Medscape Editor, Doctor by Training, Unexpectedly Dies at 43

Breton S. Stetka was a medical doctor by training. He was a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Virginia, and received his BS in biology from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

On August 6, Stetka died suddenly and unexpectedly from a a seizure at home. His daughter had just turned a year old.

Thinking of my friend @BretStetka today. The world has lost a giant.

— Doug Strassler (@DougDawg13) August 9, 2022

Stretka was executive editor at WebMD. He had been working as a writer and editor at Medscape since 2007. On his Twitter profile, he shared that he was a contributor at NPR and Scientific American.

Stetka’s final tweet was a photo of his daughter after her parents had her injected with synthetic mRNA.

A little disgruntled, but took it like a champ pic.twitter.com/2tw7SjRart

— Bret Stetka (@BretStetka) July 22, 2022

Cause of Death

Stetka’s partner of 17 years Amanda Petrusich says that they don’t know exactly what killed him.

The music journalist has set up an education fund for their daughter Nico.
gofundme.com/f/the-nico-and-bret-stetka-education-fund

Bret S. Stetka penned the book A History of the Human Brain. He was living with his wife and daughter in Brooklyn, New York. His father Daniel J. Stetka was owner-operator of DiaGenetics — he studied Genetics and Cell Biology at UMass Amherst.

Stetka’s mother Mary Lou passed away in December 2021 at the age of 74.

UPDATE: The Twitter accounts of Bret Stetka and his wife Amanda Petrusich were switched to private mode late Friday afternoon.

web.archive.org/web/20220811185916/https://twitter.com/bretstetka

web.archive.org/web/20220811185620/https://twitter.com/amandapetrusich

Since July 1, 2022, the country of Denmark has prohibited children and young people under the age of 18 from receiving injections of synthetic mRNA.