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Major US Doctor Groups Break With CDC to Issue Their Own Vaccine Guidance
US doctor groups issued their own vaccine recommendations for the coming cold and flu season, breaking from the country’s foremost public health agency and widening the divide with the federal government over immunization policy.
The American Medical Association and four other major medical societies said rising mistrust with the direction of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led them to formalize an independent review process, building on an effort began last year. Developed with the independent Vaccine Integrity Project, it includes the recommendations for the use of shots to prevent infections with Covid-19, the flu and RSV, along with the scientific rationale behind them.
“For decades, physicians like me have relied on federal vaccine recommendations because they were based on science and careful review,” AMA President-elect Sandra Fryhofer said during a press conference. “But with the massive changes at the federal level, trust is waning.”
DOJ Sues Kansas School District Over Transgender Student Guidelines and Parental Consent
In what it called “a first-of-its-kind lawsuit,” the Justice Department has sued a school district in Kansas over its guidelines on student gender identity and assisting transgender students. The lawsuit, filed Monday, is the latest escalation from the Trump administration targeting school districts for policies or guidelines to accommodate transgender students in academic settings.
The Justice Department said it was seeking to stop the Kansas City, Kansas, public school district from violating federal law by “facilitating secret ‘gender transitions’ for children at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.”
“Parental rights are paramount in the operation of America’s public schools, and Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools does not know children better than their own parents,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. “The Department will not tolerate school districts playing fast and loose with federal law in the service of radical gender ideology.”
The complaint says district guidelines violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), which allow parents to view students’ educational records and threaten loss of federal funding for failing to comply.
‘Unconscionable, Immoral, and Illegal’: Lawsuit Targets Trump Approval of Cancer-Causing Forever Chemical
Environmental groups have sued the Trump administration, alleging the Environmental Protection Agency approved a potentially cancer-causing “forever chemical” for use as an herbicide without fully assessing the risk.
The petition was filed Aug 28 in the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit by the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network North America, who asked the court to throw out the EPA’s June 30 approval of trifludimoxazin and six products containing it for use on a wide range of crops including corn, wheat, soybeans, and apples.
Trifludimoxazin is part of the family of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, synthetic chemicals with strong carbon-fluorine bonds that can take years to fully break down, earning them the nickname “forever chemicals.” The trifludimoxazin was initially approved in 2021 during the Biden administration. But the company agreed to stop selling the product the following year after environmental groups sued, citing its potential to cause cancer and harm to threatened and endangered fish. But the Trump EPA last year proposed registering it again for widespread use and issued a final approval in June.
New HHS Platform Aims to Help Foster Youth Navigate Life After Care
Young people aging out of the foster care system often face an uphill battle as they transition into adulthood. From finding stable housing to accessing education and financial resources, many struggle to locate the support they need at a critical stage in their lives.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services hopes a new initiative launching this fall will help change that. The agency is launching FosteringTheFuture.gov, a national online resource designed to connect older foster youth and young adults who have left the system with services and opportunities in their communities.
“Older foster youth are some of the most vulnerable in the system,” said Alex Adams, assistant secretary at HHS. “They have very low rates of going on to higher education and higher rates of experiencing homelessness relative to the general population. And we can do better for this population. We must do better.”
EPA Draft Guidance on PFAS in Biosolids Draws Mixed Reviews
The U.S. EPA has extended the comment period by 30 days for its new guidance for managing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance contamination in biosolids. Some interested parties have already begun to weigh in, with environmental groups in particular criticizing the report as a perceived reduction in ambition.
EPA’s new draft guidance released in July criticized a previous EPA assessment published in the final days of the Biden administration. The newer guidance claimed the prior assessment was “disconnected from real-world conditions” in its findings of health risks for farmers exposed to biosolids.
In a letter sent to the EPA, many industry groups asked for more time to submit formal comments, including the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, the U.S. Composting Council, the National Waste & Recycling Association, the Solid Waste Association of North America and regional wastewater and biosolids associations. But the EPA held a listening session on Aug. 12 that provided an early preview of several groups’ positions.
The FDA Cannot Inspect Its Way to a Safe Global Food Supply
Two major outbreaks involving imported produce have again tested Americans’ confidence in the safety of their food. A multistate cyclospora outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce from central Mexico sickened 9,481 people. A salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers from Sinaloa has sickened 345 people and triggered numerous downstream recalls.
In a country divided on nearly everything, there should be nothing controversial about this: Americans deserve safe food, regardless of where it is produced. The question is how best to ensure it. Americans expect fresh fruits, vegetables and seafood year-round. Meeting that demand requires importing enormous quantities of food through increasingly complex global supply chains. Our food-safety system needs to adapt.
One longstanding element of the Food and Drug Administration’s imported-food safety strategy relies on a surprisingly old-fashioned approach: sending American investigators around the world to inspect individual foreign food-processing facilities. It is the regulatory equivalent of the Lone Ranger riding into town to handle the problem himself. It is also wildly ineffective.
