Senior doctor killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza
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The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Top medical body concerned over RFK Jr's reported plans to cut preventive health panel
A top US medical body has expressed 'deep concern' to Robert F Kennedy Jr over news reports that the health secretary plans to overhaul a panel that determines which preventive health measures including cancer screenings should be covered by insurance companies. The letter from the the American Medical Association comes after the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Kennedy plans to overhaul the 40-year old US Preventive Services Task Force because he regards them as too 'woke', according to sources familiar with the matter. During his second term, Donald Trump has frequently raged against organizations and government departments that he considers too liberal – often without any evidence. The US president, and his cabinet members such as Kennedy, have also overseen huge cuts and job losses across the US government. The taskforce is made up of a 16-member panel appointed by health and human services secretaries to serve four-year terms. In addition to cancer screenings, the taskforce issues recommendations for a variety of other screenings including osteoporosis, intimate partner violence, HIV prevention, as well as depression in children. Writing in its letter to Kennedy on Sunday, the AMA defended the panel, saying: 'As you know, USPSTF plays a critical, non-partisan role in guiding physicians' efforts to prevent disease and improve the health of patients by helping to ensure access to evidence-based clinical preventive services.' 'As such, we urge you to retain the previously appointed members of the USPSTF and commit to the long-standing process of regular meetings to ensure their important work can be continued without disruption,' it added. Citing Kennedy's own slogan of 'Making America healthy again,' the AMA went on to say: 'USPSTF members have been selected through an open, public nomination process and are nationally recognized experts in primary care, prevention and evidence-based medicine. They serve on a volunteer basis, dedicating their time to help reduce disease and improve the health of all Americans – a mission well-aligned with the Make America Healthy Again initiative.' According to the Affordable Care Act, public and private insurance companies must cover any services recommended by the Preventive Services Task Force without cost sharing. In a statement to MedPage Today, Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon did not confirm the reports, instead saying: 'No final decision has been made on how the USPSTF can better support HHS' mandate to Make America Healthy Again.' Reports of Kennedy's alleged decision to overhaul the taskforce come after the American Conservative published an essay earlier this month that described the taskforce as advocating for 'leftwing ideological orthodoxy'. It went on to accuse the panel of being 'packed with Biden administration appointees devoted to the ideological capture of medicine', warning that the 'continued occupation of an important advisory body in HHS – one that has the capacity to force private health insurers to cover services and procedures – by leftwing activists would be a grave oversight by the Trump administration'. In response to the essay, 104 health organizations, including the American Medical Association, issued a separate letter to multiple congressional health committees in which they urged the committees to 'protect the integrity' of the taskforce. 'The loss of trustworthiness in the rigorous and nonpartisan work of the Task Force would devastate patients, hospital systems, and payers as misinformation creates barriers to accessing lifesaving and cost effective care,' the organizations said. In June, Kennedy removed all 17 members of a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of vaccine experts. Writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he accused the committee of having too many conflicts of interest. Kennedy's decision to overhaul the immunization panel was met with widespread criticism from health experts, with the American Public Health Association executive director Georges Benjamin calling the ouster 'a coup'. 'It's not how democracies work. It's not good for the health of the nation,' Benjamin said.
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
How will Israel's ‘humanitarian pauses' affect Gaza's starvation crisis?
On Sunday morning, Israel announced it would begin a daily 'humanitarian pause' in three densely populated areas of Gaza as it comes under increasing international pressure to alleviate the territory's worsening starvation crisis. Other measures also announced include the resumption of airdropped aid, the activation of a desalination plant and the provision of humanitarian corridors to facilitate UN aid deliveries within Gaza. Last week the territory slipped into a full-blown starvation crisis, with dozens dying from hunger. According to the World Food Programme, 90,000 women and children are in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition, while one in three people are going without food for days. Doctors in Gaza have described struggling to keep up with the number of patients coming in seeking treatment for malnourishment, with few tools at their disposal to provide them help. 'Our malnutrition ward in the hospital is extremely overcrowded. Due to the large number of cases, some children are forced to sleep on the floor,' said Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the director of paediatrics at Nasser medical complex. The hunger crisis has affected virtually everyone in the Gaza Strip, with organisations like the UN describing their staff as 'walking corpses'. After resuming fighting in mid-March, Israel blocked all aid from entering Gaza for two and a half months, in what it said was an attempt to exert pressure on Hamas to release hostages. In May, Israel started allowing a trickle of aid in, mostly through the private US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). Israel proposed the GHF as an alternative to the UN-aid system after claiming – without providing evidence – that Hamas was systematically stealing aid from the UN. More than 1,000 people have been killed while trying to get aid, most of them near GHF food distribution sites. In total, Israel has let in 4,500 UN aid trucks into Gaza since May – an average of about 70 trucks a day. This is a far cry from prewar figures of 500-600 trucks a day, which the UN said is a requisite amount to help restore the health of Gaza's population. Israel has announced airdropped aid will resume, which humanitarian organisations have said will provide a negligible amount of supplies. It also said that humanitarian corridors will be established to facilitate the entry of UN aid trucks into Gaza, though the number of trucks that will be allowed in is unspecified. NGOs say these steps may ease aid access, but with mass starvation already under way, far more is needed. In particular, humanitarian groups have called for a full ceasefire in order to get civilians the help they need. 'We have to go back to the levels we had during the ceasefire, 500-600 trucks of aid every day managed by the UN, including Unrwa, that our teams would distribute in 400 distribution points,' said Juliette Touma, Unrwa director of communications. She explained that aid agencies had previously walked Gaza back from the brink of starvation and that to do so again, an unimpeded flow of aid would be needed to 'reverse the tide and trajectory of famine'. Unrwa, which Israel banned from operating in Gaza in January, has 6,000 trucks of aid loaded with food, medicine and other hygiene supplies in Jordan and Egypt. The WFP said on Sunday it had enough aid to feed the population of Gaza for three months. Israel's latest announcement also is unclear about how long it will maintain humanitarian pauses and corridors. Humanitarians have said that consistency is key to their work. It also appears that Israel is relaxing some of its restrictions on the role of the UN in distributing aid in Gaza, but to what extent is unclear. The UN has said that only it is able to distribute aid efficiently within the territory, pointing to the deadly killings around the GHF as an example of why expertise is needed. Palestinians are reacting to Israel's announcement with caution, unwilling to raise their hopes after repeated promises of an imminent ceasefire have fallen through. Local people said they saw no immediate difference in the availability of food and of prices – with the exception of flour, the price of which dropped 20% over night. It is the first day of Israel's humanitarian pauses, so it could be a while before increased aid has a noticeable effect on the ground. However, Gaza's population is running out of time. Each day, more people die from hunger and the number of people suffering from severe malnutrition grows. Doctors have also warned that alleviating the starvation crisis will not be as easy as flipping a switch. People who are suffering from acute malnutrition need specialised treatment, as they can develop refeeding syndrome if they resume eating normally after a prolonged period of hunger. 'All of these folks who have been deprived for so long, we worry about the complications that they may have developed,' said Dr Thaer Ahmad, a doctor who has worked on medical missions in Gaza.
The Guardian
5 hours ago
- The Guardian
Wes Streeting ‘thought he had struck deal to halt strike by doctors'
Wes Streeting thought he had struck a deal with resident doctors to stop a five-day strike in England, only for the British Medical Association to then reject it, sources have claimed. The health secretary believed he had secured a verbal agreement with the co-chairs of the BMA's resident doctors committee for a deal that involved progress on tackling five non-pay issues. Whitehall sources say Ross Nieuwoudt and Melissa Ryan decided the agreement made during face-to-face talks last Tuesday was enough for the suspension of the strike, which started on Friday. The deal would have involved resident doctors – formerly junior doctors – getting access to hot meals when working overnight, having some exam fees paid, receiving funding for equipment such as stethoscopes and getting mess rooms and changes to the way their postgraduate training was organised. But when Nieuwoudt and Ryan relayed the potential deal to the full committee, they were told they could not approve it because it did not address the BMA's demand that resident doctors receive a 29% pay rise over the next few years. 'They were told by the committee that they could only talk about pay and none of this soft stuff matters. Wes was furious. They had come incredibly close to a deal,' a source said. Resident doctors in England receive basic pay of between £38,831 and £73,992, with extra payments worth up to 15% of their salaries for working at weekends. The failure to reach a deal underlines the gulf between the BMA and Streeting. He has refused to reopen negotiations over the 5.4% salary increase he has given resident doctors this year. But the union is adamant it will call off industrial action only if he agrees to talk money. The BMA denied that it was responsible for the failure to strike a deal and blamed Streeting. A spokesperson said: 'We cannot be clearer: it was the government that ended the talks. 'Resident doctors do not want to strike. However, we have been compelled to take action because Mr Streeting's ultimatum, which demanded we call off strikes in exchange for nothing more than further talks was simply not acceptable. 'We want to continue our negotiations with Mr Streeting and strongly urge him to get back around the table with a serious proposal, rather than a handful of platitudes.' NHS bosses warn the strikes could 'snowball' and even continue into next year. They fear that nurses, consultant doctors and other NHS staff might stage strikes too. Sir Jim Mackey, the chief executive of NHS England, told the Sunday Times: 'We know that continued disruption over the coming months could see a snowball effect for patients and for staff. 'We've seen that before and it has take a huge effort over the last year to build momentum back up on reducing waiting lists and times.' His deputy, David Probert, who is also chief executive of University College London hospitals trust, told the same paper: 'This could be a marathon. We could be doing this until Christmas or maybe beyond.' The BMA's 55,000 resident doctor members have a legal mandate to take strike action for six months, until 6 January. Kemi Badenoch has pledged to outlaw strikes by doctors, bringing them into line with the police and army, if she becomes prime minister. 'Doctors hold lives in their hands. No one should lose critical healthcare because of strikes but that's what's happening now', the opposition leader posted on X on Sunday. 'That's why a Conservative government led by me would ban doctors' strikes, just like we do the army and police.'
