{"id":344769,"date":"2025-12-12T17:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T17:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344769\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T17:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T17:13:08","slug":"hep-b-vaccines-tracy-beth-hoeg-gonorrhea-morning-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/344769\/","title":{"rendered":"Hep B vaccines, Tracy Beth H\u00f8eg, gonorrhea: 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

Apparently humans were making fire 350,000 years earlier<\/a> than scientists previously thought. Stay warm out there, y\u2019all. Happy Friday.<\/p>\n

FDA staffers are wary of America\u2019s newest drug regulator<\/p>\n

HHS says Tracy Beth H\u00f8eg is the right choice to lead\u00a0the FDA\u2019s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, a role in which she must dispassionately review complicated scientific evidence about the benefits and harms of medical treatments. But Hoeg\u2019s nine-month stint at the agency has raised questions<\/a>\u00a0internally about her ability to oversee the operation without bias.<\/p>\n

H\u00f8eg, a sports medicine physician and Ph.D. epidemiologist, lacks the typical professional experience required to oversee one of the FDA\u2019s most important centers. But she is close with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, a bond forged by their mutual skepticism of Covid boosters and other countermeasures.<\/p>\n

Come for the killer lede, stay for another barn burner<\/a> from STAT\u2019s Lizzy Lawrence, who fell down the rabbit hole \u2014 which is to say, plumbed H\u00f8eg\u2019s personal blog \u2014\u00a0for this story.<\/p>\n

Hep B vaccine changes could confuse families, limit protection against other diseases<\/p>\n

When a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee voted last week to jettison a recommendation that all babies get vaccinated at birth against hepatitis B, the members didn\u2019t seem to consider the potentially deadly knock-on effects of their votes, according to medical experts.<\/p>\n

Committee members\u2019 doubts that most babies need the vaccine will almost certainly lead to an increase in the number of parents who decline to vaccinate their infants against the virus. Subsequent doses of the hepatitis B vaccine are often bundled into combination shots that protect against other diseases, so parents who opt not to vaccinate their infants may find it difficult to immunize their children against other deadly diseases, like polio or pertussis, which has claimed the lives of at least two children in Louisiana this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And there is\u00a0potential for further confusion too. The American Academy of Pediatrics told its membership to ignore last week\u2019s votes. Dozens of other medical organizations have loudly denounced the decision. Read more<\/a> about this head-spinning situation from Helen Branswell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gonorrhea, be gone!<\/p>\n

Do you have gonorrhea? Great news! New drugs are on the way to treat the country\u2019s second most commonly reported sexually transmitted infection.<\/p>\n

A new antibiotic was as effective as the previous standard of care at treating urogenital gonorrhea, according to a study published in The Lancet<\/a> yesterday. If approved for use, zoliflodacin would be a welcome addition to an armamentarium that contains precious few tools to treat Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the wily bacterium that causes the infection. The Food and Drug Administration will decide on the drug\u2019s approval in the next week, writes Helen Branswell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The FDA also announced yesterday<\/a> that it has expanded the use of GSK\u2019s Blujepa as an oral treatment for gonorrhea. The bacteria\u2019s resistance to certain antibiotics has been growing in recent years, so it\u2019s increasingly important that doctors have new treatment options for the more than 600,000\u00a0cases of gonorrhea reported annually, according to the CDC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I guess the only downside of these drugs is that it likely means fewer anti-STI advertisements. And, well, that\u2019s a shame, because they are often hilarious<\/a>. But yesterday\u2019s clap-related news shows that even if people \u201cgive gonorrhea a ride<\/a>,\u201d they have options to ensure a full recovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pharmacy staffing levels at a \u2018breaking point\u2019<\/p>\n

Nobody likes going to the pharmacy. It\u2019s often overcrowded with medications\u00a0 stashed in odd places, meaning it could be several minutes before they\u2019re found. The disorder and chaotic working conditions are also a nightmare for pharmacists and could one day lead to a preventable\u00a0mistake, writes Chris Eggeman, a pharmacist at CVS in Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

Technicians leave as fast as they\u2019re hired, raising the pressure on the remaining staff and increasing the chances that patient care will suffer. The situation reached such a crisis point in 2023 that thousands of pharmacy professionals walked out, staging what became known as \u201cPharmageddon.\u201d Union membership spiked in its wake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRetail pharmacies in America are at a crossroads,\u201d writes Eggeman, who argues the burnout and chronic understaffing must stop before patients suffer. Read more<\/a> from the pharmacist.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roundup of other health news<\/p>\n

Not a ton of big-ticket items yesterday, but here\u2019s a few more nuggets for you:<\/p>\n

The writing has been on the wall for weeks that the extra health insurance subsidies were unlikely to survive the year. John Wilkerson\u2019s predictions finally came true<\/a>: a failed Senate bill yesterday means premium costs are set to spike next year for ACA plans.<\/p>\n

The World Health Organization published a statement yesterday reiterating that there is no causal link<\/a> between vaccines and autism. In case you want to know the science behind this assertion, here\u2019s Matt Herper\u2019s explainer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canadian researchers found that teenage girls and young women in Ontario reported big jumps in stimulant prescriptions<\/a> starting in 2020.<\/p>\n

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

\u2018There\u2019s no longer a heartbeat\u2019: the couple whose twins were stillborn \u2013 and the \u2018birth keeper\u2019 they blame, The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas files antitrust suit against epic systems over health data, Bloomberg<\/a><\/p>\n

Oliver Sacks put himself into his case studies. What was the cost? The New Yorker<\/a><\/p>\n

The Architects of AI are TIME\u2019s 2025 Person of the Year, TIME<\/a><\/p>\n

Open AI, Microsoft face lawsuit over ChatGPT\u2019s alleged role in Connecticut murder-suicide, AP<\/a><\/p>\n

Acting head of beleaguered mental health agency to depart this week, STAT<\/a><\/p>\n

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