Sanders releases trove of internal HHS emails showing RFK Jr. pressured CDC over vaccine messaging Emails indicate that Kennedy directed the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel to restrict access to vaccines thehill.com/policy/healt...

‘Edited’ human embryos reveal secrets of our development — and fuel ethical debate. Ethical discussions are urgently needed as genome-editing science advances, some researchers say. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

AI Ethics & Governance Weekly Roundup | Consciousness Illusion, Digital Colonialism, Operating a Humanoid With Your Body, Cheating, Broad School Restrictions, Infinite Workweek, Clinical Impact, Autonomy to Alliance, + More mailchi.mp/5c064eb0e5f6...

The Trump administration is calling frozen embryos children. A document on an embryo adoption program may be marginal – but it marks an escalation in the pursuit of fetal personhood. | Moira Donegan | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Inside the CDC’s Mad Scramble to Meet Kennedy’s Demands. A cache of internal emails offers a look at the pressure the nation’s public health officials faced from the new health secretary in the early months of the Trump administration. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/25/u...

Ethics and Life Sciences Weekly Roundup | Brain-Computer Interface Trials, Deathbed Visions, Time Perception, AI Taking Over Hospitals, 1 in 3 Use AI for Health Advice, Ruining Skills, NIH Security Rules, Gene Editing Theater Production, Elephant iPSCs, + More mailchi.mp/jhu/sciencee...

Two ICE agents tracked down a woman *inside a polling place* yesterday. Why? They demanded that she take down an Instagram post in which she named Jonathan Ross as the man who shot & killed Renee Good (after the Star Tribune identified Ross). www.syracuse.com/news/2026/06...

Postmaster General Confirms Plan to Hold Back Mail Ballots Under Proposed Rule. The postmaster general, David Steiner, said on Wednesday that under a proposed rule, his agency would not deliver mail ballots in states that decline Trump demands to hand over voter data. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/24/u...

Opinion | We Need to Keep Funding Weird Science - The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack. By Jeff Coller | New York Times www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o...

Senators alarmed at Trump administration website - Moms dot gov - promoting anti-abortion facilities| The Guardian www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Would Claude Refuse an Illegal Military Order? - The AI chatbot told me that it has misgivings about its role in modern warfare. By Shane Harris | The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...

The military traded its flu vaccine mandate for ‘medical freedom’ – an outbreak quickly followed theconversation.com/the-military...

Even in Blue States, Hospitals Have Continued To Drop Gender-Affirming Care for Youths - KFF Health News/NPR kffhealthnews.org/health-indus...

Musk says not a single person has died due to him axing USAID. Sadly, part of my job involves tracking aid spending. So here’s a thread with just some of the people who lost their lives because of USAID cuts

The lack of pregnancy-specific data for COVID vaccines complicated regulatory and public health decision-making. @bermaninstitute.bsky.social's Ruth Faden discusses the ethics of testing new interventions in pregnant people. 🎧 podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/the-ethics-o...

Berman Institute #Bioethics Bulletin - This Week - Two Bodies--One Prescription, Blocked Study Published, Battling Measles, Caught in the AI-Safety Crossfire, Affordability Loophole, Devastating Losses, New NIH Security Rules, Blocked SNAP Ban, + Much More mailchi.mp/jhu/bioethic...

For more on this topic: Listen to episode 6 of playing god? podcast: "Two Bodies, One Prescription." - which explores the historical exclusion of pregnant women from medical research, and what happens when patients need answers that medical research can't provide. bioethics.jhu.edu/playing-god

Research on the potential impacts of certain medical interventions on pregnant people and their fetuses is lacking. Our Ruth Faden joins @publichealthpod.bsky.social to discuss ethically and responsibly include pregnant people in clinical trials. podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/the-ethics-o...

Research on the potential impacts of certain interventions on pregnant people and their fetuses is lacking. @bermaninstitute.bsky.social's Ruth Faden explains how this gap in data can fuel other risks and how to ethically conduct clinical trials. 🎧 podcast.publichealth.jhu.edu/the-ethics-o...

CDC’s chief blocked a covid vaccine study. Now it’s in a top medical journal. The study found that the vaccine reduced the risk of emergency department visits and hospitalizations among healthy adults by about half last winter. | The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...

Former NOAA Employees Revive Climate Site Shut by Trump Administration. The database of federal global warming research recreates a website that was closed amid the administration’s broad retreat from climate science. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/23/c...

#Bioethics in the Academic Lit - This Week - Migration & Health, Ethics of Military Global Health Engagements, No Apologies, AI Decision Support, Inclusive Clinical Trials, Biopolitical Bioethics, Judicial Substitute Consent, Advance Research Directives, + More mailchi.mp/jhu/bioethic...

‘Devastating’: lives of nurses and patients upended by Trump migrant crackdown. Withdrawal of TPS designation puts workers who fill vital role in peril – and risks further shortages in US health system. | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

What happens when patients need answers, but the evidence doesn't exist? playing god? podcast explores the ethical consequences of excluding pregnant women from medical research & the difficult decisions patients & physicians face when evidence is limited. Listen Now: bioethics.jhu.edu/playing-god

AI models that can take down governments and business months away, rare Five Eyes statement warns. Signal agencies in Australia, the US, the UK, New Zealand and Canada sound alarm after Trump blocks foreign nationals from Anthropic’s Fable AI model. | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Tennessee to restrict medical aid for critically ill undocumented children. Families have been notified that a law aimed at cutting undocumented immigrants off from public benefits will also be applied to children. | The Washington Post www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

The illusion of AI consciousness: Lessons from humans. Complex, goal-directed and even emotionally responsive behavior can unfold without awareness, providing a useful lens for interpreting artificial systems. | The Transmitter: Neuroscience News & Perspectives www.thetransmitter.org/artificial-i...

Ethics of Military Global Health Engagements - Hunter Jackson Smith | 2026 - Developing World Bioethics onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The UCL–Lancet Commission on Migration and Health: review of the state of progress - By Ibrahim Abubakar, David Tellez, Robert Aldridge et al, including our Leonard Rubenstein | The Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Not a lawyer but this analysis of the proposed OMB rule on federal grantmaking seems worth a read. www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspecti...

“The scandal of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is such a complete encapsulation—and such a perfect metaphor—of incompetence and corruption that it deserves to be both a long-remembered failure and a final straw for a restless, angry nation.“ www.americaamerica.news/p/what-does-...

Gift link. Leaving aside the sheer immorality of this, which we should not, no country can afford to throw away good officers. But Pete “Meritocracy“ Hegseth knows better. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/u...

Global #FoodEthics and Policy Program Weekly Roundup | Soaring Beef Prices, Black Women Farmers, 770k Children No Longer Receiving Food Benefits, Slowed Screwworm Response, Migrant Worker Visas, Phosphorous Action, + More mailchi.mp/jhu/we3frp22...

Robert B Shpiner: I’m a critical care doctor. I’ve never seen the US harm its children this deliberately. At every stage of childhood, the Trump administration is withdrawing a protection. It is also dismantling the tools that would measure the harm | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Today's reminder for why vaccines are important: Flu outbreak among Air Force recruits at Joint Base San Antonio after Hegseth ends mandatory flu vaccine. There are at least 159 cases among recruits and two hospitalizations. abcnews.com/Health/flu-o...

Three brothers lost their parents to AIDS. Now they're on their own. The boys say that their parents could no longer get their HIV meds as the program that delivered to their remote area was suddenly stopped. It took just ~ a year for both parents to succumb to the virus. www.npr.org/2026/06/18/g...

Americans strongly support regulations on AI - New poll by researchers at @jhu.edu finds even artificial intelligence proponents want more rules. | Hub hub.jhu.edu/2026/06/15/a...

AI Ethics & Governance Weekly Roundup | Opting Out? Strong Support for Regulation, Papal Message, Blaming AI for Hospital Death, 'Dangerous' Models, Millions of Songs Smashed, EU AI Act, Research Integrity and Data Ethics, War on Anthropic, + More mailchi.mp/d73621d835f8...

Ethics and Life Sciences Weekly Roundup | Brain Implant, AI & Human Creativity, Opting Out of an AI-Driven Future? Ethical Hacking & Fed Pulse Oximetry Policy, Incorrigibly Didactic, Attitudes toward Xenotransplantation, Future of Gene Editing, + More mailchi.mp/jhu/sciencee...

Arrests of Immigrant Parents Create Mental Health Crisis for Children - KFF Health News kffhealthnews.org/mental-healt...

A Deadly Outbreak of Plague, Nearly 5,000 Years Before the Black Death. The oldest known cases, discovered among hunter-gatherers in Siberian graves, contradict the theory that the disease once was mild. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/s...

Doctors Are Worried About AI. They Use It Anyway. - The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/...

The 3-Pronged Attack on Scientific Communication. At the NIH, political appointees exercise extensive control over scientific communication, and research on health communication is under siege. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

Proposed White House regulations could kill 5,000 clinical trials, analysis finds. The Trump administration is mulling new rules that would give political appointees final say on research grants. | Scientific American www.scientificamerican.com/article/prop...

Berman Institute #Bioethics Bulletin - This Week - GLP-1 Drugs on playing god? pod, Opting Out? Brain Implant, ATTENTION! Relearning Risk Communication, Limbo, Valuing our Humanity, + More mailchi.mp/jhu/bioethic...

Tennessee Pharmacies Sell Potent Ivermectin, Led by Anti-Vaccine Doctor Who’s Taken ‘Bucketloads’ - The physician has fueled sales of the controversial drug in the Volunteer State, where it can now be dispensed without requiring a doctor visit. | KFF Health News kffhealthnews.org/health-indus...

The DOJ argued that a program to compensate Black residents for housing discrimination was racist & unconstitutional. The program provides reparations to residents who can show that they or their ancestors were victims of redlining & discriminatory housing practices. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/16/u...

An Ascendant Constitutional Theory Is a Threat to American Science - The idea of a “unitary executive” is now being extended to America’s scientific establishment, with potentially devastating effects. | The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

GLP-1 drugs are changing healthcare—and raising new questions about health, choice, and responsibility. Should you take them if you're eligible? What factors should shape that decision? Listen now to the new playing god? episode: “A Shot at Weight Loss: Should I Take It?” bioethics.jhu.edu/pgs2e5