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    Health experts raise alarm over RFK Jr’s ‘war on science’ amid mass firings and budget cuts

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    The Trump administration’s “war on science” appears to have entered a new phase in the aftermath of a recent supreme court decision that empowered health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine sceptic, and other agency leaders, to implement mass firings – effectively greenlighting the politicization of science.The decision comes as Kennedy abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting of a key health care advisory panel, the US Preventive Services Task Force, earlier this month. That, combined with his recent removal of a panel of more than a dozen vaccine advisers, signals that his dismantling of the science-based policymaking at HHS is likely far from over.“The current administration is waging a war on science,” warned Celine Gounder, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at New York University in a keynote talk in May to graduates of Harvard’s School of Public Health.“Today we see rising threats to the public health institutions that have kept our world safe for generations,” she said, citing “cuts to research that benefits the lives of millions, looming public health emergencies that are not being addressed with the urgency they demand, and a continued coordinated attack on the very idea of the scientific process.”Gounder added: “Over the past few months, we have seen the Trump administration engage not only in medical misinformation, but in active censorship of scientific discourse.”Since he took the helm at HHS, Kennedy’s unscientific views on vaccines and some other medical matters coupled with the agency’s widespread research and staff cuts, have prompted protests from scientists inside and outside HHS plus lawsuits.Medical experts say Kennedy’s policies are helping “sow distrust in vaccines” as measles cases soar to a more than three decade high, hurt vital healthcare research with draconian cuts, and helped foment a Trump administration “war on science” mentality.Kennedy sparked a firestorm in June by ousting 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and votes to provide updates to its vaccine schedule. He then named a new eight person vaccine panel – half of whom share Kennedy’s distrust of vaccines – who quickly retracted recommendations for flu vaccines containing an ingredient which many anti-vaxxers have falsely connected to autism.That move sparked sharp criticism from veteran doctors with a national pediatric group, which opted to boycott its first meeting.“Among the reasons we decided not to participate was because it clearly appeared to be an orchestrated effort to sow distrust in vaccines,” Sean O’Leary who chairs a committee on infectious diseases with the American Academy of Pediatrics, told the Guardian.Dissent has also spread at the National Institutes of Health, where dozens of science researchers and other staff in June released a detailed document, dubbed the Bethesda Declaration, warning that key missions of the premiere research agency at HHS were being damaged by the Trump administration’s budget cutting.Even before these moves, prominent healthcare scholars were sounding loud alarms about some HHS policies and the administration’s anti-science mentality – including its draconian budget cuts for research and staff cuts totaling over 10,000.Gounder said there has been a “flood of Orwellian doublespeak from public health agencies”, contributing to declining vaccination rates and making Americans more susceptible to diseases like measles, which recently hit a level not seen since 2000 when measles was declared eliminated in the US.Her critique has been amplified by public protests from healthcare experts troubled by its vaccine policies and large cuts to research and staff at the Food and Drug Administration, the NIH and other parts of HHS.On a separate legal front, a Rhode Island federal court in July ruled against HHS and Kennedy and put a temporary stop to the drastic revamping of HHS and some of its staff cuts.The ruling provided a court victory to a group of 19 Democratic state attorneys general, plus the District of Columbia, which in May sued Kennedy – plus other HHS leaders such as the FDA commissioner and the CDC’s acting director – attacking the restructuring as an “unconstitutional and illegal dismantling” of the agency. Kennedy, they alleged, has “systematically deprived HHS of the resources necessary to do its job”.The Rhode Island judge wrote that as members of the executive branch, Kennedy and the HHS do “not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress”.For his part, Kennedy in March issued a statement defending the early HHS move to cut 10,000 full-time jobs: “We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic.”Those jobs have since been cut, as of Monday 14 July, after an 8 July order from the supreme court that allowed the restructuring plans to proceed. Many employees who were supposed to be laid off during the agency’s first round of 10,000 layoffs in April have been in limbo as the order made its way through the court system and later paused by federal judges. The reorganization, in addition to cutting staff, was supposed to consolidate the department’s 28 divisions into 15 and cut regional offices from 10 to five.Democrats in Congress too have voiced strong alarms about the thousands of HHS job cuts and their adverse impacts on healthcare and science.Ten congressional Democrats led by congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, whose district is home to thousands of NIH and FDA workers, wrote to Kennedy in March demanding the rehiring of thousands of illegally fired workers, warning of the “harmful consequences” for patient healthcare and science research.Raskin told the Guardian that Kennedy and the Trump administration’s actions reveal a “complete disregard for the law making powers of Congress. Trump wants to be both the implementer of the laws and the legislative branch, but that is not his job. It’s totally unconstitutional. They’re trying to cut off funds that have been lawfully appropriated by Congress”.O’Leary and many other medical experts warn that the dangerous ideologically driven cuts at HHS will have long-term consequences.“What we’re seeing across HHS is deeply concerning,” said O’Leary “NIH funding has never been politically or ideologically driven, but clearly that’s what we’re seeing now. Those cuts are going to have serious consequences for our country and healthcare.” More

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      Trump administration to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas

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      The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.“It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,” Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.“This is a waste of US taxpayer dollars and an abdication of US global leadership in preventing unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions and maternal deaths,” added Shaheen, who in June sent a letter to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, about the matter.The department decided to destroy the contraceptives because it could not sell them to any “eligible buyers”, in part because of US laws and rules that prohibit sending US aid to organizations that provide abortion services, counsel people about the procedure or advocate for the right to it overseas, according to the state department spokesperson.Most of the contraceptives have less than 70% of their shelf life left before they expire, the spokesperson said, and rebranding and selling the contraceptives could cost several million dollars. However, the aide who visited the warehouse said that the earliest expiration date they saw on the contraceptives was 2027, and that two-thirds of the contraceptives did not have any USAID labels that would need to be rebranded.The eradication of the contraceptives is part of the Trump administration’s months-long demolition of the Agency for International Development (USAID), the largest funding agency for humanitarian and development aid in the world. After the unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) erased 83% of USAID’s programs, Rubio announced in June that USAID’s entire international workforce would be abolished and its foreign assistance programs would be moved to the state department. The agency will be replaced by an organization called America First.In total, the funding cuts to USAID could lead to more than 14m additional deaths by 2030, according to a recent study published in the journal the Lancet. A third of those deaths could be children.“If you have an unintended pregnancy and you end up having to seek unsafe abortion, it’s quite likely that you will die,” said Sarah Shaw, the associate director of advocacy at MSI Reproductive Choices, a global family planning organization that works in nearly 40 countries. “If you’re not given the means to space or limit your births, you’re putting your life at risk or your child’s life at risk.”MSI tried to purchase the contraceptives from the US government, Shaw said. But the government would only accept full price – which Shaw said the agency could not afford, given that MSI would also have to shoulder the expense of transportingthe contraceptives and the fact that they are inching closer to their expiration date, which could affect MSI’s ability to distribute them.The state department spokesperson did not specifically respond to a request for comment on Shaw’s allegation, but MSI does provide abortions as part of its global work, which may have led the department to rule it out as an “eligible buyer”.In an internal survey, MSI programs in 10 countries reported that, within the next month, they expect to be out of stock or be on the brink of being out of stock of at least one contraceptive method. The countries include Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Senegal, Kenya and Sierra Leone.Shaw expects the stock to be incinerated. “The fact that the contraceptives are going to be burned when there’s so much need – it’s just egregious,” she said. “It’s disgusting.” The Department of State spokesperson did not respond to a request for information on the planned method of destruction.The destruction of the contraceptives is, to Shaw, emblematic of the overall destruction of a system that once provided worldwide help to women and families. USAID funding is threaded through so much of the global supply chain of family planning aid that, without its money, the chain has come apart. In Mali, Shaw said, USAID helped pay for the gas used by the vehicles that transport contraceptives from a warehouse. Without the gas money, the vehicles were stuck – and so were the contraceptives.“I’ve worked in this sector for over 20 years and I’ve never seen anything on this scale,” Shaw said. “The speed at which they’ve managed to dismantle excellent work and really great progress – I mean, it’s just vanished in weeks.”Other kinds of assistance are also reportedly being wasted. This week, the Atlantic reported that almost 500 metric tons of emergency food were expiring and would be incinerated, rather than being used to feed about 1.5 million children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Meanwhile, almost 800,000 Mpox vaccines that were supposed to be sent to Africa are now unusable because they are too close to their expiration date, according to Politico.The cuts to foreign aid are slated to deepen. Early on Friday morning, Congress passed a bill to claw back roughly $8bn that had been earmarked for foreign assistance.“It’s not just about an empty shelf,” Shaw said. “It’s about unfulfilled potential. It’s about a girl having to drop out of school. It’s about someone having to seek an unsafe abortion and risking their lives. That’s what it’s really about.” More

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      Medical charlatans have existed through history. But AI has turbocharged them | Edna Bonhomme

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      Nearly a year into parenting, I’ve relied on advice and tricks to keep my baby alive and entertained. For the most part, he’s been agile and vivacious, and I’m beginning to see an inquisitive character develop from the lump of coal that would suckle from my breast. Now he’s started nursery (or what Germans refer to as Kita), other parents in Berlin, where we live, have warned me that an avalanche of illnesses will come flooding in. So during this particular stage of uncertainty, I did what many parents do: I consulted the internet.This time, I turned to ChatGPT, a source I had vowed never to use. I asked a straightforward but fundamental question: “How do I keep my baby healthy?” The answers were practical: avoid added sugar, monitor for signs of fever and talk to your baby often. But the part that left me wary was the last request: “If you tell me your baby’s age, I can tailor this more precisely.” Of course, I should be informed about my child’s health, but given my growing scepticism towards AI, I decided to log off.Earlier this year, an episode in the US echoed my little experiment. With a burgeoning measles outbreak, children’s health has become a significant political battleground, and the Department of Health and Human Services, under the leadership of Robert F Kennedy, has initiated a campaign titled the Make America Healthy Again commission, aimed at combating childhood chronic disease. The corresponding report claimed to address the principal threats to children’s health: pesticides, prescription drugs and vaccines. Yet the most striking aspect of the report was the pattern of citation errors and unsubstantiated conclusions. External researchers and journalists believed that these pointed to the use of ChatGPT in compiling the report.What made this more alarming was that the Maha report allegedly included studies that did not exist. This coincides with what we already know about AI, which has been found not only to include false citations but also to “hallucinate”, that is, to invent nonexistent material. The epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who was listed in the Maha report as the first author of a study on anxiety and adolescents, said: “The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with.”The threat of AI may feel new, but its role in spreading medical myths fits into an old mould: that of the charlatan peddling false cures. During the 17th and 18th centuries, there was no shortage of quacks selling reagents intended to counteract intestinal ruptures and eye pustules. Although not medically trained, some, such as Buonafede Vitali and Giovanni Greci, were able to obtain a licence to sell their serums. Having a public platform as grand as the square meant they could gather in public and entertain bystanders, encouraging them to purchase their products, which included balsamo simpatico (sympathetic balm) to treat venereal diseases.RFK Jr believes that he is an arbiter of science, even if the Maha report appears to have cited false information. What complicates charlatanry today is that we’re in an era of far more expansive tools, such as AI, which ultimately have more power than the swindlers of the past. This disinformation may appear on platforms that we believe to be reliable, such as search engines, or masquerade as scientific papers, which we’re used to seeing as the most reliable sources of all.Ironically, Kennedy has claimed that leading peer-reviewed scientific journals such as the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine are corrupt. His stance is especially troubling, given the influence he wields in shaping public health discourse, funding and official panels. Moreover, his efforts to implement his Maha programme undermine the very concept of a health programme. Unlike science, which strives to uncover the truth, AI has no interest in whether something is true or false.AI is very convenient, and people often turn to it for medical advice; however, there are significant concerns with its use. It is injurious enough to refer to it as an individual, but when a government significantly relies on AI for medical reports, this can lead to misleading conclusions about public health. A world filled with AI platforms creates an environment where fact and fiction meld into each other, leaving minimal foundation for scientific objectivity.The technology journalist Karen Hao astutely reflected in the Atlantic: “How do we govern artificial intelligence? With AI on track to rewire a great many other crucial functions in society, that question is really asking: how do we ensure that we’ll make our future better, not worse?” We need to address this by establishing a way to govern its use, rather than adopting a heedless approach to AI by the government.Individual solutions can be helpful in assuaging our fears, but we require robust and adaptable policies to hold big tech and governments accountable regarding AI misuse. Otherwise, we risk creating an environment where charlatanism becomes the norm.

      Edna Bonhomme is a historian of science More

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      US dairy industry to remove synthetic dyes from ice-cream, RFK Jr says

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      In what Trump administration officials dubbed a “major announcement”, health and agriculture department leaders said the US dairy industry agreed to voluntarily remove synthetic dyes from ice-cream.The announcement continues the Trump administration’s pattern of voluntary agreements with industry – from health insurers to snack food makers.“This is relevant to my favorite food, which is ice-cream,” said the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.“Since we came in about five and a half months ago and started talking about eliminating dyes and other bad chemicals from our food, we’ve had this extraordinary response from our industry.”Representatives of the dairy industry said that more than 40 ice cream companies agreed not to use synthetic dyes. Kennedy also alluded to the future release of new dietary guidelines, which would “elevate” dairy products, including full-fat dairy, to “where they ought to be in terms of contributing to the health of our children”.The head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr Marty Makary, also announced that his agency approved a new plant-based dye: “gardenia blue”.The value of full-fat dairy is an ongoing subject of debate in nutrition research circles. For decades, government health authorities have cautioned against too much saturated fats, sugars and refined grains because of their link to obesity and heart disease. Some high-profile researchers now argue that full-fat dairy may not be as harmful as once thought.That is a perspective shared by the US dairy industry, which has funded nutrition research and fought against government controls on dairy in school lunches since the Obama administration.The issue is also important in rural communities across dairy country, where farmers began displaying hand-painted hay bails outside farms with messages such as: “Drink whole milk 97% fat free”.The Trump administration has held a close relationship with the dairy industry for years, stretching all the way back to the president’s first term. In 2019, then agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue toasted dairy lobbyists with a glass of chocolate milk to celebrate the reintroduction of once-banned flavored milks back into schools.“This is a great day for dairy and a great day for ‘make America healthy again,’” said Michael Dykes, the president and CEO of the International Dairy Foods Association. “We’re so happy with the voluntary industry-led commitment.”Notably, the Trump administration’s effort to reach voluntary agreements with industry has also shown the strategy’s limits. For instance, Mars, the maker of Skittles and M&M’s, resisted Kennedy’s efforts. Meanwhile, on health insurance, experts have expressed skepticism that an agreement with private insurers will significantly help Americans. More

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      ‘Tremendous uncertainty’ for cancer research as US officials target mRNA vaccines

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      As US regulators restrict Covid mRNA vaccines and as independent vaccine advisers re-examine the shots, scientists fear that an unlikely target could be next: cancer research.Messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines have shown promise in treating and preventing cancers that have often been difficult to address, such as pancreatic cancer, brain tumors and others.But groundbreaking research could stall as federal and state officials target mRNA shots, including ending federal funding for bird flu mRNA vaccines, restricting who may receive existing mRNA vaccines and, in some places, proposing laws against the vaccines.The Trump administration has also implemented unprecedented cuts to cancer research, among other research cuts and widespread layoffs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).At least 16 grants involving the word “mRNA” have been terminated or frozen, according to the crowdsourced project Grant Watch, and scientists have been told to remove mentions of mRNA vaccines from their research applications, KFF Health News reported in March.Researchers fear that therapeutic cancer vaccines will get “swept up in that tidal wave” against mRNA vaccines, Aaron Sasson, chief of surgical oncology at Stony Brook University, said in April.When it comes to mRNA breakthroughs, “the next couple of years are the most critical”, Elias Sayour, a professor for pediatric oncology research at the University of Florida, said.“If the progress we’ve made to date – which has been prodigious – if that is just stopped or stymied, it can absolutely affect the trajectory and the arc,” he said.The uncertainty around mRNA specifically, and research broadly, could also discourage researchers and institutions from beginning new projects, he said.“If we continue to seize on these gains in the next 10, 20 years, I do see a scenario where we’ve completely transformed how we take care of a large swath of human disease,” he said.Research on mRNA cancer vaccines has been under way for more than a decade, with more than 120 clinical trials on treating and preventing cancers. mRNA shots have shown promise for preventing the return of head and neck cancer; lymphoma; breast cancer, which accounts for 11.6% of all cancer deaths in the US; colorectal cancer; lung cancer; and kidney cancer, among others.Pancreatic cancer has a 10% survival rate and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the US, but in a small study, about half of the patients who received an mRNA vaccine did not see their cancer return, and they still had strong immune responses three years later.Early mRNA vaccine trials also indicated the recurrence of melanoma could be cut in half. And a small study co-authored by Sayour on glioblastoma showed the vaccines started affecting the tumors within 48 hours.Like any vaccine, mRNA cancer vaccines train the body to recognize and destroy harmful cells.Unlike foreign pathogens, such as infectious diseases, cancer is caused by the growth of the patient’s own cells.Some cancer vaccines are highly personalized, using a patient’s own cancer cells to treat their tumors or train their immune system to kill off those dangerous cells if they recur.“The ability to create specific vaccines for patients has tremendous, tremendous promise, but that was technology not possible five or 10 years ago,” said Sasson. “It really is a shift in the paradigm of how we treat cancers.”Researchers are also investigating vaccines that would target cancer cells more broadly by identifying “fingerprints” of certain cancers, said Sayour.Additionally, the vaccines could be created for other conditions, such as type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, he said.“It has potential to get rid of a lot of the chronic morbidity we see from disease, to cure diseases that are degenerative, to overcome cancer evolution and cure patients,” Sayour said. “mRNA could be the healthcare that the movable-type printing press was for human knowledge.”Yet federal and state decision-makers have targeted mRNA vaccines in recent months.Vinay Prasad, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), reportedly overrode scientists at the agency to limit some Covid vaccines, including a new mRNA shot from Moderna, to children older than 12. Prasad also introduced similar limitations on the Covid shot from Novavax, which does not use mRNA.On Thursday, the FDA approved the original Covid mRNA vaccine from Moderna for children between the ages of six months and 11 years – but they narrowed its use to children with at least one underlying condition. (The vaccine for people older than 12 was approved in 2022.)Prasad argued, in two memos recently released by the FDA, that the risks of Covid had dropped, while “known and unknown” side-effects could outweigh the benefits of getting vaccinated.Covid remains a leading cause of death in the US, with 178 deaths in the week ending 7 June, the last week for which the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offers complete data.At the meeting of the CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) in June, two of the new vaccine advisers – appointed by the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he fired the previous 17 advisers – broached the safety of Covid mRNA vaccines, indicating future scrutiny of these shots.Vicky Pebsworth, a registered nurse who has volunteered for years with the National Vaccine Information Center, said she was “very concerned” about side-effects from the Covid mRNA shots and asked for more data on safety, including “reproductive toxicity”.Shortly before being appointed to the ACIP, Pebsworth and the founder of the National Vaccine Information Center argued that the FDA should not recommend mRNA Covid-19 shots for anyone “until adequate scientific evidence demonstrates safety and effectiveness for both the healthy and those who are elderly or chronically ill”.At the June ACIP meeting, Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, said he believed mRNA side-effects were “being reported at rates that are far exceeding other vaccines even when you normalize to the number of doses, which does suggest something, I think”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPreviously, Levi argued: “The evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm including death, especially among young people. We have to stop giving them immediately!”Another new ACIP adviser, Robert Malone, has also repeatedly argued against mRNA vaccines.In 2021, Kennedy, then chair of the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense, petitioned the FDA to revoke all approvals, and ban future approvals, of all Covid vaccines. He has called Covid shots the “deadliest vaccine ever made”.In May, Kennedy changed Covid vaccine recommendations from “should” to “may” for children, and eliminated the recommendation for pregnant women entirely.Also in May, the US canceled $766m in contracts for research on mRNA vaccines against H5N1 bird flu. Investment in the mRNA vaccine was not “scientifically or ethically justifiable”, Andrew Nixon, the HHS communications director, said in statements to the media, adding that the “mRNA technology remains under-tested”.Millions of mRNA vaccines have been given around the world, and the vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective in multiple studies.Bans or limitations on mRNA vaccinations have been introduced in seven states. One such bill in Idaho sought to pause “gene therapy immunizations” for 10 years – a category in which they incorrectly place Covid vaccines, and which could affect other therapeutics.Similarly, in Washington state, commissioners in Franklin county passed a resolution urging the local health facility to stop providing and promoting gene-therapy vaccines; they also incorrectly included Covid mRNA shots in this category.“There’s this scorched-earth mentality now, but I’m hopeful that once the dust settles, we’ll be able to reinstate or allow vaccine work for cancer purposes to proceed,” Sasson said.Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the US, and two in five people will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in their lifetime.There are currently only two FDA-approved vaccines that prevent cancer – hepatitis B and human papillomavirus (HPV) – and both have been targeted by anti-vaccine activists.In January, Trump hosted the launch of Stargate AI at the White House. The project could eventually identify cancers and develop mRNA vaccines in days, Larry Ellison, the chair of the tech company Oracle who is involved with the project, said at the launch.The project will be funded by private, not federal, dollars, but the work on cancer would draw upon research on cancer and mRNA, among other fields.Yet the Trump administration has slashed other critical funding for cancer research, prevention and treatment.The administration canceled more than $180m in grants through the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the first three months of its term, and proposed cutting $2.7bn from the cancer center in the next NIH budget.The administration has cut back funding for some family planning providers, which frequently offer screenings for HPV and other cancer markers.Lawmakers have also made enormous cuts to Medicaid and insurance through the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which could mean uninsured and underinsured people wait longer for cancer treatment – or forgo it entirely.“There’s the potential for great harm, for massive public health issues to be set aside during this really broad approach of canceling research,” said Sasson. “There’s significant harm that’s going to happen by these sweeping changes.”For scientists who still have funding or those who are entering the field, “there’s tremendous uncertainty as to what the future will look like”, Sasson said.But he is optimistic that mRNA vaccines for cancer and other illnesses will be able to move forward.Scientists are often portrayed as “just trying to survive” funding cuts, but that’s not entirely accurate, said Sayour, before adding: “I don’t think many people in my field do this because they’re just trying to survive. I would want nothing more, honest to God, than to put myself out of business. We do this because we want to make a difference.”Sayour echoed concerns about both indirect and direct forces shaping progress on mRNA vaccines.“But I also want to be optimistic that our best days are ahead of us,” he said. More

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      Voices: ‘No one outside the NHS will understand’: Doctors and their families defend strike action

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      As resident doctors prepare for another walkout, doctors, NHS staff, and their families have hit back at criticism, taking to the Independent’s comments with passionate, first-hand accounts of life on the front line.Our wider community is sharply split over the upcoming industrial action and their demand for a 29 per cent pay rise. With one reader insisting that doctors “should be ashamed”.Amid the division, however, several medics defended the strike as a last resort after years of burnout, pay erosion and understaffing. Many noted that doctors face job insecurity, rising costs of training, and little respect from the public.While one parent recalled their son working 90+ hour weeks over the festive period, another said that the “greedy doctors” narrative was not just wrong but “heartbreaking”, and accused the government of breaking the NHS on purpose. But not everyone backed the British Medical Association’s decision to strike. One medic called the 29 per cent pay demand “excessive” and warned the walkout could further harm patient care.Here’s what they had to say:90-hour weeksThe gods were very kind to me, and I had three kids. All of them of similar intellect. My eldest son decided to carve a career in commerce, as did my daughter. My younger son, from the age of about fourteen, set his sights on the medical profession. 20+ years later, my younger son is now a consultant working in the NHS. My older son’s basic salary is circa 2.5 times that of my younger son. But he also gets quite substantial bonuses, a share issue at the end of each financial year and mainly works from home roughly 8–9 hours per day, 5 days per week.One might conclude from that anyone wanting to enter the medical profession as either a nurse or doctor must be utterly bonkers… But thank heaven they do!When my younger son was an ST1 (Speciality Trainee year 1) we were all sitting round the dinner table on Christmas Day, and it emerged that he had managed to get Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day off. Upon enquiring how he had managed this, his reply was to the effect: “I will take the pain when I go back.” It subsequently emerged that his first two weeks back were both 90 hours, and the third week was 93 hours. His observation about the 93 hours: “I wouldn’t want to see me after 93 hours.”TemplerDo you support the doctor’s strike? Share your thoughts in the comments.Looking back, I had it easyOur daughter went through the FY1/2 (foundation training), SHO (Senior House Officer), Reg, S/Reg, now an NHS Consultant and working for the first time in the one place…She had the same horrific working conditions as I did when training, but she had the EWTD (The European Working Time Directive ) to contend with – where they still worked crazy hours but the management couldn’t admit to being short-staffed, so getting any ‘overtime’ became extremely difficult…Looking back, I had it easy…ScoobytheDogNo one outside the NHS will understandI do not think that anyone outside the NHS will truly understand what it is like to be a resident doctor or appreciate the demands of the job. Five or six years of medical school, over £100k in debt, exam fees through your 20s and 30s, and training bottlenecks, not to mention the emotional labour and the responsibility of keeping people alive.In clinical years of medical school, we spend most of our days on the wards, essentially working unpaid. Medical school is exhausting, but it is worth the effort to become a doctor. In our final year, we are randomly allocated to work in any hospital in the United Kingdom to undertake two years of foundation training. This process does not consider one’s family commitments, relationships or grades in medical school.Whilst scheduled working hours are capped, there are weeks where one may be on the rota to work up to 72 hours. Of course, often people stay overtime due to staff shortages and workload. There are often too many patients and not enough doctors or nurses to cover the wards. Lunch breaks are often 10–15 minutes, or do not happen at all depending on the clinical picture.The emotional toll of seeing so much suffering, disease and death, and the weight of being the one to break bad news to patients and their loved ones, is heavy. Especially when consultations are rushed due to the volume of patients and staff shortages. Many times, your doctors are going through similar things in their personal lives – a parent with cancer, a brother that died the night before – but we put our own pain and humanity aside, we show up and we care for those that need us. The nature of the job makes burnout likely, and coupled with erosion of salaries and a decline in public respect for the hard work that doctors put in – is it a wonder people are leaving the NHS to pursue work as a doctor elsewhere? In other countries the job may be equally as emotionally demanding in a given moment, but the staffing in the hospitals will be better, the public will show you more respect, and you may work the same (or fewer!) hours for better pay, enjoying a better work-life balance – which is inevitably better for one’s own mental health and wellbeing. Not to mention, speciality training is shorter and less competitive abroad.The strikes and the pay rise are needed to boost morale and retain our home-grown talent. Unfortunately, many fail to realise that the more doctors that leave the NHS, the worse the staff shortages and waiting times get, and the harder it becomes for NHS staff to keep the NHS running, contributing further to staff burnout and staff leaving.BlueAlpacaThe fact people look at this as pure greed is heartbreakingI’ve seen family and friends who work as doctors, nurses, cleaners etc. struggling on a daily basis. Often working as a single doctor on a ward with countless patients and working unimaginable hours, which takes a massive toll on them – for how dangerous it is for them, on top of being treated horribly by patients and upper management alike.A comment I always see made is “doctors are not as nice as they used to be”, which I understand, but what is overlooked is that almost all NHS staff are overworked, on long shifts and have been treated horribly. The previous government made the NHS unmanageable (in my eyes on purpose), and staff are still working their hardest to fix it.The fact people look at this as pure greed is truly heartbreaking and it takes away from what these heroes are doing and putting up with on a daily basis. The government should be ashamed at trying to vilify the backbone of society for simply asking for better working standards.ConMakepeaceWell-deserved remunerationA lot of commentators obviously have no idea of current working conditions within the NHS. Doctors have multiple degrees and train for seven years before they start their practical training. “Junior doctor” is a deeply resented title by the way, as is “trainee doctor”.They then have further training to specialise – again, up to five years.They have ruinous professional subscriptions to the Royal College, MDU, BMA, etc.Many professional courses are paid for out of their own pockets. On-call is expected whatever your family circumstances – Christmas, Easter, school holidays. Doctors have had a 30 per cent wage cut. All they are seeking is a return to their well-deserved and earned remuneration.When a doctor reaches consultant level their wages cross the upper tax levels, which means they earn less than when they were training! Many of the doctors now training in the UK are planning on emigrating to other countries who pay their worth. The choice is yours – support your doctors or lose them and end up relying on poorly trained, unqualified physician associates. Believe me, you will really start whining then.YarblesI emigrated for moneyDoctors have always been exploited by the NHS and continue to be so. When I was an NHS consultant, pay was poor and then I lost two elevenths of that meagre salary to be graciously “allowed” to see private patients – but unbelievably was required to “give essentially the whole of my time to the NHS”! It took me only a short time to realise I was being treated as a “mere employee to do as I was told”, so I emigrated to the USA where I instantly earned (literally) TWENTY times as much as the NHS paid. I returned to Britain when I didn’t need to work again. It is a waste of effort to complain about NHS exploitation of its staff – just use your skills elsewhere. Bon chance! The ClaymoreAs a medic, I do not support this strikeAs a medic myself I am not in support of this strike or the requested pay rise, and I am ashamed of my own union (BMA). I do not like the way the NHS is going. It was always seen as a vocation, meaning that when you sign up for med school you know what you are taking on. But today it has so many problems caused by successive governments, and now this excessive pay request threatens its sustainability.FlossieDoctors have no job securityFew people realise that doctors have no job security. Following their two-year post-qualification training there are insufficient speciality training places available, and so they either have to scramble around to find one of the few short-term 12-month fellowship contracts or they are out of work. Added to that, they have to suffer the ignominy of having their assistants (Physician Associates) paid £10,000 per annum more than them. If that happened in teaching there would be outrage. All resident doctors are trying to do is fight for reasonable pay compared to PAs and job security. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.TuscanSPay should keep up with inflationEveryone deserves for their pay to have kept up with inflation since 2008. Everyone includes doctors and other NHS staff.DoctorSome of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.Want to share your views? Simply register your details below. Once registered, you can comment on the day’s top stories for a chance to be featured. Alternatively, click ‘log in’ or ‘register’ in the top right corner to sign in or sign up.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here. More

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      in UK Politics

      Voices: ‘Who do they think they are?’ Readers clash over NHS doctor strikes

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      As resident doctors prepare for another walkout, readers responded with a flurry of passionate – and polarised – opinions on the latest NHS pay dispute.Some voiced sympathy for doctors, arguing that pay should have kept pace with inflation since 2008. They warned that failing to restore salaries would fuel burnout, debt, and emigration, further weakening an NHS already short on staff and resources.Others pointed to the gruelling hours and training required, noting that doctors deserve better pay and respect. Several also criticised Health Secretary Wes Streeting for “reneging” on promises.But not all were supportive. Some readers described the 29 per cent pay demand as excessive and out of touch, especially after the 22 per cent uplift secured last year. Many were frustrated by long waits for appointments and poor patient outcomes, questioning whether increased pay alone would improve services.Here’s what you had to say:I have little sympathy for NHS staffTo be honest, over the last 15 years or so, I’ve noticed a significant shift in the attitude of GPs and doctors towards their patients. Often, my GP seems indifferent to my healthcare needs, and I find myself being passed from pillar to post when I need my injection for a specific condition. My GP blames the hospital, while the hospital points the finger back at the GP surgery for not administering it.I’ve also observed a marked change in the attitude of those who handle phone calls. When I need to see my GP, I’m frequently told to book a telephone appointment or given a mere 5 to 10 minutes to discuss my concerns. Often, my issues aren’t truly addressed; it feels more like I’m having a chat with my next-door neighbour rather than receiving proper medical attention. What frustrates me further is that the hospital and GP surgery I attend are often much less busy than they were 15 years ago. Yet, they still offer appointments at least four weeks later. It’s ridiculous! If the government has been playing games over the past 15 years, I believe NHS staff, including those in surgeries, have had a part in it. Therefore, I have little sympathy for NHS staff demanding pay rises that exceed the average UK rates.At present, the NHS seems to think it’s doing a great job, but that’s often not the case. Doctors from countries like Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Mexico, China, Thailand, and Vietnam are often well-trained and willing to work for less, without compromising healthcare services for patients. Meanwhile, our newly trained doctors often have aspirations to move to countries like Australia, the USA, and Canada, which sometimes gives the impression that they feel stuck in their jobs here in the UK.KatherineTateIsBackDo you support the walkout? Let us know your views in the comments.Everyone needs to join with the doctorsEveryone else needs to join with the doctors, stand alongside them and fight against the scourge of low wages that the people of the United Kingdom are expected to accept as recompense for the work they undertake.The doctors are leading the way – people need to get on board or get out of the way.IndythinksterPay and inflationEveryone deserves for their pay to have kept up with inflation since 2008. Everyone includes doctors and other NHS staff.Doctor Outcomes not up to standardIt wouldn’t be quite as bad if the NHS had a patient outcome half as good as most of our comparable European neighbours.Admittedly the NHS is underfunded compared with many Western European countries, but wasn’t Boris supposed to fix everything with his red bus?YetAnotherNameNow they want more?In 2024, junior doctors received an average pay increase of 22 per cent over two years, which translated to an annual increase of between £9,000 and £16,000. Now they want 29 per cent on top of this. Who do they think they are? The nation has finite resources and cannot divert money meant to provide better facilities and medicines for patients into their pockets.Pomerol95 The public will not forgive StreetingNo, Streeting, the public will not forgive you. Doctors were promised pay restoration. You have reneged on that.The English NHS has fewer doctors, nurses and beds per capita than the health services of comparable nations, including Scotland – a crucial factor in determining health outcomes and waiting lists.Not paying doctors adequately is not going to improve that situation. And if they aren’t paid adequately, they will never pay off the vast student debts they have accrued – or they may even leave the country, leaving the public purse to pick up the entire tab as well as losing their not insubstantial investment entirely.NorthwingDoes it make any sense to be a GP anymore?Does it make any sense to be a GP anymore, looking at their salary range? Clever people get paid more elsewhere, for less training (costly) and less work. I missed any plan for this issue in Streeting’s 10-year NHS plan.MpWhat a messWhat a mess, caused in part by the unfortunate fact that the more you pay anyone, the more valuable they think they are. It doesn’t help that the NHS requires doctors to do a five-year degree course and then a couple of years practising, only to be able to prescribe medicine if it’s on the NICE list and they have a blood test to justify it. No wonder doctors have decided to pursue money instead of a rewarding career.Why hasn’t this inept government rolled out computer technology for diagnosis?And freed up doctors to do more interesting and demanding work? What a mess, and not the slightest sign of improvement.MrBishiMy respect is wearing thinNot again. So, junior doctors who are learning and need supervision demand a 29 per cent pay rise. By what rationale did they decide to train as doctors? Students will have researched their potential earnings, but as soon as they qualify, they feel justified in demanding higher than other professional groups.Since Covid, getting to see a trained professional, a GP or specialist, has meant increasingly long waits, investigations delayed, diagnosis and treatments… how long is a piece of string? Many doctors these days only work part-time. If you want more pay, work longer hours. Like the rest of us. My respect for these hard-working professional carers and healers has worn very thin. They demand we respect them – where is the respect for those in need?ChuckiethebraveA huge shift in doctors’ attitudesThere has been a huge shift in attitude among many doctors and reception staff (trained by the GPs to be barriers to care). Out-of-hours care is lousy. A lot of the doctors just don’t care. And remember, the doctors get their medical qualification for peanuts – to become a doctor in the US requires a four-year bachelor’s degree followed by four years of medical training – that’s many hundreds of thousands of dollars of training that must be paid back. Perhaps junior doctors would feel better about their pay if they took a minute to understand the cost of their training to the British taxpayer.AnyoneAfter the pandemic, they deserved a reward — but…After the nightmare of the pandemic, NHS health workers deserved a reward for their dedication under awful circumstances. But doctors need to understand that they were given an unprecedented rise under Blair’s government, that they had a generous uplift last year, and that most other workers have not seen a real rise in their salaries for many years. As someone who has been waiting more than three years to get a diagnosis for mobility problems, I will certainly not be supporting the doctors.SlampsWant to share your views? Simply register your details below. Once registered, you can comment on the day’s top stories for a chance to be featured. Alternatively, click ‘log in’ or ‘register’ in the top right corner to sign in or sign up.Make sure you adhere to our community guidelines, which can be found here. For a full guide on how to comment click here. More

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      in US Politics

      US posts highest annual measles case tally in 33 years amid Texas outbreak

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      The annual tally of measles cases in the US is the highest in 33 years, as an ongoing outbreak in west Texas continues to drive cases.The latest figures mean Americans will have to look back to 1992 to find a worse year with the vaccine preventable disease. The official tally very likely undercounts the scope of the outbreak, experts told the Guardian.“When you talk to people on the ground, you get the sense that this outbreak has been severely underestimated,” said Dr Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Confirmed cases appear to be the “tip of a much bigger iceberg”, he said.Measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000. However, as the pandemic disrupted routine childhood visits to the doctors and anti-vaccine organizations saw their coffers swell during the pandemic, measles vaccination rates have fallen below a critical threshold to prevent outbreaks in some communities.As of 4 July, Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Outbreak Response Innovation counted 1,277 measles cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 1,267 cases, but has not updated its data since 2 July.“The number of new cases has slowed down, but I don’t think there’s any reason to suggest this will be our last,” said Dr Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert and dean for the national school of tropical medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.He later added: “It’s a very dark epidemic that never had to happen.”The latest national tally will eclipse 2019, when unvaccinated members of New York City’s isolated orthodox Jewish community drove a large outbreak, and the nation ended the year with 1,274 confirmed measles cases.Americans will need to look back to 1992 to find a higher annual measles tally. In 1992, the CDC confirmed 2,126 cases, with the largest outbreaks in Kentucky and Texas. Texas has confirmed 753 cases in 2025, according to the state health department, opening up the possibility that Texas could exceed the 1992 annual total as well.The enormous outbreak comes as Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who once ran an influential anti-vaccine group, has injected upheaval into US vaccine policy and spread misinformation about treatments for the disease.Measles is a viral disease characterized by a top-down rash, high fever, runny nose and red, watery eyes. The virus is one of the most infectious diseases known to medicine. There is no cure for measles. The best way to prevent measles is by getting vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR), which is 97% effective with two doses.Although most people recover, as many as one in five infected children require hospitalization; one in 20 get pneumonia and one in 1,000 can develop encephalitis, which can lead to lifelong disability, according to the CDC. The disease can also weaken the host’s immune system and lead to more future infections. In rare cases, measles can cause an incurable degenerative brain disorder. The US has already seen three deaths from measles this year, both in otherwise healthy children.Before a measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, an estimated 3-4 million Americans were sickened each year, 48,000 were hospitalized and an estimated 400-500 died, according to the CDC. From 1994 to 2023 in the US alone, the CDC estimates the measles vaccine saved 85,000 lives and prevented 104m illnesses.Although the vaccine has been wildly successful, it has also been the target of sustained misinformation by people who have a financial stake in reduced vaccine uptake.In 1998, a British doctor hypothesized a link between the MMR and increasing autism rates. The doctor, Andrew Wakefield, was later found to have committed fraud, failed to report conflicts of interest and lost his license. The article was retracted.Reams of science has since examined and re-examined the evidence, and found no link between the MMR vaccine and autism. Still, the debunked connection has found an afterlife as a talking point for anti-vaccine groups who have attracted a vocal minority of parents. The overwhelming majority of Americans still vaccinate children against measles.Now, alongside longtime anti-vaccine talking points about autism and “medical freedom”, Hotez said a new threat was the, “very pernicious health and wellness and influencer movement that’s got a big profit motive”.Outbreaks appear to be “occurring in the same [parts] of the US that had some of the lowest Covid vaccination rates”, said Hotez, introducing the possibility that anti-vaccine sentiment is “spilling over to childhood immunizations”.In June, Kennedy unilaterally fired all 17 expert members of a CDC advisory panel on vaccines and stacked the committee with seven ideological allies. The advisory committee is a key link in the vaccine distribution pipeline.Among those allies now serving on the committee are medical professionals with fringe beliefs and known anti-vaccines advocates. In June, the group met for the first time, and said it would form a new committee to re-evaluate the childhood vaccine schedule.“We’ve not only eliminated measles, we’ve eliminated the memory of measles,” said Offit. “People don’t remember how sick this virus can make you – or how dead it can make you.” More

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      in US Politics

      Planned Parenthood sues Trump administration over funding cuts in big bill

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      Planned Parenthood sued the Trump administration on Monday over a provision in Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy bill that would strip funding from health centers operated by the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider.In a complaint filed in Boston federal court, Planned Parenthood said the provision was unconstitutional, and its clear purpose is to prevent its nearly 600 health centers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements.Planned Parenthood said that would have “catastrophic consequences”, given that the health centers serve more than 1 million patients annually through Medicaid, the US government’s insurance program for low-income people. More than 80 million people use Medicaid.“The true design of the Defund Provision is simply to express disapproval of, attack, and punish Planned Parenthood, which plays a particularly prominent role in the public debate over abortion,” Planned Parenthood said in its lawsuit.The lawsuit continued: “Stripping away this patient volume and reimbursements for care provided will result in the elimination of services, laying off staff and health center closures. The public health consequences for Medicaid patients and non-Medicaid patients alike will be dire and compounding.”The organization has estimated that the defunding could force roughly 200 Planned Parenthood clinics to shutter. Blue states, which are home to more people on Medicaid, would probably see a disproportionate number of closures.Since it is illegal to use Medicaid to pay for most abortions, Planned Parenthood clinics rely on the insurance program to reimburse them for providing services like birth control, STI tests and cancer screenings. But if blue-state clinics are forced to close, people will no longer be able to seek abortions at those clinics – a possibility that has led some abortion rights supporters, including Planned Parenthood, to call the Trump bill’s provision a “backdoor abortion ban”. Planned Parenthood provides an estimated 38% of US abortions.“We’re facing a reality of the impact on shutting down almost half of abortion-providing health centers,” Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of Americas’s CEO, told the Guardian last week. “It does feel existential. Not just for Planned Parenthood, but for communities that are relying on access to this care.”Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit asks the courts to declare the Trump bill’s provision unconstitutional on numerous grounds, or to at least preserve Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood clinics that do not provide abortions. The reproductive health giant suggests in the lawsuit that Congress did not understand its structure when it passed the provision. The Planned Parenthood technically consists of a mothership group, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and nearly 50 regional affiliate groups that operate as independent entities.Medicaid is overseen by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of the US Department of Health and Human Services. That agency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Planned Parenthood is being buffeted by intense financial headwinds. This spring, the Trump administration froze tens of millions of dollars earmarked for family planning providers who participate in Title X, the nation’s largest family planning program. Although several of those providers have since had their funding restored, a Planned Parenthood spokesperson said last week their affiliates had not received funding.The US supreme court also ruled in late June in favor of South Carolina in a case involving the state’s attempt to kick Planned Parenthood out of its state Medicaid reimbursement program. Red states may see that ruling as a blessing to their own efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.Even if Planned Parenthood’s Monday lawsuit succeeds, the organization will probably have to grapple with the consequences of that supreme court ruling for years to come. More