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Good morning. A meeting to review the U.S.’s measles elimination status has been postponed until after the midterm elections. Check out more news below, including an exclusive from Katie Palmer and a report from across the pond. 

STAT Madness begins

It’s that time of year again for our annual bracket-style competition, in which readers vote on the most important and impactful biomedical and health research published in the past year.

The tournament features 64 entries from 50 universities, institutes, and independent labs across the United States. Teams focused on cancer, gene editing, and artificial intelligence are plentiful among this year’s contestants. But other trends have faded fast: only a handful of teams centered infectious diseases, reflecting shifting research and funding priorities under the Trump administration.

Vote now, vote later. After six rounds of competition, the winner will be announced on April 7.

A generative AI chatbot for surgical patients gets a breakthrough designation

In November, the FDA quietly handed one of its breakthrough designations to a chatbot for patients recovering from joint replacement surgery. STAT’s Katie Palmer has the exclusive details as RecovryAI, which developed the LLM-powered device, comes out of stealth today.

If eventually authorized by the FDA, the device would be prescribed to patients to use in the 30 days after surgery. It will encourage them to check in twice a day about their sleep, activity, diet, and other elements of recovery. How the agency will regulate generative AI is one of the big questions facing technology developers, meaning that the agency’s decision here could inform the next moves for other companies working on AI tools, and shape the standards for safety and efficacy in a rapidly-evolving field. Read more from Katie.

MAHA goes to Europe 

The formation of a group called MEHA — Make Europe Healthy Again — may initially seem counterintuitive. Here in the U.S., MAHA leaders often cite European policies as a model, and communities there tend to have longer life expectancies, fewer health disparities, and cheaper medicines.

But echoing its American counterpart, the new group says it aims to prevent chronic diseases, protect the environment, promote scientific transparency, and help Europeans “reclaim [their] health and sovereignty.” It has also attracted a mix of anti-vaccine activists, right-wing politicians, and medical freedom campaigners who warn that the continent’s regulators are captured by “corrupted science” and that its public health systems are akin to “tyranny.”

Read more from STAT contributor Gabriela Galvin about how MAHA took hold in Europe and how likely it is to amass political power.

Teen sleep habits are getting worse

The percentage of high school students who report insufficient sleep rose from nearly 69% in 2007 to 77% in 2023, according to a study analyzing federal survey data that was published yesterday in JAMA. Insufficient sleep was defined as seven hours per night or less, but the changes were specifically driven by increases in “very short sleeping,” meaning five hours or fewer. Just under 16% of students got five hours or fewer in 2007, but that rose to 23% in 2023.

Poor sleep became more common across demographics, though increases were greater among Black students than their white peers, as well as among those who reported depressive symptoms or suicidal thoughts. While students with behavioral health risks — meaning those with high electronic media use, substance use, a lot of sedentary behavior, and more — consistently had higher rates of insufficient sleep, the increases across groups were similar. That suggested to the study authors that structural and environmental factors play a bigger role in the trend than specific behaviors.

The ethical dilemmas of human embryo models

For decades, the work to engineer human embryo models using stem cells has been stagnant, and the resulting models have been clunky. But now, research is progressing quickly. “I have to admit to being very surprised by just how much these models look like real human embryos,” biologist and STAT contributor Paul Knoepfler writes in his latest column.

The highly realistic models come with a new set of ethical considerations. How many days of growth are ethical? What should these models be called? And perhaps most importantly, what’s the difference between a model and the real thing? Read more from Knoepfler on the key questions that researchers — and maybe, eventually, society at large — need to consider as the work continues.

What we’re reading

States move to limit access to HIV treatment, New York Times

CMS halts enrollment in Elevance’s Medicare Advantage plans, citing years of misconduct, STAT

Idaho considers an ‘apocalyptic’ choice for disabled people and families, The 19th

The cost of being uninsured, Atlantic