MAHA is good for Stat’s subscription business

There hasn’t been much visible upside to President Donald Trump’s dismantling of federal health agencies. Since January, the administration has overhauled the Department of Health and Human Services and eliminated thousands of jobs from the Federal Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. The administration determined to “Make America Healthy Again” has also pulled out of the World Health Organization, eliminated a number of global health programs, and cancelled funding for pandemic flu vaccines.

All of this chaos in the public health space has led more news consumers to Stat, the health and science news outlet that The Boston Globe launched in 2015. According to Stat, average weekly website traffic has increased 57% in the first three months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. Subscriptions also increased by 9% between January and March 2025. A Stat+ subscription currently costs $39 per month or $399 per year.

Stat hasn’t seen this much growth since the pandemic, according to a news release.

As a result, Stat has hired two reporters, Chelsea Cirruzzo and Daniel Payne, in Washington D.C. to cover federal health policies and agencies. Both previously worked at Politico.

“There is no other news organization anywhere that is producing as ambitious and important stories about health and medicine, day after day, hour after hour,” Rick Berke, Stat’s co-founder and executive editor, said in the news release.

In 2022, AdWeek reported that Stat had more than 30,000 subscribers and 40% of its revenue came from subscriptions. Stat earned $10 million in revenue in 2020, a record-breaking year for the publication by every measure as news consumers relied on it for health and science news throughout the pandemic. After some lay offs in December, Stat has a little less than 100 employees.