Author: Admin

Senior Food and Drug Administration leaders are planning for cutbacks to the number of routine food and drug inspections conducted by the agency, multiple officials say, due to steep layoffs this week in support staff. Around 170 workers were cut from the FDA’s Office of Inspections and Investigations, according to two federal health officials who were not authorized to speak publicly. The Department of Health and Human Services has said layoffs ordered by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with some 10,000 workers let go from the department, would not directly cut FDA’s inspections staff. But in meetings among federal health officials, the agency’s…

Teams handling Freedom of Information Act requests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration were gutted Tuesday as part of the widespread job cuts ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., multiple officials said. The process of fulfilling FOIA requests from reporters, advocacy groups and others is a crucial way the public gains access to information on government data and records. All of the workers in the CDC’s FOIA office were cut, two officials said. Two-thirds of the Food and Drug Administration’s records request staff were also cut, down to 50…

Hank Steinbrecher, a soccer evangelist from Queens whose passion as a top United States official in the sport helped usher it into the American mainstream and who, in a previous career in marketing for Gatorade, helped popularize the ritual in which victorious players douse their coaches with coolers of sports drinks, died on Tuesday at his home in Tucson, Ariz. He was 77.His death, from degenerative heart disease, was confirmed by the United States Soccer Federation, of which Mr. Steinbrecher was secretary general from 1990 to 2000.Sunil Gulati, who was president of the federation from 2006 to 2018, said in…

The idea of getting her eldest child a smartphone had long felt inevitable, said Daisy Greenwell. But by early last year, when her daughter was 8 years old, it filled her with dread. When she talked to other parents, “everyone universally said, ‘Yes, it’s a nightmare, but you’ve got no choice,’” recalled Ms. Greenwell, 41.She decided to test that. A friend, Clare Fernyhough, had shared her concerns about the addictive qualities of smartphones and the impact of social media on mental health, so they created a WhatsApp group to strategize. Then Ms. Greenwell, who lives in rural Suffolk, in the…

Experts on fighting bird flu As egg prices soar, health officials discuss options to fight bird flu 05:01 Some Egg Beaters and Bob Evans liquid egg products are under recall because they may include a cleaning solution with bleach, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. The liquid egg substitutes were recalled by Cargill Kitchen Solutions of Lake Odessa, Michigan, because they may contain a cleaning solution with sodium hypochlorite, which is commonly known as bleach. The recall covers 212,268 pounds of the products, which were produced on March 12 and March 13. The USDA said its Food Safety and Inspection Service…

A Michigan resident has died of rabies after receiving a transplanted organ in Ohio, the Toledo-Lucas County (Ohio) Health Department reported Wednesday. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the report, saying the patient died in January and the transplant happened in December.”A public health investigation determined they contracted rabies through the transplanted organ,” the Michigan agency said.The patient had received a transplanted organ and was under care in Lucas County, where they died. Because the person was a Michigan resident, it will be counted as a Michigan human rabies case rather than an Ohio one, the local health…

On Jan. 18, I was one of millions of Americans scrolling through TikTok when service for the all-you-can-binge video buffet suddenly halted just before a federal government ban went into effect.It was a breathtaking moment that had me in mourning. Where will I go now, I wondered, for my daily dose of Hollywood gossip, video game news and anime updates?TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, and had run up against a legal deadline to find a U.S. owner or face a ban, came back to life the next day. President Trump then quickly signed an executive order…

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, and Tom Alison, one of his top lieutenants, were discussing how they wanted to reshape Facebook for the future of social networking.Mr. Zuckerberg, who had grown Facebook from a dorm room project to a $1.5 trillion company that he renamed Meta, wanted to bring back some of the original rationale for the social network, or what he called “OG Facebook” vibes, Mr. Alison said in an interview. After years of adding features, the executives felt that some of Facebook’s key functions were being drowned out.So they asked themselves: Why not try building some…

An 8-year-old northern Minnesota boy is one of the first in the country to receive a specific type of gene therapy treatment.Colton Belluzzo was diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy when he was a baby.The disease has weakened his muscles over time.But he and his family now have good reason to be optimistic. “He’s an outgoing little boy. Loves to play outside,” said Morgan Belluzzo, Colton’s mom.  Colton Belluzzo also loves to fish, ride horses and even give his own weather reports on camera.  Colton Belluzzo WCCO But when he was 7 months old, Colton Belluzzo was diagnosed with Duchenne…

PLEASANTVILLE, Iowa — Zach Mecham has heard politicians demand that Medicaid recipients work or lose their benefits. He also has run into a jumble of Medicaid rules that effectively prevent many people with disabilities from holding full-time jobs. “Which is it? Do you want us to work or not?” he said. Mecham, 31, relies on the public insurance program to pay for services that help him live on his own despite a disability caused by muscular dystrophy. He uses a wheelchair to get around and a portable ventilator to breathe. A paid assistant stays with Mecham at night. Then a…