Latest news with #DepartmentofHealthandHumanServices'
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Disability Rights Iowa braces for potential budget cuts
DES MOINES, Iowa — Local organizations that support people with disabilities are bracing themselves for potential budget cuts in 2026. One group, Disability Rights Iowa, is taking extra steps ahead of time by asking the community to provide feedback on their services. Last month, a federal budget leak said the Department of Health and Human Services' 2026 discretionary budget would be cut by about 1/3. That's a $40 million cut, which would affect many programs for those with disabilities, including here in Iowa. Some organizations would lose several grants and funding, like Disability Rights Iowa, which provides legal protection and advocacy. And now, they are sending out an 'areas of focus' survey to the community to get a gage on the most important services they provide. This is information that would be helpful to have if these budget cuts go through. 'It's particularly important that we receive word back from our community because both of these potential cuts to our programs, which would change our ability to provide services and support,' DRI Executive Director Catherine Johnson said. 'If that happens, we want to make sure we're providing the most vital support and services for Iowans with disabilities.' 120 years of scripts, scoops, and soda at the pharmacy in Colfax Those who have worked with DRI are vouching for the organization, like Brianna Schaffer who has a 10-year-old son, Parker, who has autism and needed some advocacy at school. 'DRI offered him just that normalcy to see that the one less thing that he had to worry about, or we have to worry about and ensuring that he was accommodated just as anybody else,' she said. 'He got the same education and the same services that any other child should receive. I mean, they keep things fair in a way and just make people accountable for what's right.' Schaffer reached out to the attorneys at DRI and they helped her immediately. 'They did far more in an email and a meeting than we were able to get done in years of working with the district. Really, it was thanks to the DRI.' In the last fiscal year, DRI had over 2,000 Iowans contact them for help and gave them free assistance. 'The cuts would be devastating to our community. The potential budget cuts that we're aware of would be approximately 40% of our budget,' Johnson said. 'We have a very active team of passionate people that are really dedicated to Iowa's disability community and dedicated to creating change in Iowa for, on behalf of Iowans with disabilities. So, we're still doing the work. We're moving forward. But it is scary because we don't know what's going to happen.' Johnson added since these budget cuts aren't official yet, they've been contacting their congress people to try to stop it from happening. If you'd like more info or to find the survey, go to Iowa News: Greenfield marks 1 year anniversary of deadly EF 4 tornado Disability Rights Iowa braces for potential budget cuts Man, officers shot in exchange of gunfire in eastern Iowa WHO 13 Farm Report: Wednesday, May 21st Colfax-Mingo girls' soccer team enters postseason play in inaugural season Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Moderna, Inc. (MRNA) Surged Today
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA)stands against other stocks that stole the show today. Ten mid-cap companies from diverse sectors stood out on Monday, outperforming the lackluster performance of major indices, thanks to a flurry of corporate developments that sparked investor appetite. While the firms boasted between 5 and 14 percent gains, the Dow Jones rose by only 0.32 percent, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq each inched up by 0.09 percent and 0.02 percent, respectively. In this article, we list the names of the top-performing stocks and detail the reasons behind their gains. To come up with the list, we considered only the stocks with a $2 billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume. A scientist surrounded by vials and beakers in a modern laboratory, proudly displaying a vaccine. Moderna Inc. grew its share prices by 6.15 percent on Monday to finish at $26.39 apiece as investor sentiment was buoyed by the Department of Health and Human Services' pledge not to upend the US vaccine system. Additionally, investors are in a wait-and-see mode for a planned 'massive framework' for the US vaccine industry. Details have yet to be publicized, but the plan is being overseen by the Food and Drug Administration. Investors were hopeful that any initiative could benefit both end-consumers and vaccine makers such as Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA), which found success with its own COVID-19 shots. In the first quarter of the year, Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) widened its net loss by 17.4 percent to $971 million from $1.17 billion in the same period last year. Revenues declined by 35 percent to $108 million from $167 million in the same period last year due to lower vaccination rates, coupled with the continued normalization of COVID into a seasonal commercial market. Looking ahead, Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) is targeting to book revenues between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion. Overall, MRNA ranks 8th on our list of stocks that stole the show today. While we acknowledge the potential of MRNA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that has gone up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks have lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MRNA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Moderna, Inc. (MRNA) Surged Today
We recently published a list of . In this article, we are going to take a look at where Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA)stands against other stocks that stole the show today. Ten mid-cap companies from diverse sectors stood out on Monday, outperforming the lackluster performance of major indices, thanks to a flurry of corporate developments that sparked investor appetite. While the firms boasted between 5 and 14 percent gains, the Dow Jones rose by only 0.32 percent, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq each inched up by 0.09 percent and 0.02 percent, respectively. In this article, we list the names of the top-performing stocks and detail the reasons behind their gains. To come up with the list, we considered only the stocks with a $2 billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume. A scientist surrounded by vials and beakers in a modern laboratory, proudly displaying a vaccine. Moderna Inc. grew its share prices by 6.15 percent on Monday to finish at $26.39 apiece as investor sentiment was buoyed by the Department of Health and Human Services' pledge not to upend the US vaccine system. Additionally, investors are in a wait-and-see mode for a planned 'massive framework' for the US vaccine industry. Details have yet to be publicized, but the plan is being overseen by the Food and Drug Administration. Investors were hopeful that any initiative could benefit both end-consumers and vaccine makers such as Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA), which found success with its own COVID-19 shots. In the first quarter of the year, Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) widened its net loss by 17.4 percent to $971 million from $1.17 billion in the same period last year. Revenues declined by 35 percent to $108 million from $167 million in the same period last year due to lower vaccination rates, coupled with the continued normalization of COVID into a seasonal commercial market. Looking ahead, Moderna, Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) is targeting to book revenues between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion. Overall, MRNA ranks 8th on our list of stocks that stole the show today. While we acknowledge the potential of MRNA as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that has gone up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks have lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than MRNA but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this . READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Gulf Insider
17-05-2025
- Health
- Gulf Insider
RFK Jr. Defends His Comments On Vaccines: "I'm Going To Tell The Truth"
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his recent statements about vaccines during a congressional hearing on May 14. 'I'm going to tell the truth about everything we know and we don't know about vaccines,' Kennedy told Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) while testifying before the Senate Health Committee. 'I am not going to just tell people that everything is safe and effective if I know there are issues. I need to respect people's intelligence.' Several lawmakers expressed concern about Kennedy's recent comments, which include saying that the protection conferred by the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine wanes over time. 'The result is to undermine faith in the vaccine,' Murphy said. 'It's kind of like saying, 'Listen, I think you should swim in that lake, but you know, the lake is probably toxic, and there's probably a ton of snakes and alligators in that lake, but I think you should swim in it.' Nobody is going to swim that lake if that's what you say. I want you to acknowledge that when you say you support the measles vaccine, and then you go out and repeatedly undermine the vaccine, with information that is contested by public health experts, that is not supporting the vaccine.' Kennedy responded, 'If I advise you to swim in a lake that I knew there to be alligators in, wouldn't you want me to tell you there were alligators in it? 'The reason people have lost faith in this program is that they've been lied to by public officials for year after year after year.' Several outbreaks of measles have appeared in the United States in 2025, including an outbreak in Texas that has spread to hundreds of people. Texas officials say most patients are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the administration of two doses of the MMR vaccine is 97 percent effective against measles. Studies, including a paper from French researchers, have found that the protection wanes slowly over time. 'We're always going to have measles, as the vaccine wanes very quickly,' Kennedy said recently at a town hall. He has also said that the MMR vaccine has side effects and that many vaccines on the childhood vaccination schedule have not been tested in randomized, controlled trials against placebos. '[That] means we don't understand the risk profile for those products and that's something that I intend to remedy,' Kennedy told lawmakers on May 14, referring to the Department of Health and Human Services' announcement that all new vaccines must be tested against placebos before being licensed. Kennedy testified before the Senate panel and the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee. It was the first time he appeared before Congress since being confirmed in February. Click here to read more…
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. says government to launch new studies on link between toxins, autism amid pushback
WASHINGTON- Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doubling down on his view that toxins in the environment contribute to autism with a series of new studies to investigate the issue as scientists continue to push back on his claims. Speaking on April 16 at his first press conference since joining President Donald Trump's Cabinet, Kennedy also pushed back against criticism for describing an uptick in the neuro-developmental disorder among American children as as "epidemic." "We're gonna announce a series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it," he said. "This has not been done before." More: Autism rates increased, again. But RFK Jr. diverges from CDC report about the reason. Kennedy added that the results of the "thorough and comprehensive" study will be available to the "American people very, very quickly." "This is coming from an environmental toxin and somebody made it and put that environmental toxin into our air or water or medicines or food," Kennedy said during the press conference at the Department of Health and Human Services' headquarters in Washington, D.C. "And it's to their benefit to say, oh, to normalize it, to say, 'oh, this is all normal'." Researchers have been looking into the causes of autism for decades; the Centers of Diseases Control and Prevention says that some people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a genetic condition, but other causes are not yet known. The CDC also says many studies have looked at whether there is a connection between vaccines and autism and "to date, the studies continue to show that vaccines are not associated with autism." In an April 15 report, the CDC found that in 2022, one in 31 children were diagnosed with autism by age 8 in the U.S., an uptick from one in 36 children in 2020. The prevalence of autism among boys was one in 20 and the 2022 rate is five times higher than it was in 2000. While Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic who has linked vaccines to autism, has characterized the increase in autism rates as an 'epidemic running rampant,' the CDC researchers in the report have attributed it to 'increased identification' among very young children and previously under-identified groups. Kennedy recently set a September deadline for the U.S. National Institutes of Health to determine the cause behind the rise in autism rates. His announcement has been met with mixed reactions within the autism community, with some welcoming Kennedy's rhetoric and commitment to focusing on the disorder. The prevalence of the condition among 8-year-olds was higher among Asian/Pacific Islander, Black and Hispanic children than among white children, CDC data showed. More: RFK Jr. says the government will know what caused the 'autism epidemic' by September Autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed based on challenges with social skills, communication and repetitive behaviors. It is a spectrum, meaning symptoms vary widely, with a percentage unable to communicate at all and others highly successful in some areas of life. The data does not signal an 'epidemic' but instead reflects diagnostic progress, said Christopher Banks, president and CEO of the Autism Society of America. "Claiming that autism is 'preventable' is not science-based, and places unnecessary blame on people, parents and families," Banks said. 'It is not an epidemic, nor should it be compared to the COVID-19 pandemic, and using language like that perpetuates falsehoods, stigma and stereotypes." Kennedy said during the April 16 press conference there are many studies in the "scientific literature that absolutely explode this mythology that this autism epidemic is not real." "It is absolutely indefensible to continue to promote this," he said. The 2022 study was conducted across 16 sites in 14 states and Puerto Rico and surveyed children aged 8 years born in 2014. Contributing: Adrianna Rodriguez, Alyssa Goldberg This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: RFK Jr. launches studies on toxins, autism link amid science pushback
