Europeans’ world-leading drinking habits are putting their health at risk, but governments are failing to use higher taxes to help curb consumption, warned the World Health Organization. Beer has become more affordable in 11 EU countries since 2022, and less affordable in six, the WHO report revealed Tuesday. There was a similar but even more dramatic trend for spirits, which became more affordable in 17 EU countries and less affordable in two. And for wine, 14 EU countries do not tax it at all, including big producers Italy and Spain, the report found. The EU includes seven of the 10 countries with the highest per-capita alcohol consumption globally, with Romania, Latvia and Czechia among the biggest drinkers. Alcohol is a major driver of cancer, with risk scaling alongside higher consumption. It’s also linked to a wide range of illnesses including cardiovascular disease and depression, all of which are adding pressure to stretched health systems. The WHO said governments should target alcohol consumption to protect people from its ill effects. Increasing the cost of booze through taxes is one of the most effective measures governments can take, the WHO said. Yet, some EU countries have minimal or no taxes on certain types of alcohol. The fact that more than half of EU countries don’t tax wine at all is “unusual” by international standards, WHO economist Anne-Marie Perucic said. She pointed out that the more affordable alcohol is, the more people consume. “Excluding a product is not common. It’s always for political reasons, socio-economic reasons [like] trying to protect the local industry. Clearly, it doesn’t make sense from a health perspective,” Perucic told POLITICO. Those 14 countries span the EU’s northern and central regions, such as Germany, Austria and Bulgaria. “More affordable alcohol drives violence, injuries and disease,” said Etienne Krug, director of the WHO’s department of health determinants, promotion and prevention. “While industry profits, the public often carries the health consequences and society the economic costs.” The EU has touted its plans to protect its wine industry from threats including declining consumption and climate change. EU institutions agreed a package of measures to prop up the sector in December. Meanwhile, the European Commission recently backed down from proposing an EU-wide tax on alcopops; the sweet, pre-mixed alcoholic drinks that taste like sodas, as part of its Safe Hearts plan.  In a separate report, the WHO reported that sugary drinks have also become more affordable in 13 EU countries since 2022, data published in a separate WHO report found. A diet high in sugar is linked to obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver disease and certain cancers.

People who stop taking weight-loss drugs regain body mass four times faster than those who lost their excess pounds through diet and exercise, according to an analysis of the latest studies. The additional benefits from taking weight-loss drugs, such as improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure, were also reversed when patients quit the medications, the study found. The research, published in the British Medical Journal on Thursday, adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests life-long treatment of obesity is needed to maintain control of the condition. But the high cost of the latest drugs — as well as their side effects — present barriers to long-term use. “We know that obesity is a chronic relapsing condition. We know that when treatment stops, weight is regained. And so, some kind of treatment needs to be continued. What [that] treatment should be, I don’t know,” co-author Susan Jebb, professor of diet and population health at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, told journalists. Rates of obesity and overweight are growing rapidly on the continent, with around 51 percent of people in the EU aged 16 years or over being overweight in 2022. Obesity significantly increases the risk of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancers, and health systems are struggling to cope. Researchers analyzed weight gain from 37 trials of multiple weight-loss drugs, including older medications and the newer GLP-1s. The latest drugs, including Novo Nordisk’s diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro, saw the greatest weight loss and the fastest weight regain when treatment stopped. Compared with another analysis of behavioral weight management programs supporting low energy diets and exercise, weight regain was faster after ending medication than after ending behavioral programs. THE LONG-TERM DILEMMA The newer weight-loss drugs have seen a boom in uptake across Europe and America, despite their high prices. Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro soared in popularity after demonstrating roughly 15 percent weight loss in trials, and were pounced on by celebrities and influencers. However, around half of people who take these drugs will stop them after one year. Side effects such as nausea and vomiting, costs or dissatisfaction with weight loss as it plateaus are driving decisions to halt treatment, lead author Sam West, a postdoctoral researcher also at the Nuffield department at the University of Oxford, told journalists during the briefing. Most people in the U.K. — around 90 percent — pay privately for their weight-loss medication, Jebb said. But those who access it through the National Health Service are subject to a two-year cap on access to the drugs, known as GLP-1s. Similar limits apply in other EU countries. Dimitris Koutoukidis, associate professor in diet, obesity and behavioral sciences at the University of Oxford, suggested the U.K. may not be getting the value for money it envisioned with these weight-loss drugs. The model used to assess whether Lilly and Novo’s medicines were cost-effective assumed people would regain their lost weight after two years, he told journalists — but their study shows weight is regained at around 1.5 years. “It is really hard to treat obesity and keep the weight off long-term,” Jebb said. “That should make us put even more effort into preventing weight gain in the first place. And if we could transform our food environment to make it easier for people to manage their weight it would stop them gaining weight in the first place and help people — after a successful weight loss attempt — to keep it off.” “These treatments are not a whole solution,” she added.

Faced with an ageing population and rising chronic disease rates, Europe wants to make its citizens healthier. It also needs to keep its most powerful industries happy. In the basket of health policies that EU lawmakers rushed to get across the line before Christmas, industry was the big winner: The pharmaceutical, food and drink sectors walked away with a set of major policy wins — and (potentially) healthier profits. While the pharma industry previously feared losing some of its monopoly rights on new drugs, the Commission this month offered it an extra year of patent protection for novel biotech drugs — among the most expensive treatments in the world. The food and drink sectors, meanwhile, successfully pushed back against proposals to tax ultra-processed foods and alcopops, for now. On Dec. 16 the Commission published its Biotech Act and Safe Hearts Plan, which landed just days after a long-awaited update of the pharmaceutical legislation. Taken together, they seek to incentivize industries to innovate and do business in Europe, improve access to medicines, and tackle the burden of cardiovascular disease. The pharma industry broadly celebrated the biotech proposal. The Biotech Act “reflects priorities we’ve intensively advocated to keep Europe globally competitive in life sciences,” Ognjenka Manojlovic, head of policy at European pharmaceutical company Sanofi, told POLITICO. That includes accelerating clinical trials, boosting intellectual property, and strengthening financing for Europe’s biotech ecosystem, Manojlovic said. The pharmaceutical sector had pushed for longer monopoly rights in the pharma legislation. In the end they were kept at the current standard eight years — instead of being cut by two years as the European Commission had initially proposed. For Europe’s public health insurers, who pay for drugs, the decisions taken to maintain and then extend market protections for medicines are hard to square. “We are puzzled by the Commission’s intentions,” said Yannis Natsis, director of the European Social Insurance Platform, a network of Europe’s social insurance organizations, warning that taxpayers will have to pick up the bill. Meanwhile, health campaigners are also unhappy at the Commission’s “missed opportunity” to tackle obesity and heart disease with junk food taxes — as proposed in an earlier draft of the Safe Hearts Plan. Samuele Tonello, at consumer organization BEUC, said the Safe Hearts Plan “lacks teeth” to better protect consumers from unhealthy foods, and flagged the “urgency of [cardiovascular diseases].”  A MAN ON A MISSION Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has made no secret of his support for industry, and has championed the Commission’s competitiveness mantra since taking office in late 2024. Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has made no secret of his support for industry, and has championed the Commission’s competitiveness mantra since taking office in late 2024. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images The standout feature of his end-of-year bonanza was the 12-month patent extension in the Biotech Act I — legislation that was split in two late in the day, allowing Várhelyi to meet his end-of-year deadline for the pharma component. The proposal came just a week after the Commission, countries and MEPs clinched a deal to reform Europe’s pharmaceutical laws, in which IP rights were among the last issues to be settled. Updates to the pharma laws were a legacy of the last Commission, whereas the Biotech Act became something of a personal mission for Várhelyi. He repeatedly stressed that there was “no time to lose” in delivering a targeted policy aimed at revitalizing Europe’s flagging biotech industry, which risks being overtaken by competition from China and the U.S. Few commissioners are more vocal than Várhelyi about the premium they place on the competitiveness of European industry.  Industry insiders had heard whispers of his plans to expand IP incentives for the biotech sector, even if Council representatives were dismayed not to have been informed in advance — especially with the ink barely dry on the Pharma Package. That’s not to say pharma is happy with its lot. Industry lobby group the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) tempered its praise of the Biotech Act, lamenting that the extra year of monopoly rights would only apply to a “limited subset of products.”  The extra year of protection is tied to the Commission’s efforts to locate more pharma research and manufacturing in Europe. It would apply only to new products, tested and at least partially made in Europe.  But the generics sector, which makes cheaper, off-patent drugs to compete with branded medicines, sees the Biotech Act as a further sweetening of what is already one of the world’s most generous IP systems. Lobby group Medicines for Europe claims each year of delayed competition for the top three biologic drugs would cost countries €7.7 billion. Longer IP “will have a dramatic impact on healthcare budgets and delayed patients’ access to essential medicines,” said Adrian van den Hoven, head of the lobby. These kinds of estimates would normally be included in an impact assessment published alongside the proposal, but in its haste to get the Biotech Act out the Commission didn’t do one. POLITICO asked the Commission for an estimate of what the extra year of patent protection would cost. A Commission spokesperson would not give a figure but said they had used the impact assessment for the pharma legislation as a reference. “It is also important to stress that the number of products eligible for an additional year of SPC will be limited to only those that are truly innovative and tested and manufactured in the EU. The approach is deliberately targeted to incentivise genuinely innovative therapies that deliver a clear added value for patients and support European innovation,” the spokesperson said. LUCKY ESCAPE FOR UPFS The big food and drink sectors are on shakier ground with Várhelyi. The commissioner has repeatedly made known his distaste for ultra-processed food, and an early leaked version of the Safe Hearts Plan included new taxes on unhealthy highly processed foods and alcopops. But the final proposal showed the Commission had undertaken a significant climbdown. Concrete targets to tax unhealthy food and drink in 2026 were gone, replaced with a much woollier commitment to “work towards” such a levy. Alcopops were excluded altogether.  Industry lobby FoodDrinkEurope took a far more measured tone on the final plan than its explosive reactions to the earlier leaks, but that may well ramp up again if and when health tax proposals emerge. The text suggests the soft drinks industry may be the Commission’s first target if it does decide to pursue new levies, while UPFs remain in Várhelyi’s sights. “In the next couple of years, we will need to tackle the issue of ultra-processed food much more,” he told MEPs in December. For now, though, the plan seems to have let industry off easy. Health NGOs saw it as a disappointment, given its lack of hard-hitting policies to reduce consumption of UPFs and other unhealthy products. While the pharma legislation is all wrapped up, the Biotech Act still needs to win the approval of EU countries and the European Parliament. For the food and pharma sectors, the proposals set out this month are confirmation they have allies in the Berlaymont.

President Donald Trump has told his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to consider aligning the U.S. vaccination schedule with those in Europe, where many countries recommend fewer vaccines. Kennedy has taken up the charge with gusto and is considering advising parents to follow Denmark’s childhood schedule rather than America’s. Many who specialize in vaccination and public health say that would be a mistake. While wealthy European countries do health care comparatively well, they say, there are lots of reasons Americans are recommended more shots than Europeans, ranging from different levels of access to health care to different levels of disease. “If [Kennedy] would like to get us universal health care, then maybe we can have a conversation about having the schedule adjusted,” Demetre Daskalakis, who led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases before resigning in protest in August, told POLITICO. Children, especially those who live in poor and rural areas, would be at greater risk for severe disease and death if the U.S. were to drop shots from its schedule, Daskalakis said. Denmark, for instance, advises immunizing against only 10 of the 18 diseases American children were historically recommended immunizations against. It excludes shots for potentially serious infections, including hepatitis A and B, meningitis and respiratory syncytial virus. Under Kennedy, the government has already changed its hepatitis B vaccine recommendations for newborns this year, even as critics warned the new advice could lead to more chronic infections, liver problems and cancer. The health department points out that the new guidance on hepatitis B — that mothers who test negative for the virus may skip giving their newborn a shot in the hospital — now align more closely with most countries in Europe. Public health experts and others critical of the move say slimmer European vaccine schedules are a cost-saving measure and a privilege afforded to healthier societies, not a tactic to protect kids from vaccine injuries. Kennedy’s interest in modeling the U.S. vaccine schedule after Europe, they point out, is underpinned by his belief that some childhood vaccines are unsafe and that American kids get too many too young. Kennedy’s safety concerns don’t align with the rationale underpinning the approach in Europe, where the consensus is that childhood vaccines are safe. Wealthy European countries in many cases eschew vaccines based on a risk-benefit calculus that doesn’t hold in America. European kids often don’t get certain shots because it would prevent a very small number of cases — like hepatitis B — or because the disease is rarely serious for them, such as Covid-19 and chickenpox. But since the U.S. doesn’t have universal access to care, vaccinating provides more return on investment, experts say. “We just have a tradition to wait a little bit” before adding vaccines to government programs, said Johanna Rubin, a pediatrician and vaccine expert for Sweden’s health agency. Swedish children are advised to get vaccines for 11 diseases before they turn 18. Rubin cited the need to verify the shots’ efficacy and the high cost of new vaccines as reasons Sweden moves slowly to add to its schedule. “It has to go through the health economical model,” she said. VACCINE SAFETY’S NOT THE ISSUE Martin Kulldorff, a Swedish native and former Harvard Medical School professor who led Kennedy’s vaccine advisory panel until this month, pointed to that country’s approach to vaccination and public health in an interview with POLITICO earlier this year. Before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this month dropped its recommendation that children of mothers who test negative for hepatitis B receive a vaccine within a day of birth, Kulldorff cited Sweden’s policy. “In Sweden, the recommendation is that you only do that if the mother has the infection. That’s the case in most European countries,” he said. “You could have a discussion whether one or the other is more reasonable.” The U.S. policy, as of Dec. 16, more closely resembles Sweden’s, with hepatitis B-negative mothers no longer urged to vaccinate their newborns against the virus at birth. But Sweden’s public health agency recommends that all infants be vaccinated, and the country’s regional governments subsidize those doses, which are administered as combination shots targeting six diseases starting at 3 months. Public health experts warn that even children of hepatitis B-negative mothers could catch the virus from others via contact with caregivers who are positive or shared household items. The prevalence of chronic hepatitis B in the U.S. is 6.1 percent compared to 0.3 percent in Sweden, according to the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination, a Georgia-based nonprofit which receives funding from pharmaceutical companies, the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, among others. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said the U.S. has taken a more comprehensive approach to vaccination, in part because its population is sicker than that of some Western European countries, and the impact of contracting a disease could be more detrimental. Osterholm pointed to the Covid pandemic as an example. By May 2022, the U.S. had seen more than 1 million people die. Other high-income countries — though much smaller — had more success controlling mortality, he said. “People tried to attribute [the disparity] to social, political issues, but no, it was because [peer nations] had so many more people who were actually in low-risk categories for serious illness,” Osterholm said. Kennedy and his advisers also cited European views on Covid vaccination in the spring when the CDC dropped its universal recommendation, instead advising individuals to talk to their providers about whether to get the shot. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine regulator, Vinay Prasad, linked the deaths of 10 children to Covid vaccination without providing more detailed information about the data behind his assertion. European countries years ago stopped recommending repeat Covid vaccination for children and other groups not considered at risk of becoming severely sick. Covid shots have been linked to rare heart conditions, primarily among young men. European vaccine experts say Covid boosters were not recommended routinely for healthy children in many countries — not because of safety concerns, but because it’s more cost-effective to give them to high-risk groups, such as elderly people or those with health conditions that Covid could make severely sick and put in the hospital. In the U.K., Covid-related hospitalizations and deaths declined significantly after the pandemic, and now are “mostly in the most frail in the population, which has led to more restricted use of the vaccines following the cost-effectiveness principles,” said Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group in the United Kingdom, which works on developing vaccines and was behind AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 shot. Pollard led the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, which advises the U.K. government, for 12 years before stepping down in September. In the U.S., more moves to follow Europe are likely. At a meeting of Kennedy’s vaccine advisers earlier this month, Tracy Beth Høeg, now acting as the FDA’s top drug regulator, pointed to Denmark’s pediatric schedule, which vaccinates for 10 diseases, while questioning whether healthy American children should be subject to more vaccines than their Danish counterparts. Danish kids typically don’t get shots for chickenpox, the flu, hepatitis A and B, meningitis, respiratory syncytial virus and rotavirus, like American children do, though parents can privately pay for at least some of those vaccines. The country offers free Covid and flu vaccines to high-risk kids. After the vaccine advisory meeting wrapped, Trump said he was on board, directing Kennedy to “fast track” a review of the U.S. vaccine schedule and potentially align it with other developed nations. He cited Denmark, Germany and Japan as countries that recommend fewer shots. Last week, Kennedy came within hours of publicly promoting Denmark’s childhood vaccine schedule as an option for American parents. The announcement was canceled at the last minute after the HHS Office of the General Counsel said it would invite a lawsuit the administration could lose, a senior department official told POLITICO. The notion that the U.S. would drop its vaccine schedule in favor of a European one struck health experts there as odd. Each country’s schedule is based on “the local situation, so the local epidemiology, structure of health care services, available resources, and inevitably, there’s a little bit of political aspect to it as well,” said Erika Duffell, a principal expert on communicable disease prevention and control at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, an EU agency that monitors vaccine schedules across 30 European countries. Vaccine safety isn’t the issue, she said. For example, even though most Europeans don’t get a hepatitis B shot within 24 hours of birth, the previous U.S. recommendation, “there is a consensus that the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine has been confirmed through decades of research” and continuous monitoring, she said. European nations like Denmark and the U.K. have kept new cases of hepatitis B low. Denmark recorded no cases of mother-to-child transmission in 2023, and Britain’s rate of such spread is less than 0.1 percent — though the latter does routinely recommend vaccinating low-risk infants beginning at 2 months of age. European experts point to high levels of testing of pregnant women for hepatitis B and most women having access to prenatal care as the reasons for success in keeping cases low while not vaccinating all newborns. The major differences between the U.S. and the U.K. in their approach to hepatitis B vaccination are lower infection rates and high screening uptake in Britain, plus “a national health system which is able to identify and deliver vaccines to almost all affected pregnancies selectively,” Pollard said. The CDC, when explaining the change in the universal birth dose recommendation, argued the U.S. has the ability to identify nearly all hepatitis B infections during pregnancy because of ”high reliability of prenatal hepatitis B screening,” which some European experts doubt. “If we change a program, we need to prepare the public, we need to prepare the parents and the health care providers, and say where the evidence comes from,” said Pierre Van Damme, the director of the Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He suggested that, if there was convincing evidence, U.S. health authorities could have run a pilot study before changing the recommendation to evaluate screening and the availability of testing at birth in one U.S. state, for example. WHERE EUROPEANS HAVE MORE DISEASE In some cases, European vaccination policies have, despite universal health care, led to more disease. France, Germany and Italy moved from recommending to requiring measles vaccination over the last decade after outbreaks on the continent. The U.S., until recently, had all but eradicated measles through a universal recommendation and school requirements. That’s starting to change. The U.S. is at risk of losing its “measles-elimination” status due to around 2,000 cases this year that originated in a Texas religious community where vaccine uptake is low. The 30 countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area, which have a population of some 450 million people combined, reported more than 35,000 measles cases last year, concentrated in Romania, Austria, Belgium and Ireland. Europe’s comparatively high rate is linked to lower vaccination coverage than the level needed to prevent outbreaks: Only four of the 30 countries reached the 95-percent threshold for the second measles dose in 2024, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Kennedy touted the U.S.’s lower measles rate as a successful effort at containing the sometimes-deadly disease, but experts say the country could soon see a resurgence of infectious diseases due to the vaccine skepticism that grew during the pandemic and that they say Kennedy has fomented. Among kindergarteners, measles vaccine coverage is down 2.7 percentage points as of the 2024-2025 school year, from a peak of 95.2 percent prior to the pandemic, according to CDC data. That drop occurred before Kennedy became health secretary. Kennedy and his advisers blame it on distrust engendered by Covid vaccine mandates imposed by states and President Joe Biden. But Kennedy led an anti-vaccine movement for years before joining the Trump administration, linking shots to autism and other conditions despite scientific evidence to the contrary, and he has continued to question vaccine safety as secretary. In some EU nations, vaccines aren’t compulsory for school entry. Swedish law guarantees the right to education and promotes close consultation between providers and patients. Some governments fear mandates could push away vaccine-hesitant parents who want to talk the recommended shots over with their doctor before giving the vaccines to their children, Rubin explained. In the U.S., states, which have the authority to implement vaccine mandates for school entry, rely on the CDC’s guidance to decide which to require. Vaccine skeptics have pushed the agency to relax some of its recommendations with an eye toward making it easier for American parents to opt out of routine shots. Scandinavian nations maintain high vaccine uptake without mandates thanks to “high trust” in public health systems, Rubin said. In Sweden, she added, nurses typically vaccinate young children at local clinics and provide care for them until they reach school age, which helps build trust among parents. CHICKENPOX Another example of where the U.S. and Europe differ is the chickenpox vaccine. The U.S. was the first country to begin universal vaccination against the common childhood illness in 1995; meanwhile, 13 EU nations broadly recommend the shot. Denmark doesn’t officially track chickenpox — the vaccine isn’t included on its schedule — but estimates 60,000 cases annually in its population of 6 million. The vastly larger U.S. sees fewer than 150,000 cases per year, according to the CDC. Many European countries perceive chickenpox as a benign disease, Van Damme said. “If you have a limited budget for prevention, you will spend usually the money in other preventative interventions, other vaccines than varicella,” he said, referring to the scientific term for chickenpox. But there’s another risk if countries decide to recommend chickenpox vaccination, he explained. If the vaccination level is low, people remain susceptible to the disease, which poses serious risks to unborn babies. If it’s contracted in early pregnancy, chickenpox could trigger congenital varicella syndrome, a rare disorder that causes birth defects. If children aren’t vaccinated against chickenpox, almost all would get the disease by age 10, Van Damme explained. If countries opt for vaccination, they have to ensure robust uptake: vaccinate virtually all children by 10, or risk having big pockets of unvaccinated kids who could contract higher-risk infections later. Europe’s stance toward chickenpox could change soon. Several countries are calculating that widely offering chickenpox vaccines would provide both public health and economic benefits. Britain is adding the shot to its childhood schedule next month. Sweden is expected to green-light it as part of its national program in the coming months. While the public doesn’t see it as a serious disease, pediatricians who see serious cases of chickenpox are advocating for the vaccine, Rubin told POLITICO. “It is very contagious,” she said. “It fulfills all our criteria.” The U.K. change comes after its vaccine advisory committee reviewed new data on disease burden and cost-effectiveness — including a 2022 CDC study of the U.S. program’s first 25 years that also examined the vaccine’s impact on shingles, a painful rash that can occur when the chickenpox virus reactivates years later. Scientists had theorized for years that limiting the virus’ circulation among children could increase the incidence of shingles in older adults by eliminating the “booster” effect of natural exposure, but the U.S. study found that real-world evidence didn’t support that hypothesis.

LONDON — A mutated influenza strain is spreading early in Europe this winter, but some experts warn talk of a “superflu” is misleading, erodes public trust and distracts from the underlying problems of the National Health Service. The new strain has triggered dramatic headlines in the U.K., where health leaders are warning of a “worst-case scenario” for the country’s NHS. Health Secretary Wes Streeting described it as a “tidal wave of flu tearing through our hospitals” and labelled it a “challenge unlike any [the NHS] has seen since the pandemic.” While hospital admissions have been rising sharply due to the early arrival of flu season, there is currently no evidence that this season’s variant is more deadly or transmissible, experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) told POLITICO. Neither does the data suggest hospital admissions will peak higher than previous years — although this is possible — just that they’re a few weeks early. But some experts in the U.K. have criticized the government’s “superflu” narrative, suggesting it’s being used as leverage in talks on doctor pay and conditions ahead of a looming strike. Prime Minister Keir Starmer wrote in The Guardian Friday it was “beyond belief” doctors would consider striking in these “potentially dire” circumstances, citing “a superflu epidemic.” The British Medical Association (BMA), the union representing resident doctors due to go on strike Wednesday, claimed it was “irresponsible to portray the current winter flu crisis as unprecedented” given that rates of infection and hospitalization were “comparable to most years,” a spokesperson told POLITICO. Mathematician Christina Pagel, a professor at University College London, said the “superflu” line was based on the “highly misleading use of statistics” and had more to do with the impending doctors’ strike than real trends. When contacted by POLITICO, the U.K. government stood by its health leaders’ warnings of the current flu season, in which they described it as an “unprecedented wave of super flu.” They said staff were being “pushed to the limit.” The government also pointed to stats showing the NHS is under pressure. A DHSC spokesperson told POLITICO the government had offered the BMA an extended mandate so they could strike in January instead, but the union rejected it. The BMA told POLITICO the extension included “several restrictive conditions.” THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUST The government and NHS bosses have warned the heavy burden on hospitals in December could set the health system up for a very severe winter. NHS statistics published last week show an average of 2,660 patients in hospital with flu per day, a record for this time of year, while the Health Foundation has said the NHS could face “major pressures” if cases continue to climb rapidly in the weeks ahead. Yet, while NHS staff are stretched, Pagel and others argue this year is largely consistent with previous severe flu seasons. However, without being clear about this with the public, some experts are concerned the government’s messaging could do more harm than good. “One of the real issues we have with governments everywhere is trust,” Martin McKee, professor of public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told POLITICO. While NHS staff are stretched, experts argue this year is largely consistent with previous severe flu seasons. | Geography Photos/Getty Images “The difficulty is we’ve seen them do all sorts of things for all sorts of motives. That then becomes a problem whenever they are saying something accurate,” McKee said, adding that the government should be more careful in its flu messaging given the declining trust in science. POLITICO put these concerns over trust in science to DHSC, but the department did not respond by the time of publication. A spokesperson for government-sponsored NHS England told POLITICO: “The NHS is not misleading the public — this is the earliest flu season we have seen in recent years with the latest data showing the numbers of patients in hospital with flu is extremely high for this time of year.” The NHS is struggling as it often does in winter, with a spike in delayed discharges — people who are ready to leave hospital but have nowhere to go — posing an extra challenge for hospitals, The Guardian reported Sunday. Hospital admissions for flu per 100,000 rose 23 percent in last week’s data, compared to 69 percent the previous week, but this doesn’t rule out another surge in the weeks ahead. McKee said the NHS was paying the price for chronic underinvestment. “We almost seem surprised that it’s arrived,” he said of the current flu wave, citing a “massive shortage” in beds, IT equipment and scanners.  WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY There is no reason to think the current flu strain (H3N2 sub-clade K) causes more severe disease than other types of flu, Hans Kluge, head of the World Health Organization’s Europe office, told POLITICO. Nor is there any solid evidence that it is more transmissible, said Edoardo Colzani, a flu expert at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. It’s possible the lower level of immunity to this strain could lead to more cases “but this is still speculative at this stage,” Colzani said. “The epidemiological situation at the moment [in the EU] does not seem worse than in previous years apart from the fact that it is two-to-three weeks earlier,” Colzani said. Kluge said it was “about 4 weeks earlier than usual,” which “is not out of the ordinary” and trending similar to the 2022–2023 influenza season. There were some concerns the available flu vaccine might not be a “perfect match” for the current strain, Kluge said, but early data from the U.K. suggests it provides “meaningful protection” and may prevent severe disease and death, especially among vulnerable groups. “We [could] end up having a much bigger wave than usual but we have no evidence,” Pagel said, adding she thought it was “most likely” to peak “in a couple of weeks.” But the available data can’t tell us whether it will be a normal wave that starts and ends early, or an especially bad season, she added.  “We don’t know when it will turn the corner but the actual shape of the wave doesn’t look that different from previous years,” McKee said. The NHS has previously warned of the risk of a “long and drawn-out flu season” due to the early start. According to the WHO, some countries in the southern hemisphere had unusually long flu seasons this year.  “Based on previous trends, this season is expected to peak in late December or early January,” Kluge said. The advice from EU and U.K. authorities remains the same — get a flu vaccine as soon as possible, especially for those in a vulnerable group.

By Kathryn Kranhold and Jason McLure of The Examination and Rory O’Neill and Antonia Zimmermann of POLITICO. This article was reported in collaboration with The Examination, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates global health threats. BRUSSELS — When the world’s largest tobacco company needed help lifting international restrictions on its products, it enlisted an unlikely ally: the European Union, a leader in tobacco control.  EU officials met with Philip Morris International representatives at least six times from September 2022 through 2024, according to documents released through public records requests. The tobacco giant’s agenda: Enlist EU officials’ help in loosening restrictions or setting favorable tax rates on its products — including IQOS, a heated tobacco device key to the company’s future — in 10 countries outside the EU. Officials with the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, took action at least three times that would have benefitted the company, The Examination and POLITICO found. They published a notice saying Mexico’s ban on new nicotine products was a possible barrier to free trade. They asked Turkish officials whether they planned to maintain the country’s requirement that cigarettes contain a minimum amount of local tobacco. And in a high-level report for EU officials, they flagged that rule and Turkey’s cigarette tax rate as issues that could affect ties between it and the EU.  The Commission’s actions regarding Turkey were “of great help for us,” a PMI representative wrote to staffers at the Commission. “We would like to express our gratitude in regard of (sic) the actions that you took.”  A Philip Morris International representative thanked European Commission trade officials for flagging Turkey’s cigarette tax and a rule on domestic tobacco as possible trade issues. (Redactions by the European Commission. Highlighting by The Examination) The revelations, contained in documents released through public information requests by the French anti-tobacco group Contre-Feu, raise questions about whether the EU breached its commitment to a global treaty to combat smoking signed by the EU and member countries. Guidelines to implement that treaty — the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) — say that when setting and implementing public health policies, governments should restrict their dealings with the tobacco industry and disclose any meetings whenever possible. None of the meetings with PMI or other industry groups cited in the documents were disclosed, according to The Examination and POLITICO’s review of the EU’s disclosure websites. The “fact that EU officials acted upon PMI’s requests signals a troubling willingness to give the tobacco industry privileged access. That is precisely what the FCTC was designed to prevent,” said Tilly Metz, a member of the European Parliament with the Greens. “It undermines both public trust and the EU’s credibility as a global leader in tobacco control.” A spokesperson for the European Commission told The Examination and POLITICO  that it “strictly follows” the treaty guidelines. But tobacco products are covered by EU trade policy, and the Commission can negotiate tariffs and trade rules, the spokesperson said.  “The Commission does not shape, influence or lobby for specific health policies in third countries on behalf of any industry,” the spokesperson said.  While industry associations and companies can share concerns on market access in non-EU countries with the Commission, and the Commission may meet with complainants to get more information, the spokesperson said such meetings are “strictly related to trade facilitation and market access.” European parliamentarians appeared divided over whether the dealings were improper.  Vytenis Andriukaitis with the Socialists and Democrats and a former EU health commissioner said the European Commission “cannot represent the interests of tobacco companies,” nor “press other countries to weaken” their tobacco controls. Barry Andrews, a member of the centrist Renew Europe Group, said: “These regular meetings with big tobacco lobbyists and the flurry of emails should not have happened.” By contrast, Stine Bosse, a member of the same political group, said: “The tobacco industry has every right to employ lobbyists.” However, Bosse added: “Morally, I stand in a very different place. While they constantly try to reinvent new products to get people hooked on nicotine and tobacco, I am fighting for precisely the opposite.”  Philip Morris International did not answer questions from The Examination and POLITICO about its dealing with EU officials. On its website, the company said it shares its perspectives with policymakers and it is “particularly active with respect to policies regarding less harmful alternatives to cigarettes, trade and fiscal matters, and intellectual property.” (The company is separate from Philip Morris USA, which is part of Altria Group.) The Examination and POLITICO have not found evidence that any of the 10 countries targeted by PMI altered their tobacco taxes or regulations following meetings with EU officials, including where the EU took action with regard to Mexico and Turkey. Most of PMI’s entreaties focused on IQOS, which it says is better than cigarettes because heating tobacco releases fewer toxins than burning it. Public health experts say the long-term risks of heated tobacco are unknown and products like IQOS could increase tobacco use. IQOS devices with heated tobacco sticks. Philip Morris International says IQOS is better than cigarettes because heating tobacco releases fewer toxins than burning it. Public health experts say the long-term risks of heated tobacco are unknown. | Roberto Pfeil/picture alliance via Getty Images Public health advocates said Commission officials’ actions were especially surprising because the EU has been one of the strongest supporters of the FCTC.  This year, the Commission proposed hiking EU-wide taxes on most tobacco products and setting minimum taxes for vapes and heated tobacco for the first time. Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has pledged to drive e-cigarette taxes even higher; his tax counterpart, Wopke Hoekstra, has called vapes the “revenge of the tobacco industry.” The countries that PMI sought help with were outside the EU. Nearly all of them — Argentina, Brazil, India, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam — had banned heated tobacco. Taiwan had what PMI described as a burdensome approval process. Japanese leaders were in discussions to raise taxes on heated tobacco to the same rate as cigarettes. Philip Morris International asked for the EU’s help in loosening restrictions or setting favorable tax rates on its IQOS product in 10 countries outside the EU. (Redactions by the European Commission. Highlighting by The Examination) PMI officials wanted people in those countries to be able to buy IQOS as easily as cigarettes. The company calls IQOS part of its “dream team” of alternative nicotine products, including e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches, that are meant to offset declining cigarette consumption.  So the company sought help in the EU’s distinctive 15-story glass trade building, the Charlemagne, in Brussels. PMI SEEKS HELP IN MEXICO Mexico was the first country that PMI sought help with, according to the documents. That country was a key market for IQOS, but a ban on vapes and heated tobacco was set to go into effect in December 2022.  In an investor meeting on Sept. 6, 2022, an analyst asked about IQOS’ “lack of success” in the Americas. Emmanuel Babeau, the company’s chief financial officer, blamed “some restrictions” in Mexico but said, “it’s going to be a very successful market for IQOS once we can really sell the device really without any issue.” That same day, company staff had an online meeting with EU officials to discuss the ban. It was one of several discussions about Mexico. After the ban went into effect, PMI sought more help from EU officials. In an April 3, 2023, email, an executive at the company’s Swiss office asked for another meeting, explaining that Mexico’s “business environment is still marked by uncertainty, judicial processes, interpretations, and doubtful, temporary and unclear administrative acts.”    After a ban on vapes and heated tobacco went into effect in Mexico, Philip Morris International sought more help from EU officials. (Redactions by the European Commission. Highlighting by The Examination) Soon after the email, European trade officials issued what is known as a barrier to trade notice, reporting Mexico’s IQOS ban as a potential trade treaty violation. PMI representatives and trade officials met later that month, when the company contended similar bans in Argentina, Brazil and Vietnam were trade barriers, according to a Commission report summarizing the meeting. The Commission spokesperson said it had acted in response to a formal complaint that “involved discriminatory treatment of like products” and that it did not undertake any further action regarding Mexico. Mexico’s Supreme Court struck down the ban in November 2024, allowing PMI to continue selling IQOS there.  The correspondence shows how PMI leveraged its status as a major European employer and exporter. The company employed more than 21,500 people in Europe as of 2023 and had 20 manufacturing sites there. In one email, a PMI representative told a European trade official that a meeting would be a “good opportunity to update you [on] the most recent data on EU exports in the tobacco sector and PMI’s investments in the EU.” OFFICIALS QUESTION TURKEY’S TAXES, RULES ON LOCAL TOBACCO EU officials also assisted PMI in trying to change rules on cigarettes.  In July 2023, a company representative complained to EU officials about Turkey’s cigarette tax, saying in an email that Turkey had “one of the highest ad valorem duty levels in the world.” The representative also flagged Turkey’s “local content” rule, which required that cigarettes made and sold in the country contain a certain amount of domestic tobacco. The PMI representative wrote that the company had “prepared a few suggestions” for the Commission’s upcoming report on Turkey’s economic and diplomatic relationships with the EU.  That report, which came out in November 2023, flagged Turkey’s taxes and the local content rule. That elicited the email from PMI thanking EU officials for their help. Meanwhile, the company was pushing European Commission officials to raise the local content rule again, but in a different forum: an upcoming World Trade Organization (WTO) review of Turkey’s trade policies. PMI provided EU trade officials with questions to ask Turkey. EU officials then submitted a question prior to the review, asking whether the local content requirement for tobacco and other industries would continue, according to meeting minutes. The Commission spokesperson did not directly answer questions from The Examination and POLITICO about its actions regarding Turkey. Turkey has not changed its requirements on local tobacco or its tax rate.  MEETINGS PART OF A MULTIMILLION-DOLLAR LOBBYING EFFORT The meetings are part of an industry lobby that spends $16.2 million (14 million euros) a year in the EU, according to a report by Contre-Feu and STOP, another anti-tobacco group, released Wednesday. Contre-Feu mapped a network of 49 organizations and companies, including Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco, that lobbied the European Commission and Parliament to weaken tobacco regulations and set lower taxes on new nicotine products, both within and outside the EU. (British American Tobacco did not respond to requests for comment.) The interactions between the tobacco industry and EU officials appear to be extensive, according to the documents. They include several dozen email exchanges and refer to at least nine meetings between EU officials and tobacco companies or industry-supported groups.  In addition to the six meetings with PMI, there were three other meetings with tobacco representatives. Trade staff met with three other companies and a tobacco trade group in March 2024 to hear their requests for more favorable tariff rules for new nicotine products. In a separate video conference, British American Tobacco asked trade staff to intervene at a WTO hearing over Saudi Arabia’s proposed tax hike on e-cigarette cartridges. (The EU did not take action, according to the documents.) And in a third meeting, the EU’s former agriculture commissioner, a Polish member of the EU parliament and two tobacco farming lobby groups discussed tobacco subsidies and the Commission’s position on the global tobacco treaty. Nathalie Darge, secretary general of Tobacco Europe, the trade group included in one of those meetings, said its input focused on technical requirements and that it wanted to “ensure legal certainty for operators and customs authorities.” One European Commission report recapping a meeting with PMI was sent to 32 trade department officials and staff, including EU representatives assigned to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Vietnam and division directors. Contre-Feu wrote that the dealings between government officials and tobacco representatives showed that “current rules to limit industry influence are falling short and European policymakers continue to be heavily lobbied by the tobacco industry and those working on its behalf.” PMI’s efforts are part of a long history of the tobacco industry using trade and investment pacts to expand markets and undermine health policies, said Suzanne Zhou, who works for the World Health Organization FCTC Knowledge Hub on Legal Challenges and a senior fellow at the Melbourne Law School in Australia. “Tobacco companies have lost the argument from a health perspective,” Zhou said. “So they are reframing the issue as a trade issue in the hopes that they can advance their interests in that forum instead.”  In the 1980s, the U.S. Trade Representative threatened sanctions if Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand didn’t open their markets to U.S. cigarette companies. A study later concluded that cigarette consumption in those four markets was nearly 10 percent higher than it would have been if they had remained closed to U.S. companies.  More recently, Australia and Uruguay faced trade litigation from the industry or industry-aligned governments over their tobacco control policies.  COMMISSION CRITICIZED FOR UNDISCLOSED MEETINGS Contre-Feu contended that the documents also show that EU officials didn’t disclose meetings with the industry when they should have. To aid countries in implementing the tobacco treaty, delegates wrote a set of guidelines. They state that when setting and implementing public health policies, interactions with the tobacco industry should be limited to what is strictly necessary for effective regulation. Interactions should be conducted in public and disclosed whenever possible. And the guidelines emphasize that “all branches of government” should be made aware of industry efforts to interfere with policies. The Commission spokesperson said that’s exactly what it does: “Meetings with the tobacco industry are avoided, unless they are strictly necessary. If the applicable conditions are met, meetings are held in a fully transparent manner and are appropriately documented.” But EU trade officials did not disclose any of these meetings on the website where the trade department reports such contacts. One batch of documents was released through a request for access; another batch was obtained by Contre-Feu. One of the meetings not disclosed by trade officials occurred in July 2023. Global health leaders were scheduled to meet that November to update the FCTC. The European Commission was considering supporting strict limitations on heated tobacco products.  A Commission report summarizing a July 19, 2023, meeting with PMI said that the company had “alerted” the Commission about language “calling on WHO members to adopt import bans on heated tobacco products.” The company asserted that EU tobacco policy should take into account WTO agreements, which the company has contended would preclude countries from banning IQOS.  Philip Morris International met with European Commission trade officials in July 2023 to discuss a proposed change to a global tobacco control treaty that would have banned heated tobacco. Though such meetings are supposed to be disclosed, this one wasn’t. (Redactions by the European Commission. Highlighting by The Examination) The documents don’t say anything about whether the Commission took action, and tobacco-friendly countries in the EU such as Italy and Greece pushed back against restrictive guidelines. But in the end, the Commission took no position on heated tobacco— a victory for the industry.  During the period covered by the documents, the EU required only high-ranking Commission officials to report meetings with companies or special-interest groups. In December 2024, the Commission tightened rules to require disclosure by additional staff. It’s unclear whether those rules would’ve required disclosure of these meetings.  Former EU ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, found other instances in which the Commission didn’t disclose meetings with the tobacco industry, which she concluded failed to meet transparency rules required under international law.  Contre-Feu has urged the EU to tighten transparency guidelines even further by extending disclosure requirements to all staff, among other things. The group said in its report that the extensive lobbying and lack of disclosure “reveal either a repeated violation of the FCTC by the European Commission or, at the very least, an insufficient implementation of the treaty’s measures.” Mathieu Tourliere of Proceso contributed reporting. STOP has received support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which also provides financial support to The Examination. The Examination operates independently and is solely responsible for its content. Correction: This story has been corrected to say that the report on tobacco industry lobbying was jointly published by Contre-Feu and STOP, and that STOP has received support from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Pediatric respiratory diseases are among the most common and serious health challenges we face worldwide. From examples such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) to pertussis (also known as whooping cough), these infections can cause significant illness, hospitalizations, and with some, possible long-term consequences.[1],[2] Worldwide, RSV causes approximately 3.6 million hospitalizations and 100,000 deaths each year in children under five years of age.[3] Yet, many of these infections may be prevented, if we continue to prioritize and strengthen immunization. Immunization is not just a scientific achievement; it’s a public health imperative. And in this new era, Sanofi is at the forefront, driving innovation and access to pediatric immunization, especially when it comes to respiratory disease prevention. Our commitment is global, our ambition bold: to help protect people everywhere against preventable illnesses, with the confidence that every child, every parent, every person, and every healthcare professional deserves. > Immunization is not just a scientific achievement; it’s a public health > imperative. RSV, a leading cause of infant hospitalizations globally, exemplifies both the challenge and the opportunity.[4],[5],[6],[7] With an estimated 12.9 million lower respiratory infections and 2.2 million hospitalizations annually among infants under one year of age,3 the burden is immense. For decades, RSV lacked preventive options for the broad infant population. Some countries in Europe are a good illustration of what is possible when prevention is prioritized. For example, in Galicia, Spain, implementation of a universal program offered to the broad infant population led to notable reductions in RSV-related hospitalization compared with previous seasons.[8] The lesson is clear: when prevention is prioritized like it matters, delivered equitably and integrated into routine care, the impact is quickly seen. This principle applies to other childhood respiratory diseases. Hexavalent combination vaccinations have helped to revolutionize pediatric immunization by combining protection against six diseases into one vaccine. One of these is pertussis, which is especially dangerous for children who haven’t received all their vaccinations yet, and have a four-fold higher risk of contracting whooping cough.[9]  For younger infants pertussis is high risk, with over 40 percent of infants under six months of age requiring hospitalization.[10] These data demonstrate how delayed or missed vaccine doses can leave children vulnerable. By combining vaccines into a single shot, immunization uptake can be improved, increasing acceptance with efficient and equitable delivery and helping reduce disease burden at scale.[11],[12] > Some countries in Europe are a good illustration of what is possible when > prevention is prioritized. For example, in Galicia, Spain, implementation of a > universal program offered to the broad infant population led to notable > reductions in RSV-related hospitalization compared with previous seasons. Good uptake is crucial for protecting children. Where programs are fragmented, under-resourced or underfunded, equity gaps worsen along familiar lines – income, access and information. The recent resurgence of some preventable diseases is not just a warning; it’s a call to action.[13],[14],[15] Sustaining protection against respiratory diseases in children, increasing vaccination coverage rates, and embracing innovation to help protect against more diseases must be a collective priority.[11],[12] We must not let misinformation or complacency erode public trust in immunization. The evidence is clear: prevention works. Today, we have a unique opportunity to showcase that impact and redefine the future of respiratory health in children. > We must not let misinformation or complacency erode public trust in > immunization. The evidence is clear: prevention works. The science is sound. The approach for protecting infants against respiratory infections is clear. Our children deserve nothing less. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Glaser EL, et al. Impact of Respiratory Syncytial Virus on Child, Caregiver, and Society. Journal of Infectious Diseases. 2022;226(Supplement_2):S236-S241 [2] Kardos P, et al. Understanding the impact of adult pertussis and its complications. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2024. [3] Li Y, Wang X, Blau DM, et al. Global, regional, and national disease burden estimates of acute lower respiratory infections due to respiratory syncytial virus in children younger than 5 years in 2019: a systematic analysis. Lancet 2022;399:2047-2064. [4] Leader S, Kohlhase K. Respiratory syncytial virus-coded pediatric hospitalizations, 1997 to 1999. The Pediatric infectious disease journal. 2002;21(7):629-32. [5] McLaurin KK, Farr AM, Wade SW, Diakun DR, Stewart DL. Respiratory syncytial virus hospitalization outcomes and costs of full-term and preterm infants. Journal of Perinatology: official journal of the California Perinatal Association. 2016;36(11):990-6. [6] Rha B, et al. Respiratory Syncytial Virus-Associated Hospitalizations Among Young Children: 2015-2016. Pediatrics. 2020;146:e20193611. [7] Arriola CS, et al. Estimated Burden of Community-Onset Respiratory Syncytial Virus-Associated Hospitalizations Among Children Aged <2 Years in the United States, 2014-15. J Pediatric Infect Dis Soc. 2020;9:587-595. [8] Ares-Gómez S, et al. NIRSE-GAL Study Group. Effectiveness and impact of universal prophylaxis with nirsevimab in infants against hospitalisation for respiratory syncytial virus in Galicia, Spain: initial results of a population-based longitudinal study. Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2024; 24: 817-828. [9] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2019 Final Pertussis Surveillance Report. Accessed 4 March 2025 [10] Glanz, J. M., et al. (2013) Association between undervaccination with diphtheria, tetanus toxoids, and acellular pertussis (DTaP) vaccine and risk of pertussis infection in children 3 to 36 months of age. JAMA Pediatr. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.2353 [11] Fatima M, Hong KJ. Innovations, Challenges, and Future Prospects for Combination Vaccines Against Human Infections. Vaccines (Basel). 2025 Mar 21;13(4):335. doi: 10.3390/vaccines13040335. PMID: 40333234; PMCID: PMC12031483. [12] Maman K, Zöllner Y, Greco D, Duru G, Sendyona S, Remy V. The value of childhood combination vaccines: From beliefs to evidence. Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2015;11(9):2132-41. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2015.1044180. PMID: 26075806; PMCID: PMC4635899. [13] Liu J, Lu G, Qiao J. Global resurgence of pertussis in infants BMJ 2025; 391 :r2169 doi:10.1136/bmj.r2169 [14] Jenco M. AAP, CHA call for emergency declaration to address surge of pediatric illnesses. AAP News. 2022 [15] Wang, S., Zhang, S., & Liu, J. (2025). Resurgence of pertussis: Epidemiological trends, contributing factors, challenges, and recommendations for vaccination and surveillance. Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics, 21(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/21645515.2025.2513729 MAT-GLB-2506084 

Voters in Switzerland rejected by large majorities two initiatives in a referendum on Sunday, one proposing to tax the super-rich on their inheritance and another to extend mandatory civic or military service to women. Some 84 percent of voters said no to the civic duty proposal, while around 79 percent voted against the inheritance tax initiative, according to initial projections after polling closed at noon on Sunday. The tax measure was a proposal to impose a 50 percent levy on inheritance above a tax-free amount of 50 million Swiss francs (€53.6 million) and direct the funds toward measures to mitigate climate change. It was put forward by the youth wing of the leftist Social Democrats. The “For a committed Switzerland” initiative wanted to see compulsory military or civilian service for men extended to women and expanded to additional forms of service to benefit society such as protecting the environment, assisting vulnerable people and helping with disaster prevention. The civic duty proposal was launched by Geneva-based association servicecitoyen.ch, backed by a petition with 107,613 signatures and the support of the Liberal Greens, the Evangelical Party, the Pirate Party, the youth wing of the Centre Party and other associations. Both initiatives failed to garner wider political support from the Swiss government or other parties, and a poll 10 days before the vote predicted ballot-box defeats for both.

The European Commission is set to unveil the Biotech Act I, an EU cardiovascular health plan and a simplification of the bloc’s medical devices and in vitro diagnostics rules on Dec. 16, according to the latest Commission agenda published Monday. The first part of the Biotech Act will focus on the pharmaceutical industry and is being produced without a dedicated impact assessment. The second part — covering other biotech sectors — is expected in the third quarter of 2026. The upcoming cardiovascular health plan — inspired by the bloc’s Beating Cancer Plan — will cover prevention, early detection and screening, treatment and management, and rehabilitation. Meanwhile, simplification of the bloc’s medical devices and in vitro diagnostics rules comes after the regulations drove up assessment costs, caused certification delays, and led to product withdrawals from the market. Europe’s Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi has previously said the sector needs a “major overhaul.” Additionally, the Commission’s agenda includes a “drugs package” comprising new rules on drug precursors and an EU Drugs Strategy and European action plan against drug trafficking — both scheduled for Dec. 3.