Latest news with #medicaldirector
New York Times
17-07-2025
- Health
- New York Times
I Was Skeptical of Covid Measures. I Didn't Want This.
In March 2020, I disobeyed an order from the City of San Francisco to close down the H.I.V. clinic where I serve as medical director. I knew that complying with the order, which came as part of the city's stringent Covid-19 lockdown, would have left our poor and homeless patients without anywhere to get treatment. Over the ensuing months, I gained something of a reputation as a so-called Covid contrarian. I argued against closing outdoor parks and beaches and called for reopening schools. My views were based on harm reduction, the principal of fighting the infection while simultaneously taking societal and individual needs into account. I believed that the response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States often favored the interests of the wealthy — who could work remotely or send their children to private schools — over the poor and the working class. I hoped that an eventual reckoning with the U.S. response would allow for greater trust in public health. And yet as critical as I was of our health institutions during the pandemic, I am now deeply distressed that the Trump administration is using pandemic failures as justification for a broad assault on health and science institutions. The pandemic laid bare the fact that we needed to reform our health institutions, but what is happening now is not a reckoning but destruction. During the pandemic, the share of Americans who said they did not trust scientists more than doubled, to 27 percent in 2023 from 13 percent before the pandemic in 2019. But the decision last month by the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to fire the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's entire advisory panel on vaccines will make the public — once again — wonder why science cannot be conducted without political interference. The administration says academic freedom was curtailed and dissent silenced during the pandemic. However, Mr. Trump's National Institutes of Health has throttled academic freedom by withholding funding for certain academic institutions, including Harvard, based on ideology. Last month, Mr. Kennedy announced that the United States would withdraw funding for Gavi, the international vaccine organization responsible for saving millions of children's lives around the world, accusing it of stifling free speech during the pandemic. However, Gavi, which has improved access to vaccines for children in the world's poorest countries, was not responsible for the discord in the U.S. pandemic response. The Gavi funding cuts are indicative of a broad U.S. retreat from global health. Perhaps the most troubling example of this retreat is the Trump administration's willingness to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people by crippling the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a program to combat H.I.V./AIDS that's widely considered one of the most effective global health programs in history. Too often during the pandemic, my fellow left-leaning public health experts supported decisions that weren't grounded in science, such as keeping schools closed longer than necessary or enforcing vaccine mandates way past the time recommended by international agencies. I thought those policies would deepen inequalities. But if school closings hurt the poor more than the wealthy during the pandemic, slashing Medicaid will hurt the poor much more. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBC
16-07-2025
- Health
- CBC
What cheaper versions of Ozempic will mean for B.C.'s diabetics
In January 2026, the Canadian patent for Ozempic will expire, paving the way for cheap generic versions of the semaglutide injections that help regulate blood sugar levels and appetite. Dr. Tom Elliott, medical director at B.C. Diabetes, says that semaglutide injections have revolutionized his practice, and they are astonishingly effective.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Retiring NHS England boss says cancer treatment on ‘cusp of golden era'
Cancer treatment is on the 'cusp of a golden era', according to the outgoing national medical director of NHS England. Professor Sir Stephen Powis said he expects the development of drugs harnessing the body's immune system to fight the disease will bring 'great advances in cancer survival'. In his final interview before retiring, Sir Stephen, 64, told The Times: 'We are at the cusp of a golden era in terms of the way we treat a range of cancers. 'For many cancers now, people should be confident that it's not a death sentence and that more treatments will become available.' He said the rise in people living longer and surviving cancers would continue, alongside cures for some forms of the disease. 'Our understanding of the genetics of cancer, of the way we can target cancers with particular drugs, and how we can use the body's own immune system to target cancers itself, is being revolutionised,' he said. He compared the progress made in treating cancer with the success in developing HIV/Aids treatments since he qualified as a doctor 40 years ago. He also said an increased focus on prevention will help eliminate certain types of cancer. 🧵Today is my last day working at NHS England. It has been an honour to serve as National Medical Director for the last seven and a half years. Thank you to everybody who has supported and encouraged me over the years. — Professor Stephen Powis (@NHSEnglandNMD) July 10, 2025 'We can't prevent all cancers, but there are cancers that we can certainly prevent,' he said, adding that he hopes lung cancers will become 'a lot rarer'. Cancer treatment, he said, would be 'driven by genetics' to become more individualised with the increased ability to pinpoint mutations in cells. His comments come as experts warned of a 'postcode lottery' in cancer services that focus on improving patients' quality of life and providing urgent care for people with the disease. The Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR), the UK Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (UKASCC) and the Association for Palliative Medicine (APM) have called for urgent investment in supportive and acute oncology. Sir Stephen warned the biggest challenge facing the NHS was the rise in elderly people and the economic pressure that is putting on the younger generation and the economy. Last week, Sir Stephen warned the British Medical Association (BMA) to 'think really hard' about whether industrial action by resident doctors – formerly junior doctors – planned for later this month is justified. He told The Times the walkout would cause 'tens of thousands of appointments and procedures' to be cancelled. The kidney specialist has served as national medical director since January 2018 and held the role throughout the Covid pandemic.
