{"id":141175,"date":"2025-09-13T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T14:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141175\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T14:28:11","slug":"fda-to-review-mental-health-chatbots-stat-morning-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/141175\/","title":{"rendered":"FDA to review mental health chatbots| STAT Morning Rounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT\u2019s free newsletter Morning Rounds.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Good morning. What\u2019s your go-to karaoke song? I\u2019ve always been partial to pop-punk, especially Jimmy Eat World\u2019s \u201cThe Middle.\u201d<\/a> But I\u2019m open to suggestions! The newsroom\u2019s annual karaoke outing is fast approaching. (STAT Summit tickets here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

NIH is finally spending down its coffers \u2014 but awarding fewer grants<\/p>\n

\"\"Win McNamee\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

After lagging by billions of dollars all year, the National Institutes of Health will likely spend all of its $47 billion budget before the Sept.\u00a030 deadline. But a STAT analysis of NIH Reporter data reveals the agency will fund far fewer new projects this year, due to a change in how grants are awarded.<\/p>\n

Starting in June, the White House\u2019s Office of Management and Budget mandated that the NIH shift most of its remaining external research awards to a multi-year funding model<\/a>, meaning that projects would be funded for multiple years up-front, not doled out annually over time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The spending changes are not reflected equally across the NIH, and\u00a0some of the agency\u2019s 27 institutes and centers have yet to fund even a quarter of what would be expected. The biggest stragglers are the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities, the National Institute for General Medicine, and the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.<\/p>\n

Lots of interesting nuggets in this story from my colleagues after a tumultuous spring<\/a> and summer<\/a> at NIH filled with pauses in grant proposal evaluations<\/a>, agency-wide layoffs<\/a>, and new layers of political review<\/a>. Read the latest update here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

50 cancer types, one liquid biopsy test<\/p>\n

As of yesterday, people can now buy a liquid biopsy early detection test called Cancerguard, which indicates whether they might have one of fifty different cancers included in the test\u2019s analysis. It\u2019s the latest in a line of controversial products that many oncologists and cancer researchers have been wary of recommending. They aren\u2019t always convinced that the tests\u2019 performance is up to snuff \u2014 or even that the performance is truly known.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the research community will respond to this cautiously, because we understand how complex screening is as an intervention,\u201d biostatistician Ruth Etzioni told STAT\u2019s Angus Chen. Angus also spoke with Tom Beer, the chief medical officer of Exact Sciences, which makes Cancerguard. Beer defends the decision to release the test commercially. \u201cI am feeling fantastic. This is what I came to Exact to do,\u201d he said. Read more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 2025 Lasker Award goes to \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026Three scientists who transformed cystic fibrosis from a death sentence into a manageable condition. The researchers received the Lasker Award<\/a>, one of the most prestigious prizes in medicine, for playing key roles in developing a triple-drug combination therapy known as Trikafta.<\/p>\n

The $250,000 prize will be shared by Vertex Pharmaceuticals researcher Paul Negulescu, former Vertex researcher Jes\u00fas (Tito) Gonz\u00e1lez, and University of Iowa professor Michael Welsh. Vertex developed Trikafta, which can increase the life expectancy of people diagnosed with the disease to about 83 years if the medicine is taken around the age of 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cystic fibrosis is caused by mutations in a gene that results in excessive buildup of mucus in the lungs, pancreas, and other organs. It affects about 40,000 children and adults in the United States, and an estimated 105,000 people worldwide. Read more here<\/a> about this remarkable achievement.<\/p>\n

FDA eyes tighter regulations for mental health products that use generative AI<\/p>\n

\"\"Adobe<\/p>\n

Mark your calendars \u2014 the Food and Drug Administration will soon convene experts to discuss challenges around regulating mental health products that use artificial intelligence<\/a>. The announcement arrives as a growing number of companies release chatbots powered by large language models with unpredictable output.<\/p>\n

Notice of the Nov. 6 meeting of the Digital Health Advisory Committee, published Thursday in the Federal Register, says newly released mental health products using AI pose \u201cnovel risks and, as mental health devices continue to evolve in complexity, regulatory approaches ideally will also evolve to accommodate these novel challenges.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The agency has yet to provide clear guidance on how it plans to regulate these devices or what developers must do to show they are safe and effective. But it\u2019s clear the risks are real, as I detailed in my story last week about ChatGPT and other generative AI tools driving users into delusional spirals<\/a>.\u00a0Read more<\/a> from STAT\u2019s Mario Aguilar.<\/p>\n

HIV infections could soon rise<\/p>\n

Two studies published this week arrived at similar conclusions: changing U.S. health policies towards HIV medication and treatment clinics could lead to thousands of avoidable infections and billions of dollars of increases in health care costs.<\/p>\n

A JAMA Network Open report<\/a> found that a 3% decline in PrEP coverage could lead to 8,618 avoidable infections and a cumulative lifetime medical cost of $3.6 billion. The other study from Annals of Internal Medicine simulated severe cuts<\/a> to the Ryan White HIV\/AIDS Program, which serves more than half of the people diagnosed with AIDS in the U.S. The authors\u2019 most conservative analysis suggested 34,051 excess infections.<\/p>\n

Promising HIV prevention drugs and the rise of PrEP have transformed the AIDS epidemic into a more manageable challenge, one that could someday end. But it\u2019s been a rough year for those dreams, and for people with HIV and the providers who research and treat it. The Trump administration reduced federal funding<\/a> for HIV prevention programs and the GOP\u2019s tax bill slashes Medicaid, the most common avenue\u00a0for receiving treatment. Meanwhile, Gilead Sciences, the largest maker of HIV medicines, is also trying to boost treatment prices<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Should physicians go on strike?<\/p>\n

In a new First Opinion essay, a\u00a0physician and medical professor argues that it might be time. If health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does not resign before Oct. 19, which marks the beginning of National Health Education Week, then doctors should consider a limited strike, writes Richard L. Kravitz. He believes that Kennedy\u2019s upheaval at HHS \u2014 defunding research, canceling mRNA vaccine contracts, firing ACIP members, and more \u2014 is an \u201cundisciplined assault on biomedical research and public health.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

By a \u201climited\u201d strike, Kravitz means only a few days at a time. \u201cThe goal would be to emphasize the gravity of the situation and mobilize the public, not to hold out indefinitely until Kennedy steps down,\u201d he writes. Read more<\/a> about how to decide if it\u2019s the right time for a physician strike, and how such action usually plays out.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re reading<\/p>\n

Ebola cases in Congo rise as authorities race to contain spread of outbreak, health agency says, AP<\/a><\/p>\n

TB is the #1 killer among infectious diseases. A new study says its toll could mount, NPR<\/a><\/p>\n

Why former NFL all-pros are turning to psychedelics, Wired<\/a><\/p>\n

Pregnant women are turning to cannabis to ease pain and anxiety, Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018They are hunting us:\u2019 Child care workers in D.C. go underground amid ICE crackdown, The 19th<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT\u2019s free newsletter Morning Rounds.\u00a0Sign up here.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,5432,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-141175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-care","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}