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I know we’ve had a lot of “You Can See Everything” content in this newsletter, but allow me one more plug. A recent STAT letter to the editor included a message from the former director of a Phoenix lab. When Theranos rolled out its products there, this writer said he heard from former colleagues about frustrations.
“Venipuncture yields several milliliters of excess serum or plasma, from which we can perform repeat tests, which are often requested by clinicians when they receive what they believe is an aberrant result,” he wrote. “More often, results lead to further requests from the ordering doctor, which we can perform since we store excess serum or plasma for up to one month and can do without requiring the patient to come back to the draw station. None of this can be done with the single drop of blood Theranos collected from patients.”
Also last call for your reviews – I’ll publish a roundup tomorrow.
RFK Jr.’s new NIH center on vaccine injuries actually has a much broader mission
Earlier this month, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a new National Institutes of Health center focused on patients with vaccine injuries. Chelsea Cirruzzo’s reporting reveals the center’s actual mandate is broader, focusing on the long-term symptoms that people experience after an infection. (Long covid is a good example of this phenomenon.)
The goal of the center, a senior official told Chelsea, is to get to the bottom of why some people’s immune systems have more robust responses than others, and to learn more about diseases, as well as ways to make vaccines more safe and effective.
Her story has other details too — the center itself is actually a new research study within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that plans to enroll several hundred participants who have vaccine injuries or post-infection symptoms. There is no clinical element to the center, and even people concerned with Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism have praised the center’s director. Read more here.
A virus that afflicts cows makes the jump to a human
For the first time, a human has been infected with the Shamonda virus, according to French officials. The man who got sick was severely immunocompromised and later died. (Investigators are currently studying whether the virus contributed to his death.)
Shamonda virus is spread by bites from a type of fly called a midge. It mostly infects cattle, though cases in horses, sheep, and goats have been reported as well. The virus has circulated in Africa and Japan since the 1960s but was only documented in Europe this year. It can cause fever, miscarriages, and neurological symptoms in animals.
Officials have said they believe the patient, who lived in Lyon, was infected by a midge bite, and that he showed some neurological symptoms. European officials said they’re watching for additional cases, but the World Health Organization says broader transmission is unlikely. In other words: No need to panic.
A podcast full of memories honoring Helen Branswell, from those who loved her
Take yourself back, for a moment, to March 2020. Covid was in the news, but barely. Many of us were still continuing with our lives, following the virus on the margins.
But STAT reporter Helen Branswell knew better. In a beautiful new Readout LOUD, STAT Executive Editor Rick Berke recounts the story of a Covid-19 panel he moderated at Harvard on March 7, 2020. Rick asked the panelists about the then-novel coronavirus, and Helen offered this clear-eyed assessment: “Having written about the possibility of something like this for years, I still find myself really startled that it’s happening.”
“For Helen to be startled, I took that really seriously,” Rick said on the Readout LOUD. She could see before anyone what we were in for, and went on to cover the pandemic with remarkable authority and clarity.
As we shared in this newsletter, Helen passed away earlier this month from complications of cancer. The whole podcast, which includes interviews with her family, STAT staffers and public health officials, is worth a listen.
Christina Applegate’s MS misdiagnosis was all too familiar
For the last several years, actor Christina Applegate has spoken out about having multiple sclerosis, shedding light on the debilitating illness. Except it turns out Applegate does not have MS after all. She shared on a recent podcast that she’d been misdiagnosed.
Lindsay Karp knows what that feels like. In a new First Opinion, she writes about her own 13-year journey to get a diagnosis for the debilitating weakness, pain, and fatigue she’d been living with, and why MS diagnoses are so complicated. Read more.
Days of our … diabetes conference
The drama continues for the American Diabetes Association, which created an uproar it’s still unwinding after armed guards escorted five doctors and scientists out of its June conference for the high crime of distributing an editorial outside a hall where a Trump administration official was speaking.
In a new report, the ADA offers background on the evictions, writing that they had received a written threat before the event that there would be “protest and disruption” at the conference. Liz Cooney has the “threat,” along with all the details, in her story.
If that’s not enough to convince you to read, may I draw your attention to the lede of Liz’s story: “Since five members of the American Diabetes Association were ejected from its scientific session in New Orleans on June 5, the professional organization has released two explanations, one apology, one summary of its review of the events, and one notice of further review.” It just gets better from there.
Am I sick or is this just what 40 feels like?
The patient wasn’t sick, exactly. Her labs were normal, and her vital signs were strong. But she felt tired. Is something wrong, she asked?
Nurse practitioner Kirsten Balin said she’s having more conversations like this, with patients who are aging, working too much, and just feeling kind of … off. “Not too long ago, life was understood to be functioning and carrying on despite unavoidable discomforts. Moderate fatigue, mild anxiety, grief, and poor sleep were considered symptoms of a busy life — not always comfortable, but usually not dangerous, either,” she writes. “Patients are now arriving to see me not because they can’t function, but because they think they aren’t feeling the way a healthy person should.”
At the heart of it, Balin writes, they’re asking: How bad is healthy supposed to feel? Find Balin’s answer — and her advice for sorting illness from “the hardships that come with living” — here.
What we’re reading
- Bird Flu Is Raging on a Mink Farm. It Could Spark a Human Pandemic, Experts Say, but Officials Won’t Act, ProPublica
- Converting Ebola skeptics: Christian leaders mobilize communities in Congo, New York Times
- Flu arrived early this year. Should clinicians do anything differently? MedScape
- The 4 stages of women’s heart health: Experts present new framework, STAT