Extreme heat is worsening faster for Black Americans

NewsletterMorning Rounds Extreme heat is worsening faster for Black Americans Bill Cassidy’s can’t-win conundrum, what RFK Jr. gets right and wrong about antidepressants, and more health news Manage alerts for this article Email this article Share this article By Theresa GaffneyMay 13, 2026 Morning Rounds Writer and Reporter Theresa Gaffney[email protected]Theresa is the lead Morning Rounds writer, and her stories focus on gender-affirming care, reproductive health, and mental health. You can reach Theresa on Signal at theresagaff.97. Get your daily dose of health and medicine every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here. Good morning. After what sometimes felt like endless speculation, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary resigned from his role yesterday. Kyle Diamantas, the agency’s top food regulator, will step in as acting commissioner. STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence has the details. And Matt Herper has a hot take: Marty Makary was the worst FDA commissioner in 25 years.Advertisement Bill Cassidy’s can’t-win conundrum Makary may not be the only health policy leader in Washington who’s on the way out. Louisiana’s physician-senator Bill Cassidy faces a tooth-and-nail primary fight on Saturday, and President Trump has endorsed one of his challengers. “He could cure cancer, and he still could potentially lose the primary,” local Republican leader Kelby Daigle told STAT’s Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne. It’s a tough time for Cassidy, who should be at the pinnacle of power right now after nearly a decade of leading the GOP in health reform plans. Instead, he’s facing the fight of his political career, with his legacy on the line. And win or lose, sources told STAT that he seems unlikely to ever fully recover from his collapse in stature as the changing political landscape demands Republicans show unrelenting loyalty to President Trump.Advertisement The senator’s future may come down to two key votes he made in 2021 and 2025. To understand how he made those decisions, Chelsea and Daniel traveled to Louisiana and interviewed key people inside Cassidy’s orbit. Read more in their excellent report. Men text 988 much less often than women Out of 1.5 million messages that the Crisis Text Line received in 2025, less than 20% came from people who identified as male only, according to a new report. (The organization provides crisis support to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and globally.) But that doesn’t mean men and boys need less help — the same analysis found that one in three conversations with boys under 14 mentioned suicide. “Boys and men are socialized to equate self-reliance with strength and [see] help-seeking as a weakness,” said Tracy Costigan, who authored the report. “And this is really conformity to traditional masculine norms.” Read more on the findings from STAT’s Annalisa Merelli. What RFK Jr. gets right and wrong on antidepressants Last week, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced an initiative that aims to reduce what he calls the overprescribing of psychiatric medications like antidepressants. Jonathan Slater is a clinical psychiatrist who has helped patients wean off antidepressants, a process he says is dynamic, individualized, and requires ongoing clinical judgement. He believes that deprescribing is understudied, undertaught, and under-reimbursed. But he takes issue with Kennedy’s outlandish claims, like when he asserted SSRIs are harder to quit than heroin. “But Kennedy’s initiative conflates that genuine clinical need with claims unsupported by evidence — and some that are actively dangerous,” Slater writes in a new First Opinion essay. Read more on the data around deprescribing and what one expert thinks is really needed. A new kind of liver crisis When Stephen Silva-Brave became a father at age 20, he put his college plans on hold to pursue stable work in the finance sector. Binge drinking was a major part of the culture, and eventually, he was drinking every night. He’d stop by a gas station on his way home from work and buy a couple of Four Lokos, the infamous beverage that, in one can, contained the same amount of alcohol as five beers and double the sugar as a can of soda.Advertisement “That could have had something to do with why I got cirrhosis so young,” said Silva-Brave, who developed late-stage disease by age 32. But it wasn’t just drinking — he lived off highly processed snacks and lunches from a 7-Eleven. He sat on the couch every night, not exercising. The top causes of liver disease are metabolic disease and alcohol. But data suggest more and more, the combination of the two will be a major driver. In the first installment of “The Deadliest Drug,” STAT’s Isabella Cueto and Lev Facher examined how alcohol is wreaking havoc on Americans’ health. The next story, published today, explores the growing danger of combining heavy drinking with existing metabolic disease and bad eating habits. Read more on who’s at risk and how it plays out. Extreme heat is worsening faster for Black Americans Across the U.S., hospitalizations due to extreme heat are increasing. But a study published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine found that rates are increasing faster for Black adults than their white peers. And on average, people living in ZIP codes with the lowest average income are more than twice as likely to be hospitalized due to heat than people in the wealthiest areas. Researchers analyzed data on adult hospitalizations for heat-related illness between May and September every year from 1998 to 2022. In 1998, Black people in many regions had similar rates of hospitalizations from heat as their white neighbors. But the disparities widened, particularly in the Midwest and West, where in 2022, more than 80 Black people per million were hospitalized due to heat, as opposed to around 60 white people per million in the South and closer to 40 white people per million in the West. As former STAT editor Karen Pennar reported in 2023, emergency physicians are using whatever tools they have at their disposal — like freezers of ice and body bags — to prepare for a future of extreme heat. And a First Opinion essay published this morning argues government assistant programs need to better prioritize access to air conditioning. Advertisement What we’re reading The close, prolonged contact myth, Atlantic How a legal challenge over gender dysphoria became a fight for disability rights, The 19th Drug meant to make gene therapy safer may also make it less effective, STAT Low wages, empty plates, heavy toll: Rethinking suicide prevention, KFF Health News Podcast: What can ‘blue zones’ really teach us about aging? STAT What’s the word? Test your knowledge with today’s STAT Mini crossword. health care Submit a correction requestReprints Theresa Gaffney Morning Rounds Writer and Reporter Theresa is the lead Morning Rounds writer, and her stories focus on gender-affirming care, reproductive health, and mental health. You can reach Theresa on Signal at theresagaff.97. 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