The progress comes as the Trump administration is proposing to cut funding for many programs believed to have contributed to the improvement.Overdose deaths in the United States fell by nearly 30,000 last year, the government reported on Wednesday, the strongest sign yet that the country is making progress against one of its deadliest, most intractable public health crises.The data, released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the latest in a series of reports over the past year offering hints that the drug-related death toll that has gutted families and communities could be starting to ease.Public health experts had been carefully watching the monthly updates, with skepticism at first, and then with growing hope. Wednesday’s report was the most encouraging yet. Deaths declined in all major categories of drug use, stimulants as well as opioids, dropping in every state but two. Nationwide, drug fatalities plunged nearly 27 percent.“This is a decline that we’ve been waiting more than a decade for,” said Dr. Matthew Christiansen, a physician and former director of West Virginia’s drug control policy. “We’ve invested hundreds of billions of dollars into addiction.”Addiction specialists said that changes in the illicit drug supply as well as greater access to drug treatment and the use of naloxone to reverse overdoses seemed to be playing a role, but whether the country could sustain that progress was an open question.In announcing the new numbers, the C.D.C. praised President Trump, saying in a statement that since he “declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency in 2017” the government had added more resources to battle the drug problem.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.

Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard researcher, was detained Feb. 16 at Logan Airport after failing to declare scientific samples she carried into the U.S.Government lawyers told a federal judge on Wednesday that the Trump administration intends to deport a Harvard scientist back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will be arrested there over her protest of Russia’s war in Ukraine.Kseniia Petrova, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, has been held in a Louisiana immigration detention facility since February, when she was detained at Boston’s airport for failing to declare scientific samples she was carrying in her luggage.This is the first time the government has formally stated its plan to deport her to Russia.In Wednesday’s hearing, Christina Reiss, chief judge of the United States District Court in Vermont, quizzed the government lawyers about their grounds for canceling Ms. Petrova’s visa and detaining her. Judge Reiss went on to schedule a bail hearing on May 28, potentially setting the stage for Ms. Petrova’s release.The case has drawn the attention of elite scientists around the world, and sent a chill though the community of international academics that surrounded Ms. Petrova at Harvard. Several dozen Harvard students and faculty made the drive to Burlington, Vt., for the hearing.“For every person that they detain, thousands of others are going to be scared of coming to the country,” said Leo Gerdén, a Harvard senior from Sweden.Ms. Petrova was detained at Logan Airport on Feb. 16 as she returned from vacation in France, carrying with her sections of frog embryos from an affiliate laboratory, at the request of her supervisor at Harvard.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.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is testifying before Congress for the first time as health secretary on Wednesday. He has been grilled over President Trump’s cuts to public health agencies and research funding.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a defiant defense on Wednesday of his drastic overhaul of federal health agencies as House Democrats accused him of violating the law by shuttering whole divisions and cutting funding appropriated by Congress for medical research.“We are not withholding money for lifesaving research!” Mr. Kennedy thundered at Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, who lectured him on the language of the Constitution and Congress’s power of the purse.Ms. DeLauro looked disgusted. “Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “Unbelievable.”The back-and-forth with Ms. DeLauro was just one of a series of fiery exchanges between Democratic lawmakers and Mr. Kennedy during his first appearance on Capitol Hill since becoming health secretary.The purpose of Wednesday’s hearing was for Mr. Kennedy to answer questions about President Trump’s health budget for the next fiscal year. But Democrats focused instead about the mass layoffs and cuts Mr. Kennedy is already making, which they have condemned as part of what they call Mr. Trump’s “war on science.”Mr. Trump has published only the broad outlines of his budget plan, which calls for deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In his opening remarks to the House committee, Mr. Kennedy said the cuts will save money “without impacting critical services,” according to a copy of his remarks.The budget blueprint “recognizes the fiscal challenges our country faces today, and the need to update and redirect our investments to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.”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.

Experts predicted that artificial intelligence would steal radiology jobs. But at the Mayo Clinic, the technology has been more friend than foe.Nine years ago, one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence scientists singled out an endangered occupational species.“People should stop training radiologists now,” Geoffrey Hinton said, adding that it was “just completely obvious” that within five years A.I. would outperform humans in that field.Today, radiologists — the physician specialists in medical imaging who look inside the body to diagnose and treat disease — are still in high demand. A recent study from the American College of Radiology projected a steadily growing work force through 2055.Dr. Hinton, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics last year for pioneering research in A.I., was broadly correct that the technology would have a significant impact — just not as a job killer.That’s true for radiologists at the Mayo Clinic, one of the nation’s premier medical systems, whose main campus is in Rochester, Minn. There, in recent years, they have begun using A.I. to sharpen images, automate routine tasks, identify medical abnormalities and predict disease. A.I. can also serve as “a second set of eyes.”“But would it replace radiologists? We didn’t think so,” said Dr. Matthew Callstrom, the Mayo Clinic’s chair of radiology, recalling the 2016 prediction. “We knew how hard it is and all that is involved.”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.

The drugs treat disorders such as anxiety, panic attacks and insomnia, but stopping them abruptly can compound users’ symptoms and even endanger their lives.Tasha Hedges took Xanax for 20 years to treat her anxiety and panic attacks, exactly as a psychiatrist had prescribed it. Then in 2022, that doctor unexpectedly died.A general practitioner continued her prescription but retired shortly afterward. The next doctor moved to Canada. Finally, Ms. Hedges found a new psychiatrist.“The first thing he did was start yelling at me that I had been on Xanax too long,” said Ms. Hedges, 41, who lives in Falling Waters, W.Va. “He ripped me off my meds.”Discontinuing the drug typically requires decreasing the dose slowly over months or even years, a process called tapering. Ms. Hedges stopped cold turkey. Debilitating withdrawal symptoms followed: hot flashes, cold sweats, restless legs, the shakes and teeth grinding.“It was a nightmare,” she said. Two years after discontinuing the medication, she is still dealing with the fallout. “My brain has not been the same.”In social media groups and websites such as BenzoBuddies, people like Ms. Hedges say they have become physically dependent on benzodiazepines. Many then get cut off from their medication or taper too quickly, and face dangerous and potentially life-threatening withdrawal symptoms that can linger long after the drugs are discontinued. Some doctors, fearful of the risks and stigma associated with these drugs, refuse to prescribe them at all.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.

23 minutes agoShareSaveCatherine BurnsHealth correspondentVicki LoaderHealth producerShareSaveBBCIf you ask these three doctors about being GPs, their answers are remarkably similar.”It can be the best job in the world,” one tells me. It’s “a privilege” another says. They all talk about how they love getting to know their patients and their families.But all three have different views on assisted dying.Right now, the law here is clear: medics cannot help patients to take their own lives. But that could change.The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is being debated in Parliament. And if it goes through, it will give some terminally ill patients in England and Wales the option of an assisted death.Here, three doctors – Abdul Farooq, Susi Caesar and Gurpreet Khaira, who all have a different view on assisted dying – tell us how they feel about the proposals.’A red line I would never cross’Dr Abdul Farooq is 28 and relatively new to his career as a GP.We meet at his home in east London. He gives his baby daughter a bottle of milk before heading around the corner to pray in his local mosque.His religion is absolutely key to his views on assisted dying.”I believe in the sanctity of life. As a Muslim, I believe that life is a gift from God, and that no one has the right to take that away,” he says.Dr Farooq feels taking your own life is wrong, and so, he says, it would be “sinful” for him to be involved in that process – even indirectly.If this law passed – and a patient came to him asking for help to die – he would refer them to another doctor.He says anything beyond that would be “a red line I would never cross”.Dr Farooq’s objections are also informed by his professional experience, particularly his time working in a hospital.He describes seeing “undignified deaths” – people passing away on busy wards – and says the health system is not getting the basics right in end-of-life care.”There is so much we can do to make patients comfortable, if we have the right resources available,” he tells me.”We have a whole field of medicine called palliative medicine that is there to help people towards the end of their life. So why are we not throwing all our resources and money into that and actually making the process of death less scary?”He’s also concerned about specific parts of the proposed law. Doctors would have to assess if terminally ill patients are expected to die within six months before they are approved for an assisted death.Dr Farooq sees this as problematic. The final day or so is easy to predict, he says, but adds that some patients he’s expected to die within six months can still be alive a year later.Is there anything that could change his mind on assisted dying?”No,” Dr Farooq says without hesitation. “I’m strongly against it. Personally and professionally, I think it’s the wrong thing to do for patients.”‘I’ll be at the front of the queue to help’Dr Susi Caesar has been a GP for 30 years and thinks she probably wouldn’t have previously been so vocal in her support of assisted dying.Now, she says she is ready to “stick her head above the parapet”.Recently she lost her beloved dad, Henning. We meet at a lake near Cirencester because being near water reminds her of him.”My father was the most amazing person and this is so evocative of everything he loved,” she says. “The outdoors, walks, sailing, boats, kayaking, swimming.”She thinks Henning would be proud of her for talking to us about her views because he was a long-term believer in assisted dying.When he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, Dr Caesar says he became “terribly scared about the manner of his dying”.”My father was a very proud man, and the thing that was unbearable to him was the idea that he would lose control at the end of his life – of his bodily functions, of his mind, of his ability to be the person that he was.”By the end, Dr Caesar says her father’s “medication never quite kept up with his symptoms.” For her, the argument over assisted dying comes down to patient choice.”Everybody is going to die. Every individual deserves the comfort of choice about how they die. I would want it for myself,” she tells me.She acknowledges that many of her colleagues have “very, very reasonable concerns” about assisted dying. But she says “we have the wisdom to set up systems that will work and get over some of these hurdles.”I ask if Dr Caesar’s support for assisted dying would translate into her working in this area.”I will be at the front of the queue to help people to have the death that they wanted,” she says. “I think that’s the core joy of my job – being with people to the very end of their health journey.”‘A very guilty place’Dr Gurpreet Khaira doesn’t have any of the certainty of Dr Farooq and Dr Caesar.She describes herself as “pretty conflicted about the whole subject” of assisted dying.Dr Khaira is a GP in Birmingham but also has first-hand experience as a patient.In 2017, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She found chemotherapy gruelling and says if the cancer ever came back, she wouldn’t want to go through it again.”I remember feeling very passionate that I should have the choice of whether I go through this kind of treatment, or to say ‘that’s enough now’,” she says.She says it felt very important for her to have a choice about the end of her life.Now, she’s a picture of health, striding along a hillside with ease.As a GP with decades of experience, she worries that vulnerable patients might opt for assisted dying rather than be a burden to their loved ones. Or that some families might coerce vulnerable patients into it.”That is one of my biggest areas of personal conflict. I know that there are lots of plans to put safeguards in.”You can be the best doctor or advocate in the world, but you may not pick up where someone is being controlled or manipulated.”For her, there’s a fundamental conflict between her personal and professional experiences.But, she adds: “As a doctor, I’d be very reluctant to be handing over a syringe for a patient to make that choice.”Balancing up these two sides leaves her “in a very guilty place”, she says, but adds that it’s not a weakness to be open minded. For her, making this decision is an “evolving process”.Personal experience shaping opinionsIt’s striking when talking to Dr Farooq, Dr Caesar and Dr Khaira, how much their views on assisted dying reflect their core belief systems.In that respect, GPs are possibly much like the rest of us.If this bill does pass into law, doctors will have to consider whether they are willing to work in the area of assisted dying, or not. They could be asked to be involved in the process – whether that’s holding preliminary discussions with patients who want to die, to prescribing a substance for someone to end their own life.If they don’t want to, no-one will force them.They will have time to think about it. If MPs do vote in favour of this next month, it could still take years to come into effect.

13 minutes agoShareSaveCatherine BurnsHealth correspondentHarriet AgerholmData journalistShareSaveBBCFamily doctors in England are deeply divided on the issue of assisted dying, BBC research on plans to legalise the practice suggests.The findings give a unique insight into how strongly many GPs feel about the proposed new law – and highlight how personal beliefs and experiences are shaping doctors’ views on the issue.BBC News sent more than 5,000 GPs a questionnaire asking whether they agreed with changing the law to allow assisted dying for certain terminally ill people in England and Wales.More than 1,000 GPs replied, with about 500 telling us they were against an assisted dying law and about 400 saying they were in favour.Some of the 500 GPs who told us they were against the law change called the bill “appalling”, “highly dangerous”, and “cruel”. “We are doctors, not murderers,” one said.Of the 400 who said they supported assisted dying, some described the bill as “long overdue” and “a basic human right”.”We are keeping human bodies alive in the most inhumane manner,” one said. They asked: “How do we ethically justify forcing these bodies to continue to exist in decrepitude?”We cannot know whether the GPs who responded to the BBC are representative of all family doctors.It comes as MPs will this week again debate proposed changes to the controversial bill, with a vote in parliament expected on whether to pass or block it next month.If assisted dying does become legal in England and Wales, it would be a historic change for society.Current laws prevent medics from helping any patient to carry out their wish to die. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill would allow any doctor to be involved in assisted dying, but GPs are often a large part of the practice in other countries.The BBC’s research, carried out over a few weeks in March and April, is the first in-depth look at how GPs feel about the proposed new law.Nine out of 10 GPs who said they were against legalising assisted dying worried terminally ill patients would consider it because they felt guilty about being a burden on their loved ones or the health service.”The right to die becomes a duty to die for those who feel a burden on family,” said one GP.Another common concern was patients might be coerced. Some told us they had treated elderly people with family members they suspected of being more focussed on their inheritance than their relatives.More than half of the group who opposed a law change said it would be against their religious beliefs.They spoke about life being “sacred” and called assisted dying “sinful”. Some referred to the commandment “thou shalt not kill”.Another argument from those who said they were against assisted dying was the health system should instead focus on improving end-of-life care.One GP said creating an assisted dying law was “scandalous” when hospices were largely funded by charities rather than by the state.Separately, on Tuesday the Royal College of Psychiatrists said that while the group “remains neutral” on the principle of assisted dying, it “just cannot support this bill”.In an interview with BBC’s Newsnight, the college’s president Dr Lade Smith cited a lack of requirements concerning the “unmet needs” of patients, and a shortage of psychiatrists to process requests.”We’re concerned that there isn’t a requirement to think about any unmet needs a person might have. A person with a terminal illness… they may be in pain, they have difficulty with their housing, their finances because they haven’t been able to work, they might feel lonely, isolated,” Dr Smith said.Dr Gordon Macdonald, CEO of Care Not Killing said there was a “black hole” in the hospice budget and “we need better care not killing”.Dying with dignityMore than 400 GPs told us they supported a law change, with some describing feeling “traumatised” and “haunted” by watching people die in “severe pain or distress”.Of those who said they were in favour, more than nine in 10 respondents believed it could allow patients to have a dignified death.Some shared personal experiences: telling us about watching their parents losing dignity or begging to die. One said their sick wife prayed every evening to not wake up in the morning.Those who backed assisted dying often spoke about patient choice, arguing it was patronising not to let people decide how they wanted to die.Wanting the option of an assisted death for themselves or their loved ones was another common reason for supporting the law.”Personally, I would find this a comfort and I resent those who take this choice away from me,” one told us.’Unpredictable’ timeframeIf assisted dying does become law in England and Wales, it would apply to certain terminally ill patients who were reasonably expected to die within six months.But more than a quarter of all the GPs who responded told us they would rarely, or never be confident assessing if a patient was expected to die in that time frame.”It’s unpredictable even in the severely frail,” one said.No doctor would be obliged to work in assisted dying. Of the 1,000 GP respondents, more than 500 told us they would be willing to discuss assisted dying with a patient.Nearly 300 would assess if a patient was eligible and 161 said they would prepare a substance for a patient to take to end their own life.Legal risksProfessor Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said the BBC’s research showed GPs had “real concerns about the practical and legal implications of a change in the law on assisted dying”.”These must be acknowledged and addressed, so that any legislation is watertight,” she said.Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said GPs and other medics will “rightly be considering how they will navigate” the proposed law.She said evidence from assisted dying laws in Australia and the US showed it could be carried out “safely and effectively, with far reaching benefits for end-of-life care and robust protections for both patients and doctors”.Additional reporting by Vicki Loader, Elena Bailey, Natalie Wright and Hannah Karpel

The government is abolishing NHS England without a clear plan for how it will be achieved and how it will benefit frontline care, a cross-party group of MPs has warned. Ministers announced in March that the body responsible for overseeing the health service in England would go, with its functions brought into the Department of Health and Social Care.But the Public Accounts Committee said it was concerned about the uncertainty being caused and urged the government to set out a clear plan within the next three months.The government said the move would eliminate “wasteful duplication” and that detailed planning had started.Alongside the changes at a national level, the 42 local health boards responsible for planning services are also having to shed around half of their 25,000 staff.The MPs also raised concerns about the “jaw-dropping” amount of money lawyers are making from clinical negligence claims. Of the £2.8bn paid out in 2023-24, nearly a fifth went on legal costs.It said this was unacceptable and more must be done to improve safety.Committee chair and Tory MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said the changes to NHS England and local health boards amounted to a major structural reform. He said strong decision-making and experienced staff would be vital to manage a period of “huge pressure” for the NHS.”It has been two months since the government’s decision to remove what, up until now, has been seen as a key piece of machinery, without articulating a clear plan for what comes next – and the future for patients and staff remains hazy,” he added.NHS England, which employs nearly 15,000 staff, is in charge of £193bn of public sector money this year.The reduction in staffing of abolishing NHS England is expected to save £400m, while the cut in local health board staff is expected to add another £700-750m. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Social Care said the changes would eliminate “wasteful duplication” and a joint board was already working on detailed plans.”Serious reform is needed to tackle the challenges facing the NHS,” she added. Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS trusts, said the changes “marked the biggest reshaping of the NHS in a decade”.He said that while many managers in the NHS understood the need for change, the lack of detail and how the plans fitted in with the forthcoming 10-year plan were “a cause for concern” for those running the health service.

Some doctors say they are surprised the condition was found at all in the former president, given his age.Former President Joesph Biden has what a spokesman described as a “small nodule” in his prostate. How worried a patient should be by such a finding depends on the circumstances, urologists said.In some cases, nodules are caused by inflammation, which can make the prostate feel firmer, or can lead to calcifications in the prostate that feel like nodules. These are benign.They can also result from a common condition in older men, nodular benign prostatic hypertrophy, in which nonthreatening nodules form in the prostate, enlarging it. These also pose no risk.But in the worst cases, they can be cancers.When a urologist feels a nodule in a man’s prostate, it is not always clear what to make of it, said Dr. Scott Eggener, a urologist at the University of Chicago.“There absolutely are times when it is vague and equivocal and you don’t know what it is,” he said, adding that a growth may feel like “a big bulky rock that is almost certainly cancer.”But, Dr. Eggener said, he wonders why a doctor was manually examining Mr. Biden’s prostate in the first place. Perhaps he had a new symptom, like a urinary issue, or pain, or an elevated level of prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, a blood protein whose level rises with prostate cancer.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.

Public health and addiction experts fear millions could lose access to treatment and prevention services if the administration’s proposed cuts are enacted.President Trump has long railed against drug traffickers. He has said they should be given the death penalty “for their heinous acts.” On the first day of his second term, he signed an executive order listing cartels as “terrorist organizations.”But many public health and addiction experts fear that his budget proposals and other actions effectively punish people who use drugs and struggle with addiction.The Trump administration has vowed to reduce overdose deaths, one of the country’s deadliest public health crises, by emphasizing law enforcement, border patrols and tariffs against China and Mexico to keep out fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. But it is also seeking huge cuts to programs that reduce drug demand.The budget it submitted to Congress this month seeks to eliminate more than a billion dollars for national and regional treatment and prevention services. The primary federal agency addressing drug use, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, has so far lost about half its workers to layoffs under the Trump administration and is slated to be collapsed into the new Administration for a Healthy America, whose purview will reach far beyond mental illness and drug use.And if reductions to Medicaid being discussed by Republicans in Congress are realized, millions of Americans will be unable to continue, much less start treatment.The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The budget itself says that ending drug trafficking “starts with secure borders and a commitment to law and order” and that it is cutting addiction services deemed duplicative or “too small to have a national impact.”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.