Brittany Trang
@brittanytrang.com
Health tech / AI reporter @ STAT News AAAS MMF '21 PFAS PhD/water nerd Buckeye/believer/sad indie rock concertgoer Signal: btrang.01
Absolutely sobbing by the end of this story. A must-read. Very interested to see what impact this has on the gene-editing field. www.science.org/content/arti...
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public
Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals
science.org
"The concept of prior authorization is not understandable to even a 4-year-old" is a real sentence I uttered in my attempt to learn from Advanced Machine Intelligence CEO / Nabla chief AI officer Alex LeBrun what "world models" are. Find out the context, and learn more, at STAT:
What is a ‘world model’? Nabla's Alex LeBrun explains
In this edition of AI Prognosis, Brittany Trang talks to Alex LeBrun, AI scribe company Nabla's executive chairman, about an alternative to LLMs
statnews.com
Seeing @ratboysband.bsky.social last night at Pritzker Pavilion on a 74°, sunny evening encapsulates everything that is good and perfect about peak summer Chicago. It makes me miss living here.
Our series, "The Deadliest Drug," captured the American drinking problem. Today we turn to solutions. Here are a dozen ways the U.S. can start addressing excessive drinking and its many harms. (No paywall!) www.statnews.com/2026/07/14/a...
12 ideas for tackling the U.S. alcohol epidemic
The U.S. can save lives from excess alcohol use without taking drastic measures. Here are 12 steps that can help.
statnews.com
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"Licensure has never been about just passing a test. It is about bearing responsibility for the outcome. AI will reshape how clinical decisions are formed. The question is who answers for the decision based on that output — and who is responsible for that decision when something goes wrong." 🖥️🩺
The AI licensure debate is missing the point of licensure
“AI will reshape medicine. The physicians who answer for the outcome must lead the way it enters patient care," write Afnan R. Tariq and Ami Bhatt.
statnews.com
Really important new series from @bobjherman.bsky.social, chronicling the quiet erosion of U.S. employer health insurance system and what it means for everyday Americans. www.statnews.com/health-insur...
Bob Herman@bobjherman.bsky.social · 4w agoBigger picture: Health insurance premiums (both employer and employee contributions) have vastly outpaced inflation for decades. These are constant wage cuts, and everyone out there is getting hammered, silently behind the scenes. www.statnews.com/2026/07/07/s...
STAT's @bobjherman.bsky.social talks about his new project 'Out of Pocket. Out of Reach.' A multipart series on the soaring costs of health insurance for America’s workers and businesses. Explore: www.statnews.com/health-insur...
The central Ohio area (where I live) has the sixth-most data centers in the country and was leading the country in terms of growth, at least as of a year ago. The Columbus Dispatch just got the first actual data, via FOIA, about how much water data centers use. www.dispatch.com/story/news/l...
Columbus-area data centers used 1.2 billion gallons of water in a year
Columbus data centers used 1.2 billion gallons of water in a 12-month period, which amounts to 3% of Columbus' water in that time.
dispatch.com
This is too long for bluesky, but #chemsky ⚗️🧪 might appreciate this behind-the-scenes look I posted on LinkedIn about how Claude has increased its chemistry fluency. Includes mention of IUPAC names and SMILES, if that whets your appetite: www.linkedin.com/posts/britta...
The moment Anthropic convinced me it’s serious about science | Brittany Trang, PhD
Bonus material: You might think yesterday, with the Claude Science and drug development announcements, was the moment I thought Anthropic was serious about science. But that moment actually happened a...
linkedin.com
NEW: Anthropic buried the lede in its Claude Science event today: It's going to start developing its own drugs. Details are scarce, but @matthewherper.bsky.social and I talked to Anthropic executives to bring you some exclusive tidbits about the program: #AI #pharma #artificialintelligence
AI company Anthropic announces it will begin developing drugs of its own
AI giant Anthropic has already become a dominant player in technology and a household name for everyday users of artificial intelligence. Can it make drugs too?
statnews.com
Breaking: Anthropic releases Claude Science, an application it hopes does for science what Claude Code did for software. Read more from me and @matthewherper.bsky.social: 🧪 #science #research #AI
Anthropic releases Claude Science, a product aimed at researchers, the pharma industry
Anthropic released Claude Science, an application that optimizes its large language model for scientists and, especially, those doing research at pharma companies.
statnews.com
At BIO's San Diego conference this week, Washington and AI loomed large w/ @brittanytrang.com www.statnews.com/2026/06/25/b...
At BIO 2026, industry wrestled with Washington politics, and making AI work better
Biotech executives reveal concerns over Chinese biotech, the profitability of AI, and the durability of Trump's drug price moves.
statnews.com
STAT is in San Diego at the #BIO2026 conference! On the ground we have @brittanytrang.com, @danielpayne.bsky.social, @alexhogan.bsky.social, and @rickberke.bsky.social!
STAT's @brittanytrang.com is at #BIO2026 and already has some early takeaways on what's next for AI in biotech. www.linkedin.com/posts/britta...
#bio2026 #health #healthcare #medicine #ai #artificialintelligence #biotech #pharma | Brittany Trang, PhD
I'm here at #BIO2026 and have some early takeaways on what's poppin' and what's next for AI in biotech. Drop any trends you're seeing below! 👇 and subscribe to AI Prognosis, which drops Wednesday at 7...
linkedin.com
EXCLUSIVE: Eli Lilly gave compassionate use access to retatrutide, their unapproved powerful obesity drug, to a 79-year-old man in April. The application was arranged by a top doctor at NIH, and cleared by the FDA. www.statnews.com/2026/06/23/e...
Eli Lilly gave extraordinary obesity drug access to a 79-year-old patient. Who was it?
Exclusive: STAT has learned that Eli Lilly and the FDA allowed a 79-year-old to gain extraordinary access to an experimental obesity drug through the agency’s “compassionate use” program.
statnews.com
There's been a lot of attention on the OMB proposal, namely the changes to peer review, but I wanted to highlight another side of it: how health disparities research, already under a lot of political pressure, could be at risk www.statnews.com/2026/06/22/h...
Health equity researchers fear unseen level of scrutiny under White House proposal
Health disparities researchers say a new White House proposal could disqualify much of their work from federal funding — perhaps the most serious threat yet to the future of their field.
statnews.com
Your read for today: "When applying to medical school, I pictured medicine as a clean transaction — diagnosis, treatment, discharge. Tonight, a syringe, a song, four guards in damp clothes represent a more common reality: the strange, cramped intimacy of mismatched resources in a failing system."
I work in a psychiatric ER. I’m watching the system fail people in real time
The psychiatric ER is “a detox center for those with no safe place to withdraw and a respite center for caregivers at their breaking point,” writes a psychiatrist.
statnews.com
Verge Genomics is pivoting, after the clinical trial of its ALS drug failed. Now, as Verge Labs, the company has built a brain AI model to solve patient-stratification problems for neurology clinical trials, @brittanytrang.com reports: www.statnews.com/2026/06/16/v... via @statnews.com
Verge Labs’ new AI model solves patient stratification problems for neurology clinical trials
As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Or as Verge Labs might put it, one company’s failed clinical trial … is that same company’s
statnews.com
tl;dr: A government watchdog investigated what STAT found in its Pulitzer-finalist "Denied by AI" series and found: -health insurance companies' denials for care were overturned 97% of the time when they were appealed -82% of people do not appeal and thus were wrongly denied care for no reason
Bob Herman@bobjherman.bsky.social · 2mo agoBiggest Medicare Advantage insurers denied rehabilitative care for older and disabled Americans at higher rates than industry peers, then frequently overturned those denials when patients appealed, OIG finds. Confirms reporting from @caseyross.bsky.social and me: www.statnews.com/2026/06/11/m...
Kennedy said that his calendar is "publicly available." That isn't true — STAT has tried to FOIA for it multiple times over the course of more than a year. More @statnews.com: www.statnews.com/2026/06/11/r...
RFK Jr. claims his calendar is publicly available. We've been trying to get it for a year
None of STAT's requests for Kennedy's schedule have been completed, and some haven't even been acknowledged.
statnews.com
Fallout continues from the ADA's decision to forcibly expel five diabetes experts from its annual meeting in New Orleans for handing out copies of an editorial criticizing federal cuts to biomedical research. Liz Cooney has the latest: www.statnews.com/2026/06/09/a...
Diabetes Association in uproar after members expelled from annual meeting over protest of NIH cuts
The condemnations keep coming after five diabetes experts were escorted out of an ADA meeting for handing out copies of an editorial criticizing federal research cuts.
statnews.com
Am I hearing things? Or does the new Death Cab for Cutie song "I Built You A Tower (a)" sound like a TWIABP song to anyone else? (specifically "Infinite Josh" or "Afraid to Die")
This is nuts. Police ejecting researchers from the American Diabetes Association meeting for distributing an editorial, telling them they can no longer attend even though some of them are slated to present. "They're taking our lanyards....Censorship is real. America needs to stand up." #science 🧪🩺
Video: Police Tussle With Diabetes Experts at ADA Meeting
Researchers told they could no longer attend the annual scientific sessions
medpagetoday.com
Patients are getting used to being recorded at the doctor's office. But are doctors comfortable with patients recording them? @katiepalmer.bsky.social addresses several aspects of this topic, spurred by new apps springing up to help patients keep track of what's happening. #AI #health #patients 🩺🖥️
After hospitals, patients get a turn to bring AI into the doctor’s office
Ambient scribes were the first large-scale application of AI in health care. Now developers are pitching them as diligent note-takers for patients.
statnews.com
Curious what the pope's encyclical on AI says & how it applies to health care, but don't have time to read the almost-40,000-word document? I read the whole thing so you don't have to. The pope's view on AI is refreshing and echoes ideas from tech thinkers like Karen Hao & Nilay Patel. A fun one:
What the pope’s encyclical on AI means for Catholic hospitals, and all of health care
In this edition of STAT's AI Prognosis: Brittany Trang analyzes the pope's encyclical on artificial intelligence for takeaways relevant for health care.
statnews.com
Come for local citizens of all stripes banding together; stay for the 12-year-old whose mom drove him to the Statehouse after his baseball game so he could testify about why he doesn't want Ohio to lose more farmland to data centers. www.dispatch.com/story/news/p...
Ohioans urge statewide moratorium as data center boom sparks pushback
Ohioans took their concerns over the rapid development of data centers to the Ohio Statehouse.
dispatch.com
If an inaccuracy has made its way into your doctor's notes because they were using an AI scribe, please email me at brittany.trang@statnews.com! I am a health AI reporter and would love to talk to you about this problem!
Matthew Cortland (they)@matthewcort.land · 2mo ago....my sense is many (most?) clinicians are not actually reviewing their notes for accuracy in the way one needs to in order to safeguard against LLM hallucination. So now patients have to audit each clinical note.... www.patreon.com/posts/159785...