Amid Ebola outbreak, medical workers protest

AP/Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne

Dozens of health care workers have gone on strike at an Ebola treatment center in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the AP reported yesterday. A group including epidemiologists, case investigators, drivers, and gravediggers say the Congolese authorities have not paid salaries and bonuses. Read more.

Meanwhile, a U.S. citizen in the area has tested positive for the virus and been sent to Germany for treatment. “As the outbreak escalates, an accelerated response from local, national, and international partners is urgently needed,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote online announcing the transfer. As of yesterday, there have been 1,926 confirmed cases in the DRC, including 702 deaths.

health policy

A former FDA scientist speaks out about the Zyn approval

People who use nicotine pouches like Zyn already know this: While the nicotine itself melts inside a person’s mouth, the pouches do not. But a few years ago, as the FDA considered authorizing Zyn products, a company scientist told an agency toxicologist the pouches did dissolve. The toxicologist, Christy Leppanen, was working on an environmental review of the product. For Zyn to gain FDA approval, Leppanen and her colleagues needed to conclude that there was “no significant impact” of the product on environmental issues. Concerned and unclear about what the pouch was actually made of, she made no such conclusion. In January 2025, the FDA authorized Zyn for sale.

“Fundamentally, we did not do a proper assessment,” Leppanen said. “People believe the FDA is doing more than it is.” Read more from our colleagues at The Examination, who spoke with Leppanen and reviewed documents and recordings from the review process.

a stat investigation

How to tackle the U.S. alcohol epidemic

STAT/Julia Bujalski

To report their multipart series on America’s deadly alcohol epidemic, STAT’s Isabella Cueto and Lev Facher interviewed more than 100 health researchers, doctors, patients, industry insiders, and lawmakers; they meticulously reviewed scientific literature, addiction treatment protocols, laws, public health guidance, and lobbying disclosures. In today’s installment of the series, the pair reviews the top recommendations for curbing excessive drinking and its related harms, including:

Screening early and often
Adding “nudges” to health system
Getting creative with funding

Read more on the possible solutions. And for the data-heads among you, STAT’s J. Emory Parker led a roundup of 10 charts to visualize the sheer magnitude of the problem.

science

The risk of refusing a newborn’s vitamin K shot

Prophylactic vitamin K shots for newborns have been recommended globally for more than half a century. The routine shot, which helps the blood to clot, has protected generations of infants from a life-threatening deficiency that can lead to uncontrollable bleeding. But over the past few decades, more and more parents are declining the shot.

The government doesn’t track uptake of these shots, but a group of U.S. lawmakers recently called on the CDC to do so. A ProPublica investigation found that the lack of data may signal that we’re undercounting preventable infant deaths due to vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

A study published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics reinforces the effectiveness of the shot and the danger of turning it down. In Sweden, the rate of babies who didn’t receive the shot increased from 0.66% in 2006 to 1.5% in 2021. Those who went without the shot had significantly higher risk of bleeding, including in the brain.

first opinion

Deepfake doctors already exist. What now?

Typically, medical misinformation is treated as a problem of content: People are repeating and amplifying falsehoods that need to be debunked, fact-checked, or contextualized. But AI-generated videos known as deepfakes are already complicating the narrative.

It’s unclear how widespread this type of AI content is, but in a new First Opinion essay, physician Henry Bair argues that this is no reason for complacency. “These attacks are cheap, scalable, and asymmetric: They can be created in minutes and may take hours to unwind, with consequences that spill across patients and institutions,” he writes. Read more on how he thinks health care should respond.

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What we're reading

Rope-a-dope, New Yorker
We're living in a tick nightmare. It's time to go to war, the New York Times
Dementia study replicates promising outcomes following risk-reduction strategies, STAT
Democratic governors say proposed changes to federal grants would harm reproductive healthcare, Stateline
Trump's HHS abandons threat to withhold Medicare and Medicaid funding over trans care, NPR