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Abstracts related to work done by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) were retracted from a major nutrition conference, sparking concerns that 2 years of work producing a robust scientific report may be disregarded, sources told MedPage Today. In February, the American Society for Nutrition accepted the abstracts for its 2025 meeting in Orlando, and they were set to be presented by government employees, according to DGAC member Christopher Gardner, PhD, an expert in diabetes and nutrition at Stanford University. (Robertson, 8/6)

Adults and children in the United States are getting more than 50% of their total calories from ultra-processed foods, according to a new federal report released early Thursday. Among Americans aged 1 and older, an average of 55% of their total calories came from ultra-processed foods, according to results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted between August 2021 and August 2023 and run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Kekatos, 8/7)

Eating French fries multiple times a week was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, though this wasn't the case for baked, boiled, or mashed potatoes, researchers said. For every increment of three servings weekly of French fries, the rate of type 2 diabetes increased by 20% (95% CI 1.12-1.28), and for every increment of three servings weekly of total potato, the rate increased by 5% (95% CI 1.02-1.08), reported Walter Willett, MD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues. (Rudd, 8/6)

As CEO of the psychedelic medicine company Compass Pathways, Kabir Nath has had a front-row seat to a dramatic year in the field of psychedelics. Once an industry darling, Compass’ competitor Lykos Therapeutics was brought to its knees last summer when the Food and Drug Administration turned down the drugmaker’s application for the psychedelic drug MDMA combined with talk therapy as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. (Schumaker, 8/6)

One of the most promising avenues toward new cancer treatments are vaccines, therapies designed to prompt an immune response against a patient’s tumors. Many rely on the same mRNA technology that built the Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and BioNTech. So when the federal government announced it was ending major funding of mRNA vaccines, cancer researchers and patients began to wonder what that might mean for them. (Chen, Molteni and Russo, 8/7)

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to cancel $500 million in funding and wind down development of mRNA vaccines is a disastrous one -- especially with the looming threat of an H5N1 avian influenza pandemic, sources told MedPage Today. "This is a really reckless decision," said Jeff Coller, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who has studied mRNA for more than 30 years. "It's absolutely baffling to me." (Fiore, 8/6)

President Trump’s first-term surgeon general, Jerome Adams, sharply criticized the decision by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday to pare back investments in mRNA vaccine projects, including those underway to help fight bird flu and COVID-19. “I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions – but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives,” Adams said Tuesday in a post on the social platform X. (Fortinsky, 8/6)

The Trump administration’s decision to terminate hundreds of millions of dollars to develop mRNA vaccines and treatments imperils the country’s ability to fight future pandemics and is built on false or misleading claims about the technology, public health experts said. Vaccine development is typically a years-long process, but mRNA technology paired with massive injections of federal funding during the coronavirus pandemic drastically slashed the timeline. (Johnson and Weber, 8/6)

Groups dedicated to keeping drug users healthy — and alive — have thrived during the past decade to counter the staggering toll of the nation’s overdose crisis. They hit the streets to distribute naloxone, the medication that reverses opioid overdoses. Others swap used needles for sterile ones to keep users free from deadly infections. More controversially, in New York City and Rhode Island, nonprofits have run government-sanctioned “overdose prevention” centers, where people can use illicit drugs under the supervision of staffers trained to revive them if they collapse. (Ovalle, 8/6)

In an understated brick building in the heart of Providence’s medical district sits Project Weber/RENEW, one of three overdose prevention centers — sometimes called safe injection sites — in the entire country. (Rasekh, Tillman and Golvala, 8/5)