Late Friday night more than 1,000 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were sent an email saying they had been let go due to reduction-in-force (RIF) efforts at the end of the second week of the federal government shutdown.
Some, however, were mistakenly fired and were rehired the next day, according to sources close to the situation.
Comments closedThe Trump administration on Saturday raced to rescind layoffs of hundreds of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who were mistakenly fired on Friday night in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse.
Among those wrongly dismissed were the top two leaders of the federal measles response team, those working to contain Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, and the team that assembles the C.D.C.’s vaunted scientific journal, The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
After The New York Times reported the dismissals, two federal health officials said on Saturday that many of those workers were being brought back. The officials spoke anonymously in order to disclose internal discussions.
Comments closedSydney (AFP) – Covid-19 infection causes changes to sperm in mice that may increase anxiety in their offspring, a study released Saturday said, suggesting the pandemic’s possibly long-lasting effects on future generations.
Researchers at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia, infected male mice with the virus that causes Covid, mated them with females, and assessed the impacts on the health of their offspring.
“We found that the resulting offspring showed more anxious behaviours compared to offspring from uninfected fathers,” the study’s first author Elizabeth Kleeman said.
Comments closedDozens of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — including “disease detectives,” high-ranking scientists and the entire Washington office — were notified late Friday that they were losing their jobs as part of the Trump administration’s latest round of federal layoffs.
It was unclear on Friday how many C.D.C. workers were affected. But it was the latest blow to an agency that has been wracked by mass resignations, a shooting at its Atlanta headquarters in August and the firing of its director under pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Layoff notices landed in the email inboxes of C.D.C. employees shortly before 9 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, notifying employees that their duties had been deemed unnecessary or “virtually identical” to those being performed elsewhere in the agency. Scientists, including leaders, in offices addressing respiratory diseases, chronic diseases, injury prevention and global health were among those affected.
Comments closedAs respiratory illness season approaches, B.C. will begin rolling out its annual vaccination campaign for COVID-19 and influenza.
British Columbians began receiving notifications with a link to book vaccine appointments on Oct. 7 and they will continue to be sent out into November.
Appointments for both influenza and COVID-19 shots will begin on Oct. 14, starting with those at highest risk of severe illness.
Both vaccines are available for free for anyone older than six months.
Comments closedOfficials with Health P.E.I. say people will have to wear masks inside all of the provincial health authority’s facilities beginning next week.
The policy is being put in place in response to the growing presence of respiratory illnesses on the Island.
Lara MacMurdo, director of occupational health, safety and wellness with Health P.E.I., said rates of respiratory illness are often higher this time of year.
Comments closedOntario’s measles outbreak, which sickened more than 2,300 people over the course of nearly a year, highlighted the consequences of declining vaccination rates and led to the death of a newborn, has been declared over.
Public Health Ontario and the province’s top doctor said Thursday the outbreak ended on Monday because it had been 46 days since any new reported cases — twice the maximum incubation period for measles.
“In Ontario, the last confirmed case developed a rash on August 21, 2025, following several months of steadily declining case numbers,” Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer of health, said in an emailed statement.
Comments closedNova Scotia residents can now book appointments for the COVID-19 and influenza vaccines.
The Nova Scotia government says the free vaccines are recommended for everyone aged six months and older.
Nova Scotians can book an appointment with their family doctor, nurse practitioner or family practice nurse, or at their local pharmacy, public health office or mobile unit.
Comments closedIf you’re among the estimated one-in-five Canadians who developed long COVID symptoms after infection with COVID-19, you might be familiar with the memory problems, focusing difficulties and a whole slew of other cognitive impairments that have become emblematic of the condition — collectively known as “brain fog.”
But despite these cognitive symptoms being present in nearly 90 per cent of long COVID cases, the biological mechanism behind why brain fog happens — and how we can treat it — has remained largely elusive. Until now.
A new paper, published in peer-reviewed journal Brain Communications, found that people living with long COVID had more significantly higher levels of a certain brain receptor than their healthy peers. The more they had, the worse their symptoms tended to get, the study suggested.
Comments closedQuebecers can now book their appointments as the province’s fall vaccination campaign is underway but unlike previous years the COVID-19 shot is no longer free for all.
Unless an individual is part of a high-risk group, the Association québécoise des pharmaciens propriétaires (AQPP) had said that the cost for a vaccine dose will range between $150 and $180.
The COVID-19 vaccine remains free of charge to:
The writers are all former U.S. surgeons general.
As former U.S. surgeons general appointed by every Republican and Democratic president since George H.W. Bush, we have collectively spent decades in service as the Nation’s Doctor. We took two sacred oaths in our lifetimes: first, as physicians who swore to care for our patients and, second, as public servants who committed to protecting the health of all Americans.
Today, in keeping with those oaths, we are compelled to speak with one voice to say that the actions of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are endangering the health of the nation. Never before have we issued a joint public warning like this. But the profound, immediate and unprecedented threat that Kennedy’s policies and positions pose to the nation’s health cannot be ignored.
Comments closedOne in nine Canadians have experienced Long COVID symptoms, ranging from mild to debilitating. A new exhibition at the Museum of Vancouver, co-produced by Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences, invites visitors into the often-invisible world of those living with the life-altering effects of COVID-19.
Long COVID is a chronic condition affecting one or more organ systems that occurs after a SARS-CoV-2 infection and lingers for at least three months as a continuous, relapsing and remitting, or progressive disease state. Despite its prevalence, the condition remains widely misunderstood, under-researched, and stigmatized.
The Living with Long COVID exhibition brings these realities to light and offers a unique opportunity to intimately understand Long COVID through the eyes of those living it.
Comments closedCOVID-19 causes women’s blood vessels to age prematurely, according to an international study involving two researchers from Université Laval. The disease should therefore be considered an additional risk factor in cardiovascular health analyses. Specifically, in those who have developed severe symptoms, they warn.
The aging of blood vessels results in greater rigidity, which can increase the risk of certain cardiovascular diseases.
“The heart must work a little harder to propel blood through the arterial system, and this causes variations in pressure that can damage sensitive organs, including the brain and kidneys,” explains Catherine Fortier, a kinesiologist and researcher in vascular aging at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval.
Comments closedLong COVID is a chronic condition that causes cognitive problems known as “brain fog,” but its biological mechanisms remain largely unclear. Now, researchers from Japan used a novel imaging technique to visualize AMPA receptors—key molecules for memory and learning—in the living brain. They discovered that higher AMPA receptor density in patients with Long COVID was closely tied to the severity of their symptoms, highlighting these molecules as potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Comments closedChildren and teenagers are twice as likely to develop long Covid after a second coronavirus infection as after an initial infection, a large new study has found.
The study, of nearly a half-million people under 21, published Tuesday in Lancet Infectious Diseases, provides evidence that Covid reinfections can increase the risk of long-term health consequences and contradicts the idea that being infected a second time might lead to a milder outcome, medical experts said.
Dr. Laura Malone, director of the Pediatric Post-Covid-19 Rehabilitation Clinic at Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, who was not involved in the study, said the findings echo the experience of patients in her clinic.
Comments closedA US modeling study published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics estimates that vaccinating pregnant women against COVID-19 prevented 7,000 hospitalizations in infants and 3,000 in pregnant women from January 2024 to May 2025.
The Stanford University–led research team analyzed COVID-NET surveillance data on COVID-19 hospitalization rates in infants younger than 6 months and incidence data on pregnant women aged 18 to 49 years under a relative risk of 2.65. The aim was to estimate the health impact of vaccination during pregnancy, mainly during the second or third trimester.
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