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Good morning. We had a lot of news today, including two impressive and thorough stories from our colleagues. Hear Jason’s inside account of Moderna’s decline, along with Rose and Lev’s perspectives on the impact of SAMHSA’s massive cuts.
Moderna is drastically decreasing
Just four years ago, the mRNA treatment company Moderna was ranked first in the world. It more than quadrupled its workforce to nearly 6,000, planned to build offices on five continents, leased a gleaming $1.1 billion headquarters, broke ground on a “Moderna University” and defied Wall Street’s advice to diversify beyond mRNA.
Currently, the company is facing an unprecedented crisis in its 15-year history. Vaccine sales have plummeted without a new blockbuster to compensate. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. canceled a $776 million contract to prepare for a potential avian flu pandemic. Meanwhile, the company’s market value has fallen more than 90% from its 2021 peak. Layoffs and restructuring left employees in confusion.
STAT’s Jason Mast interviewed more than 20 former and current Moderna employees, along with analysts, competitive executives, investors, and mRNA and vaccine experts, to understand how the company got to this perilous moment and where it is going. In short, Moderna’s great evolution is neither simple nor finished. Learn more about the company’s “Shakespearean flaw,” Maroon 5’s private concert, and the political earthquake.
What we know so far about Hurricane Melissa’s damage
Hurricane Melissa, which swept through Jamaica on Tuesday and hit Cuba yesterday, is one of the strongest hurricanes and hurricanes of the season. strongest The worst Atlantic storm in history. As of yesterday afternoon, dozens of people had been reported. dead Storms caused damage in Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The full extent of the damage is not yet clear due to widespread power outages.
Several hospitals in Jamaica were damaged. impairmentBy report. The only public hospital in St. Elizabeth Parish (a subdivision of one of three counties in the country) had to be evacuated after losing power and its roof. An organization called Doctors Without Borders plan Emergency teams and supplies will be sent to Jamaica as soon as the airport opens.
More news to come. Last year, U.S. hospitals began giving patients Gatorade to boost their IV fluids after Hurricane Helen forced the closure of a major manufacturing plant. After Hurricane Fiona in 2022, rural health centers in Puerto Rico had to wait more than 10 days to get the fuel they needed, and larger hospitals switched to diesel-fueled generators. Again, climate change has not increased the number of hurricanes and other storms that occur each year, but contribution Making the storm more and more intense.
518,324
According to new data, this is how many cases of cholera have been confirmed in 32 countries around the world from the beginning of this year to September 28. WHO report. More than 6,500 people died. This has already surpassed the total number of deaths from cholera in 2024, a 50% increase over the previous year.
SAMHSA becomes extinct amid national crisis
For 33 years, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has been the primary federal agency protecting the nation through behavioral health scourges, such as the ongoing suicide and drug overdose epidemics. But since January, layoffs and funding cuts have halted much of the agency’s work. Less than half of its 900 employees remain, including just five of its 17 top leaders. In some cases, the administration has used layoffs to make indiscriminate policy and personnel changes that Congress had previously ignored.
STAT’s O. Rose Broderick and Lev Facher interviewed more than 30 current and former SAMHSA officials, aides on Capitol Hill, lobbyists and behavioral health leaders to understand the full impact of the Trump administration on the agency and its work. Beyond threatening existing mental health and addictions programs, losing the expertise of hundreds of employees could also derail the Trump administration’s plans, experts said.
“You don’t want to get your car repaired by someone who’s only read books about cars,” said Anne Mathews-Younes, a retired SAMHSA employee. Read more from our colleagues’ comprehensive account of the institution’s decline and bleak future.
New research provides insight into how the immune system changes with age
It’s no secret that our body’s ability to block pathogens and mount a strong vaccine response weakens as we age, but researchers don’t fully understand how this happens. Now the study has been published: nature Wednesday brings new insights.
A team of researchers led by the Allen Institute studied immune cells taken from more than 300 healthy adults aged 25 to 90. They found that although the immune cells of participants tracked for two years did not show significant changes, there were clear differences in gene activity between cells aged 25 to 35 years compared to those aged 55 to 65 years. Many of these differences were seen in T cells, which shape the scale and strategy of the immune response.
One change in particular caught the author’s eye. Memory T cells, which help the immune system mount a faster, stronger response to previously seen pathogens, become less adept at supporting an effective flu vaccine response as we age. The authors suggest that it may be possible to prevent or reverse these changes by combining vaccines with immune signals that steer T cell activity in the right direction. — Jonathan Watson
How dependent we are on international clinicians
Last month, President Trump announced that the fee for applying for a new H-1B work visa, aimed at skilled workers in specialized fields, would be $100,000, a significant increase from thousands of dollars previously. Health policy experts fear the changes will have a disastrous impact on the U.S. health care system, and professional groups are calling for a fee. exemption For doctors. Study published yesterday Zama It provides an in-depth picture of how dependent the country’s clinics are on health care providers arriving with these visas.
Researchers analyzed data from all employer petitions in 2024 for H-1B visas. Studies show that nearly 1% of all doctors in the United States are here on H-1B visas. Fewer advanced practice providers, dentists, and other health care workers are coming through the program. Importantly, however, there are also differences in which regions of the United States rely most heavily on international clinicians. Rural areas have twice as many H-1B sponsored physicians as urban areas, and counties with the highest poverty rates employed H-1B sponsored physicians four times more often than counties with the lowest poverty rates.
JAMA says waiving fees for doctors is “therefore in the national interest.” essay insist. “Policies should bring doctors to the bedside, not push them out.”
What we’re reading
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The VA cited Trump’s ‘biological truth’ order to make it more difficult for male breast cancer veterans to get coverage. ProPublica
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In Utah, Trump’s vision for homelessness is starting to take shape. new york times
- FDA moves to ease path for biosimilars as Trump seeks to cut drug costs, STAT
- Trump team takes aim at state laws protecting consumers’ credit scores from medical debt, KFF Health News
- First opinion: Healthcare workers under 65 years of age should be vaccinated against Covid, STAT.
