{"id":522327,"date":"2026-03-14T02:17:37","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/522327\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T02:17:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T02:17:37","slug":"nih-whistleblower-glp-1-telehealth-microbiome-morning-rounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/522327\/","title":{"rendered":"NIH whistleblower, GLP-1 telehealth, microbiome: 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. If you find yourself clicking on links in this newsletter with relative frequency, consider clicking this one: to subscribe<\/a>, with a sweet springtime discount. We appreciate it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The doctors behind the telehealth GLP-1 boom<\/p>\n

In recent months, the FDA has turned its eye to telehealth companies, sending out warnings about their marketing practices for compounded weight loss drugs. But it\u2019s worth remembering: the companies don\u2019t actually prescribe these medications directly. That\u2019s done by doctors at affiliated medical groups. And a new analysis by STAT\u2019s Katie Palmer shows that a small number of medical groups provide doctors to a large swath of telehealth companies.<\/p>\n

Among more than 70 telehealth companies warned by the FDA in the last six months, at least 30% have publicly stated affiliations with just four nationwide medical groups, Katie found. The FDA doesn\u2019t have authority over these groups \u2014 only state medical boards regulate individual prescribers. As people become more aware of the complicated model behind direct-to-consumer prescribing, there could be long-lasting impacts for patients and prescribers. Read more<\/a> from Katie on how things could play out.<\/p>\n

8 years<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how long the composition of someone\u2019s gut microbiome may be affected by a course of oral antibiotics, according to a study published this week in Nature Medicine<\/a>. In a study of nearly 15,000 people in Sweden, those who\u2019d taken antibiotics within a year of testing had a major reduction in specimen diversity in the gut microbiome. But there was also significant diversity loss when antibiotics were taken 1-4 years and 4-8 years earlier. Specific antibiotics had the strongest associations: clindamycin, fluoroquinolones, and flucloxacillin. Penicillin V, common outside of Sweden, saw small and short-lasting gut changes. The researchers are collecting additional samples from almost half the participants for more longitudinal data. \u00a0<\/p>\n

An NIH whistleblower warning<\/p>\n

As a program officer at the NIH, Jenna Norton witnessed the Trump administration\u2019s tumultuous shake-up of\u00a0science and research firsthand last year. She refused to stay silent about what she saw, speaking out\u00a0internally and publicly. In November, she was put on administrative leave. An HHS official called her a \u201cradical leftist\u201d in national media. But asked if she regrets her decision to speak up, Norton says that she\u2019d make the same choices again, without question.<\/p>\n

\u201cScientists are often encouraged to avoid politics,\u201d Norton writes, pointing out a recent essay by Science magazine editor Holden Thorp that lauded both loud and quiet resistance. \u201cBut this advice is outdated, if it was ever correct in the first place.\u201d Read more<\/a> about Norton\u2019s experience and her problems with Thorp\u2019s argument.<\/p>\n

Momentum builds for a men\u2019s health office at HHS<\/p>\n

For a quarter of a century, lawmakers have been introducing congressional bills to establish an office of men\u2019s health at the federal health department. \u201cThe Office of Women\u2019s Health has done spectacular things for women on so many levels,\u201d said Paul Turek, director of the Turek Clinic and a longtime men\u2019s health advocate.<\/p>\n

The moment could finally be here. The latest bill has four sponsors, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. For the first time, the American Medical Association, which has made a point of playing ball with the Trump administration where it can, has endorsed the bill. HHS officials have repeatedly highlighted the importance of (cisgender) men\u2019s health as part of the MAHA agenda. STAT\u2019s Annalisa Merelli has more on the initiative<\/a> that people say could help men live longer.<\/p>\n

Neurology group releases wearables guidance<\/p>\n

The American Association of Neurology released informal guidance for neurologists yesterday regarding the use of wearable devices like smart watches and fitness trackers to monitor health and vital signs. It\u2019s a timely notice: Trump administration officials have repeatedly highlighted the potential of wearable devices for wellness, and the FDA recently decided to ease regulation<\/a> of digital health products broadly, including a more relaxed stance on consumer devices.<\/p>\n

The guidance \u2014 specifically not a statement on the standard of care \u2014 lays out the potential for wearables to improve the quantity and quality of patient data. Among the suggestions: Devices that measure heart rate could provide clues around seizures, sleep detection devices have typically been well-validated and are easily accessible and comfortable to use, and data on movement (\u201cactiography\u201d) can be used to help people with headache disorders. Still, the evidence is limited for how applicable device data is in neurology.<\/p>\n

You can read all of STAT\u2019s wearables coverage here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

The boom in autism therapy is Medicaid\u2019s fastest-growing jackpot, Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the 50th anniversary of the U.S. biotech industry. What will the next 50 years look like?\u00a0STAT<\/a><\/p>\n

In talking to parents about vaccines, pediatricians navigate a sea of misinformation, New York Times<\/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":522328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-522327","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\/522327","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=522327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}