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      in UK Politics

      Voices: ‘Lofty ambition, very little detail’: Readers react to Labour’s 10-year plan for the NHS

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      Labour’s recently unveiled 10-year plan for the NHS has sparked a lively debate among Independent readers, many of whom are cautiously weighing its promises against the past.The plan, unveiled last week by Sir Keir Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting, includes ambitious goals such as “a doctor in your pocket” through a greatly enhanced NHS smartphone app, 24/7 health advice, easier online appointments, and a shift towards preventative medicine and neighbourhood health centres.When we asked whether you thought Labour’s 10-year NHS plan could deliver real improvements, nearly half (47 per cent) of readers said no, citing a lack of funding, staff, and detail. Another 28 per cent said the ambition is right, but delivery will be the real test, while 25 per cent believed it is the bold, long-term reform the NHS requires.Many said the plans represent a welcome move towards modernising a service often criticised for being stuck in analogue times.Yet, despite the optimism around the digital and structural reforms, several readers remained sceptical about whether the plan could deliver the improvements the NHS so desperately needs, with concerns focusing on funding, staffing shortages, and the lack of detailed delivery mechanisms.With the NHS under constant pressure from an ageing population and rising demand, the question of how these reforms will be implemented was front and centre.Here is what readers had to say about the plan’s prospects and challenges:‘All just empty words and no delivery’I can say that I am going to travel to the Moon and back – but if I don’t say how I intend to do it, how I intend to pay for it, and how anyone will know that I have done it, it is all just empty words and no delivery. The NHS has a huge recruitment/retention problem, and it is going to need tens of thousands of extra staff. In addition, Streeting has run away from Social Care, which is the one thing that will solve the NHS crisis. So like every other plan, it will not be resourced properly – but there will be lots of highly paid executives involved, working out of fancy offices, until the next plan comes along…ListenVeryCarefully‘Prevention is not a quick fix’Prevention work is already undertaken by Public Health departments in local authorities, in collaboration with the NHS. This is absolutely nothing new. Councils spend millions on Public Health preventive work. The problem is that prevention can take years to show an effect or to realise savings for the NHS. Many people don’t seem to get that. Preventive work is not a quick fix. To be honest, I am sick of successive governments and highly funded think tanks producing report after report when we already know the answers.Flossie‘They know the answers’The announcement is very short on detail, particularly on how they will help prevent ill health. Successive governments have commissioned reports on diet, exercise, and active travel for years – they know the answers. Why the reluctance to announce them and any sort of delivery plan?Holly‘Like a nurse reorganising the Houses of Parliament’Again, the government is seduced into reorganising the organisers and office teams. Non-clinical people always do this, and it makes no difference – it’s like a nurse reorganising the Houses of Parliament. Plain hopeless. Emperor’s new clothes.Having been through five of these restructures, I can say they never change or improve anything. As always, they want less clinical activity and more admin…Diane1234‘We can’t afford an NHS that fixes everything’The biggest problem with the NHS is that we want it to fix every ailment – from cuts and scrapes to organ transplants. Sooner or later, we have to face up to the fact that we can’t afford an NHS that tries to fix everything, including things we should take responsibility for, such as obesity.Issuing painkillers to just about every patient who has a procedure is also ludicrous, as paracetamol or ibuprofen costs about 39p a pack in a no-frills supermarket.Using the NHS should be limited to “must do” and “could do” – not “it would be nice if I could use it because I’m too idle to sort out my minor problem myself”.We are nearing the point where we will need to pay a small charge for all the high blood pressure pills and statins issued to the older population. They’re all on them.onmyown‘Primary prevention works – but it’s never been prioritised’Primary prevention has always been the Cinderella service within our health system, because it is not “sexy” and requires hard graft to change attitudes and promote health. But quite simply, it works.As a retired health visitor with more than 40 years in practice, I can categorically state that if you invest in taking health into the community, it will work.For too long, resources have been directed into much more expensive tertiary care. I really hope this time they mean it.HappilyRetiredWoman‘Nothing new’This is nothing new – we’ve been trying to transfer care from hospitals to communities for years (since Thatcher and “care in the community”). This appears to be a blueprint to shut down more hospitals or reduce funding. This isn’t what’s needed – just the opposite.Community services are already stretched. Doctors’ surgeries are reducing services, and waiting times are too long. Pharmacies are closing down and being sold due to a lack of funding.This 10-year plan is just the usual political BS that won’t get to grips with the real problems.ChrisMatthews‘This is the future – and it’s already happening’A very good idea. Not far from where I live, there are two modern NHS clinics where diagnostic procedures are performed without the need to travel miles to the general hospital.This is the future, and this is what has already been done in many more advanced European countries.Pomerol95‘Abolish the CQC – there’s £50m saved’I recently changed my GP because I was unhappy with the service. The contrast between the two services is stark, and I wondered how it could be that there is such inconsistency at such a basic level.My old GP had a CQC rating of “good”, but it was far from that. I dug around a bit and found that the last time the CQC had assessed the practice was in 2016 – nearly a decade ago.The problem with such rating systems, beloved of the competition-obsessed Tories, is that they’re actually worse than useless. They create an illusion of competence where it doesn’t exist.Plainly, it isn’t practical for one organisation to continuously monitor standards throughout the healthcare system, so it should be blindingly obvious that this is not an appropriate way to ensure consistency of service.Abolish the CQC – there’s £50m a year saved.RickC‘District hospitals and prevention – let’s hope it happens’Moving frontline services to community care centres would be a very positive move. Re-establishing the district hospital would be very popular.Shifting the emphasis to the prevention of illness and the improvement of public health systems is also a laudable aim. Let’s hope this can be achieved in 10 years!PaleHorse ‘Lofty ambition, very little detail’I cannot see anything concrete in this statement – plenty of lofty ambition, but very little detail.I like the idea of local health centres providing access to diagnostic services. If they are allowed to invest in new equipment, it will speed up the move to digital services.Moonraker2025 ‘Dangerous to cut cure before prevention pays off’Prevention vs cure is logically all very well – but do we know how to reliably prevent sickness that might put people in hospital? For many conditions, effective systems for prevention might take more than a decade to have much effect.So, no money is saved through needing less for cure for 10 years or more. It is very dangerous to run down curative services until we see the new investment in prevention paying dividends.I suppose Streeting will require the NHS to blame the unwell for not following prevention guidelines – as a sort of “not our responsibility: you did this to yourself”.Simplesimon‘So… it won’t happen’It would take a lot of cash; the NHS doesn’t have it because the Treasury doesn’t have it…It would require the UK economy to improve dramatically… It won’t.Or they could increase taxes, particularly for the wealthy, but they won’t do that, as it would upset their donors – and higher taxes aren’t why the donors put them in power…So… it won’t happen.ScoobytheDog‘Nothing really new here’After spending nearly fifty years working in the NHS, I think this all seems to have been said before. So nothing really new here, but the sentiment is a good one. How to deliver it will be the real test.Sparrow‘Remember Blair’s polyclinics?’If Labour don’t put in the funding and increase the staffing, this latest NHS plan will fail.Remember Blair’s polyclinics, anyone?rcourt130864‘No understanding of cause and effect’There seems to be no vision at all. No understanding of cause and effect. For example, the “food” industry, peddling its processed junk, has made people ill and obese. But rather than tackle the cause, expensive weight-loss drug injections are prescribed. Likewise, the alcohol industry. Either a lack of vision, or the government has been ‘bought off’ by wealthy pressure groups.Heisenberg97‘The NHS is a public service, not a business’It can work – the basic problem has always been that the NHS was never intended to be a business and cannot be run as one. It is a public service. Before the advent of business management techniques (plied by business consultants), it was the envy of the world as a health service, not measured by being a profitable public company-style business.I worked on this well over 20 years ago. Clinical and non-clinical should be treated separately. Fixed assets should be NHS-owned (not government-owned), giving them control over expansion, upgrades etc.Build a model based on the production side and the service side. The production side is more predictable and can be proactive. In the NHS, you could represent this by likening it to a catalogue of products: tests, scans, standard operations (hip, knee replacements etc.), and all post-operative support can be included as ‘products’.The supplier or deliverer of the individual products does not have to be the NHS, but coordination should be through an NHS functional system. The NHS could rent on-site space to a service provider who would, for example, equip an area where scans, x-rays etc. are provided to patients on referral from an NHS-approved doctor on an agreed service contract.I challenge the view that to outsource these services is ‘selling off’ the NHS.The service side of any operation, on the other hand, is always more reactive (as in any business) and needs skilled resources with the flexibility, training, and tools to provide support to the patient.They need the best resources to handle unclassified ‘breakdowns’ and set in motion a recovery plan that covers not just fixing the problem, but getting the patient back to normal (or a new normal).This is the NHS’s core function and is the public service that we all expect.ArcticFox‘Not a plan, just a wish list’First, it almost certainly isn’t a “plan” in the sense that anyone in business would recognise. I bet it is just a wish list of things they want to happen, much like the recently published “Modern Industrial Strategy”, lacking any detail as to how it’s actually going to be delivered, what the key milestones are, who is going to be responsible, what resourcing and cash is going to be dedicated towards it, and what the measures of success will be. Equally, I doubt there is any delivery structure in place, or transformation programme governance, or anything like that.Second, Labour is going to be out of office come 2028 or 2029 for the next 30 years, and whoever takes over from them will almost certainly tear this plan up. They don’t have ten years, and they must know that by now. So honestly, what’s the point in publishing a “ten-year plan”? It’s just performative at this stage.sj99Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article here.The conversation isn’t over. To join in, all you need to do is register your details, then you can take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.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

      Nurse on new CDC vaccine panel said to have been ‘anti-vax longer than RFK’

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      One of the new members of a critical federal vaccine advisory board has argued for decades that vaccines caused her son’s autism – a connection that years of large-scale studies and reviews refute.Registered nurse Vicky Pebsworth is one of eight new members to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Acip), all hand-picked by the vaccine skeptic and Donald Trump’s health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.“She’s probably been anti-vax longer than RFK has,” said Dr David Gorski, a Wayne State University School of Medicine professor, who is considered an expert on the anti-vaccine movement.Kennedy fired all 17 of the committee’s previous members in June and stacked it with ideological allies. Pebsworth and Kennedy would have probably been known to each other, because their respective non-profits supported one another’s efforts.“If I had a child who I believed had been harmed by whatever – it doesn’t have to be vaccines – I wouldn’t then trust myself to be on a federal safety commission on that issue,” said Seth Mnookin, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor in science journalism who met and profiled Pebsworth in the mid-2000s.Pebsworth was also part of a 2020 lawsuit against Covid-19 vaccine mandates that aligns with Kennedy’s agenda. In a declaration to federal court, Pebsworth argued that “increases in the number of vaccines in the CDC schedule may be causally related to increases in the rates of chronic illness”, an assertion that appears to be based on a debunked study, but has long been a talking point of anti-vaccine activists.“They’re the oldest prominent organization,” said Mnookin, whose book is called The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear. The information center represents “the start of the modern-day anti-vaccine movement in the US”, said Mnookin.Pebsworth joined Acip from the National Vaccine Information Center, where she has served as volunteer research director since 2006, according to a résumé filed in the same case. The Guardian sent a list of questions and an interview request to Pebsworth, but did not receive a response.The National Vaccine Information Center started in Virginia as Dissatisfied Parents Together in 1982, before changing its name in 1995. The group went on to receive major funding support from Dr Joseph Mercola, once described as “the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online”.Like other new members of Acip, Pebsworth comes to the role with medical credentials; she has a doctorate degree in nursing, taught college research courses and served as a consumer representative on federal panels.For decades, she has publicly argued that her son, Sam, was injured by the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in 1998 – despite evidence showing there is no connection between vaccines and autism.Pebsworth organized conferences about alternative treatments for autism as early as 2001, including one in Michigan where then-doctor Andrew Wakefield spoke and where she told a reporter she had placed her son on a restrictive diet and administered chelation therapy – a treatment for heavy metal poisoning. Neither has been found to effectively treat autism.“Back then in the early 2000s or the late 1990s, there were two main flavors of the anti-vax,” said Gorski.In Britain, Wakefield’s paper in the Lancet proposed a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. His paper would be retracted in 2010 amid evidence of fraud and conflicts of interest.“But then there was the American flavor with mercury and thimerosal, which had been used in several childhood vaccines as a preservative,” said Gorski. “Back in the day we used to call them the ‘mercury militias’, but others used to call it the ‘mercury moms’.”Thimerosal is a vaccine preservative that has been used since before the second world war. Its safety is considered settled science and yet it has been the subject of misinformation for decades.A galvanizing moment for the anti-vaccine movement came in 2015, when one of the worst measles outbreaks in years tore through Disneyland in California. The outbreak prompted lawmakers to tighten vaccine requirements for schools, drawing parents into the fray and providing a platform for anti-vaccine groups.“I used to call anti-vax the pseudoscience that spanned the political spectrum – you could find leftwing anti-vaxxers, rightwing anti-vaxxers,” said Gorski. “But now it’s really, really built into the right,” he said. “You can’t deny that any more. It’s become part of rightwing ideology.”In 2017, Pebsworth testified before a Virginia house subcommittee against a school mandate for a meningitis vaccine. In 2020, as Americans anxiously waited for a Covid-19 vaccine, she warned Americans could face unknown consequences from the vaccines. Pebsworth later testified in 2021 before the University of Hawaii’s board of regents, arguing against Covid-19 vaccines.In most public testimony, Pebsworth identifies herself not only as the volunteer research director for the National Vaccine Information Center, but also as “the mother of a child injured by his 15-month well-baby shots in 1998”.“Groups like hers and probably even more prominently the Informed Consent Action Network have seen that most vaccine policy is at the state level,” said an expert in state vaccine law who declined to go on the record for fear of retaliation from the Department of Health and Human Services.“They have a list of model legislation they encourage supporters to try to get introduced,” the expert said. At the same time, the groups have failed to accomplish their “big swings”: getting schools to drop vaccine mandates.The expert continued: “My sense is that legislators know they’re hearing from a very vocal minority. Landslide majorities still support requirements. It’s lower than it was before the pandemic, but the public still understands the needs for these laws.”By 2017, Trump was weighing whether this vocal group could become part of his coalition. Before his first inauguration in early January 2017, Trump publicly said he was considering Kennedy to head a new committee on vaccines and autism.Only days before she was appointed to ACIP, Pebsworth and the founder of the National Vaccine Information Center argued against Covid-19 vaccines, stating in part: “FDA should not be recommending 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.” More than 270 million Americans have received Covid-19 vaccines, and the federal government has closely monitored for rare events.That old trope of thimerosal played a leading role in the first meeting of Kennedy’s reconstituted Acip panel. Committee members heard a presentation against thimerosal from Lyn Redwood, the former president of the World Mercury Project, which would become Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense. A report on thimerosal’s safety by career CDC scientists was pulled from the meeting by Kennedy’s office.Ultimately, members recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines that contain thimerosal in a decision that shocked medical and scientific communities. Pebsworth abstained, arguing she wanted to vote separately on whether to recommend influenza vaccines.Pebsworth later said she wanted to vote separately on whether to recommend seasonal flu vaccines. She did not respond to questions from the Guardian about how she would have voted on flu shots, if she had the chance. More

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      in UK Politics

      Voices: Can Labour’s 10-year plan finally fix the NHS? Join The Independent Debate

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      In one of the most ambitious health reforms in decades, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has unveiled Labour’s 10-year plan to “rebuild the NHS from the ground up” – shifting treatment out of hospitals and into local health centres and people’s homes.The plan, published on Thursday, promises to transform the NHS from “treatment to prevention,” prioritising early intervention, neighbourhood care, and digital innovation. Under the proposals, new health centres – open six days a week – will offer diagnostics, rehab, nursing, and even debt and employment support, aiming to reduce pressure on hospitals and bring care closer to home.Health Secretary Wes Streeting has called it a “once-in-a-generation” reform that will “turn the NHS on its head.” But critics argue that the vision is far from new – and question whether it can be delivered without significant new funding, staffing, and systemic change.Think tanks like the King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust welcomed the plan’s ambition but warned that without clear delivery mechanisms, capital investment, and joined-up working between services, the strategy risks repeating past failures.Now we want to hear from you. Will Labour’s 10-year plan finally fix the NHS? Or is it another big promise without the backing to make it real?Share your thoughts in the comments and vote in the poll above – we’ll feature the most compelling responses in the coming days.All you have to do is sign up and register your details, then you can take part in the debate. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen. More

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in UK Politics

      Voices: ‘We haven’t learned anything’: Readers despair over UK’s Covid response in 2025

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      Big disasters often change how we see the world. The Lisbon earthquake in 1755 shook people’s faith in religion. After the 1918 flu pandemic, there was growing interest in fresh air, better hygiene, and healthier living spaces – ideas that influenced architecture and public health policy at the time.Covid, though? So far, the public inquiry has focused more on WhatsApp messages and political drama than on the bigger lessons. But many Independent readers believe there were lessons, but we haven’t necessarily learned from them.Before the pandemic, there were fears that people wouldn’t cope with restrictions – that “behavioural fatigue” would kick in and we’d all give up. That fear led to delays in lockdown and, in the end, cost tens of thousands of lives.But that view turned out to be wrong. Faced with a shared threat, most people acted with care and responsibility. Communities pulled together. Many went without seeing loved ones, missed work, lost income – all to protect others.Now, readers feel much of that collective effort has vanished. When we asked for your views, you told us that people no longer wear masks on public transport, and sick people are back in offices and schools. The things we learned – about clean air, proper sick pay, the importance of staying home when ill – are being forgotten, even though the virus hasn’t gone away.Many of you told us that the return to “normal” is anything but normal. You’re frustrated by the lack of public messaging, the scrapping of protections, and the ongoing risks, especially from long Covid.Here’s what you had to say:Covid is more like polio than fluUnfortunately, Covid is still here, still causing ill health and disability. Doing nothing is a false economy: in terms of impact, Covid is more like polio than flu – and we don’t ignore polio. We don’t need extreme measures, but good ventilation, FFP masks (especially in healthcare), HEPA filters in enclosed spaces like classrooms, wards, clinics and offices would all make a difference and aren’t difficult. Reversing the removal of NHS vaccination from most groups, and ensuring access to vaccines and antivirals – the norm in other countries that are doing better – is essential.Multiple Covid infections, even if mild, increase the chance of complications, including cardiac, and damage the immune system, making it harder to shake off other infections. Long covid is now the most common illness in US children, and the UK is on the same trajectory, for the same reason. In children, Covid can cause metabolic dysfunction and lead to diabetes. This is all avoidable.HousemartinWe know what to do – we’re just not doing itWe haven’t learned anything. We need clean air in public spaces (especially schools and health settings); proper sick pay; to stop the ridiculous pressure to send infectious children into school; better public information about the benefits of masks and ventilation; use of high-quality masks where appropriate (certainly for people with symptoms, and routinely in healthcare settings and for travel); and vaccines available to anyone who wants one. Affordable tests should also be widely available.We know what to do to reduce the spread of Covid – we’re just not doing any of it.KittensarecuteWe didn’t learn anythingNo, we didn’t learn anything from the Covid pandemic. It was all done through panic. It wasn’t handled right at all, money was wasted, and greedy firms faked the prices to make obscene profits. No medical authority had the faintest clue how to handle it. This must never happen again – separating families, causing misery and sheer panic.We have had pandemics before and will again. Lessons must be learned from that last fiasco and handled totally differently. People will catch it regardless of what they do; it cannot be avoided. Time for a total rethink from these so-called medical experts.AnnieinthecastleLong Covid is the main dangerThe main danger with Covid is getting long Covid. The science says no one is immune to suffering from it, and it’s likely a lifelong chronic condition that could end your ability to work. 3.2 million English people know that is what they are suffering from, and the number goes up every year.The only defence we really have against Covid now, since most of the vaccines have been withheld, is wearing an FFP2/3 respirator, which is hugely effective at stopping infection. These masks also stop hay fever and most other infections as well. People who have started wearing them haven’t been sick in years.PaulCovid could be eradicated – but there’s no willCovid-19 could be eradicated pretty easily in this country with ventilation, investment in proper HEPA infrastructure in all public buildings, a functioning vaccination programme, and – most importantly of all – those who can mask to wear FFP2 or FFP3 respirators when indoors anywhere.If the government could be bothered to protect our public health, it should lock down the country – properly – for a couple of weeks. With all that in place, it would disappear. There is no will or impetus among our leaders to protect us from this incredibly disabling illness.BumblebeeSooner or later, a vicious strain will emergeCovid is here to stay. There is growing consensus it probably escaped from a lab, and it will carry on rapidly mutating – picking off the vulnerable and elderly – saving governments a bit of cash, somewhat offset by the cost of Long Covid.I mask in shops but rarely see anyone else doing so. Sooner or later, a vicious strain will emerge, and we’ll be back to square one.Galileo666Learn from countries like JapanWe should take the findings of other countries ahead of us into account – e.g. Japan on the spread of the virus – and improve ventilation of buildings, trains and buses… even doctors’ waiting rooms in the winter!JenniferCovid is an inconvenient factCovid is an inconvenient fact that governments and the right-wing press prefer to suppress. Sadly, it’s still very much around, and it’s still killing the old, the very young and those with a compromised immune system. It’s also leaving a trail of devastation in the shape of long-term damage caused by long Covid.And all of this relates just to people – there’s also the impact on the economy. Drugs which would have enabled the immunocompromised to live normal lives (hundreds of thousands are still shielding) have been denied by the UK government to cut costs. Drugs like Paxlovid – literally a life-saver for any immunocompromised person unlucky enough to contract Covid – have been made near-impossible to access.The treatment of immunocompromised people by this government and previous ones is shameful. And to cap it all, there are still plenty of clowns around who somehow feel threatened by anyone taking the sensible precaution of wearing a mask, and feel the need to mock or display outright aggression.DavidMSome of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article here.The conversation isn’t over. To join in, all you need to do is register your details, then you can take part in the discussion. You can also sign up by clicking ‘log in’ on the top right-hand corner of the screen.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

      RFK Jr grilled on vaccine policies and healthcare fraud in bruising House hearing

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced a bruising day on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, including being forced to retract accusations against a Democratic congressman after claiming the lawmaker’s vaccine stance was bought by $2m in pharmaceutical contributions.In a hearing held by the House health subcommittee, Kennedy was met with hours of contentious questioning over budget cuts, massive healthcare fraud and accusations he lied to senators to secure his confirmation.Kennedy launched his attack on representative Frank Pallone after the New Jersey Democrat hammered him over vaccine policy reversals. “You’ve accepted $2m from pharmaceutical companies,” Kennedy said. “Your enthusiasm for supporting the old [vaccine advisory committee] seems to be an outcome of those contributions.”The accusation appeared to reference Pallone’s shift from raising concerns about mercury in FDA-approved products in the 1990s to later supporting mainstream vaccine policy – a change Kennedy suggested was motivated by industry money rather than science.After a point of order, the Republican chair ordered Kennedy to retract the remarks after lawmakers accused him of impugning Pallone’s character. But the pharma attack was overshadowed by accusations that Kennedy lied his way into office. Representative Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, asked Kennedy: “Did you lie to senator [Bill] Cassidy when you told him you would not fire this panel of experts?”Two weeks ago, Kennedy axed all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, despite assurances to Cassidy during confirmation hearings.“You lied to senator Cassidy. You have lied to the American people,” Schrier said. “I lay all responsibility for every death from a vaccine-preventable illness at your feet.”Kennedy denied making promises to Cassidy.The hearing exposed the deepening fractures in Kennedy’s relationship with Congress, even among Republicans who initially supported his confirmation. What began as a routine budget hearing devolved into accusations of dishonesty, conflicts of interest and fundamental questions about whether Kennedy can be trusted to protect public health.In one moment, representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pressed Kennedy about his ignorance to the Trump administration’s reported investigation of UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest health insurer, for criminal fraud in Medicare Advantage plans.“You are not aware that the Trump Department of Justice is investigating the largest insurance company in America?” Ocasio-Cortez asked again after suggesting he couldn’t confirm that it was happening.When she said that for-profit insurers such as UnitedHealthcare defraud public programs of $80bn annually, Kennedy appeared confused about the scale: “Did you say 80 million or billion?”“80 with a ‘B’,” Ocasio-Cortez said.For Democrats, Tuesday’s performance confirmed their worst fears about a vaccine-skeptical activist now controlling the nation’s health agencies. For Kennedy, it marked an escalation in his battle against what he calls a corrupt public health establishment pushing back on his radical vision.But behind the political theater lay a fundamental reshaping of America’s public health architecture. Kennedy’s cuts have eliminated entire offices and centers, leaving them unstaffed and non-functional. While he defended the reductions as targeting “duplicative procurement, human resources and administrative offices”, he hinted that some fired workers might be rehired once court injunctions on the layoffs are resolved.Kennedy recently replaced the fired vaccine advisers with eight new appointees, including known spreaders of vaccine misinformation. The move alarmed even supportive Republicans such as Cassidy, who called Monday for delaying this week’s advisory meeting, warning the new panel lacks experience and harbors “preconceived bias” against mRNA vaccines.Kennedy has long promoted debunked links between vaccines and autism, raising fears his appointees will legitimize dangerous anti-vaccine theories.He also explained why he was pulling Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for pregnant women, claiming “there was no science supporting that recommendation” despite extensive research showing the vaccines’ safety during pregnancy.“We’re not depriving anybody of choice,” Kennedy insisted. “If a pregnant woman wants the Covid-19 vaccine, she can get it. No longer recommending it because there was no science supporting that recommendation.”In another sidebar, Kennedy unveiled his vision for America’s health future: every citizen wearing a smartwatch or fitness tracker within four years. The ambitious scheme, backed by what he promised would be “one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history”, would see the government promoting wearables as a possible alternative to expensive medications.“If you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it’s a lot better for the American people,” Kennedy said. More

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      in US Politics

      Key RFK Jr advisers stand to profit from a new federal health initiative

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      Federal health officials are seeking to launch a “bold, edgy” public service campaign to warn Americans of the dangers of ultra-processed foods in social media, transit ads, billboards and even text messages.And they potentially stand to profit off the results.Ultra-processed foods are a fixation for the US health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, a vaccine skeptic who believes the US industrialized food supply is a “primary culprit” behind many chronic diseases.“We need to fix our food supply. And that’s the number one thing,” Kennedy said at his confirmation hearing.Bringing healthier foods to Americans has proved to be one of the most resonant issues of Kennedy’s “Make America healthy again” (Maha) campaign – and arguably the only one that Democrats and Republicans agree on in principle.Kennedy has spent most of his tenure as health secretary dismantling key components of US vaccine infrastructure, instituting mass firings and defunding chronic disease prevention programs, such as for tobacco use.The secretary has been less successful in reigning in food makers. Food advocates have described voluntary changes between the government and manufacturers “disappointing”. Kennedy was criticized by congressional Republicans for targeting agricultural pesticides in the “Maha” report before it was even released – showing the limits of Republicans appetite for regulation, then the report itself was riddled with errors, likely generated by AI.“The campaign’s creative content will turn heads, create viral moments on social media, and – above all else – inspire Americans to take back their health through eating real food,” said a document published by the federal government that described the campaign.The campaign is expected to cost between $10m to $20m, according to documents. Anyone seeking to apply for the award will have a quick turnaround – the deadline is 26 June.“The purpose of this requirement is to alert Americans to the role of processed foods in fueling the diabetes epidemic and other chronic diseases, inspire people to take personal responsibility for their diets, and drive measurable improvements in diabetes prevention and national health outcomes,” it continued.The new public relations campaign also highlights the Trump administration’s unconventional approach to hiring – including its reliance on special government employees.A key adviser to Kennedy, Calley Means, could directly benefit from one of the campaign’s stated aims: popularizing “technology like wearables as cool, modern tools for measuring diet impact and taking control of your own health”.Calley Means is a senior Kennedy adviser, and was hired as a special government employee to focus on food policy, according to Bloomberg. He founded a company that helps Americans get such wearable devices reimbursed tax-free through health savings accounts.Casey Means is Calley’s sister. She also runs a healthcare start-up, although hers sells wearable devices such as continuous glucose monitors. She is Kennedy’s nominee for US surgeon general, and a healthcare entrepreneur whose business sells continuous glucose monitors – one such wearable device. Calley Means’s company also works with Casey’s company.Due to Calley Means’s status as a special employee, he has not been forced to divest from his private business interests – a situation that has already resulted in an ethics complaint. Consumer advocates, such as the non-profit group Public Citizen, had warned such hiring practices could cause conflicts of interest. HHS did not respond to a request for comment about Calley Means’s private business interests, or his role in crafting the publicity campaign.Although the publicity campaign focuses on the ultra-processed foods connection to diabetes, at least one high profile nutritionist was queasy about its focus.“The ultra-processed foods – some of those include breakfast cereals that are ultra-processed because they are fortified with vitamins,” said Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. “Those are good if they’re whole grain breakfast cereals and whole grain breads,” he said.Ultra-processed foods are generally recognized as sodas, salty snacks and frozen meals engineered to be shelf-stable, convenient and inexpensive. Such foods are associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes – or insulin resistance.The mechanism by which such foods could increase risk of diabetes is unknown, a problem that extends in part from the “heterogeneous category” of foods that the ultra-processed category encompasses. The publicity campaign proposal does not venture into defining the category, even as Kennedy has fixated on it “poisoning the American people”.“When you say processed foods you don’t envision a Coke in your brain, and that’s the biggest problem,” said Willett, who added that most public service campaigns are carefully crafted and tested for effectiveness. More

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      VA hospitals remove politics and marital status from guidelines protecting patients from discrimination

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      The Department of Veterans Affairs has imposed new guidelines on VA hospitals nationwide that remove language that explicitly prohibited doctors from discriminating against patients based on their political beliefs or marital status.The new rules, obtained by the Guardian, also apply to psychologists, dentists and a host of other occupations. They have already gone into effect in at least some VA medical centers.Under federal law, eligible veterans must be given hospital care and services, and the revised VA hospital rules still instruct medical staff that they cannot discriminate against veterans on the basis of race, color, religion and sex. But language within VA hospital bylaws requiring healthcare professionals to care for veterans regardless of their politics and marital status has been explicitly eliminated from these bylaws, raising questions about whether individual workers could now be free to decline to care for patients based on personal characteristics not expressly protected by federal law.Explicit protections for VA doctors and other medical staff based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity have also been removed, documents reviewed by the Guardian show.The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.In making the changes, VA officials cite Donald Trump’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.The Department of Veterans Affairs is the nation’s largest integrated hospital system, with more than 170 hospitals and more than 1,000 clinics. It employs 26,000 doctors and serves 9 million patients annually.In an emailed response to questions, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, did not dispute that language requiring medical staff to treat patients without discriminating on the basis of politics and marital status had been removed from the bylaws , but he said “all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”.He said the rule changes were nothing more than “a formality”, but confirmed that they were made to comply with Trump’s executive order. Kasperowicz also said the revisions were necessary to “ensure VA policy comports with federal law”. He did not say which federal law or laws required these changes.The VA said federal laws and a 2013 policy directive that prohibits discrimination on the basis of marital status or political affiliation would not allow patients within the categories removed from its bylaws to be excluded from treatment or allow discrimination against medical professionals.“Under no circumstances whatsoever would VA ever deny appropriate care to any eligible veterans or appropriate employment to any qualified potential employees,” a VA representative said.Until the recent changes, VA hospitals’ bylaws said that medical staff could not discriminate against patients “on the basis of race, age, color, sex, religion, national origin, politics, marital status or disability in any employment matter”. Now, several of those items – including “national origin,” “politics” and “marital status” – have been removed from that list.Similarly, the bylaw on “decisions regarding medical staff membership” no longer forbids VA hospitals from discriminating against candidates for staff positions based on national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, membership in a labor organization or “lawful political party affiliation”.Medical experts said the implications of rule changes uncovered by the Guardian could be far-reaching.They “seem to open the door to discrimination on the basis of anything that is not legally protected”, said Dr Kenneth Kizer, the VA’s top healthcare official during the Clinton administration. He said the changes open up the possibility that doctors could refuse to treat veterans based on their “reason for seeking care – including allegations of rape and sexual assault – current or past political party affiliation or political activity, and personal behavior such as alcohol or marijuana use”.Dr Arthur Caplan, founding head of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, called the new rules “extremely disturbing and unethical”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It seems on its face an effort to exert political control over the VA medical staff,” he said. “What we typically tell people in healthcare is: ‘You keep your politics at home and take care of your patients.’” Caplan said the rules opened the door to doctors questioning patients about whether they attended a Trump rally or declining to provide healthcare to a veteran because they wore a button critical of JD Vance or voiced support for gay rights.“Those views aren’t relevant to caring for patients. So why would we put anyone at risk of losing care that way?” Caplan said.During the 2024 presidential campaign and throughout the early months of his second term, Trump repeatedly made threats against a host of people whom he saw as his political antagonists, including senators, judges and then president Joe Biden. He called journalists and Democrats “the enemy within”.In interviews, veterans said the impact of the new policy would probably fall hardest on female veterans, LGBTQ+ veterans and those who live in rural areas where there are fewer doctors overall. “I’m lucky. I have my choice of three clinics,” said Tia Christopher, a navy veteran who reported being raped in service in 2000.Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Christopher advocates on behalf of military sexual trauma survivors throughout the country. Under the new policy, some may have to register at a hospital in another region and travel more than a hundred miles to see a doctor. It “could have a huge ripple effect”, she said.As concerned as they were about the new policies themselves, medical experts were equally worried about the way they came about. Sources at multiple VA hospitals, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation, told the Guardian that the rule changes were imposed without consultation with the system’s doctors – a characterization the VA’s Kasperowicz did not dispute.Such a move would run counter to standards established by the Joint Commission, a non-profit organization that accredits hospitals. Kasperowicz said the agency worked with the Joint Commission “to ensure these changes would have no impact on VA’s accreditation”.At its annual convention in Chicago this week, the American Medical Association’s 733-member policymaking body passed a resolution reaffirming “its commitment to medical staff self-governance … and urges all healthcare institutions, including the US Department of Veterans Affairs, to ensure that any amendments to medical staff bylaws are subject to approval by medical staff in accordance with Joint Commission standards”.The changes are part of a larger attack on the independence of medicine and science by the Trump administration, Caplan said, which has included restrictions and cuts at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, last week fired every member of a key panel that advises the government on vaccines. The Guardian has earlier reported on a VA edict forbidding agency researchers from publishing in scientific journals without clearance from the agency’s political appointees. More

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      Who are the eight new vaccine advisers appointed by Robert F Kennedy?

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, named eight new vaccine advisers this week to a critical Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) panel after firing all 17 experts who had held the roles.New members of the panel include experts who complained about being sidelined, a high-profile figure who has spread misinformation and medical professionals who appear to have little vaccine expertise. Kennedy made the announcement on social media.“All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense,” Kennedy said in his announcement. “They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.”Formally called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the panel advises the CDC on how vaccines should be distributed. Those recommendations in effect determine the vaccines Americans can access. This week, Kennedy also removed the career officials typically tasked with vetting ACIP members and overseeing the advisory group, according to CBS News.Kennedy is a widely known vaccine skeptic who profited from suing vaccine manufacturers, has taken increasingly dramatic steps to upend US vaccine policy.“ACIP is widely regarded as the international gold standard for vaccine decision-making,” said Helen Chu, one of the fired advisers, at a press conference with Patty Murray, a Democratic US senator.“We cannot replace it with a process driven by one person’s beliefs. In the absence of an independent, unbiased ACIP, we can no longer trust that safe and effective vaccines will be available to us and the people around us.”Robert W MaloneArguably the most high-profile new member, Robert W Malone catapulted to stardom during the Covid-19 pandemic, appearing across rightwing media to criticize the Biden administration while describing himself as the inventor of mRNA technology.Messenger RNA technology powers the most widely used Covid-19 vaccines. While Malone was involved in very early experiments on the technology, researchers have said his role was limited.Malone’s star rose quickly after appearing on the Joe Rogan podcast in 2022, where he and Rogan were criticized for spreading misinformation. On the show, Malone promoted the idea that both ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine could be possible treatments for Covid-19, but said research on the drugs was being suppressed. Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine have not been shown to improve outcomes from Covid-19.“Malone has a well-documented history of promoting conspiracy theories,” said Dr Jeffrey D Klausner, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the University of Southern California, who recently told the New York Times he was in touch with Kennedy about his appointments.Martin KulldorffKulldorff is a former Harvard professor of biostatistics and an infectious disease epidemiologist originally from Sweden. He said in an essay for the rightwing publication City Journal that he was fired because he refused to be vaccinated in line with the school policy.Like Malone, he rose to prominence during the pandemic as a “Covid contrarian” who criticized the scientific consensus – views he said alienated him from his peers in the scientific community. He voiced his opposition to Covid-19 vaccine mandates and, in his essay, complained of being ignored by media and shadow-banned from Twitter.Kulldorff co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for limited closures instead of pandemic lockdowns before vaccines were available. The document became a touchstone for the American political right.Before the pandemic, Kulldorff studied vaccine safety and infectious disease, including co-authoring papers with members of CDC staff, such as on the Vaccine Safety Datalink. He was a member of the CDC’s Covid Vaccine Safety Working Group in 2020, but said later he was fired because he disagreed with the agency’s decision to pause Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine and with Covid-19 vaccine mandates. He served on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) drug safety and risk management advisory committee around the same time.He has since enjoyed support from people already within the administration, including the Great Barrington Declaration co-author Dr Jay Bhattacharya, current head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Dr Vinay Prasad, head of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which handles vaccines.Cody MeissnerMeissner is a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He previously held advisory roles at the FDA and CDC, including ACIP from 2008-2012.In 2021, Meissner co-wrote an editorial with Dr Marty Makary, now the head of the FDA, which criticized mask mandates for children. In April, he was listed as an external adviser to ACIP on the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) committee.Notably, Meissner is listed in a new conflicts of interest tool launched by the health department in March. Kennedy had criticized the fired ACIP members as “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest”.“He’s a card-carrying infectious disease person who knows the burden of these diseases, and he knows the risk and the benefit,” Dr Kathryn Edwards told CBS News. Edwards previously served as chair of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel.Vicky PebsworthPebsworth is a nurse and the former consumer representative on the FDA’s vaccine advisory committee. She is also the Pacific regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses, according to Kennedy’s announcement.In 2020, Pebsworth spoke at the public comment portion of an FDA advisory panel meeting on Covid-19 vaccines. There, she identified herself as the volunteer research director for the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), “and the mother of a child injured by his 15-month well-baby shots in 1998”.The NVIC is widely viewed as an anti-vaccine advocacy organization “whose founder Barbara Lou Fisher must be considered a key figure of the anti-vaccine movement”, according to an article from 2023 on how to counter anti-vaccine misinformation.Retsef LeviLevi is a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management who Kennedy described as an “expert in healthcare analytics, risk management and vaccine safety”.In 2021, he opposed Covid-19 booster shot approval during the public comment portion of an FDA advisory committee hearing. In 2022, he wrote an article calling for EMS calls to be incorporated into vaccine safety data, arguing that cardiovascular side-effects could be undercounted – an article that later required correction. The potential effects of Covid-19 vaccines on heart health have been a focal point of right-leaning criticism.Last month, Levi was criticized for publishing a pre-print paper – a paper without peer review – that he co-authored with Dr Joseph Ladapo, the Florida surgeon general, a vaccine skeptic. The paper alleged that people who took the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine were more likely to die than those who received the Moderna vaccine.Michael A RossKennedy described Ross as “a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, with a career spanning clinical medicine, research, and public health policy”.However, as first reported by CBS News, Ross’s name does not appear in faculty directories for either school. A spokesperson for George Washington University told the outlet that Ross did work as a clinical professor, but “has not held a faculty appointment … since 2017”.A spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University described Ross as “an affiliate faculty member” at a regional hospital system in the Capitol region.He is also listed as a partner at Havencrest Capital Management, as a board member of “multiple private healthcare companies”.Joseph R HibbelnHibbeln is a California-based psychiatrist who previously served as acting chief for the section of nutritional neurosciences at the NIH. He describes himself as an expert on omega-3, a fatty acid found in seafood.He also serves on the advisory council of a non-profit that advocates for Americans to eat more seafood. He practices at Barton Health, a hospital system in Lake Tahoe, California. His work influenced US public health guidelines on fish consumption during pregnancy.Dr James PaganoPagano is an emergency medicine physician from Los Angeles “with over 40 years of clinical experience”, and a “strong advocate for evidence-based medicine”, according to Kennedy. More