De regering‑ Trump heeft ambtenaren van de Amerikaanse voedsel‑ en medicijnwaakhond FDA tegengehouden om een grote studie over Covid‑vaccins te publiceren. Het onderzoek concludeerde dat de vaccins effectief zijn en dat ernstige bijwerkingen zeer zeldzaam voorkomen. De studie was volgens betrokken onderzoekers al geaccepteerd voor publicatie in een wetenschappelijk tijdschrift en stond klaar om naar buiten gebracht te worden.
Volgens ingewijden werd de publicatie in een laat stadium teruggetrokken na ingrijpen van de politieke leiding. Ook samenvattingen voor presentaties op wetenschappelijke congressen zouden zijn tegengehouden. Officieel luidt de uitleg dat de conclusies “niet volledig door de data zouden zijn gedragen”, maar wetenschappers die aan het onderzoek meewerkten spreken dat tegen en wijzen op de standaardprocedures die al waren doorlopen.
De affaire voedt de vrees dat de FDA niet langer onafhankelijk kan opereren op het gevoelige dossier van vaccinveiligheid. Critici stellen dat de regering daarmee de eigen vaccinscepsis‑retoriek belangrijker maakt dan transparante voorlichting over risico’s en baten. Zij waarschuwen dat het achterhouden van geruststellende gegevens het wantrouwen tegenover vaccins juist verder kan aanwakkeren, omdat het beeld ontstaat dat er bewust wordt gemanipuleerd met informatie.
In de VS wil extreemrechts (net als hier) niet geloven in de wetenschap dat de vaccins veilig en effectief zijn.
Jet fuel has doubled in price since the start of the war on Iran. How bad will the disruption get and could this accelerate the route to jet zero?
What happens to flights if the world runs out of oil? Well, obviously they will be grounded. To be more specific, is it possible, if the war in Iran does not resolve and the strait of Hormuz remains blocked, that airlines will simply run out of aviation fuel?
It’s not a question anyone has had to ask before. Air travel has hit some hurdles this century that nobody could have seen coming – Covid, of course, but also the Icelandic volcano in 2010, which closed much of European airspace for eight days, cost an estimated €3.75bn (£3.2bn) and caused untold supply chain chaos. There have been problems contained within a country or region – the Heathrow substation outage and the Iberian energy crisis, both last year, both closing airports – but since air travel began, it has never been globally impeded by a fuel shortage.
Continue reading...Fresh DNA evidence in the killing of Chiara Poggi has brought a previously investigated suspect back under scrutiny, raising questions over the conviction
A suspect in a case that has captivated Italy for almost 19 years has been summoned for questioning by prosecutors, in a development that could expose one of the country’s most significant miscarriages of justice and free the person who has spent more than a decade in prison for the crime.
Andrea Sempio is accused of killing Chiara Poggi, a 26-year-old economics graduate, at her home in Garlasco, a small town close to Milan in northern Italy, on 13 August 2007, allegedly because she rejected his sexual advances.
Continue reading...Just 19% of Germans approve of the chancellor’s leadership – with some of his comments causing offence amid spats with the White House
Friedrich Merz’s first steps as German chancellor proved to be a stumble and, one year on, he is still struggling to find his footing at the helm of Europe’s top economy and most populous country, with support at historic lows and the far right poised to pounce.
The conservative Christian Democrat took office on 6 May 2025 after a humiliating loss in the first round of voting in parliament. It raised doubts, right from the start, about the stability of his coalition government with the Social Democrats.
Continue reading...Europe punished Russian billionaires over the war in Ukraine. It should do the same to those abetting an ecocidal regime
The ecological disasters of the US-Israel war with Iran are already bad enough. The noxious smoke from bombed oil facilities, spills in the Gulf’s waters, the contamination of farmland and groundwater with toxic chemicals unleashed by explosions and their debris, the millions of additional tons of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere. But as bad as it is, the Iran war hides another conflict: the ecological war that Donald Trump’s US is waging against the rest of the world.
When the EU and UK imposed individual sanctions, travel bans and asset seizures on Russian oligarchs, it wasn’t because most of them were individually responsible for Vladimir Putin’s colonial war of aggression against Ukraine. They were targeted because, as a class, they were viewed by many as inextricable from the apparatus of corruption and levers of power of the Russian state threatening global stability.
Alexander Hurst writes for Guardian Europe from Paris. His memoir Generation Desperation is out now
Continue reading...