{"id":290884,"date":"2025-11-14T09:52:31","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/290884\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T09:52:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T09:52:31","slug":"poliovirus-snap-malaria-maha-summit-morning-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/290884\/","title":{"rendered":"Poliovirus, SNAP, malaria, MAHA summit: 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. Loyal readers may remember that in January, I donated blood for the first time, and it didn\u2019t exactly go well. But I\u2019m happy to say that I tried again yesterday and it was\u00a0great. And then I got existential about how long ago January feels. What a year it\u2019s been. Two weeks until Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n

Inside Washington\u2019s MAHA summit<\/p>\n

There was a strange mix of bedfellows at the \u201cOfficial MAHA Summit\u201d yesterday \u2014 biotech executives like George Yancopoulos alongside conservative wellness influencers like Russell Brand, plus the vice president and a slew of federal health officials. In particular, the appearance of JD Vance signaled to attendees how important their movement is to the future of the Republican party and the administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like taking medications,\u201d Vance said, adopting the signature skepticism of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. \u201cI don\u2019t take anything unless I absolutely have to.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a> from STAT\u2019s Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne for more details on what Vance had to say and what attendees received in their swag bags.<\/p>\n

\u2018The virus is only a plane ride away\u2019<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s public health agency revealed yesterday that wild poliovirus had been detected<\/a> in a sewage sample in the country. The virus likely arrived in a person infected in either Pakistan or Afghanistan, the only two countries where wild polioviruses still spread, said Mark Pallansch, a retired CDC virologist and polio expert who noted that as long as polioviruses continue to circulate anywhere, \u201cthe virus is only a plane ride away.\u201d Paralysis occurs in only about one out of every 200 people who contract polio, so an infected but symptom-free traveler could easily serve as a vector.<\/p>\n

The German health agency said there have been no human cases reported and rated the risk of that happening as low because of the country\u2019s high polio vaccination rates. But this type of long-distance transmission has triggered cases elsewhere. In 2021-2022, wild polioviruses from Pakistan made their way to Southeast Africa, resulting in a case in Malawi and eight cases in Mozambique before transmission was stopped. \u2014 Helen Branswell\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Convincing evidence\u2019 on the link between EBV and lupus<\/p>\n

Scientists have associated Epstein-Barr infection with the most common form of lupus in epidemiological studies in the past. But despite many theories about how the virus and autoimmune condition are connected, the exact mechanism has been unclear. New research,\u00a0published in Science Translational Medicine<\/a> yesterday,\u00a0offers a new hypothesis: Epstein-Barr affects specific, rare B cells that drive autoimmunity.<\/p>\n

By using sophisticated single-cell RNA sequencing tools designed to detect EBV+ B cells, investigators were able to see viral signatures that are usually invisible. They found lupus patients (11 of them) had far more of these B cells \u2014 about 25 per 10,000 B cells that were sequenced \u2014 than people in the healthy control group (10), who had about 1 per batch of 10,000 B cells.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alberto Ascherio, who helped prove the important connection between Epstein-Barr and multiple sclerosis, said the paper \u201capparently fills the gap by providing convincing evidence\u201d of how EBV activates the immune system in lupus. \u2014 Isabella Cueto<\/p>\n

Inside Moderna\u2019s rapid rise \u2014 and precarious future<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s installment of STATus Report, reporters Jason Mast and Damian Garde discuss the \u201calmost Forrest Gump-like entity\u201d that is Moderna, and what could be in store for the company\u2019s third act. Host Alex Hogan also chats with STAT Managing Editor Gideon Gil about what it was like to discover that the late, great STAT senior writer Sharon Begley had pre-written an obituary to James Watson<\/a>, the controversial scientist who died last week at 97.<\/p>\n

The Moderna conversation is based on Jason\u2019s amazing story<\/a> from late October on how the company unraveled. Watch now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A new drug could help fight resistant malaria\u00a0<\/p>\n

Malaria infections in parts of sub-Saharan Africa are showing increasing resistance to artemisinin-based therapies, a looming threat that could make the medicines less effective against the parasite. But a new drug from Novartis \u2014 one that works in an entirely different way \u2014 showed in a clinical trial that it worked just as well as standard treatments, giving the world an alternate strategy for treating one of the leading causes of death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be music to the ears of sub-Saharan Africa,\u201d said Abdoulaye Djimd\u00e9, a Malian malaria expert.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Phase 3 KALUMA trial, the Novartis drug, known as GanLum, cured patients at the same high rates as artemisinin-based treatments (the study was designed to make sure the new drug was not inferior to the current approaches), and was also\u00a0effective against parasites that had a mutation that makes them resistant to artemisinin. There were also signs that it might be able to cut transmission of the parasite.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sujata Vaidyanathan, the head of Novartis\u2019 global health development unit, told reporters the company is now preparing for a regulatory submission. She said it was too early to discuss pricing, but Novartis largely sells its malaria treatments for no profit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A key question is how GanLum should be used. The artemisinin-based medicines are still broadly working, so there shouldn\u2019t be an immediate switchover, said George Jagoe of the Medicines for Malaria Venture. But he likened it to having a fire extinguisher on hand for when an emergency occurs \u2014 in this case, when there\u2019s enough resistance that the current drugs stop working. \u2014 Andrew Joseph<\/p>\n

The digital divide keeping seniors out of SNAP<\/p>\n

As the shutdown\u00a0ends<\/a>, the status of SNAP remains\u00a0a bit complicated. But even if things go back to normal, many older people entitled to benefits will continue to be locked out, writes policy researcher Javaid Iqbal Sofi in a new First Opinion essay. Roughly 13 million older adults qualify for SNAP, yet fewer than 4 million actually receive benefits. And Sofi believes that for many of them, technology could be the hurdle.<\/p>\n

Enrollment in SNAP increasingly requires online applications, and new eligibility rules will create new documentation requirements that increasingly must be submitted online. For people of any age without reliable internet, smartphones, or digital skills, increasing digital requirements often block access to benefits. Read more<\/a> from Sofi about the digital barriers, why \u201cgo to the library\u201d isn\u2019t good advice, and what can be done instead.<\/p>\n

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

What the air you breathe might be doing to your brain, KFF Health News<\/a><\/p>\n

New U.S. patent office polices may make it harder for lower-cost medicines to reach consumers, STAT<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists grow more hopeful about ending a global organ shortage, New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n

First Opinion: This era of weight loss drugs requires a new kind of health platform, STAT<\/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":290885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-290884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}