Experts warn the 336-page plan from RFK Jr’s advisers deflects federal dollars into unreliable alternative therapies

Autism groups and researchers have reacted with alarm to a federal research roadmap drawn up by advisers handpicked by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, fearing it will promote unproven fringe therapies at the expense of promising genetic research.

A slew of scientific bodies and groups within the autism community are warning that the 336-page plan risks deflecting federal dollars away from potentially groundbreaking genetic research in favor of unreliable alternative therapies.

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The disorder may affect hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, but many face significant delays in getting a diagnosis.

Soaring demand for services has led to tenfold increase in spending in a year in some areas, says NHS Alliance

NHS leaders have warned that the costs of meeting soaring demand for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism services in England are “running out of control” and have become unsustainable, with spending in some areas rising by as much as tenfold over the course of a year.

The NHS Alliance, which represents health managers, said the rise in demand since the coronavirus pandemic was forcing some to close waiting lists and look at reining in other services they provide.

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Costs are spiralling out of control as unregulated private providers capitalise on demand, say managers.

Decision allows manufacturers to begin shipping doses, but confusion remains about insurance coverage

The US Food and Drug Administration approved updated Covid-19 vaccines on Thursday, allowing manufacturers to begin shipping doses to pharmacies and doctors’ offices across the country.

The FDA approved Moderna, Novavax-Sanofi and Pfizer-BioNTech’s updated Covid vaccines, the companies ⁠said on Thursday, ⁠after ​an advisory panel recommended that the shots should target ⁠the dominant XFG variant.

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The disorder may affect hundreds of thousands in the UK, but many face delays in getting a diagnosis.

Experts call for joined-up support through the postnatal period amid concerns GPs are not trained to spot symptoms

Thousands of UK women develop undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after childbirth every year, research has found.

The frightening and dangerous condition is being missed in at least 15,000 women a year across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the true toll could be double that or more, according to the authors of research in a leading medical journal.

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Newly obtained records indicate health secretary lied about Samoa trip during Senate confirmation hearings last year

A senior Democratic senator is calling for a criminal investigation into the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, following reporting by the Guardian that indicated he lied during Senate confirmation hearings last year.

Ron Wyden of Oregon said: “RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress.”

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More people have become ill in an outbreak of salmonella food poising.

Grammy award-winning soprano Angel Bluehow discusses how a recent health diagnosis has affected her.

In a new book, Dr Lucy McBride aims to help us navigate US healthcare – and tread carefully in the wellness industry

Most of us want to be healthy, but it’s easier said than done. In the US, people are caught between a broken medical system and a well-resourced wellness industry. The failings of the former – cost barriers, rushed appointments, impersonal attention – push them towards the snake-oil solutions of the latter.

Over 25 years of practicing medicine, running a primary care practice in Washington DC, Dr Lucy McBride has seen patients struggle to navigate the medical system.

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Thermal drone footage shows a Microsoft-backed AI datacenter powering its operations with dozens of unpermitted generators

The largest planned AI datacenter in New Jersey is being accused of violating federal law after a visual investigation found the site running dozens of unpermitted gas-powered generators.

Thermal drone footage captured by the non-profit newsroom Floodlight last week showed the partly completed DataOne facility in Vineland was operating at least 45 of the site’s 62 generators at the time.

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People with allergies must be able to travel without fear, and a compassionate society should respect that

What are you most scared of? Perhaps snakes send a chill down your spine. Or heights leave your knees weak. Peanuts may sound like an odd source of phobia, but they have taken on an absurd bogeyman quality for me since my daughter was taken to hospital by ambulance after eating peanut butter when she was six months old. Just the sight of a bowl on a pub bar, or their shells discarded on the pavement, can raise my heart rate – even when I’m not with her.

Nowhere is the sight of peanuts more confronting than at 30,000ft, especially now when millions are jetting back from their holidays. Travelling with a severely allergic child can be a nightmare for all sorts of reasons, but the idea you could be sat next to a passenger consuming the very thing that has hospitalised them is its own kind of hell.

Lucy Pasha-Robinson is a Guardian assistant Opinion editor

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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Experts say findings mean breast screenings for cancer could also flag cardiovascular problems in women

Doctors have discovered a way to use routine mammograms that screen for breast cancer to spot heart disease, the world’s leading – and frequently underdiagnosed – cause of death in women.

Researchers analysed the scans using artificial intelligence and were able to successfully identify women with coronary heart disease, high blood pressure or who had suffered a stroke.

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The pioneering Japanese artist talked openly about how her mental health and neurodivergence informed her creativity, paving the way for the likes of Turner prize winner Nnena Kalu

Yayoi Kusama – who has died at the age of 97 – was 10 when she first started experiencing vivid hallucinations consisting of visual and aural disturbances, which she described as “flashes of light, auras, or dense fields of dots”. A drawing from 1939, of a woman in a kimono assumed to be her mother, shows her obliterated by those dots; they would become Kusama’s artistic obsession. She hallucinated flowers, too. “I was looking at the red flower patterns of the tablecloth on a table, and when I looked up I saw the same pattern covering the ceiling, the windows and the walls, and finally all over the room, my body and the universe”, she once said, when asked about that recurring motif. “I felt as if I had begun to self-obliterate, to revolve in the infinity of endless time and the absoluteness of space, and be reduced to nothingness.”

For Kusama, art making was a means of survival. “I fight pain, anxiety, and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieved my illness is to keep creating art. I followed the thread of art and somehow discovered a path that would allow me to live”, she said in a 2012 interview. In so doing, she became one of the most acclaimed and admired contemporary artists, staging happenings and influencing the pop art movement as a pioneering figure in the New York avant garde. Her exhibitions and major retrospectives draw huge crowds. In 2022, due to enormous public demand, Tate Modern in London extended her Infinity Mirror Rooms show for a whole extra year (it ended up running until 2024).

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Letters obtained by Guardian and AP contradict testimony that 2019 visit to Samoa had ‘nothing to do with vaccines’

Newly obtained documents indicate that the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lied during two congressional hearings last year, when he told lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation that a 2019 visit to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines”.

Letters obtained by the Guardian and the Associated Press contradict that testimony. In one he wrote to the Samoan prime minister before the trip, Kennedy explicitly said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in the Pacific island nation. In it, he used the words “vaccine” or “vaccination” eight times.

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Hundreds have fallen ill with salmonella infections in an outbreak linked to imported eggs.

Close to 500 people have become ill with salmonella linked to imported eggs, say UK authorities who are investigating more clusters.

A team looked at 80 major trials involving nearly 30,000 people and found that nicotine vapes were more effective than traditional aids, increasing the success rate by about 60 percent.

Neon is on trend, but some make-up products pose a serious risk to your health. Here's what to check for, and how to dazzle.