Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of June 16, 2025

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of June 16, 2025–June 20, 2025.

CBS News (6/13, M. Moniuszko, Cohen) reported the CDC projected last week that the “new COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1, which was linked to a large surge of hospitalizations in parts of Asia, could now make up more than 1 in 3 cases across the United States.” The agency’s airport surveillance program last month “had detected cases of the variant in arriving international travelers from several countries. The agency now says that nearly half of the COVID infections detected in that program the last week of May were the NB.1.8.1 variant.” The CDC cautioned that “precision in the most recent reporting period is low” for its estimates, but the projected increase “in prevalence in the U.S. highlights the variant’s high transmissibility—something experts had warned about as soon as it began spreading in this country.” 

Medscape (6/13, Brooks, Subscription Publication) reported study results presented at SLEEP 2025 showed that “excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) was associated with a significantly increased risk for all-cause mortality” in middle-aged women. Researchers observed that “after adjusting for health and demographic factors, women aged 50 and 65 years with high scores on the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) were 16% more likely to die from any cause than their counterparts who had normal levels of sleepiness on this tool. This association was not found in younger women or in those over age 65 years.” The researchers “said further studies are needed to explore potential mechanisms, including sex-specific responses to sleepiness and the role of age in this association.” 

The Washington Post (6/16, Docter-Loeb) reports that a study published in Tobacco Control reveals that “around 1 in 7 U.S. adults who smoke might have some degree of disability.” The researchers analyzed “data from the 2019-2023 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) for about 150,000 people.” They determined that “14.1% of adults who currently smoked had a disability, and estimates for any kind of disability were significantly higher for current or former adult smokers.” Researchers found that “the prevalence of vision, hearing, mobility and cognitive disability was two to 2.4 times higher among those who currently smoked.” According to the study, “about 16.5% of women who smoke and 12.1% of men who smoke have a disability.” In addition, “19% of non-Hispanic smokers had a disability vs. 11% of Hispanic smokers.” 

MedPage Today (6/17, Lou) reports, “With newer data, clear lines could still be drawn between cannabis use and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), a meta-analysis confirmed.” MedPage Today adds, “Based on two dozen pharmacoepidemiological studies published from 2016 to 2023, excess cardiovascular risks were apparent in self-reported ever-users and those detected from drug screens in the real world: Acute coronary syndrome: RR 1.29, 95% CI 1.05-1.59; Stroke: RR 1.20, 95% CI 1.13-1.26; Cardiovascular death: RR 2.10, 95% CI 1.29-3.42.” The findings were published in Heart. 

You may also be interested in: Cannabis use and health: What physicians should know.

The AP (6/18, Stobbe) reports that a new CDC report published Wednesday shows an increase in unintentional fall-related deaths among older Americans. The report found that “from 2003 to 2023, death rates from falls rose more than 70% for adults ages 65 to 74,” more than 75% for adults ages 75 to 84, and “more than doubled for seniors 85 and older.” Data show that “more than 41,000 retirement-age Americans died of falls in 2023,” which suggests “that falls were blamed in about 1 of every 56 deaths in older Americans that year.” In addition, “more than half of those 41,000 deaths were people 85 and older, the CDC found, and white people accounted for 87% of deaths in the oldest category.” 

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