Author: n Beth Molen

A Texas Judge has rejected a request from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to issue a temporary order barring Tylenol’s maker, Kenvue, from claiming amid litigation that the pain and fever medication is safe for pregnant women and children, according to court documents.

In records filed Friday, District Judge LeAnn Rafferty, in Panola County, also rejected Paxton’s unusual request to block Kenvue from distributing $400 million in dividends to shareholders later this month.

The denials are early losses for Paxton in a politically charged case that hinges on the unproven claim that Tylenol causes autism and other disorders—a claim first introduced by President Trump and his anti-vaccine health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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With the government reopening, the dubious panel of vaccine advisors selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is wasting no time getting back to dismantling the federal childhood vaccine schedule.

A meeting that was scheduled for October but put on hold during the shutdown has already been rescheduled for December 4 and 5. A Federal Register notice Thursday said that the meeting will “include discussions on vaccine safety, the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule, and hepatitis B vaccines.” The announcement was light on information beyond that but indicated that there would be a vote on hepatitis B vaccines.

The panel—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—is typically composed of preeminent, extensively vetted vaccine experts. But, in June, Kennedy summarily fired all 17 experts on the panel and installed 12 new members, almost all of whom are questionably qualified and espouse anti-vaccine views.

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Health officials in the United Kingdom are warning that this year’s flu season for the Northern Hemisphere is looking like it will be particularly rough—and the US is not prepared.

The bleak outlook is driven by a new strain of H3N2, which emerged over the summer (at the end of the Southern Hemisphere’s season) sporting several mutations. Those changes are not enough to spark the direst of circumstances—a deadly pandemic—but they could help the virus dodge immune responses, resulting in an outsized number of severe illnesses that could put a significant strain on hospitals and clinics.

In the UK, the virus has taken off. The region’s flu season has started around five weeks earlier than normal and is making a swift ascent.

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The maker of a specialty baby formula that touted having the “cleanest ingredients” and a “Purity Award” is recalling all of its products and lots amid an ongoing, multi-state outbreak of infant botulism.

The outbreak was initially announced over the weekend by California and federal health officials. At that time, 13 cases of infant botulism had been flagged across 10 states. But on Tuesday, the outbreak expanded to 15 cases in 12 states. All 15 infants have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported.

States reporting infant botulism linked to ByHeart formula. Credit: FDA

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) was the first to flag the outbreak. The department is the world’s sole source of the infant botulism treatment called BabyBIG, which is made of human-derived anti-botulism antibodies and is effective at easing symptoms and shortening recovery times. California health officials noted an unusual uptick in case reports and found they were linked to a specific formula: ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula. The department then did its own testing of some leftover formula, which was positive for the bacterium that causes botulism, Clostridium botulinum.

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The maker of a specialty baby formula that touted having the “cleanest ingredients” and a “Purity Award” is recalling all of its products and lots amid an ongoing, multi-state outbreak of infant botulism.

The outbreak was initially announced over the weekend by California and federal health officials. At that time, 13 cases of infant botulism had been flagged across 10 states. But on Tuesday, the outbreak expanded to 15 cases in 12 states. All 15 infants have been hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported.

States reporting infant botulism linked to ByHeart formula. Credit: FDA

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) was the first to flag the outbreak. The department is the world’s sole source of the infant botulism treatment called BabyBIG, which is made of human-derived anti-botulism antibodies and is effective at easing symptoms and shortening recovery times. California health officials noted an unusual uptick in case reports and found they were linked to a specific formula: ByHeart Whole Nutrition Infant Formula. The department then did its own testing of some leftover formula, which was positive for the bacterium that causes botulism, Clostridium botulinum.

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Canada has lost its measles elimination status, meaning the highly infectious virus is considered endemic once again in the country, The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) announced Monday.

The determination was made by a committee of PAHO experts, who spent last week poring over disease data to assess the measles status of countries across the entire region. The fact that Canada has lost its elimination status means that the region of the Americas overall has also lost the status, which it achieved in 2016. Of the 35 countries and territories in the region—a health region designated by the World Health Organization—Canada is currently the only country where measles is considered to be spreading endemically, though other countries, namely the US and Mexico, are headed in the same direction.

Measles is considered eliminated when a country can go 12 months without continuous local spread. Sporadic cases brought in from international travel can continue to occur, potentially causing limited outbreaks. But elimination is lost and endemicity is declared only when transmission is sustained over the course of a year.

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James Dewey Watson, who helped reveal DNA’s double-helix structure, kicked off the Human Genome Project, and became infamous for his racist, sexist, and otherwise offensive statements, has died. He was 97.

His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his son Duncan, who said Watson died on Thursday in a hospice in East Northport, New York, on Long Island. He had previously been hospitalized with an infection. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory also confirmed his passing.

Watson was born in Chicago in 1928 and attained scientific fame in 1953 at 25 years old for solving the molecular structure of DNA—the genetic blueprints for life—with his colleague Francis Crick at England’s Cavendish laboratory. Their discovery heavily relied on the work of chemist and crystallographer Rosalind Franklin at King’s College in London, whose X-ray images of DNA provided critical clues to the molecule’s twisted-ladderlike architecture. One image in particular from Franklin’s lab, Photo 51, made Watson and Crick’s discovery possible. But, she was not fully credited for her contribution. The image was given to Watson and Crick without Franklin’s knowledge or consent by Maurice Wilkins, a biophysicist and colleague of Franklin.

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At a White House event Thursday, President Trump announced deals with drug makers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to offer their popular GLP-1 obesity and diabetes drugs at lower prices for some Americans, namely some on Medicare and Medicaid plans. But questions linger about the significance of the deal.

According to the announcement, Medicare and state Medicaid programs will be able to purchase a month’s supply of Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound at $245 each for eligible patients. Eligible people on Medicare will have a $50 co-pay for them.

The negotiated price is a significant cut from the drugs’ list prices: The list price for Ozempic is $997; Wegovy is $1,350; Mounjaro is $1,080; and Zepbound is $1,086. But, of course, purchasers rarely pay drug list prices. It’s unclear how much Medicare and Medicaid would have paid for the drugs without this deal and what the savings will be.

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Syphilis can be a tricky disease to diagnose—especially when a patient may not be sharing the whole story.

Doctors in Belgium met with a real head-scratcher when an 83-year-old married man came in with a rare form of secondary syphilis—the second of four stages of the sexually transmitted bacterial infection that has been called a “master of disguise.”

The man told doctors up front that he was in a monogamous 50-year-long marriage and had been sexually inactive in recent years following treatment for cancer. In a Clinical Problem-Solving report published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors laid out the step-by-step tests and reasoning they used to get to the right diagnosis, which still didn’t answer all their questions.

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An alleged extortion attempt, a petty yearslong grudge, shocking social media posts, and ominous text messages make up the latest scandal at the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that industry outsiders are calling a “clown show” and “soap opera” amid the Trump administration’s leadership, according to reporting by Stat News.

Federal health agencies, in general, have taken heavy blows in Trump’s second term. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in particular, has seen the abrupt dismantling of whole programs and divisions—teams that provide critical health services to Americans. CDC staff regularly describe being demoralized over the last year. Their Senate-confirmed director didn’t make it a full month before being dramatically ousted after allegedly refusing to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations from a panel filled with vaccine skeptics by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert. F. Kennedy Jr.

While the CDC is in shambles, the FDA has turned into something of a sideshow, with concern mounting that it remains a serious enough regulator to keep America’s medicines and treatments modern and safe. Many of the scandals are tied to Vinay Prasad, the Trump administration’s top vaccine regulator, who also has the titles of chief medical officer and chief scientific officer. Prasad made a name for himself on social media during the pandemic as a COVID-19 response skeptic and, since joining the FDA, has been known for overruling agency scientists and sowing distrust, unrest, and paranoia among staff. He was pushed out of the agency in July only to be reinstated about two weeks later.

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