LAURAN NEERGAARD

Medical writer

Neergaard is an Associated Press medical writer who covers research on brain health, infectious diseases, organ transplantation and more. She is based in Washington, D.C.

The left foot and swollen ankle of President Donald Trump are pictured as he sits with Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, July 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Trump is checked for lower leg swelling and diagnosed with a common condition in older adults

The White House says President Donald Trump had a recent medical checkup after he noticed “mild swelling” in his lower legs.

This photo provided by DukeHealth shows surgeon Joseph Turek during pediatric heart surgery in Durham, N.C., in 2021 (Shawn Rocco/DukeHealth via AP)

Researchers try new ways of preserving more hearts for transplants

Two university hospitals are pioneering new ways to expand access to the lifesaving heart transplants for adults and babies.

The campus of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is seen as a meeting of the Advisory Committee in Immunization Practices takes place, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

RSV vaccine access expanded to some people in their 50s, according to CDC website

The Trump administration appears to be expanding RSV vaccinations to some adults starting at age 50 instead of 60. Health Secretary Robert F.

Demonstrators rally for support of the CDC during a meeting of the Advisory Committee in Immunization Practices, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Kennedy’s advisers back flu vaccination, but not shots with a rarely used preservative

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory committee endorsed fall flu vaccinations Thursday for just about every American but with a twist: The group says people should only be given shots free of an ingredient antivaccine groups have falsely tied to autism.

Participants listen during a meeting of the Advisory Committee in Immunization Practices at the CDC, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Kennedy’s new vaccine panel alarms pediatricians with inquiries into long-settled questions

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory panel plans to revisit long-settled questions about childhood vaccines.

New CDC advisers will skip some expected topics and explore a target of antivaccine activists

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisers meet next week. Their agenda suggests they’ll skip some expected topics, including a vote on COVID-19 shots.

This photo provided by Gilead Sciences shows a vial of the company's HIV prevention medication, Yeztugo, (lenacapvir) at a manufacturing facility in La Verne, Calif., in June 2025. (Gilead Sciences via AP)

The world’s only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV could stop transmission — if people can get it

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the world’s only twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV. In two groundbreaking studies, Gilead Sciences’ shot, a drug named lenacapavir, nearly eliminated new infections in two groundbreaking studies of people at high risk.

President Donald Trump, from left, speaks as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during an event in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, May 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)\\\

Judge rules some NIH grant cuts illegal, saying he’s never seen such discrimination in 40 years

A federal judge says it was illegal for the Trump administration to cancel several hundred research grants issued by the National Institutes of Health.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, and Education Secretary Linda McMahon attend a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission Event in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Will you be able to get a COVID-19 shot? Here’s what we know so far

For many Americans, it’s not clear how easy getting a COVID-19 vaccination will be. Health Secretary Robert F.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Marty Makary speaks during a news conference on the FDA's intent to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes in the nation's food supply at the Hubert Humphrey Building Auditorium in Washington, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

FDA panel is split on updates to COVID shots as questions loom for fall vaccinations

Government advisers are split on whether drugmakers should update their COVID-19 vaccines to better protect Americans this fall and winter.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration campus in Silver Spring, Md., is photographed on Oct. 14, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

New Trump vaccine policy limits access to COVID shots

Federal health officials will no longer routinely approve annual COVID-19 shots for younger adults and children who are healthy.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears at a budget hearing before a House Appropriations, Subcommittee hearing, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

RFK Jr. pledged not to upend US vaccine system, but big changes are underway

Health agencies working under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are making changes to the nation’s decades-old system for approving and recommending vaccines.

Food and Drug Administration commissioner Martin Markary speaks during an event in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, Monday, May 12, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

FDA approves Novavax COVID-19 shot but with unusual restrictions

The Food and Drug Administration has approved Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine but with unusual restrictions.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, following a tour of the Texas A&M AgriLife Phenotyping Greenhouse in College Station, Texas on Tuesday, April 29, 2025.(Meredith Seaver /College Station Eagle via AP)

Experts call Kennedy’s plan to find autism’s cause unrealistic

Many autism experts say the Trump administration’s plan to find autism’s causes is unrealistic. Health Secretary Robert F.

Dr. Joshua Williams, a pediatrician whose federal funding for a vaccine awareness program was cut, examines 12-year-old patient Tiovian Darden in Denver on Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)

A community rallied to share flu shot experiences. Then the government stopped the study

Some Denver parents got texts during this winter’s brutal flu season with videos sharing why people in their neighborhoods chose flu shots for their kids.

A vial of the Phase 3 Novavax coronavirus vaccine prepared for use in a trial at St. George's University hospital in London, Oct. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

FDA scrutiny of Novavax COVID-19 vaccine sparks uncertainty about other shots

There’s new uncertainty about updated COVID-19 shots this fall after the Trump administration’s handling of a shot from Novavax.

A vial of the Phase 3 Novavax coronavirus vaccine prepared for use in a trial at St. George's University hospital in London, Oct. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

Novavax says its COVID-19 shot is on track for full FDA approval after delay

Novavax says its closely watched COVID-19 vaccine is on track for full U.S. approval after additional discussions with the Food and Drug Administration.

This photo provided by eGenesis on Jan. 18, 2024 shows a genetically modified pig liver in Massachusetts before transportation to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in December 2023. (eGenesis via AP)

FDA OKs trial of pig livers as dialysis-like treatment for liver failure

U.S. researchers are about to test if livers from gene-edited pigs could treat people with sudden liver failure — not with a transplant but temporarily attached outside the body.

FILKE - Pig kidney transplant recipient Towana Looney sits with transplant surgeon Dr. Jayme Locke on Dec. 10, 2024, at NYU Langone Health in New York. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum, File)

Doctors remove pig kidney from an Alabama woman after a record 130 days

An Alabama woman who lived with a pig kidney for a record 130 days had the organ removed and is back on dialysis.

This image provided by the Allen Institute on April 8, 2025, shows a digital representation of neurons in a section of a mouse's brain, part of a project to create the largest map to date of brain wiring and function, in Seattle, Wash. (Forrest Collman/Allen Institute via AP)

Scientists map part of a mouse’s brain that’s so complex it looks like a galaxy

Thanks to a mouse watching clips from “The Matrix,” scientists have created the largest functional map of a brain to date.

A doctor looks at PET brain scans at Banner Alzheimers Institute in Phoenix on Aug. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

Shingles is awful, but here’s another reason to get vaccinated: It may fight dementia

A vaccination to prevent horribly painful shingles may offer an extra benefit: New research suggests it might lower the risk of dementia, too.

This photo provided by Jeng Hsu shows her son, Jaiwen Hsu, at the Children's National Hospital in Washington in August 2011, weeks before his last round of chemotherapy for bone cancer. (Jeng Hsu via AP)

Boys with cancer can face infertility as adults. Can storing their stem cells help?

Researchers have performed the first known transplant of sperm-producing stem cells in hopes of restoring fertility in a man who survived childhood cancer.

A miniature pig waits for visitors to feed it at a zoo in Shanghai, China, on Thursday Feb. 15, 2007. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

Chinese researchers report a pig kidney transplant and a first-step liver experiment

Chinese researchers are reporting new steps in the quest for animal-to-human organ transplants. Researchers at Xijing Hospital in China say a pig kidney transplant recipient continues to recover nearly three weeks after that surgery.

Jake Heinrichs hugs his wife, Rachel Chavkin, after speaking about early-stage Alzheimer's disease while inside their home in New York, on Wednesday, March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Heather Khalifa)

Researchers find a hint at how to delay Alzheimer’s symptoms. Now they have to prove it

An experimental treatment appears to postpone Alzheimer’s symptoms in some people genetically destined to get the disease at a young age.

This photo provided by the National Institutes of Health shows the James H. Shannon Building on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., in 2015. (Lydia Polimeni/NIH via AP)

Researchers are learning the Trump administration axed their work to improve vaccination

The Trump administration is canceling studies about ways to improve vaccine trust and access. The move comes in the midst of a large measles outbreak fueled by unvaccinated children.

Lab workers at Johns Hopkins University work in Richard Huganir's lab in Baltimore, Md., on Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)

NIH research cuts threaten the search for life-saving cures and jobs in every state

Ripple effects of the Trump administration’s crackdown on U.S. medical research promise to reach every corner of America.

This photo provided by the National Institutes of Health shows the James H. Shannon Building on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., in 2015. (Lydia Polimeni/NIH via AP)

Federal judge blocks drastic funding cuts to medical research

A federal judge is preventing the Trump administration from drastically cutting medical research funding.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, President Donald Trump's choice to be Director of the National Institutes of Health, appears before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for his confirmation hearing, at Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Trump nominee to lead National Institutes of Health questioned on funding cuts, vaccines

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health is promising to help restore trust in medical research. Dr.

Custodian Ray Keen inspects a clock face before changing the time on the 100-year-old clock atop the Clay County Courthouse, March 8, 2014, in Clay Center, Kansas. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

How daylight saving time could affect your health

Losing an hour of sleep as daylight saving time kicks in can do more than leave you tired and cranky the next day — it also could harm your health.

FILE- Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), holds up a model of COVID-19, known as coronavirus, during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the plan to research, manufacture and distribute a coronavirus vaccine, known as Operation Warp Speed, Thursday, July 2, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP, File)

Renowned geneticist Francis Collins retires from NIH, urging ‘respect’ for embattled workers

Dr. Francis Collins, a renowned geneticist, and former longtime director of the National Institutes of Health, is retiring from the government agency and urging “respect” for its embattled workers.