Marion Delphina [email protected] ∙ Monica Fambroughb ∙ Jana Manningb ∙ Lindsey Hiebert-Suwondob ∙ Jessica Hicksc ∙ Philippa C Matthewsa,d,e
February 18, 2026 , The Lancet, Gastroenterology & Hepatology

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are among the world's leading infectious threats, together responsible for over a million deaths each year, but these infections remain neglected by global funding.1,2 In 2025, the US Government revised its global health priorities and substantially reduced foreign aid commitments,3–5 including cuts to the US Agency for International Development and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, with estimated reductions totalling around US$60 billion.6,7 HIV infrastructure, built and maintained with this funding, has long provided resources that also support interventions for HBV and HCV, including harm reduction, screening, prophylaxis, treatment, clinic space, and staffing. Against this backdrop, reductions in global health funding risk destabilising these interconnected systems, with consequences for HBV and HCV elimination efforts worldwide.

To explore the early real-world consequences of funding reductions on hepatitis elimination efforts, the Coalition for Global Hepatitis Elimination (CGHE), the World Hepatitis Alliance (WHA), and the Hepatitis Elimination Lab (Plan-B) team issued online surveys to researchers, health-care workers, public health practitioners, civil societies, community-based organisations, people living with HBV or HCV, and government and ministry of health representatives, including national hepatitis programme managers (appendix pp 2–30).8 Surveys were shared from March to October, 2025, through social media, emails, and conference presentations. Responses could be submitted anonymously.

These surveys gathered quantitative and qualitative input from 240 individuals and groups working internationally in hepatitis awareness, patient support, vaccination, testing, care, treatment, and research, allowing them to describe how changes in the global funding landscape have impacted their lives and work. In the Plan-B survey, 31% of respondents reported high impact and 37% possible impact of the funding cuts on clinical care, and 40% of respondents reported high impact and 40% possible impact on research. In responses to the CGHE survey, 40% of organisations and 62% of programme managers reported being affected, and half of respondents to the WHA survey indicated that hepatitis services in their country had already been impacted.

The reasons for these disruptions were broadly consistent: participants cited the collapse of the HIV service framework that previously supported viral hepatitis programmes, the direct loss of research funding, and remaining funds being redirected to other health priorities. Respondents highlighted severe staffing losses—among both clinical teams and ministry of health and public health personnel—which led to clinic closures and, alongside the withdrawal of US National Institutes of Health-funded grants, the cancellation of ongoing research studies.

TO CONTINUE: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(26)00014-2/fulltext​

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February 3, 2026 by Amy Lieberman-The Network For Public Health Law

Historically, there has been no way for people to know what, exactly, is in drugs bought outside of pharmacies. This lack of knowledge leads to increased risk of overdose and other negative outcomes. Contaminants including fentanyl are now present in the illicit drug supply throughout the United States, driving a more than 750 percent increase from 2015 to 2023 in non-methadone synthetic opioid-related overdose deaths. Other adulterants such as xylazine and medetomidine have also appeared in many areas of the country. Helping people determine what is in the drugs they intend to consume, often called “drug checking,” can be an impactful harm reduction intervention.
Drug checking research has shown that people often change their drug use when provided with information about what is in their drugs. Test strips, reagent tests, and more advanced equipment like FTIR machines or mass spectrometers are all used in comprehensive drug checking programs. While these methods vary in both comprehensiveness and expense, all provide information to a person about what is in the drugs they are considering using. 
State drug paraphernalia laws can limit access to drug checking initiatives by prohibiting possessing or distributing anything used for “testing” or “analyzing” drugs. Over the last few years, many states have modified these laws to remove barriers to some or all drug checking equipment. However, these laws typically only permit possession of the equipment used to perform drug checking, and do not explicitly provide protection from arrest and prosecution for possession of the drugs to be tested. Without these protections, the impact of drug checking on communities will not reach its full potential. As of January 2026, only three states--California, Vermont, and Massachusetts—have passed laws that permit both providers and clients to possess drugs to be checked, while Washington and Oregon provide protections for providers only.
California’s law is currently the most comprehensive of these laws. It permits the possession of injection or smoking equipment when obtaining drug checking services and provides a broad set of protections for staff of the drug checking program. Participants engaged in obtaining drug checking services are also immune from detention, arrest, prosecution, violation of parole, probation, or any form of community supervision, civil, disciplinary, or administrative action, forfeiture of property, or referral to ICE for possession of drugs. Further, the law forbids the collection of a participant’s personal information except when a provider is using the information to share results, after which it must be destroyed immediately and may not be shared with law enforcement.

​TO CONTINUE: //www.networkforphl.org/news-insights/state-laws-in-support-of-drug-checking-programs-can-help-reduce-overdose/?emci=48b19610-


Drug checking services have been shown to reduce the risk of overdose by providing people with information on what is in drugs bought outside of pharmacies. Many state drug paraphernalia laws have been changed to increase access to drug checking equipment but are still silent on the use of that equipment. Changing state law to explicitly authorize comprehensive drug checking services could allow this important public health intervention to make a greater impact in reducing overdose death and drug-related harm.
Drug checking



















Drug checking services have been shown to reduce the risk of overdose by providing people with information on what is in drugs bought outside of pharmacies. Many state drug paraphernalia laws have been changed to increase access to drug checking equipment but are still silent on the use of that equipment. Changing state law to explicitly authorize comprehensive drug checking services could allow this important public health intervention to make a greater impact in reducing overdose death and drug-related harm.
ces have been shown to reduce the risk of overdose by providing people with information on what is in drugs bought outside of pharmacies. Many state drug paraphernalia laws have been changed to increase access to drug checking equipment but are still silent on the use of that equipment. Changing state law to explicitly authorize comprehensive drug checking services could allow this important public health intervention to make a greater impact in reducing overdose death and drug-related harm.

Harm reduction experts applaud shift as safer, even as some officials reject pipe use
By Lev Facher, Feb. 12, 2026, STAT -Addiction ReporterROCHESTER, N.H. — Megan Merrill paused, mid-hike, as she surveyed the steep drop before her. She was standing on a five-foot snow drift, icy and brittle after 10 days of unrelenting New England cold, below which lay the railroad tracks that serve as a de facto border between the town behind her and the homeless encampment in front. 
She took the downward slope at a gallop, using her oversized backpack as a counterweight. The bag was made heavy with a stockpile of harm reduction supplies meant to help vulnerable drug users stay healthy and avoid disease, including sterile syringes, condoms, emergency blankets, and hand warmers.
The items Merrill was most eager to distribute, however, were glass pipes. Her reasoning was simple: Injection can lead to infections, diseases, skin abscesses, and potentially higher rates of fatal overdose. To Merrill and harm reduction workers like her, pipes are health care. 
“You’re going to see less vein damage, you’re not going to get abscesses on your arm or infections,” said Merrill, who works with a local community organization, SOS Recovery. “There’s less chance of you overdosing if you’re smoking than if you’re injecting. And infectious diseases: With injections, there are blood-borne illnesses, hepatitis C, HIV.” 
In the last decade, U.S. drug consumption behavior has shifted rapidly away from injecting and toward smoking. Once largely limited to the West Coast, a preference for smoking opioids has spread east since the Covid-19 pandemic, becoming especially pronounced in hard-hit cities like Philadelphia. 
TO CONTINUE READING:  ​https://www.statnews.com/2026/02/12/fentanyl-harm-reduction-smoking-not-injecting/?utm_campaign=rss

People with compromised liver function may be able to reduce their risk of liver cancer or slow its progression with a simple dietary change: eating less protein. A Rutgers-led study in Science Advances has found that low-protein diets slowed liver tumor growth and cancer death in mice, uncovering a mechanism by which a liver's impaired waste-handling machinery can inadvertently fuel cancer.

Liver cancer remains one of the deadliest primary cancers in the United States, with a five-year survival rate of about 22%. The American Cancer Society estimates there were 42,240 new cases in 2025 and 30,090 deaths.

The number of U.S. residents with compromised liver function who face elevated cancer risk is far larger. About one in four U.S. adults has fatty liver disease, a condition that—along with viral hepatitis and heavy alcohol use—can raise the risk of cirrhosis as well as cancer.

​TO CONTINUE READING: https://www.mdlinx.com/news/simple-dietary-change-may-slow-liver-cancer-in-at-risk-patients/5vt4nuXuSICYOz3hGsAbwv?utm_campaign=reg_daily-alert_20260204_daily-nl-am-v4_registered-users-a180_all&utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MorningDaily
People with compromised liver function may be able to reduce their risk of liver cancer or slow its progression with a simple dietary change: eating less protein. A Rutgers-led study in Science Advances has found that low-protein diets slowed liver tumor growth and cancer death in mice, uncovering a mechanism by which a liver's impaired waste-handling machinery can inadvertently fuel cancer.

Liver cancer remains one of the deadliest primary cancers in the United States, with a five-year survival rate of about 22%. The American Cancer Society estimates there were 42,240 new cases in 2025 and 30,090 deaths.

The number of U.S. residents with compromised liver function who face elevated cancer risk is far larger. About one in four U.S. adults has fatty liver disease, a condition that—along with viral hepatitis and heavy alcohol use—can raise the risk of cirrhosis as well as cancer.
People with compromised liver function may be able to reduce their risk of liver cancer or slow its progression with a simple dietary change: eating less protein. A Rutgers-led study in Science Advances has found that low-protein diets slowed liver tumor growth and cancer death in mice, uncovering a mechanism by which a liver's impaired waste-handling machinery can inadvertently fuel cancer.

Liver cancer remains one of the deadliest primary cancers in the United States, with a five-year survival rate of about 22%. The American Cancer Society estimates there were 42,240 new cases in 2025 and 30,090 deaths.

The number of U.S. residents with compromised liver function who face elevated cancer risk is far larger. About one in four U.S. adults has fatty liver disease, a condition that—along with viral hepatitis and heavy alcohol use—can raise the risk of cirrhosis as well as cancer.
People with compromised liver function may be able to reduce their risk of liver cancer or slow its progression with a simple dietary change: eating less protein. A Rutgers-led study in Science Advances has found that low-protein diets slowed liver tumor growth and cancer death in mice, uncovering a mechanism by which a liver's impaired waste-handling machinery can inadvertently fuel cancer.

Liver cancer remains one of the deadliest primary cancers in the United States, with a five-year survival rate of about 22%. The American Cancer Society estimates there were 42,240 new cases in 2025 and 30,090 deaths.

The number of U.S. residents with compromised liver function who face elevated cancer risk is far larger. About one in four U.S. adults has fatty liver disease, a condition that—along with viral hepatitis and heavy alcohol use—can raise the risk of cirrhosis as well as cancer.
People with compromised liver function may be able to reduce their risk of liver cancer or slow its progression with a simple dietary change: eating less protein. A Rutgers-led study in Science Advances has found that low-protein diets slowed liver tumor growth and cancer death in mice, uncovering a mechanism by which a liver's impaired waste-handling machinery can inadvertently fuel cancer.

Liver cancer remains one of the deadliest primary cancers in the United States, with a five-year survival rate of about 22%. The American Cancer Society estimates there were 42,240 new cases in 2025 and 30,090 deaths.

The number of U.S. residents with compromised liver function who face elevated cancer risk is far larger. About one in four U.S. adults has fatty liver disease, a condition that—along with viral hepatitis and heavy alcohol use—can raise the risk of cirrhosis as well as cancer.
TO CONTINUE:​ https://www.mdlinx.com/news/simple-dietary-change-may-slow-liver-cancer-in-at-risk-patients/5vt4nuXuSICYOz3hGsAbwv?utm_campaign=reg_daily-alert_20260204_daily-nl-am-v4_registered-users-a180_all&utm_source=iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_content=MorningDaily