US health secretary says US will decline to renew funding for Gavi, a partnership that works to provide vaccines for poorest countries

• US politics live – latest updates

Robert F Kennedy Jr will be “personally responsible” for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children after he refused to renew US funding for a global vaccines body, public health experts said.

The US health secretary said Wednesday that the United States would halt funding for Gavi, the vaccine alliance that has immunised more than one billion children since 2000, in a statement that has also been criticised for spreading disinformation on vaccine safety.

Move comes after health secretary replaced advisory board with ideological allies and several vaccine skeptics

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants.

The treatment, a new monoclonal antibody called clesrovimab, which will be sold under the brand name Enflonsia by Merck, was recommended by the powerful committee after being approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) roughly two weeks ago.

Study discovered abnormal process in womb lining, with potential for new treatments to prevent pregnancy loss

Scientists have developed a test to identify women with an increased risk of miscarriage, which could pave the way for new treatments to prevent pregnancy loss.

About one in six of all pregnancies are lost, most before 12 weeks, and each miscarriage increases the risk of another one happening.

UKHSA amber and yellow heat-health alerts due to come into force at midday on Friday until Tuesday evening

An amber heat health alert has been issued for much of England because of predicted temperatures above 30C (86F) over the weekend.

The alert, issued by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), covers London, the East Midlands, and the south-west, south-east and east of England.

Our human microbiome is in decline, which is likely to be contributing to the sharp rise in non-communicable diseases, health conditions that cannot be directly transmitted between people, such as cardiovascular disease and cancers. Josh Toussaint-Strauss talks to Dr James Kinross, colorectal surgeon and author of the book Dark Matter: The New Science of the Microbiome, about why the human microbiome is in decline, how modern life is impacting it and what we can do to look after it

James Kinross also appeared recently on the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast, you can listen here:

• Your microbiome questions answered: part one

• Your microbiome questions answered: part two

PM says conversations over changes to bill will ‘continue in coming days’ with more than 120 MPs poised to rebel

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer has confirmed Downing Street is offering concessions to rebel Labour MPs to get his welfare bill over the line.

The prime minister told the Commons he wanted “values of fairness” to underpin the legislation so the government could “get this right” on fixing the broken benefits system.

Few patients will be eligible for the drugs. Better food regulation and social policy are more likely to give lasting results

A medicine that takes away your appetite by making you feel full and a bit nauseous doesn’t sound very attractive, but it is a price many people are ready to pay for the chance to lose weight. Although widely available privately, until this week only doctors in specialist clinics were allowed to prescribe tirzepatide (Mounjaro) to treat obesity on the NHS and it was almost impossible for GPs to get their patients into these clinics. People up and down England will no doubt rejoice at the news that their own doctor can now prescribe it.

Any celebrations may be premature, as the criteria for prescription in the first phase of the rollout are so tightly drawn that few patients will qualify. You need a body mass index (BMI) of more than 40, which corresponds to a weight of 102kg (16st) for a woman of average height or 123kg (more than 19st) for a man. (The BMI criterion is slightly lower if you come from a high-risk group.)

Recognition remains an ‘urgent safety risk’ and relatives’ concerns are too often ignored, says Health Services Safety Investigations Body

Sepsis is causing thousands of deaths a year, a charity has said, as the NHS’s safety watchdog warned that doctors and nurses are too often slow to identify and treat it.

“The recognition of sepsis remains an urgent and persistent safety risk”, despite previous reports highlighting the large number of deaths it causes when diagnosed too late, according to the Health Services Safety Investigations Body.

Proportion of women giving birth after fertility treatment up by more than a third in a decade, figures reveal

The proportion of women giving birth after fertility treatment in the UK has increased by more than a third in a decade, with the equivalent of one child in every classroom now born as a result of IVF, figures show.

One in 32 births in 2023 were the result of in vitro fertilisation, up 34% from one in 43 in 2013, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA).

UK health officials launch study into side-effects of weight loss drugs after increased reports of acute pancreatitis

Hundreds of people have reported problems with their pancreas linked to taking weight loss and diabetes injections, prompting health officials to launch a study into side-effects.

Some cases of pancreatitis reported to be linked to GLP-1 medicines (glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists) have been fatal.

Health secretary unilaterally appointed ACIP’s eight new members, several of whom are critical of immunizations

The first meeting of a critical federal vaccine panel was a high-profile display of how the US health secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr has injected chaos into vaccine policy infrastructure.

Wednesday’s meeting was held amid controversy, not only regarding the new members unilaterally appointed by Kennedy, but also the questions they would consider, their conflicts of interest and views on vaccines, and the scheduled speakers.

Dr Michael Ross was involved in multiple private healthcare firms and withdrew after a review of financial holdings

A member of the health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s newly overhauled federal vaccine advisory panel withdrew after a conflict of interest review, a spokesperson has told the Guardian.

Dr Michael Ross, who was involved in multiple private healthcare companies, withdrew after review of his financial holdings.

Five-year £1.25bn pledge to Gavi is 40% cut in real terms, which experts say will cost lives in developing countries

The UK has cut its funding to a leading global vaccination group by a quarter, a move that experts say will directly lead to the avoidable deaths of many thousands of children in developing countries.

The Foreign Office billed the £1.25bn commitment over five years to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) as a major boost to the group’s work as well as to the UK’s status as a developer of vaccines. A series of aid agencies praised the decision.

Deprived and coastal areas to get extra cash this year for staff and resources in effort to improve health outcomes

England’s poorest areas will get billions in extra health funding under new government plans to tackle stark inequalities in access to care and health outcomes.

NHS services in deprived and coastal places will receive a £2.2bn boost this year to pay for more staff and equipment to help them close the wide gap in resources between them and well-off areas.

Marcus Skeet has dealt with a lot: diabetes, anxiety, depression, OCD and the pressures of being a young carer. A few years ago, he reached his lowest point. Then he began working towards an extraordinary goal

Day three of Marcus Skeet’s epic run from Land’s End to John o’Groats was a low point. It had been a sunny April morning when he set off. Marcus was in shorts and a T-shirt – bright yellow so he could be easily seen running beside the A30. But then, 18 miles (29km) in and just a few miles before the end of the day’s leg, it started to rain. “Absolutely bucketing down, then hailing really heavily, hailstones right into my face.”

Marcus, who had been sweating, got cold very quickly. He tried to call his friend Harry, who had gone ahead in the support car to check in to that night’s Airbnb, to get him to come back with a coat, but the phone had got wet and wasn’t working. He managed to reach a layby where there was a breakdown van. He asked the driver if he would make a call for him (Marcus didn’t know Harry’s number from memory, but he knew his mum’s, and she could ring Harry). “And he looks at me and goes: ‘Mate, I’m working, bore off.’”

Exclusive: Number of people receiving subsidised care has fallen far more quickly than the country’s disability rate, analysis finds

Nearly 100,000 adults have been denied government-funded social care because of a decade’s worth of spending cuts, a Guardian analysis has revealed, as ministers come under mounting pressure to increase funding for the sector.

The analysis, which is based on a study by the Institute for Government (IfG), shows the number of people in England receiving subsidised care has fallen far more quickly than the country’s disability rate.

Jenny Bradley on the bureaucracy that is preventing dentists who have trained abroad from working in the NHS

Thank you, Denis Campbell, for highlighting the distressing plight of many overseas-trained dentists in this country (Overseas-trained dentists working in McDonald’s as millions lack NHS care, 18 June). Brilliant dental specialists are being treated appallingly, repeatedly rejected in their attempts to book the overseas registration exam, which they could pass with ease if they could only manage to sit it.

For dentists longing to work in the NHS but who are having to take up low-paid jobs, this is a form of mental torture. Meanwhile, people are unable to get dental care on the NHS. Where’s the sense in this?
Jenny Bradley
Cirencester, Gloucestershire

Other Lives obituaries | Shame on the BBC | Pan frying | Air fried | Inquiring minds | Pre-existent state

Page after page of horrors in the Guardian these days, but for reading to lift one’s spirits, go to the Other Lives pages. These record the wonderful people who for decades have shown the other side of humanity – teachers, community activists, and voluntary workers at home and abroad.
Simon Barley
Stroud, Gloucestershire

• So the BBC believes in demonstrating impartiality between the perpetrators of genocide and their victims (BBC drops Gaza medics documentary over impartiality concerns, 20 June). In doing so, it despoils a fine reputation and should be deeply ashamed.
Bob Marshall-Andrews
Labour MP, 1997-2010

It seems a sensible move to use explicit warning labels on products. What I’m more sceptical about is the ‘No amount of alcohol is safe for you’ messaging ...

You’re going to want to sit down with a big glass of water for this one, because I’m afraid I have some bad news. Here we go: alcohol is not terribly good for you. Shocker, right? You’ve probably never heard anything like this before in your life. No doubt, you’ve been choking down a glass of pinot with dinner whenever you can stomach it because you thought it was good for your cholesterol. Instead, it is elevating your risk of cancer.

If public health experts have their way, the fact that alcohol is carcinogenic is going to be very hard for British drinkers to ignore. Dozens of medical and health organisations recently wrote to Keir Starmer urging the prime minister to force companies to include “bold and unambiguous” labels on booze bottles, warning that alcohol causes cancer.

Researchers say tobacco linked to about one in eight deaths worldwide and numbers rising sharply in some countries

Exposure to tobacco killed more than 7 million people worldwide in 2023, according to estimates.

It remains the leading risk factor for deaths in men, among whom there were 5.59m deaths, and ranks seventh for women, among whom there were 1.77m deaths.