Medicine and Health

• NASA Astronauts Return to Earth After Medical Evacuation From International Space Station - The members of Crew-11 — two American, one Russian and one Japanese — splashed down after one became ill, prompting an early return.
• Appeals Court Upholds Prohibition on Trump’s Medical Research Cuts - The ruling on Monday upheld a lower court’s judgment in April that the Trump administration could not drastically slash funding from the National Institutes of Health.
• Kennedy Scales Back the Number of Vaccines Recommended for Children - Federal health officials now recommend that children be routinely inoculated against 11 diseases, not 17, citing standards in other wealthy nations.
• How America Loses Vaccine Access - America could all but lose vaccine access. Here’s how.
• Experts Question Denmark’s Vaccine Program as a Model for the U.S. - The United States is expected to adopt the vaccine schedule used by Denmark, a much smaller country with universal health care.
• Good Calls - This week, we close out the year with your best advice of 2025.
• R.F.K. Jr. Likely to Swap U.S. Childhood Vaccine Schedule for Denmark’s - The shift would mean fewer shots recommended for children. But a Danish health official found the idea baffling, saying the United States was getting “crazier and crazier in public health.”
• California Hires Former C.D.C. Officials Who Criticized Trump Administration - A former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a former chief medical officer of the agency will advise the state on public health issues.
• Inside RFK Jr.’s Methodical Quest to Shake Up America’s Vaccine System - The health secretary has walled himself off from government scientists and empowered fellow activists to pursue his vaccine agenda.
• Former F.D.A. Commissioners Sound Alarm on Plan to Change Vaccine Policy - Twelve former commissioners, in a New England Journal of Medicine article, said they were “deeply concerned” by a leaked memo from the agency’s vaccine regulator.