Health
Supreme Court Asked to Restore Access to Abortion Pill by Mail
Two manufacturers of the abortion pill mifepristone asked the Supreme Court on Saturday to immediately restore full access to the medication, putting the contentious issue of abortion back before the justices in a midterm election year.
The requests came after a lower court on Friday temporarily restricted abortion providers nationwide from prescribing the pills by telemedicine and sending them to patients by mail. That process is one of the main ways women seeking abortions have obtained the medication in recent years.
If the order on Friday by a federal appeals court is upheld, it could sow confusion and upend a major avenue for abortion access across the country — not just in states with abortion bans. About one-fourth of abortions in the United States are now provided through telemedicine.
Louisiana officials had sued the Food and Drug Administration to restrict access to mifepristone, saying the availability of the medication by mail had allowed abortions to continue in the state despite its near-total ban on abortion.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday sided with Louisiana and essentially reimposed an F.D.A. requirement that health care providers prescribe mifepristone only after seeing patients in person. That rule was first lifted in 2021. The Fifth Circuit ordered that in-person dispensing of mifepristone be reinstated until the Louisiana lawsuit made its way through the courts.
The manufacturers, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, are also defendants in the Louisiana lawsuit. On Saturday afternoon, Danco filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to lift the lower court’s order, which applied to patients across the country. GenBioPro filed a similar request Saturday evening.
“The Supreme Court must reject this unfounded and baseless attack on an essential medication,” GenBioPro’s chief executive, Evan Masingill, said on Saturday, adding: “We remain concerned that anti-abortion special interests are attempting to undermine the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory authority. This is why we are bringing our fight to the Supreme Court.”
In its filing, GenBioPro said that “patients and clinicians have, for years, relied on dispensing mifepristone without an in-clinic visit, particularly for women from rural areas and those for whom transportation, child care or occupational constraints make it difficult to see providers in person.”
It said that the Fifth Circuit’s order “is deeply unsettling to drug sponsors, health care providers, patients and the public — all of whom rely on F.D.A.’s exercise of scientific judgment and orderly administration of the Nation’s complex system of drug regulation.”
In its filing, Danco said the Fifth Circuit’s ruling “injects immediate confusion and upheaval into highly time-sensitive medical decisions,” and requires Danco, providers, patients and pharmacies “all to guess at what is allowed and what is not.”
In a motion filed on Friday night asking the Fifth Circuit to pause its order, Danco said that the ruling would cause “chaos.” The court had not responded to the request by Saturday evening.
The Trump administration has defended the F.D.A. in court, but has not said in this case, or in public statements, whether it supports keeping in place the regulations that allow for pills to be mailed. Rather, it has said that the F.D.A. is conducting a review of mifepristone. It has also asked the court to delay the lawsuit proceedings until that review is complete.
Administration officials recently told The New York Times that the review would not be finished until the end of this year, a time frame that would fall after the midterm elections.
The mifepristone case puts the Trump administration in a politically tricky position, given that many of President Trump’s supporters oppose abortion. The Justice Department has not responded to requests for comment about whether it would appeal to the Supreme Court.
On Saturday, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the F.D.A., declined to comment, citing “ongoing litigation.”
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion, Republican-led states like Louisiana imposed strict bans on abortion. In response, many Democratic-led states passed shield laws that protect abortion providers who prescribe pills by telemedicine and send them to patients in states with abortion bans.
Nearly two-thirds of abortions in the United States are now carried out with abortion pills, typically used through the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The medication abortion regimen usually involves taking mifepristone, which blocks a hormone necessary for pregnancy to continue, followed 24 to 48 hours later by a second medication, misoprostol, which causes contractions similar to a miscarriage. The Louisiana case targets mifepristone, which the F.D.A. approved for abortion in 2000. Misoprostol, which is also used for other medical conditions, is not affected by the Fifth Circuit ruling.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the F.D.A. lifted its requirement that patients visit a medical provider in person to obtain mifepristone. That decision was made permanent in 2023 and led to the creation of numerous telemedicine abortion services.
Louisiana has claimed in its lawsuit that the F.D.A.’s decision to remove the in-person dispensing requirement was based on inadequate or flawed data — an assertion medical organizations dispute, pointing to more than 100 studies that have found that mifepristone is safe, and that serious complications from taking it are rare.
In addition, Louisiana said that the regulations had resulted in numerous illegal abortions in the state, and that it had paid thousands of dollars in Medicaid bills for women harmed by mifepristone.
In its Supreme Court filing, GenBioPro said Louisiana’s “narrative is demonstrably false,” adding that the F.D.A.’s regulation change allowing telemedicine prescribing and pills by mail “does not require anyone to prescribe mifepristone, require anyone to dispense mifepristone or prevent Louisiana from creating or enforcing its abortion prohibitions. It simply removes a federal in-person dispensing requirement.”
In April, a district court judge in Louisiana said the state was likely to win its challenge to the regulation, but declined to pause the availability of pills by mail. Instead, the judge gave the F.D.A. time to complete the safety review of mifepristone.
In its ruling Friday, the Fifth Circuit sided with Louisiana, echoing the state’s arguments that the F.D.A.’s regulations were “undermining its laws protecting unborn human life” and also “causing it to spend Medicaid funds on emergency care for women harmed by mifepristone,” according to the order written by Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee. He was joined by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, another Trump appointee, and Judge Leslie Southwick, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
Other litigation over access to abortion medication has been making its way through the federal courts.
In 2024, the Supreme Court declined to limit access to mifepristone in a case brought by anti-abortion doctors and groups that sought to have its approval revoked. The court unanimously sided with the Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone, and said the plaintiffs did not have legal grounds to bring the challenge.
The case was revived later that year, and is pending before a federal court in Missouri. Another similar case was filed against the F.D.A. last year by Texas and Florida.
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A newly identified muscle protein may help explain why people who stay active as they age often remain stronger and healthier for longer, according to new research.
Scientists found that a protein called NOX4 naturally declines with age and inactivity. As levels dropped, researchers observed signs of frailty, muscle loss, insulin resistance and liver disease in mice.
The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.
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Researchers believe NOX4 helps muscles repair themselves and adapt to the physical demands of exercise.
When NOX4 was removed from the muscles of mice, the animals became weaker, lost muscle mass and developed health problems commonly associated with aging.
Researchers found that declining levels of the muscle protein NOX4 with age and inactivity may contribute to weakness, muscle loss, and other health problems. (iStock)
The researchers also found that exercise helped restore NOX4 levels in older mice.
Josephine Hunt, an educational leader, former group fitness instructor and founder of The Resilience Revolution based in New Jersey, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital that the findings help explain why exercise benefits so many aspects of health.
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“Movement is medicine,” Hunt said.
“The emerging NOX4 research is exciting because it helps explain something exercise scientists have observed for decades. Physical activity does far more than strengthen muscles.”
Researchers think NOX4 plays an important role in helping muscles recover and adjust to the stresses of exercise. (iStock)
Hunt said many people view exercise as a way to improve appearance or fitness, but its effects reach much deeper.
“Exercise appears to activate biological signaling pathways that help the body adapt, repair and become more resilient over time,” she said.
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She said one of the study’s biggest takeaways is that physical activity helps the body maintain its ability to recover from challenges.
“Exercise does not simply help us look younger or stay physically fit,” Hunt said. “It appears to help the body maintain its ability to adapt, repair and respond to stress.”
Experts say one of the study’s key findings is that physical activity helps the body preserve its ability to recover from challenges. (iStock)
Hunt added that healthy aging is about more than simply living longer.
“Healthy aging is not just about adding years to life,” she said. “It is about preserving strength, function, independence, cognitive health and overall quality of life.”
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Researchers stressed that additional studies are needed, but the findings may help explain why regular physical activity remains one of the most effective tools for maintaining health as people age.
The study was conducted in mice, meaning the findings do not necessarily translate directly to humans.
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While the team also examined muscle samples from younger and older men and found similar declines in NOX4, additional research is needed to better understand the protein’s role in human aging.
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Sticking to a resistance or strength training routine for a certain amount of time may extend your life, according to a new study.
Research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine analyzed whether workouts involving weightlifting and weight machines are linked to a lower risk of death over time.
The study followed more than 147,000 U.S. adults who participated in three large health studies spanning up to 30 years. More than 35,000 died during the study period.
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Participants reported their exercise habits, including the number of minutes per week spent on resistance training and on aerobic activity, like walking, biking or swimming.
Resistance training levels were then compared with later death from any cause, as well as from cardiovascular disease, cancer, respiratory disease and neurological disease, according to a press release.
Doing a moderate amount of resistance training was linked with a lower risk of death in a recent study. (iStock)
Doing a moderate amount of resistance training was linked with a lower risk of death, according to study results. This outcome persisted even after researchers adjusted for other factors like age, smoking, diet quality, alcohol intake, family history and aerobic activity.
The clearest benefit was seen at around 90 to 119 minutes per week of resistance training.
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People who stuck to this interval of training per week had a 13% lower risk of all-cause death, 19% lower risk of death from heart disease and 27% lower risk of death from neurological disease.
More than 120 minutes of resistance training per week did not appear to add extra benefit to the overall death risk, according to the findings.
The clearest benefit was seen at around 90 to 119 minutes per week of resistance training. (iStock)
A lower risk of cancer death was seen at even small amounts of resistance training — 30 to 59 minutes per week was associated with a 12% decreased risk.
The lowest overall death risk was found in people who did both higher aerobic activity and moderate to high resistance training.
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The study shows only an association between resistance training and lower death risk, not a direct cause, the researchers noted.
Other limitations were that participants reported their own exercise habits, which may not have been completely accurate, and the study did not measure how intensely they exercised.
30 to 59 minutes per week of strength training was associated with a 12% decreased risk of cancer death.
The authors reflected in the study that engaging in “sufficient aerobic or resistance training alone is linked to lower mortality, with a stronger effect from aerobic activity.”
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The lowest risk was seen among people who did high levels of both aerobic exercise and resistance training. However, for people already doing a very high amount of aerobic exercise (roughly five to six hours of jogging or 11 hours of brisk walking per week), adding resistance training did not appear to lower the risk any further, they noted.
The lowest overall death risk was found in people who did both higher aerobic activity and moderate to high resistance training. (iStock)
In a previous interview with Fox News Digital, Kenny Santucci, fitness trainer, gym owner and host of the “Strong New York” podcast, shared the importance of pairing general movement with a focus on muscle building.
For a better fitness outcome, Santucci encourages gym-goers to add more strength training to their routines and to lift “a little bit heavier.”
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“Strength training should be the basis of what you do,” he said. “I don’t have anything against cycling … but if you’re telling me that’s the basis of your training, and your goal is aesthetics, then you are not really helping yourself get to that point any easier.”
“Hard doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a better workout.”
Santucci recommends working at about 60% to 80% of capacity, pushing to a point of fatigue with moderate intensity.
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“There’s a science behind muscle growth, and if there’s no external force pushing against the muscle tissue, and you’re not fueling yourself with protein, then you’re probably not going to build muscle,” he said.
“Hard doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a better workout … If you’re training at levels of intensity, then you’re reproducing good outcomes.”
Health
AI-designed ‘universal vaccine’ passes first human clinical trial, could prevent future pandemics
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A vaccine created using artificial intelligence that could potentially provide broader protection against multiple coronaviruses and help prepare for future outbreaks has passed its first human clinical trial.
Researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton developed a “universal vaccine” designed to protect against multiple Sarbeco coronaviruses, which the university explained in a news release is “the large group of viruses that occur in nature, including SARS-CoV-2, which caused the COVID pandemic.”
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Traditional vaccines must constantly be updated as viruses mutate, and the process is “like a dog chasing its tail,” said University of Southampton professor Saul Faust, the trial’s chief investigator.
“Viruses like Influenza, coronaviruses and the Ebola group are evolving continuously, and by the time vaccines are rolled out, they may be poorly matched — the current ‘reactive’ vaccine system struggles to keep pace,” Faust said.
Researchers have developed a vaccine using AI that has proven to be promising in “future-proofing” people against mutating infections. (iStock)
An antigen is the active ingredient in a vaccine meant to trigger an immune-system response and fight off infection. According to the release, the university scientists logged all the available genetic sequence data for Sarbeco coronaviruses and used AI used to design a “super-antigen” that contains the antigen features “common to this whole group of viruses – including ones that haven’t emerged yet.”
The trial of the vaccine proved safe and triggered an immune response in 39 healthy volunteers, marking “the first time that a vaccine whose active component was designed entirely by computer simulations has been tested in humans,” the release said.
The trial vaccine was administered through a micro-fluid jet that delivers the immunization through the skin using a tiny, high-pressure stream of liquid and does not require a needle. The researchers said this method could make it “faster and easier to carry out in large numbers of people.”
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“This new class of universal vaccines are future-proofed,” Faust said. “They not only protect against many variants simultaneously, but potentially against related viruses that haven’t yet emerged and spilt over to humans. If we can develop and clinically advance this new class of vaccines before a virus outbreak begins, millions of lives could be saved, lockdowns avoided and the economy preserved.”
A new vaccine has been proven safe and capable of triggering immune responses against coronavirus in a limited human trial. (iStock)
Some experts have raised broad concerns about using AI in medicine, primarily when it comes to making clinical decisions, not developing vaccines. Certain groups of people may be underrepresented in the data AI relies on, resulting in biased outcomes, some said.
AI also sometimes produces erroneous information, called “hallucinations,” and determining who is liable for medical failings in such situations is a complex matter.
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Others have expressed concern over patient privacy, as well as the need for human judgment that takes into account the scope of a patient’s health history, rather than a single dataset.
While traditional vaccines are reactive, a new AI-designed vaccine aims to protect against future coronavirus threats. (iStock)
The universal-vaccine researchers said that a larger trial involving “a wider and more diverse population” is needed. They published their findings in Journal of Infection.
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