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    Meet the OB-GYNs fighting back against Trump’s ‘guerrilla war on science’

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    As some medical groups cave to the Trump administration, the American College of OB-GYNs is taking a standWhen Steven Fleischman took over as president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in 2025, he knew that controversy was practically part of the job description. But the Connecticut-based physician at Yale University School of Medicine never predicted that things would get this dire.As the premier membership group for US-based OB-GYNs, ACOG provides its more than 62,000 members with clinical guidance, educational opportunities and career help. It also advocates for abortion rights – a stance that has long made the organization far more politically active than many other major medical societies. And in the last year, the non-partisan organization has become a leading voice in the fight against Donald Trump’s anti-science crusade and the US government’s embrace of medical misinformation, especially on the topic of pregnancy and childbirth. Continue reading… More

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      US health insurance executives testify before Congress about increasing costs of healthcare

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      CEO of UnitedHealth Group said his company will return profits earned from Affordable Care Act plans to customersExecutives from five of the country’s largest health insurance companies appeared before Congress on Thursday as lawmakers examined why healthcare has become increasingly harder for Americans to afford.In one effort to address the affordability crisis, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, Stephen Hemsley, announced that the nation’s largest insurance company will rebate profits made this year from its Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans to customers, while adding it was a relatively small participant in the ACA individual market. Continue reading… More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on microplastics research: questioning results is good for science, but has political consequences | Editorial

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      Errors in measuring microplastic pollution can be corrected. Public trust in science also needs to be shored up It is true that science is self-correcting. Over the long term this means that we can generally trust its results – but up close, correction can be a messy process. The Guardian reported last week that 20 recent studies measuring the amount of micro- and nanoplastics in the human body have been criticised in the scientific literature for methodological issues, calling their results into question. In one sense this is the usual process playing out as it should. However, the scale of the potential error – one scientist estimates that half the high-impact papers in the field are affected – suggests a systemic problem that should have been prevented.The risk is that in a febrile political atmosphere in which trust in science is being actively eroded on issues from climate change to vaccinations, even minor scientific conflicts can be used to sow further doubt. Given that there is immense public and media interest in plastic pollution, it is unfortunate that scientists working in this area did not show more caution. Continue reading… More

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      ‘It’s whiplash’: reversed cuts ‘incredibly disruptive’ for US mental health and substance abuse programs

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      Grantees outline risks to vulnerable populations over uncertainty of funds creating gaps in care A counseling program in Alabama for people with HIV, helping them get into treatment and housing. A training program in New Hampshire for first responders learning how better to respond to people in mental health crises. Mental health counseling for children in Tennessee experiencing trauma.On Wednesday, the funding for these and thousands of other programs was rescinded. The halt affected about 2,800 organizations across the nation offering mental health and substance use services, often on the front lines of the dual crises, in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Samhsa). Continue reading… More

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      Kids with brain cancer were already in a life and death struggle. Then came Trump

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      The US president vowed to ‘end childhood cancer’. But his administration is dismantling the search for a cure and sending families scrambling for treatmentFor seven years, Jenn Janosko cared for children with cancer on the ninth floor of New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital.It’s the happiest sad place she knows. Continue reading… More