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Good morning! We’re excited to announce a few new additions to the STAT team, including two D.C. reporters: Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne. You’ve already seen some of Daniel’s great reporting since he started this spring. And we’re excited to have Chelsea on board beginning this week.
And it’s already a busy one. Members of the STAT biotech team have been reporting nonstop out of the American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago. I hope you’re following along.
From start-up founder to DOGE’s invisible health care czar
You probably haven’t heard of the man at the center of the Trump administration’s massive, relentless cuts to government-funded scientific research and disease prevention. Brad Smith (above) has been a leading figure within the U.S. DOGE Service, after being part of Trump 1.0’s Operation Warp Speed during the pandemic.
STAT’s Tara Bannow profiled Smith in her latest story, based on interviews with more than 30 people, including his former colleagues and employees, as well as friends, family members, and former classmates. Multiple people called him “the smartest person I’ve ever met.” His mom told Tara he’s worked upwards of 18 hours a day for his whole career.
The conversations revealed a person singularly and unapologetically focused on hitting ambitious growth and profit targets, sometimes at the expense of workers’ mental health and patients’ well-being. “I do think that you don’t become so successful without being a little bit ruthless,” a former executive at CareBridge, a company Smith founded, said of him. Read more from Tara about how Brad Smith got to the top, and where he might be going next.
New HHS document details deep NIH cuts
Now that you know who Smith is, we’ve got more details about what some of his cost-cutting efforts could look like: A summary of President Trump’s budget request for the 2026 fiscal year, released Friday by HHS, provides the closest look yet at how the administration hopes to reshape the NIH and other federal agencies.
The “budget in brief” document doubles down on a previous request to slash NIH’s discretionary budget to $27.5 billion, an $18 billion or nearly 40% reduction. It also details plans to consolidate the agency’s 27 institutes and centers into just eight. HHS claims that restructuring NIH will make it run more efficiently. But many researchers and biopharma leaders have been sharply critical of the proposed changes, arguing they could jeopardize U.S. leadership in biomedicine. Read more about the specifics from STAT’s Jonathan Wosen and Daniel Payne.
$9.8 billion
That’s how much our dental costs would be if the rest of the country follows Utah and Florida in banning the addition of fluoride to water, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum. In five years, the researchers estimated, 7.5% more U.S. children ages 0-19 would get cavities, affecting 25.4 million additional teeth and costing around $9.8 billion. Read more from STAT’s Anil Oza on what the future may hold.
How mRNA became a government target
Last week, HHS confirmed it was canceling a more than $700 million contract with Moderna to develop, test, and license mRNA vaccines for flu strains that could cause future pandemics. It was the latest in a series of moves signaling the administration’s growing disdain for messenger RNA — a basic building block of biology that was once harnessed by Trump officials to create Covid shots in record time. Now, Republican lawmakers and federal health officials alike are shunning Nobel-winning technology.
Some of the attacks levied at mRNA are about the technology itself, while others stem from general vaccine skepticism and frustrations with vaccine mandates during the pandemic. But, as the STAT dynamic duo of Lizzy Lawrence and Isabella Cueto report, the impact is the same: Waning political support of mRNA is leading to waning investor support. Some public health experts worry the field will flounder, leaving Americans without vaccines in the event of another pandemic.
Read more from Lizzy and Isa about the ongoing mRNA war, and what shots might be fired next.
Another Covid vaccine approval with restrictions attached
The FDA approved Moderna’s new Covid-19 vaccine late Friday, though it placed restrictions on its use that the company’s existing Covid shot, Spikevax, does not currently face.
Just as it did earlier this month with Novavax’s Covid vaccine, the agency said the new Moderna shot, called mNexspike, is licensed for use only in people aged 65 and older and people aged 12 to 64 who have at least one medical condition that puts them at increased risk of becoming seriously ill if they contract the SARS-CoV-2 virus. (Such conditions include diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder or COPD, and obesity.) Spikevax’s license simply allows its use in people aged 12 years and older.
Read more from STAT’s Helen Branswell on what it means. And if the administration’s strategy on Covid vaccines is confusing to you, check out a story Lizzy wrote Sunday about a television interview with FDA commissioner Marty Makary. But a warning: you may find more contradictions than answers. On CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Makary called the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory panel a “kangaroo court” that “rubber-stamps” every vaccine. Later, he cited the panel’s proposed risk-based approach as justification for the administration’s policy changes the past few weeks.
Rethinking the culture of clinical detachment
Kate Solpari spent so much time in hospitals growing up that she invented a game to play during morning rounds: contorting her face into increasingly ridiculous expressions to see which doctors actually looked up from their charts. As she writes in a new First Opinion essay, she was looking for someone who could see both her and her medical condition. There were two doctors who did, and they changed her life.
In medicine, there is a belief that emotional distance is essential. This idea is not without merit, Solpari writes. Still, she would like to imagine a medical system that embraces emotional investment as a strength rather than a liability. The two doctors who changed her life — by both treating her condition and nurturing her independence and curiosity — serve as inspirations for Solpari now, as she prepares for her first year of medical school. Read more about her journey with Dr. L and Dr. Z.
What we’re reading
For trans people on Medicaid, Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ is anything but, Mother Jones
HIV’s most promising breakthrough has taken a hit, The Atlantic
Study finds exercise can keep colon cancer from recurring, STAT
Abortion opponents are coming for mifepristone using what medical experts call ‘junk science,’ The 19th
Combination treatment reduces risk of tumor progression in aggressive form of breast cancer, study shows, STAT
