Pharmaceutical partners Moderna and Merck announced on Wednesday that their novel mRNA-based vaccine—individually tailored to target a patient's unique cancer mutations—was effective in a late-stage clinical trial of patients with melanoma, one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer.

The announcement was scant on details, but if the success holds, it stands to realize the high aspirations for both mRNA vaccines and individualized cancer-targeting medicines in cancer therapy, providing a first success for both treatment types.

The Phase 3 trial included 1,137 patients who had stage IIB–IV melanoma that had been surgically removed prior to their treatment in the trial. Patients were randomized 2-1 to receive either a combination treatment of the tailored mRNA vaccine (intismeran or mRNA-4157) with Merck's established monoclonal antibody cancer treatment Keytruda, or they received treatment with Keytruda alone. Both patient groups were treated for about a year. The trial was placebo-controlled and double-blind, meaning neither the doctors nor the patients knew which treatment patients were randomly assigned to receive.

Based on a planned interim analysis, Moderna and Merck report that the combination therapy with the mRNA vaccine extended "recurrence-free survival" (RFS), which is the amount of time a patient has without the cancer returning. The combination therapy also extended "distant metastasis-free survival" (DMFS), which is the amount of time a patient has without the cancer returning and occurring in a different part of the body than where it began.

The companies say the extensions of RFS and DMFS reported were statistically significant and clinically meaningful, but they did not elaborate. They said the data will be presented at an upcoming international medical conference. They did note, however, that data from a five-year Phase 2 trial, which was presented at a cancer researcher conference in June, showed a 49 percent reduction in the risk of recurrence or death and a 59 percent reduction in the risk of distant metastasis or death.

The mRNA vaccine intismeran works using a synthetic mRNA that holds the unique genetic coding for up to 34 mutations in a patient's own cancer cells. The production process involves comparing the genetic sequences of a patient's cancer cells to those of healthy cells and picking out any cancer-specific mutations that could help the immune system differentiate cancer cells from healthy ones.

Promising design

Using the same platform Moderna used for its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, intismeran delivers to healthy cells the mRNA code for those mutations. Healthy cells translate that mRNA code into protein fragments representing the cancer mutations, and then those fragments are presented to immune cells as antigens, a foreign substance to attack. As such, Moderna and Merck call their mRNA cancer vaccine a type of "neoantigen therapy."

The term avoids both "mRNA" and "vaccine," which draw hostility from Trump's anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. In addition to his concerted efforts to undermine lifesaving vaccines, Kennedy has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for the development of mRNA vaccine technology.

In the companies' announcement, Georgina Long, who led the trial, said the results were "a landmark moment" with the "potential to establish a new treatment paradigm." Dean Li, president of Merck Research Laboratories, said the findings "reinforce the promise of a more personalized approach to cancer treatment." Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel, meanwhile, highlighted mRNA technology's role, saying this is "a pivotal moment for the field of cancer research."

"For many years, the idea of creating an mRNA treatment designed specifically for an individual patient's cancer was aspirational. We are now helping turn that vision into a reality," Bancel said.

Despite the lack of details, outside experts are similarly hopeful and encouraged by the announcement. "This is the first positive Phase III trial of an individualized neoantigen therapy and an mRNA-based cancer treatment," University of Oxford cancer expert Lennard Lee said in a statement. "That makes this an important moment for a field that scientists have been working towards for many years. Within six years of the pandemic, we have mRNA vaccines to treat cancer," he said, also calling it "very encouraging" and "significant."

Lee, however, highlighted that we don't yet know the magnitude of the benefit, the detailed subgroup analyses, quality-of-life data, or mature overall-survival results. "Those details will allow the scientific and clinical community to understand precisely how large the benefit is, which patients benefit most, and ultimately where this treatment might sit within routine melanoma care," he said.

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President Trump is expected to nominate Heidi Overton, a top conservative policy aide, as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, according to multiple media reports.

Overton is currently the deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council and has played a key role in shaping a variety of health policies during Trump's second term. At times, she has notably angered members of the Make America Healthy Again movement, which was created by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Overton has a medical degree from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine and earned a doctoral degree in clinical investigation from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While at Johns Hopkins, she worked with Marty Makary, the previous FDA commissioner who was ousted by Trump amid a cacophony of controversies.

Makary and his political appointees at the FDA sparked anger and criticism due to a string of dubious moves on drugs for rare diseases, frustrating patients and the pharmaceutical industry alike. He also earned the ire of the tobacco industry, public health advocates, anti-abortion groups, and a variety of federal officials. According to sources for The Wall Street Journal, Overton was a staunch defender of Makary during his time in the role.

Prior to Overton's current White House role, she worked on health policy for the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank previously helmed by Brooke Rollins, who now serves as Trump's agriculture secretary.

Policy positions

In terms of her policy positions, The New York Times highlights that Overton has written articles calling abortion "corrosive" to women and calling abortion pills "far more dangerous to women," despite extensive data suggesting that abortion pills are extremely safe. Experts have noted that they are safer than taking Viagra or getting a colonoscopy and significantly safer than giving birth. Still, Overton's position aligns with conservative efforts to get the FDA to restrict access to abortion pills.

On vaccines, Overton appeared with Trump last week as he signed a widely decried executive order calling for American children to get fewer vaccines, despite no evidence in support of the move but plenty indicating harm. Overton made comments that the administration would begin working directly with states to reduce vaccination recommendations. Trump's order has no legal power to change vaccination requirements for schools, which are made at the state level.

While Overton appears in line with Kennedy's ardent anti-vaccine agenda, she seems wary of his unilateral push to ease access to peptide drugs, according to reporting from The Atlantic in July. Many popular peptide drugs have little to no data on their safety and efficacy but pose clear health risks. Peptides have become a fad among the MAHA crowd, with supplement hawkers and online influencers claiming, without evidence, that they provide a variety of benefits. Kennedy himself has described himself as a "big fan," and, as such, the FDA has begun a process to make them more accessible—over the objections of FDA career scientists.

The Atlantic also reported that Overton pushed back on some aspects of Kennedy's overhaul of dietary guidelines—which nutrition and health experts also criticized. She was also reportedly not in favor of the Trump administration's moves to loosen marijuana regulations and promote psychedelics.

Once formally nominated, Overton needs Senate confirmation to assume the role.

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A study of more than 64,000 people born around the end of Britain's postwar sugar rationing found that those exposed to less sugar during their first 1,000 days had lower rates of five cancers decades later, including roughly 69% lower liver cancer risk and 36% lower breast cancer risk. They also "showed signs of slower biological aging" and "continued to consume less sugar and had healthier diets overall," according to the authors of a new study published in The Conversation. From the report: After the second world war, sugar remained rationed in Britain for several years. But in September 1953, rationing ended and people started eating a lot more sugar. Consumption nearly doubled. This meant that children born just a few months apart had very different levels of sugar exposure both in the womb and during early childhood. For our study, we used data from over 64,000 people born in Britain between 1951 and 1956. Those born earlier spent a larger share of their first 1,000 days under sugar rationing, while those born later experienced progressively less of it. [...] What is most surprising, however, is not the cancer results or the biological markers of ageing. It's how early-life sugar exposure continued to affect people's diets even 50 years later. We found that people who experienced sugar rationing early in life still consumed less sugar in adulthood, around age 50. They also ate less overall, and their diets were healthier and more diverse. This suggests that the level of sweetness people are exposed to very early in life may shape their taste preferences for a long time.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As smartphone designs have become more refined, they've also become less repairable. Fairphone bucks that trend, offering devices that can be fully disassembled and serviced using a single screwdriver. But its devices were a pain to get in the US until now.

The Dutch company has launched the Fairphone Gen 6+ in the US, offering not only the phone but a full line of accessories and replacement parts so you can keep your phone running for years. And yes, the battery is removable.

Don't expect the Fairphone Gen 6+ to blow you away in the spec department—it focuses on being repairable and paying workers a fair wage. Half of the phone is made from recycled materials, and it has a microSD card slot. How retro.

The Fairphone Gen 6+ is not an entirely new phone, but it is slightly upgraded from the regular Fairphone 6. The processor is slightly more powerful, with a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 processor replacing the Gen 3 in the last phone. The RAM has also been increased from 8GB to 12GB, a rarity during our current global RAM shortage. Fairphone also offers the device in a new "Cobalt Blue" color, which is a reference to the company's efforts to support ethical cobalt mining in Africa.

It's been possible to buy Fairphones in the US before, but they were imported through other companies. The non-plus Fairphone 6 was offered through a company called Murena, which sold it for a higher price and loaded the phone with its de-Googled /e/OS. The new phone runs a standard build of Android 16 with all the usual Google services, and the company promises seven years of update support.

There are 12 user-replaceable components in the Fairphone. Credit: Fairphone

The power of the Fairphone is its modular design. With other phones, even something simple like replacing an aging battery often requires melting adhesive, prying apart fragile glass panels, and decoupling cables. The Fairphone Gen 6+ has two screws on the back to open the rear panel, providing access to the internals. As a result, the phone is only IP55 rated—safe from splashes but not full submersion.

With a single T5 torx driver, you can replace the battery, cameras, USB-C port, display, and more. In all, there are 12 components available for purchase, from the $8 SIM card tray to the $90 OLED screen assembly. Fairphone also sells a few accessories, including a case, a lanyard, and alternative back panels with a card holder or a finger loop.

The Fairphone Gen 6+ is fully unlocked with support for T-Mobile and AT&T in the US. It's available directly from Fairphone, and it will be on sale on Amazon soon as well.

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The federal agency tasked with studying ways to improve America's outstandingly poor healthcare system is "on the brink," experts warn. The Trump administration has cut its staff by 75 percent, canceled its grants en masse, and is refusing to spend tens of millions of dollars appropriated by Congress.

Whether the agency "will survive the second Trump administration is an open question," health policy experts Aaron Carroll and David Atkins wrote in an opinion piece published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The agency in question is the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which has focused on ways to improve patient safety, healthcare quality, care delivery, and new technologies and practices since the 1990s. In the past, "Republican leaders recognized that health care disparities were fundamental quality problems," Carroll and Atkins wrote. But recently, disparities in care have become partisan issues.

During Trump's second term, DOGE cuts led to the firing or retirement of an estimated 75 percent of the AHRQ's staff. In July, AHRQ abruptly sent grant cancellation letters to around 150 researchers. More than 100 research grants collectively worth over $250 million have been canceled. Although Congress appropriated $345 million for the 2026 fiscal year, much of it has gone unspent, with only $15 million going to grants so far. As such, scientists across over 30 states have halted research, laid off staff, shut down programs, and stopped pursuing new lines of research.

"Profound concern"

In addition to the losses in data and research findings, Carroll and Atkins lament the loss to the scientific community. "This is what it looks like when we stop developing the next generation of health services researchers." Reversing the damage is doable, but will be difficult, they write, while calling on Congress to act.

Last week, 30 Democratic senators sent a fiery letter to anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Noting the same series of events as Carroll and Atkins, they called Kennedy's handling of AHRQ "sabotage" and an "outrageous abuse of administrative power that will leave Americans sicker, poorer, and dying from preventable causes."

They highlighted just a few of the research programs that were axed under Kennedy, including studies on training rural healthcare workers to handle maternal medical emergencies in Connecticut, improving access to home dialysis in New York, reducing risks of patient falls in rural hospitals in Colorado, reducing overuse of antibiotics in Utah, improving autism screening and care for Black children in North Carolina, and improving chronic pain management to reduce reliance on opioids in Virginia. The senators also noted that grants were canceled out of the blue with form letters, which had contradictory explanations and incorrect citations.

With "profound concern and unequivocal opposition" to the mass grant cancellations, the senators wrote, "We demand that you immediately rescind these cancellations and ensure that the funding Congress appropriates to AHRQ is invested in health research in accordance with the law."

"We want to be clear: Democrats and Republicans did not work together to appropriate funds for AHRQ as a gentle suggestion for the [health] Department to follow at their discretion or leisure," they wrote. "We provided this money with the explicit instruction that the Department faithfully support life-saving research to improve access and health outcomes for Americans."

The health department under Kennedy has previously defended the cuts. The senators gave Kennedy until August 25 to respond to their letter.

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Disney today sued the Federal Communications Commission and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr in a lawsuit that aims to stop what it called a "campaign of censorship" waged by the Trump administration against ABC.

Disney, ABC, and the eight broadcast stations they own filed a complaint in US District Court for the District of Columbia. They also submitted a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would halt the FCC proceeding in which Carr is threatening to deny renewals of broadcast licenses held by ABC stations.

The lawsuit accused the FCC of violating the First Amendment by retaliating against the company's protected expression. "Again and again, the Administration has attacked ABC’s speech—the stories its journalists report and the viewpoints its network programs air," the lawsuit said. "Over time, those attacks have escalated into express demands that ABC be stripped of its broadcast licenses because of its speech."

The lawsuit asked the court to halt any further actions in the early license review that Carr ordered for all eight ABC stations. In particular, it asked the court to prevent the FCC from issuing a Hearing Designation Order that would all but guarantee a negative outcome for the ABC stations.

FCC left Disney "no choice"

While ABC station licenses are scheduled for renewals between 2028 and 2031, Carr took the highly unusual step of ordering the stations to file renewal applications several years early. Revoking a license in the middle of a term has been described as somewhere between difficult and effectively impossible.

Despite the legal difficulty of revoking a license, Disney's lawsuit said the FCC could use a hearing "to deny license renewal or immediately revoke the Stations’ licenses, forcing Plaintiffs off the air entirely, as the President has repeatedly demanded." Even if the FCC doesn't go that far, it can "mir[e] ABC in years of costly litigation, with the threat of adverse action ever present and with every editorial judgment shadowed by the prospect of provoking the Administration into further retaliation," the lawsuit said.

"Facing this existential threat, Plaintiffs have no choice but to seek redress from the judicial branch for the Administration’s blatant retaliation for their First Amendment speech," the lawsuit said. "Plaintiffs come to this Court reluctantly with no alternative means to eliminate these ongoing and immediate threats other than total capitulation to the Administration’s demands."

Carr ordered the review of ABC’s broadcast licenses in April, one day after Trump and the first lady called on ABC to fire Jimmy Kimmel over a joke in which he said Melania Trump looked like an “expectant widow.” The Carr FCC claims the license review is necessary because ABC's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices may violate anti-discrimination rules.

The Carr-led FCC today accused Disney of spreading disinformation.

"All broadcasters have a legal obligation to operate in the public interest—even Disney," an FCC spokesperson said in a statement provided to Ars. "The FCC has been examining claims that Disney engaged in illegal DEI discrimination for over a year. Disney is obviously very concerned about the FCC’s proceeding, as evidenced by their ongoing campaign of disinformation as well as their decision to ask a court to stop the FCC from further pursuing matters. The FCC will continue to follow the facts and law wherever they lead."

FCC Democrat roots Disney on

In addition to Carr, Disney's lawsuit names the other FCC commissioners as defendants. That includes Democrat Anna Gomez, though Gomez has consistently fought Carr's attacks on ABC and spoke out in support of Disney's lawsuit. Disney even cited some of Gomez's comments to support its argument about the Trump administration.

“For months, the FCC has waged a campaign of censorship and control against Disney’s ABC stations, using the threat of broadcast license revocations to punish a company for speech this administration doesn’t like," Gomez said in a statement today. "I have long called on companies to push back against this kind of government intimidation, and I’m glad Disney has shown courage and stepped up. This should be a welcome sign for every broadcaster who has felt the weight of this overreaching government pressure in silence."

The Disney lawsuit gives a history of the Trump administration's attacks on ABC. It notes that after the 2024 presidential election debate hosted by ABC, Trump accused ABC moderators of bias and repeatedly called for ABC to lose broadcast licenses. After winning the election, Trump chose Carr to take the FCC chairmanship and Carr "has likewise agreed with the President that the FCC should pursue grave remedies such as revocation when it disapproves of networks’ speech," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit describes the November 2025 incident in which ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked Trump why he was waiting for Congress to release the Epstein files instead of doing it himself immediately.

Trump responded, "You’re a terrible person, and a terrible reporter... I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake, and it’s so wrong, and we have a great commissioner, a chairman, who should look at that. Because I think when you come in and when you’re 97 percent negative to Trump, and then Trump wins the election by a landslide, that means obviously your news is not credible, and you’re not credible as a reporter."

White House called ABC "a Democrat spin operation"

The White House issued a press release the next day stating that "ABC 'News' is not journalism—it’s a Democrat spin operation masquerading as a broadcast network." Carr had already threatened ABC station licenses in September 2025, saying that stations could be guilty of "news distortion" and face "fines or license revocations" if they continued to air Jimmy Kimmel's show.

In addition to the early license review, Carr opened a proceeding in May 2026 to examine whether ABC's The View should continue to be exempt from the equal-time rule as a “bona fide news interview program.” The FCC had been investigating the ABC show since at least February, when it aired an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico.

In July, the FCC demanded that the Houston-based KTRK station "produce all internal communications among The View’s booking staff, its segment producers, its Executive Producer, and its on-air co-hosts discussing any candidate over a two-year period, together with the messages that two named cohosts had sent to the program’s Executive Producer about a single booking decision," the lawsuit said.

The FCC letter of inquiry also "demanded that ABC disclose the political donations of individual employees and co-hosts," the lawsuit said. Two weeks later, the FCC issued another letter making similar demands for Good Morning America, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, the lawsuit said.

"No provision of Section 315 [of the Communications Act] permits the government to demand a journalist’s or on-air anchor’s messages to her producer, to inventory her political contributions, or to audit the editorial standards of an entire news division," the lawsuit said, adding that Carr has not initiated similar equal-time investigations into conservative talk radio stations.

The View’s speech chilled

Disney acknowledged that The View has changed its process for evaluating potential guests because of the FCC proceeding. No political candidate has appeared on the show since the February 2026 appearance of Talarico.

"Historically, decisions about which candidates or public figures to invite as guests were made based on newsworthiness, audience interest, and scheduling alone," the lawsuit said. "Since the Bureau’s inquiry began, ABC must now evaluate any invitation to a political candidate for its potential consequences, including whether it might later be cited by the Commission as a basis for non-renewal in the Stations’ impending license renewal proceedings."

ABC hasn't stopped making news decisions that it knows would anger Trump, however. Last month, ABC decided not to broadcast a Trump primetime address live. "In direct response to ABC's decision not to broadcast his address—and during the address itself—the President called for the revocation of the ABC Owned Stations' broadcast licenses, as well as those of NBC, which had similarly chosen not to broadcast the address," the lawsuit said.

Gomez said she hopes that Disney's lawsuit "will mark the beginning of the end of this administration’s disregard for the Constitution and the law, and that the coming months will bring the costly legal defeat this agency has been asking for since it started down this path. It is time this administration understands that the Constitution does not bend to political convenience, and that the First Amendment protects the news and commentary Americans see on their screens even when those in power wish it didn’t.”

The Freedom of the Press Foundation also praised the lawsuit. The group recently sued Trump over Truth Social's scheme to sell real-time access to posts from Trump for up to $100,000 a month.

“It’s about time for someone to take Carr and his FCC to court over their endless campaign of intimidation and retaliation against journalism that displeases Carr’s thin-skinned boss," said the group's chief of advocacy, Seth Stern. "No matter what pretexts he asserts, Carr’s modus operandi is clear: to serve as Trump’s censorship czar and abuse his office to repeatedly and exclusively target Trump’s perceived adversaries in the media, whether through sham proceedings or threatening letters and X posts. Carr knows the FCC is not the journalism police and said so regularly himself before he decided to throw away any integrity he once had to kiss up to Trump. Countless others whose First Amendment rights have been chilled by Carr’s antics should follow Disney’s lead.”

To get a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction, Disney has to show it is likely to win the case and that it would suffer irreparable harm without a court order. In addition to describing the harm it has already suffered, Disney said the administration's campaign against ABC will be particularly damaging during the run up to the midterm election.

"Indeed, a Commission intent on influencing coverage could hardly have chosen a more opportune moment," Disney said. "Plaintiffs must make editorial judgments about how to cover the election in the shadow of a threatened corporate death sentence, and the Commission has every incentive to let that threat loom as long as possible. Nor can that harm be undone after the fact."

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