AI threatens to cement racial bias in clinical algorithms. Could it also chart a path forward?
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — In a cavernous converted chapel at Brown University, physician and data scientist…
Category: A STAT Investigation
A race-free algorithm is merely the start for a safety net hospital confronting an onslaught of kidney disease
NEW YORK — One Brooklyn Health, a safety net hospital system that serves some of…
She was told she might have cancer: How medicine pathologizes Black patients’ normal test results
A busy medical student, Vanessa Apea wasn’t her usual energetic self. So she dragged herself…
Upending a longstanding paradigm, cardiologists embrace ZIP codes, not race, to predict heart risk
Not only is Joseph Wright a physician, he’s the chief health equity officer for the…
Inside the bruising battle to purge race from a kidney disease calculator
There it was on James Cannon’s lab report, two tiny words: African American. The words…
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How race became ubiquitous in medical decision-making tools
It was created with the best intentions: a government policy asking researchers to collect racial…
Doctors use problematic race-based algorithms to guide care every day. Why are they so hard to change?
Pediatrician Alexandra Epee-Bounya had had enough. In her 20 years caring for children in Boston,…
STAT+: UnitedHealth pledged a hands-off approach after buying a Connecticut medical group. Then it upended how doctors practice
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — UnitedHealth Group told the Connecticut primary care doctors everything they wanted to…
STAT+: How UnitedHealth turned a questionable artery-screening program into a gold mine
The nation’s largest health care company pressed thousands of its clinicians to use a thinly…
STAT+: Mount Sinai mounted aggressive campaign to stifle debate over revelations about its controversial brain research
Mount Sinai, a leading hospital network in New York City, has mounted an extraordinary behind-the-scenes…
STAT+: How UnitedHealth harnesses its physician empire to squeeze profits out of patients
UnitedHealth Group started out as a small, Minnesota health insurance company and has since morphed…
STAT+: Troubled for-profit chains are stealthily operating dozens of psychiatric hospitals under nonprofits’ names
Come quickly, the Columbus Police sergeant urged, patients are in danger. The psychiatric hospital on…
This federal rule didn’t stop coercive sterilization — but it blocked contraceptive access. Can it be fixed?
Sonya Borrero didn’t learn about forced sterilization in medical school. She learned about it from…
The doctor would treat her sickle cell pain crisis — if she promised not to get an abortion
Here are some things A. was told when she arrived at the hospital one night…
How doctors are pressuring sickle cell patients into unwanted sterilizations
BATON ROUGE, La. — The surgery was supposed to alleviate worry, but now, years later,…
STAT+: Mount Sinai’s responses to STAT’s questions about the Living Brain Project
As part of its reporting on Mount Sinai and the Living Brain Project, STAT sent…
STAT+: Brain biopsies on ‘vulnerable’ patients at Mount Sinai set off alarm bells at FDA, documents show
NEW YORK — By the time Peter Bauman considered deep brain stimulation, he was desperate….
How expanded methadone access helped Switzerland defuse its drug crisis
ZURICH — The lobby of this addiction clinic is unremarkable, really, except for the network…
STAT+: The methadone clinic monopoly: Opioid treatment chains backed by private equity are fighting calls for reform
Private equity firms have acquired stakes in nearly one-third of all methadone clinics in recent…
Rigid rules at methadone clinics are jeopardizing patients’ path to recovery from opioid addiction
DETROIT — Every morning, Rebecca Smith, nursing a surgically repaired knee, carefully walks down the…
How the U.S. is sabotaging its best tools to prevent deaths in the opioid epidemic
The opioid overdose epidemic has burned through the U.S. for nearly 30 years. Yet for…
STAT+: UnitedHealth used secret rules to restrict rehab care for seriously ill Medicare Advantage patients
Health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group used secret rules to restrict access to rehabilitation care requested…
STAT+: Medical marijuana companies are using pharma’s sales tactics with little of the same scrutiny
WASHINGTON — Medical marijuana companies sell medicine, just like pharmaceutical companies. But they’re not playing…
STAT+: UnitedHealth pushed employees to follow an algorithm to cut off Medicare patients’ rehab care
The nation’s largest health insurance company pressured its medical staff to cut off payments for…
STAT+: How UnitedHealth’s acquisition of a popular Medicare Advantage algorithm sparked internal dissent over denied care
Frustration was boiling into open conflict within NaviHealth, a company that uses computer predictions to…
STAT+: ‘It’s beyond unethical’: Opaque conflicts of interest permeate prescription drug benefits
Employers across the country — from big names like Boeing and UPS to local school…
‘Worse than what we thought’: New data reveals deeper problems with the Bureau of Prisons’ Covid response
WASHINGTON — The incarcerated people at Federal Medical Center Devens should have been some of…
The NIH has poured $1 billion into long Covid research — with little to show for it
WASHINGTON — The federal government has burned through more than $1 billion to study long…
STAT+: Mindpath seemed like a success story for private equity in mental health. Now, it’s a cautionary tale
As a Covid-driven mental health crisis enveloped the U.S. in 2020, two private equity firms…
Denied by AI: How Medicare Advantage plans use algorithms to cut off care for seniors in need
An algorithm, not a doctor, predicted a rapid recovery for Frances Walter, an 85-year-old Wisconsin…
STAT+: ‘I’m just disgusted’: How alleged sexual misconduct stole one student’s passion for academic science
It was the summer of 2020, and she couldn’t have scripted a better start as…
Getting hepatitis C treatment opens new doors for the incarcerated
WARREN, Maine — For the prisoners who receive it, hepatitis C treatment is more than…
For families, grieving an incarcerated person’s death adds complexity to an already painful process
PLEASANTON, Texas — The only thing worse than caring for a sick loved one in…
Watch: With little more than a typewriter, an Idaho man overturns the entire state’s policy on hepatitis C treatment in prison
BOISE, Idaho — When he took on the state department of corrections, Phil Turney didn’t…
Despite federal disclosure rules, state prisons hide information on hepatitis C-related deaths
It’s virtually impossible to get information from states and correctional facilities about why people die…
Prisons say they can’t afford to cure everyone with hepatitis C. But some are figuring out a way
State prison systems say they can’t afford to cure everyone with hepatitis C. The drug,…
Legal and medical experts say denying hepatitis C care is cruel and unusual punishment, but the courts are still catching up
The final years of Carl Hoffer’s life were, in his words, “living hell.” His legs…
These 8 states are doing the worst job of treating hepatitis C in prisons
In 2022, whether an incarcerated person gets cured of hepatitis C is largely determined by…
Hundreds of incarcerated people are dying of hep C — even though we have a simple cure
FALLS CITY, Neb. — John Ritchie shouldn’t have died. He knew he had hepatitis C….
‘Out of control’: Dozens of telehealth startups sent sensitive health information to big tech companies
Open the website of Workit Health, and the path to treatment starts with a simple…
STAT+: Death of patient in closely watched Alzheimer’s trial raises concern about risk for some groups
The experimental Alzheimer’s drug lecanemab, hailed after it slowed patients’ cognitive decline in a clinical…
STAT+: Documents detail how pharmacy giants Walgreens, CVS, and Walmart failed patients in the opioid epidemic
In 2011, Walgreens executives were under pressure. Amid a growing addiction crisis, and with the…
With a promising new plan to pay for pricey cures, two states set out to eliminate hepatitis C. But cost hasn’t been the biggest problem
WASHINGTON — For nearly a decade, many experts assumed the biggest obstacle to eliminating hepatitis…
The FDA stands by as the vaping industry flouts its orders
WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration has spent more than four years trying to…
STAT+: The private equity firms, like Blackstone and KKR, behind 8 of the biggest names in autism therapy
Private equity investors are backing all of the major chains offering the country’s most popular…
Parents and clinicians say private equity’s profit fixation is short-changing kids with autism
ATLANTA — When a new person comes into his living room, a giggly “E” smiles…
STAT+: At pioneering center for gene therapy, Jim Wilson presided over toxic, abusive workplace, staffers say
Scientist Jim Wilson is synonymous with gene therapy — and for good reason. For decades,…
Nursing home chain’s tangled corporate structure and bankruptcy threats stymied litigation
After a hospital stay in 2016 for a brain tumor, Regina Romero was transferred to…
STAT+: Internal documents on IQVIA’s secretive relationship with Experian undercut its image as a Fort Knox of patient data
To the outside world and its countless health care customers, the data powerhouse IQVIA has…
Encouraged by right-wing doctor groups, desperate patients turn to ivermectin for long Covid
Almost two years have passed since Dean Fritzemeier fell ill with Covid in October 2020….