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The federal government has cancelled dozens of grants to study how to prevent new HIV infections and expand access to care, decimating progress toward eliminating the epidemic in the United States, scientists say.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated at least 145 grants related to researching advancements in HIV care that had been awarded nearly $450m in federal funds. The cuts have been made in phases over the last month.

NIH, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the largest funding source of medical research in the world, leaving many scientists scrambling to figure out how to continue their work.

“The loss of this research could very well result in a resurgence of HIV that becomes more generalized in this country,” said Julia Marcus, a professor at Harvard Medical School who recently had two of her grants cancelled. “These drastic cuts are rapidly destroying the infrastructure of scientific research in this country and we are going to lose a generation of scientists.”

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As a bird flu outbreak continues to run rampant through US poultry farms, pushing eggs to record-high prices, federal officials announced funding for avian influenza research projects, including money for new vaccine projects and potential treatments.

The US agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, said on Thursday that her department would invest $100m in these research efforts, as part of a $1bn initiative to fight bird flu and stop rising egg prices, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.

The funds will prioritize research into bird flu generally and biosecurity plans. “Our pilot programs have proven that biosecurity is the most important thing that our farmers can do to protect our flocks against the disease, at least right now,” the news outlet quoted Rollins as saying.

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When her school closed down in March 2020, Chimére Sweeney, an English teacher in Baltimore, thought she’d return to her students once the U.S. got a handle on the new SARS-CoV-2 virus. But “life had a different plan” when she got Covid shortly after — and then never recovered, she said.

At first, Sweeney developed only muscle aches. By the second week, she started having panic attacks, blurry vision, constipation and partial hearing loss. Half of her face would freeze “like concrete.” She forgot phone numbers and addresses and she developed a stutter. Within a month after getting infected, she lost 30 pounds.

“I was told that after two weeks I would be better,” Sweeney, now 42, said. “But my two weeks never came.”

The US secretary of health and human services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has directed the Food and Drug Administration to revise safety rules to help eliminate a provision that allows companies to self-affirm that food ingredients are safe.

The move would increase transparency for consumers as well as the FDA’s oversight of food ingredients considered to be safe, Kennedy said on Monday.

“For far too long, ingredient manufacturers and sponsors have exploited a loophole that has allowed new ingredients and chemicals, often with unknown safety data, to be introduced into the US food supply without notification to the FDA or the public,” he said in a statement.

Kennedy has promised to address an epidemic of chronic illness with Donald Trump’s backing, but his broad agenda from making food healthier to studying vaccines could clash with government spending cuts.

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The Supreme Court on Monday took up a counselor’s challenge to Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for LGBTQ+ minors, agreeing to decide if the ban violates her First Amendment rights.

The court has declined to hear similar challenges in the past, including as recently as 2023 when three of the conservative justices disagreed with that decision.

The increased interest in the bans – which have been enacted in more than 20 Democratic-led states – comes as the court is expected to give a green light to GOP-led states’ efforts to ban gender-affirming care for minors.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the Christian counselor who challenged the law, argues it violates First Amendment rights by “censoring” her conversations with clients.

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, despite extensive scientific research that has disproved or failed to find evidence of such links.

It is unclear whether the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has long promoted anti-vaccine views, is involved in the planned CDC study or how it would be carried out. The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately available for comment.

The CDC’s move comes amid one of the largest measles outbreaks the US has seen in the past decade, with more than 150 cases and two deaths in Texas and New Mexico. The outbreak has been fueled by declining vaccination rates in parts of the United States where parents have been falsely persuaded that such shots do more harm than good.

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