The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has issued new guidance reshaping the Title X family planning program, signaling a shift away from contraception toward fertility awareness, pregnancy support and treatment of reproductive health conditions. The Office of Population Affairs said it expects to distribute about $257 million for up to 90 grant awards for a five‑year period, down from roughly $286 million in prior years; final funding will depend on enactment of the FY2027 budget. The guidance — issued in a detailed notice to prospective applicants — mentions contraception only once and encourages noninvasive, lifestyle‑focused approaches such as “fertility‑awareness‑based” methods and counseling to promote pregnancy. The administration’s FY2027 budget proposal also lists eliminating Title X as an option. The announcement comes as U.S. births fell to about 3.6 million in 2025 (a 1% decline from 2024) and the fertility rate dropped to 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15–44. Reproductive health groups including ACOG criticized the change as narrowing access to contraception and preventive care for low‑income patients; pro‑life and pronatalist groups have praised the pivot. Grant applications are due next January.

From April 20, 2026 Australian Red Cross Lifeblood will apply gender-neutral pre-donation assessments, allowing many gay and bisexual men and transgender people to donate blood and platelets for the first time. The Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the removal of gender-based sexual activity rules last year; Lifeblood says the change shifts screening from identity to recent sexual behaviour and that people in long-term monogamous relationships will generally be eligible immediately. The organisation expects up to 20,000 additional donations annually. The move follows July 2025 changes that removed wait times for plasma donations, which Lifeblood said unlocked about 3,000 new donors who made roughly 10,000 plasma donations. Previous restrictions, introduced in the 1980s amid the HIV crisis and later shortened to a three-month deferral, were criticised as stigmatizing. Lifeblood and public health experts say current blood-screening technology and risk modelling support the change while maintaining transfusion safety. Australia requires thousands of plasma and platelet donations weekly, and officials say the overhaul aims to both increase supply and reduce inequity in donor access.

Kayley Boda, a 22-year-old retail assistant from Manchester, has been told she has about 18 months to live after doctors found lung cancer had returned in the pleural lining. Boda began vaping at 15 and says she was using disposable devices — around one 600-puff vape per week — when symptoms began. In November 2024 she developed an unexplained rash; in January 2025 she started coughing up dark brown, grainy mucus and was turned away by doctors eight times before coughing up blood prompted an X-ray. After seven biopsies she was diagnosed with stage one lung cancer in August 2025; surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung upstaged the disease to stage three after cancer was found in six lymph nodes. She underwent chemotherapy and was given the all clear in February 2026, but a pleural effusion in April revealed recurrence. Doctors said they cannot definitively link cause to vaping but warned smoking and vaping 'didn't help.' Her family is fundraising to raise about £20,000 for a clinical trial in Germany to try to prolong her life.

President Donald Trump on April 16–17 nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, naming three senior deputies alongside her: Sean Slovenski as deputy director and COO, Dr. Jennifer Shuford as deputy director and chief medical officer, and Dr. Sara Brenner as senior counselor for public health. Schwartz, a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and former deputy surgeon general in Trump’s first term, is a board‑certified preventive medicine physician with medical and public‑health credentials from Brown University and the Uniformed Services University and a law degree from the University of Maryland. The nomination must be approved by the Senate; NIH director Jay Bhattacharya is serving as acting CDC director during the likely months‑long confirmation process. The pick comes after a year of turmoil at the agency — including abrupt leadership changes, staffing and budget cuts, a shooting at CDC headquarters and controversy over vaccine policy under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Many public‑health experts and CDC staff greeted the selection with guarded optimism, seeing Schwartz as a conventional, experienced choice but warning her authority could be constrained by political interference.

A University College London study using UK primary care data found patients starting gabapentinoids — gabapentin or pregabalin — faced a higher risk of hospitalised drug poisoning, particularly in the first month of treatment and when the drugs were combined with benzodiazepines or opioids. Researchers analysed prescriptions in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum from 2010–2020, focusing on 16,827 people who experienced at least one drug poisoning hospitalization drawn from about 1.35 million people prescribed gabapentinoids. Compared with non-treatment periods, risk rose in the first four weeks (adjusted incidence rate ratio, aIRR 1.81). Co-prescription risk was notably higher: benzodiazepines with gabapentinoids had an aIRR of 3.95 (fourfold increase) and opioids with gabapentinoids an aIRR of 2.14 (doubling) for the first four weeks. The study also found drug-poisoning risk was elevated in the 90 days before gabapentinoid initiation (aIRR 2.09). The authors, noting the self-controlled case-series design cannot eliminate all time-varying confounding, urged clinicians to monitor patients closely at treatment initiation and avoid or minimise concurrent opioid or benzodiazepine prescribing.

A team of about 50 researchers led by Paul Verweij at Radboud University Medical Center has warned of a "silent surge" in drug-resistant fungi in a Nature Medicine paper published April 2026. The researchers — from 16 organisations worldwide — say resistance is rising in pathogens including Candida auris, azole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus and Trichophyton indotineae. They argue that resistance often originates in the environment, driven in part by widespread agricultural use of fungicides chemically related to medical azoles, and can spread long distances via airborne spores. People with weakened immunity, such as ICU patients, transplant recipients and cancer patients, face the greatest risk; Candida auris bloodstream infections can carry high mortality. The authors set out a five-step plan calling for increased awareness, strengthened surveillance, improved infection prevention and control, optimized antifungal use, and investments in diagnostics and new drugs. They urge the inclusion of antifungal resistance in the 2026 Global Action Plan on AMR and stress the need for coordinated One Health policies linking agriculture, environment and clinical practice.