{"id":299408,"date":"2026-10-04T02:42:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T02:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299408\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T02:42:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T02:42:22","slug":"pennsylvania-measles-real-count-nih-grants-morning-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/299408\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania measles real count, NIH grants: 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

Hi, it\u2019s Sarah subbing in. I have some embarrassing memories of struggling to do even a single pull-up for the Presidential Fitness Test as a kid, so it is with great interest that I\u2019m following the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to revive the test for today\u2019s unsuspecting schoolchildren<\/a>. Send me your 10-minute-mile tales at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know what the rules are\u2019: NIH grant decisions stymie scientists<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the current climate for research funded by the National Institutes of Health? In the words of one researcher, \u201cnot as terrible as last year\u201d \u2014 though \u201cit\u2019s not like I understand what\u2019s going on.\u201d <\/p>\n

A new STAT analysis breaks down how the NIH awarded $34 billion in grant money to universities in fiscal year 2026. Funding went to 58,000 projects this year, compared to the historical average of 63,700 in the years before the second Trump administration, and the agency further reduced the number of awards for research tied to health disparities, race, and ethnicity. The analysis also includes a survey of about 50 NIH-funded researchers, who say that delays in the grant review process are slowing down the pace of their work. Read more<\/a> from Jonathan Wosen, Anil Oza, and Emory Parker.<\/p>\n

How big is Pennsylvania\u2019s measles outbreak?\u00a0<\/p>\n

News of a fifth measles death<\/a> in Pennsylvania underscores a longstanding issue about the disease. The full scope of the outbreak \u2014 in the state and in the country \u2014 isn\u2019t known or even knowable.<\/p>\n

Only confirmed cases are reported. As of Wednesday that total was 943 in Pennsylvania<\/a>, about a quarter of the 2026 national total. About 20% of infected people end up needing hospital care and some other portion will see a doctor. But some will never come to the attention of public health.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true in a place like Pennsylvania, where a number of counties have large numbers of Amish people. (It was true, too, in last year\u2019s outbreak in Mennonite colonies in Texas.) People in these communities don\u2019t interact much with the wider world. Measles vaccination rates are low, families are large, and people may not seek care unless the illness becomes severe.<\/p>\n

At some point, researchers will come up with modeling estimates that may give us a better idea of how big this outbreak actually is. But for now, we\u2019re just seeing a portion of the iceberg. \u201cIt is much worse than is being claimed,\u201d says Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia. \u201cI think we don\u2019t know how bad.\u201d \u2014 Helen Branswell<\/p>\n

Protecting marathon runners amid climate change<\/p>\n

Heat stroke is a growing risk for marathon runners amid global climate change. Collecting data from the medical tents on race courses where runners seek care is the best way to help event organizers prepare for and avoid inevitable crises, writes Vibhu Krishna in a new First Opinion.<\/p>\n

Krishna, an avid runner and senior resident physician at UC San Francisco, explains how better data on the patients who come to medical tents can help ensure that care providers have all the ice, cold water immersion tubs, and other supplies they need. Compiling and sharing data from large races can also help event organizers assess whether changes like earlier start times or alternate dates help reduce the number of people who get sick or hurt. Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

New numbers point to\u00a0\u2018crisis\u2019 in disability care<\/p>\n

People with disabilities are struggling to find caregivers \u2014 and when they do, they\u2019re more likely to experience problems with the quality of their care.<\/p>\n

The grim findings come from a\u00a0survey<\/a> of 524 disability care providers published Wednesday by ANCOR, an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.<\/p>\n

The report revealed that 85% of providers in the United States experienced moderate or severe staffing challenges in the past year and 55% have had to turn away people in need of care due to inadequate staffing. Care quality is down, while reportable incidents are up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely these numbers will improve. States have already started slashing caregivers\u2019 pay<\/a> and other critical disability services<\/a> in anticipation of Medicaid cuts that will roll out next year. \u2014 O. Rose Broderick<\/p>\n

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

Four kids in one faith-healing family died. Authorities could do nothing, ProPublica<\/a><\/p>\n

Top journal\u2019s special issue on women\u2019s health casts spotlight on menopause and pain, STAT<\/a> <\/p>\n

Abdul El-Sayed explains how science influences his politics, Scientific American<\/a><\/p>\n

As CDC redesigns annual health survey, it removes questions about disabilities, STAT<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s a nightmare\u2019: Former refugee, professor on Trump\u2019s new Medicaid policy, NPR<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/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":299409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[34,65546,3831,70895,28,30,29,5647,1164],"class_list":["post-299408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-donald-trump","tag-government-agencies","tag-health-care","tag-nih","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-policy","tag-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}