Publisher Health

What’s the air quality in New Delhi, Jakarta or Buenos Aires? Until Tuesday, the United States Embassy in those cities could have told you.But the Trump administration has effectively shut down a global air quality monitoring program, ending more than a decade of public data-collection and reporting from 80 embassies and consulates worldwide.The information has supported research, helped thousands of foreign service officers working abroad to decide if it was safe to let their children play outdoors, and has directly led to air quality improvements in countries like China.The State Department said in an email that the program was being suspended “due to budget constraints.”Health officials and environmental experts said ending air quality monitoring would hurt Americans overseas, particularly those who work for the U. S. government.“Embassies are situated sometimes in very difficult air quality circumstances,” said Gina McCarthy, who led the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration.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., the health and human services secretary, claimed that local doctors had successfully treated children with a steroid, antibiotics or cod liver oil.A measles outbreak that has spread over a swath of West Texas, killing one child, shows no signs of slowing, according to data announced on Tuesday by state health officials.The Texas Department of Health reported that since late January, nearly 160 people have contracted measles — 20 more cases than reported on Friday — and 22 have been hospitalized.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Tuesday that it would send some of its “disease detectives” to Texas, one of the first steps the new administration has taken to help manage the outbreak.The news comes amid criticism of federal officials for underplaying the need for immunizations with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, one of the most important tools in quelling an outbreak.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary and a prominent vaccine skeptic, published an opinion piece on Sunday night acknowledging that vaccines protect children from measles and urged parents to talk with their doctors “to understand their options to get the M.M.R. vaccine.”“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one,” he wrote.In a prerecorded interview that aired on Fox News on Tuesday, Mr. Kennedy said that the federal government was shipping doses of vitamin A to Gaines County, in West Texas, and helping to arrange ambulance rides.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 High Street pharmacy chain Boots is asking customers to return packs of 500-milligram paracetamol tablets because a labelling error incorrectly states they are a different painkiller, aspirin.

Kyle Diamantas, a former corporate lawyer, is the new director for the F.D.A. food division, which oversees infant formula. He defended a top maker in cases claiming the company had not warned of potential risks to very low-weight babies.The new head of the Food and Drug Administration division that regulates infant formula was in recent months a corporate lawyer defending a top formula maker from claims that its product gave rise to debilitating harm to premature babies.Kyle A. Diamantas joined the F.D.A. last month to lead the food division, leaving the law firm Jones Day, which has served as a pipeline of talent to both Trump administrations.As a partner in Jones Day’s Miami office, Mr. Diamantas’s recent work included defending Abbott Laboratories in lawsuits accusing the company of failing to adequately warn parents that its specialized formula for premature infants was associated with an elevated risk of a deadly bowel condition.Abbott lost the case and was ordered to pay $495 million. Abbott is appealing the verdict. Mr. Diamantas’s role in the Abbott cases has not been previously reported.The leader of the F.D.A.’s food division has a wide-ranging role in ensuring the safety of about 80 percent of the food supply in the United States. In that job, Mr. Diamantas is also expected to take a lead role in enacting Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda, which calls for reducing additives in food and eliminating what Mr. Kennedy has described as corruption in public health agencies.“We will shut the revolving door to re-establish public trust,” Mr. Kennedy told the Health and Human Services Department’s staff during his first week in office.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.

21 minutes ago

Uganda’s L.G.B.T.Q. population was already struggling to cope with the fallout of a harsh anti-gay law when the disruption of U.S. aid put people at even greater risk.In the weeks since President Trump signed an executive order dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrea Minaj Casablanca’s phone has been inundated with desperate pleas for help.A counselor who works with nonprofits catering to members of Uganda’s embattled L.G.B.T.Q. population, she has fielded urgent requests from people seeking H.I.V. medications, therapy sessions and shelter in the wake of Mr. Trump’s executive order. Ms. Casablanca responded to these calls while grappling with her own crisis: being fired from a job that was funded by U.S.A.I.D.“Our whole world has been turned upside down,” Ms. Casablanca, a 25-year-old transgender woman, said on a recent afternoon in Kampala, the capital. “Everyone is in fear of the future.”L.G.B.T.Q. people in Uganda have in recent years endured an intensifying crackdown in this conservative East African nation. President Yoweri Museveni signed a law in 2023 that calls for life imprisonment for anyone who engages in same-sex relations in Uganda and up to a decade in prison for anyone who tries to.Now, activists say, the U.S.A.I.D. cuts have put them at even greater risk, with shelters underfunded, hundreds of individuals unemployed and many more facing discrimination and violence. Vital medical supplies remain scarce, while members of L.G.B.T.Q. groups increasingly report feeling depressed or suicidal.Andrea Minaj Casablanca, a transgender woman and peer educator, in Kampala, Uganda. Her work, which focuses on providing health education and support to L.G.B.T.Q. individuals, has been severely affected by recent U.S. funding cuts.Stuart Tibaweswa for The New York TimesWe 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 ago

More than half of all adults and a third of children, teenagers and young adults around the world are predicted to be overweight or obese by 2050.

14 hours ago

Pending Obligation ($) –
Appropriated ($)
Obligation Paused by EO
Percent (%)
HL.1 HIV/AIDS
HL.2 Tuberculosis
330,000,000
73,843,370
22.38%
394,500,000
307,064,905
77.84%
HL.3 Malaria
795,000,000
669,862,736
84.26%
HL.4 Global Health Security
700,000,000
675,948,708
96.56%
HL.5 Other Public Health Threats
130,500,000
90,522,107
69.37%
HL.6 Maternal and Child Health
915,000,000
514,965,280
56.28%
HL.7 Family Planning and
Reproductive Health
HL.9 Nutrition
ES.4 Vulnerable Children
523,950,000
55,633,306
10.62%
165,000,000
144,297,173
87.45%
31,500,000
31,500,000
100.00%
3,985,450,000
2,563,637,585
64.32%
TOTAL
Notes: These figures are likely underestimates of the amounts planned but with obligation paused from moving to
implementing partners, as they do not account for funds bilaterally obligated into a USAID Mission Development
Objective Agreement, which are no longer able to be subobligated to partners. FY24 funds are the most recent year
of health resources available to USAID, as no FY25 GHP-USAID resources have yet been appropriated, and the
Agency has not sought access to any of these resources under the current Continuing Resolution. All GHP-USAID
resources from appropriation years prior to FY24 were 100% obligated in advance of their expiration.
Of the total GHP-USAID resources appropriated directly to USAID from all fiscal years, at least
$5.143B is currently obligated to implementing partners but not yet expended/disbursed – this
total (100%) has been suspended as a result of the foreign assistance pause and related
terminations from further use towards the specific health objectives mandated by Congress and
described above.
Estimated Amounts of Previously Obligated GHP-USAID Funding (All FYs) Paused from
Expenditure/Disbursement, by Congressionally Directed Program Area
Obligated to Implementing Partners and Currently
Paused from Expenditure/Disbursement ($)
HL.1 HIV/AIDS
HL.2 Tuberculosis
HL.3 Malaria
HL.4 Global Health Security
HL.5 Other Public Health Threats
HL.6 Maternal and Child Health
1,517,719,650
432,931,737
536,862,171
645,082,469
91,529,255
669,510,301
19