Inside RFK Jr.'s push to change vaccines in America
Every year, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) gathers to discuss vaccinations and make recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year, however, the panelists are all new to the job and were all handpicked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has expressed skepticism of vaccines.
Today on 'Post Reports,' host Elahe Izadi speaks with two of The Washington Post's health reporters, Lena Sun and Lauren Weber, about last week's controversial ACIP meeting, and what the future of vaccines in the United States could look like under Kennedy's leadership.
Today's show was produced by Emma Talkoff, with help from Thomas Lu. It was edited by Ariel Plotnick, with help from Reena Flores and mixed by Sam Bair. Thanks to Lynh Bui and Fenit Nirappil.
Subscribe to The Washington Post here.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Medscape
36 minutes ago
- Medscape
Emotional Response to Music May Enhance Memory Specificity
Music that evokes an emotional response may influence the specificity of memory recall, new research suggests. Investigators found that participants who were shown a series of images of everyday items before listening to music were more likely to remember only general details of the photos if they experienced a more emotional response to the music, while those who had a moderate emotional response were more likely to recall specific details. Stephanie L. Leal, PhD 'Most people think that emotional things are better remembered, but they actually aren't. It's just parts of the memory that are affected, not the whole memory,' co-investigator Stephanie L. Leal, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Biology & Physiology at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), told Medscape Medical News . 'One size doesn't fit all when it comes to music and memory.' Interestingly, familiarity with a song was not associated with either general or detailed memory. 'We played the same songs for everybody, but importantly, everyone responded differently. So I think personalization and taking individual preferences into account is going to be important for interventions,' said Leal, who is also director of the Neuroscience of Memory, Mood, and Aging Laboratory at UCLA. The findings were published online on July 23 in The Journal of Neuroscience . Memory Complexities As previously reported by Medscape Medical News , previous research has shown that both music appreciation and participations are tied to improvement in executive function and memory. For this study, researchers wanted to dive into the complexities of memory, including the possible connection between music and differing aspects of memory. 'We tend to remember more of the gist of something emotional that happened and not as much of the details. So we wanted to see if music could boost certain parts of memory but not all of the parts,' she said. Many previous music studies have included older individuals, especially those with dementia. For this project, investigators chose instead to assess a younger population because they wanted to use their data as a 'baseline' before moving on to further research in groups that are older and/or have impaired conditions such as depression or Alzheimer's disease, Leal said. 'We wanted to see what happens in healthy people first and then apply it to other populations,' she said. The study included 130 healthy undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 35 years from Rice University, Houston. During the initial phase of memory formation — called the 'encoding' phase — each participant was shown 128 images of common household objects and asked to choose whether the object should be considered as an indoor or outdoor item. Participants then donned headphones and listened to 10 minutes of classical music pieces, ambient soundscapes, or silence while they filled out questionnaires about their medical history. After the music ended, participants spent about 20 minutes filling out additional questionnaires, including a rating of the music or sounds they heard on the basis of emotional arousal, positive or negative reaction, or familiarity. They then viewed a set of 192 images that included some they hadn't seen before (foils) and others that were identical (targets) or similar (lures) to the photos viewed earlier. Participants were asked to classify an image as old or new, allowing the researchers to measure target recognition — a measure of general memory — or lure discrimination — a measure of detailed memory. Big-Picture Recall General recall of the images was greater among those who experienced either low or high emotional response to music than among those who experienced moderate changes in emotional arousal ( P for both < .001). More detailed memories were reported by those who reported only a moderate emotional response to music than those who reported a low or high emotional response ( P for both < .001). There were no significant associations between memory of the images and song familiarity or whether a song was happy or sad. 'Overall, music modulated both general and detailed memory, but individual differences in emotional response were crucial — participants listened to the same music yet responded differently,' the investigators wrote. 'These findings suggest that music interventions may not uniformly enhance memory, emphasizing the need for personalized approaches in treating memory and mood impairments,' they added. The research suggests that a high emotional response may cloud details more than a moderate response. 'Yes, the idea is that if something is very emotionally arousing, maybe we don't want to remember the details associated with it. Maybe we just want to remember that general feeling or the bigger impact of that event, whether it's positive or negative,' Leal said. 'Maybe we just want to take the 'big picture' from that.' Early Days Commenting on the findings for Medscape Medical News , Daniel L. Bowling, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California, noted that the study 'follows the general trend' of research that breaks down large concepts, such as memory, into specific features. Daniel L. Bowling, PhD Bowling, who is also director of the Music and Brain Health Lab at Stanford, was not involved with the current study. 'This showed different levels of responses to music that were differentially related to varying types of memory that you might want to target,' Bowling said. For example, if a clinician's purpose is cognitive training, with more of an emphasis on details, 'you might want more moderate levels of [emotional] arousal. But if you want more big-picture stuff, which could be critical when asking people about their life, then higher levels of arousal may be better,' he added. He noted that because the researchers used almost a 'pretreatment,' with music used before the recall task, it would be interesting to know if using such a pretreatment before taking a test could possibly improve performance. There are interventions, some of which Bowling is involved with, that are looking at supporting arousal and attention during studying. A controlled study comparing these things and looking systematically into effects on different types of memory would be helpful, 'but we're really at the beginning of figuring all of this stuff out,' he said. Although the current study has some limitations and needs to be replicated, 'any kind of talk toward systematic effects of different musical parameters or emotional modeling starts to help us bring this into the scientific-medical realm. And that's a real strength here,' Bowling concluded.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
I assumed I'd never need Medicaid. I was wrong.
Madison Chapman is a cancer survivor and a federal worker in D.C. I never expected to go on Medicaid. I grew up in a comfortable household, had worked since high school, and was a generally healthy 24-year-old public policy graduate student. I also never expected the stubborn lump above my collarbone would be Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Lizzo Shares the 3 Meals She Ate to Achieve Her Weight Loss Goal and Why She Eats Dinner Before 5 P.M.
Lizzo revealed that she reached her "weight release goal" in January 2025 The singer is on the cover of Women's Health's latest issue In the interview, she discussed meals that helped her lose weightWhen it comes to her weight loss journey, these three meals are "Good as Hell" for Lizzo. The performer, whose real name is Melissa Viviane Jefferson, 37, is featured on the cover of Women's Health's latest issue, where she candidly opens up about her experience working on her physical health. In January 2025, the musician announced that she had achieved her "weight release goal," sharing a picture that showed she had lowered her body mass index (BMI) by 10.5 and lost 16% of her body fat since January 2023. The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now! Lizzo said in the new interview published online Tuesday, July 1, that her meals consist mainly of protein and vegetables. Her go-to breakfast includes two scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, and a cauliflower hash brown. For lunch, the singer switches between three meals: a shredded Thai chicken salad, lettuce wraps stuffed with tuna, and sliced chicken breast. As for dinner, however, she tends to stick with the same routine, choosing a turkey meatloaf with cauliflower mashed potatoes and green beans. Dinner is something that comes earlier for Lizzo, typically before 5 p.m. "I have GERD [gastroesophageal reflux disease], so my body needs time to digest food before I go to sleep, so acid doesn't roll up to my throat," she told the magazine. According to the Mayo Clinic, GERD happens "when stomach acid flows back up into the esophagus and causes heartburn." In addition to heartburn, other symptoms include backwash of food or sour liquid in the throat, upper belly or chest pain, and trouble swallowing. Lizzo made the change to her diet after being vegan for a year — something she said she was not approaching in the "healthiest way." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. She told the outlet that she "wasn't getting the nutrients" she needed as she was mostly eating "bread, soy, cashew cheese, and meat substitutes." Read the original article on People
