![[Correspondence] Internet Shutdowns in Iran and the Right to Health](https://hixhlmpcokxhartfkpyi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/thumbnails/69e5c876c0c0e081e3156d4b1214d794.webp)
[Correspondence] Internet Shutdowns in Iran and the Right to Health
In January 2026 Iran imposed a nationwide internet blackout that remains heavily filtered, coinciding with a violent crackdown on protesters and attacks on hospitals. The shutdown has crippled emergency medical coordination, tele‑medicine, and public‑health reporting, contributing to thousands of preventable deaths and severe psychological trauma for both patients and the diaspora. Globally, 296 internet shutdowns were recorded in 2024 across 54 countries, many linked to human‑rights violations in conflict zones. The article argues that such digital blackouts violate international law and the right to health, demanding urgent accountability and resilient connectivity solutions.
![[Correspondence] Student Suicide Risk and Counselling in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq](https://hixhlmpcokxhartfkpyi.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/images/thumbnails/17d1d078e9209eeedbbafde30ade8668.webp)
[Correspondence] Student Suicide Risk and Counselling in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
A growing body of evidence shows that suicide and related behaviors are increasingly common among medical students worldwide, posing a serious challenge for education systems. The issue is especially acute in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where chronic crises exacerbate...
India Expands Digital Health Impact Domestically and Globally
India reaffirmed its commitment to digital health at the IGSTC Strategic Conclave 2026, spotlighting telemedicine advancements for the Armed Forces and the broader public. The event announced expanded collaboration with Germany and highlighted the integration of telehealth into the Ayushman...
Android Mental Health Apps with 14.7M Installs Filled with Security Flaws
Security firm Oversecured scanned ten Android mental‑health apps with more than 14.7 million combined installs and uncovered 1,575 vulnerabilities. The flaws include 54 high‑severity and 538 medium‑severity issues such as insecure intent handling, plaintext API keys, and weak random number generation....
Animal Muscles Inspire Biomaterial Design for Agriculture, Fabrics and Medicine
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have engineered muscle‑inspired protein fibers using synthetic biology, creating filamin‑based threads that combine high tensile strength, toughness, damping and shape‑memory. By growing genetically modified microbes in bioreactors, they achieved higher protein yields and...
Skilled Nursing Dealbook: 280 Beds Realigned in Ohio as 80-Bed Nebraska Nursing Home Changes Hands
Senwell Senior Investment Advisors completed a multi‑party realignment of more than 280 skilled‑nursing beds across Ohio, moving capacity from overbedded counties to operators targeting high‑demand markets. The transaction involved 12 unnamed sellers and multiple buyers seeking growth or new facility...
Care.com and Headspace Launch Mental Health Partnership for Caregivers
Care.com and Headspace announced a partnership to bolster mental‑health support for family caregivers. The collaboration introduces ten exclusive micro‑mindfulness videos, each under three minutes, and provides free Headspace subscriptions to Care.com members. The initiative responds to data showing roughly one‑third...
Accelerating Next Generation Medicine with New Drug Delivery Platform
Scientists at the University of Nottingham have unveiled a modular materials platform that self‑assembles with RNA to form nanoscale delivery particles. The system uses reversible host‑guest linkages, allowing rapid tuning of stability and behavior for diverse therapeutic needs. In pre‑clinical...
Worsening CAC Tied to Cognitive Decline in Midlife: CARDIA
A new analysis of the CARDIA cohort shows that progression of coronary artery calcium (CAC) over roughly a decade is linked to measurable declines in processing speed and global cognition among middle‑aged adults. The relationship holds regardless of baseline CAC...
AHA Comments to CMS on GLOBE Payment Model
The American Hospital Association (AHA) submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on the proposed Global Benchmark for Efficient Drug Pricing (GLOBE) model, a mandatory Medicare Part B payment framework that would apply most‑favored‑nation pricing to select drugs...
AHA Podcast: Rebuilding Georgia’s Rural Pediatric Pipeline — Part One
The American Hospital Association’s podcast episode "Rebuilding Georgia’s Rural Pediatric Pipeline — Part One" examines the acute shortage of pediatric specialists in Georgia’s underserved counties and outlines strategies to attract and retain providers. It highlights federal initiatives such as the...
Future Leader: Carrie Hyde, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Palliative Care, Gentiva
Carrie Hyde, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Palliative Care at Gentiva, has been named a 2025 Future Leader by Hospice News. In a candid interview she explains her draw to hospice and palliative care, the leadership lesson of listening first,...
ASE Promoting 3D Echo as a Better Way to Treat Congenital Heart Disease
The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) is championing 3‑dimensional echocardiography as the preferred tool for diagnosing and guiding treatment of congenital heart disease. ASE is standardizing image display and terminology to align imagers, interventional cardiologists, and surgeons, and will deliver...
Q&A: Datavant on AI Hype and Stock Market Volatility
Datavant CISO Dan Walsh told MobiHealthNews that AI is not in a bubble but is over‑hyped, and its true value will emerge as a productivity tool rather than a market disruptor. He likened current hype to past tech cycles, noting...
The Future of Senior Living Requires Better Care Coordination
PointClickCare’s senior‑care chief medical officer warns that senior‑living occupancy has surged to 90‑95%, rendering the old fee‑for‑service, staff‑driven model untenable. The industry must move from reactive emergency‑department transfers to proactive, in‑place care coordination. Success hinges on comprehensive digital resident records,...
Copan’s PhenoMatrix Software Gets FDA 510(k) Clearance
Copan Group’s PhenoMatrix software, an AI‑driven image assessment tool for bacterial culture plates, received FDA 510(k) clearance as a Class II in‑vitro diagnostic device. The clearance covers analysis of blood, chocolate, MacConkey and ChroMagar agar plates, enabling semi‑quantitative colony counting and...
Gen AI Is Coming for Medical Bills; 3 Ways to Prepare
Patients are turning to generative AI tools like ChatGPT to question and dramatically reduce their medical bills, with high‑profile cases showing savings of over $150,000. OpenAI reports nearly 2 million weekly messages about health insurance, indicating a surge in consumer‑driven AI...
ONC Contest: Make Patient-Exported EHI More Usable
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has launched the EHIgnite Challenge, a $490,000 competition aimed at turning raw patient‑exported electronic health information into usable, actionable insights. Phase 1, closing May 13, 2026, seeks concept and design submissions that provide...
Value-Based Models, Medicaid Driving Palliative Care Changes in 2026
In 2026, value‑based reimbursement models and expanding Medicaid coverage are reshaping palliative care delivery. State initiatives in California, Hawaii and New Jersey signal growing payer acceptance, while partnerships with ACOs are establishing benchmarks for sustainable financing. Industry leaders note a...
Why Red Teaming Is Vital for Health Systems, and Not Just for Cybersecurity
Red‑team exercises simulate real cyber‑attacks to test how healthcare organizations respond under pressure. Pieter Ceelen of Fortra explains that these engagements uncover hidden vulnerabilities such as credential sharing, unpatched legacy medical IoT, and unclear emergency procedures like shutting down internet...
Palantir Deals Are a Threat to Our Data Rights as UK Citizens | Letters
Palantir Technologies, the US data‑fusion and AI firm, has secured contracts with the UK National Health Service and the Ministry of Defence. Critics argue the deals give a surveillance‑focused company access to sensitive citizen data. The firm’s platforms, already employed...
Space Medicine Framework Can Redefine Value-Based Care Strategy
Shannon Kennedy will present a HIMSS 2026 workshop that applies space‑medicine constraints to redesign value‑based care. She introduces the "Orbital Quintuple Aim" framework, which evaluates five interdependent dimensions of health delivery under extreme resource limits. Participants act as spacecraft medical...
Officials Build Digital Backbone for Federal Health Care Reform
The Trump administration is constructing a federal digital backbone to support the Great Healthcare Plan, focusing on interoperability, patient identity verification, and transparent prescription pricing. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are advancing a Health Technology Ecosystem that will...
SIIM Offers Opportunity for Imaging Information Champions
SIIM is expanding its educational offerings to cultivate imaging informatics champions, providing training, mentorship, and a new virtual hospital sandbox for safe IT practice. The society’s partnership with RSNA has produced a National Imaging Informatics Course, creating a standardized pathway...
Designing Scalable Measurement-Based Care Systems for Expanding Health Care Organizations
Measurement‑Based Care (MBC) uses patient‑reported outcome measures like PHQ‑9 and GAD‑7 to turn subjective symptoms into quantitative data, driving up to 95 % improvement in outcomes. As patient volumes grow, manual MBC processes become inefficient, leading to incomplete assessments, clinician burnout,...
One Physician's Committed Effort to Bring Virtual Kidney Care to Rural Georgia
Georgia faces a silent kidney disease crisis, with 1.2 million adults affected and only 147,000 aware of their condition. Dr. Sharica Brookins launched Remote Renal Care in 2018, the state’s first fully virtual nephrology practice, to bridge the specialist gap in...
Consequences of New MA and ACA Marketplace Regulations
CMS has released draft regulations that will reshape Medicare Advantage (MA) and Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace operations beginning in the 2027 compliance year. The proposals tighten enrollment verification, mandate greater cost and benefit transparency, and introduce stricter documentation standards...
FDA Unveils Pathway for Ultra-Rare Disease Therapies
The FDA released draft guidance introducing the Plausible Mechanism Framework, a new approval pathway for individualized therapies targeting ultra‑rare diseases. The framework permits sponsors to seek clearance for gene‑editing and RNA‑based treatments when traditional randomized trials are infeasible due to...
Faster Cancer Screening? New AI System Offers a Better Way to Detect Abnormal Cells
Researchers unveiled Whole‑Slide Edge Tomography, an AI‑driven 3D scanning platform that digitizes every cell on a cytology slide and classifies abnormalities with near‑human accuracy. In tests on cervical samples, the system recorded AUC scores from 0.84 for early changes up...
What the FDA’s Priority Voucher Decision Means for Psychedelic Drug Development
The FDA’s Commissioner’s National Priority Review Voucher (CNPV) pilot compresses review timelines to one‑to‑two months for qualifying drugs, but its criteria favor applications with mature data packages. Compass Pathways’ synthetic psilocybin (COMP360) was listed as eligible yet did not receive...
How Health Systems Are Tackling Behavioral Health Fragmentation
Health systems are confronting fragmented behavioral‑health delivery through multiple tactics, including rapid expansion of telepsychiatry, creation of integrated pediatric health hubs, and the launch of dedicated behavioral‑health urgent‑care sites. In West Virginia, virtual visits now account for just over half...
SGLT2s Linked to Lower Cardiorenal, Hepatic Risks in Type 2 Diabetes
A Taiwanese retrospective cohort of 24,259 adults with type 2 diabetes and liver cirrhosis found that initiating sodium‑glucose cotransporter‑2 inhibitors (SGLT2is) markedly reduced the risk of end‑stage kidney disease, acute kidney injury, major adverse cardiovascular events, all‑cause mortality, and hepatic decompensation...
New Targeted Base-Editing Tool Corrects Genetic Brain Disorder in Mice
Researchers unveiled a TadA‑embedded adenine base editor (TeABE) that precisely corrects the pathogenic A‑T to G‑C mutation in the CHD3 gene of a mouse model of Snijders Blok‑Campeau syndrome. Delivered via a dual‑AAV viral system, the editor restored normal CHD3 protein...
Mastering MedTech Intelligence: The Intelligent Product Lifecycle at Fresenius Medical Care
Fresenius Medical Care has adopted PTC’s digital‑thread platform to create an intelligent product lifecycle that unifies design, quality and manufacturing data. The solution builds a shared product data foundation, enhancing traceability of requirements, design changes, and compliance documentation across cross‑functional...
US Healthcare Diagnostic Firm Says 140,000 Affected by Data Breach
Healthcare diagnostics firm Vikor Scientific, now operating as Vanta Diagnostics, disclosed a data breach affecting nearly 140,000 individuals. The breach was traced to Catalyst RCM, a revenue-cycle‑management vendor, whose compromised credentials allowed the Everest ransomware group to exfiltrate roughly 12 GB...
FDA Approves New Biotronik Pacing Lead for LBBAP
Biotronik received FDA clearance for its Solia CSP S pacing lead, a device engineered specifically for left bundle branch area pacing (LBBAP). The lead combines a stylet‑driven platform with a novel fixed‑helix screw, addressing procedural simplicity and electrical performance. Approval relied on...
Weill Cornell Intros New System-Wide AI Education Effort
Weill Cornell Medicine has launched the AI to Advance Medicine initiative, an enterprise‑wide program that centralizes artificial‑intelligence projects across clinical care, research and education. The effort includes a bimonthly Dean’s Lecture Series and a seed‑grant program to fund AI tools,...
Stretchy Plastics Conduct Electricity via Tiny, Whisker-Like Fibers
Researchers at Penn State used cryogenic electron microscopy to uncover how adding specific salts and water to the conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS creates hair‑like nanofibers that dramatically improve both stretchability and electrical conductivity. The nanostructure, revealed at –180 °C, shows that lithium‑based...
Frazier Healthcare-Backed RevSpring Acquires Healthcare Tech Firm TrustCommerce
RevSpring, a revenue‑cycle management platform backed by Frazier Healthcare, announced the acquisition of healthcare‑technology firm TrustCommerce. The deal was sourced from Waud Capital Partners, which acted as the seller. TrustCommerce brings a robust payment‑processing suite that complements RevSpring's existing billing...
Silencing Ghrelin The Hunger Hormone
Recent research reveals that several snake lineages have completely lost the hunger hormone ghrelin and its activating enzyme, yet maintain normal energy balance. Modern anti‑obesity drugs, such as GLP‑1 receptor agonists, achieve weight loss by amplifying satiety signals rather than...
Breath and Barking Present a Breakthrough in Cancer Diagnosis
SpotitEarly, led by CEO Shlomi Madar, has unveiled a diagnostic platform that pairs trained detection dogs with electronic sensors and artificial intelligence to analyze patients' breath for early signs of cancer. The system can identify lung, prostate, colorectal and breast...
How to Optimize the Revenue Cycle Workforce in 2026
Health systems face margin pressure, rising patient cost responsibility, and payer complexity, prompting a shift in revenue cycle workforce design for 2026. Integrating AI-driven automation with a strategically aligned global workforce and robust governance can improve denial management, clean claim...
EU Pledges €225m to Develop Next Generation of Flu Vaccines
The European Commission has pledged €225 million through a pre‑commercial procurement model to accelerate the development of next‑generation influenza vaccines. Ten entities, including Sanofi and Bavarian Nordic, will receive eight‑year contracts that cover clinical testing through market authorisation. The funding targets...
Statement on the Resignation of the CDC Principal Deputy Director
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that Dr. Ralph Abraham has resigned as Principal Deputy Director, effective immediately, to address unforeseen family obligations. Abraham, who joined the role in 2024, was recognized for enhancing national preparedness and streamlining...
Why HealthTech Products Fail Clinical Deployment & How To Prevent It
Health‑tech AI pilots are booming, yet MIT’s 2025 State of AI report finds 95% fail to generate value. High‑profile failures like Forward Health’s CarePods and Olive AI illustrate how operational complexity and unfocused expansion derail scaling. The article argues that...
Before AGBT Kicks Off, Ultima Unveils the UG 200
Ultima Genomics announced the UG 200 series, a second‑generation sequencing platform that includes a single‑wafer UG 200 and a dual‑wafer UG 200 Ultra. Both instruments are half the size of the UG 100, cost less (starting at $850,000), and deliver...
A New Era in Neuropsychiatry: Dr. Velichka Valcheva on GH Research’s Rapid-Acting Breakthrough, GH001
GH Research’s inhaled mebufotenin (GH001) demonstrated ultra‑rapid, profound antidepressant effects in a Phase 2b trial for treatment‑resistant depression, with 73% of patients in remission after six months versus ~11% for standard oral therapies. Early‑stage studies in postpartum depression and bipolar disorder...
Gilead Shows Belief in Its Partner’s Cancer Treatment with $7.8 Billion Buyout
Gilead Sciences agreed to acquire the remaining shares of Arcellx for an equity value of $7.8 billion, paying $115 per share—a 79.4% premium to the prior close. The deal secures full rights to Arcellx’s BCMA‑directed CAR‑T therapy anito‑cel, which is in...
Asda Opticians Announces Store Investment and Strengthens Leadership Team
Asda Opticians is committing £2.5 million to upgrade its optical estate, refit 18 stores and modernise diagnostic equipment. The investment also funds a new suite of technical, leadership and personal‑development training, plus a third Level 6 Dispensing Optician apprenticeship cohort beginning September 2026....
STAT+: Gossamer Lung Disease Drug Fails Late-Stage Study, but Company Will Still Seek FDA Approval
Gossamer Bio announced that its Phase 3 trial of seralutinib for pulmonary arterial hypertension missed its primary endpoint. Patients on seralutinib walked 13 meters farther than placebo over six minutes, but the difference lacked statistical significance. The trial also reported cough...