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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday formally rescinded federal recommendations for all flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that the anti-vaccine movement has falsely linked to autism. The decision cements a move last month by vaccine advisers whom Mr. Kennedy named to the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices after abruptly firing all 17 previous members. (Mandavilli, 7/23)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership at Health and Human Services has led to changes in vaccine recommendations and access, sparking concerns among medical experts. (Sun, Weber and Roubein, 7/24)

A meeting Wednesday at the Food and Drug Administration about fluoride supplements became, at one point, a contentious back-and-forth over whether the ingestible tablets harm children’s microbiomes or play a vital role in helping protect them from tooth decay. Pediatric dentists consider the chewable tablets, available only by prescription, as particularly important for families who live in areas without fluoride in drinking water, who don’t have dental insurance or who can’t afford regular visits to dentists. (Edwards, 7/24)

Three US agencies on Wednesday announced plans to formally open debate over how to define the term “ultra-processed” food, which is sure to prompt fierce lobbying from companies eager to exempt their products from the distinction. The Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture are jointly asking for public feedback regarding the establishment of a uniform definition for ultra-processed food. (Cohrs Zhang and Peterson, 7/24)

Standing next to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Wednesday declared next month as “Keep Idaho Healthy Month.” Kennedy, also known as RFK Jr., called Idaho the “home of medical freedom.” He is visiting Idaho to talk with state officials about work to promote his movement called Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, and to celebrate Idaho’s progress on it, officials for the Idaho governor’s office said.  (Pfannenstiel, 7/23)

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be correct that high-fructose corn syrup is a driver of obesity and other chronic disease, but physicians and food experts say alternatives like sugar cane and beet sugar also lead to weight gain and bad outcomes. "These one ingredient changes don't make these foods healthy," said Marion Nestle, professor emeritus of nutrition and public health at New York University. "They're not going to make any difference unless they change the dietary intake of what people are eating." (Goldman, 7/23)

After four decades drinking Coca-Cola sweetened with corn syrup, Americans are going to get the chance to buy the soda made from domestic cane sugar. But whether US farmers can meet that demand is unclear. Coca-Cola Co. said Tuesday it will launch the new Coke variety this fall, a week after President Donald Trump said the company had agreed to start using the sweetener. (Peng, 7/23)

Everyone agrees that diet is important to good health. And yet fewer than a third of medical students receive the recommended minimum of 25 hours of nutrition education, and more than half report receiving no formal education on the topic at all. That’s why health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be pushing on an open door with his plans to require medical schools to include nutrition education in their curricula or else lose federal funding. (Todd, 7/24)

The federal program to combat H.I.V. in developing nations earned a reprieve last week when Congress voted to restore $400 million in funding. But that may be short-lived: Officials at the State Department have been mapping out a plan to shut it down in the coming years. Planning documents for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, obtained by The New York Times, call for the organization to set a new course that focuses on “transitioning” countries away from U.S. assistance, some in as little as two years. (Nolen, 7/23)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed President Trump to fire the three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a five-member group that monitors the safety of items like toys, cribs and electronics. The court’s brief order was unsigned, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications, though the court’s three liberal justices dissented. (Liptak and Montague, 7/23)

A federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship violated the Constitution, affirming a district court judge’s nationwide injunction and bringing the issue one step closer to a full constitutional review by the Supreme Court. In a 48-page opinion, two of the three judges on the panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that Mr. Trump’s executive order “contradicts the plain language of the 14th Amendment’s grant of citizenship to ‘all persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’” (Schwartz, 7/23)

Around 20 physicians and medical residents stood outside the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office here Wednesday to protest the Trump administration’s enforcement tactics that they say will severely impact health care in Massachusetts. They wore blue scrubs and long, white lab coats with “Protect patients, colleagues, communities. Abolish ICE” written on the back with a marker. In between short speeches, the workers led chants shouting “Hands off” as more than 300 residents from around the Boston area shouted “Heath care!” back to them. (Mathew, 7/23)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has directed personnel to sharply increase the number of immigrants they shackle with GPS-enabled ankle monitors, as the Trump administration widens surveillance of people it is targeting for deportation, according to an internal ICE document reviewed by The Washington Post. In a June 9 memo, ICE ordered staff to place ankle monitors on all people enrolled in the agency’s Alternatives to Detention program “whenever possible.” About 183,000 adult migrants are enrolled in ATD and had previously consented to some form of tracking or mandatory check-ins while they waited for their immigration cases to be resolved. Currently, just 24,000 of these individuals wear ankle monitors. (MacMillan and Foster-Frau, 7/24)

Revealed: Guardian analysis provides a detailed picture of surging arrests and a detention system that’s stretched beyond capacity. (Singh, Craft and Witherspoon, 7/23)

Senate Republicans say they are working on a bipartisan health package to lower drug and health insurance costs, a development that’s news to some Democrats who remain skeptical that their GOP colleagues will work with them. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., is leading the talks, with a particular focus on more transparency from pharmacy benefit managers, so-called upcoding practices in Medicare Advantage and other health items. (Hellmann, 7/23)

A bill aimed at giving veterans easier access to private doctors using Department of Veterans Affairs funding has advanced out of a key House panel after stark partisan debate. Cost issues scuttled a couple of controversial provisions from the GOP-led bill advanced Wednesday compared to the version of the bill that was introduced earlier this year. But the legislation still stoked strong opposition from Democrats accusing Republicans of trying to privatize the VA as Republicans insisted they are trying to give veterans more options in their care. (Kheel, 7/23)

House Republicans on Wednesday advanced spending legislation that would provide billions more dollars than what President Trump requested for foreign aid, global health, peacekeeping activities and international broadcasting in the coming year, defying Mr. Trump’s wishes for more drastic funding cuts. The measure, if enacted, would still slash the foreign aid and the State Department budget compared with the current year, cutting it by 22 percent, to $46.2 billion. (Kim, 7/23)

Sen. Rand Paul, MD (R-Ky.), took aim at former President Joe Biden's pardon of Anthony Fauci, MD, in a new interview. During his final hours in office, Biden pardoned Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to guard against potential "revenge" by the incoming Trump administration. However, Paul questioned the pardon this week in an interview with conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (Henderson, 7/23)

Rep. Mark Green's last day in office was Sunday, leaving 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. With Green's departure, there are now 431 House members and four vacancies, including those from late Democratic Reps. Sylvester Turner of Texas, Raul Grijalva of Arizona, and Gerry Connolly of Virginia. (Heavey, Elkind, and Pergram, 7/21)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Watch: What Are Medicaid Work Requirements?

President Donald Trump signed legislation that mandates some Medicaid recipients prove they’re working, volunteering, or completing other qualifying activities at least 80 hours a month to maintain coverage. This applies to 40 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that have expanded Medicaid to a broader pool of low-income adults. Those states will share $200 million to prepare eligibility systems by the end of next year. (Rayasam, 7/24)

Medicare may soon test a plan to equalize reimbursements for outpatient services regardless of where the care is provided. This foray into so-called site-neutral payment would begin next year and focus on physician-administered medications such as chemotherapy drugs. Hospitals would get paid less than they are now for providing those services. (Early, 7/23)

Kaiser Permanente will pause gender-affirming surgeries for patients under age 19, the provider said Wednesday. The decision by the nonprofit health giant, slated to go into effect Aug. 29, comes on the heels of other major health care providers in California, including Stanford Medicine and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, that have similarly scaled back or halted gender-affirming care for adolescents. It applies to Kaiser locations nationwide. (Ho, 7/23)

Connecticut Children’s Medical Center confirmed Wednesday it is shutting down the program that provides gender-affirming health care to transgender and gender-diverse patients. (Golvala and Altimari, 7/23)

It’s been a hard year for transgender Americans and their supporters. President Donald Trump has issued numerous executive orders targeting transgender people and their health care. The administration has threatened hospitals, shuttered the federal suicide and crisis hotline for LGBTQ+ youth and, earlier this month, the Department of Justice subpoenaed confidential patient information from doctors who treat transgender young people. (Levi and Gorenstein, 7/23)

Tania Navarrete welcomes a group of city employees to her new apartment on the South Side. She guides them through the living room and bedroom and then into her kitchen. Art lines the walls and the fridge is fully stocked with food. The employees, on a “special assignment” for the day, are with the city’s Homeless Outreach and Prevention team. They helped Navarrete find and move into the new apartment about a month ago. (Johnson, 7/23)

On a recent morning in Atlanta’s Woodruff Park, Richard DeShields posed a question to a 57-year-old homeless man: If someone offered you shelter right now, would you take it? The answer came quickly, and it was a no. (Williams, 7/23)

Baltimore councilmembers and residents voiced concerns during a hearing Wednesday on the quality and safety of local initiatives intended to help people with mental illnesses thrive in the city. (Fine, 7/23)

Dr. Salvador Plasencia pleaded guilty to charges Wednesday stemming from Matthew Perry's accidental overdose in 2023 in a series of cases targeting those who supplied the "Friends" actor with copious amounts of ketamine. Plasencia agreed last month to plead guilty to four counts of distributing ketamine and had a formal hearing on the matter in federal court. A judge decided he will remain out on bond until his Dec. 3 sentencing hearing. According to an agreement with prosecutors, Plasencia faces up to 40 years in prison and three years of supervised release. He also faces a fine of at least $2 million, the agreement says. (Madani, 7/23)

Eight children at a church near Harvard University where a French youth choir was holding a concert suffered seizure-like symptoms and were taken to hospitals, possibly the result of fumes from cleaning supplies, officials said. The symptoms were not life-threatening, the Cambridge Fire Department said in a news release. About 70 other people in attendance at the concert Tuesday evening at St. Paul’s Parish in Harvard Square were not affected. (7/23)

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Wednesday its proposed decision to reregister dicamba, a herbicide widely used on soybean and cotton farms that has been banned twice by federal courts. The EPA originally approved dicamba’s use on genetically engineered soybeans and cotton in 2016. Environmental groups sued the EPA over dicamba in 2020 because of its potential drift away from the intended target, especially during warmer temperatures, and harm neighboring crops, nearby ecosystems and rural communities. (Ajasa, 7/23)

The Trump administration plans to argue that federal law does not require agencies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, in a move designed to derail virtually all U.S. limits on climate pollution, according to three people familiar with the upcoming proposal. The Environmental Protection Agency will as early as this week unveil its plan to undo the so-called endangerment finding, which in 2009 laid out a comprehensive case for how human emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare. (Colman, 7/23)

One of the world’s most vulnerable countries to the fallout from climate change has won a landmark legal battle, giving countries new ammunition to pursue some of the planet’s biggest emitters. In its advisory opinion, delivered on Wednesday, the International Court of Justice said countries have a responsibility to do what they can to limit global warming to the critical threshold of 1.5C, saying that failure to do so may violate international law. The ICJ sided with the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu in a case brought two years ago via the United Nations General Assembly. (Ainger and Schwartzkopff, 7/23)

Surveys show that the increasing number of extreme climate events, including floods, wildfires and hurricanes, has not raised awareness of the threats posed by climate change. Instead, people change their idea of what they see as normal. This so-called “boiling frog effect” makes gradual change difficult to spot. (Hambling, 7/24)

The White House on Wednesday denied Democratic Gov. Wes Moore’s request for $15.8 million in disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to pay for repairs after heavy floods swept through Western Maryland in May. (Shepherd, 7/23)

Earlier this month, sitting next to President Donald Trump at an event in the flood-ravaged Texas Hill Country, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was quick to praise the administration’s rapid response to the deadly disaster that killed more than 130 people in his state. The robust response to the flooding in Texas contrasts sharply with delays faced by other states that have sustained deadly floods and other disasters this year, FEMA staff and state disaster officials say. At least 10 states and two Native American tribes had been waiting months for the president and FEMA to approve their requests for disaster response and recovery assistance. (Sacks, 7/23)

As contaminated Guadalupe River water receded following the deadly flooding in Kerrville, Texas, this month, residents returned to find their homes, vehicles and businesses destroyed. Shelled-shocked and in urgent need to rebuild, many turned to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the embattled organization created to assist people in the aftermath of natural disasters. The responses they received ranged from “fantastic” to unhelpful to frustrating, residents told NBC News. (Bunn, 7/22)

Researchers at the University of Florida are moving closer to developing what they have described as a "universal" cancer vaccine, according to a study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering on July 18. The vaccine would work by "waking the immune system up against something that looks dangerous, and then that response spills over to recognize and reject the tumor," Dr. Elias Sayour, co-author of the study, director of the Pediatric Cancer Immunotherapy Initiative, and principal investigator at the RNA Engineering Laboratory at the University of Florida, told Newsweek. (Laws, 7/24)

Doctors may soon have a new tool in the fight against one of the most aggressive and lethal forms of cancer—in the form of an 'early warning' signature of precancerous cells. This is the promise of a new study by researchers at the University of California San Diego, who have found a link between inflammation, cellular stress and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common type of pancreatic cancer. (Millington, 7/22)

The amazingly "grippy" toes of geckos have inspired a new approach to cancer therapy that could lead to fewer side effects and better outcomes for patients. This is the conclusion of a study by researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder, who have developed a material that can stick fast to tumors inside the body and release chemotherapy drugs—even in difficult-to-treat cases. (Millington, 7/23)

Millions of Americans have turned to weight-loss injections originally developed to treat diabetes—and now, research suggests that these medications may offer a surprising additional benefit: shrinking obesity-related breast tumors. A new study in mice shows that tirzepatide—the active ingredient in the popular drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound—not only helps shed pounds but may also slow or reduce the growth of breast cancer tumors linked to obesity. (Notarantonio, 7/23)

UCSF and Stanford are launching a $200 million cancer hub that will be the largest collaborative project of its kind on the West Coast, with the goal to dramatically improve cancer care, especially for the most stubborn diseases, over the next decade. The Weill Family Foundation is funding the center with a $100 million matching donation, for which Stanford and UCSF together have raised about $25 million in institutional funds; each university will raise $50 million over the next decade. (Allday, 7/23)

Study after study, higher daily step counts were shown to track with better health outcomes, even well below the oft-touted target of 10,000 steps. Based on a meta-analysis of studies published since 2014, increasing daily step counts above 2,000 was associated with a risk reduction, according to Ding (Melody) Ding, PhD, MPH, of the University of Sydney, and colleagues. (Lou, 7/23)

A new study suggests diets including eggs, especially the yolk, may help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Published in The Journal of Nutrition, the study followed more than 1,000 U.S. adults and found that those who consumed more than one egg weekly had a 47 percent reduced risk of Alzheimer’s. Over an average follow-up of 6.7 years, 280 participants, or 27.3 percent, were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia. Researchers found that 39 percent of the “total effect of egg intake” was linked to choline, a nutrient found in egg yolks known to support memory and brain function. (Delandro, 7/23)

Instagram parent company Meta has introduced new safety features aimed at protecting teens who use its platforms, including information about accounts that message them and an option to block and report accounts with one tap. The company also announced Wednesday that it has removed thousands of accounts that were leaving sexualized comments or requesting sexual images from adult-run accounts of kids under 13. Of these, 135,000 were commenting and another 500,000 were linked to accounts that “interacted inappropriately,” Meta said in a blog post. (Ortutay, 7/23)

A patient in a South Carolina children's hospital has died of a brain-eating amoeba, according to the facility. In a news briefing Tuesday, Prisma Health Children's Hospital-Midlands confirmed the patient died of primary amebic meningoencephalitis, also known as PAM, a rare but often fatal brain infection caused by the Naegleria fowleri organism. ... According to the South Carolina Department of Public Health, the patient's exposure likely occurred at Lake Murray, though officials said they cannot be completely certain. (Moniuszko, 7/23)

Two children in Tennessee are now recovering at home after being hospitalized for La Crosse virus, a rare mosquito-borne virus that can, in severe cases, lead to inflammation of the brain. The Knox County Health Department said the two children were hospitalized earlier this month. They mark the first cases of the virus this year in the county, according to health officials. (Hollingsworth and Nethers, 7/23)

As of July 15, Covid cases were growing or likely growing in 27 states including Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia and Ohio, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rates of positive Covid tests have also been increasing in recent weeks, the CDC says, specifically in the southern region of the country. N.B.1.8.1 is the current dominant variant in the United States, accounting for 43% of all new Covid cases, according to the CDC. It’s an offshoot of the XVD.1.5.1 strain, a descendant of the omicron variant. (Srinivasan and Lovelace Jr., 7/23)

Amid ongoing record post-elimination measles activity in the United States, four states have reported more measles cases, including Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Meanwhile, in its weekly update, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added 10 more cases to the national total, which has now reached 1,319 cases. (Schnirring, 7/23)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Tribal Health Officials Work To Fill Vaccination Gaps As Measles Outbreak Spreads

Cassandra Palmier had been meaning to get her son the second and final dose of the measles vaccine. But car problems made it difficult to get to the doctor. So she pounced on the opportunity to get him vaccinated after learning that a mobile clinic would be visiting her neighborhood. “I was definitely concerned about the epidemic and the measles,” Palmier, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said at the June event. “I wanted to do my part.” (Zionts, 7/24)

The H5N1 bird flu virus has historically extracted a heavy toll when it infects humans, with nearly half of confirmed cases ending in death over the past three decades. But of the 70 cases reported in the United States over the past 18 months, only a single death occurred, leaving experts puzzled at how to explain the phenomenon. (Branswell, 7/23)

Each year, 263 million people get malaria. But from the parasite's perspective, infecting humans is harder than you might think, and requires completing an epic journey within the tiny body of a mosquito. First, the mosquito must suck the blood of an individual infected with malaria — bringing the Plasmodium parasite into the insect's gut. Then the parasite must travel to the critter's salivary glands, where it's poised to be injected into the mosquito's next victim via a bite. (Lambert, 7/23)

The University of Minnesota is launching a new institute focused on identifying and responding to infectious diseases. The new effort comes at a critical time, said University of Minnesota Institute on Infectious Diseases director Michael Gale. (Wurzer, Stockton and Alvarez, 7/23)

Hospitals would be required to disclose how they make key decisions regarding extremely premature infants in a bill set to be introduced Thursday by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.). The legislation is in part prompted by a Wall Street Journal investigation last year that found mothers had been told no lifesaving measures were possible for their extremely premature infants, even though other hospitals nearby offered care for infants born at similar gestational ages. (Essley Whyte, 7/23)

A baby born at a University of Iowa Health Care hospital in Iowa City has been named the Guinness World Records titleholder for most premature baby. Nash Keen is now 1 year old and doing better than anyone expected after facing what experts had previously called impossible odds. (Kelley, 7/23)

Earlier this week in The Lancet Regional Health - Western Pacific, Australian researchers identified a link between common sexually transmitted infections (STIs) during pregnancy and a higher risk of significant birth complications such as preterm birth, stillbirth, and babies born small for gestational age. (Soucheray, 7/23)

The fertility rate in the U.S. dropped to an all-time low in 2024 with less than 1.6 kids per woman, new federal data released Thursday shows. The U.S. was once among only a few developed countries with a rate that ensured each generation had enough children to replace itself — about 2.1 kids per woman. But it has been sliding in America for close to two decades as more women are waiting longer to have children or never taking that step at all. The new statistic is on par with fertility rates in western European countries, according to World Bank data. (Stobbe, 7/24)

A 40-year-old Nevada law requiring minors having an abortion to first notify their parents or guardians is now in effect for the first time, after a federal district court judge lifted an administrative block Tuesday afternoon. The one-page order from District Court Judge Anne Traum came after a federal appellate judge earlier this week opted not to temporarily pause implementation of the never-enforced 1985 law while the federal appeal proceeds. In anticipation of the law going into effect, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte filed a new lawsuit in state court Monday seeking to halt its implementation. (Mueller and Vong, 7/23)

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has filed a lawsuit against the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, accusing the organization of misleading women about the safety of medication abortions. (Munz, 7/23)

David Jolly is the only major Democrat running for Florida governor next year. But he’s still facing attacks and scrutiny about his Republican past over a key issue threatening party unity: abortion rights. The former GOP representative and MSNBC political contributor has faced backlash in recent weeks from Anna Hochkammer, executive director of the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition political committee. The criticisms have incensed his supporters, who’ve rushed to defend him publicly. (Leonard and Sarkissian, 7/23)

In the past two years, North Carolina’s stricter abortion law has changed the way Jamila Wade treats a small portion of pregnant patients she sees in the emergency room. They’re clearly losing their pregnancies, but the pregnant patient’s vital signs are still stable. (Worf, 7/24)

Planned Parenthood of Illinois has named a new leader — a change that comes as the organization faces a barrage of threats, including a yearlong loss of federal Medicaid dollars. (Schencker and Lourgos, 7/23)

Complex regions of the human genome remained uncharted, even after researchers sequenced the genome in its entirety. That is, until today. Researchers decoded DNA segments involved in the development of diseases like diabetes and spinal muscular atrophy that had previously been considered too complicated to sequence. Their work, published in Nature on Wednesday, could expand the future of precision medicine. (Paulus, 7/23)

A study led by researchers at the University of Michigan suggests urgent care visits are commonly associated with unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics, opioids, and glucocorticoids. (Dall, 7/23)

Around 10 million people globally live with the life-threatening virus HTLV-1. Yet it remains a poorly understood disease that currently has no preventative treatments and no cure. But a landmark study co-led by Australian researchers could change this, after finding existing HIV drugs can suppress transmission of the HTLV-1 virus in mice. (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, 7/24)

Daily application of full-body emollients within the first 9 weeks of life reduced the risk of developing atopic dermatitis by 2 years of age, a randomized trial showed. Effects were most pronounced in lower-risk patients and those with a household dog. (Kneisel, 7/23)

Home health tests bought by people seeking answers about their conditions could give inaccurate and misleading results and require much greater regulation to ensure they are safe, reliable, and effective, researchers have warned. Two new studies, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), say many of the kits lack crucial information, such as who should use them, how to interpret the results, and what steps to take next. (Karpel, 7/23)

With major federal Medicaid cuts signed into law, states will now face painful decisions about how to preserve health care access and affordability. The Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act is projected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years and cause nearly 16 million people to lose insurance coverage. But states can mitigate the Trump administration’s efforts to cut Medicaid and even set their health care systems on a better long-term trajectory — if they are willing to act boldly. (Hayden Rooke-Ley, 7/24)

Over the past two decades, scientists have developed a revolutionary new class of medicines with the power to halt or even reverse disease. These medicines — genetically targeted therapies, or GTTs — use RNA or DNA to address the root cause of disease rather than treating only symptoms. But a technical oversight in legislation passed by Congress in 2022 is now making it much harder for biotech companies to pursue these medicines. (Yvonne Greenstreet, 7/24)

Last week, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief narrowly escaped a devastating $400 million budget cut thanks to Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), who voted alongside their Democratic colleagues to protect the program. That was a relief: Since its creation under President George W. Bush in 2003, the anti-HIV/AIDS program has saved an estimated 26 million lives and enabled 7.8 million babies to be born HIV-free. (7/23)

We’re exposed to these plastics in countless ways, whether it’s the worn car tires that release them into the air or the plastic-lined cans that get them into our food. I know this is hard, but probably the most important thing you can do to reduce your exposure to microplastics is to eat food that you prepare inside your house, made from scratch. I mostly use glass food-storage containers. Have I thrown all my plastic out? No, I have not. But I never use them in the microwave. (Tracey Woodruff, 7/23)

July marks Fibroid Awareness Month. Fibroids likely affect you or someone you know because 80% of all women have this condition — marked by non-cancerous growths of the uterus. I am one of those women. I was diagnosed with fibroids in 2015 after ending up in the hospital with dangerously low hemoglobin, causing my heart to become enlarged to the brink of cardiac arrest. (Nkem Osian, 7/23)