The News Not Noise Letter: News That Doesn't Suck
The Supreme Court temporarily protects access to the abortion pill — what’s next? Plus: inhaling a cure to lung cancer and traveling on your heartbeat aren't far off.
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Supreme Court Order On Abortion Pill
We’re starting today’s newsletter with news that the Supreme Court has temporarily protected mifepristone, a medication that is one half of the abortion pill. The Court delayed imposing new restrictions on the pill until midnight on Wednesday, to give the justices time to consider the case. It might surprise some of you to know that Justice Samuel Alito issued the order — he wrote the Dobbs decision striking down Roe v. Wade. Understand that the stay is temporary and about process; he is the Justice assigned to cases from the 5th Circuit and this pause merely prevents chaos while the Court is making a final determination.
What happened? Mifepristone is at the center of a judicial maelstrom which we explained in Monday’s newsletter. The short version: 23 years ago the FDA approved mifepristone for medical abortions and it’s safely used in 53% of US abortions. Last week a federal judge in Amarillo Texas banned its use nationally, deeming it unsafe, not adequately studied. On the same day a federal judge in Washington state issued a contradictory ruling, protecting its use in 17 states and DC. No surprise, the government appealed to get clarity and on Wednesday things got more complicated. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed it to remain in use, but with strict limits.
What were the strict limits? The 5th Circuit said it can only be used up to 7 weeks of gestation not 10. It must be prescribed in-person by a doctor and the patient must go to three in-person doctor’s visits. The drug cannot be dispensed via telemedicine visit or received by mail (many prescriptions are sent by mail). This rolled back the rules to year 2000 limitations, when the drug was still new to the US and less well studied. All this would dramatically limit the ability to use the abortion pill since people often don’t know they’re pregnant in time to get treatment before 7 weeks. And scheduling 3 doctor’s visits is not easy.
Pause Till Wednesday: The Supreme Court put a hold on all those changes – but only until Wednesday. At that time they could ban it altogether, go with the 5th Circuit’s ruling, let the FDA rules stand or come up with another regime of their choosing.
Doctors v. FDA: This is an unprecedented challenge to the FDA’s regulatory authority, which we got into in the Monday newsletter. Here’s something we didn’t discuss: the 5th Circuit found that the group of anti-reproductive rights doctors and medical associations who brought the case have standing to challenge the FDA for a surprising reason. The court found that emergency room doctors have a “particularized injury” because they have to provide emergency care to patients who come in with incomplete abortions. They find this causes “enormous stress and pressure” for these physicians. Huh. Think this also gives doctors standing to challenge gun laws? Surely treating kids who arrive in the ER with gunshot wounds is pretty traumatic. Note: it’s extraordinarily rare to have incomplete abortions with the two-drug combo that includes mifepristone, but far more common without it.
Proponents: Over 500 current and former pharmaceutical executives signed a letter in response to the Texas ruling stating that mifepristone “has been proven by decades of data to be safer than Tylenol, nearly all antibiotics and insulin.” American Medical Association President Jack Resneck said the 5th Circuit “elevated speculative pseudoscience over data and evidence.” The DOJ said that the “unprecedented lower court orders countermanding FDA’s scientific judgment” have unleashed “regulatory chaos.”
Opponents: Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom (the pro-life plaintiffs) Erin Hawley said that "the 5th Circuit’s decision is a significant victory for the doctors we represent, women’s health, and every American who deserves an accountable federal government acting within the bounds of the law."
Justice Alito asked lawyers to file any challenges to the lower court rulings by Tuesday at noon.
Here’s some news that doesn’t suck (finally!):
The Rings of Uranus: A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet Uranus in striking detail—including its polar cap and 11 of its known rings. The image is remarkable for capturing Uranus’s rings in startling clarity—the rings are mostly made of dark rocks and dust that don’t reflect very much of the sun’s light, making them very hard to photograph. Uranus is unusual among planets in our solar system because it spins on its side, at roughly a right angle to its orbit around the sun. It also takes 84 years to orbit the sun, meaning that each of its poles receives 42 Earth-years of sunlight and 42 Earth-years of darkness for each orbit. That makes Game of Thrones seasons seem downright speedy. The telescope also detected some of Uranus’s many moons—the six brightest are labeled in the image above.
A Breath of Fresh Gene Editing: This item starts with some upsetting statistics — lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the US. However, engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Medical School have created a novel treatment system that may one day let cancer patients cure themselves with an inhale. These scientists designed inhalable nanoparticles that can directly edit genes in lung cells, which shows promise for treating lung cancers and genetic lung diseases like cystic fibrosis. These nanoparticles deliver mRNA directly to lung tissue, where cells “read” the “instructions” in the mRNA and use a gene editing mechanism called CRISPR/Cas9 to “delete” targeted genes. The new MIT nanoparticles showed significant results in animal testing, removing targeted genes from 40% of lung epithelial cells in mice after a single dose. They’re also easy for the body to clear out, reducing the risk of inflammation and irritation. Multiple doses can be administered, and the treatment becomes more effective with more doses—60% of lung epithelial cells were modified by these nanoparticles after three doses were administered. There’s still a lot of work to be done but this could help many patients breathe easy.
Great Salt Lake Rebounding: Rain rain, don’t go away. In November, the scientists at Brigham Young University in Utah released a troubling warning: come January the lake might dry up within just five years. That report found that the largest saline lake in North America had lost over 70% of its water since 1850. When water levels are low, the Great Salt Lake releases toxic arsenic-laced dust that is harmful to living things. The report blamed excessive water use and climate change for the crisis. But this year, thanks to crazy weather, regions of Utah received over 800 inches of snowfall, and as the snow melts this spring, it will do wonders to revitalize the lake. This will not entirely restore the lake to its original levels but meteorologists are predicting an El Niño climate pattern will develop this year, which among other effects could bring a lot more precipitation to the Southwest. Scientists are still encouraging water conservation in the Salt Lake Valley, but the snowfall seems to have brought a much-needed ecological reprieve.
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