RFK Jr. to Kick Off MAHA Tour on Fighting Chronic Disease

After a second measles death in West Texas, the health secretary is expected to begin a tour through the Southwest to showcase nutrition legislation, among other priorities.A day after attending the funeral of an unvaccinated child who died of measles, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will kick off a tour through Southwestern states on Monday, spotlighting initiatives that emphasize nutrition and lifestyle choices as tools for combating disease.The Make America Healthy Again tour, which will take Mr. Kennedy through parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, is intended to draw attention to some of the secretary’s common-ground interests, but the first day is scheduled to end with a highly contentious one: a news conference to highlight Utah’s new law that bans adding fluoride to public drinking water supplies.The tour comes as questions grow about the federal government’s response to a measles outbreak in West Texas that has spread to other states. The death of an unvaccinated 8-year-old girl there last week was the second confirmed fatality from measles in a decade in the United States. Mr. Kennedy attended the girl’s funeral on Sunday and met with her family before continuing to Utah.Mr. Kennedy’s staff said that over the course of three days, he planned to visit multiple health centers, including a medical school’s “teaching kitchen” to train students on managing chronic disease using dietary choices. He is scheduled to meet with leaders of Navajo Nation to discuss the cultural and logistical challenges of providing high-quality health care to tribal groups and to visit a charter school in New Mexico that “integrates healthy eating and physical fitness into its daily student life.”During his first months in office, Mr. Kennedy’s policies have been unfurled with great brouhaha, but the secretary himself has been relatively low profile, particularly for an official with his degree of fame. The White House has encouraged Mr. Kennedy to take a more public-facing approach to his role, but the timing of his first major push out in the country will require toeing a careful line around the most conspicuous issue on the table.Public health experts say the measles outbreak that has now infected nearly 500 people in West Texas is driven by low vaccination rates. Mr. Kennedy, who is famously skeptical of vaccine safety, shifted his rhetoric after the little girl’s funeral, posting on X: “The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

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Why Cameras Are Popping Up in Eldercare Facilities

Roughly 20 states now have laws permitting families to place cameras in the rooms of loved ones. Facility operators are often opposed.The assisted-living facility in Edina, Minn., where Jean H. Peters and her siblings moved their mother in 2011, looked lovely. “But then you start uncovering things,” Ms. Peters said.Her mother, Jackie Hourigan, widowed and developing memory problems at 82, too often was still in bed when her children came to see her in mid-morning.“She wasn’t being toileted, so her pants would be soaked,” said Ms. Peters, 69, a retired nurse-practitioner in Bloomington, Minn. “They didn’t give her water. They didn’t get her up for meals.” She dwindled to 94 pounds.Most ominously, Ms. Peters said, “we noticed bruises on her arm that we couldn’t account for.” Complaints to administrators — in person, by phone and by email — brought “tons of excuses.”So Ms. Peters bought an inexpensive camera at Best Buy. She and her sisters installed it atop the refrigerator in her mother’s apartment, worrying that the facility might evict her if the staff noticed it.Monitoring from an app on their phones, the family saw Ms. Hourigan going hours without being changed. They saw and heard an aide loudly berating her and handling her roughly as she helped her dress.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

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As RFK Jr. Champions Chronic Disease Prevention, Key Research Is Cut

Two significant programs that invested in research on diabetes, dementia, obesity and kidney disease have ended since the start of the Trump administration.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken of an “existential threat” that he said can destroy the nation.“We have the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world,” Mr. Kennedy said at a hearing in January before the Senate confirmed him as the secretary of Health and Human Services.And on Monday he is starting a tour in the Southwest to promote a program to combat chronic illness, emphasizing nutrition and lifestyle.But since Mr. Kennedy assumed his post, key grants and contracts that directly address these diseases, including obesity, diabetes and dementia, which experts agree are among the nation’s leading health problems, are being eliminated.These programs range in scale and expense. Researchers warn that their demise could mean lost opportunities to address an aspect of public health that Mr. Kennedy has said is his priority.“This is a huge mistake,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.Decades of Diabetes Research DiscontinuedEver since its start in 1996, the Diabetes Prevention Program has helped doctors understand this deadly chronic disease. The condition is the nation’s most expensive, affecting 38 million Americans and incurring $306 billion in one recent year in direct costs. With about 400,000 deaths in 2021, it was the eighth leading cause of death.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

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Two Liquid Egg Brands Recalled Over Bleach Contamination Risk

Cargill Kitchen Solutions recalled more than 210,000 pounds of products under its Egg Beaters and Bob Evans labels.Thousands of pounds of liquid egg substitutes sold under two popular brand names have been recalled because of the potential risk of contamination with a cleaning solution, federal safety regulators said.Cargill Kitchen Solutions in Lake Odessa, Mich., recalled about 212,268 pounds of products under its Egg Beaters and Bob Evans labels because they may contain a cleaning solution with sodium hypochlorite, also known as bleach, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said on March 28.The products were shipped for distribution in Ohio and Texas and for food service use in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois and Iowa.“There is a possibility that the products were distributed nationwide,” the agency said.Cargill Kitchen Solutions did not immediately respond to inquiries on Sunday but in a telephone recording about the recall, the company said it was voluntary.“We have issued this recall out of an abundance of caution because some of the product may contain undeclared sodium hypochlorite,” the company said.The Food Safety and Inspection Service said it had received a tip about the products’ potential contamination with bleach, sometimes labeled sodium hypochlorite.“After conducting an investigation and thorough assessment of the contents of the cleaning solution, FSIS scientists concluded that use of this product should not cause adverse health consequences, or the risk is negligible, resulting in a Class III recall,” the agency said.The agency also noted that the health risks for consumers were relatively low and that there had been no reports of adverse reactions. “Anyone concerned about an illness should contact a health care provider,” the agency said.It did warn customers not to consume the potentially contaminated products and to throw them away or return them to the store where they purchased them.The liquid egg products were produced on March 12 and 13, 2025, and carry the label G1804 on their cartons, the agency said.The recall came as consumers are looking to egg alternatives because of rising prices and shortages at supermarkets nationwide. The recall also comes as other products may have been contaminated with the bird flu amid outbreaks in poultry and cows across the United States.Although egg prices have dropped recently, the anxiety about their cost continues, and many consumers have gotten creative at finding substitutes, such as liquid egg products.

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