Trump vs. Science

[ad_1] Late yesterday, Sethuraman Panchanathan, whom President Trump hired to run the National Science Foundation five years ago, quit. He didn’t say why, but it was clear enough: Last weekend, Trump cut more than 400 active research awards from the N.S.F., and he is pressing Congress to halve the agency’s $9 billion budget. The Trump … Read more

A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He’s Also Paid to Promote It.

[ad_1] For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher, has praised maple syrup, calling it a “hero ingredient” and “champion food” that could have wide-ranging health benefits. Dr. Seeram, dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of New England, has published more than three dozen studies extolling the power of maple. … Read more

This Kidney Was Frozen for 10 Days. Could Surgeons Transplant It?

[ad_1] On the last day of March, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital began an operation that they hoped might lead to a permanent change in how kidneys are transplanted in people. That morning’s patient was not a person. It was a pig, lying anesthetized on a table. The pig was missing one kidney and needed … Read more

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

[ad_1] 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 … Read more

FDA Layoffs Could Raise Drug Costs and Erode Food Safety

[ad_1] Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced wide-ranging cutbacks at federal health agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, that would eliminate duplicative services and paper pushers. But in interviews with more than a dozen current and former F.D.A. staff members, a different picture emerged of the far-reaching effects of the layoffs that would … Read more

Overlooked No More: Katharine McCormick, Force Behind the Birth Control Pill

[ad_1] This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. Katharine Dexter McCormick, who was born to a life of wealth, which she compounded through marriage, could have sat back and simply enjoyed the many advantages that flowed her way. Instead, … Read more

Shingles Vaccine Can Decrease Risk of Dementia, Study Finds

[ad_1] Getting vaccinated against shingles can reduce the risk of developing dementia, a large new study finds. The results provide some of the strongest evidence yet that some viral infections can have effects on brain function years later and that preventing them can help stave off cognitive decline. The study, published on Wednesday in the … Read more

FDA Approved Artificial Blood Vessel Despite Warnings

[ad_1] When the biotech company Humacyte designed a study to see if its lab-grown blood vessel worked, it decided to measure whether blood was flowing freely through the high-tech tube 30 days after it was implanted in a person. As those days passed, some of the 54 patients in the study ran into trouble. Doctors … Read more

‘Chaos and Confusion’ at the N.I.H., the Crown Jewel of American Science

[ad_1] A week after Donald J. Trump was inaugurated, a senior scientist at the National Institutes of Health was preparing to give an invited talk at a scientific meeting when an urgent call came in from an administrative assistant. There is a total communications ban, the scientist was told, and you cannot give the speech. … Read more

Dementia May Not Always Be the Threat It Is Now. Here’s Why.

[ad_1] Joan Presky worries about dementia. Her mother lived with Alzheimer’s disease for 14 years, the last seven in a memory-care residence, and her maternal grandfather developed dementia, too. “I’m 100 percent convinced that this is in my future,” said Ms. Presky, 70, a retired attorney in Thornton, Colo. Last year, she spent almost a … Read more