S&P Sees Trump Tax Law Hurting State and Hospital Balance Sheets
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act makes substantial cuts to Medicaid, the public health insurance program for low-income and disabled people. In the long term, that reduced funding could hurt the balance sheets of state governments and hospitals alike, according to the report released Monday.
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Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US drops charges against doctor accused of destroying Covid vaccines
The US attorney general has ordered charges to be dropped against a doctor accused of destroying Covid-19 vaccines worth $28,000 (£20,742), distributing fake vaccination record cards, and giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine at their parents' request. Pam Bondi said Dr Michael Kirk Moore Jr. "gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so". He had been indicted by the Justice Department under the Biden administration in 2023. The plastic surgeon was already on trial in Utah, where he had pleaded not guilty to all charges including conspiracy to defraud the US. The acting US Attorney for the district of Utah, Felice John Viti, filed to dismiss the charges on Saturday, saying this was "in the interests of justice". Dr Moore was accused of providing fraudulently completed vaccination certificates for more than 1,900 vaccine doses, the US Attorney's office in Utah said in 2023. These were allegedly provided, without administering the vaccine, for a charge of $50 (£37), in exchange for direct cash payments or donations to a specific charity. The government also accused him of giving children saline shots at their parents' request so that the "children would think they were receiving a COVID-19 vaccine," according to the US attorney's office. He was accused alongside his company - Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, Inc. - and three others of seeking to defraud the US and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Bondi wrote on X on Saturday that she had ordered the Justice Department to drop the charges because Dr Moore "did not deserve the years in prison he was facing". She said US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Mike Lee, both Republicans, had brought the case to her attention, calling them champions for "ending the weaponization of government". Lee thanked the attorney general for "standing with the countless Americans who endured too many official lies, mandates, and lockdowns during COVID". Dr Moore and other defendants faced up to 35 years in prison on multiple charges, according to the Associated Press news agency. The current US Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ran a group for eight years, Children's Health Defense, that repeatedly questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccination. Kennedy has in the last year repeatedly said he is not "anti-vax" and will not be "taking away anybody's vaccines". RFK Jr appoints new US vaccine advisers after sacking committee
an hour ago
US aid cuts halt HIV vaccine research in South Africa, with global impact
JOHANNESBURG -- Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived. Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding. The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere. But the $46 million from the U.S. for the project was disappearing, part of the dismantling of foreign aid by the world's biggest donor earlier this year as President Donald Trump announced a focus on priorities at home. South Africa has been hit especially hard because of Trump's baseless claims about the targeting of the country's white Afrikaner minority. The country had been receiving about $400 million a year via USAID and the HIV-focused PEPFAR. Now that's gone. Glenda Grey, who heads the Brilliant program, said the African continent has been vital to the development of HIV medication, and the U.S. cuts threaten its capability to do such work in the future. Significant advances have included clinical trials for lenacapavir, the world's only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV, recently approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One study to show its efficacy involved young South Africans. 'We do the trials better, faster and cheaper than anywhere else in the world, and so without South Africa as part of these programs, the world, in my opinion, is much poorer,' Gray said. She noted that during the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa played a crucial role by testing the Johnson & Johnson and Novavax vaccines, and South African scientists' genomic surveillance led to the identification of an important variant. A team of researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand has been part of the unit developing the HIV vaccines for the trials. Inside the Wits laboratory, technician Nozipho Mlotshwa was among the young people in white gowns working on samples, but she may soon be out of a job. Her position is grant-funded. She uses her salary to support her family and fund her studies in a country where youth unemployment hovers around 46%. 'It's very sad and devastating, honestly," she said of the U.S. cuts and overall uncertainty. 'We'll also miss out collaborating with other scientists across the continent.' Professor Abdullah Ely leads the team of researchers. He said the work had promising results indicating that the vaccines were producing an immune response. But now that momentum, he said, has 'all kind of had to come to a halt.' The BRILLIANT program is scrambling to find money to save the project. The purchase of key equipment has stopped. South Africa's health department says about 100 researchers for that program and others related to HIV have been laid off. Funding for postdoctoral students involved in experiments for the projects is at risk. South Africa's government has estimated that universities and science councils could lose about $107 million in U.S. research funding over the next five years due to the aid cuts, which affect not only work on HIV but also tuberculosis — another disease with a high number of cases in the country. South Africa's government has said it will be very difficult to find funding to replace the U.S. support. And now the number of HIV infections will grow. Medication is more difficult to obtain. At least 8,000 health workers in South Africa's HIV program have already been laid off, the government has said. Also gone are the data collectors who tracked patients and their care, as well as HIV counselors who could reach vulnerable patients in rural communities. For researchers, Universities South Africa, an umbrella body, has applied to the national treasury for over $110 million for projects at some of the largest schools. During a visit to South Africa in June, UNAIDS executive director Winnie Byanyima was well aware of the stakes, and the lives at risk, as research and health care struggle in South Africa and across Africa at large. Other countries that were highly dependent on U.S. funding including Zambia, Nigeria, Burundi and Ivory Coast are already increasing their own resources, she said. 'But let's be clear, what they are putting down will not be funding in the same way that the American resources were funding," Byanyima said. ___
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Arizona resident dies of pneumonic plague, the first deadly case in area in nearly 20 years
An Arizona resident died of pneumonic plague, becoming the first person to succumb to the disease in the area in nearly 20 years, according to officials. The victim, who was not identified, lived in Coconino County, which includes Flagstaff, local officials said. The last recorded death in Coconino County was in 2007. Only about seven people are diagnosed in the U.S. each year, and most cases are concentrated in the western states. Us Measles Cases Hit Highest Level In More Than 30 Years, Cdc Data Shows In the U.S., it's most likely to be found in rural areas of northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, southern Colorado, California, southern Oregon and western Nevada, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease is most commonly found in Africa. Read On The Fox News App The Bubonic Plague Influenced Evolution Of The Human Immune System, New Study Suggests Pneumonic plague, which affects the lungs, is the deadliest form of the disease. Although the plague killed millions of Europeans during the Black Death of the 14th century, it is now easily treated with antibiotics. Pneumonic plague causes severe pneumonia and respiratory failure, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Bubonic plague is the most common form of the disease, affecting the lymph nodes. Septicemic plague is the least common form of the disease and affects the bloodstream. The plague is usually transmitted through flea bites from wild rodents or contact with an infected animal, and it can even spread person-to-person through the air. The Arizona Department of Health Services did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for article source: Arizona resident dies of pneumonic plague, the first deadly case in area in nearly 20 years
