer Wang, the executive director of the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health.

It’s just the first heat wave of the summer, with more likely ahead. If you need evidence to convince any stubborn family members that, no, they aren’t immune to extreme heat and, yes, we should put the AC in the window, STAT has you covered .

Rare genetic mutation that can delay early Alzheimer’s

For members of a large extended Colombian family, an early Alzheimer’s diagnosis is practically a grim guarantee. But new research further supports the idea that a rare genetic mutation can delay the devastating disease’s onset.

Jonathan Wosen, PhD has the story .?

A warning label for social media?

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called for adding a warning label on social media in a recent op-ed he penned in the New York Times.?

Last year, Murthy published an advisory to help parents navigate children’s social media use. He said in an interview with STAT last May that it was time to “maximize the benefits and minimize the harms” of these online platforms. But his call to action this week is more direct about the potential harms of social media.

Advocates of stricter social media controls praised the words of Murthy. But several experts in the field say there isn't enough evidence to conclude that social media is safe, or unsafe. Read more about the discussion .?

Antiviral protects women against HIV

Gilead Sciences said that twice-a-year injections of a new antiviral drug, called lenacapavir, completely protected cisgender women from contracting HIV in a large Phase 3 trial. In the study, none of the 2,134 women who received lenacapavir contracted HIV.

Jason Mast has more .?

A call to retract ‘racist studies’

A coalition of researchers, historians, and journalists called for journals that published Richard Lynn’s research articles to retract them due to his “racist beliefs” in a First Opinion essay published today .?

Lynn, who died in 2023, was a professor at the University of Ulster and the president of the Pioneer Fund, a nonprofit foundation created in 1937 by American Nazi sympathizers to support “race betterment” and “race realism.”

Specifically, the group askedasked publishing giants Elsevier and Springer to retract Lynn’s studies that use IQ tests to argue that some races are inferior. Others have called for Lynn’s papers to be retracted, but the scope of this investigation made it worth publishing, STAT First Opinion editor Patrick Skerrett said in a separate news story .?

"Given that Lynn’s work is explicitly motivated by white supremacist ideology, its prominence reflects a massive failure among the scientific community to self-correct," the authors wrote.?

The harsh reality of long Covid?

Rachel Hall-Clifford spent her career studying neglected infectious diseases and now, as she puts it, “I have a neglected disease — long Covid — an incurable (for now and for me) disease.”??

Hall-Clifford’s First Opinion essay this week highlights her difficult journey living with long Covid and her hopes for more and better government research into its causes and cures.?

“Long Covid feels like living with a gun to my head. Please pull the trigger on the moonshot.”

You can hear more from Rachel Hall-Clifford, as she chats with our First Opinion editor Patrick Skerrett on this week’s First Opinion Podcast .??

Author pick

Sports gambling seems to be everywhere these days. You can't watch any sporting event without seeing multiple ads for online gambling sites. Statistics show that nearly 1 in 5 American adults have an online sports-betting account, and according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a roughly equivalent number met the criteria for a substance use disorder. A recent conference about substance use treatment offered a stark warning: America’s addiction professionals are ignoring gambling. Read Ryan’s pick .