politics

Vinay Prasad tapped to replace Peter Marks at FDA

STAT

Vinay Prasad, an academic and fierce critic of the medical mainstream, will be the next director of the FDA center that oversees the regulation of vaccines, gene therapies, and the blood supply. Prasad has sharply criticized the agency in the past, including the center that he’ll now lead. He never seems to shy away from speaking his mind, whether in academic papers, on social media, or in his diary-esque blog, titled “Vinay Prasad’s Observations and Thoughts.”

A team of STAT reporters reviewed Prasad’s vast digital footprint to get an idea of the philosophy he’ll bring to the FDA. They found comments on past FDA commissioners, on the revolving door between FDA and industry, as well as his thoughts on hot topics like raw milk, masking, and Covid shots. (“I don’t drink milk, don’t even like it, but these people are such fear mongers,” he wrote on X. “I’ll happily drink a glass of raw milk. Let me know where to get one. ;)”) Read more.

LGBTQ+ health

Conversion therapy harms the heart (literally)

There’s a strong, existing body of evidence on the deleterious effects conversion therapy has on the mental health of queer people who are subjected to it. More than 20 states ban licensed therapists from attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. A new study finds that any experience with conversion therapy is also associated with poor cardiovascular health outcomes like high blood pressure and more systemic inflammation.

The study, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open, drew data from a Chicago cohort of more than 700 queer participants who were assigned male at birth. Among them, 72 reported experiencing conversion therapy at some point in their life. Those who were exposed to more than a year of these efforts had significantly higher diastolic and systolic blood pressure compared to those with less than a year or no exposure at all. 

It was a young cohort with an average age of just 26, meaning these health outcomes could be early markers of future cardiovascular disease. It will be important to conduct more long-term research on these associations, the authors write.

The evidence comes less than a week after a major, controversial HHS report on gender dysphoria among youth. Written by unidentified authors, the report recommends “exploratory therapy” that can sometimes include “trying to help children and adolescents come to terms with their bodies.” The report explicitly rejects the idea that this should be equated with conversion therapy, but experts see it as just that. The approach “is basically conversion therapy by another name,” Sean Cahill of the Fenway Institute told Science. 

Oh, and one more thing you may have seen recently — the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to Colorado’s law banning professional therapists from practicing conversion therapy. Those arguments will happen this fall, with a decision next year.

addiction

How much fentanyl? A fact check

Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi made a staggering claim: that drug busts during the first 100 days of the Trump administration had saved 119 million lives. Later, she corrected that number: actually, 258 million lives. If it sounds a little unbelievable to you, you aren’t alone. 

“Potential exposure to these substances is still quite small, thank goodness,” Jim Crotty, who served for over a decade in the DEA, said to STAT’s Lev Facher. In the last year, there have been around 80,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. “That number, while unacceptably high, is nowhere near 119 million.” 

Regardless of the logic or math behind the claim, Bondi’s comments underscore the Trump administration’s emphasis on drug enforcement when it comes to the overdose crisis, Lev writes. On a larger scale, Bondi is part of a long legacy of law enforcement officials spreading half-truths and misleading claims about drug use in the U.S. Read more from Lev on exactly how Bondi did her calculations.