{"id":118340,"date":"2025-08-04T14:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/118340\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T14:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T14:02:11","slug":"ms-study-trans-health-care-lawsuit-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/118340\/","title":{"rendered":"MS study, trans health care lawsuit, vaccines"},"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. Bill Gates is joining STAT\u2019s Matt Herper on stage today for our event: Women\u2019s Health, Unstuck<\/a>. In-person tickets are sold out but you can still join virtually. After Bill and Matt speak, I\u2019ll be moderating a panel with four smart leaders in women\u2019s health. See you there!<\/p>\n

Opioid medications are getting a new warning label<\/p>\n

The FDA will soon require prescription opioid manufacturers to include stronger language on the medications\u2019 label warning that higher doses and longer-term use carry risks including overdose and death, STAT\u2019s Lev Facher reports. The new rules also require warnings about the dangers of rapidly reducing someone\u2019s dose or discontinuing altogether.<\/p>\n

The move, announced Thursday, comes nearly three months after a pair of FDA advisory committees met to discuss study results attempting to quantify the risks of long-term use. And it comes nearly 30 years after the initial approval of OxyContin, the now-infamous painkiller sold by Purdue Pharma. Read more<\/a> on the details from Lev.<\/p>\n

State AGs sue Trump, HHS over gender-affirming care restrictions<\/p>\n

More than a dozen state attorneys general are suing President Trump and HHS for \u201crelentlessly\u201d and \u201ccruelly\u201d targeting trans youth by pursuing a de facto ban on gender-affirming\u00a0care. The complaint<\/a>, filed Friday, also argues that the President\u2019s executive order<\/a> in January and the actions taken to enforce it impede on states\u2019 right to regulate medicine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has launched a targeted campaign against trans people and their medical providers, the complaint states, citing multiple directives from leadership calling for investigations of hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors without evidence of fraud. Last month, the DOJ announced that federal lawyers had sent out around 20 subpoenas<\/a> to clinics and manufacturers along these lines. And several clinics around the country have stopped providing gender-affirming care in light of the regulatory environment. The complaint requests that the court declare the executive order to be unconstitutional and vacate the actions taken to enforce it. For more information, Orion Rummler at the 19th<\/a> reported first on the lawsuit Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vaccine study author responds to RKF Jr.\u2019s claims<\/p>\n

A large study from Denmark<\/a>\u00a0that seriously challenges claims that aluminum salts in childhood vaccines might be behind rising autism rates continues to draw heavy fire from the anti-vaccine movement, including from health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy, who has promised his department\u00a0will quickly<\/a>\u00a0come up with definitive answers about why autism rates have risen, took to the website\u00a0Trial Site News<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0social media platform X<\/a>\u00a0on Friday, denouncing the article as \u201ca deceitful propaganda stunt\u201d by the pharmaceutical industry. He demanded its retraction.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Anders Hviid, the senior author of the paper, responded to some of Kennedy\u2019s claims on\u00a0Trial Site News<\/a>. The work was not industry-funded, he pointed out. The Statens Serum Institut, where the research was done, is not a vaccine company \u2014 it\u2019s Denmark\u2019s equivalent of the CDC. The study was not designed to find no effect, it was modeled after\u00a0an earlier American study<\/a> that suggested aluminum in vaccines might increase the risk a child would develop asthma. But the Danish study, which was nearly four times larger, did not see an association between vaccines containing aluminum salts \u2014 which are added to improve the effectiveness of some vaccines \u2014 and asthma, autism, or a range of other illnesses. \u2014 Helen Branswell<\/p>\n

Uncertainty with a chance of optimism in San Diego<\/p>\n

In San Diego\u2019s biotech industry, lab space is plentiful, but actual jobs are hard to come by. The region ranks third among the nation\u2019s life science hubs behind Boston and the Bay Area, but these days many companies in the area are struggling to raise money, with the uncertainty only exacerbated by the Trump administration\u2019s many disruptions to science. \u201cI\u2019ve either got to leave San Diego, move back to Minnesota, or something,\u201d said Vince Kato, a former senior engineer at Illumina who was laid off last year (pictured above).<\/p>\n

But not everyone feels so bleak. STAT\u2019s Jonathan Wosen spoke with local market analysts, life science leaders, investors, and CEOs who argued that, despite the ongoing downturn, the region\u2019s biotechs continue to punch above their weight. And they have receipts. Read Jonathan\u2019s latest story<\/a> to learn what these Californians \u2014 and the financial data \u2014 have to say about San Diego\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n

Who gets MS, and when does it start?<\/p>\n

Two studies on multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the central nervous system, published late last week:<\/p>\n

Women are 8% less likely than men to receive drug treatment for MS, even when they have the same level of disease severity, according to a study in Neurology<\/a> that analyzed almost three decades of French health records for people with relapse-remitting MS. When it came to newer drugs that are particularly effective at reducing relapses, women had 20% lower odds of getting the drugs. While the study authors accounted for people pausing medications during pregnancy, they acknowledged the disparity could be partly influenced by women discontinuing meds in anticipation of getting pregnant. Still, they found the disparity unacceptable, per a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And while it\u2019s understood that someone\u2019s use of the health care system increases before the onset of MS, previous research has only focused on the 5 to 20 years before the first recorded nerve damage. A study published Friday in JAMA Network Open<\/a> looked at data from a cohort of more than 2,000 MS patients in British Columbia going back 25 years before symptom onset. Compared to matched controls, eventual MS patients visited doctors more often for all causes 14 years before onset. Mental health and ill-defined symptoms were the first concerns bringing in more visits, followed by neurology, eye problems, and sensory issues around 8-9 years before onset. The findings suggest that MS may begin much earlier than previously recognized, the authors concluded.<\/p>\n

AIDS activists are suing HHS for settlement details<\/p>\n

A patient advocacy group called Prep4All is suing the Trump administration for failing to disclose details of a recent settlement with Gilead Sciences over the patent rights to a pair of HIV prevention pills.<\/p>\n

The case was closely watched, STAT\u2019s Ed Silverman writes, because it raised questions about the extent to which government-funded research should lead to affordably priced medicines. Patient advocates complained Gilead charged high prices for the pills \u2014 Truvada and a newer version called Descovy. Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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