“The move is the latest in a series of initiatives by the Trump administration to try to reduce animal testing. Last year, NIH announced it would devote $87 million to a project to develop a standardized alternative to animal testing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to shutter its primate labs, and the Food and Drug Administration published a roadmap for reducing animal testing.
The push to end animal research testing is backed by animal-rights activists close to the administration, like far-right political activist Laura Loomer and President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump.
But some researchers worry that moving away from animal testing too quickly could mean stalled progress on treatments that could cure disease and save lives.”
“Set aside the fact that the so-called epidemic of autism does not result from a surge in actual cases but from a broadening of the diagnosis over the past 50 years—from what psychiatrists in the 1970s called a form of childhood schizophrenia, marked by early social withdrawal, impaired language, and rigid, repetitive behaviors, to today’s ASD. This new understanding includes highly capable, sometimes gifted individuals who simply interact with others in unusual or atypical ways. Additionally, because social, educational, and health care services are now more accessible to children with ASD, increased parental awareness and more screening by pediatricians, school psychologists, and educators have led to greater detection.
That nuance seems lost on Kennedy, who treats autism as if it were an infection or a tumor.
…
What we know so far about the link between prenatal acetaminophen and autism—that it remains inconclusive—is based on independent clinical studies not influenced by a government agenda. Without government interference, these studies might find definitive proof that prenatal acetaminophen causes ASD, or they could lead to dead ends, encouraging scientists to explore other possibilities.”
“The Food and Drug Administration plans to approve a new use for the generic drug leucovorin in the coming weeks to treat kids with “cerebral folate deficiency and autistic symptoms,” according to a POLITICO Magazine opinion piece by federal health leaders published on Monday.
The officials — FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, National Institutes for Health Director Jay Bhattacharya and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz — pointed to research they say suggests leucovorin, also known as folinic acid, may help children who are deficient in folate, a vitamin. They said there was evidence leucovorin, which is currently used to treat cancer and anemia patients, can help children with autism improve their verbal communication. But they emphasized in the opinion piece that the drug “is not a cure for autism.”
While scientists say leucovorin, a form of vitamin B, could be promising for a subset of autism patients, they cautioned that the current data is limited and the drug needs more research.”
Companies are worried about quarterly earnings. The U.S. does not have a plan B for long-term research. We need to maintain the funding and focus on research in universities. Many technologies that are changing the world today are based on university research from decades ago.
Trump’s trade agreements are not trade agreements. They are not even trade deals. They are more press releases. It’s likely that many of Trump’s tariffs won’t even be legal under U.S. law.
“Vaccine “skeptic” David Geier has reportedly been hired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a data analyst to oversee a new study probing the possible links between vaccinations and autism.
High-quality research and transparency are not likely outcomes from a project headed by Geier. Geier and his physician father, Mark, have published in a variety of obscure journal articles claiming that vaccines cause autism. Based on those sketchy publications, they began hiring themselves out as “expert witnesses” in hundreds of vaccine-related lawsuits. Mark Geier was stripped of his medical license by the Maryland Board of Physicians over dosing autistic children with his home-brewed treatments.
The Geiers asserted that their research had found that tiny amounts of ethyl mercury preservative (thimerosal) in some vaccines was the culprit behind the rise in autism diagnoses. Interestingly, thimerosal has never been used in the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine that has most widely been blamed for causing autism. However, excepting seasonal flu vaccines, thimerosal in the U.S. was removed from any other vaccines in 1999. Amusingly, the Geiers took note of that fact and published an article in 2006 claiming that autism rates were subsequently declining. As it happens, the rate of autism diagnoses has increased since then. Evidently tiny amounts of mercury in vaccines has nothing to do with autism.
In any case, the claim that vaccines cause autism has been comprehensively debunked.
“The problem with the Geiers’ research is that they start with the answers and work backwards,” said Dr. Steven Black, director of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, California, in 2005. “They are doing voodoo science.”
By applying his methodology in his new study of the putative relationship between autism and vaccines, Geier will doubtlessly and transparently get the answers that our new secretary of Health and Human Services thinks he already knows.”
“”The DEA’s attempt to classify DOI, a compound of great significance to both psychedelic and fundamental serotonin research, as a Schedule I substance exemplifies an administrative agency overstepping its bounds,” Rush says. “The government admits DOI is not being diverted for use outside of scientific research yet insists on placing this substance in such a restricted class that it will disrupt virtually all current research.”
SSDP describes the two compounds as “essential research chemicals in pre-clinical psychiatry and neurobiology,” noting that their unscheduled status has made them accessible as tools for studying serotonin receptors. It says DOI, in particular, has been “a cornerstone in neuroscience research” due to its selectivity for the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, crucial for understanding the therapeutic effects of psychedelics. Scientists have used DOI to “map the localization of an important serotonin receptor in the brain critical in learning, memory, and psychiatric disease,” SSDP notes, and DOI studies “have shown encouraging results in managing pain and reducing opioid cravings.””