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1 week ago | 
theguardian.com | Melody Schreiber
Autism researchers and advocates are pushing back against the creation of an autism database – meant to track the health of autistic people in a major research study – and pointing to the ways such databases could be misused. While the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) denies it’s a registry, the agency did confirm a sweeping database of autistic people will power a $50m study on autism.
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1 week ago | 
theguardian.com | Melody Schreiber
When Robert F Kennedy Jr announced a major project to track the health of people with autism, autistic people and their friends and families reacted with shock and anger. They also expressed dismay and concern over the US health secretary’s incorrect and “weird” approach to autism spectrum disorder.
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2 weeks ago | 
magazine.publichealth.jhu.edu | Melody Schreiber
Frank Squibb opens the passenger-side door of the cherry-red SUV and eases out. His girlfriend of 18 years brings over his walker, and a staff member helps Frank alight. Nowadays, his girlfriend or his oldest daughter drives Squibb, 85, wherever he needs to go. When he first signed up for this, at age 50, he could maneuver easily; but the decades and diagnoses have slowed him down.
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3 weeks ago | 
theguardian.com | Melody Schreiber
Autism experts and autistic people are pushing back on Robert F Kennedy’s “terrible” approach to autism as the health secretary plans more expansive monitoring of autistic people’s health records and proposes cuts to disability services. A huge study on autism proposed by Kennedy will draw upon private medical records from federal and commercial databases, and a new health registry will track autistic Americans, CBS News reported on Monday.
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1 month ago | 
theguardian.com | Melody Schreiber
As tuberculosis outbreaks pick up speed in the US and abroad amid deep cuts in funding for local, state and international public health programs, a resurgence of the deadliest infectious disease – including drug-resistant tuberculosis – could be on the horizon. Increasing funding for public health responses could end tuberculosis (TB) altogether, says James Brookes, an IT specialist from Idaho, who told this to his representatives in Congress on Wednesday.
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1 month ago | 
nhpr.org | Melody Schreiber
After the Trump administration's cancellation of thousands of humanitarian aid programs last month, about 900 programs, operating across the globe, were still receiving funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Over the weekend, however, at least 42 of those programs were informed that USAID had canceled their contracts, which provided funding for the delivery of aid services over a set period of time. The State Department did not say how many contracts had been canceled.
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1 month ago | 
thesicktimes.org | Melody Schreiber
Key points you should know:The U.S. leads the global tally of H5N1 cases. Two new, separate spillovers into dairy cows have been detected in Nevada and Arizona in recent weeks, indicating that the outbreak is not under control and is now endemic in cows. Not all infections among people are being detected, raising the risk of co-infection with seasonal flu variants that could result in a more dangerous strain. Flu has been linked to chronic diseases like myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).
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1 month ago | 
opb.org | Melody Schreiber
Rescue teams are seen at a construction site where a building collapsed in Bangkok on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake. A powerful earthquake rocked central Myanmar on March 28, buckling roads in the capital Naypyidaw, damaging buildings and affecting neighboring Thailand as well, where people fled into the streets for safety.
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1 month ago | 
theguardian.com | Melody Schreiber
More US states are reporting measles cases as the Texas outbreak expands, surpassing last year’s total, amid vaccine misinformation and hesitancy. The Texas outbreak could take a year to get under control, one health official said – during which time it may spread to more states.
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2 months ago | 
newrepublic.com | Melody Schreiber
Bird flu is sweeping throughegg-laying chickens in the United States at an unprecedented rate. So far in2025, 30 millionlayers, as they’re known, have been culled, close to the 38million killed throughout all of last year: Nearly 10 percent of thecountry’s annual number of egg-layers have been wiped out. But one of the bigquestions, as egg prices become a potent political football, is this: Are theseshocking infection rates and cull tallies to blame for skyrocketing prices?
