Publisher Health

3 hours agoGemma DunstanBBC News

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to hold off on a plan that would cut $4 billion in federal funding for research at the nation’s universities, cancer centers and hospitals.The funds disbursed by the National Institutes of Health cover the administrative and overhead costs for a vast swath of biomedical research, some of which is directed at tackling diseases like cardiovascular, cancer and diabetes.The order was issued by Judge Angel Kelley for the U.S. District Court in Boston late Monday night in response to a lawsuit filed by university associations and major research centers that had argued that the “flagrantly unlawful action” by U.S. health officials “will devastate medical research at America’s universities.”The temporary restraining order by Judge Kelley, a Biden appointee, expanded on a similar order that was granted earlier Monday after nearly two dozen attorneys general sued to stop the cuts in their states.The Trump administration’s plan to cap agreed-upon payments that universities and health systems receive to support research rocked the academic medical world when it was abruptly announced Friday.Academic researchers and university officials predicted that the plan would shut down valuable studies, cost thousands of jobs and kneecap the United States in competitive efforts to achieve medical breakthroughs.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.

5 hours agoSharon BarbourHealth Correspondent, North East and Cumbria

Adam Eley & Anna CollinsonBBC News Investigations

Doctors are advising women to take care using menstrual cups, after one user developed temporary kidney problems because the cup was misaligned.

Assisted dying cases would no longer have to be signed off by the High Court under changes suggested by the bill’s supporters.

Nearly two dozen states sued the Trump administration and the National Institutes of Health on Monday to block a $4 billion cut to research funding that scientists say would cost thousands of jobs and eviscerate studies into treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and a host of other ailments.The funding cuts were to take effect Monday. The attorneys general of Massachusetts and 21 other states filed the suit, arguing the Trump administration’s plan to slash overhead costs — known as “indirect costs” — violates a 79-year-old law that governs how administrative agencies establish and administer regulations.“Without relief from N.I.H.’s action, these institutions’ cutting-edge work to cure and treat human disease will grind to a halt,” the lawsuit said.On Capitol Hill, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the chairwoman of the chamber’s Appropriations Committee, strongly objected to what she called “these arbitrary cuts.” Ms. Collins, a Republican, said that when she called President Trump’s nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to complain, he promised to “re-examine this initiative” if confirmed.The filing is the latest in a string of lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump’s policies. Also on Monday, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to “immediately restore” trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans, including from the N.I.H., that had been frozen under a sweeping directive the president issued, and later rescinded, late last month.Scientists, medical researchers and public health officials have felt under siege since Mr. Trump became president. In addition to freezing grant dollars and slashing overhead costs, the administration has blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from publishing scientific information on the threat of bird flu to humans.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.

28 minutes agoAsha PatelBBC News, Nottingham

At cardiology conferences and diabetes meetings, doctors can’t help noticing that thin seems to be very in.When Dr. C. Michael Gibson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School, goes to heart disease meetings, he can’t help noticing a change.“We will sit around at dinner and halfway through the meal, we will simultaneously push our plates away,” Dr. Gibson said. “We look at each other and laugh and say, ‘You, too?’”They share what is becoming an open secret: They tried for years to control their weight but are now taking the new obesity drugs manufactured by Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.Dr. Robert Califf, the former chief of the Food and Drug Administration, says he hardly recognizes his colleagues. So many are now so thin.“Looking good,” he says he tells his fellow cardiologists at conferences and meetings.There are no studies documenting the percentage of doctors taking the drugs. But physicians “are a good litmus test for drugs that are highly effective,” Dr. Califf said. If doctors who read the papers describing clinical-trial results are rushing to get a new drug, that is an indication that it’s really promising.His colleagues’ use of Wegovy and Zepbound reminds him of the use of statins, drugs that lower cholesterol, in their early days. Cardiologists, who were most familiar with the consequences of high cholesterol levels, were among the first to take the drugs in large numbers.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.

9 hours agoMark Daly and Jax SinclairBBC Scotland Disclosure