By The Defender Staff
Medical School Organizations Sign on to RFK Jr.’s Nutrition Requirements
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday that numerous medical school accrediting organizations and assessors have agreed to increase nutrition requirements for U.S. medical education. HHS said in a release that eight medical school organizations had agreed to “increase nutrition requirements at every level of U.S. medical education, competency-evaluation, training, and residency.”
The release did not specify what these increased requirements will be. Earlier this year, the Trump administration announced partnerships with dozens of medical schools that would incorporate 40 hours of nutrition education before graduation.
The medical school groups who signed on to participate include: The National Board of Medical Examiners, The National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners, The Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, The Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), The Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, The American Board of Medical Specialties, The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the The American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine.
NIAID Appoints New Acting Director After Weekslong Questions Over Leadership
The National Institutes of Health has appointed researcher John Powers III to lead its infectious disease institute on an acting basis, after weeks of being in leadership limbo following reports that the previous director, Jeffrey Taubenberger, had stepped down.
The appointment of Powers, previously a senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Taubenberger’s deputy, comes at a moment of heightened attention for the institute.
The NIH’s second-largest agency, responsible for $6.5 billion worth of funding, has been without a permanent leader since the ousting of Jeanne Marrazzo last March. In recent weeks, a handful of other top leaders have also been reassigned to other posts, causing lawmakers to express concern about the bench of infectious disease expertise at a time of alarm over the recent hantavirus outbreak and the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa.
The news was announced to NIH staff in an email, seen by STAT, sent Tuesday morning. Powers “brings extensive experience in clinical infectious diseases, clinical research, regulatory science and public health leadership,” the email said.
GOP Nominee for Governor Did the Unthinkable in Iowa: Attack Big Agriculture
Before narrowly clinching the GOP nomination for Iowa governor, Zach Lahn took a stance once unthinkable for Republicans in the Corn Belt: Big Agriculture is making Americans sick. The message, which aligns with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement, helped Lahn deliver a rare defeat over a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump.
“Too many politicians from Washington, D.C., to Des Moines have had their heads stuck in the sand while Big Ag and Big Pharma printed money,” Lahn said at his victory speech after winning his June 2 primary. “This will not go on when I’m governor.”
Lahn — a businessman, sixth-generation Iowan who moved back full-time in 2023, farmer and former Montana state director for the conservative Americans for Prosperity — ran a populist campaign that also appealed to conservative activists.
In campaign commercials, he called for cracking down on illegal immigration and reclaiming the school “curriculum from the Marxists who hijacked it.” On the trail and social media, Lahn bashed corporate interests and the D.C. establishment.
FDA Allows Popular Sunscreen Ingredient Long Used in Europe and Asia
The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday expanded its list of allowed sunscreen ingredients to include the chemical compound bemotrizinol. The change has been eagerly anticipated for years: Bemotrizinol has long been popular in Europe, Australia and some Asian countries. It also marks the first time in more than 20 years the FDA has permitted a new compound onto its sunscreen ingredient list.
Why the excitement?
Bemotrizinol is a UV light filter, meaning it blocks out harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun. To be most effective, these filters need to be broad-spectrum, meaning they block UVA and UVB rays. UVA rays cause aging and wrinkles, while UVB rays cause sunburn, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. Both contribute to skin cancer, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation.
EPA Accused of Using Banned Method to Collect Soil Samples
The Environmental Protection Agency and its contractor are accused of using a method long-banned by the agency when collecting soil samples in East Palestine, Ohio, Nexstar’s NewsNation has learned. A Government Accountability Project news release said its investigators found that an EPA report revealed the agency’s contractor, Arcadis, was collecting and storing soil samples in plastic bags.
Established EPA protocols require dioxin samples to be collected and stored in glass containers. Dioxins are compounds that readily absorb into and leach from plastics, leading to cross-contamination and inaccurate test results that yield biased, low values for the analyzed sample, according to GAP.
EPA and Norfolk Southern claimed for years that their data show no significant contamination despite independent testing stating otherwise. The 23,000 pages of soil data from contractor Arcadis weren’t made public until 2025, according to NewsNation.
A Norfolk Southern train derailed just outside of East Palestine on Feb. 3, 2023. In an attempt to contain industrial chemicals the train was hauling, officials conducted controlled burns of vinyl chloride from five derailed tankers, releasing toxins into the soil, water and air.
Food Supply ‘Not at Risk’ After New Texas Screwworm Cases, USDA Secretary Says
The U.S. food supply is “not at risk” from the return of the flesh-eating screwworm parasite to Texas, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Monday. “This is not a virus, it’s not a disease, it’s just a little pest, a larva that lands in a calf’s wound, for example, and it can be treated,” Rollins said in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“We have boots on the ground … we’ll be able to beat this back, but we’re going to do everything we can, investing over a billion dollars to push this pest back into Mexico, then to eradicate, as we did about 50 years ago,” she later added. Her comments came shortly before the USDA confirmed two additional cases of screwworm discovered in Texas — one in a calf in La Salle County and another in a dog in Andrews County — bringing the total cases to four.
While the dog’s case was reported by a veterinarian in Texas, the animal lives in New Mexico, the USDA classified as a New Mexico case. The department said New Mexico officials will increase monitoring and outreach in the area.
The post Medical School Organizations Sign on to RFK Jr.’s Nutrition Requirements + More appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More
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