Anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has unilaterally passed a rule that will allow specialty pharmacies to sell six specific peptide drugs, overruling scientists at the Food and Drug Administration.

The peptides are popular among members of Kennedy's Make America Health Again movement and many prominent MAHA figures and Kennedy allies sell them. Kennedy said he uses some of the peptides and called himself a "big fan." But FDA scientists continue to say there is insufficient evidence to show if they're effective and they are potentially dangerous. In 2023, the safety concerns led the FDA to remove the six peptides from a list of drugs that can be made by specialty pharmacies called compounding pharmacies—which make customized formulations of drugs for patients, or, in cases such as this, specialty drugs in bulk.

Kennedy's new rule sidesteps the need to formally undo that FDA action. The rule is titled "Enforcement Discretion Policy Regarding 503A Compounding Using Certain Peptide Bulk Drug Substances" and was made available Wednesday on the Federal Register, with the final publication data set for October 30. The rule does not change the regulatory status of the peptide; instead, it states the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will no longer take enforcement action against compounding pharmacies for making the peptides, essentially giving them a green light to freely produce and sell them. Kennedy had quietly proposed this rule earlier this month.

Read full article

Comments

Since measles was declared eliminated in the US in 2000, the country's occasional cases have come mainly from international travelers—visitors from far-flung places where the virus still spreads freely—or unvaccinated US residents who return from abroad with a highly infectious souvenir. But as vaccination rates have slipped nationwide in recent years and outbreaks grow bigger and more frequent, domestic travel now poses a greater risk than international incursions.

In a study published this week in NEJM Evidence, Washington state health officials highlight that risk, detailing how an explosive outbreak in South Carolina reached their distant state through five distinct importation events over two weeks in January. In all, the introductions led to 26 cases among residents before officials stamped out the spread.

South Carolina's measles outbreak began on October 2, 2025, and was declared over on April 26, 2026. Officials confirmed 997 cases in the state during the outbreak. At the time, it was the largest measles outbreak recorded since the virus was declared eliminated, but Pennsylvania's ongoing outbreak has since surpassed it.

Read full article

Comments

After two months of discomfort, a man in South Korea went to an eye clinic where doctors pulled 11 living, wriggling worms from his eyes. They apparently made the most of their time on the man's peepers; at the time of extraction, many of the female worms were pregnant. The man narrowly avoided having them spew their loads of living larvae directly into his eyes.

The man in this case was a 71-year-old crop farmer. He told doctors that for the previous two months he had the sensation of having something stuck in both his eyes, which were also red and blurry. When ophthalmologists took a look, they quickly saw the problem: multiple mobile, whitish roundworms. His eyes were not in good shape either, as one might expect. The blood vessels in the membrane over the eye, the conjunctiva, were enlarged, making his eyes look red. And the cells of his cornea—the transparent, dome-shaped outer layer of the eye—had eroded, potentially after the helminths' hanky-panky.

According to a case report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the doctors gave the man a topical treatment to numb his eyes and then began plucking out the worms one by one with fine forceps. They collected 11 adult worms, which ranged in size from 11 to 22 mm.

Read full article

Comments

At a recent meeting of the board that oversees the National Institutes of Health's Clinical Center Research Hospital, chair Jack Leslie opened with cheerful introductions and gregarious chatter—then diverted from the agenda of the regularly scheduled meeting. He spent the next six minutes delivering a pointed rebuke of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, warning that his anti-vaccine activities could tarnish the venerable hospital, often called the "house of hope" for patients with rare conditions or those who have exhausted all other options.

Leslie took issue with a recent stunt Kennedy had pulled at the hospital, which involved making a surprise appearance for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open his signature vaccine injury clinic. The ceremony included a panel with people claiming to have been injured by vaccines. They sat behind placards reading "vaccine injured" and spoke with Kennedy and other high-ranking Trump administration officials.

Leslie prefaced his comments by noting that some might prefer he not speak out against Kennedy's efforts. "But I think that that would be a failing as an advisory board if we were silent," he said. Leslie also noted that he has no concerns about studying potential injuries from vaccines. "Serious reactions are rare, but real," he said, and people who believe they've been injured should "be taken seriously."

Read full article

Comments

Personalized mRNA vaccines against melanoma—the deadliest form of skin cancer—reduced the risk of death or recurrence by 42 percent compared to standard treatment in a late-stage trial, pharmaceutical partners Merck and Moderna announced Thursday.

The results are a significant advance in melanoma treatment; Merck and Moderna are already engaging with regulatory authorities to get the vaccine approved. More broadly, the vaccine's success bolsters hope that mRNA vaccines and individualized cancer-targeting medicines offer a new paradigm for cancer therapies.

"From the beginning, we believed mRNA technology could make it possible to develop cancer treatments uniquely matched to each patient’s tumor," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. The trial results "mark a defining moment for that vision and show what’s possible when we rethink how medicines are made." They also "reinforce our conviction that mRNA has the potential to fundamentally change how we treat cancer," he said.

Read full article

Comments

Calley Means—a top ally to anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a co-author of the so-called "MAHA bible"—resigned from his role in the Trump administration Thursday, reportedly in frustration over delays to food policy changes sought by the Make America Healthy Again movement.

"I am resigning from the White House with tremendous respect for President Trump and Bobby Kennedy," Means wrote in a social media post this afternoon. "It was an honor to advocate for MAHA moms in the administration and steer policies like Dietary Guidelines reform, psychedelic reform, removing soda from SNAP, removing food dyes, GRAS reform, and overhauling government food procurement."

His post did not provide a reason for his departure. Means served as a senior advisor to Kennedy.

Read full article

Comments

Government officials in Guinea-Bissau have formally rejected a clinical trial that would be run by Danish researchers and funded by the US to look for alleged nonspecific harms from the newborn dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. The vaccine dose is currently recommended globally for all newborns and has been used safely and effectively for decades.

In an email to Ars Technica, one of the trial's lead researchers, Christine Stabell Benn of Bandim Health Project and the University of Southern Denmark, said that Guinea-Bissau's Council of Ministers "formally reaffirmed its non-acceptance of the study on 16 October."

The revelation that the study was formally rejected last week comes after news on Monday that judicial police in Guinea-Bissau raided Bandim Health's offices and seized vaccines. Stabell Benn highlighted that the police search came after the trial was rejected.

Read full article

Comments

Police in Guinea-Bissau raided the offices of Danish researchers on Monday, seizing doses of hepatitis B vaccine intended for a vaccine trial for newborns. International health experts have called the trial "unethical," but anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has attempted to fund it with US taxpayer dollars.

Under Kennedy, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in December that it had awarded the Danish researchers—led by married couple Peter Aaby and Christine Stabell Benn of Bandim Health Project—an unsolicited $1.6 million grant to run the trial. Aaby and Stabell Benn are controversial vaccine researchers who claim vaccines cause overlooked harms. They have been repeatedly praised by Kennedy but are currently under investigation by Danish authorities for alleged scientific misconduct.

Plans for the trial were halted in January as widespread condemnation erupted over the trial's design, which would potentially expose thousands of newborns in the country to hepatitis B, risking a lifelong infection that can lead to liver cirrhosis, cancer, and premature death. Outrage flared again after a Rolling Stone story earlier this month claimed the CDC set aside another $1.6 million in funding in late September and planned to move forward with the trial.

Read full article

Comments

Pennsylvania's health department issued a health alert Monday as cases of measles in pregnancy and, in turn, cases of congenital measles have continued to increase. Before the current outbreak—which continues to rage across the state—congenital measles cases hadn't been seen in decades, the department noted in its advisory.

The alert included detailed clinical guidance for managing measles exposures and cases during pregnancy as well as cases in newborns. Many doctors have never seen such cases in their careers given the decades of successful use of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. But now, with vaccination rates slipping nationwide, the highly infectious virus is better able to get footholds in communities and spread rapidly through under-vaccinated pockets, as is happening in Pennsylvania.

As of October 19, Pennsylvania had reported 1,286 measles cases this year across 42 counties. Of those, 247 have been hospitalized, and six people have reportedly died (though the latest reported death is still pending an investigation by the state health department before it is added to the state tally).

Read full article

Comments

Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration is moving forward with plans to ease access to unproven peptide drugs that are popular among members of Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again movement—despite FDA staff scientists finding that the drugs have not been sufficiently studied to establish safety and efficacy and may cause harms.

The FDA submitted an "Interim Access Policy" on peptides for review by the White House, according to a filing notice posted on an Office of Management and Budget website. The posting does not provide information on the proposed policy. But people familiar with the proposal told The Associated Press that it would give the FDA "enforcement discretion" on certain peptide drugs. This would allow the agency to choose not to enforce current restrictions on peptides and provide an assurance to specialty pharmacies eager to start making them that they will not be targeted by the agency.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.

Read full article

Comments

Up to a quarter of active-duty Army members could receive a low testosterone result from mandatory military screening, despite the true prevalence of the condition likely being a tiny fraction of that figure, according to a study published Thursday in JAMA.

The finding adds to concerns that the mandatory screening announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in July will lead to a cascade of unnecessary medical evaluations for military members. Those evaluations could result in inappropriate testing, inaccurate results and diagnoses, and overtreatment that could cause harm, including infertility. Medical experts, including the Endocrine Society and the American Urological Association (AUA), have recommended against blanket screenings for these reasons. Still, the Pentagon has moved forward with the plans, releasing clinical guidance in September.

The JAMA study highlights the reasons why testosterone levels are not measured in men without symptoms—and also offers a glimpse of how many Army members could become ensnared in the clinically dubious screenings.

Read full article

Comments

Martin Shkreli—the ex-pharmaceutical executive infamous for illegally hiking the price of a lifesaving anti-parasitic drug by more than 4,000 percent and getting a seven-year prison sentence for the fraudulent scheme he used to do it—has been under a lifetime ban from the pharmaceutical industry since 2022.

However, according to the Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of seven states, Shkreli has "flagrantly and repeatedly" violated that ban nearly the entire time—allegedly by trading stock in dozens of drug companies and discussing the industry during livestreams on social media.

On Tuesday, the FTC and the seven states asked a federal judge to hold Shkreli in contempt for the alleged violations. The states include New York, California, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—the same states that joined the FTC in suing Shkreli in 2020 over the "elaborate anticompetitive scheme" involving the anti-parasitic drug, Daraprim. The scheme raised the price from $17.50 per pill to $750 per pill virtually overnight, while blocking generic competitors from entering the market.

Read full article

Comments

A 39-year-old unvaccinated woman in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, has become the sixth person to die of the highly infectious virus amid a state outbreak that has stricken over a thousand people since it began in April.

The woman died on Saturday, October 10. She had several underlying health conditions and had recently tested positive for measles, according to an advisory posted on social media by Franklin County Coroner Jordan Conner. The advisory noted that the woman's death meets the definition of a measles death set by the state's health department.

In an emailed statement to The Washington Post, the coroner's office said the primary cause of death was listed as "probable acute cardiac event due to possible complications of the measles."

Read full article

Comments

Over the weekend, the World Health Organization released a disease outbreak report on the events surrounding the death of a Russian infectious disease researcher earlier this month, highlighting that Russia has yet to report a confirmed cause of death. With that "key uncertainty," the United Nations health agency said it remains impossible to assess the risk of the event or whether the public health measures Russia took were adequate to prevent spread of the unknown disease.

The WHO reported that, so far, it has seen no evidence of ongoing transmission of the mystery disease. "However, confidence in the assessment remains limited by the absence of a confirmed etiological diagnosis, and the remaining uncertainty regarding the source and mode of exposure," the agency wrote in its report.

The agency laid out the order of events as information trickled out from Russian authorities, noting that it only became aware of the death via media reports on October 2. The WHO subsequently made contact with Russian authorities and requested information on October 3, 6, 7, and 8.

Read full article

Comments

Outrage has erupted among health experts over news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still eager to fund a widely condemned vaccine trial that would expose newborns in Guinea-Bissau to hepatitis B, putting them at high risk of a lifelong infection, which can lead to liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, and premature death.

The trial was suspended in January after its unethical design came to light and drew international outcry. Although the trial is still halted, staff of the CDC director's office told the agency's budget office in late September to set aside $1.6 million to fund the trial, according to a report by Rolling Stone. The money was to be pulled from funding for the CDC's global health security programs, which might otherwise go toward efforts like combating the Ebola outbreak currently raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.

Read full article

Comments