Tag: United States

Published by: Montreal Gazette
Published on: March 11, 2025
By Jacob Serebrin

The federal government has cancelled a deal with vaccine maker Novavax to manufacture COVID-19 vaccine in Montreal, the company said in a filing with the U.S. securities regulator.

Novavax told the Securities and Exchange Commission that the Canadian government cancelled the deal March 7 after the company failed to meet a Dec. 31, 2024 deadline to get regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine using ingredients made at the federally-owned Biologics Manufacturing Centre in Montreal.

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Trump regime

‘Get in Dorks’: Stand Up for Science rallies spread to 32 U.S. cities

Published March 6, 2025

Published by: STAT
Published on: March 6, 2025
By Anil Oza

Since Donald Trump took office in January, researchers across the U.S. have been waiting for scientific leaders to forcefully speak out against the administration’s grant freezes, research funding cuts, and targeting of diversity in their field. Frustrated that there seemed to be no large-scale movement coalescing, Colette Delawalla, a graduate student in clinical psychology, took matters into her own hands.

She posted on Bluesky, now the social media of choice for many scientists, “Get in Dorks, we are going protesting.” At the time, “I really thought 500 people might show up to D.C., that’s where I was in my head,” she said.

But little more than three weeks later, what began as an effort by five early-career researchers has exploded into a global movement called Stand Up for Science — with 32 coordinated rallies planned across the country on Friday, and affiliated walkouts and protests across the globe. The largest events are slated for Washington D.C., New York City, and Boston.

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measles

Measles cases in Ontario have nearly doubled over the last 2 weeks

Published February 27, 2025

Published by: Global News / The Canadian Press
Published on: February 27, 2025
By Hannah Alberga

This is a corrected story. A previous version from The Canadian Press erroneously reported that there were 84 new measles cases reported in Ontario over the last two weeks when in fact there were 78.

Ontario is reporting 78 new measles cases over the last two weeks, nearly doubling the province’s total count since an outbreak started in the autumn.

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Trump regime

The Trump years will be grim for long Covid sufferers

Published February 27, 2025

Published by: STAT
Published on: February 27, 2025
By Steven Phillips

In December 2020, the U.S. government’s involvement in addressing the pandemic of long Covid officially began when Congress allocated $1.15 billion to the National Institutes of Health for research into the lasting health consequences of Covid-19. For people suffering from long Covid, the move offered hope.

Just over four years later, on Feb. 19, President Trump disbanded the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Long COVID, as part of an executive order titled “Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.” After the Biden administration’s tepid involvement and fitful progress in long Covid policy and practice, this decision may signal the end of meaningful federal involvement in mitigating the plight of millions of long Covid sufferers.

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Texas

A Texas child who was not vaccinated has died of measles, a first for the US in a decade

Published February 26, 2025

Published by: The Associated Press
Published on: February 26, 2025
By Devi Shastri, Amanda Seitz

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A child who wasn’t vaccinated died in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas, state officials said Wednesday, the first U.S. death from the highly contagious — but preventable — respiratory disease since 2015.

The school-aged child had been hospitalized and died Tuesday night amid the widespread outbreak, Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years. Since it began last month, a rash of 124 cases has erupted across nine counties.

The Texas Department of State Health Services and Lubbock health officials confirmed the death to The Associated Press. The child wasn’t identified but was treated at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, though the facility noted the patient didn’t live in Lubbock County.

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Trump regime

F.D.A. Cancels Meeting of Vaccine Experts Scheduled to Advise on Flu Shots

Published February 26, 2025

Published by: The New York Times
Published on: February 26, 2025
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Christina Jewett

A panel of scientific experts that advises the Food and Drug Administration on vaccine policy — and that has been the target of criticism from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — learned on Wednesday that its upcoming meeting to discuss next year’s flu vaccines had been canceled.

The F.D.A. sent an email to members of the panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, on Monday afternoon informing them of the cancellation, according to a senior official familiar with the decision. There was no reason given. The panel was to meet on March 13.

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Trump regime

Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE

Published February 25, 2025

Published by: The Associated Press
Published on: February 25, 2025
By Brian Slodysko, Byron Tau

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”

“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”

The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.

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Trump regime

Trump administration yanks CDC flu vaccine campaign

Published February 20, 2025

Published by: NPR
Published on: February 20, 2025
By Will Stone

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is stopping a successful flu vaccination campaign that juxtaposed images of wild animals, such as a lion, with cute counterparts, like a kitten, as an analogy for how immunization can help tame the flu.

The news was shared with staff during a meeting on Wednesday, according to two CDC staffers who spoke with NPR on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, and a recording reviewed by NPR.

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vaccines

U.S. hasn’t sent essential seasonal flu data to WHO ahead of key vaccine meeting

Published February 20, 2025

Published by: CBC News
Published on: February 20, 2025
By Amina Zafar

Seasonal flu vaccines need to be updated each year because the virus changes so frequently. But the U.S. hasn’t contributed its information on what’s spreading there since January, a World Health Organization (WHO) official said.

For seasonal influenza, which forced schools to shut down in some American states earlier this month, the data isn’t being shared, Dr. Wenqing Zhang, head of the WHO’s global influenza program, told journalists in a webinar on Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) normally participate in global discussions hosted by WHO on influenza vaccinations twice a year.

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Trump regime

Watch Out. The Plague Years Start Now

Published February 19, 2025

Published by: The Tyee
Published on: February 19, 2025
By Crawford Kilian

Since the inauguration of Donald Trump on Jan. 20, the greatest health sciences organizations in the world have been first silenced, then frozen or outright destroyed. The scale, speed and stupidity of the destruction have been breathtaking.

The Trump regime is doing this to its own people, especially those in states that voted for Trump, but the shock is being felt around the world.

It is a safe prediction that Trump’s attack on health science will result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. And millions of lives will be diminished.

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rapid tests

U.S. reverses plan to shut down free covid test program

Published February 18, 2025

Published by: The Washington Post
Published on: February 18, 2025
By Lena H. Sun, Carolyn Y. Johnson

The government had been preparing to shut down the program that ships free coronavirus tests to American households and was considering destroying 160 million tests.

The Trump administration reversed a plan to shut down the government website that ships free coronavirus tests to households late Tuesday, after The Washington Post reported that the administration was preparing to end the program and was evaluating the costs of destroying or disposing of tens of millions of tests.

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long COVID

New research from Northwestern Medicine reveals link between long COVID and eye health

Published February 18, 2025

Published by: Northwestern Medicine
Published on: February 18, 2025

How much can the eyes reveal about a person? A first-of-its-kind study from Northwestern Medicine and published in the Journal of Imaging is giving experts an idea how long COVID affects the body by looking through the eyes. The research could help doctors diagnose and track how the condition impacts people over time and provide insight into the cause of long COVID.

In the study, researchers used advanced imaging techniques to examine the retinas of non-hospitalized long COVID patients from the Northwestern Medicine Neuro COVID-19 Clinic and found that patients with long COVID experienced a significant reduction in the density of blood vessels in the back of the eye, compared to healthy individuals.

“This finding bridges gaps between ophthalmology, neurology, and COVID-19, helping us better understand how inflammation affects different organs in the body,” said Manjot K. Gill, MD, senior author of the study and ophthalmology lead of the Northwestern Medicine Comprehensive COVID-19 Center. “The change in blood vessels in the deep part of the retina supports the hypothesis that long COVID affects similar blood vessels in other parts of the body, like the brain, which can potentially contribute to the symptoms of long COVID such as memory loss, brain fog and fatigue.”

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kakistocracy

CDC cuts expected to devastate Epidemic Intelligence Service, a ‘crown jewel’ of public health

Published February 14, 2025

Published by: STAT
Published on: February 14, 2025
By Helen Branswell

The Trump administration’s campaign to slash the federal civil service hit one of the crown jewels of global public health on Friday. Members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, a legendary training program run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were warned on Friday morning that they were about to be fired, two people with knowledge of the meeting told STAT.

The 135 members of the two-year program were informed that many would be hearing of their dismissals by late in the day. But by late Friday afternoon, none had yet received a notice of their firing, one of the sources said.

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Urgent CDC Data and Analyses on Influenza and Bird Flu Go Missing as Outbreaks Escalate

Colourized transmission electron micrograph of three avian influenza virus particles (pink), with teal blue background. Photo: CDC and NIAID.

avian flu

Urgent CDC Data and Analyses on Influenza and Bird Flu Go Missing as Outbreaks Escalate

Published February 14, 2025

Published by: KFF Health News
Published on: February 14, 2025
By Amy Maxmen

Sonya Stokes, an emergency room physician in the San Francisco Bay Area, braces herself for a daily deluge of patients sick with coughs, soreness, fevers,…

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kakistocracy

Scientists React to RFK, Jr.’s Confirmation as HHS Secretary

Published February 13, 2025

Published by: Scientific American / Nature
Published on: February 13, 2025
By Amanda Heidt, Heidi Ledford

The future of America as a superpower in research appears grim. Even on issues he claims he supports, he does not follow scientific evidence. Picking a person like this to lead is like having the wolf guard the sheep.

— Theodora Hatziioannou, a virologist at the Rockefeller University in New York City

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kakistocracy

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as Trump’s health secretary after a close Senate vote

Published February 13, 2025

Published by: The Associated Press
Published on: February 13, 2025
By Amanda Seitz

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, putting the prominent vaccine skeptic in control of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations and food safety as well as health insurance programs for roughly half the country.

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research

Canadian residents are racing to save the data in Trump’s crosshairs

Published February 13, 2025

Published by: CBC News
Published on: February 13, 2025
By Elizabeth Thompson

The call to Angela Rasmussen came out of the blue and posed a troubling question. Had she heard the rumour that key data sets would be removed from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website the next day?

It’s something Rasmussen had thought could never happen.

“It had never really been thought of before that CDC would actually start deleting some of these crucial public health data sets,” said the University of Saskatchewan virologist. “These data are really, really important for everybody’s health — not just in the U.S. but around the world.”

The following day, Jan. 31, Rasmussen started to see data disappear. She knew she needed to take action.

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kakistocracy

Here are all the agencies that Elon Musk and DOGE have been trying to dismantle so far

Published February 11, 2025

Published by: ABC News
Published on: February 11, 2025
By Ivan Pereira, Emily Chang

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency group has made swift work of the billionaire’s goal to scale back or dismantle much of the federal government, end diversity policies and otherwise further President Donald Trump’s agenda.

DOGE employees, many of whom have no government experience, have been going through data systems, shutting down DEI programs and in some cases, whole agencies.

As of Feb. 10, ABC has tracked Musk and his DOGE team gaining access to at least 15 federal agencies.

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Tag: United States

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The government had been preparing to shut down the program that ships free coronavirus tests to American households and was considering destroying 160 million tests.

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