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Health Policy InsightUS health secretary calls leading medical journals such as Lancet ‘corrupt’ and pushes to create state-run alternatives
Robert F Kennedy Jr has threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, which he branded “corrupt”, and to instead create alternative publications run by the state.
“We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, Jama and those other journals, because they’re all corrupt,” the US health secretary said on the Ultimate Human podcast. He accused the publications of being controlled by pharmaceutical companies.
Continue reading...Incidence of bowel cancer is up to three times higher among Australians born in the 1990s compared with the 1950s cohort
Australia’s rates of bowel cancer in people under 50 are the highest in the world, though the reason why remains unclear, experts say.
As incidences of what’s known as early-onset bowel cancer are increasing worldwide, a study of 50 countries – published recently in Lancet Oncology – revealed Australia was ranked worst.
Continue reading...Natalie Phelps, who has stage 4 colorectal cancer, has raised the alarm over how patients in the agency’s clinical trials are facing setbacks in treatment
A 43-year-old woman and mother of two with advanced cancer is experiencing life-or-death delays in treatment because of the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Natalie Phelps, who has stage 4 colorectal cancer, has spoken publicly, raising the alarm about a setback in care for herself and others who are part of clinical trials run by the agency. Her story has made it into congressional hearings and spurred a spat between a Democratic senator and the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. Behind the scenes, she and others are advocating to get her treatment started sooner.
Continue reading...Alarm as Javier Milei’s government curbs state supply of abortion pills and seeks to reverse landmark legalisation
Argentina is being used as a “testing ground” for stripping back abortion rights internationally as it cuts funding for contraceptives and ends the distribution of abortion pills, Amnesty International warned on Wednesday.
Before the inauguration of President Javier Milei in December 2023, the state bought abortion pills, which were then distributed for free through the public health system.
Continue reading...From preventing serious falls to being able to walk up stairs, it’s power – or how you use your strength – that will bring quality of life as you age
It’s fairly well established that strength training is helpful at every age: as well as building muscle, it strengthens tendons and ligaments, increases bone density and seems to have protective effects against everything from osteoporosis to dementia. But a new study based on data collected over two decades in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, suggests that another physical attribute might be just as important – and it’s one that declines even faster than strength as the years go by. The good news? It might also be less uncomfortable, and even slightly safer, to improve. Also, it will probably make you better at table tennis.
Power, in case your physics is a bit rusty, is force multiplied by velocity – or to put it another way, how quickly you can apply the strength you have. Sprinters, high jumpers and hurdlers need huge amounts of power; marathon runners, who prioritise endurance over explosive strength, don’t. Olympic weightlifting, where heavy barbells are thrown overhead in mere milliseconds, is incredibly power-dependent (unlike the confusingly named powerlifting, where grinding a bench press upwards can take several seconds). As for rugby, “If you said to a rugby coach: ‘Would you want a really strong player or a really powerful one?’, they’re going to pick power every time,” says the strength and conditioning coach Joe Lightfoot. But power also plays a pivotal role in day-to-day movement, from running up a flight of stairs to catching yourself when you fall, and it’s here that it becomes most important for quality of life. In a recently completed study that tracked almost 4,000 men and women aged between 46 and 75, power was a stronger predictor of mortality than relative strength – meaning that, everything else being equal, people who can produce force quickly are less likely to die early.
Continue reading...Former development ministers Valerie Amos, Lynne Featherstone and Liz Sugg call on leaders to commit to ensuring that women and children have access to good nutrition
Malnutrition and hunger are soaring across the world, leading to hundreds of millions of people suffering and posing a major threat to global security. Access to good nutrition is foundational to development. Without it, children cannot reach their full potential, physically or cognitively. As a result, economies are undermined and less productive, poverty is entrenched and instability spreads.
Women and girls are disproportionately impacted. One billion adolescent girls and women worldwide are suffering from malnutrition because they typically eat last and least. This has a generational impact as malnutrition passes from mother to child. Improving maternal nutrition is critical to arresting global malnutrition and building a healthier and more secure world.
Continue reading...Experts decry lack of UK government action and warn a further 6,000 early deaths could occur
The excess pollution emitted as a result of the Dieselgate scandal has killed about 16,000 people in the UK and caused 30,000 cases of asthma in children, according to a new analysis. A further 6,000 premature deaths will occur in coming years without action, the researchers said.
The Dieselgate scandal erupted in 2015 when diesel cars were found to be emitting far more toxic air pollution on the roads than when they passed regulatory tests, due to the use of illegal “defeat devices”.
Continue reading...Glyphosate, a pesticide linked to cancer, found at very high levels in menstrual products in the UK, according to report
Toxic pesticide levels have been found in tampons at levels 40 times higher than the legal limit for drinking water.
Traces of glyphosate, a pesticide linked to cancer, has been found at very high levels in menstrual products, according to a report by the Pesticide Action Network UK (Pan UK), the Women’s Environmental Network and the Pesticide Collaboration.
Continue reading...Adele Zeynep Walton’s sibling Aimee was a talented artist who loved music. It was only after her death that Walton realised Aimee had been lured into a dangerous community – and that others may also be victims of it
Adele Zeynep Walton knew something was wrong when she stumbled out of her caravan in the New Forest at 8am – she was camping with her boyfriend – and, through her sleepy fog, saw her parents’ car driving towards her. Initially annoyed by the idea of a family walk so early in the day, she then noticed that the car was veering off the track and, as it drew closer, her mother looked “hysterical”. “Straight away,” she says. “I was like, ‘It’s Aimee.’”
Aimee, Walton’s younger sister, was 21 and had suffered from poor mental health for some months. She loved music technology and art – her accomplished self-portraits dot the walls of the family’s home in Southampton, where her bedroom has been left exactly as it was before her death. She was such a big fan of the singer Pharrell Williams that he called her up five times to dance on stage at his concerts. But, with her mental health deteriorating, she had become harder and harder to reach. For two months, “we didn’t know where she was, what she was doing,” Walton says.
Continue reading...Nicola Packer, with Guardian north of England correspondent, Hannah Al-Othman, describes her four-and-a-half-year ordeal after being prosecuted for having an abortion in the UK
In November 2020, in the middle of a national lockdown, Nicola Packer found out she was pregnant. It was a shock, she tells the Guardian’s north of England correspondent, Hannah Al-Othman. Nicola hadn’t really thought she was pregnant, didn’t even believe she could conceive and had never wanted children anyway.
After a call to the UK’s largest abortion provider, she was sent pills to terminate her pregnancy. They believed, she was told, she was about six weeks pregnant. But when Nicola took the pills, she found out that her pregnancy was far more advanced than she could have imagined.
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