Source: Children’s Health Defense

Vaccine Lawsuit Against Kennedy Could Reach Supreme Court

CIDRAP reported:

Although a federal judge in Boston has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s changes to the US childhood immunization schedule, the US Supreme Court could have two chances over the next year to weigh in on the decision, legal experts say.

US District Court Judge Brian E. Murphy said the sweeping overhaul of federal vaccine recommendations by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated a law that governs how public policy changes are made, as did Kennedy’s firing of all 17 members of an influential immunization advisory panel.

The ruling means that, at least for now, the federal government must restore vaccination recommendations in place when Kennedy took office, and that the advisory panel — the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) — cannot take any legal action.

Murphy’s decision was made in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other leading medical groups, which claimed that the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that forbids public officials from making policy changes that are “arbitrary and capricious.” The Trump administration has vowed to appeal the court’s decision.

In Tense Meeting, Dr. Oz Pressed Medical Societies on Trans Care for Teens

The New York Times reported:

Over the winter, Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, summoned the leaders of the country’s major medical societies to his office for what he called a “grand rounds” — a hospital term for a meeting where doctors discuss complex cases. The topic was one of the most contentious in American medicine: Transgender medical care for teenagers.

Dr. Oz pressed on a question that hangs over the entire field: Why did these organizations recommend medical intervention for young patients — including hormone treatment, puberty blockers and surgery — when the research on whether it helped young patients in the long term, especially on mental health, was inconclusive? The meeting, which has not been widely reported, was remarkable for convening, in the same room, medical experts with such divergent opinions.

California Raw Milk Producer Under Fire for E.coli Outbreak, ‘We Disagree With FDA’, CEO Tells Health Experts

International Business Times reported:

Raw Farm CEO Mark McAfee has sparked a high-stakes standoff with federal health officials by refusing to recall raw cheddar cheese products linked to a multi-state E. coli outbreak that has hospitalized children. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a joint warning on 16 March 2026, identifying the California-based dairy as the ‘likely source’ of at least seven infections across California, Florida, and Texas.

Despite epidemiologic evidence showing that 100 per cent of interviewed patients consumed the brand’s raw cheese, McAfee has dismissed the findings as ‘premature’ and ‘false’, insisting that independent testing of his inventory has returned no pathogenic results. In a series of defiant communications, McAfee has accused regulators of ‘denying the science’ and causing unnecessary panic. He argues that because the FDA’s own samples have not yet yielded a positive E. coli result, the link is purely speculative.

This is not the first time Raw Farm — formerly known as Organic Pastures — has clashed with the government; the company has a decades-long history of litigation and recalls involving E. coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter. McAfee, who also leads the Raw Milk Institute, continues to champion the safety of unpasteurised dairy through his own certification standards. He claims the farm’s protocols, including on-site pathogen testing, exceed federal requirements, despite a 2024 incident where the dairy’s products were briefly suspended due to bird flu contamination detected in the region’s milk supply.

FDA and NIH Announce More Initiatives to Reduce Animal Testing in Drug Development

STAT News reported:

The Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday announced several initiatives to try to reduce reliance on animal testing in drug development. The Food and Drug Administration released draft guidance meant to help drug companies explore new ways to assess the safety and efficacy of their products without using animals. And the National Institutes of Health said it has offered more than $150 million to institutions working on new research methods that better simulate human biology.

HHS has made reducing animal testing a priority over the past year. In April 2025, the FDA announced it would phase out the animal testing requirement for monoclonal antibodies. A few months later, the NIH said it would no longer fund research projects that rely solely on animal testing.

Researchers have historically tested their products in animals before moving onto human clinical trials, but recent studies have shown that the majority of drugs that work on animals are ultimately not proven to work on humans. This can lead to increased research costs, and unnecessary cruelty towards animals, activists say.

USDA Staff Cuts Could Hinder Rollout of New Regenerative Ag Initiative

Regeneration International reported:

Last December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a new initiative that will set aside $700 million for regenerative agriculture techniques like cover crops and no-till farming.

The program, called the Regenerative Agriculture Initiative, is an effort to connect the dots between human health and farming under the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again campaign. Many farmers have voiced excitement about the program, but major staff cuts at USDA could undermine the Administration’s goals to improve soil health, warn policy experts.

“I’m very concerned about the capacity of the department to effectively roll out the product,” said Bernie Kluger, a former USDA senior advisor who was brought into the agency in 2022 to help increase staff retention at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). NRCS is the office administering the Regenerative Agriculture Initiative.

HHS Has a Potential Solution for Cancers That Keep Coming Back: Vaccines

The Wall Street Journal reported:

The Trump administration, which has been skeptical of vaccines that prevent infections, is going all in on a new initiative to deploy novel vaccines against cancer. The Department of Health and Human Services, through the National Cancer Institute, has initiated a potential $200 million public-private partnership to fund clinical trials of vaccines that spark an immune attack on tumors.

These vaccines may ward off cancer in patients who have been treated for the disease, but are at high risk for recurrence. Dr. Anthony Letai, who became NCI director in September, said he wants to finance larger trials of vaccines that in smaller studies have shown potential to keep aggressive cancers at bay.

“What’s exciting about this is that there are early signals from clinical trials that we can actually have an impact even in some very difficult settings where we have very little to offer patients,” he said. Instead of protecting against infection, these vaccines train the immune system to fight tumors. And unlike flu or Covid-19 shots, which are injected into healthy people, these vaccines would be used in patients who have been treated for cancer.