HHS responds coolly to paper on alcohol risk

NewsletterMorning Rounds HHS responds coolly to paper on alcohol risk Soda and liver cancer, scientists conflicted on a new NIH proposal, and more health news from Morning Rounds Manage alerts for this article Email this article Share this article By Theresa GaffneyJune 11, 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. Today we’ve got an item from STAT’s new AAAS media fellow Lauren Chan. She’ll be reporting with us this summer. Scroll down to read her report on a sugary soda study. Advertisement Diabetes leaders apologize for expulsions Less than a week after five members of the American Diabetes Association were ushered out of its annual meeting, the group’s CEO has offered them, and the broader diabetes community, an apology. “I recognize the impact that experience had on each of you,” ADA executive Charles Henderson said in a video. “I am deeply sorry for the hurt, frustration, and the pain that resulted.” Read more from Elizabeth Cooney on the group’s next steps in the wake of what happened. DOJ accuses another med school of discrimination Yesterday, the Justice Department accused the University of California, Davis School of Medicine of discriminating against white and Asian applicants. The report follows similar accusations levied at the University of California, Los Angeles and Yale University. The letters are part of a broader campaign against initiatives to diversify the physician and biomedical research workforce. But these reports alleging bias and their focus on test scores, experts previously told STAT, ignore that medical schools have largely shifted toward more holistic admissions practices. In a statement yesterday, UC Davis said it “strongly disagrees with any characterization of its admissions practices as discriminatory or inconsistent with applicable law.”Advertisement You can read more about the responses to the initial two letters here. You can also revisit a 2023 story from our former colleague, Usha Lee McFarling, on how UC Davis became “remarkably” diverse without considering race. — Anil Oza HHS responds to paper on alcohol risk If you recall on Tuesday, a group of researchers published a study warning of potential risks of even light drinking — work the Trump administration had commissioned ahead of new dietary guidelines but did not release. HHS officials have since tried to distance themselves from the whole thing, telling STAT that the paper was “NOT commissioned by, NOR reviewed, approved, or cleared by” the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. While it’s true the final study published this week wasn’t OK’d by HHS — it was peer-reviewed for the journal — the bulk of the research was done on taxpayers’ dime and overseen by federal health officials. The paper contains many of the same findings as a draft report made public in 2025. As all that was happening, the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday passed an HHS spending bill that says the SAMHSA panel that ran the alcohol study can’t “study, analyze, consider or report” on adult alcohol consumption as part of its work to prevent underage drinking. — Isabella Cueto Scientists conflicted on a new NIH proposal In the hypercompetitive system to get NIH grant dollars, researchers at elite academic institutions have long had the upper hand. One proposal that has repeatedly been floated to address that inequity — including during the first Trump administration — is to place a cap on the number of grants any individual researcher can receive from the agency. Now, it’s circling back again. The NIH released a “Request for Information” this week, soliciting input on the idea from the scientific community. STAT’s Anil Oza spoke with scientists about the proposal. Many see promise in the idea but don’t trust the Trump administration to implement it fairly. Read more on the reactions. ACOG makes its own vaccine recs for pregnancy The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released its own recommended vaccine schedule for pregnant people yesterday, diverging from CDC advice under the Trump administration.Advertisement The professional group recommends four vaccines be routinely administered during pregnancy, with several others recommended under certain circumstances. (The CDC’s current recommended schedule includes only two shots: those against Tdap and RSV.) Read more from Helen Branswell on which shots ACOG recommends for pregnant people and for a refresher on the federal fracas that led the group to issue separate recommendations. New study links sugary drinks and liver cancer In the battle of real vs. artificial sweeteners in sodas and other beverages, sugar may be the bigger risk. A new meta-analysis — a study that analyzes the findings of other studies — published yesterday in JAMA Network Open evaluated whether sugar and artificially sweetened beverage intake were linked to new cases of liver cancer. Researchers looked at 11 studies (including 1.5 million participants) and concluded that one artificially sweetened beverage per day was not associated with increased risk of liver cancer. However, a sugar-sweetened drink each day was associated with increased rates of two primary liver cancer subtypes, intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. Ani Kardashian, a hepatologist with Keck Medicine of USC, notes that this is consistent with her clinical guidance. She told STAT, “this just confirms my current practice, which is to advise patients to cut back on their sugar-sweetened beverage consumption.” Notably, there were mixed outcomes across individual studies, which authors attributed to confounders like diabetes and obesity rates. Most studies in the analysis collected participants’ beverage-consumption patterns only once, thus missing long-term drinking patterns. While infections like hepatitis are contributors to liver cancer, sweetened beverage consumption may be a modifiable risk factor for liver health. — Lauren Chan $12,850 That’s how much a group of researchers paid Nature Medicine this spring to publish a study with the journal. The same time last year, publication was free. The new charge covered the publisher’s open-access fees, a route that many researchers are now required to take to comply with an NIH policy that aims to provide immediate, free access to papers derived from federally funded research. “The journals I used to recommend to my trainees are now unaffordable,” professor and epidemiologist Elizabeth Selvin writes in a new First Opinion essay. Read more on the challenges.Advertisement What we’re reading Health sleuths are watching for disease threats during the World Cup, AP U.S. Ebola unit sparks fury, protests, and a political crisis in Kenya, New York Times Exclusive: Private Medicare plans erect barriers to rehab care in pursuit of profit, federal investigators find, STAT Big tobacco hooked us on ultra-processed foods. It might teach us how to cut back, NPR Opinion: How long Covid’s scientific stalemate made it politically erasable, STAT 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. Newsletter Understand how science, health policy, and medicine shape the world every day Recommended Morning Rounds June 10, 2026 DOJ reaches second settlement on youth gender care Morning Rounds June 9, 2026 STAT Plus: What’s changed since the last major Ebola outbreak Advertisement Morning Rounds June 8, 2026 Major readouts from the annual diabetes conference Morning Rounds June 5, 2026 Texas AG investigating energy drinks Morning Rounds June 4, 2026 Scientists uncover a new hiding spot for HIV Subscriber Picks