Stat News
Who’s going to run the FDA?
The FDA's leadership vacuum is drawing fresh scrutiny as the agency faces mounting pressure over vaccine policy and regulatory direction. With RFK Jr. amplifying contested claims about Covid vaccine injuries, the question of who takes the helm carries significant consequences for public health infrastructure. The appointment will signal how aggressively the new administration intends to reshape one of the world's most influential regulatory bodies.
Read article →KFF Health News
My Search for a Psychiatric Bed in an Overburdened Health System
America's psychiatric bed shortage has reached crisis levels, with inpatient capacity slashed over seven decades leaving patients in acute mental health crises waiting hours or days for placement. The author secured a bed only after a 21-hour wait — an outcome that counts as fortunate by today's grim standards. The systemic collapse of inpatient psychiatric infrastructure means countless others in crisis are turned away or left waiting indefinitely.
Read article →Medical Xpress
Medicare prescriptions for Wegovy jumped after approval for heart disease
Medicare prescriptions for Wegovy surged following the program's decision to cover the drug for cardiovascular risk reduction, signaling a meaningful shift in how the medication is being utilized among older Americans. However, new research from the USC Schaeffer Center finds that only a small fraction of likely eligible beneficiaries actually received the treatment. The gap between eligible patients and those being treated points to significant barriers in access that policymakers and providers have yet to address.
Read article →Medical Xpress
Study raises concerns about AI health-prediction models trained on unreliable datasets
Widely used AI models designed to predict stroke and diabetes risk may be built on datasets with unverifiable origins, according to a new study published in BMC Medicine. Researchers from QUT and the Australian Center for Health Services Innovation examined two of Kaggle's most popular health datasets and found their provenance could not be confirmed. The findings raise serious questions about the reliability of AI tools increasingly being considered for clinical use.
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Stat News
STAT+: 931 days. The drug approval scandal hiding in plain sight
Northwest Biotherapeutics has been waiting nearly 932 days for the FDA to rule on its brain cancer treatment — a timeline that far exceeds standard review periods and raises serious questions about regulatory dysfunction. The delay has left patients with one of medicine's most devastating diagnoses in limbo, without access to a potential new option. What looks like bureaucratic sluggishness may point to deeper structural failures within the approval process.
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