Meredith Wadman

4 days ago | science.org | Meredith Wadman |Jeffrey Mervis

Last Saturday, the morning after a news article announced major job losses coming at the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt wrote an apologetic memo to employees. Her statement to STAT that 250 people could lose their positions by summer’s end had come as news to the NASEM staff, which numbered 1383 as of 2023. McNutt told staff “no decisions [have been] made” about the number of coming layoffs.

4 days ago | science.org | Jon Cohen |Meredith Wadman

Documents released late last week are providing new details about the breadth and depth of the spending cuts the White House is asking Congress to make to public health and biomedical research programs in the 2026 fiscal year that begins on 1 October. Among other things, the plans call for deeper spending and staff cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) than were outlined in a less detailed “skinny budget” that President Donald Trump’s administration released last month.

2 weeks ago | science.org | Meredith Wadman

For people who wear a cumbersome mask to bed to avoid the life-threatening, long-term effects of a serious breathing disease, the prospect of shedding the headgear for a single pill taken at bedtime has been the stuff of dreams. Now, those dreams appear likely to become reality for at least some people with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), who stop breathing dozens or hundreds of times during the night, causing their blood oxygen to drop before they subconsciously awake.

3 weeks ago | science.org | Meredith Wadman

Twenty years ago, when the painful viral disease chikungunya exploded on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion and sickened hundreds of thousands, doctors longed for a vaccine. Now, the virus is surging again, causing 50,000 confirmed cases and 12 deaths on the island, a French department, and spreading on neighboring islands including Mauritius. This time a vaccine called Ixchiq is readily available.

3 weeks ago | science.org | Meredith Wadman |Jocelyn Kaiser

Editor’s note: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is testifying today before spending panels of both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. The House hearing has concluded. This story will be updated with reporting from the Senate hearing. Democrats in the House of Representatives slammed Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F.