{"id":522185,"date":"2026-03-14T00:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/522185\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:42:16","slug":"rfk-jr-flu-shots-dementia-elf-bar-morning-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/522185\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr., flu shots, dementia, Elf Bar: 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

A crucial question for you on this Friday morning: How long would you last on Survivor?<\/p>\n

Unrelated, but just as important: What\u2019s the link between surrealism and dementia? Scroll down and find out.<\/p>\n

Can the White House steer away from vaccine skepticism?<\/p>\n

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent his first year in office overhauling the federal government\u2019s approach to vaccines. White House officials are trying to get him<\/a> \u2014 and his Make America Healthy Again allies \u2014 to stop.<\/p>\n

Some Trump administration officials are eager to distance themselves from a topic they see as relatively unpopular in a key election year, pointing to a December poll which found strong bipartisan support for the childhood vaccine schedule in key congressional districts. \u201cWe\u2019re just kind of done with the vaccine issue,\u201d said one White House official.<\/p>\n

But MAHA diehards aren\u2019t going down without a fight. Read STAT\u2019s Daniel Payne and Chelsea Cirruzzo with a deep dive<\/a> into the brawl brewing between Trump and Kennedy\u2019s respective movements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will the FDA authorize new vape flavors?<\/p>\n

The Food and Drug Administration released draft guidance this week suggesting the agency may soon authorize additional vape flavors<\/a> for sale.<\/p>\n

The news has rankled public health experts, who worry the new flavors \u2014 including coffee, mint, and cinnamon \u2014 will attract children and undo the progress the U.S. has made reducing youth e-cigarette usage. The guidance isn\u2019t finalized.<\/p>\n

Adding flavors to the market isn\u2019t a simple question, since experts acknowledge that incorporating flavored products can help adults move away from more dangerous cigarettes. And the FDA\u2019s newest guidance steers clear of the sweet flavorings like candy and fruit to avoid the options that fueled youth vaping in the late 2010s. Who benefits from more vaping flavors? And what evidence will manufacturers have to show to get their flavors on the market?<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a> from STAT\u2019s Sarah Todd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Barfing\u2019 cancer cells and the promise of an anomalous protein<\/p>\n

The discovery of an unusual protein on the surface of cancer cells may provide scientists with an ideal immunotherapy target for solid tumors, according to a study published yesterday<\/a> in Science.<\/p>\n

Most immunotherapies work by drawing the immune system to a particular marker on the surface of a cancer cell in order to destroy those cells. This strategy doesn\u2019t work as well for solid tumors, since nearly all of the cell surface proteins are shared with the healthy cells of vital organs. Src, a protein that is typically associated with cancer cells, could act as one such marker for potential medications.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a therapeutic silver bullet, but it is an exciting discovery. STAT\u2019s Angus Chen has a great roundup<\/a> on the study, including researchers\u2019 best guess as to why cancer cells \u201cbarfed\u201d Src from the cell\u2019s interior to its outer membrane.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Make next year\u2019s flu shots, says FDA committee<\/p>\n

Vaccine experts on an FDA advisory committee said Thursday the agency should instruct flu vaccine manufacturers to make next winter\u2019s\u00a0shots using the strains recommended by the World Health Organization<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vinay Prasad<\/a>, the outgoing head of the FDA\u2019s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, previously suggested he would require flu vaccine manufacturers to conduct effectiveness trials before licensing updated shots \u2014 a demand experts insist isn\u2019t feasible, given the tight turnaround. But there was no discussion of that idea at the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee meeting.<\/p>\n

In related news, the committee heard a report on how well flu shots appear to be working this winter. Though there was\u00a0significant concern\u00a0that the late emergence<\/a> of a new strain of H3N2 would seriously undermine the effectiveness of this year\u2019s shot, the CDC reported (in its online MMWR journal<\/a>) that the vaccines were moderately protective against hospitalization \u2014 for those people vaccinated. But a representative of the manufacturers who supply flu shots to the U.S. noted that number is steadily shrinking, with 40 million fewer doses supplied to the market in 2025-2026 than four years ago. \u2014 Helen Branswell<\/p>\n

Americans credit Trump over Biden for trying to lower drug prices<\/p>\n

The Trump and Biden administrations have both made lower drug prices a priority. But Trump is getting more credit<\/a> for his efforts, according to a new poll by KFF.<\/p>\n

TrumpRx is the centerpiece of the president\u2019s efforts to lower drug prices, and he\u2019s touted the site extensively at White House events. It\u2019s paid off: 41% of Americans say it is likely the Trump administration\u2019s policies will lower their prescription drug costs, though the responses broke unsurprisingly along party lines, with 79% of Republicans, and 11% of Democrats agreeing.<\/p>\n

Only 31% of respondents were aware of Biden\u2019s law directing Medicare to negotiate lower prices, which also limits annual drug price increases, caps seniors\u2019 monthly spending on insulin, and caps individuals\u2019 annual out-of-pocket drug spending in Medicare Part D.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a> from STAT\u2019s John Wilkerson, who has the full rundown of the poll and a fun quote from Mark Cuban about why Democrats don\u2019t get credit for their policies.<\/p>\n

How surrealism helps us make sense of and live with dementia<\/p>\n

Surrealism, a 20th century aesthetic and artistic philosophy, could be the solution to a vexing debate in dementia care, writes<\/a> Jason Karlawish, a professor of medicine, medical ethics, health policy, and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Perelman School of Medicine.<\/p>\n

People living with dementia, particularly advanced-stage dementia, often struggle to distinguish between what is real and what is not. Surrealism rejects that binary, using various techniques and media such as collage, painting, and photography to instead disrupt and question our tightly-held conceptions of \u201cthe real.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a> from Karlawish about how exquisite corpses and Andr\u00e9 Breton can help caregivers make sense of their patients\u2019 dementia.<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re reading<\/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":522186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-522185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522185","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=522185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}