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The supremely self-confident billionaire behind that vision has drawn attention at the highest levels: He’s talked cancer research with Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, even the Pope. He’s met with President Donald Trump at least twice since the election. Riding high on his pledge to win the war on cancer, [Dr. Patrick] Soon-Shiong is said to have pitched a role for himself as national health care czar in discussions with Trump’s team. But a STAT investigation of Soon-Shiong’s cancer moonshot has found very little scientific progress. At its core, the initiative appears to be an elaborate marketing tool for Soon-Shiong — a way to promote his pricey new cancer diagnostic tool at a time when he badly needs a business success, as his publicly-traded companies are losing tens of millions per quarter. (Robbins, 2/14)

Dr. James Weinstein, a back pain specialist and chief executive of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health System, has some advice for most people with lower back pain: Take two aspirin and don’t call me in the morning. (Kolata, 2/13)

The number of retirement-age Americans taking at least three psychiatric drugs more than doubled between 2004 and 2013, even though almost half of them had no mental health diagnosis on record, researchers reported on Monday. The new analysis, based on data from doctors’ office visits, suggests that inappropriate prescribing to older people is more common than previously thought. Office visits are a close, if not exact, estimate of underlying patient numbers. The paper appears in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. (Carey, 2/13)

It’s been called the final indignity: after men have their prostate removed to treat cancer there, at least two-thirds find that their penis has shrunk, typically by nearly an inch. But in a much-needed glimmer of hope, a new study finds that, after the penis hits a nadir 10 days after surgery, it usually recovers to its pre-surgery length after a year. ... The shrinkage hits men especially hard because it’s a side effect that surgeons usually don’t warn patients about. While one small study (of just six men) found that the most common reaction to the loss of length was resignation — prostate cancer patients are often simply glad to be alive — on social media and in private discussions, many patients have a less sanguine view. (Begley, 2/13)

They are called superspreaders, the minority of people who are responsible for infecting many others during epidemics of infectious diseases. Perhaps the most famous superspreader was Typhoid Mary, presumed to have infected 51 people, three of whom died, between 1900 and 1907. Now scientists studying how Ebola spread during the 2014-2015 epidemic in West Africa say superspreaders played a bigger role than was previously known, according to findings published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. (Sun, 2/13)

De Lorimier, a pediatric gastroenterologist at UC Davis Children’s Hospital, was searching for pressure points on Moncerrat’s body that he hoped would ease the pain in her abdomen. He’s one of the only physicians in his field using acupuncture on children with functional abdominal disorders. (Caiola, 2/13)

Researchers have created mice that appear impervious to the lure of cocaine. Even after the genetically engineered animals were given the drug repeatedly, they did not appear to crave it the way typical mice do, a team reports in Nature Neuroscience. (Hamilton, 2/13)

It can be difficult to socialize and make friends for many children with autism. Often that's because reading body language and others' emotions doesn't always come easily. Many of us seem to learn these social skills naturally, but maybe there's also a way to teach them. The Psychology Lab at Indiana State University is trying to tap into that idea with improvisational theater. (Balonon-Rosen, 2/13)

These donors don’t get paid for their blood. But while the raw product is free, the process around collecting and distributing the blood is not.Hospitals pay blood banks for components — like plasma and red blood cells — and blood banks use that income to stay viable, even when donations are down. But over the past decade, medical advances have had unintended consequences on this delicate balance. (Brown, 2/14)