special report

A new approach to miscarriages treats them like the medical problem they are

Jenn Ackerman for STAT

All too often, miscarriages are called bad luck and grieving parents are urged to just try again. And again. Barbara Toppin (above) is among a few physicians across the country pushing for a proactive approach. That means treating miscarriages like a medical problem, not just a fact of life. So she asks patients for details about their pregnancies and any family history of heart disease or stroke. She looks for uterine abnormalities and tests for blood-clotting problems, chronic inflammation, and autoimmune conditions. 

“Do physicians treat heart attacks like this? Strokes? Why do we make women wait for so many losses?” she said. STAT contributor Sadia Rafiqqudin spoke to a dozen women who have had miscarriages, who told her their treatment varied wildly across the country. But they all felt one thing in common: Their losses were brushed off. Read more on conflicting standards of care and pushback Toppin has received.

infectious disease

U.K. moves up vaccine plan in light of new variant

U.K. health authorities are pushing forward the start of their fall vaccination campaigns for Covid-19 and influenza in response to the emergence of a new, highly mutated version of SARS-CoV-2, STAT's Helen Branswell reports. The twin campaigns, which were to begin in early October, will start on Sept. 11, the U.K. Health Security Agency said in a statement yesterday. The move is motivated by BA.2.86, a SARS-2 subvariant that has recently been detected in the U.K., the U.S., and a number of other countries.

“This precautionary measure to bring forward the autumn program will ensure … people have protection against any potential wave this winter,” said Dame Jenny Harries, chief executive of the U.K. Health Security Agency. The statement acknowledged, however, that it’s not yet clear how much of a threat BA.2.86 poses. Nor is it known how well the updated boosters will protect against the new subvariant; they target a version of SARS-2 that was circulating in the spring. The U.K. plan is to vaccinate older adults, people who are immunocompromised, and workers who care for them.

public health

Striking ProMED moderators agree to return to work

Striking moderators of the infectious disease surveillance program ProMED signaled yesterday that they will resume work for the embattled service. But the moderators, who went on strike in early August to protest the way the International Society of Infectious Diseases is running ProMED, said they would return to work 10 days after a deadline imposed by the ISID, STAT's Helen Branswell tells us. The society insisted moderators who want to remain part of ProMED resume work on Sept. 1. In a letter to the ISID’s administrative staff, the moderators said they would return Sept. 11.

The moderators and the society have been in talks with a number of academic and nonprofit organizations that have come forward looking for a way to save ProMED, since the moderators’ strike drew attention to the fact that its future is in peril. Moderators — subject matter experts who curate and contextualize news and intelligence from around the globe on disease outbreaks — earn a modest stipend of $7,000 a year. Still, their pay is months overdue. Several strike organizers indicated they felt the work stoppage had had the desired effect — initiating the start of talks about finding a new home for ProMED. “We are persuaded that our highest duty is to our readership and those beyond who depend on our timely, accurate, and perceptive posts and commentaries for the good of public health worldwide,” they wrote.