December 9, 2025
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Morning Rounds Writer and Reporter
Good morning. Scroll down for the sixth installment of American Science, Shattered, brought to you by yours truly. Thanks for reading, and make sure to catch up with the previous stories if you haven't already. We're cruising toward the end of the year, but there's more great reporting to come. 

quote of the day

'This is where healthy diets go to die.'

That was health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking at and about the airport yesterday during a press conference announcing a new initiative to “make travel family friendly again.” One billion dollars in grant funding will be made available to airports in order to improve the experience for families, transportation secretary Sean Duffy explained, with Kennedy at his side. The options are “pretty wide open” for airports, Duffy said, citing play areas for kids, workout areas, and additional nursing pods as potential projects that could earn grant money. 

There is no plan to reduce the cost of food at the airport, Duffy said in response to a reporter, but the goal is to provide healthier options. As the press conference ended, both federal leaders did pull-ups on a bar positioned to the right of the podium.

science

Gene therapy spurs improvement in rare neuromuscular disease

Kids and teenagers with spinal muscular atrophy had more mobility after receiving a single-dose gene replacement therapy, according to a new study published Monday in Nature Medicine.

The researchers enrolled 126 kids and teens in the trial. The 75 who received the active treatment saw significantly more improvement in motor function such as sitting up, walking, and climbing stairs compared to those who received the control. Side effects of the drug were comparable between the groups.

The results suggest that gene therapy could be an alternative for children and teens with a genetic neuromuscular disorder, who currently receive chronic shots. It’s the latest example of gene therapy developments reshaping the clinical landscape for spinal muscular atrophy, which causes muscles to become weak as they age and affects 10,000 to 25,000 children and adults in the United States. — O. Rose Broderick

first opinion

Time to change the lock on the revolving door?

There’s long been a revolving door between workers at the FDA and drug companies, but with this year’s turmoil, it’s been spinning even faster than usual. Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made the revolving door one of his talking points, but neither party escapes criticism here. (Example: On Sunday, an official HHS X account posted about former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s turn as a board member for Pfizer. But as one user pointed out, Gottlieb was commissioner under Trump.) 

So maybe it’s time to update the rules that are intended to slow down this revolving door. That’s the argument that two pharmacist-attorneys make in a new First Opinion essay. They believe that just “a few simple reforms” like an extended “cooling-off period” for senior officials can solve the FDA’s conflict-of-interest problem. Read more on how they think the system should change.

special report

Early career trans researchers have had a tough year

A collage of abstract human figures and scientific objects like a microscope, and also a passport. Everthing hued in faded colors of the trans flag: baby blue, pink, and white.

Laura Weiler for STAT 

Last summer was a rough one for 30-year-old Tyler Harvey. They’re a queer M.D.-Ph.D. student at Yale, where they were drawn to a unique research program focused on LGBTQ+ mental health. But after Harvey’s Ph.D. adviser lost every cent of his funding to federal cuts, he could no longer guide their dissertation work. So while Harvey’s classmates started in earnest on research projects, they spent the summer scrambling for a new adviser and a new area of study.

“There were moments where I was like — should I just drop out of the Ph.D. program?” Harvey said. They didn’t — but they did push back a key medical school exam while they played catch up on Ph.D work. 

Amid federal grant cuts and attacks on the very existence of gender diversity, trans and queer scholars find themselves juggling concerns about finding a secure job in academia alongside fear over their safety and well-being. For the sixth installment of American Science, Shattered, I spoke with some early-career researchers like Harvey about how they’re managing. Read more about dissertation pivots, delayed job searches, circuitous travel routes, and a pervasive fear of surveillance.

health

Which mothers end up back in the hospital: a study

In a study of more than 190,600 births over four years in South Carolina, researchers found that Black people in urban areas had a higher risk of being readmitted to the hospital postpartum than their white peers. In rural areas, the overall risk of postpartum readmission was higher, but the racial disparities were diminished. 

The research, published yesterday in JAMA Network Open, analyzed readmissions for birthing parents within a year of delivery. Among everyone who gave birth, 4.7% were readmitted in that time frame for any reason, while 1.5% were readmitted in relation to a mental health disorder and 0.8% were readmitted related to substance use disorder. An accompanying editorial points out that the data could underestimate rates for Black people in particular, as the all-payer claims database used may exclude people without continuous health insurance, and many Black patients have had negative hospital experiences leading them to avoid care or access it less frequently. The authors write that more research from an intersectionality lens is needed. 

people

The people who shaped science this year

Yesterday, Nature released its list of 10 influential people in the year of science. STAT readers will definitely recognize a couple of the names:

  • Ousted CDC director Susan Monarez: Monarez was fired less than a month after being sworn in to lead the CDC this summer. STAT’s Daniel Payne reported in August the inside story of how Monarez was pushed out after refusing to approve all the recommendations from health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hand-picked vaccine panel.
  • Baby KJ: KJ Muldoon was born with an ultra-rare disease. But at just 6 months old, he received a custom-built gene-editing treatment to rewrite his unique genetic misspelling. STAT’s Jason Mast wrote earlier this year about the landmark treatment and what it means for the future of CRISPR. And he kept in touch with KJ’s family and physicians, who all joined us in Boston this fall for the STAT Summit. There, a story from KJ’s dad about a recent Sunday evening with his son left barely a dry eye in the room.

Also included is Precious Matsoso, who led the WHO negotiating committee that adopted a pandemic treaty aimed at improving vaccine access. (The U.S. did not send a representative.) Neurologist Sarah Tabrizi, who researches Huntington’s disease, was also honored. Other faces were unfamiliar to me, including a mosquito rancher and a deep-sea diver.

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