Humans have — presumably — always aspired to living longer, healthier lives. Now that might be more possible than ever before — especially if you have enough money. Think about the Fountain of Youth. Versions of the promise of a life-giving spring date to Ancient Greek philosophers, with variations through the centuries. But the basic…
Early this year, I attended a longevity science conference in Miami hosted by the academy that Sinclair helped found. That weekend, about 65 scientists from around the world compared notes and waited in line for coffee and complained about the weather in the city, which was experiencing a freakish cold snap. Iguanas, stunned by the…
Eugene Braunwald, a groundbreaking cardiologist whose research helped transform heart disease from a near-certain killer into a condition often manageable with medications, procedures and careful monitoring, died on Wednesday in Newton, Mass. He was 96. His death, at a hospital, was confirmed by his daughter Jill Braunwald Porter. He lived in Weston, Mass. Widely regarded…
Saulo Kasekela died of AIDS on March 7, in a small town called Mpongwe in the copper belt of northern Zambia. He was a 37-year-old security guard, admitted to the mission hospital two days earlier. After his body was wheeled out of the men’s ward, a nurse set aside his chest X-ray, a clouded smear…
For most of last year, Calley Means, a top aide to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was advising on changes to the American health system while running a rapidly growing wellness company poised to benefit from Trump administration health policies. Records released to The New York Times by an ethics office at the Department…
Xi, it seems, is less concerned with personal immortality than Putin. Watching that hot-mic clip, it’s easy to imagine that he was really just indulging the eccentric preoccupations of his Russian counterpart, if for no other reason than it was something to talk about while they walked to the podium. But in 2018, Xi rescinded…
The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved a gene therapy that can cure a rare, inherited form of deafness. The treatment is the first to restore normal hearing in children who were born deaf. The maker of the therapy, Regeneron, plans to provide it free to any child who needs it. “We wanted to…
On a sweltering night in August 2024, moments before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed then-candidate Donald J. Trump at a packed rally in Arizona, a conservative young wellness podcaster named Alex Clark had a fleeting backstage conversation with the once-and-future president. “I said, ‘Mr. President, please keep talking about food and pharma; this has a…
He was combative, defensive and occasionally contrite. He vehemently denied, then halfheartedly apologized for suggesting in 2024 that Black children would benefit from being “re-parented.” He shouted at Democratic senators, accusing them of “grandstanding” and “selective indignation.” He insisted he had delivered “historic wins” for the health of the American people. In the end, after…
Over four days and nearly 20 hours of testimony, under harsh questioning from Democrats, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly backed away from his longstanding criticism of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. On Wednesday, he made his strongest statement yet — albeit on behalf of his department and not himself. “We promote…
