Scientists weigh in on RFK Jr. as HHS secretary

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The schedule at my YMCA recently changed so that my swim workout time now coincides with an Aqua Zumba class. There’s nothing more motivating for a workout than a bunch of ladies chanting/Zumba-ing to the Wobble next to you, and that’s the energy I hope you take into this weekend.

RFK Jr. is Trump’s official HHS pick

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic, for the nation’s top health care job, leading the Department of Health and Human Services.

The choice is already stirring up plenty of controversy. The Senate will need to confirm RFK Jr. to the role — a possibility moderate Republicans didn’t want to comment on when STAT asked them about it Wednesday, before the nomination was announced. Trump has raised the prospect of sidestepping that process.

Read more about RFK Jr.’s nomination here, as well as reactions from scientists and biotech investors and about the people RFK could name to other top health posts.

And if you’d like to keep up with STAT’s coverage of the Trump administration, consider a subscription to STAT+, which is 40% off through Saturday.

Measles rates up 20% year-over-year worldwide

Globally, measles vaccination coverage has not recovered to pre-Covid levels, resulting in a 20% year-over-year increase in measles cases in 2023, according to a new report from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control that was released Thursday. More than 22 million children who should have been vaccinated last year did not receive a single dose of the vaccine.

Despite worldwide commitment to eliminating the transmission of measles, keeping attention on the issue is a problem, said Natasha Crowcroft, the WHO’s senior technical adviser for measles and rubella. It “takes an enormous global effort to reach every child,” she said. “And getting movement on this is, if anything, getting harder in the current economic context.” Read more from STAT’s Helen Branswell.

Progress in treating a deadly childhood brain cancer with CAR-T

Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas, or DIPG, are the “worst imaginable childhood brain tumor.” They shackle themselves so insidiously around a young person’s brainstem that no chemo or scalpel can wrest it out. Most children don’t survive a year.

A new CAR-T treatment for the cancer raises hope that DIPG might eventually be rendered something less than a universal death sentence. This method of strapping cancer-seeking receptors onto patients’ own immune cells has produced Lazarus-like responses in children and adults with leukemia. But it’s been challenging to apply to solid tumors.

One patient who received the new therapy, 20-year-old Drew, is alive and in remission 30 months after treatment for DIPG. But while the treatment shrunk the tumors for four of the 11 patients in a recent trial, nine patients eventually died. Although this represents progress compared to what was possible even five years ago, the treatment has a long way to go and faces a hard path to commercialization, as there are only about 300 DIPG patients a year.

Read more from STAT’s Jason Mast to hear the stories of Michelle Monje-Deisseroth, the investigator leading the trial, and Jace Ward, a former high school football star with DIPG.

Health

FDA’s Califf says the agency is taking action on ultra-processed food

Ultra-processed foods like chicken nuggets and cookie bars are a huge point of contention in health policy, as well as a target in RFK Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.

While officials drafting U.S. dietary guidelines for 2025-2030 recently decided to hold off on making guidelines for ultra-processed foods, the FDA isn’t waiting to act on them, according to a STAT First Opinion by the agency chief Robert Califf and other food and disease officials. They’re already working to lower sodium levels in food. “In the near future, we expect to finalize an updated definition for the ‘healthy’ claim and we continue to work to propose front-of-package nutrition labeling,” they write.

Read more, including about the officials’ interest in better research on ultraprocessed food, here.

Scientists in public policy? Survey says: Maybe not

Americans’ trust in scientists is rising again, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of over 9,500 U.S. adults  — but with some important caveats. Many don’t want scientists to be involved in public policy, and even fewer people view scientists as good communicators.

Seventy-six percent of Americans expressed confidence in scientists to act in the best interests of the public. That’s up from 73% last year, but still well below pre-pandemic levels.

The survey revealed mixed attitudes about whether Americans think scientists should be engaged in public policy debates on scientific issues, with 51% saying scientists should take an active role, versus 48% saying that scientists should focus on establishing facts instead of participating in public policy.

Perception of scientists’ social skills is not great either: Fewer than half of the respondents (45%) said that scientists are good communicators. About half of Americans view scientists as “socially awkward” and 47% have the impression scientists “feel superior to others.” On the bright side, 89% see scientists as intelligent.

What we’re reading

• Can AI review the scientific literature — and figure out what it all means?, Nature
• Science is inherently inefficient, Slate
• Trace of bird flu detected in Oahu wastewater, Civil Beat
• Facing a dialogue with RFK Jr., a top FDA official mounts a public defense of vaccines, STAT
• Black infant mortality rate more than double the rate among white infants: CDC, ABC
• With boost from RFK Jr. and Tucker Carlson, two chronic disease entrepreneurs vault into Trump’s orbit, STAT