Alex Pretti honored by health care workers at vigil

Adam Gray/AP

For weeks, as thousands of masked, badge-less federal agents have moved through Minnesota in unmarked vehicles, health care workers have been sounding the alarm on the public health crisis that Operation Metro Surge is creating. On Saturday, federal immigration agents killed one of those health care workers, an ICU nurse named Alex Pretti.

STAT’s Megan Molteni attended a vigil Sunday at the spot where Pretti was shot. She spoke to health care workers who knew Pretti and called him a “stand-up guy” who “just needed to be closer to the frontlines of helping people.” Read more from Megan about how nurses and doctors are remembering Pretti.

As clinicians told Megan, pervasive fear is already affecting people’s medical care. In a new First Opinion essay, Jesus Ruiz writes about his firsthand experience with this phenomenon. He arrived in the U.S. as a child, undocumented, and eventually became a citizen through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Now, he’s a family medicine physician with obstetric training, practicing in rural North Carolina. He calls it a simple truth: “Fear determines whether people seek care.” Read more.

infectious disease

Syphilis soars among pregnant people

The rate of syphilis among pregnant people, which soared between 2016 and 2022, continues to climb, the CDC reported today. A new report from the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics shows the maternal syphilis rate increased 28% from 2022 to 2024. That rise follows a 222% increase that occurred between 2016 and 2022. By the end of 2024, nearly 360 out of every 100,000 births were infected with the sexually transmitted infection. Increases were seen across most ethnic groups and all age groups.

The concern here relates to congenital syphilis, when a pregnant person passes the infection to a developing fetus. Congenital syphilis can cause a range of adverse outcomes including fetal or neonatal death, preterm birth, low birthweight, and brain and nerve disorders. Congenital syphilis cases have tripled in recent years, the CDC says, with nearly 4,000 cases reported in 2024. That’s the highest number in a single year since 1994. — Helen Branswell

who to know

The people shaping health info online, for better or worse

In our current era of wellness content, the distinctions between entertainment, sponsorships, and factual health information are collapsing, leaving consumers to decide for themselves what they believe.

STAT’s Alexa Lee wrote about nine of the biggest voices in the health influencer space worth keeping an eye on. Some are scientists and physicians who draw from years of clinical experience and medical expertise for their posts. Others have no relevant credentials, and frequently disseminate pseudoscience. And a select few have become prominent voices in the Make America Healthy Again movement, with their social platforms operating in sync with federal health policies from vaccine skepticism to steak and whole milk. Read more for the context you need when you see these influencers in the digital wild.

europe

Why is the U.K. such an outlier on newborn screening?

Illustration: Camille MacMillin/STAT; Photos: Adobe

In the U.K., like many other countries, babies have a few drops of blood taken soon after they’re born to be tested for a number of conditions. The idea is to identify and start treating diseases before they can cause harm. But unlike other countries, the U.K. tests babies for only 10 diseases. In the U.S., federal authorities recommend screening for three dozen conditions, having added two more to the list just last month. The U.K. has added one condition in the past decade.

“As a clinician you feel so sad when you diagnose the next baby with SMA. You think, your life could have been so different if I had met you six months before,” Sithara Ramdas, a pediatric neurologist, said about spinal muscular atrophy, a rare disease that erodes muscle cells. A number of new therapies, when given early enough, can help kids with SMA. But the U.K. doesn’t screen for it.

Read more from STAT’s Andrew Joseph about why the U.K.’s process moves so slowly, and how advocacy from a celebrity has amped up the pressure to reconsider the current strategy.

one big number

1.63 million

That’s how many excess deaths there were among Black people compared to white people in the U.S. between 1999 and 2020. While the weathering hypothesis posits that increased levels of stress from discrimination lead to specific health consequences like inflammation, little data has directly connected stress and inflammation to mortality rates.

Now, a new study sheds some light on the theory. A study published yesterday in JAMA Network Open analyzed survey data and blood samples from more than 1,500 people in the St. Louis area and found that higher cumulative levels of stress across the lifespan and inflammation accounted for about half (49%) of the increased mortality risk among Black people in the study population. The findings align with the weathering hypothesis, the authors write, but more research is needed on additional factors that may contribute to the remaining proportion of excess deaths.

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What we're reading

Trump's latest visa 'pause' targets 75 countries he thinks are lazy, Mother Jones
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First Opinion: Sidelining Black women in clinical trials is not just a moral failure. It’s bad science, STAT
Removal of LGBTQ+ option from 988 hotline is straining overburdened Texas crisis centers, Texas Tribune
The 'R-word' returns, dismaying those who fought to oust it,