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Step aside, MAHA. The country’s largest heart-health organization has just released its long-awaited guidelines for the consumption of ultraprocessed foods, or UPFs. The new scientific advisory statement from the American Heart Association comes just days before the arrival of the second “Make America Healthy Again” or MAHA Commission report, spearheaded by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (LaMotte, 8/7)

In a petition filed Wednesday, the former FDA commissioner, Dr. David Kessler, argued that the agency has the authority to declare that certain sweeteners, refined flours and other additives are not “generally recognized as safe.” Removing that designation, known as GRAS, would force makers of ultraprocessed foods to remove products from the market and reformulate recipes — or try to prove that those ingredients are not harmful. (Owermohle and LaMotte, 8/7)

When Jessica Knurick was pregnant with her second child in 2022, her social media feeds were awash in warnings about all the things that could put her baby at risk. “I was in such a vulnerable life stage, and I had really bad postpartum anxiety too,” Knurick told STAT one recent afternoon, speaking from her home in Denver. “And I found myself getting caught up in some of that stuff and being like, ‘Oh my gosh, like, is this terrible for my baby?’” (Todd, 8/8)

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision this week to discontinue funding of the development of messenger RNA vaccines has alarmed scientists, who have warned that it will leave the country far less prepared for future pandemics. But it is also a matter of national security. (Branswell, 8/7)

The chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee denounced a decision by the federal government to phase out mRNA vaccine development, warning that could hurt pandemic preparedness. Others say it the harm will go beyond that, to potentially damage domestic biosecurity. (Cohen, 8/7)

Even before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took office in February as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, some public health experts worried he might use his influence to carry out an anti-vaccine agenda he’d spent decades promoting. In the worst-case scenario, they said, he might dismiss experts on whom the government relies to make sound decisions about immunizations and enact policies restricting access. He might cancel important research that would be needed in a future pandemic. In less than six months, Mr. Kennedy has done all that and more. (Mandavilli, 8/7)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: �鶹Ů�� Health News' 'What The Health?': Kennedy Cancels Vaccine Funding 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s announcement that the federal government will cancel nearly $500 million in mRNA research funding is unnerving not only for those who develop vaccines, but also for public health experts who see the technology behind the first covid-19 shots as the nation’s best hope to combat a future pandemic. And President Donald Trump is demanding that major pharmaceutical companies offer many American patients the same prices available to patients overseas. It isn’t the first time he’s made such threats, and drugmakers — who scored a couple of wins against Medicare negotiations in the president’s tax and spending law — are unlikely to volunteer to drop their prices. (8/7)

As a record number of people in the U.S. are sickened with measles, researchers are resurrecting the search for something long-deemed redundant: treatments for the viral disease. After the measles vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, cases of the disease plummeted. By 2000, federal officials had declared measles eliminated from the U.S. This success led to little interest in the development of treatments. But now, as vaccination rates fall and infections rise, scientists are racing to develop drugs they say could prevent or treat the disease in vulnerable and unvaccinated people.  (Mosbergen, 8/8)

GSK said it would receive $370 million as part of a U.S. patent settlement between CureVac and BioNTech related to messenger mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines. The U.K. pharmaceutical giant said Friday that, under the terms of an existing license agreement with CureVac, it would receive an upfront payment of $320 million in cash, with the rest of the money through an amendment to the deal with CureVac. It will also receive a 1% royalty on future U.S. sales of influenza, Covid-19 and other related combination mRNA vaccine products made by BioNTech and Pfizer. (Goriainoff, 8/8)