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RFK Jr. Suggests Administration Support for Psychedelic Therapy for Depression, Trauma
For decades, proponents of psychedelic drugs have come to Washington with a provocative message: Illegal, mind-altering substances like LSD and ecstasy should be approved for Americans grappling with depression, trauma and other hard-to-treat conditions. A presidential administration finally seems to agree.
“This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting and we are working very hard to make sure that happens within 12 months,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently told members of Congress.
His suggested timeline for green-lighting psychedelic therapy surprised even the most bullish supporters of the drugs. And it comes as psychedelics are making inroads in deep red states like Texas, where former Trump cabinet secretary and ex-governor Rick Perry has thrown his full support behind the effort.
NIH Under Fire for Funding Dog Tests Despite Vow to Cut Animal Research
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is continuing to fund “cruel and wasteful” animal experiments involving dogs and cats, despite their recent announcement to reduce animal research.
The NIH director, Jay Bhattacharya, announced in April the launch of a new initiative to “reduce testing in animals” and prioritise “human-based technologies” such as organ-on-a-chip and real-world data, in a “new era of innovation” in biomedical research.
The move seeks to address longstanding translational failures of animal research to predict human outcomes in diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, “due to differences in anatomy, physiology, lifespan, and disease characteristics.”
However, information obtained by the animal rights NGO White Coat Waste shows that the NIH has in fact funded millions of dollars’ worth of new animal experiments.
Bill Reintroduced to Enhance Religious Exemptions for Vaccinations, Mask-Use
A bill reintroduced for the Alabama Legislature’s 2026 Session seeks to protect individuals against “discrimination” for refusing to wear a face covering or receive vaccinations.
House Bill 12, sponsored by state Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, R-Trinity, and eight additional House Republicans, would prohibit employers or prospective employers, places of public accommodation, medical providers or occupational licensing boards from “discriminating against an individual” who refuses to wear facial coverings, such as medical face masks, or their refusal to take certain drugs or vaccines.
The prefiled bill, entitled the Alabama Conscientious Right to Refuse Act, cites “reasons of conscience, including religious convictions” as appropriate legally protected justifications for an individual to refuse certain drugs, vaccines or to wear a mask.
HB12 defines discrimination in workplace environments as “the discharge, refusal to hire, refusal to promote, demotion, harassment, segregation, or discrimination in matters of compensation or benefits against an employee,” and draws its definition of public accommodations from Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Moderna’s Latest Approval Again Reveals FDA Rift Over COVID Vaccines
Vinay Prasad, the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) office that regulates vaccines, overruled fellow agency reviewers for a third time in recently approving only narrow use of Moderna’s COVID-19 shot Spikevax in young children.
According to a memo released by the FDA on July 9, the regulator limited Spikevax’s full approval to kids aged 6 months to 11 years and at “increased risk of COVID-19 disease” — instead of all children — because Prasad brushed off the assessments of other reviewers. Prasad felt “differently about certain aspects of their conclusions,” and was skeptical about the shot’s benefits in healthy kids, he wrote.
“We do not have substantial certainty benefits outweigh risks for healthy children based on the totality of data in this submission, and a careful consideration of the biomedical literature,” Prasad wrote.
HHS Shake-Up: Two Top Aides Dismissed as Kennedy Revamps Leadership Team
Two top aides of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were terminated from their positions, signaling a major shift in leadership amid Kennedy’s efforts to carry out his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Sometime this week, Kennedy fired his chief of staff Heather Flick Melanson and deputy chief of staff for policy Hannah Anderson, Trump administration officials told CNN. The officials shared that the pair’s firing comes as Kennedy has lost confidence in their ability to carry out his agenda, but it is unclear if there was a single event which prompted their firings.
Melanson previously served in the first Trump administration, serving as both HHS acting general counsel and then transitioning into acting secretary for administration as well as a senior advisor to former HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
Anderson previously worked as a former policy director for a member of the House Energy and Committee and also a policy advisor for the Senate health committee. Prior to her nomination for her advisor position with the HHS in January, Anderson worked for the Trump-affiliated America First Policy Institute as the Director for the Center for a Healthy America.
