A swine flu case to keep tabs on

STAT News · Mar 2, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here. Good morning. There’s already plenty of news to keep up with this week, but if you have a chance to rewind to September, consider re-visiting Eric Boodman’s story on post-tubal ligation syndrome, and why some women pursue reversal surgery for a procedure that’s supposed to be irreversible. Eric was just named a finalist for a National Magazine Award for feature writing — a first in this category for STAT. Checking in on the ‘godfather of vaccines’ Stanley Plotkin, 93, has been so influential to the development of vaccines that they named the field’s go-to textbook after him. And they didn’t do it yesterday — “Plotkin’s Vaccines” has eight editions, with a ninth on the way. But you won’t catch the guy doing victory laps. “All I can say is that I’m beginning to regret having lived so long,” he recently told STAT’s Helen Branswell. “Because we’re going downhill.” Plotkin was a practicing doctor in 1957, so he remembers the before times, when it was impossible to prevent a slew of infectious diseases that many of us have never encountered. Read Helen’s profile on this living legend of vaccinology. Start the story to get some insight on Plotkin’s contributions to public health. Stay to find out how old he was when he got his pilot’s license (“I loved flying and found it easy”) and what his vanity license plate said. A swine flu case to keep tabs on Spanish health officials have detected a case of swine flu in an 83-year-old person who had no known contact with pigs. The person has reportedly recovered. The concern here is that a case like this could signal undetected person-to-person spread of a virus that could have pandemic potential. But Spanish authorities said Friday they believe the risk to the public is “very low” and if there were sustained spread, their ongoing investigation would have spotted it. They have informed the WHO and shared the virus with the organization’s reference laboratory. The U.S. typically sees a few swine flu infections a year, mostly in people who work with pigs or attend agricultural fairs. But occasionally, a case with no discernible link to pigs is reported. A case like this could a one-off, but all such cases need to be investigated. After all, in the spring of 2009, California detected swine flu in two kids who had no contact with pigs or with each other. That was the start of the h2N1 pandemic. — Helen Branswell Few mental health clinics have Asian language services For people who speak Asian languages (Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Korean, Tagalog, among others) but have limited English proficiency, it’s getting harder to access mental health care in the U.S. That’s according to a study published Friday in JAMA Health Forum that analyzed 10 years of nationally representative data on more than 3,800 mental health facilities and county-level demographics. The number of mental health clinics offering services in at least one Asian language peaked at 6.9% in 2021, then declined to 6.3% by 2024. These offerings were more common in cities, especially in California and the Northeast. But the need spreads farther. Researchers found that in rural areas, even counties with robust communities of people who primarily speak an Asian language, few if any clinics had Asian language services. The study authors called this “a persistent geographic mismatch.” Huge uncertainty on drug pricing in Europe President Trump’s campaign to make wealthy countries in Europe spend more on drugs so that the U.S. can pay less has not gone unnoticed across the pond. “Nobody wants to feel cornered,” said Yannis Natsis who leads the European Social Insurance Platform, which represents national payers. So far, there’s little evidence that the prices of medications in Europe have actually jumped. Still, countries are facing questions about whether drugmakers — eager to see the region increase spending — will try to charge more, and if so, how strained health systems will respond. Read more from Andrew Joseph, STAT’s Europe correspondent. (American) football is still bad for your head By now, most people understand broadly that playing American-style football can pose major risks for brain health. But existing studies trying to nail down the specifics are often small, limited to elite players, lacking proper control groups, or all of the above. Research published Friday in JAMA Network Open aimed to provide higher quality evidence. Using surveillance data on hundreds of men aged 40 and older, the researchers found that those with any experience playing football typically scored worse on a computerized cognitive test, had more of their own cognitive concerns, and reported more severe symptoms of depression than those who hadn’t experienced repeated head impacts. In a separate cohort of nearly 4,000 former football players — with varying experience from youth leagues to professional play — those who played longer and at higher levels showed worse cognitive and neuropsychiatric function. Reading the Reddit tea leaves on ketamine It was personal at first. A year ago, Michael Alvear got esketamine in a medically supervised clinic. After his insurance denied coverage for extended maintenance treatments, he went to Reddit to seek out affordable alternatives. “Instead,” he writes in a new First Opinion essay, “I found a digital triage unit run by patients.” Some telehealth companies will send patients at-home oral ketamine. On Reddit, Alvear found users comparing vastly different instructions from different providers and deliberating severe side effects with the site’s upvote function. An independent researcher, he paused his personal plans and decided to analyze six months of posts and comments. Read more for his results and why he believes these companies are abdicating their responsibilities. What we’re reading Kennedy announces new vaccine advisory committee members after meeting rescheduled, STAT White House stalls release of approved U.S. science budgets, Nature Disability advocate says Medicaid freeze could lead to death, homelessness, MPR News Henrietta Lacks’ estate settles with Novartis over the ‘stolen cells’ that advanced science, AP More Americans under 55 are dying of severe heart attacks, Wall Street Journal First Opinion: Cannabis is becoming more legal — unless you’re pregnant, STAT What’s the word? Test your knowledge with today’s STAT Mini crossword.