In the early days of the second Trump administration, what will happen to various government science agencies is not yet clear. Given the communications blackout imposed on agencies including the NIH and the CDC, most of what is known comes from anonymous sources and secondhand reports. Executive orders affecting the agencies are also still in the process of being interpreted, as well as subject to multiple legal challenges.
When the U.S. CDC and FDA recently removed several webpages and datasets from their websites in compliance with a directive from the Office of Personnel Management, they broke the law and harmed public health and research, according to a lawsuit filed Feb. 4 by Doctors for America.
With key officials yet to be confirmed at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the acting secretary imposed an immediate pause throughout the department on publicly issuing any document or communication without first getting it approved by a presidential appointee.
After a five-year court battle in which Gilead Sciences Inc. scored several victories only to have the U.S. government appeal, Gilead has reached a settlement with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice to resolve government claims that the company had infringed its patents covering the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use of two Gilead HIV drugs.
There are currently three approved vaccines against the H5N1 avian influenza virus. However, they present challenges for large-scale virus cultivation in case of an outbreak and rapid update of vaccine strains to keep pace with the virus’s evolution. Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine platforms may offer a promising alternative to traditional vaccine methods to face H5N1 threats.
Researchers from Emory University, the U.S. CDC and collaborators have identified a broad-spectrum antiviral agent able to combat highly pathogenic arenaviruses. The compound, a ribonucleoside analogue that acts through RdRp inhibition, exhibited a good pharmacokinetic profile, oral bioavailability and tissue distribution in guinea pigs, while protecting animals from lethal challenges with Lassa and Junín viruses, even at very low doses.
Researchers from Emory University, the U.S. CDC and collaborators have identified a broad-spectrum antiviral agent able to combat highly pathogenic arenaviruses. The compound, a ribonucleoside analogue that acts through RdRp inhibition, exhibited a good pharmacokinetic profile, oral bioavailability and tissue distribution in guinea pigs, while protecting animals from lethal challenges with Lassa and Junín viruses, even at very low doses.
The World Health Organization has had its collective eye on mpox for some time now, but announced August 14 that the prevalence of the disease in Africa raises the epidemic to a public health emergency of international concern, a change in policy driven by the emergence of a novel strain of the pathogen.
The U.S. National Institutes of Health sponsored a study that was designed to establish whether there are any biomarkers that are strongly associated with the constellation of symptoms known as long COVID, but the study shed little light on the question.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a sweeping plan that is designed to help manage vector-borne pathogens, such as the Zika virus, with the ultimate goal of reducing the related disease burden to zero.
