Texas is gearing up for war as a savage, flesh-eating fly appears poised for a US invasion and is expanding its range of victims.

On Friday, the Texas Department of Agriculture announced the debut of TDA Swormlure, a synthetic bait designed to attract the flies with a scent that mimics open flesh wounds, which are critical to the lifecycle of the fly, called the New World Screwworm. The parasite exploits any open wound or orifice on a wide range of warm-blooded animals to feed its ravenous spawn. Female flies lay hundreds of eggs in even the tiniest abrasion. From there, screw-shaped larvae—which give the flies their name—emerge to literally twist and bore into their victim, eating them alive and causing a putrid, life-threatening lesion. (You can see a graphic example here on a deer.)

The new lure for the flies is just one of several defense efforts in Texas, which stands to suffer heavy livestock losses from an invasion. Screwworms are a ferocious foe to many animals, but are particularly devastating to farm animals.

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If anyone needed a reminder that US health secretary and fervent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has no background in science or medicine, look no further than the video he posted on social media Tuesday evening.

In the two-and-a-half-minute clip, Kennedy announced that he is cancelling nearly $500 million in funding for the development of mRNA-based vaccines against diseases that pose pandemic threats. The funding will be clawed back from 22 now-defunct contracts awarded through the federal agency tasked with developing medical countermeasures to public health threats. The agency is the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

Kennedy is generally opposed to vaccines, but he is particularly hostile to mRNA-based vaccines. Since the remarkably successful debut of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic—which were developed and mass-produced with unprecedented speed—Kennedy has continually disparaged and spread misinformation about them.

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In a small randomized controlled trial, people lost twice as much weight when their diet was limited to minimally processed food compared to when they switched to a diet that included ultraprocessed versions of foods but was otherwise nutritionally matched.

The trial, published in Nature Medicine by researchers at University College London, adds to a growing body of evidence that food processing, in addition to simple nutrition content, influences our weight and health. Ultraprocessed foods have already been vilified for their link to obesity—largely through weaker observational studies—but researchers have struggled to shore up the connection with high-quality studies and understand their impact on health.

The ultraprocessed foods researchers provided in the new trial were relatively healthy ones—as ultraprocessed foods go. They included things like multigrain breakfast cereal, packaged granola bars, flavored yogurt cups, fruit snacks, commercially premade chicken sandwiches, instant noodles, and ready-made lasagna. But, in the minimally processed trial diet, participants received meals from a caterer rather than ones from a grocery store aisle. The diet included overnight oats with fresh fruit, plain yogurt with toasted oats and fruit, handmade fruit and nut bars, freshly made chicken salad, and from-scratch stir fry and spaghetti Bolognese.

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Vaccination rates among the country's kindergartners have fallen once again, with coverage of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination dropping from 92.7 percent in the 2023–2024 school year to 92.5 percent in 2024–2025. The percentage changes are small across the board, but they represent thousands of children and an ongoing downward trend that makes the country more vulnerable to outbreaks.

In the latest school year, an estimated 286,000 young children were not fully protected against measles. At the same time, the country has seen numerous explosive measles outbreaks, with case counts in 2025 already higher than any other year since the highly infectious disease was declared eliminated in 2000. In fact, the case count is at a 33-year high.

The latest small decline is one in a series that is eroding the nation's ability to keep bygone infectious diseases at bay. In the 2019–2020 school year, 95 percent of kindergartners were protected against measles and other serious childhood diseases, such as polio. That 95 percent coverage is the target that health experts say prevents an infectious disease from spreading in a community. But amid the pandemic, vaccination rates fell, dropping to 93.9 percent MMR coverage in the 2020–2021 year, and have kept creeping downward.

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On October 20, 2023, health officials in the County of San Diego, California, put out a press release warning of a Salmonella outbreak linked to raw (unpasteurized) milk. Such an outbreak is not particularly surprising; the reason the vast majority of milk is pasteurized (heated briefly to kill germs) is because milk can easily pick up nasty pathogens in the farmyard that can cause severe illnesses, particularly in children. It's the reason public health officials have long and strongly warned against consuming raw milk.

At the time of the press release, officials in San Diego County had identified nine residents who had been sickened in the outbreak. Of those nine, three were children, and all three children had been hospitalized.

On October 25, the county put out a second press release, reporting that the local case count had risen to 12, and the suspected culprit—raw milk and raw cream from Raw Farm LLC—had been recalled. The same day, Orange County's health department put out its own press release, reporting seven cases among its residents, including one in a 1-year-old infant.

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In December 2010, a study led by a NASA astrobiology fellow claimed to have found an alien-like microbe in a salty, alkaline lake in California. This extraordinary bacterium could reportedly thrive using the toxic element arsenic in place of phosphorus—otherwise thought essential for life on Earth. It even incorporated arsenic, instead of phosphorus, into the backbone of its DNA, according to the study, which was published online by the prestigious journal Science.

If true, the claims were groundbreaking. And NASA's press team only hyped the potential significance. In press materials, the agency claimed the finding "begs a rewrite of biology textbooks" and "will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life." In a subsequent press conference, the lead author, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, didn't hold back, either, saying, "We've cracked open the door to what's possible for life elsewhere in the universe and that's profound."

Backlash

But upon that very splashy debut, outside scientists quickly identified flaws and problems in the study. When the study finally appeared in the June 3, 2011, print issue of Science, it was accompanied by eight "technical comments" blasting the study claims.

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A lawyer who represents Children's Health Defense—the rabid anti-vaccine organization founded by the equally fervent anti-vaccine advocate and current US health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—has filed a lawsuit against Kennedy, alleging that he has failed to set up a task force to promote safer childhood vaccinations.

The task force's creation is outlined in the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which is mainly known for setting up the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The program provides compensation to people who have credible claims that they were injured by a vaccination, such as experiencing a very rare, severe side effect. It acts as a no-fault alternative to costly lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. Otherwise, those lawsuits could deter pharmaceutical companies from marketing and developing vaccines, which would create a grave threat to vaccination rates and public health.

Tucked into the 1986 law is also a provision that states the US health secretary "shall establish a task force on safer childhood vaccines." The task force is intended to "promote the development of childhood vaccines that result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions than those vaccines on the market on the effective date of this part and promote the refinement of such vaccines." The task force is supposed to provide progress reports to Congress, which are to be submitted every two years.

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Nearly 800,000 doses of mpox vaccine pledged to African countries working to stamp out devastating outbreaks are headed for the waste bin because they weren't shipped in time, according to reporting by Politico.

The nearly 800,000 doses were part of a donation promised under the Biden administration, which was meant to deliver more than 1 million doses. Overall, the US, the European Union, and Japan pledged to collectively provide 5 million doses to nearly a dozen African countries. The US has only sent 91,000 doses so far, and only 220,000 currently still have enough shelf life to make it. The rest are expiring within six months, making them ineligible for shipping.

"For a vaccine to be shipped to a country, we need a minimum of six months before expiration to ensure that the vaccine can arrive in good condition and also allow the country to implement the vaccination," Yap Boum, an Africa CDC deputy incident manager, told Politico.

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Late Tuesday, President Trump announced on social media that he had convinced Coca-Cola to agree to use "REAL Cane Sugar" in Coke, in lieu of the current, cheaper sweetener used in the US version of the drink: high-fructose corn syrup.

"I'd like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them—You’ll see. It's just better!" Trump wrote.

On Wednesday, Coca-Cola failed to confirm that supposed agreement. On its website, the beverage giant posted a brief, vague statement saying "We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca‑Cola brand" and that "More details on new innovative offerings" will be announced soon.

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Last year, Medicare spent over $10 billion on dubious bandages—called skin substitutes—that come with eye-popping prices. Some are made from medical waste, like dried bits of discarded placentas or infant foreskin, and many have not gone through rigorous testing to prove they offer any advantage over standard bandages. Yet, in some cases, Medicare reportedly paid for bandages priced at more than $21,000 per square inch. And individual patients have quickly racked up bills over $1 million just for their bandaging—some who puzzlingly didn't even have a wound.

Private insurance companies largely do not cover these bandages, declaring many of them "unproven and not medically necessary." But Medicare's current coverage seems to tie back to a rule change in 2020 that opened the door to broader use of them—and the market for these dubious skin substitutes, often used for diabetic ulcers, exploded. Since 2023, more than 100 new products have been introduced, according to an investigative report from The New York Times in April.

The Times investigation highlighted two big reasons why they're so pricy: First, due to an oddity in pricing rules, Medicare initially sets the reimbursement rate for the bandages at whatever price the manufacturer chooses—for the first six months at least. The second is that doctors are granted steep discounts, incentivizing them to use the pricy products for bigger reimbursements. After the initial six-month period, Medicare reimburses only what doctors pay after manufacturer discounts. However, some bandage makers get around this by just rolling out new products that are suspiciously similar to the old ones, maintaining the large reimbursement rates.

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A sweeping analysis of health data from more than 1.2 million children in Denmark born over a 24-year period found no link between the small amounts of aluminum in vaccines and a wide range of health conditions—including asthma, allergies, eczema, autism, and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The finding, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, firmly squashes a persistent anti-vaccine talking point that can give vaccine-hesitant parents pause.

Small amounts of aluminum salts have been added to vaccines for decades as adjuvants, that is, components of the vaccine that help drum up protective immune responses against a target germ. Aluminum adjuvants can be found in a variety of vaccines, including those against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and hepatitis A and B.

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A Utah-based plastic surgeon appears to be off the hook for federal charges over an alleged COVID-19 vaccine fraud scheme, in which he and three of his associates were accused of providing fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards at $50 a pop while squirting the corresponding vaccines down the drain—wasting roughly $28,000 worth of federally provided, lifesaving vaccines. In cases where parents brought in children for fake immunizations, the group would allegedly inject saline solutions at the parents' request to make the children believe they had received vaccinations.

In total, the group was accused of wasting 1,937 COVID-19 vaccine doses between October 2021 and September 2022, including 391 pediatric doses, and creating fraudulent immunization records for them. The alleged scheme netted them nearly $97,000.

The charges were filed in January 2023 under the Biden administration after two separate undercover agents went through the scheme to get a fake vaccination card. The plastic surgeon, Michael Kirk Moore Jr., who owns and operates Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah in Midvale, south of Salt Lake City, as well as the business' office manager, Kari Dee Burgoyne, its receptionist, Sandra Flores, and Moore's neighbor, Kristin Jackson Andersen, were charged in the case. All four people faced charges of conspiracy to defraud the federal government, along with two counts related to improper disposal of government property.

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A 51-year-old man showed up at a hospital in Germany looking as though he was wasting away, with swelling and tenderness in his ankles and knees. Then, his heart stopped.

Doctors were able to resuscitate him. Then, they got to work trying to figure out what was wrong. The man told them that for three months he had been suffering from diarrhea, weight loss, joint pain, and fever. His case was reported in this week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Blood tests didn't detect any infection, but imaging of his heart told a different story. Doctors saw "vegetation" on both his aortic valve and mitral valve. Vegetations are clumps or masses that often build up from an infection, generally containing a bundle of proteins, platelets, and infecting germs stuck together. While they cause damage where they are, if they fully dislodge, they threaten to move to other parts of the body, such as the brain or lungs, and cause dangerous blockages. In the man's case, the vegetation on his aortic valve appeared mobile.

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Health and medical groups around the country are bracing for another grievous blow to America's infrastructure of evidence-based health, this time targeting preventive medicine.

Earlier this week, health secretary and ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly canceled a meeting of the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a scientifically independent panel of up to 16 volunteer experts that issues rigorous, evidence-based recommendations on preventive care—on everything from colonoscopies to folic acid supplements in pregnancy. The panel uses a highly transparent and rigorous framework, grading recommendations on an A to D scale. Recommendations with an A or B grade are adopted nationwide, and health insurance plans are required to cover them at no cost to patients.

The meeting scheduled for Thursday was reportedly going to focus on cardiovascular disease. Kennedy canceled it without explanation.

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A 57-year-old woman spent six days in the hospital for severe liver damage after taking daily megadoses of the popular herbal supplement turmeric, which she had seen touted on social media, according to NBC News.

The woman, Katie Mohan, told the outlet that she had seen a doctor on Instagram suggesting it was useful against inflammation and joint pain. So, she began taking turmeric capsules at a dose of 2,250 mg per day. According to the World Health Organization, an acceptable daily dose is up to 3 mg per kilogram of weight per day—for a 150-pound (68 kg) adult, that would be about 204 mg per day. Mohan was taking more than 10 times that amount.

A few weeks later, she developed stomach pain, nausea, fatigue, and dark urine. "I just did not feel well generally," she said.

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In recent years, illicit drugs in the US have been cut with some high-profile and dangerous adulterants, such as the powerful veterinary sedative xylazine (aka tranq) and the yet more powerful veterinary sedative medetomidine. But last year, a new adulterant hit the streets. Unlike its predecessors, it didn't show up here and there and gain ground gradually; it seemed to show up everywhere at once and quickly overtook the market. Even more oddly, it's not a type of chemical one might expect in illicit drugs. It's not another sedative. In fact, it has no known psychoactive effects at all.

The chemical is bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidyl) sebacate, also called BTMPS, which is in a group of chemicals called hindered amine light stabilizers. BTMPS is usually added to plastics, coatings, and adhesives to protect them from weathering and UV radiation.

Researchers don't know why it's being added to illicit drugs—or what it does once it's there. BTMPS has never been tested in humans before given that it's never been intended for use in humans.

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If you were looking for some motivation to follow your doctor's advice or remember to take your medicine, look no further than this grisly tale.

A 64-year-old man went to the emergency department of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston with a painful festering ulcer spreading on his left, very swollen ankle. It was a gruesome sight; the open sore was about 8 by 5 centimeters (about 3 by 2 inches) and was rimmed by black, ashen, and dark purple tissue. Inside, it oozed with streaks and fringes of yellow pus around pink and red inflamed flesh. It was 2 cm deep (nearly an inch). And it smelled.

The man told doctors it had all started two years prior, when dark, itchy lesions appeared in the area on his ankle—the doctors noted that there were multiple patches of these lesions on both his legs. But about five months before his visit to the emergency department, one of the lesions on his left ankle had progressed to an ulcer. It was circular, red, tender, and deep. He sought treatment and was prescribed antibiotics, which he took. But they didn't help.

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Medical organizations are blasting the Senate's budget bill in the wake of its narrow passage Tuesday, warning of the dystopian health care system that will arise from the $1.1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other federal health programs if it is passed into law. The bill has moved back to the House for a vote on the Senate's changes.

Over the weekend, an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 11.8 million people would lose their health insurance over the next decade due to the cuts to Medicaid and other programs. Those cuts, which are deeper than the House's version of the bill, were maintained in the Senate's final version of the bill after amendments, with few concessions.

Organizations representing physicians, pediatricians, medical schools, and hospitals were quick to highlight the damage the proposal could cause.

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Scientists at several federal agencies are losing access to scientific literature published by Springer Nature, which produces the prestigious journal Nature among many other high-profile titles.

That's according to a report Monday by Nature's news team, which is also published by Springer Nature, but is editorially independent.

According to the news outlet, spokespeople for NASA and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that agency scientists would no longer have access to Springer Nature journals. A USDA spokesperson said that it "has cancelled all contracts and subscriptions to Springer Nature. The journal [sic] is exorbitantly expensive and is not a good use of taxpayer funds." A government spending database also shows the Department of Energy (DOE) has dropped contracts with the publisher.

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The US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a key provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires health plans to fully cover many preventive health care services recommended by a federal panel.

The ruling means that tens of millions of Americans can continue getting a variety of preventive services for free under their plans. Those cost-free services include an array of screenings, such as cancer screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies, as well as screens for obesity, lead exposure in children, high blood pressure, diabetes, and some sexually transmitted diseases, to name a few. The free services also include recommended vaccines for children and adults, well-baby and well-child doctor visits, birth control, statins, PrEP HIV prevention drugs, and fluoride supplements and varnishes for children's teeth.

The ruling stems from a lawsuit brought by a group of conservative Christians, represented by Braidwood Management, who objected to having to cover PrEP medication, which they claim can "encourage and facilitate homosexual behavior."

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