April 24, 2025
john-wilkerson-avatar-teal
Washington Correspondent, D.C. Diagnosis Writer

It’s STAT Wunderkinds time again. Celebrate early-career researchers by nominating them here. We want to honor postdocs, interns, fellows — people who have terminal degrees but aren’t running their own research programs yet. And send your news tips to me at John.Wilkerson@statnews.com or via Signal at John_Wilkerson.07.

medical journals

Letter of intimidation?

Anil Oza has another scoop about a prestigious medical journal receiving a letter from the top U.S. attorney asking it to respond to allegations of bias. This time it’s the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Trump administration hasn’t said it is trying to intimidate medical journals, but Jeremy Berg, who was editor in chief of the journal Science, told Anil that’s probably what’s going on.

Before he was the HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wanted to prosecute medical journals for what he believed was a misrepresentation of science. Read more for the exact Kennedy quote from a year ago. 

medicaid

Would work requirements work?

Among Republican policymakers there is disagreement over many money-saving Medicaid policies, except one: work requirements.  

Tradeoffs reporter Ryan Levi wanders deep into the weeds on the policy, discussing what’s been tried, what states have learned, and what they’re considering next. New proposals would do more to reduce the paperwork burden for those on Medicaid and to help them find jobs.

Given that the imposition of work requirements is one of the most likely Medicaid policies to come out of Republicans’ plans to cut taxes as part of a big budget reconciliation bill, Ryan’s article is an important read.

 

hiv

Brett Giroir speaks

While assistant secretary for health during Trump’s first term, Brett Giroir gathered top HIV experts at HHS to develop a national plan to end the HIV epidemic. He pitched it to then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar, then he sold the president on it. 

“Can we really do that?” Trump asked when presented with the plan to end HIV infections in the next decade. “Yes Mr. President,” Giroir recalls saying during the Oval Office meeting. “YOU can do that.” 

And it was working, Giroir said, until Trump started dismantling the initiative himself. Now Giroir is trying to save the program by convincing Trump that his legacy is on the line.

 

vaccine misinformation

More confusion over vaccines

Vaccine misinformation is reaching an increasing number of people, according to KFF Health News reporter Arthur Allen, and Republicans are much more likely to believe it.

There are several interesting findings from the survey that KFF released this week. A fresh one: 3 in 10 parents erroneously believed that vitamin A prevents measles infections, a theory Kennedy has espoused during the measles outbreak.

Read more about how the politicization of immunizations makes it difficult to spread correct information in parts of the country.

More around STAT
Check out more exclusive coverage with a STAT+ subscription
Read premium in-depth biotech, pharma, policy, and life science coverage and analysis with all of our STAT+ articles.

What we’re reading

  • NIH chief voices support for Nora Volkow, head of drug addiction research institute, STAT
  • Food industry says there’s no agreement with US health agency to cut dyes, Bloomberg
  • FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announces three new hires in leadership team, STAT
  • RFK Jr. to testify before Senate HELP in May, Axios

Thanks for reading! More next week,