Without US Support, WHO Is Paring Back Leadership Team, Departments
The World Health Organization, struggling financially since the U.S. left its ranks, has cut its management team by half and will reduce its departments by more than half, Stat reports. Meanwhile, Harvard is taking steps to cushion the blow by the Trump administration's cuts.
Stat:
WHO Trims Top Management Ranks Amid Financial Crunch
The World Health Organization, which faces an extraordinary financial crunch in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the agency, has dramatically trimmed its top management. (Branswell, 5/14)
On the trade war and pharma manufacturing —
Modern Healthcare:
Siemens Healthineers To Invest $150M In US Operations
Siemens Healthineers announced Wednesday it is investing $150 million to expand production and support innovation in the United States. The company is relocating its radiotherapy equipment manufacturer Varian from Baja, Mexico, to Palo Alto, California, which will add about 50 manufacturing jobs. The move will reduce the complexity of its global supply chain, according to a news release. (Dubinsky, 5/14)
Bloomberg:
Trump’s Trade War Spares An Industry Europe Dominates: Hearing Aids
Just northwest of Copenhagen, a cluster of small towns surrounded by trees and lakes is home to three of the world’s biggest hearing-aid makers. The area’s outsize control of the market, which has helped Denmark earn the moniker “Silicon Valley of Sound,” seems set to endure after devices for chronic disabilities were among the rare segments to escape the Trump tariff burn. ... This small yet sensitive medical-care segment was shielded from tariffs during President Donald Trump’s first term and spared again from the barrage of levies he unleashed last month. (Pham, 5/15)
AP:
Trump Incorrectly Blames Other Countries For High US Drug Prices
President Donald Trump incorrectly placed the blame for high prescription drug prices in the U.S. on foreign nations, making the comments Monday when signing an executive order intended to lower their cost. The order sets a 30-day deadline for drugmakers to electively lower prices in the U.S. or face new limits in the future over what the government will pay. If favorable deals are not reached, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will be tasked with developing a new rule that ties prices the U.S. pays for medications to lower prices paid by other countries. Here’s a closer look at the facts. (Goldin, 5/14)
On the federal funding freeze and budget cuts —
The New York Times:
Trump Administration Cancels Scores Of Grants To Study Online Misinformation
The Trump administration has sharply expanded its campaign against experts who track misinformation and other harmful content online, abruptly canceling scores of scientific research grants at universities across the country. The grants funded research into topics like ways to evade censors in China. One grant at the Rochester Institute of Technology, for example, sought to design a tool to detect fabricated videos or photos generated by artificial intelligence. Another, at Kent State University in Ohio, studied how malign actors posing as ordinary users manipulate information on social media. (Myers, 5/15)
Bloomberg:
Harvard To Fund $250M For Research After Trump Scraps Federal Money
Harvard University said it will free up an extra $250 million of school money to help pay for research during the coming year after the Trump administration scrapped multiyear federal funding of more than $2.6 billion. School leaders will also work with researchers to make “prudent decisions” about adjusting their programs amid the funding pressure, Harvard President Alan Garber and Provost John Manning said in a letter Wednesday to the university community. They described the federal freeze as “part of a broader campaign to revoke scientific research funding” by the US government. (Lorin, 5/14)
Stat:
HHS Cuts Will Worsen Native American Health, Tribal Leaders Say
Although Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he cares deeply about Native American communities, the health of those communities is under severe threat because of massive cuts Kennedy is making to federal health services, U.S. senators and tribal leaders said at a hearing held Wednesday. (McFarling, 5/14)
Also —
The New York Times:
U.S. Charges Russian Scientist With Smuggling
The Trump administration announced criminal smuggling charges on Wednesday against Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard scientist who was detained three months ago after failing to declare scientific samples she was carrying in her luggage. In a hearing in federal district court earlier in the day, a government lawyer told a federal judge that the Trump administration intends to deport Ms. Petrova back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will be arrested there over her history of political protest. (Barry, 5/14)
