{"id":310695,"date":"2026-03-03T08:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T08:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310695\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T08:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T08:46:09","slug":"swine-flu-ketamine-and-depression-football-cte-morning-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/310695\/","title":{"rendered":"Swine flu, ketamine and depression, football CTE: 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. There\u2019s already plenty of news to keep up with\u00a0this week, but if you have a chance to rewind to September, consider re-visiting Eric Boodman\u2019s story on post-tubal ligation syndrome<\/a>, and why some women pursue reversal surgery for a procedure that\u2019s supposed to be irreversible. Eric was just named a finalist<\/a> for a National Magazine Award for feature writing \u2014 a first in this category for STAT.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Checking in on the \u2018godfather of vaccines\u2019<\/p>\n

Stanley Plotkin, 93, has been so influential to the development of vaccines that they named the field\u2019s go-to textbook after him. And they didn\u2019t do it yesterday \u2014 \u201cPlotkin\u2019s Vaccines\u201d has eight editions, with a ninth on the way. But you won\u2019t catch the guy doing victory laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I can say is that I\u2019m beginning to regret having lived so long,\u201d he recently told STAT\u2019s Helen Branswell. \u201cBecause we\u2019re going downhill.\u201d Plotkin was a practicing doctor in 1957, so he remembers the before times, when it was impossible to prevent a slew of infectious diseases that many of us have never encountered.<\/p>\n

Read Helen\u2019s profile<\/a> on this living legend of vaccinology. Start the story to get some insight on Plotkin\u2019s contributions to public health. Stay to find out how old he was when he got his pilot\u2019s license (\u201cI loved flying and found it easy\u201d) and what his vanity license plate said.<\/p>\n

A swine flu case to keep tabs on<\/p>\n

Spanish health officials have detected a case of swine flu<\/a> in an 83-year-old person who had no known contact with pigs. The person has reportedly recovered. The concern here is that a case like this could signal undetected person-to-person spread of a virus that could have pandemic potential. But Spanish authorities said Friday they believe the risk to the public is \u201cvery low\u201d and\u00a0if there were sustained spread, their ongoing investigation would have spotted it. They have informed the WHO and shared the virus with the organization\u2019s reference laboratory.<\/p>\n

The U.S. typically sees a few swine flu infections a year, mostly in people who work with pigs or attend agricultural fairs. But occasionally, a case with no discernible link to pigs<\/a> is reported. A case like this could a one-off, but all such cases need to be investigated. After all, in the spring of 2009, California detected swine flu<\/a> in two kids who had no contact with pigs or with each other. That was the start of the h2N1 pandemic. \u2014 Helen Branswell<\/p>\n

Few mental health clinics have\u00a0Asian language services<\/p>\n

For people who speak Asian languages (Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Korean, Tagalog, among others) but have limited English proficiency, it\u2019s getting harder to access mental health care in the U.S. That\u2019s according to a study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum<\/a> that analyzed 10 years of nationally representative data on more than 3,800 mental health facilities and county-level demographics.<\/p>\n

The number of mental health clinics offering services in at least one Asian language peaked at 6.9% in 2021, then declined to 6.3% by 2024. These offerings were more common in cities, especially in California and the Northeast. But the need spreads farther. Researchers found that in rural areas, even counties with robust communities of people who primarily speak an Asian language, few if any clinics had Asian language services. The study authors called this \u201ca persistent geographic mismatch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huge uncertainty on drug pricing in Europe<\/p>\n

President Trump\u2019s campaign to make wealthy countries in Europe spend more on drugs so that the U.S. can pay less has not gone unnoticed across the pond. \u201cNobody wants to feel cornered,\u201d said Yannis Natsis who leads the European Social Insurance Platform, which represents national payers.<\/p>\n

So far, there\u2019s little evidence that the prices of medications in Europe have actually jumped. Still, countries are facing questions about whether drugmakers \u2014 eager to see the region increase spending \u2014 will try to charge more, and if so, how strained health systems will respond. Read more<\/a> from Andrew Joseph, STAT\u2019s Europe correspondent.<\/p>\n

By now, most people understand broadly that playing American-style football can pose major risks for brain health. But existing studies trying to nail down the specifics are often small, limited to elite players, lacking proper control groups, or all of the above. Research published Friday in JAMA Network Open<\/a> aimed to provide higher quality evidence.<\/p>\n

Using surveillance data on hundreds of men aged 40 and\u00a0older, the researchers found that those with any experience playing football typically scored worse on a computerized cognitive test, had more of their own cognitive concerns, and reported more severe symptoms of depression than those who hadn\u2019t experienced repeated head impacts. In a separate cohort of nearly 4,000 former football players \u2014 with varying experience from youth leagues to professional play \u2014 those who played longer and at higher levels showed worse cognitive and neuropsychiatric function.<\/p>\n

Reading the Reddit tea leaves on ketamine<\/p>\n

It was personal at first. A year ago, Michael Alvear got esketamine in a medically supervised clinic. After his insurance denied coverage for extended maintenance treatments, he went to Reddit to seek out affordable alternatives. \u201cInstead,\u201d he writes in a new First Opinion essay, \u201cI found a digital triage unit run by patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some telehealth companies will send patients at-home oral ketamine. On Reddit, Alvear found users comparing vastly different instructions from different providers and deliberating severe side effects with the site\u2019s upvote function. An independent researcher, he paused his personal plans and decided to analyze six months of posts and comments. Read more<\/a> for his results and why he believes these companies are abdicating their responsibilities.<\/p>\n

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

Kennedy announces new vaccine advisory committee members after meeting rescheduled, STAT<\/a><\/p>\n

Disability advocate says Medicaid freeze could lead to death, homelessness, MPR News<\/a><\/p>\n

Henrietta Lacks\u2019 estate settles with Novartis over the \u2018stolen cells\u2019 that advanced science, AP<\/a><\/p>\n

More Americans under 55 are dying of severe heart attacks, Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/p>\n

First Opinion: Cannabis is becoming more legal \u2014 unless you\u2019re pregnant, STAT<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the word? Test your knowledge with today\u2019s STAT Mini crossword<\/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":310696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,3186,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-310695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}