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Tag: COVID-19

  • Can you get a COVID vaccine at your pharmacy? It depends on what state you’re in

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    Can you get a COVID vaccine at your pharmacy? It depends on what state you’re in – CBS News










































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    The nation’s largest pharmacy chains are offering appointments to get the new COVID-19 vaccine, but not in all states and not for all Americans. Shanelle Kaul reports.

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  • CVS and Walgreens limit access to COVID vaccines as required by some state guidelines

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    CVS and Walgreens are now requiring a prescription or are not offering COVID-19 vaccines in some states as the companies attempt to follow state guidelines that require approvals from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The Food and Drug Administration has approved vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax for all seniors, but only for younger adults and children with health conditions.

    In a statement, CVS said the pharmacy chain cannot vaccinate those even with a prescription in Massachusetts, Nevada and New Mexico due to state laws and regulations.

    “Based on the current regulatory environment,” CVS said it’s offering COVID-19 vaccinations in the following states: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 

    CVS said the list of states offering COVID-19 vaccines without a prescription may change at any time.

    In the other 16 states, CVS said it can administer a COVID-19 vaccination, depending on the patient’s age, with an authorized prescriber’s prescription. 

    In a statement, Walgreens said, “With the recent FDA approval of the 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccine, Walgreens is prepared to offer the vaccine in states where we are able to do so.” 

    The FDA’s decision to end emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine for children under 5 will limit vaccine choices for younger children, leaving the Moderna vaccine as the only vaccine available for those 6 months to 4 years old with at least one health condition. Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics released vaccine recommendations that, for the first time in 30 years, differ from U.S. government advice. 

    In the guidance published Aug. 19, the AAP said it’s “strongly recommending” COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years old. However, the CDC doesn’t recommend COVID-19 shots for healthy children of any age, but instead says kids may get the shots in consultation with a physician.

    Sara Moniuszko

    contributed to this report.

    Kierra Frazier

    Kierra Frazier is a news editor for CBS News & Stations.

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  • Pentagon mulls expediting process to reinstate troops discharged over Covid vaccine

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    The Pentagon is considering speeding up the process to bring back ex-service members discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. 

    Less than two dozen service members have been reinstated, though hundreds have applied.

    Sources say Defense Department officials are weighing whether to grant honorable discharges to some people forced out of the U.S. military for not getting vaccinated.

    The change would apply only to those whose departures stemmed exclusively from their refusal to take the vaccine. Troops who refused the shots but also had additional disciplinary infractions would not be eligible to have their discharges upgraded. 

    Veterans forced out under the mandate have been frustrated by what they described as a slow, arduous process to return to service. Some have also called for accountability for military leaders who enforced the Biden-era vaccine policy and would like to see them terminated from their positions.  

    A listening session regarding snags in the reinstatement process is scheduled for Sept. 3. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is likely to speak, two of the sources said. 

    Then Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2021 mandated the coronavirus vaccine for all service members, citing the need for a “healthy and ready force.” 

    It was a polarizing issue among the rank and file and in the highest corridors of the Pentagon. 

    Congress limited the type of discharges defense officials could issue for refusing the coronavirus vaccine. The lawmakers required service members receive either an honorable discharge, or what’s known as a “general discharge under honorable conditions” – a status that signals a service member fell short of meeting every standard of conduct, but generally served in good faith. 

    Republicans lawmakers successfully sought an end to the coronavirus vaccine mandate and Austin rescinded it in 2023. 

    By then, roughly 8,700 active duty and reserve service members had either voluntarily or involuntarily left the military for refusing to take the vaccine.

    A week after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order reinstating those who requested it, and called the vaccine mandate “an unfair, overbroad, and completely unnecessary burden on our service members.” 

    Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell told CBS News on Friday that the Defense Department is prioritizing reinstatement cases and will continue to seek feedback from those men and women.

    Officials recently enabled military branches to offer service members additional incentives to fulfill their four-year service obligation entirely in an active reserve status, with eligibility for back pay, Parnell said. Or, service members can choose to serve two years on active duty and two years in an active reserve status. 

    “The military services can also offer other incentives, such as duty station preferences, appropriate reclassification, and geographic stability during initial assignments,” Parnell said. 

    Jennifer Jacobs

    Jennifer Jacobs is a senior White House reporter at CBS News.

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  • Burned out at work? An expert offers advice on how to reduce stress.

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    How to find work-life balance



    How to avoid burnout and find work-life balance

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    The social upheaval caused by the pandemic sparked a national conversation about the sacrifices of American workers and the proper balance between work and life. Then we moved on.  

    An April study by career services firm Glassdoor found that employee mentions of burnout have surged 32% since early last year and are now at their highest level since 2016. Such evidence of persistent stress on the job is perhaps no surprise given that the U.S. ranks No. 59 in an analysis of work-life balance in different countries, according to Remote.com. The payroll platform considered factors such as statutory annual leave, access to health care, public safety and average hours worked per week.

    So are there simple ways for employees to reduce stress? Maisha Wynn, a CBS News lifestyle contributor and author of “The Wynning Way,” told CBS News that workers should focus on channeling their energy. 

    The first few hours of the work day are your “high energy time,” and thus good for more demanding tasks like Zoom calls, planning projects and participating in meetings. Later in the day, when people’s energy often starts to wane, it can be more fruitful to turn to rote tasks and simpler activities, like returning emails. 

    Building “micro routines” can also ease the pressure and help get through the day, Wynn said. “That’s where you’re really focusing on things that bring you joy where you might not be able to get away from your desk.” 

    Wynn listed doodling and listening to music as two examples of simple ways to catch your breath. 

    And while it can be difficult when your boss is breathing down your neck, setting boundaries is key to avoiding burnout, she said. That means learning how to occasionally say “no,” even when it might be uncomfortable. 

    “How can you be good to others unless you’re great to yourself first?” Wynn said.

    Mary Cunningham

    Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. Before joining the business and finance vertical, she worked at “60 Minutes,” CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program.

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  • What to Know About Getting the COVID-19 Vaccine Right Now

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    As COVID-19 continues to circulate, questions remain about how to protect yourself in 2025. Should you get the COVID-19 vaccine? Will the shots be available at your local pharmacy? Will insurance cover it? The answers are complicated.

    The confusion stems from shifting federal vaccine recommendations, clashing guidance from medical groups, and the uncertainty of how doctors, pharmacies, insurance companies, and everyday people will navigate it all. 

    On Aug. 27, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized updated COVID-19 shots—but said the vaccines were only approved for people ages 65 and older, as well as adults and children over 6 months who have risk factors for developing severe COVID-19. The FDA announcement follows a decision in May by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop recommending the COVID-19 shot for pregnant people and healthy children. 

    It’s a big change. The CDC had previously recommended the shot for everyone older than 6 months, and both the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines had previously been approved by the FDA for that same age group. (Now, only Moderna’s shot is approved for kids under 5, and Pfizer’s is approved for ages 5 and up.)

    At least two prominent medical associations have issued their own COVID-19 vaccine guidelines, which contradict the updated federal advice. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) continues to recommend that all children ages 6 months to 23 months get the COVID-19 shot, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) maintains that all women who are pregnant or breastfeeding get the vaccine. 

    Here’s what you need to know about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. 

    What have federal agencies said about the shots? 

    The FDA has authorized the updated COVID-19 vaccines for seniors and younger people with at least one risk factor for severe illness such as asthma, obesity, or diabetes. The agency also revoked emergency authorizations for the shots in children, which means the COVID-19 vaccine made by Pfizer is no longer approved for kids under the age of 5. The Moderna vaccine is still authorized for children older than 6 months. 

    But who, exactly, are the updated shots recommended for? While the FDA has the authority to license vaccines for use in certain groups of people, it is the CDC—based on advice from its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—that sets the schedule for which vaccines people should get and at what ages they should get them. ACIP’s next meeting is scheduled for Sept. 18 and 19.

    Read More: COVID-19 Is Rising Again. Here’s What to Know

    U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine skeptic, fired all members of ACIP in June and replaced them with people of his own choosing, including several vaccine opponents. 

    Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate health committee, said on Aug. 28 that ACIP should indefinitely postpone the September meeting because of serious allegations regarding the “meeting agenda, membership and lack of scientific process being followed” by the committee. 

    “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted,” said Cassidy, who is a physician. “If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

    On Aug. 27, CDC Director Susan Monarez was ousted from the job, and several senior agency officials resigned. STAT News reported that Monarez had clashed repeatedly with Kennedy over vaccines.

    Brandon Guerrero, 34, receives a flu and COVID-19 vaccine at CVS in Huntington Park, Calif., on August 28, 2024. Christina House—Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

    What do doctors recommend? 

    Many infectious-disease experts agree that the time has come to move away from the recommendation that nearly everyone get the COVID-19 vaccine. 

    Most people would have been exposed to the virus by now, whether through infection or vaccination, and so have developed some immunity to the disease, says Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University. Plus, while the virus strains that are currently circulating are very contagious, they don’t cause as much severe disease as some earlier strains, he says. 

    But COVID-19 remains a threat to some populations, and people still die and are hospitalized because of the virus. “I absolutely implore everyone who’s in a high-risk group to take advantage of the COVID vaccine this fall,” says Schaffner. 

    Many doctors and medical associations disagree with the federal government’s definition of who should be considered “high-risk” and say the current FDA and CDC guidelines are too narrow.  

    In recommendations issued earlier this month, the AAP said children aged 6 months to 23 months are at high risk of severe COVID-19 and should be vaccinated. The hospitalization rate for this age group is similar to that for adults aged 50 to 64, the group said. 

    Children who are immunocompromised or have underlying conditions should also be vaccinated. Healthy children aged 2 and older should get the shot if they haven’t previously been vaccinated against COVID-19 or if families want to protect others in the household, AAP said.

    Read More: COVID-19 Made Our Brains Age Faster

    “Families may also want protection from Long COVID,” says Sean O’Leary, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases. “Vaccination reduces that risk.”

    ACOG recommends that everyone who is pregnant, planning to become pregnant, lactating, or in the postpartum period get the COVID-19 shot. “The science has not changed. Pregnant women are at an increased risk of illness if they get a COVID-19 infection,” says Dr. Mark Turrentine, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at Baylor College of Medicine and a co-author of the new ACOG guidelines. 

    Vaccination during pregnancy can also provide passive immunity to newborns, protecting them from COVID-19 in the first few months of life before they can get the COVID-19 shot themselves, Turrentine says.

    Healthy adults who have been vaccinated before can skip the shot unless they want to protect other members of their household or decide after discussions with their doctor that vaccination is the best choice for them, says Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious-disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. 

    In a post on X announcing the FDA decision, Kennedy said the updated COVID-19 shots would be “available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors.” He didn’t clarify whether this would be an official CDC recommendation.

    It is still unknown when the updated shots will be made available, though vaccine experts say shots are typically disseminated after ACIP makes its recommendations. 

    Several pediatricians and family-medicine doctors tell TIME that they are prepared to administer COVID-19 shots “off-label”—a legal and common practice in which medical providers prescribe drugs or vaccines for a different purpose or group than what the FDA approved. They say, however, that there are lingering questions about whether insurance companies will continue to cover the vaccines for people who aren’t in high-risk groups and if pharmacies will allow people who aren’t high-risk to get the shots.

    These questions, coupled with the clashing advice from federal agencies and medical groups, will likely fuel a decline in vaccination rates, says Schaffner. “It’s going to lead to a lot of confusion for providers, patients and insurers.”

    Will insurance cover the COVID-19 shot? 

    Almost all health care payers—including private insurers, employer-sponsored health plans, and Medicaid—are required to cover vaccines at no cost if they are recommended by the CDC and ACIP. If they aren’t, then coverage will depend on the payer—who could decide to cover the shots, charge a copay, or not cover the vaccine at all.

    Without insurance, the COVID-19 vaccine can cost up to $140. 

    Medical associations including ACOG, as well as Democrats on House and Senate health committees, have urged insurers to continue covering COVID-19 vaccines for groups that would benefit from them based on the scientific evidence.

    Some insurance companies have said that they will continue to cover COVID-19 vaccines for all their members but acknowledged that could change as federal recommendations evolve. People hoping to get a COVID-19 vaccine should call their insurance provider to ask about coverage. 

    Will I be able to get the COVID-19 vaccine at my local pharmacy? 

    Nearly 90% of people in the U.S. who got the COVID-19 shot in 2024 received it at a pharmacy, according to CDC data. But access to the shots at pharmacies may soon narrow dramatically.

    In at least 18 states and Washington D.C., pharmacists are only allowed to vaccinate people based on official recommendations from the CDC or ACIP, says Brigid Groves, a vice president at the American Pharmacists Association. The remaining states have a patchwork of other regulations, Groves says, but most commonly, pharmacists’ vaccination authority is limited to the groups for whom the FDA has approved the vaccine. 

    Pharmacists are unlikely to administer vaccines off-label in the way that medical providers can because of liability concerns, said Groves. “You’ll be hard pressed to find a pharmacist who is willing to do that because of the potential ramifications.” 

    Groves recommends that people who are interested in getting the COVID-19 vaccine call their local pharmacy to find out about its vaccination policies.

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    Dominique Mosbergen

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  • Can RFK Jr. ban COVID-19 vaccines?

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    A single-source news report that said Trump administration officials plan to take COVID-19 vaccines off the market prompted fresh questions about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s power over vaccines. 

    The Daily Beast reported Aug. 25 that “a decision to remove the (COVID-19) vaccine from the U.S. market pending further research will come ‘within months,’” citing British cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra. Malhotra is chief medical adviser at Make America Healthy Again Action — an advocacy group run by longtime Kennedy allies. In July, the group launched an advertising campaign supporting Kennedy and President Donald Trump’s MAHA goals.

    Malhotra is not listed among Trump administration officials. But some of his anti-COVID-19 vaccine statements align with past statements by administration officials, including Kennedy.

    Kennedy has long opposed vaccines and once called the COVID-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” contradicting scientific evidence. Kennedy said in November 2024 that he didn’t plan to ban vaccines: “If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.” 

    But if he changed his mind, could Kennedy ban COVID-19 vaccines?

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    Not unilaterally, vaccine law experts say. Although there are ways the administration can make COVID-19 vaccines harder for Americans to get, there’s a process for taking approved vaccines off the market, and attempts to take vaccines off the market could face legal challenges. 

    “The Administration is relying on gold standard science and is committed to radical transparency to make decisions that affect all Americans,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told PolitiFact when asked about The Daily Beast’s report that the administration was considering a COVID-19 vaccine ban. “Unless announced by the Administration, however, any discussion about HHS policy should be dismissed as baseless speculation.”

    An HHS spokesperson said the agency doesn’t comment on potential policy decisions. 

    Can HHS remove approved vaccines from the market? 

    To take an approved vaccine off the market, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would have to revoke the manufacturers’ license for that vaccine.

    The FDA has licensed and approved three COVID-19 vaccines for at least some segments of the population. Those include two mRNA vaccines — one made by Moderna and another made by Pfizer-BioNTech — and Novavax’s protein-based vaccine. 

    The FDA’s approval of the COVID-19 vaccines — in some cases, during Trump’s current term — could make it more difficult to completely remove them from the market. 

    The FDA could try to remove a vaccine if the agency had significant safety concerns or “concerns about manufacturing practices,” reported KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. 

    For years, Kennedy has said that vaccines are inadequately tested and unsafe.

    But federal regulations specify how the FDA would revoke a license, said Dorit Reiss, a vaccine law and policy expert at University of California Law San Francisco.

    “You need to meet procedural requirements and show that the removal was not arbitrary and capricious,” Reiss told PolitiFact in November.

    It can be done, though: The FDA recently announced it suspended a French drugmaker’s license for a live-attenuated vaccine that protects against chikungunya, a virus spread by mosquitoes. 

    Kenendy has also already made moves that reduce Americans’ access to the COVID-19 vaccines. 

    In May, Kennedy announced he’d removed COVID-19 vaccines from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women — a move that could limit vaccine access by reducing insurance companies’ coverage of the shot. The FDA also announced that vaccine makers seeking approval for future COVID-19 vaccines, or boosters, would need to conduct new randomized clinical trials of healthy populations. Such moves are expected to limit COVID-19 vaccine access. 

    Steps toward revoking an approved vaccine 

    Under federal rules, the FDA commissioner — not the HHS secretary — can try to revoke a vaccine license. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is a pancreatic surgeon and a proponent of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement; he said he has a good relationship with Kennedy.

    Makary could seek to revoke a vaccine’s license if, as the law outlines, he found it “fails to conform to the applicable standards” that ensure the product’s “continued safety, purity, and potency” or if he determined “the licensed product is not safe and effective” for its intended uses.

    The FDA commissioner typically must notify the vaccine manufacturer of the agency’s plans to revoke the license, provide the agency’s grounds for the revocation and give the manufacturer an opportunity for a hearing. An FDA official known as an administrative adjudicator — an executive branch official — would preside over the hearing, Reiss said. 

    “It should be a chance to provide safety data and lay out their case,” she said. After the hearing, the FDA would decide whether to revoke the license and the company could then challenge a revocation, Reiss said. 

    Initiating the procedure to remove an approved vaccine “without new information and sufficient evidence of harms or other concerns” would likely trigger legal challenges, KFF said. 

    “Most vaccines that were removed from the market were removed voluntarily, so there’s not really a lot of experience,” Reiss said. “Companies do not always sue FDA; it might not be cost-effective to do so. But they can, and I would be surprised if none of them do.”

    Wendy Parmet, director of Northeastern University law school’s Center for Health Policy and Law, said that if the vaccine manufacturers contested a license revocation, she expected they would have a strong case, given the reams of vaccine safety data and post-market studies of COVID-19 vaccine use around the world. 

    But some companies have been unwilling to fight the Trump administration, she said. 

    “They’ve already lost contracts from mRNA research,” Parmet said, referring to Kennedy’s decision to cut mRNA vaccine development funding. And the companies have broad portfolios with numerous business interests that could be affected by the Trump administration’s policies more widely.

    “Are they going to be afraid that they’ll be hit with retaliatory tariffs?” Parmet said. “We’ve seen companies being afraid of asserting their rights because they’re being pressured in other ways.” 

    If vaccine manufacturers don’t challenge the government, physicians groups or patients groups could file legal challenges, Parmet said. 

    “I think there’ll be litigation. I would expect a court to try to give temporary relief,” she said. “But we’ve seen the Trump administration have greater success the higher up the judicial ladder we go. So I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

    RELATED: Ask PolitiFact: If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as HHS secretary, could he ban vaccines?

    RELATED: RFK Jr. ended COVID vaccine recommendation for kids, pregnant women. What do facts show about risk?

    RELATED: RFK Jr. fired everyone on a key vaccine panel. Here’s who he replaced them with.

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  • Most Air Purifiers Haven’t Been Tested on Humans. That’s a Problem

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    Portable air cleaners aimed at curbing indoor spread of infections are rarely tested for how well they protect people—and very few studies evaluate their potentially harmful effects. That’s the upshot of a detailed review of nearly 700 studies that we co-authored in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

    Many respiratory viruses, such as covid-19 and influenza, can spread through indoor air. Technologies such as HEPA filters, ultraviolet light, and special ventilation designs—collectively known as engineering infection controls—are intended to clean indoor air and prevent viruses and other disease-causing pathogens from spreading.

    Along with our colleagues across three academic institutions and two government science agencies, we identified and analyzed every research study evaluating the effectiveness of these technologies published from the 1920s through 2023—672 of them in total.

    These studies assessed performance in three main ways: Some measured whether the interventions reduced infections in people; others used animals such as guinea pigs or mice; and the rest took air samples to determine whether the devices reduced the number of small particles or microbes in the air. Only about 8% of the studies tested effectiveness on people, while over 90% tested the devices in unoccupied spaces.

    We found substantial variation across different technologies. For example, 44 studies examined an air cleaning process called photocatalytic oxidation, which produces chemicals that kill microbes, but only one of those tested whether the technology prevented infections in people. Another 35 studies evaluated plasma-based technologies for killing microbes, and none involved human participants. We also found 43 studies on filters incorporating nanomaterials designed to both capture and kill microbes—again, none included human testing.

    Why it matters

    The covid-19 pandemic showed just how disruptive airborne infections can be—costing millions of lives worldwide, straining health systems, and shutting down schools and workplaces. Early studies showed that the covid-19 virus was spreading through air. Logically, improving indoor air quality to clear the virus from the air became a major focus as a way to keep people safe.

    Finding effective ways to remove microbes from indoor air could have profound public health benefits and might help limit economic damage in future pandemics. Engineering infection controls could protect people from infection by working in the background of daily life, without any effort from people.

    Companies producing portable air cleaners that incorporate microbe-killing technologies have made ambitious claims about how effectively they purify air and prevent infections. These products are already marketed to consumers for use in day care centers, schools, health care clinics, and workplaces. We found that most of them have not been properly tested for efficacy. Without solid evidence from studies on people, it’s impossible to know whether these promises match reality. Our findings suggest that consumers should proceed with caution when investing in air cleaning devices.

    The gap between marketing claims and evidence of effectiveness might not be surprising, but there is more at stake here. Some of these technologies generate chemicals such as ozone, formaldehyde, and hydroxyl radicals to kill microbes—substances that can potentially harm people if inhaled. The safety of these products should be the baseline requirement before they are widely deployed. Yet, of the 112 studies assessing many of these pathogen-killing technologies, only 14 tested for harmful byproducts. This is a stark contrast to pharmaceutical research, where safety testing is standard practice.

    What still isn’t known

    Over 90% of all studies tested these technologies by looking at the air itself—for example, measuring how well experimental gases, dust particles, or microbes were cleared from the air. The idea is that cleaner air should mean lower chances of infection. But when it comes to air cleaning, researchers don’t yet know how strongly these air measurements reflect actual reduction in infections for people.

    Identifying the safest and most effective options will require assessing these technologies for toxic byproducts and evaluating them in real-world settings that include people. Also, standardizing how effectiveness and potential harms are measured will help inform evidence-based decisions about improving air quality in homes, schools, health care facilities, and other indoor spaces.

    The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. Amiran Baduashvili, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Lisa Bero, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.  

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    Amiran Baduashvili & Lisa Bero, The Conversation

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  • Hotez Says RFK’s Slashed Funding on mRNA Vaccines Could Have Deadly Results

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    Global immunization expert Dr. Peter Hotez says the federal government’s recent decision to slash $500 million in research funding for mRNA vaccines is dangerous, and potentially deadly, for Americans.

    U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy announced the cuts earlier this month, claiming that mRNA technology is unsafe and ineffective. The decision comes on the heels of a $700 million cut for Moderna flu vaccines.

    “He’s pulling out all government funding for mRNA technology when it represents one of our best hopes for pandemic preparedness,” Hotez said. “When you have a brand new emerging viral pathogen, the mRNA technology has the advantage of being the first out of the starting gate in terms of immunizing a population that hasn’t seen that pathogen before.”

    And it’s absolutely proven to be highly effective, the doctor added, noting that mRNA vaccines potentially saved 3.2 million lives during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    RFK’s decision to cut funding “has deadly impacts,” Hotez said. “It takes off the table our most promising technology for new pandemic threats.”

    Hotez, who serves as co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, developed a patent-free COVID-19 vaccine with Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, and the two were nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 as a result.

    The vaccine they developed, a recombinant protein-based product that does not use mRNA technology, is only available in India and Indonesia because that’s where it was licensed, he said. “There was never a path offered to us to get it licensed in the U.S. through the [Food and Drug Administration],” he said. “They were very much affixed to the pharma companies.”

    Hotez is now researching mRNA technology for a cancer vaccine but there’s limited access to funding, so he’s hoping some private-sector and biotech companies will step up.

    “There are certain things that you need the government for,” he said. “The government had an important role for mRNA technology and now, by pulling out, it means that the U.S. won’t be in the lead on this. We’ll have to pick up the pieces through private sector funding, which will never be quite as good.”

    It’s also a step backward for the federal government to withdraw its support and confidence in medical professionals, he added.

    “The Department of HHS under Kennedy seems sort of impervious to criticism from the scientific community,” Hotez said. “The American Academy of Pediatrics recently criticized him for his position on childhood immunizations and COVID, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He seems to be moving forward without any White House or congressional oversight and just does whatever he wishes.”

    Kennedy said data showed mRNA vaccines, developed during the first Trump administration, “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu”, and that the funding would be shifted what he maintains are “safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.”

    The HHS secretary is instead shifting the funding to older technology developed in China that “has a lot of problems” and did not work well during the COVID pandemic, Hotez said. “This is not the technology you want to use for virus respiratory pathogens unless there’s no other alternative,” he said.

    “They did not stand up to the variants well, and if you remember, back in 1976 with swine flu they used that technology and it caused a high rate of [autoimmune disease] Guillain-Barré Syndrome,” he said.

    Hotez claims that RFK is pulling the funding, not for scientific reasons but for ideological reasons. “He’s very much tied to the wellness and influencer industry which pushes a false narrative that says the mRNA vaccine technology is not safe, it doesn’t work and it doesn’t protect against respiratory infections, and none of those things are true,” Hotez said. “IIt increases the vulnerability of the U.S. population and it weakens our pandemic preparedness.”

    The doctor said it’s been a battle to combat misinformation in RFK’s “Make America Healthy Again” campaign. The HHS secretary has focused on publicizing the dangers of processed foods and eliminating junk food from welfare benefits while pushing a destructive anti-vax narrative, Hotez said.

    The federal government’s apathetic stance on childhood vaccines probably contributed to a deadly measles outbreak that began in a West Texas Mennonite community in January, Hotez said. State health officials announced recently that the measles epidemic appears to have come to an end following 762 reported cases, more than 100 hospitalizations, and two deaths.

    Hotez said the Department of State Health Services reported that the measles epidemic is over because it’s gone through two complete 21-day incubation periods with no reported cases.

    “If there were going to be new cases from this current epidemic, we would have seen it by now,” he said. “That’s a reasonable assumption. But take stock of what’s happened. This was an eight-month epidemic, a pretty devastating epidemic. The worry is that this won’t be the last one.” Measles is highly transmissible, and in the pre-vaccine era, it peaked in late winter/early spring, Hotez said.

    “So we’re going to have to hold our breath again as kids are going back to school in the fall,” he said. “Don’t be surprised if we see another major measles epidemic. It’s not just measles. Others are likely to follow. Nationally, we’ve seen big increases in whooping cough and pertussis. I’m looking out for that, and I’m worried about polio.”

    “We’ve entered a new era where the return of childhood catastrophic infections becomes more common,” he added.

    The Texas Legislature passed a law earlier this year that makes it easier for parents to opt out of immunizations for their school-age children. About 100,000 Texas children already aren’t vaccinated, and there are many more who are homeschooled and not counted by county health departments.

    People tend to gather data by looking at state immunization rates when it’s more useful to look at counties, said Hotez, who predicted in 2016 that there would be a West Texas measles epidemic. So how did Americans get to a point where people believe that vaccines are bad? The doctor said that’s a long story.

    “What started out as false claims about autism became more of a political enterprise about a decade ago under this Libertarian concept of health freedom and medical freedom,” he said. “That’s when you started to see a rise in vaccine exemptions.”

    “In the last few years, the most recent add-on is the wellness and influencer industry, which peddles supplements and low-cost generic anti-parasitic drugs that they can buy in bulk and jack up the price, and unfortunately they also use that as an opportunity to denigrate modern science. They’re particularly active in Texas.”

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  • The Clashing Advice Over COVID-19 Shots for Kids

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    Should you give your baby a COVID-19 shot? The answer isn’t as straightforward or as much of a consensus as it used to be: In an unusual move, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is recommending a different approach to childhood vaccination than the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    Both groups agree that families should make individual decisions in consultation with their doctors about whether kids should be vaccinated. But the AAP has a stricter stance for the youngest eligible children in the U.S., recommending that all of them get COVID-19 shots.

    The CDC stopped recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children older than six months following guidance from the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in May. The CDC does, however, recommend the shot for children who are moderately or severely immunocompromised.

    A day after the AAP released its recommendations, Kennedy fired back at the organization on social media, accusing them of allowing pharmaceutical-company donors to guide their recommendations. AAP maintains that its recommendations are based on science.

    Here’s what to know about the clashing advice regarding COVID-19 vaccines for kids.

    What does the AAP recommend in terms of COVID-19 shots for children?

    Whether most children should get a COVID-19 vaccine should be based on their particular risk, the AAP says—taking into account their underlying conditions, such as asthma, obesity, or diabetes, as well as whether they live in a household with people at high risk for developing severe disease. That risk is higher for the youngest eligible age group—ages 6 months to 23 months—which is why the AAP recommends that all kids in this age group get vaccinated.

    “For the youngest kids, the hospitalization rate is similar to that for adults 50 to 64 years old,” says Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases. “It’s not nothing. And that’s for something that can be prevented by a vaccine, which has been better studied than any medical product in our history. We have a very strong level of confidence in the safety of the vaccine.”

    HHS did not respond to TIME’s request for comment.

    Why are the recommendations different?

    Generally, the CDC sets the schedule for which vaccines people should get and at which ages. The CDC makes its decision based on advice from its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). ACIP is made up of independent experts who volunteer to review data, discuss their findings, and make recommendations to help guide the CDC. 

    But Kennedy—a longtime vaccine-skeptic who now oversees the CDC as head of HHS—fired all members of ACIP in June, accusing them of following industry interests. Kennedy replaced them days later with people he had selected, “many of them with strong anti-vaccine views,” says O’Leary.

    Read More: How Having a Baby Is Changing Under Trump

    After ACIP was replaced, AAP—which typically works closely with the advisory committee and other liaison groups in setting vaccination schedules—decided not to attend ACIP’s first meeting under the new administration in the spring. “We saw from that meeting that ACIP has gone off the rails, essentially, in terms of the way they are operating and the messaging from the new members, which is very much around sowing distrust about vaccines and not making evidence-based vaccine recommendations,” says O’Leary.

    Weeks later, the AAP and other liaison groups were asked to discontinue their participation in ACIP work groups, O’Leary says. “We received an email un-inviting us,” he says. The reason provided, he says, was that the organizations represented “special interest groups,” which O’Leary says is a “poor interpretation of the rules. All of the organizations at the table have expertise, and there are a lot of reasons to have representation from professional societies.”

    Which advice will doctors and pharmacists follow?

    O’Leary says pediatricians are anticipating having to have more conversations with families about the conflicting vaccine advice, and that the AAP is providing guidance to help inform those discussions on its website and via emails to its members. “Politics has entered the exam room in a way that it never has before,” he says. “These discussions will be contextual, depending on how well the pediatrician knows the family, what relationship they have, and how frank they can be with them in the discussion.”

    Ultimately, he says, the message from pediatricians should be this: “We are committed to the health of children, and our recommendations are based on the best available science.”

    Read More: What the New COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance Means For You

    Pharmacists must take a slightly different approach, since they are only allowed to vaccinate according to the CDC’s recommendations, while doctors can vaccinate outside of strictly approved conditions or populations in so-called “off-label” use. Since current CDC recommendations say that families should make their own decisions about whether their children receive the shot, pharmacists will vaccinate kids if parents want them to have the shots, but won’t specifically recommend that people get them. “Our guidance is to always follow what the CDC or HHS recommends,” says Rick Gates, chief pharmacy officer at Walgreens.

    If families come in with questions about whether their child should get the COVID-19 shot, pharmacists will probably refer them back to their pediatrician or family physician.

    Will insurance cover COVID-19 vaccines for kids if the CDC doesn’t recommend them?

    It’s still not clear how insurers will respond to the differing recommendations. “This is a real concern,” says Dr. David Higgins, an infectious-disease expert at AAP. Traditionally, a recommendation from ACIP means that a shot will be covered, since any vaccines recommended by the committee have to be reimbursed by insurers under the Affordable Care Act. It’s not clear how insurers will interpret the individual choice of families when it comes to vaccinating children.

    The AAP is urging insurers to continue covering the COVID-19 vaccine for infants six to 23 months, despite the fact that ACIP does not recommend the vaccine for all kids in this age group.

    “The AAP is already engaging with private insurers and policymakers to ensure our evidence-based recommendations are covered,” Higgins says, “and we will continue to advocate to make vaccines accessible to every child in every community.”

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  • The most widespread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines this year

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    In a new KFF poll, 3 in 5 adults say they will “probably not” or “definitely not” get the COVID-19 vaccine this fall. While there are many reasons why some decide against vaccination, doctors say misinformation is one factor that could be playing a role. CBS News Confirmed executive editor Rhona Tarrant reports on some of the persistent, false claims.

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  • ‘Truly a groundbreaking discovery’: U.Va. gets funding for clinical trial to stop sepsis – WTOP News

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    A team at the University of Virginia has developed a monoclonal antibody to stop sepsis, the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals.

    There is good news from Virginia when it comes to the deadly infection sepsis.

    “This is truly a groundbreaking discovery,” said Jianjie Ma, a professor in the department of surgery at the University of Virginia. “Sepsis is a very challenging disease to treat.”

    Ma is part of the team at U.Va., along with the University of Michigan, that has developed a monoclonal antibody to stop sepsis. The deadly infection impacts up to 50 million people worldwide every year, killing about 11 million people, according to researchers. It’s the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals.

    “It’s a really urgent matter in the hospital, because when patients are admitted to the hospital, they have to be treated right away,” he said. “Any delay, one hour delay will cost 5% to 10% chance of people dying.”

    U.Va. has received $800,000 from the research company Virginia Catalyst to launch a clinical trial of the antibody at U.Va. Health and Virginia Commonwealth University.

    “Our technology will, can stop the dying process by targeting the very innate immune defense of our body,” Ma said.

    He said the antibody has the potential to treat a range of inflammatory conditions, including autoimmune disorders.

    “We are ready, and we have a lot of goals ahead of us,” Ma said. “It’s a really urgent matter in the hospital.”

    He said applications could include deadly acute respiratory distress syndrome, which came to public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as ischemia-reperfusion injury, which is tissue damage caused when blood flow is cut off and restored.

    “We have now made the antibody drug product available to start the clinical trial as soon as we can,” he said.

    Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.

    © 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

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    Valerie Bonk

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  • Pediatrics group’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations differ from CDC advice

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    The American Academy of Pediatrics is sharing new vaccine recommendations that, for the first time in 30 years, differ from U.S. government advice. 

    In the guidance published Tuesday, the AAP is “strongly recommending” COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years old. For older children, shots are also advised but up to parents’ discretion, the AAP said.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advice is different. Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the CDC doesn’t recommend COVID-19 shots for healthy children of any age, but instead, the administration says kids may get the shots in consultation with physicians.

    In a news release Tuesday, AAP President Dr. Susan J. Kressly, said the organization’s immunization recommendations will continue to be “rooted in science” and in the “best interest of the health of infants, children and adolescents.”

    “Pediatricians know how important routine childhood immunizations are in keeping children, families and their communities healthy and thriving,” Kressly said. 

    In a statement to CBS News, HHS communications director Andrew Nixon said the American people “deserve confidence that medical recommendations are based solely on science and public health.”

    “We call on the AAP to strengthen conflict-of-interest safeguards and keep its publications free from financial influence, ensuring every recommendation reflects only the best interests of America’s children,” the statement continued, in part, adding Kennedy has “stood firm in his commitment to science, transparency, and restoring public trust.”

    Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, says there’s “a lot of noise out there” when it comes to vaccines. 

    “Parents should really stick the course and make sure that their children get all of the routine childhood vaccinations,” she said on “CBS Mornings Plus,” adding that more announcements are expected from other professional societies in the coming weeks.

    Gounder added AAP’s recommendations are really just reaffirming what they’ve previously advised. 

    “The first encounter with COVID should be with the shot, not with the virus,” she said. “There is still a very high risk in younger children, particularly 6 months to 2 years, for hospitalization and severe complications if they get COVID.”

    The AAP’s recommendations also included guidance for RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, and flu vaccines.

    For RSV, the APP recommends immunizations for infants younger than 8 months old who aren’t protected via a vaccine from the pregnant parent, and for children 8 to 19 months old at high risk of severe infection. 

    For the flu, the AAP recommends annual vaccines for all children starting at 6 months old, unless they have a medical reason that would prevent them from getting the vaccine. 

    The Associated Press

    contributed to this report.

    Sara Moniuszko

    Sara Moniuszko is a health and lifestyle reporter at CBSNews.com. Previously, she wrote for USA Today, where she was selected to help launch the newspaper’s wellness vertical. She now covers breaking and trending news for CBS News’ HealthWatch.

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  • FACT FOCUS: RFK Jr.’s reasons for cutting mRNA vaccine not supported by evidence

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    Although mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. incorrectly argued they are ineffective to justify the Department of Health and Human Service’s recent decision to cancel $500 million in government-funded research projects to develop new vaccines using the technology.

    The longtime vaccine critic said in an X video posted Tuesday evening that mRNA vaccines do not adequately prevent upper respiratory infections such as COVID-19 and the flu, advocating instead for the development vaccines that use other processes.

    COVID-19 is the only virus for which real-world data on mRNA vaccine effectiveness is currently available, as mRNA vaccines for other diseases, including the flu, are still under development. The two scientists whose discoveries enabled the creation of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 won a Nobel Prize in 2023 for their work.

    Kennedy’s claim ignores how mRNA vaccines work, according to experts. They prevent against severe infection and death, but cannot completely prevent an infection from occurring in the first place. Plus, years of research supports the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines that use mRNA technology.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    KENNEDY: “As the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.”

    THE FACTS: His claim is contradicted by scientific evidence. Countless studies show that vaccinated individuals fare far better against COVID-19 infections than those who are unvaccinated, while others have estimated that COVID-19 vaccines prevented millions of deaths during the global pandemic. The mRNA vaccines do not prevent respiratory diseases entirely, experts say. Rather, they can prevent more serious illness that leads to complications and death. For example, an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 may prevent an infection in the upper respiratory tract that feels like a bad cold from spreading to the lower respiratory tract, where it could affect one’s ability to breathe.

    “A vaccine cannot block a respiratory infection,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious diseases physician and clinical associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. “That’s never been the standard for a respiratory virus vaccine. And it’s never been the expectation, and it’s never been that realistic.” He called Kennedy’s claim “misguided.”

    Jeff Coller, a professor of RNA biology and therapeutics at Johns Hopkins University, had a similar outlook.

    “Vaccinations don’t have to be neutralizing, meaning that you’re not going to get COVID,” he said. “But the important part of a vaccination is that they reduce hospitalization and death. And a reduction in hospitalization and death is proof of an effective vaccine.”

    HHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Vaccines have traditionally required growing viruses or pieces of viruses called proteins and then purifying them. Then a small dose of the vaccine is injected to train the body how to recognize when a real infection hits so it’s ready to fight back. But this method takes a long time. The mRNA technology speeds up the process and allows existing vaccines to be updated more quickly.

    The “m” in mRNA stands for messenger because the vaccine carries instructions for our bodies to make proteins. Scientists figured out how to harness that natural process for vaccines by making mRNA in a lab. They take a snippet of the genetic code that carries instructions for making the protein they want the vaccine to target. Injecting that snippet instructs the body to become its own mini-vaccine factory, making enough copies of the protein for the immune system to recognize and react.

    Scott explained that mRNA vaccines are not a “magic force field” that the immune system can use to block an infection, as it can’t detect whether a virus is nearby. It can only respond to a virus that has already entered the body. In the case of COVID-19, this means that the virus could cause an upper respiratory tract infection — a cold, essentially — but would be significantly less likely to cause more severe consequences elsewhere.

    Myriad studies on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines have been published since they first became available in late 2020. Although protection does wane over time, they provide the strongest barrier against severe infection and death.

    For example, a 2024 study by the World Health Organization found COVID-19 vaccines reduced deaths in the WHO’s European region by at least 57%, saving more than 1.4 million lives since their introduction in December 2020.

    A 2022 study published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases found that nearly 20 million lives were saved by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year. Researchers used data from 185 countries to estimate that vaccines prevented 4.2 million COVID-19 deaths in India, 1.9 million in the United States, 1 million in Brazil, 631,000 in France and 507,000 in the United Kingdom. The main finding — that 19.8 million COVID-19 deaths were prevented — is based on estimates of how many more deaths than usual occurred during the time period. Using only reported COVID-19 deaths, the same model yielded 14.4 million deaths averted by vaccines.

    Another 2022 study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, reported that two mRNA vaccines were more than 90% effective against COVID-19.

    Operation Warp Speed, the federal effort to facilitate the development and distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine, began under the first Trump administration.

    “What I don’t understand is why is President Trump is allowing RFK Jr. to undermine his legacy that led to a medical intervention that literally saved millions of lives?” Coller said. “Why is Trump allowing RFK to undermine U.S. leadership in biomedical research and drug development?”

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

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  • Student loan collections resume as record number of borrowers fall behind on payments

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    Millions of student loan borrowers could face a wake-up call Monday as the Department of Education resumes collecting on school loans. The restart of collections comes as data from a recent analysis shows delinquency rates among people with student debt are at an all-time high. 

    After nearly five-years since the U.S. government first paused federal student loan payments and interest accrual as a temporary relief measure during the COVID-19 pandemic, May 5 marks the first day the Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) restarts collections on defaulted federal student loans. 

    Referrals for collection had been put on hold since March 2020 because of the pandemic. 

    “The level of concern here really depends on the reasons a borrower has not paid their federal student loans. If they don’t have the capacity, they may be overstretched,” Michele Raneri, vice president and head of research at TransUnion, said in a statement. “They may not know they have to pay them, may not be able to find the information on how to do so, or may not have a willingness to pay for one reason or another,” she said.

    Still, one in five borrowers is “seriously delinquent” or has a past-due payment of 90 days or more, according to a new analysis by TransUnion, one of the three major credit bureaus. The analysis looks at the percentage of student loan borrowers at risk of default and the impact that has on their credit scores.  

    Those in default face an uphill battle: Failing to make a payment means the government can withhold portions of Social Security benefits and tax refunds and garnish wages. Defaulting on a loan can also tank your credit score, which in turn can make it more difficult to obtain a loan in the future.

    Read on for more information about the state of student loan borrowing as default collections resume.

    Millions at risk of defaulting

    The credit bureau’s findings underscore how student loan repayments have struggled to get back on track since COVID-19. Payments on student loans were paused in March 2020 and didn’t resume until October 2023. 

    For borrowers across the U.S. who didn’t have to worry about making payments for years, the resumption of student loan payments presented a challenge for many individuals struggling financially.

    Out of the 19.6 million student loan borrowers, TransUnion found that roughly 20% are at risk of defaulting. The figure — which TransUnion estimates could be much higher — outpaces the credit bureau’s previously recorded all-time high of 15.4% in 2012. 

    For its analysis, TransUnion looked at those susceptible to being 90-days past due on their loans. That winnowed the field of borrowers from roughly 42 million to a total of 19.6 million borrowers. Excluded from this report were people in deferment or forbearance, as well as private student loan borrowers.

    As the federal student aid website outlines, loan servicers can report borrowers who are behind on their loans for 90 days or more to the national credit bureaus. 

    On average, people who faced default lost an average of 63 points, TransUnion found, although those with higher credit scores were at risk if losing much more. Those in “super prime” credit territory — defined by a spokesperson for TransUnion as a credit score of 781 or higher — saw an average credit score decline of 175 points as a result of impending student loan defaults.

    “Borrowers can review their credit report to see what loan servicers are reporting,” Raneri told CBS MoneyWatch. “This can also help people find who to contact if they have a loan they didn’t expect to see.”

    To minimize student loan defaults, prioritizing income-driven repayment (IDR) plans — which tabulate the monthly payment based on what someone makes and their family size — along with better outreach to borrowers and automation could go a long way, Pew Charitable Trusts says in an online post.

    “Data-sharing could also be used to automatically enroll borrowers into an IDR plan if they fall severely behind on payments, a move that could significantly curb future defaults by connecting borrowers with affordable payments,” wrote Regan Fitzgerald, senior manager; Brian Denten, officer; and Ilan Levine, senior associate at Pew’s Student Loan Initiative.

    All told, the nation’s nearly 43 million student loan borrowers hold a collective $1.6 trillion in debt, according to the Education Department. Agency data indicates that over 5 million of these borrowers have not made a monthly payment in over 360 days, while only 38% are on track with their repayment plans.

    Secretary of Education: Long overdue

    Student loan collections were upended during the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, during President Trump’s first term in office, the Education Department paused student loan payments and knocked interest rates to zero to give borrowers some breathing room.

    When former President Biden took office in 2021, he extended the loan repayment deadline multiple times until Congress passed a law directing payments to resume in October 2023. The Biden administration made several attempts to deliver a student loan debt relief during his time in office, but his efforts were stymied by courts.

    While student loan repayments resumed over a year and a half ago, Monday, May 5, is the first day since March 2020 the Department of Education is collecting repayments from borrowers who have struggled to meet their payment deadlines. For U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the return is long overdue.

    “American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies,” said McMahon in an April statement. “The Biden Administration misled borrowers: The executive branch does not have the constitutional authority to wipe debt away, nor do the loan balances simply disappear. Hundreds of billions have already been transferred to taxpayers.”

    The Associated Press

    contributed to this report.

    Mary Cunningham

    Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. Before joining the business and finance vertical, she worked at “60 Minutes,” CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program.

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  • An Idaho Health Department Isn’t Allowed To Give COVID-19 Vaccines Anymore – KXL

    An Idaho Health Department Isn’t Allowed To Give COVID-19 Vaccines Anymore – KXL

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    (Associated Press) – A regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.

    Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines.

    Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.

    The six-county district along the Idaho-Oregon border includes three counties in the Boise metropolitan area.

    The board chairman and the department’s medical director are worried that the vaccine won’t be as easily available for older residents, people who are homeless and others.

    More about:

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    Grant McHill

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  • Why You Might Need Two COVID-19 Shots This Season

    Why You Might Need Two COVID-19 Shots This Season

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    Seniors and people who are immunocompromised should get not just one but two COVID-19 shots this respiratory virus season. That’s the new recommendation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

    People in these groups should get the vaccines six months apart in order to stay protected against the disease, the agency’s vaccine group recently agreed.

    Here’s what to know about the new advice.

    Why the need for more than one shot this season?

    The recommendation follows a summer COVID-19 surge that led to more hospitalizations among the most vulnerable Americans. While rates are currently low, health experts are concerned they could spike again during the holiday season, when people travel more and gather in larger groups. The guidance went a step further for people who are immunocompromised due to conditions like cancer; they can receive three or more doses during this respiratory disease season, depending on how weakened their immune systems are and their potential exposure to environments where COVID-19 might be circulating.

    “What we have seen over time is that as more and more of the population has immunity, the most vulnerable individuals are starting to narrow down,” says Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, professor of global health and infectious diseases at Stanford University and a member of the committee that advised the CDC on the decision. “We know at this point that 70% of hospitalizations now in the U.S. for COVID-19 are among people 65 and older, and that 50% occur in those 75 and older. So if we address COVID in those populations, we are looking at potentially reducing 70% of the risk of hospitalization from the disease in this country right now.”

    Read More: How COVID-19 Messes Up Your Gut Health

    Data also show that immunity generated by the vaccines wanes after four to six months, so the additional dose should help to keep older people protected throughout the year—through not just the fall surge, but also through the additional peaks that have been occurring with COVID-19. “We are still waiting to learn the pattern of this disease,” says Maldonado. “COVID-19 seems to have two peaks a year, but they are not well characterized yet since the virus hasn’t been around very long. Giving a second dose gives people the opportunity to not spend so much time worrying about coverage.”

    Does the updated shot work?

    The current mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech target the KP.2 variant, and the Novavax vaccine targets the JN.1 variant—neither of which are the dominant version causing infections in the U.S. right now. According to the latest CDC estimates, the KP.3.1.1 variant is causing nearly 60% of new COVID-19 infections, and the XEC strain is rapidly becoming more common, responsible for 10% of new infections. Those variants appear to spread more easily among people, although there isn’t any evidence yet that they could lead to more serious disease. That’s why boosting immunity with another dose for those most vulnerable to COVID-19 complications could protect them as their chances of getting infected potentially increase.

    Read More: How to Order Your Free COVID-19 Tests

    The KP.2 and JN.1 variants are still related to KP.3.1.1, since all of them are Omicron subvariants, so the vaccines should still provide sufficient protection from severe disease, says Dr. Steven Furr, board chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “I tell [my patients] that the vaccine does decrease hospitalizations and risk of death,” he says. “They still might get COVID, but they are much less likely to get it if they are vaccinated—and if they do get it, it’s less likely to be severe.”

    That’s especially true for older people and people with weaker immune systems. “If you are diabetic, or hypertensive and have multiple problems, COVID could be enough to tip you over to getting pneumonia, getting really sick and dehydrated,” Furr says. “It only takes one illness to tip your body over to more morbidity and mortality.”

    The need for adequate supply

    Vaccination rates are still relatively low. But seeing friends or family get infected remains one of the strongest motivators, says Furr—and he believes the uptick during the summer is encouraging people to ask for COVID-19 shots when they get their flu shot. For family physicians, though, getting enough doses to meet that demand has been a struggle. For his practice in Jackson, Ala., Furr ordered 100 doses weeks ago, and they’ve trickled in slowly. “We used up those first 20 doses in two days,” he says. “We’re told the distributors don’t have them or they are on backorder. I don’t know if they are prioritizing other groups, but it’s been a real frustration with the last two iterations of the COVID-19 vaccine to get enough supply to meet the need.”

    Furr says it’s important to ensure that family doctors have enough supply. “People who are on the fence and aren’t begging to get the shot are not likely to go to the pharmacy,” he says. “They’re going to walk into their family physician’s office where during a wellness visit or a diabetic exam they can talk through the vaccine with their doctor.”

    Read More: Long COVID Doesn’t Always Look Like You Think It Does

    Those conversations are also critical for helping people understand what the vaccines can and cannot do. “The point of [vaccination] has never been to stop all infections,” says Maldonado. “We’ve never had the aim of stopping transmission and all infections. The idea was to stop hospitalizations and stop deaths.”

    Allowing for additional COVID-19 vaccine doses “allows people to make the best decisions possible to keep themselves and their loved ones safe from COVID-19,” CDC director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a statement. “CDC will continue to educate the public on how and when to get their updated vaccinations so they can risk less severe illness and do more of what they love.”

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    Alice Park

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  • Donald Trump Vows to Let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘Go Wild on Health’ If Elected

    Donald Trump Vows to Let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘Go Wild on Health’ If Elected

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    At his rally on Sunday at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, former president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that if elected he would allow wellness conspiracist and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to “go wild on health.” Kennedy, a former Democrat and scion of the famous political family, initially ran as an independent third-party and potential spoiler candidate, and has spent the better part of two decades spreading conspiracy theories that would likely inform the policies of a Trump administration.

    In August, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and threw his weight behind Trump. (Both the Trump and Kennedy campaigns received support from billionaire donor Timothy Mellon.) There were early indications that he might have a place in a possible Trump administration, particularly in some areas focused on health. Kennedy himself even created a spinoff of Trump’s MAGA slogan with his own Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA. But Trump’s speech seems to indicate that Kennedy would indeed have a place in the cabinet, perhaps running Health and Human Services (HHS).

    Kennedy has since hit the campaign trail stumping for Trump alongside another former Democrat and conspiracy theorist, Tulsi Gabbard.

    Kennedy has spent years spreading health mis- and disinformation, particularly about vaccines. In 2014, Kennedy joined Children’s Health Defense (CHD) as a member of its board. CHD pushes debunked conspiracy theories linking conditions like autism with vaccines and other environmental factors. In 2021, Meta banned Kennedy’s Instagram account for spreading disinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine, and he was named by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) as one of 12 people responsible for 65 percent of vaccine disinformation across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, Kennedy’s own profile, as well as that of CHD, began to rise. CHD raised more money in 2021 than it ever had before.

    Meta reinstated Kennedy’s Instagram account last year when he announced his run for the presidency, and it remains up, despite the fact that he is no longer running for office. CHD remains banned from Meta’s platforms. More recently, Kennedy has echoed unfounded conspiracies that could undermine faith in the integrity of the 2024 elections.

    During his presidential campaign, Kennedy tried to distance himself from the anti-vax movement. Still, he continued to spread disinformation, like falsely saying that the Biden administration had violated the Nuremburg Code by mandating vaccines. And his vision for making America healthy again is drastic. Last Friday, he posted on X to warn the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that its “aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, [and] hydroxychloroquine” was about to end.

    The Department of Health and Human Services oversees 13 agencies, including the FDA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In an interview with NBC News while he was still running for president, Kennedy said he would gut those agencies, which he has said are now captured by corporations. He would also impose more testing on already existing vaccines, which health experts told NBC would result in many children being unable to get vaccinated. (Trump, for his part, has claimed he would withhold funding from schools that require vaccination.) Kennedy’s plan would also include dismissing scientists at the NIH who study infectious diseases, focusing instead on the environmental factors and vaccines that he believes cause illnesses.

    During his campaign, he held a health policy roundtable with doctors that pushed fake Covid-19 treatments.

    Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told WIRED that “President Trump announced a Trump-Vance transition leadership group to initiate the process of preparing for what comes after the election. But formal discussions of who will serve in a second Trump Administration is [sic] premature.”

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    Vittoria Elliott

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  • How COVID-19 Messes Up Your Gut Health

    How COVID-19 Messes Up Your Gut Health

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    When you reach for a COVID-19 test, it’s probably because you’ve got a scratchy throat, runny nose, or cough. But those are far from the only symptoms that make Dr. Rohit Jain, an internal medicine doctor at PennState Health, suspect the virus.

    These days, when someone complains of nausea, diarrhea, or vomiting, “I always get a COVID test on that patient,” Jain says.

    Why? Despite its reputation as a respiratory virus, SARS-CoV-2 can also have a profound impact on the gut. Although most people don’t realize it, “COVID-19 really is a GI-tract disease” as well as a respiratory illness, says Dr. Mark Rupp, chief of infectious diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

    Here’s what to know about the gastrointestinal symptoms of COVID-19.

    What are the GI symptoms of COVID-19?

    While some people experience no gastrointestinal symptoms or mild ones, a subset of COVID-19 patients have experienced significant digestive symptoms since the early days of the pandemic.

    Loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach pain are common GI symptoms of COVID-19, according to Jain’s research. Some people experience these issues as their first signs of infection, he says, while others initially experience cold-like symptoms and develop gastrointestinal issues as their illness progresses.

    Read More: Why You Should Change Your Exercise Routine—and How to Do It

    It’s not entirely clear why the same virus can affect people so differently, but it’s good to be aware that SARS-CoV-2 can result in a wide range of symptoms, Rupp says.

    How long do GI symptoms of COVID-19 last?

    Some patients recover in a matter of days, Jain says, while others may suffer from diarrhea and other symptoms for weeks. 

    Still others may be sick for even longer. Gastrointestinal problems are a common manifestation of Long COVID, the name for chronic symptoms that follow a case of COVID-19 and can last indefinitely.

    One recent study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology found that, among a small group of adults who were hospitalized when they had acute COVID-19, more than 40% who originally experienced GI problems such as stomach pain, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea still had at least one a year or more later. Overall, whether they were hospitalized or not, adults who have had COVID-19 are about 36% more likely than uninfected people to develop gastrointestinal disorders including ulcers, pancreatitis, IBS, and acid reflux, according to a 2023 study published in Nature Communications.

    GI problems are also common among kids with Long COVID. Stomach pain, nausea, and vomiting are telltale signs of the condition among children younger than 12, according to 2024 research published in JAMA.

    Why a respiratory virus affects the gut

    How can the same virus cause both a runny nose and the runs? 

    Once SARS-CoV-2 gets into your body, it infects cells by binding to a protein called ACE2, which is found throughout the body. ACE2 is prevalent in the lungs, which helps explain COVID-19’s respiratory symptoms—but it’s also found in high concentrations in the gastrointestinal tract, “so it makes sense that the GI tract would be a target for the virus,” Rupp says. It’s in part because SARS-CoV-2 collects in the gut that wastewater surveillance is a useful tool for tracking the virus’ spread, Rupp adds.

    Read More: Green Tea Is Even Better For You Than You Think

    Studies have shown that the virus can hide out in the “nooks and crannies” of the digestive system for months or even years, says Ziyad Al-Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who co-authored the Nature Communications study on chronic post-COVID GI symptoms. This may explain why gut-related symptoms can long outlast an acute infection, Al-Aly says—but there are many potential hypotheses in play, and researchers don’t know for sure which one or ones are correct.

    For example, many researchers also think the virus is capable of causing widespread and sometimes long-lasting inflammation, potentially affecting organs throughout the body. This inflammatory response may have trickle-down effects on the gut microbiome, the colony of bacteria and other microbes that live in the GI tract, Rupp says. “We’re just scratching the surface as to what happens there,” Rupp says, but studies have already shown that SARS-CoV-2 can change the composition of the gut microbiome both during an acute infection and chronically.

    There’s also a complex relationship between the gut and the brain, adds Dr. Badih Joseph Elmunzer, a gastroenterologist at the Medical University of South Carolina and co-author of the Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology study on prolonged post-COVID GI symptoms. His research suggests people are particularly likely to suffer long-term GI problems if they also have signs of PTSD from their acute illness or hospitalization.

    That’s not to say GI symptoms are all in patients’ heads; on the contrary, Elmunzer says, they are very real. But, he says, there’s a lot left to learn about the microbiome, the gut, and the myriad ways they interact with other bodily systems.

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    Jamie Ducharme

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  • How to Order Your Free At-Home Covid-19 Tests

    How to Order Your Free At-Home Covid-19 Tests

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    Starting in late September, a set of four free Covid-19 test kits can once again be ordered online from the US government with just a few clicks and mailed directly to your home. The kits can be sent to every household in the US—even US territories and military addresses. Because you can still catch and spread the virus even if you’ve been vaccinated against the current variant, it’s good to have tests on hand so you can find out if you’ve been infected.

    If you need a test right now, we have a guide to finding the best at-home tests and have outlined the process of ordering and taking tests below. Also, see our guides to the best N95 masks and other reusable masks we like.

    Table of Contents

    How to Order Your Tests

    Head directly to the US Postal Service’s Covid-19 page. If you go through Covid.gov, on the front page you should see “Order Free At-Home Tests” in a blue bubble. Clicking that redirects you to the USPS’ order page. There, you’ll fill out your name and address. Include your email address so you can get shipping notifications. Once you’ve filled in your address, click the “Check Out Now” button to the right. The tests are completely free, including shipping. Only one person per household should place a request.

    If there is someone in your life who doesn’t have access to the internet, the easiest thing to do is to fill out this form for them. They can try to call the Covid.gov helpline at 1-877-696-6775, though they will likely be on hold for a while. Don’t call USPS, as no one you speak to will be able to place orders on your behalf.

    Your tests should arrive within a few days. There’s no guarantee as to what brand you’ll be getting, and you can’t choose, but the site says these are Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–authorized at-home rapid antigen tests. It’s possible you’ll receive the iHealth tests we recommend.

    You should take a test as soon as you start to notice symptoms or within five days of exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control. If you’re asymptomatic and your first test is negative, take another test based on the manufacturer’s instructions. This is usually within two days of the first test—most tests come with two tests per box for this reason. If your test is positive, take another test to verify it and quarantine for five days.

    Are Your Old Tests Expired?

    You might already have a few tests on hand from past government shipments or that you’ve bought separately. They’re likely fine to use. Check the FDA’s list of authorized at-home tests. If the expiration date was extended, that means the manufacturer provided data to the FDA showing that the shelf-life is longer than it thought when the test was first authorized.

    Do You Need a Test Right Now?

    If you need a test ASAP, please check our guide on Rapid At-Home Covid-19 Tests and Where to Find Them. It also has more information about accuracy. Rapid tests usually show results in about 15 minutes, and they’re about 85 percent accurate.

    The Tests We Recommend (see our guide for more retailers).

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    Medea Giordano

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  • How to Order Your Free COVID-19 Tests

    How to Order Your Free COVID-19 Tests

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    Following a summer uptick of COVID-19 infections, Americans will soon be able to order free COVID-19 tests this fall. 

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has not yet provided an official date that the nasal swab tests will be available, but says kits should be ready to order by the end of September. The initiative is rolling out ahead of the holiday season, when colds, flus and other illnesses become more common.  

    Households will be able to obtain four free antigen COVID-19 tests by visiting COVIDtests.gov, a repeat of the 2023 program. And the department says that these tests will be able to “detect current COVID-19 variants and can be used through the end of the year,” according to its website. 

    The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that test positivity for COVID-19 stood at 14.9%, a decrease from the 17.8% high reached in August, though that number is still elevated. By comparison, in May, positivity hovered around 3-4%.

    On Monday, the website to order the tests appeared to be down due to “too much traffic or a configuration error.”

    In 2023, 900 million COVID-10 tests went out to Americans through the program, according to U.S. Health and Human Services. 

    Last month, U.S. regulators approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine that seeks to combat the KP variant strain, the predominant variant that has been circulating. Individuals as young as 6 months will be eligible to receive the shot.

    “Vaccination continues to be the cornerstone of COVID-19 prevention,” Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research said in a press release. “Given waning immunity of the population from previous exposure to the virus and from prior vaccination, we strongly encourage those who are eligible to consider receiving an updated COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants.”

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    Solcyré Burga

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