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NIH Unveils Research Push on Stillbirths
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is launching a consortium of four research centers and a data-coordinating hub in an effort to reduce stillbirths. Stillbirth typically refers to a fetus that dies in the womb, or during labor and delivery, after about 20 weeks of pregnancy, and affects about 21,000 babies, or 1 in 175 births in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
People who have one stillbirth are almost five times more likely to have another stillbirth or other pregnancy complication, the NIH said in a news release announcing the consortium, with higher stillbirth rates reported among Black, American Indian and Alaska Native people.
Finding the cause: The goal is to identify the root causes of stillbirth, since most cases go unexplained, according to Alison Cernich, acting director of NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Northeast States Form Alliance to Make Public Health Guidance as Vermont, DC Ensure COVID Vaccine Access
Seven Northeast states and New York City have formed the Northeast Public Health Collaborative (NPHC) to make evidence-based public health recommendations — including on vaccines — while Vermont and the District of Columbia are the latest U.S. jurisdictions to announce safeguards for access to COVID-19 vaccines. The moves come as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken steps to limit COVID-19 vaccine access and has questioned the importance of several childhood vaccines.
A news release announcing the NPHC says that officials in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York State, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and New York City have been collaborating since early 2025 but formally announced the collaborative yesterday. Earlier this month several West Coast governors formed a similar alliance.
“The Collaborative’s shared purpose is to work together in new ways … to ensure trust in public health, respond to public health threats, advance community health and strengthen confidence in vaccines and science-based medicine,” according to the release on the NPHC. “The group’s shared goal is to protect the health, safety and well-being of all residents by providing information based on science, data, and evidence, while working to ensure equitable access to vaccines, medications, and services.”
Republicans Try to Gut Protections Against US Military’s PFAS Pollution
Republicans in Congress are attempting to gut hard-won health protections for service members against the U.S. military’s toxic PFAS “forever chemical” pollution that has poisoned drinking water and probably sickened people around hundreds of bases.
The repeals are included in the U.S. House and Senate versions of the National Defense Authorization Act. If approved as proposed, the legislation would indefinitely delay a ban on PFAS-laden firefighting foam set to go into effect next year, slash cleanup funding by $200m, lift a moratorium on incinerating firefighting foam and repeal a military ban on buying everyday goods that contain the chemicals.
The moves come after Congress passed a range of new PFAS protections in defense bills across each of the last five years. The repeals were discussed in Congress in July during closed-door markup, and several amendments were reportedly approved in the Senate armed services committee by a 14-13 vote along party lines.
‘Unacceptable’: Prominent U.S. Senators Demand FDA Provide Names of Troubled Foreign Drugmakers Skirting Import Bans
Two prominent U.S. senators are demanding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) provide an immediate accounting of the foreign generic drugmakers allowed to skirt bans meant to keep dangerous medication out of the U.S.
The top members of the Senate Special Committee on Aging cited a recent ProPublica investigation that exposed how the FDA quietly awarded special passes to troubled manufacturers so they could continue shipping medication to Americans even after the agency barred their factories because of serious quality concerns. “These exemptions undermine the goals of U.S. policy, threaten the safety of drugs, and place Americans’ health at risk,” the senators wrote in a bipartisan letter to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.
Committee Chair Rick Scott, R-Fla., and ranking member Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., described “urgent concerns” about the FDA’s oversight of foreign drugmakers and whether medication coming into the U.S. was safe.
