closer look
Women's Health Initiative future still uncertain
Felipe Dana/AP
The fate of the Women’s Health Initiative, a groundbreaking study that for decades has studied women’s health, remains unclear. WHI funding was slated to be cut at the end of the fiscal year and study leaders were told to start winding down. The massive study has been responsible for groundbreaking studies on hormone replacement therapy, bone density, and sleep. After widespread media coverage and outrage, HHS Secretary Kennedy said reports of the cut were “fake news.”
But as my colleague Liz Cooney reports, study leaders have not received any official confirmation that funding has been restored. “While we’d welcome the news that the decision on funding has been reversed, we have not yet received confirmation of this,” one of the study’s leaders, Marcia Stefanick of Stanford, said. The confusion has left study organizers in a state of disarray. Can they plan? Can they meet? Do they need to start shutting things down? Doing so, Stefanick said, could require two years to make sure data is clean and safely stored and biological samples are secured. Read more.
tobacco
Will the FDA approve the first smoking cessation drug in 20 years?
About 70% of people who smoke say they want to quit — but there are just two medications authorized by the FDA to help them do it. Now the Washington state-based biotech Achieve Life Sciences is planning to submit its smoking cessation drug, cytisinicline, for FDA approval by the end of June.
A modified version of a pill that’s been used in Eastern Europe for decades, cytisinicline curbs the pleasurable effects of nicotine and reportedly has fewer side effects than varenicline, the current go-to drug for Americans trying to quit cigarettes. If the drug is approved by the FDA, tobacco researchers say it could help expand the range of options for people who've been unsuccessful in their attempts to give up cigarettes so far. “Treatment for people with smoking issues and any type of addiction has to be individual-dependent,” said Olivier George, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine. Read more about why options have been so limited till now. — Sarah Todd
One big number
356,238
That’s how many deaths from heart disease around the world could be attributed in 2018 to phthalates, chemicals used in plastics. A specific form of phthalate, known as DEHP for short, is prized for making food containers, medical equipment, and other plastic more flexible. They’re thought to do their harm by sparking inflammation in coronary arteries, blamed for raising the risk of heart attacks and stroke over time.
While plastic is ubiquitous, the harms from DEHP hit some parts of the world harder than others, an analysis published in Lancet eBioMedicine found, based on population surveys, urine samples, and mortality data. People living in the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific together accounted for three-quarters of the cardiovascular deaths associated with DEHP. India fared the worst, with 103,587 such deaths, followed by China and Indonesia.
Why were heart death rates so high in these countries? Population size didn’t make the difference, the researchers concluded after adjusting for those numbers in their statistical analysis. The reason might instead be higher exposure rates in geographies where plastic production is booming but manufacturing restrictions are looser than in other nations. — Liz Cooney
Adobe