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Good morning. We’ve got a big investigation into Epic for you today. Yes, that Epic. Refill your coffee to read the great story from Casey Ross and Brittany Trang, who managed to interview more than 50 people, despite widespread fear of speaking out against such a powerful company.
Trump admin wants credit for fewer overdose deaths
It’s one of the biggest questions facing addiction experts right now: Why are drug overdose deaths declining? After years of steep increases, especially amid the pandemic, U.S. overdose deaths decreased 27% in 2024, and preliminary data from 2025 show another meaningful drop, though overdose mortality is still too high. Yesterday, an HHS press release credited both Trump administrations with driving down deaths, citing two new reports authored by its own officials and staff. But addiction experts say the factors are far more complicated than one administration’s policies.
“The decline started years ago, with many states peaking during the COVID pandemic, and the continued downward trajectory deserves credit from Trump 1, Biden, and Trump 2 admins,” epidemiologist and harm reduction advocate Nabarun Dasgupta told me in an email. He published a thorough report last week breaking down the factors that likely played a role in the decline, including changes in the drug supply, behavioral shifts among drug users, and public health and harm reduction interventions. (Something that experts agree didn’t actually help: closing the border.)
And there’s an important caveat: Dasgupta and others emphasize that impending Medicaid cuts from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill could reverse a lot of the progress that’s been made when it comes to addiction treatment. “The paperwork burden associated with maintaining coverage is unrealistic for many in chaotic phases of drug use, namely those who need help the most,” Dasgupta said.
Two deaths in autoimmune cell therapy trial
Artiva Biotherapeutics said yesterday that it’s winding down after two patients died during a trial testing its cell therapy for autoimmune diseases, the latest in a series of safety events that have rocked this promising research field.
The deaths appear unrelated to the therapy, the company said. Still, they highlight the growing questions about the safety of the approach and what risk is tolerable for people with autoimmune conditions. Read more from STAT’s Elaine Chen.
How Epic’s iron grip chokes innovation in health tech
There’s a single, privately held business in charge of most patient data in the U.S. You’ve almost certainly heard of it — you’ve probably also logged into the company’s MyChart software to message your doctor or look at test results. Epic Systems Corp. holds data on some 8 in 10 Americans, and its hospital record-keeping software covers more than half of the country’s inpatient beds. A new STAT investigation found that the company selectively withholds access to these data to the disadvantage of rival software tools, leaving its own products unchallenged.
“It has killed innovators left and right,” one senior executive at a longtime Epic hospital customer said. “It’s time for a change.”
STAT’s Casey Ross and Brittany Trang conducted more than 50 interviews with leaders of health technology companies, hospital executives, consultants, investors, and former Epic employees. It’s not only competitors who voiced complaints, but also some of Epic’s own hospital customers. The investigation came out of the pair’s previous reporting on antitrust lawsuits and inquiries into the company, as well as the increased willingness of concerned sources to supply documents and other information demonstrating a pattern of behavior by Epic, Casey told me. Read the first story of a new series, Inside Epic’s Empire, that will investigate the company’s growing dominance and its impact on competition and innovation amid the AI boom.
(And if you’ve been impacted by Epic’s actions in the health technology marketplace, Casey and Brittany want to hear from you. Share your experience here.)
‘Even as a pediatrician of 18 years, I have never seen a case of measles outside a textbook’
That’s pediatrician Katie Lockwood, who wrote a First Opinion essay published today about how doctors can help families stay both calm and informed about measles. Despite never having seen a patient with measles, Lockwood hears from parents nearly every day who are scared of the disease and want to know how to protect their children.
“The symptoms of measles sound like every illness a child could bring home from day care,” Lockwood writes. “Therefore, understanding what measles is, and isn’t, becomes even more important.” Read more.
Is the fertility industry anti-feminist?
In a new First Opinion essay, an internal medicine physician says yes. Pooja Yerramilli froze her eggs a few years ago, “and the experience was anything but empowering,” she writes. In the last decade, the number of patients freezing their eggs has increased exponentially. That’s likely due in part to positive factors like increased awareness and accessibility, Yerramilli acknowledges. But her own experience was something else.
“From the moment I entered the doctor’s office, I felt reduced to nothing more than a vessel for reproduction — a severely flawed, cracked vessel, through which my eggs were rapidly escaping and deteriorating with every passing day,” she writes. Read more about what Yerramilli characterizes as a sort of coercive, complicated process (which at one point involved, I was shocked to read, venmoing a nurse for administering a precisely timed “trigger shot”).
What we’re reading
She worried about cutting her medication dose. ChatGPT told her to push on, New York Times
Russian plague lab death: 3 lessons from the history of lab accidents, Healthbeat
- Missouri AG warns Lilly to stop requiring data from hospitals seeking 340B drug discounts, STAT
- The Ebola outbreak is breaking records — and just marked a grim milestone, NPR