The Trump administration's proposed cuts at the NIH and FDA could lower the number of new drugs that come to market in the next three decades, according to a CBO analysis. Under hypothetical scenarios of a permanent 10% budget cut to the NIH and a nine-month drug review delay at the FDA due to staffing cuts, an estimated 53 drugs would not come to market over that time span, the budget office found. The analysis, requested by Senate and House Democrats, will likely become a main talking point for them during the fiscal 2026 appropriations process.
Misinformation about healthcare isn't new, but it has accelerated in recent years. In 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory calling misinformation — spurred by social media and political polarization — a serious threat to public health.
Two Delaware Valley healthcare systems are considering a merger to form a larger operation spanning 10 counties across four states. ChristianaCare and Virtua Health have signed a non-binding letter of intent to explore a new regional not-for-profit health care system serving communities in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The two systems reported a combined $6.3 billion in operating revenue before expenses last year.
Two university hospitals are pioneering new ways to expand lifesaving heart transplants for adults and babies — advances that could help recover would-be heart donations that too often go unused. The new research aims to overcome barriers for using organs from someone who dies when their heart stops. Called DCD, or donation after circulatory death, it involves a controversial recovery technique or the use of expensive machines. Surgeons at Duke and Vanderbilt universities reported Wednesday that they've separately devised simpler approaches to retrieve those hearts. In the New England Journal of Medicine, they described successfully transplanting hearts to a 3-month-old infant at Duke and three men at Vanderbilt.
Eight healthy babies were born in Britain with the help of an experimental technique that uses DNA from three people to help mothers avoid passing devastating rare diseases to their children, researchers reported Wednesday. Most DNA is found in the nucleus of our cells, and it's that genetic material — some inherited from mom, some from dad — that makes us who we are. But there's also some DNA outside of the cell's nucleus, in structures called mitochondria. Dangerous mutations there can cause a range of diseases in children that can lead to muscle weakness, seizures, developmental delays, major organ failure and death.