Monday, April 29, 2024


Rensselaer researcher publishes groundbreaking study on labor market discrimination against transgender people



RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
Billur Aksoy, Ph.D. 

IMAGE: 

BILLUR AKSOY, PH.D.

view more 

CREDIT: RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE




In 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Bostock vs. Clayton County that transgender people are legally protected from employment discrimination. This came at a time of increased visibility, but also of legal and social challenges to the rights of transgender individuals. Meanwhile, there has been very little study of labor market discrimination against them. Rensselaer researcher Billur Aksoy, Ph.D., has recently conducted an innovative survey of Americans’ attitudes toward transgender people in the workplace.  

Her paper, “Understanding Labor Market Discrimination Against Transgender People in the US: Evidence from a Double List Experiment and a Survey,” is published in the current issue of the Management Science.

Aksoy, an assistant professor of economics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and her co-authors Christopher S. Carpenter of Vanderbilt University and Dario Sansone of the University of Exeter, are the first to utilize a list experiment technique, in which respondents are given a list of statements and asked to report how many (but not which specific ones) are true for them, to analyze Americans’ views about transgender managers in the workplace, as well as their support for employment non-discrimination protection for transgender individuals. The technique allowed the researchers to overcome social desirability biases in survey responses – the idea that respondents might either overstate or downplay their support of transgender people out of fear of reprisal.  

“Understanding the true level of support for employment non-discrimination protection is important. For example, it helps us figure out how well these policies might work and how we can make things better for transgender folks in the U.S.,” said Aksoy.

The researchers found that support for transgender people in the labor market is significantly overreported (by 8-10 percent), but they also found that, after correcting for social desirability bias, more than two-thirds of Americans would be comfortable with a transgender manager at work and would support non-discrimination protection and employment for transgender people. Women, sexual minorities, and Democrats expressed more positive views and greater support for transgender people than men, heterosexuals, and Republicans or independent voters did.

The analysis of the supplementary survey data showed significantly higher support for LGB people in the workplace than for transgender people; they also demonstrated that respondents severely underestimated the support for transgender people, by up to 53 percent.

“The fact that Americans underestimate the actual level of support for transgender people is notable. Previous research shows that individuals’ beliefs about the views of others can impact their own views, suggesting that support for correcting these misperceptions could further increase support for transgender people in the workplace. This is something we consider exploring further in future research” said Aksoy.

“Sex discrimination laws, endorsed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, offer a potent weapon against bias in the workplace,” said Mary Simoni, Ph.D., dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at RPI. “These protections, especially crucial for transgender individuals, not only empowers workers but also signify a crucial step toward a more inclusive and equitable society.”

 SPACE

 

Gemini south reveals origin of unexpected differences in giant binary stars


Astronomers confirm that differences in the chemical composition of binary stars can be traced back to the earliest stages of their formation


ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY (AURA)

Artist’s Impression of a Giant-Giant Binary 

IMAGE: 

THIS ARTIST’S IMPRESSION ILLUSTRATES A BINARY PAIR OF GIANT STARS. DESPITE BEING BORN FROM THE SAME molecular cloud, ASTRONOMERS OFTEN DETECT DIFFERENCES IN BINARY STARS’ CHEMICAL COMPOSITIONS AND PLANETARY SYSTEMS. ONE STAR IN THIS SYSTEM IS SHOWN TO HOST THREE SMALL, ROCKY PLANETS, WHILE THE OTHER STAR HOSTS TWO GAS GIANTS. USING GEMINI SOUTH’S GHOST, A TEAM OF ASTRONOMERS HAVE CONFIRMED FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT THESE DIFFERENCES CAN BE TRACED BACK TO INHOMOGENEITIES IN THE PRIMORDIAL MOLECULAR CLOUD FROM WHICH THE STARS WERE BORN.

view more 

CREDIT: NOIRLAB/NSF/AURA/J. DA SILVA (SPACEENGINE)/M. ZAMANI




It is estimated that up to 85% of stars exist in binary star systems, some even in systems with three or more stars. These stellar pairs are born together out of the same molecular cloud from a shared abundance of chemical building blocks, so astronomers would expect to find that they have nearly identical compositions and planetary systems. However, for many binaries that isn’t the case. While some proposed explanations attribute these dissimilarities to events occurring after the stars evolved, a team of astronomers have confirmed for the first time that they can actually originate from before the stars even began to form.

Led by Carlos Saffe of the Institute of Astronomical, Earth and Space Sciences (ICATE-CONICET) in Argentina, the team used the Gemini South telescope in Chile, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab. With the new, precise Gemini High Resolution Optical SpecTrograph (GHOST) the team studied the different wavelengths of light, or spectra, given off by a pair of giant stars, which revealed significant differences in their chemical make-up. “GHOST’s extremely high-quality spectra offered unprecedented resolution,” said Saffe, “allowing us to measure the stars’ stellar parameters and chemical abundances with the highest possible precision.” These measurements revealed that one star had higher abundances of heavy elements than the other. To disentangle the origin of this discrepancy, the team used a unique approach.

Previous studies have proposed three possible explanations for observed chemical differences between binary stars. Two of them involve processes that would occur well into the stars’ evolution: atomic diffusion, or the settling of chemical elements into gradient layers depending on each star’s temperature and surface gravity; and the engulfment of a small, rocky planet, which would introduce chemical variations in a star’s composition.

The third possible explanation looks back at the beginning of the stars’ formation, suggesting that the differences originate from primordial, or pre-existing, areas of nonuniformity within the molecular cloud. In simpler terms, if the molecular cloud has an uneven distribution of chemical elements, then stars born within that cloud will have different compositions depending on which elements were available at the location where each formed.

So far, studies have concluded that all three explanations are probable; however, these studies focused solely on main-sequence binaries. The ‘main-sequence’ is the stage where a star spends most of its existence, and the majority of stars in the Universe are main-sequence stars, including our Sun. Instead, Saffe and his team observed a binary consisting of two giant stars. These stars possess extremely deep and strongly turbulent external layers, or convective zones. Owing to the properties of these thick convective zones, the team was able to rule out two of the three possible explanations.

The continuous swirling of fluid within the convective zone would make it difficult for material to settle into layers, meaning giant stars are less sensitive to the effects of atomic diffusion — ruling out the first explanation. The thick external layer also means that a planetary engulfment would not change a star’s composition much since the ingested material would rapidly be diluted — ruling out the second explanation. This leaves primordial inhomogeneities within the molecular cloud as the confirmed explanation. “This is the first time astronomers have been able to confirm that differences between binary stars begin at the earliest stages of their formation,” said Saffe.

“Using the precision-measurement capabilities provided by the GHOST instrument, Gemini South is now collecting observations of stars at the end of their lives to reveal the environment in which they were born,” says Martin Still, NSF program director for the International Gemini Observatory. “This gives us the ability to explore how the conditions in which stars form can influence their entire existence over millions or billions of years.”

Three consequences of this study are of particular significance. First, these results offer an explanation for why astronomers see binary stars with such different planetary systems. “Different planetary systems could mean very different planets — rocky, Earth-like, ice giants, gas giants — that orbit their host stars at different distances and where the potential to support life might be very different,” said Saffe.

Second, these results pose a crucial challenge to the concept of chemical tagging — using chemical composition to identify stars that came from the same environment or stellar nursery — by showing that stars with different chemical compositions can still have the same origin.

Finally, observed differences previously attributed to planetary impacts on a star’s surface will need to be reviewed, as they might now be seen as having been there from the very beginning of the star’s life.

“By showing for the first time that primordial differences really are present and responsible for differences between twin stars, we show that star and planet formation could be more complex than initially thought,” said Saffe. “The Universe loves diversity!”

More information

This research was presented in a paper accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202449263

The team is composed of C. Saffe (ICATE-CONICET/UNSJ, Argentina), P. Miquelarena (ICATE-CONICET/UNSJ, Argentina), J. Alacoria (ICATE-CONICET, Argentina), E. Martioli (LNA/MCTI, Brasil), M. Flores (ICATE-CONICET/UNSJ, Argentina), M. Jaque Arancibia (Universidad de La Serena, Chile), R. Angeloni (International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab, Chile), E. Jofré (OAC/CONICET, Argentina), J. Yana Galarza (Carnegie Institution for Science, CA), E. González (UNSJ, Argentina), and A. Collado (ICATE-CONICET/UNSJ, Argentina).

NSF NOIRLab (U.S. National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the U.S. center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSFNRC–CanadaANID–ChileMCTIC–BrazilMINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on I’oligam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O’odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

Links

JOURNAL

DOI


Probing the effects of interplanetary space on asteroid Ryugu



Peer-Reviewed Publication

HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY

Conceptual illustration of the study 

IMAGE: 

CONCEPTUAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE STUDY

view more 

CREDIT: YUKI KIMURA



Samples reveal evidence of changes experienced by the surface of asteroid Ryugu, some probably due to micrometeoroid bombardment.

Analyzing samples retrieved from the asteroid Ryugu by the Japanese Space Agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has revealed new insights into the magnetic and physical bombardment environment of interplanetary space. The results of the study, carried out by Professor Yuki Kimura at Hokkaido University and co-workers at 13 other institutions in Japan, are published in the journal Nature Communications.

The investigations used electron waves penetrating the samples to reveal details of their structure and magnetic and electric properties, a technique called electron holography.

Hayabusa2 reached asteroid Ryugu on 27 June 2018, collected samples during two delicate touchdowns, and then returned the jettisoned samples to Earth in December 2020. The spacecraft is now continuing its journey through space, with plans for it to observe two other asteroids in 2029 and 2031.

One advantage of collecting samples directly from an asteroid is that it allows researchers to examine long-term effects of its exposure to the environment of space. The ‘solar wind’ of high energy particles from the sun and bombardment by micrometeoroids cause changes known as space-weathering. It is impossible to study these changes precisely using most of the meteorite samples that land naturally on Earth, partly due to their origin from the internal parts of an asteroid, and also due to the effects of their fiery descent through the atmosphere.

“The signatures of space weathering we have detected directly will give us a better understanding of some of the phenomena occurring in the Solar System,” says Kimura. He explains that the strength of the magnetic field in the early solar system decreased as planets formed, and measuring the remnant magnetization on asteroids can reveal information about the magnetic field in the very early stages of the solar system.

Kimura adds, “In future work, our results could also help to reveal the relative ages of surfaces on airless bodies and assist in the accurate interpretation of remote sensing data obtained from these bodies.”

One particularly interesting finding was that small mineral grains called framboids, composed of magnetite, a form of iron oxide, had completely lost their normal magnetic properties. The researchers suggest this was due to collision with high velocity micrometeoroids between 2 and 20 micrometers in diameter. The framboids were surrounded by thousands of metallic iron nanoparticles. Future studies of these nanoparticles will hopefully reveal insights into the magnetic field that the asteroid has experienced over long periods of time.

“Although our study is primarily for fundamental scientific interest and understanding, it could also help estimate the degree of degradation likely to be caused by space dust impacting robotic or manned spacecraft at high velocity,” Kimura concludes.


Magnetite (round particles) particles cut from a Ryugu sample

Iron nanoparticles distributed around pseudo-magnetite 

China Set To Launch High-Stakes Mission To Moon’s ‘Hidden’ Side

China will send a robotic spacecraft in coming days on a round trip to the moon’s far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole.

This week, China is expected to launch Chang’e-6 using the backup spacecraft from the 2020 mission, and collect soil and rocks from the side of the moon that permanently faces away from Earth.

With no direct line of sight with the Earth, Chang’e-6 must rely on a recently deployed relay satellite orbiting the moon during its 53-day mission, including a never-before attempted ascent from the moon’s “hidden” side on its return journey home.

The same relay satellite will support the uncrewed Chang’e-7 and 8 missions in 2026 and 2028, respectively, when China starts to explore the south pole for water and build a rudimentary outpost with Russia. China aims to put its astronauts on the moon by 2030.

On Chang’e-6, China will carry payloads from France, Italy, Sweden and Pakistan, and on Chang’e-7, payloads from Russia, Switzerland and Thailand.

Chang’e 6 will attempt to land on the northeastern side of the vast South Pole-Aitkin Basin, the oldest known impact crater in the solar system.

After touchdown at Malapert A, a site near the south pole that was believed to be relatively flat, the spacecraft tilted sharply to one side amid a host of technical problems, reflecting the high-risk nature of lunar landings.

The south pole has been described by scientists as the “golden belt” for lunar exploration.

Polar ice could sustain long-term research bases without relying on expensive resources transported from Earth. India’s Chandrayaan-1 launched in 2008 confirmed the existence of ice inside polar craters.

Chang’e-6’s sample return could also shed more light on the early evolution of the moon and the inner solar system.

Chang’e-6, after a successful landing, will collect about 2 kilogrammes (4.4 pounds) of samples with a mechanical scoop and a drill.

(Reuters)


China Set To Launch Robotic Spacecraft To

Moon's 'Hidden' Side

By Reuters 
Published on: April 29, 2024



The Chang'e 6 lunar probe and the Long March-5 Y8 carrier rocket combination sit atop the launch pad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan province, China April 27, 2024. cnsphoto via REUTERS

China will send a robotic spacecraft in coming days on a round trip to the moon's far side in the first of three technically demanding missions that will pave the way for an inaugural Chinese crewed landing and a base on the lunar south pole.

Since the first Chang'e mission in 2007, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, China has made leaps forward in its lunar exploration, narrowing the technological chasm with the United States and Russia.

In 2020, China brought back samples from the moon's near side in the first sample retrieval in more than four decades, confirming for the first time it could safely return an uncrewed spacecraft to Earth from the lunar surface.

This week, China is expected to launch Chang'e-6 using the backup spacecraft from the 2020 mission, and collect soil and rocks from the side of the moon that permanently faces away from Earth.

With no direct line of sight with the Earth, Chang'e-6 must rely on a recently deployed relay satellite orbiting the moon during its 53-day mission, including a never-before attempted ascent from the moon's "hidden" side on its return journey home.

The same relay satellite will support the uncrewed Chang'e-7 and 8 missions in 2026 and 2028, respectively, when China starts to explore the south pole for water and build a rudimentary outpost with Russia. China aims to put its astronauts on the moon by 2030.

Beijing's polar plans have worried NASA, whose administrator, Bill Nelson, has repeatedly warned that China would claim any water resources as its own. Beijing says it remains committed to cooperation with all nations on building a "shared" future.

On Chang'e-6, China will carry payloads from France, Italy, Sweden and Pakistan, and on Chang'e-7, payloads from Russia, Switzerland and Thailand.

NASA is banned by U.S. law from any collaboration, direct or indirect, with China.


Under the separate NASA-led Artemis programme, U.S. astronauts will land near the south pole in 2026, the first humans on the moon since 1972.

"International cooperation is key (to lunar exploration)," Clive Neal, professor of planetary geology at the University of Notre Dame, told Reuters. "It's just that China and the U.S. aren't cooperating right now. I hope that will happen."


SOUTH POLE AMBITIONS

Chang'e 6 will attempt to land on the northeastern side of the vast South Pole-Aitkin Basin, the oldest known impact crater in the solar system.

The southernmost landing ever was carried out in February by IM-1, a joint mission between NASA and the Texas-based private firm Intuitive Machines.

After touchdown at Malapert A, a site near the south pole that was believed to be relatively flat, the spacecraft tilted sharply to one side amid a host of technical problems, reflecting the high-risk nature of lunar landings.

The south pole has been described by scientists as the "golden belt" for lunar exploration.

Polar ice could sustain long-term research bases without relying on expensive resources transported from Earth. India's Chandrayaan-1 launched in 2008 confirmed the existence of ice inside polar craters.

Chang'e-6's sample return could also shed more light on the early evolution of the moon and the inner solar system.

The lack of volcanic activity on the moon's far side means there are more craters not covered by ancient lava flows, preserving materials from the moon's early formation.

So far, all lunar samples taken by the United States and the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and China in 2020 were from the moon's near side, where volcanism had been far more active.


Chang'e-6, after a successful landing, will collect about 2 kilogrammes (4.4 pounds) of samples with a mechanical scoop and a drill.

"If successful, China's Chang'e-6 mission would be a milestone-making event," Leonard David, author of "Moon Rush: The New Space Race", told Reuters. "The robotic reach to the Moon's far side, and bringing specimens back to Earth, helps fill in the blanks about the still-murky origin of our Moon."


UC Irvine astronomers’ simulations support dark matter theory


The tests addressed the elusive matter’s existence despite it never having been observed



UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - IRVINE





Irvine, Calif., April 29, 2024 — Computer simulations by astronomers support the idea that dark matter – matter that no one has yet directly detected but which many physicists think must be there to explain several aspects of the observable universe – exists, according to the researchers, who include those at the University of California, Irvine. 

 

The work addresses a fundamental debate in astrophysics – does invisible dark matter need to exist to explain how the universe works the way it does, or can physicists explain how things work based solely on the matter we can directly observe? Currently, many physicists think something like dark matter must exist to explain the motions of stars and galaxies. 

 

“Our paper shows how we can use real, observed relationships as a basis to test two different models to describe the universe,” said Francisco Mercado, lead author and recent Ph.D. graduate from the UC Irvine Department of Physics & Astronomy who is now a postdoctoral scholar at Pomona College. “We put forth a powerful test to discriminate between the two models.” 

 

The test involved running computer simulations with both types of matter – normal and dark – to explain the presence of intriguing features measured in real galaxies. The team reported their results in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society.
 

The features in galaxies the team found “are expected to appear in a universe with dark matter but would be difficult to explain in a universe without it,” said Mercado. “We show that such features appear in observations of many real galaxies. If we take these data at face value, this reaffirms the position of the dark matter model as the one that best describes the universe we live in.”

 

These features Mercado noted describe patterns in the motions of stars and gas in galaxies that seem to only be possible in a universe with dark matter. 

 

“Observed galaxies seem to obey a tight relationship between the matter we see and the inferred dark matter we detect, so much so that some have suggested that what we call dark matter is really evidence that our theory of gravity is wrong,” said co-author James Bullock, professor of physics at UCI and dean of the UCI School of Physical Sciences. “What we showed is that not only does dark matter predict the relationship, but for many galaxies it can explain what we see more naturally than modified gravity. I come away even more convinced that dark matter is the right model.”

 

The features also appear in observations made by proponents of a dark matter-free universe. “The observations we examined – the very observations where we found these features – were conducted by adherents of dark matter-free theories,” said co-author Jorge Moreno, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Pomona College. “Despite their obvious presence, little-to-no analysis was performed on these features by that community. It took folks like us, scientists working with both regular and dark matter, to start the conversation.” 

 

Moreno added that he expects debate within his research community to follow in the wake of the study, but that there may be room for common ground, as the team also found that such features only appear in their simulations when there is both dark matter and normal matter in the universe. 

 

“As stars are born and die, they explode into supernovae, which can shape the centers of galaxies, naturally explaining the existence of these features,” said Moreno. “Simply put, the features we examined in observations require both the existence of dark matter and the incorporation of normal-matter physics.” 

 

Now that the dark matter model of the universe appears to be the leading one, the next step, Mercado explained, is to see if it remains consistent across a dark matter universe.

 

“It would be interesting to see if we could use this same relationship to even distinguish between different dark matter models,” said Mercado. “Understanding how this relationship changes under distinct dark matter models could help us constrain the properties of dark matter itself.”

 

Funding came from a National Science Foundation MSP-Ascend Award AST-2316748 to Mercado. Mercado and Bullock were supported by NSF grant AST-1910965 and NASA grant 80NSSC22K0827. Moreno receives funding from the Hirsch Foundation. Collaborators include Michael Boylan-Kolchin (The University of Texas at Austin), Philip F. Hopkins (California Institute of Technology), Andrew Wetzel (University of California, Davis) and Claude-André Faucher-Giguère (Northwestern University) and Jenna Samuel (The University of Texas at Austin).

 

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.

 

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UC Irvine faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UC Irvine news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at https://news.uci.edu/media-resources/.

 

Competition from “skinny label” generics saved Medicare billions


Savings were greatest for rosuvastatin, pregabalin, and imatinib


Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS


 

Sodium–Glucose Cotransporter-2 Inhibitors and the Risk for Dialysis and Cardiovascular Disease in Patients With Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease 

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-1874  

Please contact Angela Collom at acollom@acponline.org or 609-367-4225 with questions or for an embargoed PDF. Thank you.

 

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 29 April 2024    
Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet     

@Annalsofim    
Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.    
----------------------------    

1. Competition from “skinny label” generics saved Medicare billions

Savings were greatest for rosuvastatin, pregabalin, and imatinib

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-3212  

URL goes live when the embargo lifts     

An analysis of 15 name-brand drugs and their “skinny label” generic counterparts found that competition from these counterparts saved Medicare Part D nearly $15 billion from 2015 to 2021. Skinny labeling allows generic drug manufacturers to exclude labeling information that remains patent-protected by the brand name manufacturer. However, a recent federal appeals court ruling involving a skinny-label generic version of the beta-blocker carvedilol (Coreg; GlaxoSmithKline) has increased liability risk for manufacturers of skinny-label generics. The brief research report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School conducted an analysis of 15 brand-name drugs with a first-to-market skinny-label generic from 2015 to 2019. The authors compared actual spending on each brand-name drug and its skinny-label generics with projected spending had the skinny-label generics not been introduced. They estimated that actual Medicare spending on these 15 drugs and their skinny-label generics was $16.8 billion, and projected spending without generic competition was $31.5 billion, saving Medicare approximately $14.6 billion from 2015-2021. They note that savings were the greatest for rosuvastatin (Crestor, AstraZeneca; $6.5 billion), pregabalin (Lyrica, Pfizer; $4.2 billion), and imatinib (Gleevec, Novartis; $3.1 billion). The authors caution that deterring the use of skinny labeling, as the recent federal appeals court case might do, could be costly for Medicare and other US payers. They suggest that Congress should reinforce the skinny-label pathway by creating a safe harbor that protects manufacturers engaged in skinny labeling from induced patent infringement lawsuits. 

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at acollom@acponline.org. To speak with the corresponding author, Benjamin N. Rome, MD, MPH, please contact BROME@BWH.HARVARD.EDU.

----------------------------    

2. Semaglutide suitable for people with HIV and fatty liver disease

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-3354    

URL goes live when the embargo lifts      

A study of persons with HIV (PWH) and metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease, also known as ‘fatty liver disease,’ (MASLD) found that semaglutide was highly effective at reducing liver fat and cardiovascular disease risk in this population. The brief research report was published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers conducted a study of 51 PWH with central adiposity, insulin resistance or prediabetes, and fatty liver disease who were observed over a period of 24 weeks and given semaglutide. The authors found that 29 percent of participants had complete resolution of MASLD, and 58 percent had a relative reduction in liver fat of at least 30 percent. They also report that all participants tolerated 1 mg weekly semaglutide. According to the authors, given the high cardiometabolic disease burden and growing obesity epidemic among PWH, semaglutide may reduce CVD risk while preventing progressive liver disease.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at acollom@acponline.org. To speak with the corresponding author, Jordan E. Lake, MD, MSCR, please contact Jordan.E.Lake@uth.tmc.edu or 713-500-3030.

----------------------------    

3. Small gains in survival with modestly higher risk for adverse events for cancer patients participating in experimental clinical trials

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-2515    

URL goes live when the embargo lifts      

A systematic review and analysis of 128 trials found that cancer patients’ participation in clinical trials are associated with gains in survival compared with patients given standard-of-care treatments that were statistically significant but not clinically important. These gains also came at the cost of greater risk for serious adverse events (SAEs). The review is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from McGill University conducted a systematic review of 128 trials comprising 141 comparisons of a new drug and a comparator. These comparisons included 47,050 patients. The authors found that patients in experimental trials about 5 weeks of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) compared with patients receiving usual standard-of-care. They also note that patients in phase 3 studies or those sponsored by large pharmaceutical companies seem to have greater clinical benefit. However, the authors also found that gains in PFS or OS are potentially offset by a modest but statistically significantly elevated risk for SAEs for patients assigned to experimental groups, corresponding with 7.40 percent increase in absolute risk for a SAE in this group. According to the authors, they believe their findings are best interpreted as suggesting that access to experimental interventions that have not yet received full FDA approval is associated with a marginal but nonzero clinical benefit.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at acollom@acponline.org. To speak with the corresponding author, Jonathan Kimmelman, PhD, please contact jonathan.kimmelman@mcgill.ca.

----------------------------  

4. Ultrasound may be viable first-line diagnostic tool for persons with suspected GCA

Abstract: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M23-3417    

URL goes live when the embargo lifts      

A cohort study of persons with suspected giant cell arteritis (GCA) found that the use of ultrasound of the temporal arteries as a first-line diagnostic tool in patients with high clinical suspicion of GCA, further diagnostic tests for patients with positive ultrasound were avoided. The study is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from the Centre Hospitalier Rochefort, Rochefort, France, conducted a prospective cohort study of 165 patients with high clinical suspicion of GCA. The authors examined the use of color Doppler ultrasound of the temporal artery as a first-line diagnostic test and temporal artery biopsy (TAB) as a secondary test. The authors found that a diagnosis of GCA was confirmed in 44%, 17%, and 21% of patients by ultrasound, TAB, and clinical expertise and/or other imaging tests, respectively. According to the authors, their findings show that the use of temporal artery ultrasound may be an efficient way to make the diagnosis of GCA in patients with high clinical suspicion and to reduce imaging costs and the need for biopsy, thereby limiting complications and the need for a surgeon.

Media contacts: For an embargoed PDF, please contact Angela Collom at acollom@acponline.org. To speak with the corresponding author, Guillaume Denis, MD, please contact guillaume.denis@ght-atlantique17.fr.

----------------------------