health – Page 2

Anti-vaccine quack hired by RFK Jr. has started work at the health department

anti-vaccine, autism, health, robert f kennedy jr, thimerosal, vaccine / DJ Henderson / June 7, 2025

Outside researchers can request access to VSD data by submitting study proposals to the CDC. The Geiers have, in the past, gained access. But, they lost that access at least twice, the Journal reported. In 2004, the CDC kicked the Geiers out after officials determined that they had misrepresented their plans for the data when they initially submitted their proposal to the CDC. They were barred again in 2006.

Now an HHS employee, Geier is seeking access to the data once again. The Journal reports that Kennedy has assigned researchers at the National Institutes of Health to assist Geier and that those NIH employees have sent a request to the CDC to hand over all of VSD’s data. This request reportedly caused alarm at the CDC and the project’s health care sites around the country, which are concerned about protecting the security of private patient data.

It’s unclear whether Geier has regained access to the data. But people familiar with the matter told the Journal that Geier aims to reanalyze the CDC’s data on thimerosal to try to prove a link to autism. The sources also said that Geier is interested in proving that the CDC is corrupt.

In the May hearing, Kennedy, who also supports the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism, defended Geier. Kennedy said that “there has been a lot of monkey business with the VSD” and that Geier is “the only living independent scientist” who has seen the data and can determine if it has been altered. (Hassan interjected that Geier is not a scientist.) Kennedy also falsely claimed that a court overturned the medical board’s finding that he had practiced medicine without a license and awarded Geier $5 million.

That did not happen. But Kennedy may have been referring to the fact that Mark Geier filed a lawsuit against the medical board over a 2012 cease-and-desist order that alleged he improperly prescribed medication for himself, his wife, and his son while his medical license was suspended. Mark Geier sued the board, saying the order was malicious because it contained personal information, including the medications Geier had prescribed. A Circuit Court sided with the Geiers, awarding them nearly $5 million in total. But the win and the award were overturned on appeal in 2019.

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FDA rushed out agency-wide AI tool—it’s not going well

AI, fda, health / 9u50fv / June 5, 2025

FDA staffers who spoke with Stat news, meanwhile, called the tool “rushed” and said its capabilities were overinflated by officials, including Makary and those at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which was headed by controversial billionaire Elon Musk. In its current form, it should only be used for administrative tasks, not scientific ones, the staffers said.

“Makary and DOGE think AI can replace staff and cut review times, but it decidedly cannot,” one employee said. The staffer also said that the FDA has failed to set up guardrails for the tool’s use. “I’m not sure in their rush to get it out that anyone is thinking through policy and use,” the FDA employee said.

According to Stat, Elsa is based on Anthropic’s Claude LLM and is being developed by consulting firm Deloitte. Since 2020, Deloitte has been paid $13.8 million to develop the original database of FDA documents that Elsa’s training data is derived from. In April, the firm was awarded a $14.7 million contract to scale the tech across the agency. The FDA said that Elsa was built within a high-security GovCloud environment and offers a “secure platform for FDA employees to access internal documents while ensuring all information remains within the agency.”

Previously, each center within the FDA was working on its own AI pilot. However, after cost-cutting in May, the AI pilot originally developed by the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, called CDER-GPT, was selected to be scaled up to an FDA-wide version and rebranded as Elsa.

FDA staffers in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health told NBC News that their AI pilot, CDRH-GPT, is buggy, isn’t connected to the Internet or the FDA’s internal system, and has problems uploading documents and allowing users to submit questions.

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Top CDC COVID vaccine expert resigns after RFK Jr. unilaterally restricts access

anti-vaccine, CDC, COVID-19, health, robert f kennedy jr, vaccines / DJ Henderson / June 4, 2025

A top expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was overseeing the process to update COVID-19 vaccine recommendations resigned on Tuesday.

The resignation, first reported by The Associated Press and confirmed by CBS News, comes just a week after health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unilaterally revoked and altered some of the CDC’s recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines, restricting access to children and pregnant people. The resignation also comes three weeks before CDC’s experts and advisors are scheduled to meet to publicly evaluate data and discuss the recommendations for this season—a long-established process that was disrupted by Kennedy’s announcement.

The departing CDC official, Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, a pediatric infectious disease expert, was a co-leader of a working group on COVID-19 vaccines who advised experts on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). She informed her ACIP colleagues of her resignation in an email on Tuesday.

“My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role,” Panagiotakopoulos wrote.

Unilateral changes

Previously, the CDC and ACIP recommended COVID-19 vaccines for everyone ages 6 months and up. Experts have emphasized that pregnant people in particular should get vaccinated, as pregnancy suppresses the immune system and puts pregnant people at high risk of severe COVID-19 and death. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that “COVID-19 infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic.” Further, dozens of studies have found that the vaccines are safe and effective at protecting the pregnant person, the pregnancy, and newborns.

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Colon cancer recurrence and deaths cut 28% by simple exercise, trial finds

aerobic, clinical trial, colon cancer, Exercise, health, MET, NEJM / Beth Washington / June 3, 2025

“Quite impressive”

The exercise group, which had supervised exercise for the first six months of the three-year intervention, reported more exercise over the study. At the end, the exercise group was averaging over 20 MET hours per week, while the education group’s average was around 15 MET hours per week. The exercise group also scored better at cardiorespiratory fitness and physical functioning.

Still, with the health education, the control group also saw a boost to their exercise during the trial, with their average starting around 10 MET hours per week. These findings “raise the possibility of an even more powerful effect of exercise on cancer outcomes as compared with a completely sedentary control group,” the researchers note.

For now, it’s not entirely clear how exercise keeps cancers at bay, but it squares with numerous other observational studies that have linked exercise to better outcomes in cancer patients. Researchers have several hypotheses, including that exercise might cause “increased fluid shear stress, enhanced immune surveillance, reduced inflammation, improved insulin sensitivity, and altered microenvironment of major sites of metastases,” the authors note.

In the study, exercise seemed to keep local and distant colon cancer from recurring, as well as prevent new cancers, including breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers.

Outside experts hailed the study’s findings. “This indicates that exercise has a similarly strong effect as previously shown for chemotherapy, which is really quite impressive,” Marco Gerlinger, a gastrointestinal cancer expert at Queen Mary University of London, said in a statement. “One of the commonest questions from patients is what they can do to reduce the risk that their cancer comes back. Oncologists can now make a very clear evidence-based recommendation.”

“Having worked in bowel cancer research for 30 years, this is an exciting breakthrough in the step-wise improvement in cure rates,” David Sebag-Montefiore, a clinical oncologist at the University of Leeds, said. “The great appeal of a structured moderate intensity exercise is that it offers the benefits without the downside of the well-known side effects of our other treatments.”

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CDC updates COVID vaccine recommendations, but not how RFK Jr. wanted

CDC, centers for disease control and prevention, health, rfk jr, vaccines / Kelly Newman / May 31, 2025

In practice, it is unclear how this change will affect access to the vaccines. Health insurers are required to cover vaccines on the CDC schedules. But, it’s yet to be seen if children will only be able to get vaccinated at their doctor’s office (rather than a pharmacy or vaccine clinic) or if additional consent forms would be required, etc. Uncertainty about the changes and requirements alone may lead to fewer children getting vaccinated.

In the adult immunization schedule, when viewed “by medical condition or other indication” (table 2), the COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for pregnancy is now shaded gray, meaning “no guidance/not applicable.” Hovering a cursor over the box brings up the recommendation to “Delay vaccination until after pregnancy if vaccine is indicated.” Previously, COVID-19 vaccines were recommended during pregnancy. The change makes it less likely that health insurers will cover the cost of vaccination during pregnancy.

The change is at odds with Trump’s Food and Drug Administration, which just last week confirmed that pregnancy puts people at increased risk of severe COVID-19 and, therefore, vaccination is recommended. Medical experts have decried the loss of the recommendation, which is also at odds with clear data showing the risks of COVID-19 during pregnancy and the benefits of vaccination.

The President of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) put out a statement shortly after the Tuesday video, saying that the organization was “extremely disappointed” with Kennedy’s announcement.

“It is very clear that COVID-19 infection during pregnancy can be catastrophic and lead to major disability, and it can cause devastating consequences for families,” ACOG President Steven Fleischman said.

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RFK Jr.’s fluoride ban would ruin 25 million kids’ teeth, cost $9.8 billion

dental cavities, fluoride, health, Oral health, water / 9u50fv / May 30, 2025

In all, the increased decay and boosted dental costs would disproportionately affect children who are in low-income families, in rural areas, and/or on public health insurance.

The study’s findings are likely unsurprising to those in the public health community, who have consistently supported fluoridation. The practice, however beneficial, has a long history of being under attack. After its introduction in the US in 1945, conspiracy theorists claimed fluoridation was a communist plot and a form of government mind control. More recently, critics have claimed that fluoridation lowers IQ.

The data linking water fluoridation to low IQ is controversial. Many of the studies on the topic are of poor quality and have numerous confounding factors and flawed methods. Many compare IQ levels in communities in China and other countries, where there are areas with water that is naturally high in fluoride—much, much higher than what is intentionally added to US water. Further, a federal meta-analysis—a type of study that aggregates and reanalyzes data from independent studies—has been plagued by criticism for bias, poor statistical methods, and a lack of data transparency.

But despite the controversy, one thing is clear in all the data and debate: Any possible association with low IQ and fluoridation only occurs at excessive levels—levels more than twice the amount used in the US and recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC recommendation for water fluoridation levels is 0.7 mg/L, while potential harms are not observed until water levels exceed 1.5 mg/L. Some areas in China have natural levels as high as 11.8 mg/L.

The authors of the new study conclude that, at current US levels, the benefits are clear.

“These findings suggest that, despite the potential harms of excessive fluoride exposure, fluoridation at safe levels offers both individual and societal benefits that would be at risk.”

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RFK Jr. yanks pandemic vaccine funding as Moderna reports positive results

health, influenza, pandemic / Kelly Newman / May 29, 2025

The Department of Health and Human Services—under the control of anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—has canceled millions of dollars in federal funding awarded to Moderna to produce an mRNA vaccine against influenza viruses with pandemic potential, including the H5N1 bird flu currently sweeping US poultry and dairy cows.

Last July, the Biden administration’s HHS awarded Moderna $176 million to “accelerate the development of mRNA-based pandemic influenza vaccines.” In the administration’s final days in January, HHS awarded the vaccine maker an additional $590 million to support “late-stage development and licensure of pre-pandemic mRNA-based vaccines.” The funding would also go to the development of five additional subtypes of pandemic influenza.

On Wednesday, as news broke that the Trump administration was reneging on the contract, Moderna reported positive results from an early trial of a vaccine targeting H5 influenza viruses. In a preliminary trial of 300 healthy adults, the vaccine candidate appeared safe and boosted antibody levels against the virus by 44.5-fold.

An HHS spokesperson said that the decision to cancel the funding—which would support thorough safety and efficacy testing of the vaccines—was because the vaccines needed more testing.

“This is not simply about efficacy—it’s about safety, integrity, and trust.” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told The Washington Post. “The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested.”

Nixon went on to claim that the Trump administration wouldn’t repeat the “mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns.” The accusation refers to mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed and initially released under the first Trump administration. They have since been proven safe and effective against the deadly virus.

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Healthy man goes camping—lands in ICU for 40 days with respiratory failure

hantavirus, health, infectious diseases, medical case, respiratory failure / Kelly Newman / May 29, 2025

It was a diagnostic challenge, and doctors began reviewing the list of possibilities that could match his condition. The first guess of pneumonia could explain some of his respiratory findings, but he didn’t have a cough, had tested negative for common respiratory pathogens, and the lung imaging didn’t quite fit, making it seem unlikely. Blood cancers, such as polycythemia vera, might be able to explain the high concentrations of blood cells. And it might also make him more vulnerable to opportunistic lung infections, like a fungal infection that could explain the halo sign. But blood cancers were also deemed unlikely given that he didn’t have enlarged organs, which is often seen with such conditions. Another possibility was pulmonary–renal syndrome, but that also didn’t line up with the man’s case.

Diagnosis

There was one other possibility that seemed to tick all the boxes: fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, low oxygen saturation, pulmonary edema, and shock—a hantavirus infection.

Hantaviruses are RNA viruses that infect rodents worldwide. They typically cause asymptomatic, chronic infections in the animals, which spread the virus widely into their environments through their urine, feces, and saliva. Humans get infected when virus particles from rodent-contaminated areas are stirred up into the air and inhaled or through direct contact with the virus via the eyes, nose, mouth, or cuts.

In humans, the viral infection is anything but asymptomatic. While the disease mechanism isn’t entirely understood, the virus appears to be able to modulate immune responses in humans, causing blood vessels and capillaries in various places in the body to start leaking plasma. This leads to fluid building up in the lungs (the pulmonary edema) and systemic circulatory collapse.

A cardiopulmonary hantavirus infection typically has four stages: the incubation period, which can last up to 45 days after virus exposure; a prodromal phase of up to 12 days, which is marked by fever, fatigue, and pains; the cardiopulmonary phase, where breathing trouble, low oxygen saturation, and shock can develop; then, if you make it, the fourth stage, in which respiratory symptoms improve, but there’s lingering fatigue and the kidneys make abnormally large amounts of urine.

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CDC can no longer help prevent lead poisoning in children, state officials say

applesauce, CDC, health, lead, Robert F. Kennedy / Mike M. / May 23, 2025

Amid the brutal cuts across the federal government under the Trump administration, perhaps one of the most gutting is the loss of experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who respond to lead poisoning in children.

On April 1, the staff of the CDC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program was terminated as part of the agency’s reduction in force, according to NPR. The staff included epidemiologists, statisticians, and advisors who specialized in lead exposures and responses.

The cuts were immediately consequential to health officials in Milwaukee, who are currently dealing with a lead exposure crisis in public schools. Six schools have had to close, displacing 1,800 students. In April, the city requested help from the CDC’s lead experts, but the request was denied—there was no one left to help.

In a Congressional hearing this week, US health secretary and anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told lawmakers, “We have a team in Milwaukee.”

But Milwaukee Health Commissioner Mike Totoraitis told NPR that this is false. “There is no team in Milwaukee,” he said. “We had a single [federal] staff person come to Milwaukee for a brief period to help validate a machine, but that was separate from the formal request that we had for a small team to actually come to Milwaukee for our Milwaukee Public Schools investigation and ongoing support there.”

Kennedy has also previously told lawmakers that lead experts at the CDC who were terminated would be rehired. But that statement was also false. The health department’s own communications team told ABC that the lead experts would not be reinstated.

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Uncertainty loomed as FDA advisors met to discuss this year’s COVID shot

annual shots, COVID-19, fda, health, seasonal shots, vaccines / Shannon Garcia / May 23, 2025

Calling it a “practical question,” he asked, “If we were to change strains, can we assume that age-specific licensure won’t change for any of these [vaccine] products?” Currently, COVID-19 boosters are accessible to those aged 6 months and up.

Weir reiterated that there was no answer. Another FDA official, David Kaslow, chimed in to say only, “Rest assured that we’re engaging with the manufacturers on this topic.”

As a follow-up to that exchange, VRBPAC member and infectious disease expert Eric Rubin of Harvard, shot down the FDA’s plan to use randomized placebo-controlled trials for licensure for healthy children and adults. The plethora of observational data—aka real-world data—on the boosters shows clear efficacy, Rubin pointed out. That suggests that requiring people in a trial to take placebos despite the availability of a clearly effective treatment could be unethical.

It suggests “that a randomized controlled trial (RCT) has no equipoise right now, and that you cannot do one,” Rubin said. “I don’t think the RCT is feasible,” he added.

The selection

While the pushback and the questions lingered, the committee still had to select a strain. For now, omicron still reigns, and variants in the JN.1 lineage are still dominant. That is largely unchanged from last year, when vaccine makers were advised to target their seasonal shots against the JN.1 lineage generally, or KP.2, the leading variant in the JN.1 lineage at the time, specifically.

This year, advisors unanimously voted to stick with vaccines that target the JN.1 lineage, in line with recommendations from the World Health Organization. The question of targeting the JN.1 lineage was the only voting question the FDA tasked them with. But there was open discussion on a more specific recommendation. Given the regulatory uncertainty, advisors were divided on whether to stick with the JN.1 and KP.2 formulations from last year or recommend switching to the latest leading variant in the JN.1 family, LP.8.1.

Shortly after the meeting, the FDA announced that it would essentially leave it up to manufacturers; they could stick with JN.1 or KP.2 but, if feasible, switch to LP.8.1.

“The COVID-19 vaccines for use in the United States beginning in fall 2025 should be monovalent JN.1-lineage-based COVID-19 vaccines (2025–2026 Formula), preferentially using the LP.8.1 strain,” it said.

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RFK Jr. calls WHO “moribund” amid US withdrawal; China pledges to give $500M

health, pandemic, Policy, robert f kennedy jr, WHO / Mike M. / May 22, 2025

“WHO’s priorities have increasingly reflected the biases and interests of corporate medicine,” Kennedy said, alluding to his anti-vaccine and germ-theory denialist views. He chastised the health organization for allegedly capitulating to China and working with the country to “promote the fiction that COVID originated in bats.”

Kennedy ended the short speech by touting his Make America Healthy Again agenda. He also urged the WHO to undergo a radical overhaul similar to what the Trump administration is currently doing to the US government—presumably including dismantling and withholding funding from critical health agencies and programs. Last, he pitched other countries to join the US in abandoning the WHO.

“I would like to take this opportunity to invite my fellow health ministers around the world into a new era of cooperation…. we’re ready to work with you,” Kennedy said.

Meanwhile, the WHA embraced collaboration. During the assembly this week, WHO overwhelmingly voted to adopt the world’s first pandemic treaty, aimed at collectively preventing, preparing for, and responding to any future pandemics. The treaty took over three years to negotiate, but in the end, no country voted against it—124 votes in favor, 11 abstentions, and no objections. (The US, no longer being a member of WHO, did not have a vote.)

“The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, collaboration and commitment of our Member States to adopt the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “The Agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats. It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to again suffer losses like those endured during COVID-19.”

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Biotech company Regeneron to buy bankrupt 23andMe for $256M

23andme, DNA, genetic data, health, Policy, regeneron, Science / 9u50fv / May 20, 2025

Biotechnology company Regeneron will acquire 23andMe out of bankruptcy for $256 million, with a plan to keep the DNA-testing company running without interruption and uphold its privacy-protection promises.

In its announcement of the acquisition, Regeneron assured 23andMe’s 15 million customers that their data—including genetic and health information, genealogy, and other sensitive personal information—would be safe and in good hands. Regeneron aims to use the large trove of genetic data to further its own work using genetics to develop medical advances—something 23andMe tried and failed to do.

“As a world leader in human genetics, Regeneron Genetics Center is committed to and has a proven track record of safeguarding the genetic data of people across the globe, and, with their consent, using this data to pursue discoveries that benefit science and society,” Aris Baras, senior vice president and head of the Regeneron Genetics Center, said in a statement. “We assure 23andMe customers that we are committed to protecting the 23andMe dataset with our high standards of data privacy, security, and ethical oversight and will advance its full potential to improve human health.”

Baras said that Regeneron’s Genetic Center already has its own genetic dataset from nearly 3 million people.

The safety of 23andMe’s dataset has drawn considerable concern among consumers, lawmakers, and regulators amid the company’s downfall. For instance, in March, California Attorney General Rob Bonta made the unusual move to urge Californians to delete their genetic data amid 23andMe’s financial distress. Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson also weighed in, making clear in a March letter that “any purchaser should expressly agree to be bound by and adhere to the terms of 23andMe’s privacy policies and applicable law.”

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