Nature Medicine, Published online: 18 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04396-5
In this World View, Ali T. Taher explains why thalassemia is a stress test for fragile health systems.
Spatial proteomic analysis in human Alzheimer’s disease brains enables identification of microenvironment-dependent microglial cell states
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 18 May 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02267-3
Myeloid cells show marked heterogeneity in Alzheimer’s disease. This study introduces CODEX-CNS, a single-cell spatial proteomics pipeline, and identifies a human microglial subpopulation enriched in Alzheimer’s disease brains that associates with dense amyloid-β plaques.
<![CDATA[Learn why adult ADHD often hides behind anxiety or depression, how childhood history and family risk guide diagnosis, and why stimulants still matter.]]>
Texas is opening up a detransition clinic
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Good morning. Glad you’re here. Lots of news dropped over the weekend, so let’s get to it.
Networks chairs respond to NHS Modernisation Bill and SPR plans
The chairs of the Digital Health advisory panels have reacted to the NHS Modernisation Bill, including plans for a single patient record.
Opinion: ‘Patient autonomy’ has nothing to do with childhood vaccine policies
The Trump administration has made sweeping changes to vaccine policy over the past year justified by invocations of patients’ “personal autonomy.” In January, Department of Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump’s slashed the number of routinely recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11 after an HHS report emphasized “personal autonomy and self-determination” as key principles necessitating reconsideration of the childhood vaccine schedule.
That same month, Trump’s new head of the federal government’s vaccine panel opined that all childhood vaccines might be optional in schools on similar reasoning: “What we are doing is returning individual autonomy to the first order,” Kirk Milhoan said, noting that we allow people to make various choices, like unhealthy alcohol consumption, even if there are risks.
STAT+: The China question is tearing biotech apart
There’s a schism in America’s drug business, playing out in punchy direct messages, feisty group chats, and the occasional heated in-person exchange.
The problem is China. Fledgling startups and pharmaceutical giants alike are addicted to Chinese drugs, filling their pipelines with would-be blockbusters developed at enviable speed and bought on the cheap. They’ve spent some $60 billion on Chinese molecules in the first three months of 2026 alone, according to state figures. That’s on pace to double last year’s total, which was already 10 times larger than the one from 2021.
No one disagrees that it’s good business. And more drugs moving swiftly through development means hope for patients around the world desperately awaiting new medicines.
But, according to more than a dozen interviews with industry executives and investors, the question of whether to partner with Chinese firms — or see them as rivals — is tearing biotech apart, pitting peers and partners against one another and souring relationships in an otherwise close-knit corporate community.
Opinion: How to restore credibility to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is responsible for developing recommendations for the use of licensed vaccines in the U.S. and has vast influence on immunization practices and financing.
But in the past year its members were summarily replaced by the secretary of Health and Human Services and its processes disrupted. The participation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientific experts in meetings was curtailed, and the Food and Drug Administration’s liaison representative, normally a senior vaccine expert, was replaced by a political appointee.
North Cumbria goes live with EPR following delay by NHSE
North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust (NCIC) has gone live with phase one of its Alcidion electronic patient record (EPR).
Cannabigerol Oil for Adolescents With ADHD (CAN-ADHD)
Conditions: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
Interventions: Drug: Experimental: Full-spectrum CBG oil 30 mg/mL; Drug: Placebo oil (MCT oil)
Sponsors: Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina; Associação Brasileira de Cannabis Medicinal
Recruiting
Interventions: Drug: Experimental: Full-spectrum CBG oil 30 mg/mL; Drug: Placebo oil (MCT oil)
Sponsors: Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina; Associação Brasileira de Cannabis Medicinal
Recruiting