Stat is an American health-oriented news website launched on November 4, 2015 by John W. Henry, the owner of The Boston Globe. It is produced by Boston Globe Media and is headquartered in the Globes own building in Boston. Its executive editor is Rick Berke, who formerly worked at both The New York Times and Politico. According to Kelsey Sutton of Politico, the website is Henry's "biggest and most ambitious standalone site yet". The site's name comes from the term "stat", short for statim, or "immediately"—a term that has long been used in medical contexts. As of February 2016, it had 45 staff members.
Impact
Notable stories Stat has include one about Robert Califf's research, published after then–President of the United States Barack Obama announced he would be his nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration. The site also uncovered claims made by a vitamin company to which President Donald Trump had licensed his name. The site's reporting has also inspired another presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, to return a contribution that a disgraced former pharmaceutical industry CEO made to his campaign. The site has also sent multiple journalists to Colombia, Haiti, and Brazil to cover the zika outbreaks there. Stat began covering the Coronavirus outbreak early, starting with an article by Helen Branswell on 4 January 2020. The site's early coverage led to a surge in reader traffic 4-5 times above typical volumes.
Controversies
On April 16, 2020, an article by STAT national biotech columnist Adam Feuerstein leaked early, incomplete results Gilead Sciencesclinical trial of remdesivir for COVID-19 without permission from the company. The title of this exclusive story was "Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment." Gilead shares jumped higher in after-hours trading immediately after the report published. In a statement to CNBC, a University of Chicago spokesperson said, “Partial data from an ongoing clinical trial is by definition incomplete and should never be used to draw conclusions about the safety or efficacy of a potential treatment that is under investigation." Texas Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett, chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, called for an investigation of how STAT obtained the leaked video. Rep. Doggett, an attorney, noted that "providing information that's designed to impact the stock market is not something that is permitted under federal securities law."
