medicine

Trump order zeroing in on 'DEI-based standards' in medical accreditation raises eyebrows

They’re a small but powerful club of groups. Charged with setting standards for the nation’s medical schools and residency programs, two of them find themselves under scrutiny following a Trump administration executive order targeting the use of “DEI-based standards” to accredit universities. The order threatens to revoke federal recognition for accreditors “engaging in unlawful discrimination,” asserting that “the standards for training tomorrow’s doctors should focus solely on providing the highest quality care.” 

Accreditation happens to be a lucrative business; one of the targeted groups reported revenue of $85 million in 2023. The potential loss of federal recognition for the accrediting organizations would be a big deal for hospitals, too: Medicare’s $16 billion to fund residency programs could be at risk if programs are not accredited. 

There’s a larger issue: Compared to their numbers in the general population, Black, Hispanic, and Native American physicians are underrepresented in medicine. The DEI components of accreditation are “just one tiny element among all the others,” one physician told STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling. “Given the outcomes we have, we’re not doing such a great job.” Read more about the threat and its implications.

infectious disease

CDC's annual HIV report is missing crucial data

The CDC posted an annual HIV report on Tuesday. It was slimmer than usual.  The CDC said that a usual estimate of the incidence and prevalence of the epidemic over the last four years was “delayed.” And it did not release an estimate on how widely PrEP, a powerful medicine for preventing HIV, is being used across the country.

On its website, the agency chalked up the missing or delayed reports to last month’s HHS layoffs, which, as STAT previously reported, hit the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention, or DHP, particularly hard. “As part of this staffing reduction, the DHP branches that produced HIV incidence estimates and provided the statistical expertise needed to assess PrEP coverage were eliminated,” the CDC wrote. “CDC is currently evaluating plans and capacity to resume this work.”

It’s the latest sign of layoff-driven disruption at U.S. health agencies. The FDA appeared to miss a deadline this week for approving or rejecting a drug for a deadly, ultra-rare disease. And at the NIH, researchers were unable to order key reagents and lab tools for long stretches. — Jason Mast

tobacco

Growing teenage use of nicotine pouches

Nicotine pouches are the big new tobacco trend in the U.S.: Philip Morris International shipped 202 million cans of Zyn stateside in the first quarter of 2025, up 53% from the same period a year ago. As with e-cigarettes before them, researchers are monitoring how young people in particular are adopting what they warn are highly addictive products.

A new JAMA Network Open study shows that nicotine pouches are gaining traction among high schoolers. Out of more than 10,000 10th- and 12th-grade students, 5.4% said they'd used nicotine pouches at any point in their lives, compared to 3% the previous year, and 2.6% said they'd used them in the past 30 days, compared to 1.3% the previous year. For now, at least, e-cigarette use is more common: 11.8% of high school students said they'd used them within the past 30 days, compared to 13.4% the previous year. The study also found that nicotine pouches were more popular among male, white, and rural students.

When the FDA authorized the sale of 20 Zyn products in flavors like coffee, citrus, and cinnamon in January of this year, it noted it could revoke that permission if there was a notable increase in youth uptake. The study's authors say that while more monitoring is needed, expanded regulations and public health campaigns "may warrant consideration" for nicotine pouch use. — Sarah Todd