Janice Hopkins Tanne

US health authorities will cut from 17 to 11 the number of vaccines recommended for children, says the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.1Under the new guidance, vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus, and varicella will continue to be recommended for all children.2But vaccines for rotavirus, covid-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B are no longer recommended for all children. Instead, they will be recommended only for children deemed to be at high risk or through shared clinical decision making—meaning that they could be given after consultation between parents and a child’s healthcare provider.Hepatitis A and B vaccines have also been changed to be recommended only in limited cases. A recommendation for immunising all newborns against hepatitis B was …

US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins have published new dietary guidelines12 recommending higher protein intake and endorsing full fat dairy products with no added sugar, while urging Americans to reduce consumption of highly processed foods.The new guidelines emphasise higher protein intake—including animal sources such as red meat and full fat dairy—while keeping longstanding recommendations that saturated fat intake should be less than 10% of daily calories and people should eat more plant derived foods.3The recommendations also remove any numerical limit for alcohol intake, instead advising people to “limit alcohol beverages,” and consume less “for better overall health.”This is a departure from the 2020-25 advice to limit drinking to two drinks a day for men and one a day for women, a definition …

The US president, Donald Trump, has announced a new web portal—dubbed TrumpRx—to allow Americans to buy drugs at reduced prices from next year.1Prices listed on TrumpRx will be the “most favoured nation” price, said Trump—essentially, the lowest price paid by other developed nations such as Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, Switzerland, and Denmark. In a press conference announcement on 30 September Trump reiterated that US drug costs were higher than in other developed nations.The website is intended to facilitate direct-to-consumer access to prescription drugs at lower prices,2 although the announcements did not say how prescriptions would be verified, and no further detail was disclosed at the press conference.In theory, TrumpRx will direct users to a website where they can buy a drug directly from the manufacturer. This will “often” be at the most favoured …

For the first time, more US women are accessing abortions through telehealth, according to new data from the Guttmacher Institute.The research and policy organisation reported1 that the total number of abortions in the US in 2025 remained largely unchanged from 2024—an estimated 1.126 million terminations compared with 1.124 million in 2024—despite total bans in 13 states and early gestational limits in several others.2What has changed is how women are accessing abortions. In 2024 about 154 000 women travelled from states that banned abortion to get care, but that number dropped to 142 000 in 2025.Instead, the number of women in states that had banned …

Rates of whooping cough (pertussis) are rising in the US as fewer children are being vaccinated.Official data showed 35 493 cases of the disease in the US in 2024, a fivefold increase from 7063 in 2023. In the first three months of 2025 alone 6600 cases were recorded.1Outbreaks of the potentially deadly respiratory infection have been reported in Texas, Florida, California, Oregon, and other states. State data showed that Texas reported 1928 cases of pertussis in 2024, but by October 2025 it had more than 3500.The increase in prevalence has come hand in hand with falling uptake of the whooping cough vaccine, in a trend experts warn is being driven by antivaccination misinformation and laws that make it easier for parents to …

The US has launched a multimillion dollar five year campaign to measure, study, and seek ways to remove microplastics from the human body.1The $144m (£106m; €122m) Stomp (Systematic Targeting of Microplastics) programme has been launched by the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (Arpa-H), which is part of the department.Separately, the US Environmental Protection Agency has proposed adding microplastics,2 as well as pharmaceutical drugs that enter water systems through human waste and improper disposal, to its latest draft of the contaminant candidate list.The list identifies contaminants not regulated by the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act. It helps prioritise research, …

President Donald Trump has nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to head the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).1 She will need to be confirmed by the Senate, however, which may take months.Schwartz, a board certified preventive medicine physician and lawyer, also has a master’s degree in public health. She spent most of her career in the US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one of the nation’s eight uniformed services, which has more than 6000 officers serving at about 800 locations. She became chief medical officer of the Coast Guard in 2015 …

Family planning groups, women's organisations, obstetricians and gynaecologists, legislators, and national newspapers in the United States protested last week at the Food and Drug Administration's refusal to permit sales over the counter (without a prescription) of an emergency contraceptive.In making his decision, Dr Steven Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, overruled the organisation's own scientific advisory committee and its professional staff.Many experts said it was an attack on contraception by the anti-abortion Bush administration. But Dr Galson defended …

Martin Makary has resigned as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration.Makary’s temporary replacement at the FDA will be Kyle Diamantas, a lawyer who is currently deputy commissioner for foods at the agency. As a lawyer, Diamantas represented Abbott Nutrition, a firm in the infant nutrition industry.US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr said on X, “Marty, you took on entrenched interests, challenged the status quo, and never lost sight of the American people we serve. You pushed forward critical reforms and helped advance our mission to Make America Healthy Again. I’m grateful for your courage and your friendship. Wishing you the very best in your next chapter.”1Kennedy thanked Diamantas for stepping in as acting commissioner: “His leadership has already delivered remarkable wins on the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] food agenda, and I …

Yale University's medical school discriminates against white and Asian students in admissions and favours less qualified Hispanic and black applicants, the US Department of Justice has claimed.1After a year long investigation into the medical school's admission data for the classes of 2023, 2024, and 2025, the justice department said that Yale had violated federal law against discrimination and intentionally selected applicants on the basis of race.The department issued similar discrimination findings against the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA on 6 May 2026.2 Separately, in March it opened investigations into the medical schools of Stanford, Ohio State, and the University of California, San Diego,3 demanding admission data.Discrimination based on race is forbidden by US federal law. and the Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that race could not be considered in admitting students to colleges and …