This edition of The Download highlights a pivotal moment at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two former CDC leaders testified in a Senate hearing explaining why they abruptly departed and saying that employees have been instructed to turn their backs on scientific evidence. Their testimony painted a picture of an agency in internal turmoil and suggested the disarray could put the people the CDC is meant to protect at risk.
Hours after the hearing, a panel of CDC advisers voted to stop recommending the MMRV vaccine for children under four. If accepted, the agency will stop recommending the MMRV vaccine for that age group. The newsletter also notes that the advisory committee’s vote on hepatitis B vaccines for newborns was expected to follow. Coverage linked to the story includes a profile of Jim O’Neill, the deputy health secretary and current acting CDC director, underscoring the leadership questions surrounding ongoing policy decisions.
The issue appears within a broader roundup of notable technology and health items. The newsletter highlights Sneha Goenka as MIT Technology Review’s 2025 Innovator of the Year for designing computations behind a whole-genome sequencing method that can let physicians sequence a patient’s genome and diagnose a genetic condition in less than eight hours. Other must-reads called out include concerns that medical Artificial Intelligence tools downplay symptoms in women and ethnic minorities, a look at how Artificial Intelligence browsers are going mainstream, geopolitical reporting on Russia’s use of a high-profile murder to sow division in the United States, and coverage of developments across chips, brain interfaces, and undersea internet infrastructure. The collection frames the CDC story within wider debates about science, policy, and technology.
