Author: Healthcare Propulsion Staff

The new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered agency officials to challenge two measles deaths reported by Pennsylvania, shunning the agency’s normal procedure of accepting data shared by states and amplifying comments made by her boss, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.The incident draws the C.D.C. into a highly political disagreement about whether the deaths were a result of measles or merely coincided with the infection, echoing similar disputes over causes of death during the coronavirus pandemic.It also pits the agency against a state health department, an extraordinary move for the C.D.C. But the episode is…

This summer, every meal feels like a risk.Just as the US is recovering from a major cyclospora outbreak stemming from tainted iceberg lettuce, salmonella has turned up in jalapeños, eggs, and even dog food. The jalapeño-related outbreak is now responsible for at least 431 illnesses and 57 hospitalizations in more than two dozen states. Meanwhile, a dual-pathogen outbreak of E. coli and salmonella linked to alfalfa sprouts has affected 55 people across 15 states.But is it just your overactive imagination that these outbreaks are worse than normal?To answer that, WIRED tallied up publicly available numbers from the Food and Drug…

Hi! I am your Senate-confirmed secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and don’t worry, the worm in my brain has been dead for a long time. Forget The Real Food Show, the cooking show that I really do host on HHS.gov. Welcome to The Recalled-Food Show, the cooking show America deserves.Summer is coming to an end! When I think of summer food, I think about having your falcon bring you a roadkill slider, but I’m told others think salad and blueberries.So I thought I would share one of my favorite recipes from the new upside-down food…

The accumulation of microplastics in soil presents an emerging threat to the UK’s food security, according to scientists, MPs and campaigners who have called for legally binding targets to cut microplastic pollution.UK agricultural soils have been identified as among the most contaminated by microplastics in Europe, often as a result of repeated applications of sludge from water treatment works as fertiliser, according to a report published by the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on microplastics.With extreme weather caused by climate breakdown already placing new pressures on agriculture, protecting soil from additional and unknown pressures is becoming increasingly important, it argues.Alberto Costa,…

Hodo Foods, the Oakland tofu company whose products are found everywhere from Bay Area Michelin-starred restaurants to Whole Foods, is voluntarily recalling a cooked tofu product sold in 29 states, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The recall of more than 10,000 cases of its Chili Crisp Lightly Fried Tofu, which began on Aug. 7, is due to potential ink contamination. “Printing ink from the product packaging may have migrated into the product,” Hodo said in a statement published Aug. 31. “The recalled product was distributed to wholesale distributors, retail locations, and directly to consumers in the following states from January 16,…

Mpox (formerly Monkeypox), a viral zoonotic disease, remains a global public health concern because it can spread between animals and humans and among people. While measures like vaccination, treatment, quarantine, and public education are available, combining them strategically and allocating resources during an outbreak can be challenging. Researchers from Hasanuddin University, Indonesia, led by Professor Kasbawati from the Department of Mathematics, have used mathematical modeling to explore how different interventions could work together to limit Mpox transmission. Their work was made available online on March 26, 2026, and was published in Volume 208 of the journal Chaos, Solitons & Fractals…

Last winter’s flu season was unexpected, beginning more than a month earlier than usual, external with the Super-K strain.Super flu is not a medical term, and it does not mean the virus has become harder to treat, just that people are yet to build up immunity against it.Flu vaccines are updated annually to ensure they are a good match for the type of flu circulating. Influenza viruses constantly mutate and experts have to predict these changes ahead of time.This year’s vaccine has had a few tweaks, including one to better match subclade K.It is not clear when flu will hit…

Chelsea’s pregnancy was at full term when her waters broke and she went to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. She was checked over and told to go home.Lorna, who is married to Chelsea’s brother Steven, said her contractions then came on quickly.Chelsea went back to the hospital ward with her partner Jack and her mum, where it was confirmed she was in labour. “She was in labour pain but she was still in good spirits and cracking jokes,” Lorna said.But she said when Chelsea was moved to the bed ready to give birth, she “crashed”.The midwife raised the…

Breathing shapes thinking, attention, memory, perception, emotional regulation, and overall mental health by affecting activity in a variety of brain areas. One way breathing affects brain activity is through its relationship with rhythmic patterns of neural activity, or brain waves. Eena Kosik-Rose and Bradley Voytek, from the University of California, San Diego, led a study exploring this relationship by assessing how individual breaths at rest influence brain waves. This work is published in JNeurosci.  Leveraging an epilepsy patient population with brain electrode implants for treatment purposes, the researchers compared the shapes of brain waves to the complex, variable shapes that…

Some four months after the White House inked the last of its expected drug pricing deals with 17 of the industry’s top players, the U.S. government is back for round 2, this time lining up agreements with a host of medium-sized biopharmas under President Trump’s ‘most favored nation’ agenda.  Up at the dealmaking table for this round are Alcon, Astellas Pharma, BeOne Medicines, BridgeBio, CSL, Kyowa Kirin, Sun Pharma, Teva Pharmaceuticals and UCB, according to a White House fact sheet issued Monday afternoon.  Notably, the new list includes companies from further afield than Europe and the U.S.—which dominated the first…