Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Novel Anti-STI Underwear Approved By FDA
The New York Times: F.D.A. Authorizes Underwear To Protect Against S.T.I.S During Oral Sex
This is a story about infections, sex and underwear. More specifically, it’s about sexually-transmitted infections, oral sex and ultrathin, super-stretchy, vanilla-flavored panties. The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the panties to be considered protection against infections that can be transmitted from the vagina or anus during oral sex. It is a first for underwear. (Belluck, 5/12)
In other pharmaceutical and research news —
Stat: 3 Burning Questions About The Future Of Prescribing Drugs Online
Online companies prescribing and dispensing medications like Adderall are garnering increasing scrutiny from clinicians and regulators who question whether doctors and nurses can really glean enough about patients over video chat to safely recommend controlled substances. The problem, experts say, is a dearth of clear data. While a spate of new telehealth and digital pharmacy companies have moved into the space in recent years, and more health systems have started prescribing virtually, there still is little insight into whether doctors and nurses tend to write more prescriptions for patients they’ve only met virtually compared with patients they’ve seen in-person, whether the patients obtaining online prescriptions are really at higher risk of misusing them, or whether virtual prescriptions present more opportunities to divert drugs. (Ravindranath, 5/13)
Stat: Caribou CAR-T Therapy Shows Blood-Cancer Remissions In First Data Reveal
Caribou Biosciences said Thursday that its CRISPR-edited T-cell therapy induced complete remissions in four of five patients with advanced B-cell lymphoma — the first clinical trial data to emerge from the biotech company co-founded by Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna. The study results are preliminary but establish Caribou’s presence among a group of drugmakers leveraging genome-editing technologies to engineer different types of immune cells into off-the-shelf, cancer-killing treatments. (Feuerstein, 5/12)
Stat: Pioneer Of Human Cell Atlas Explains Why It's A Milestone
Just under your skin lie whole aqueous worlds, where trillions of cells spark and beat and wriggle and secrete, doing all the complicated tasks of keeping you alive. They all share the same genetic code. But what they do with it is the difference between a neuron and a twitching muscle fiber. Starting about a decade ago, a group of scientists began conducting a cellular census of every tissue in the human body to find out what cells actually live there, using a powerful new technology called single-cell RNA sequencing. It illuminates which parts of the genome a cell uses to conduct its unique task. The international collaborative effort, called the Human Cell Atlas, has since grown to include more than 2,000 researchers from 83 countries. And on Thursday, they reported a major feat: the creation of detailed maps of more than a million cells across 33 organs. (Molteni, 5/12)
