Three deaths linked to listeria detected in NHS desserts
Three deaths are being investigated as part of a listeria outbreak linked to desserts supplied to NHS hospitals and care homes.
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Chris Mason: Flurry of worry over benefit changes
Arguments about benefits always revolve around a single concept: fairness.
Read more →RFK Jr.’s Prescription for Bird Flu on Farms: Let It Spread
The health secretary has suggested allowing the virus to spread, so as to identify birds that may be immune. Such an experiment would be disastrous, scientists say.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, has an unorthodox idea for tackling the bird flu bedeviling U.S. poultry farms. Let the virus rip.Instead of culling birds when the infection is discovered, farmers “should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it,” Mr. Kennedy said recently on Fox News.He has repeated the idea in other interviews on the channel.Mr. Kennedy does not have jurisdiction over farms. But Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, also has voiced support for the notion.“There are some farmers that are out there that are willing to really try this on a pilot as we build the safe perimeter around them to see if there is a way forward with immunity,” Ms. Rollins told Fox News last month.Yet veterinary scientists said letting the virus sweep through poultry flocks unchecked would be inhumane and dangerous, and have enormous economic consequences.“That’s a really terrible idea, for any one of a number of reasons,” said Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas.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.
Read more →Trump Cuts Imperil Cancer, Diabetes and Pediatric Research at Columbia
Dozens of medical and scientific studies are ending or at risk of ending, leaving researchers scrambling to find alternative funding.Cancer researchers examining the use of artificial intelligence to detect early signs of breast cancer. Pediatricians tracking the long-term health of children born to mothers infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy. Scientists searching for links between diabetes and dementia.All these projects at Columbia University were paid for with federal research grants that were abruptly terminated following the Trump administration’s decision to cut $400 million in funding to Columbia over concerns regarding the treatment of Jewish students.Dozens of medical and scientific studies are ending, or at risk of ending, leaving researchers scrambling to find alternative funding. In some cases, researchers have already started informing study subjects that research is suspended.“Honestly, I wanted to cry,” said Kathleen Graham, a 56-year-old nurse in the Bronx, upon learning that the diabetes study she had participated in for a quarter of a century was ending.At Columbia’s medical school, doctors said they were in shock as they received notice that their funding was terminated. Some expressed resignation, while others sought a stopgap solution and asked whether the university could fund some of the staff on the projects in the short term, according to interviews with five doctors or professors who had been affected.“The most immediate need is to bridge in the short term and figure out what the longer-term plans are,” said Dr. Dawn Hershman, the interim chief the division of hematology and oncology at Columbia’s medical school. “That’s what is being worked out.”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.
Read more →Some PIP recipients may lose out under welfare cuts
Some current recipients of health and disability benefits are likely to lose out under a planned overhaul of the welfare system, which is expected to tighten eligibility criteria for the Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
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