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Tag: Immunizations

  • Thailand uses a birth control vaccine to curb its elephant population

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    BANGKOK — BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand has begun using a birth control vaccine on elephants in the wild to try and curb a growing problem where human and animal populations encroach on each other — an issue in areas where farms spread into forests and elephants are squeezed out of their natural habitat.

    The initiative is part of efforts to address confrontations that can turn deadly. As farmers cut down forests to make more farmland, elephants are forced to venture out of their shrinking habitats in search of food.

    Last year, wild elephants killed 30 people and injured 29 in Thailand, according to official figures, which also noted more than 2,000 incidents of elephants damaging crops.

    Sukhee Boonsang, director of the Wildlife Conservation Office, recently told The Associated Press that controlling the wild elephant population has become necessary as numbers of elephants living near residential areas rises sharply, increasing the risk of confrontations.

    The office obtained 25 doses of a U.S.-made vaccine and conducted a two-year trial on seven domesticated elephants — using up seven doses of the vaccine — which yielded promising results, he said. He explained the vaccine doesn’t stop female elephants from ovulating but prevents eggs from being fertilized.

    Then, in late January, the vaccine was administered to three wild elephants in eastern Trat province, he said, adding that authorities are now determining which areas to target next as they prepare to use up the remaining 15 doses.

    The vaccine can prevent pregnancy for seven years and the elephants will be able to reproduce again if they don’t receive a booster after that time expires. Experts will closely monitor the vaccinated elephants throughout the seven-year period.

    The vaccination drive has drawn criticism that it might undermine conservation efforts. Thailand has a centuries-old tradition of using domesticated elephants in farming and transportation. Elephants are also a big part of Thailand’s national identity — and have been officially proclaimed a symbol of the nation.

    Sukhee said the program targets only wild elephants in areas with the highest rates of violent human-elephant conflict. Official statistics show a birth rate of wild elephants in these regions at approximately 8.2% per year, more than double the national average of around 3.5%.

    About 800 out of the nation’s approximately 4,400 wild elephants live in these conflict-prone areas, Sukhee said.

    “If we don’t take action, the impact on people living in these areas will continue to grow until it becomes unmanageable,” he said.

    In addition to the contraception vaccine, authorities have implemented other measures to reduce conflict, Sukhee said, such as creating additional water and food sources within the forests where elephants live, constructing protective fencing, and deploying rangers to guide elephants that stray into residential areas back into the wild.

    A court-ordered operation earlier this month to remove wild elephants that have repeatedly clashed with locals in northeastern Khon Kaen province sparked a public outcry after one elephant died during the relocation process.

    An initial autopsy revealed that the elephant died from choking after anesthesia was administered ahead of the move, officials said.

    The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation carried out the relocation effort, and its director general, Athapol Charoenshunsa, expressed regret over the incident while insisting that protocol was followed properly. He said an investigation was underway to prevent such incidents from happening again.

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  • Newly obtained emails undermine RFK Jr.’s testimony about 2019 Samoa trip before measles outbreak

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    Over two days of questioning during his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated the same answer.

    He said the closely scrutinized 2019 trip he took to Samoa, which came before a devastating measles outbreak, had “nothing to do with vaccines.”

    Documents obtained by The Guardian and The Associated Press undermine that testimony. Emails sent by staffers at the U.S. Embassy and the United Nations provide, for the first time, an inside look at how Kennedy’s trip came about and include contemporaneous accounts suggesting his concerns about vaccine safety motivated the visit.

    The documents have prompted concerns from at least one U.S. senator that the lawyer and activist now leading America’s health policy lied to Congress over the visit. Samoan officials later said Kennedy’s trip bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccine activists ahead of the measles outbreak, which sickened thousands of people and killed 83, mostly children under age 5.

    The revelations, which come as measles outbreaks erupt across the U.S., build on previous criticism that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine record makes him unfit to serve as health secretary, a role in which he has worked to radically reshape immunization policy and public perceptions of vaccines.

    The newly disclosed documents also reveal previously unknown details of the trip, including that a U.S. Embassy employee helped Kennedy’s team connect with Samoan officials. Kennedy, then running his anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, did not publicly discuss the trip at the time, but he has since said his “purpose” for going there was not related to vaccines and “I ended up having conversations with people, some of whom I never intended to meet.” Besides meeting with anti-vaccine activists, Kennedy met with Samoan officials, including the health minister at the time, who told NBC News that Kennedy shared his view that vaccines were not safe. Kennedy has said he went there to introduce a medical data system.

    The U.S. State Department turned over the emails — many of which are heavily redacted — as a result of an open records lawsuit brought with the assistance of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

    These disclosures come at a time when Kennedy, as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, has used his power and enormous public influence to overhaul federal immunization guidance and raise suspicion about the safety and importance of vaccines, including the measles vaccine. Meanwhile, measles outbreaks in multiple U.S. states have rolled back decades of success in eliminating the highly contagious disease, putting the country on the verge of losing its elimination status. The latest figures show more than 875 people in South Carolina have been infected.

    Kennedy addressed questions about his trip to Samoa during two Senate confirmation hearings for his appointment as health secretary.

    “My purpose in going down there had nothing to do with vaccines,” he said under questioning by Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts in his Jan. 30, 2025, hearing.

    “Did the trip have nothing to do with vaccines as you told my colleagues in Senate Finance yesterday?” Markey asked later.

    “Nothing to do with vaccines,” Kennedy replied.

    One of the senators who questioned Kennedy about Samoa during his confirmation hearings, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, responded to the records by saying, “Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda is directly responsible for the deaths of innocent children.”

    “Lying to Congress about his role in the deadly measles outbreak in Samoa only underscores the danger he now poses to families across America,” Wyden said in an email. “He and his allies will be held responsible.”

    Taylor Harvey, a spokesman for Wyden and other Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, said it is a crime to make a false statement to Congress and “casual, false denials to Congress will not be swept under the rug.”

    A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to questions sent by email and text message.

    Kennedy has said his visit did not influence people’s decisions on whether to get themselves or their children immunized.

    “I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa. I never told anybody not to vaccinate,” he told the 2023 documentary “Shot in the Arm.” “I didn’t, you know, go there for any reason to do with that.”

    Anti-vaccine activists in the United States became interested in Samoa in July 2018, when two babies died after being injected with a tainted measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine that had been improperly prepared. The government halted the vaccine program for 10 months, until the following April. Vaccination rates plummeted.

    The records show that during the time when no vaccines were being administered, Kennedy’s group, Children’s Health Defense, was trying to connect Kennedy with Samoa’s prime minister. A January 2019 email from the group’s then-president, Lyn Redwood, to Samoan activist Edwin Tamasese asked him to “please share this letter with the Honorable Prime Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi for Robert Kennedy, Jr.”

    About two months later, Tamasese wrote back to Redwood, with a cc: to Kennedy and others.

    “Hope all is well, organizing logistics with the PMs office and wanted to confirm how many people are coming? Also just wanted to confirm costs etc for the visit and how this will be handled,” he wrote.

    Tamasese immediately forwarded the chain of messages to the personal and government email accounts of Benjamin Harding, at the time an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Apia, Samoa.

    “just sent this. expecting an answer tomorrow as I think it is Sunday there. your letter looks good,” Tamasese told Harding.

    While the U.S. Embassy in the past has acknowledged that an unnamed staffer attended an event with Kennedy and anti-vaccine activists while he was in Samoa, the records show that Harding wasn’t a passive attendee: He helped arrange Kennedy’s visit and connected Kennedy’s delegation with Samoan government officials.

    In a May 23, 2019, email to Harding’s personal email address, a staffer for the Samoan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade wrote: “Hi Benj, Currently awaiting the official bio-notes for Mr Kennedy and Dr Graven to convey to the Hon. Prime Minister and Hon. Minister of Health for their reference. Please note, that this needs to be sent with our official letter when requesting an appointment.”

    Harding forwarded the ministry’s request to Dr. Michael Graven, then the chief information officer at Children’s Health Defense.

    Harding did not respond to messages seeking comment sent to several listed email addresses, social media accounts, a phone number listed to his parents and a general mailbox at a company he lists as a current workplace on his LinkedIn profile.

    Embassy staffers got a tip about Harding’s involvement in the trip from Sheldon Yett, then the representative for Pacific island countries at UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund.

    “We now understand that the Prime Minister has invited Robert Kennedy and his team to come to Samoa to investigate the safety of the vaccine,” Yett wrote in a May 22, 2019, email to an embassy staffer based in New Zealand. “The staff member in question seems to have had a role in facilitating this.”

    Two days later, a top embassy staff member in Apia wrote to Scott Brown, then the Republican U.S. president’s ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, alerting him to Kennedy’s trip and Harding’s involvement.

    “The real reason Kennedy is coming is to raise awareness about vaccinations, more specifically some of the health concerns associated with vaccinating (from his point of view),” the embassy official, Antone Greubel, wrote. “It turns out our very own Benjamin Harding played some role in a personal capacity to bring him here.” Greubel wrote that he told Harding to “cease and desist from any further involvement with this travel,” though the rest of the sentence is redacted.

    Yett did not respond to questions, though he said in an email, “that was a very grim time in Samoa.”

    Brown, who is running for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire, declined to comment. Greubel referred questions to a press office at the State Department. A State Department spokesperson would not answer questions about the records, saying that as a general practice they do not comment on personnel matters.

    Harding left the embassy in July 2020, though he remains in Samoa, according to his LinkedIn account.

    Kennedy ultimately visited in June 2019. While there, he and his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, were photographed greeting the prime minister during an Independence Day celebration. He also met with government health officials as well as a group of figures who have cast doubt on vaccines, including Tamasese.

    The Guardian and the AP could find no record of Kennedy publicly discussing the purpose of his trip until after measles struck. In 2021, he wrote that he went there to discuss “the introduction of a medical informatics system” to track drug safety. He said Samoan officials “were curious to measure health outcomes following the ‘natural experiment’ created by the national respite from vaccines.”

    Since then, he has said his reason for going to Samoa was not related to vaccines.

    Redwood, the former Children’s Health Defense president who made early outreach to Samoa, is now an employee at HHS, reportedly working on vaccine safety.

    During the measles outbreak, Kennedy wrote a four-page letter to Samoa’s prime minister suggesting without evidence that the measles infections were due to a defective vaccine and floating other unfounded theories.

    ___

    This story was jointly reported and published by The Guardian and The Associated Press.

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  • Fear among Minnesota’s Somali community compounds a public health woe: Low measles vaccination rates

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    MINNEAPOLIS — Public health officials and community leaders say that even before federal immigration authorities launched a crackdown in Minneapolis, a crisis was brewing.

    Measles vaccination rates among the state’s large Somali community had plummeted, with the myth that the shot causes autism spreading. Not even four measles outbreaks since 2011 made a dent in the trend. But recently, immunization advocates noted small victories, including mobile clinics and a vaccine confidence task force.

    Now, with the U.S. on the verge of losing its measles elimination status, those on the front lines of the battle against vaccine misinformation say much progress has been lost. Many residents fear leaving home at all, let alone seeking medical advice or visiting a doctor’s office.

    “People are worried about survival,” said nurse practitioner Munira Maalimisaq, CEO of the Inspire Change Clinic, near a Minneapolis neighborhood where many Somalis live. “Vaccines are the last thing on people’s minds. But it is a big issue.”

    A discussion group for Somali mothers at Inspire Change has shifted online indefinitely. In community WhatsApp groups and other channels, parents have more pressing priorities: Who will care for kids when they can’t go to school? How can we safely get groceries and prescriptions?

    In 2006, 92% of Somali 2-year-olds were up-to-date on the measles vaccine, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Today’s rate is closer to 24%, according to state data. A 95% rate is needed to prevent outbreaks of measles, an extremely contagious disease.

    Community vaccination efforts go through cycles, Maalimisaq said, with initiatives starting and stopping.

    Imam Yusuf Abdulle said immigration enforcement has put everything on hold.

    “People are stuck in their homes, cannot go to work,” he said. “It is madness. And the last thing to think about is talking about autism, talking about childhood vaccination. Adults cannot get out of the house, forget about kids.”

    Estimated autism rates in Somali 4-year-olds are 3.5 times higher than those of white 4-year-olds in Minnesota, according to University of Minnesota data. Researchers say they don’t know why. And in this vacuum of scientific certainty, inaccurate beliefs thrive.

    Many blame the measles, mumps and rubella shot — a single injection proven to safely protect against the three viruses, with the first dose recommended when children are 12 to 15 months old.

    In November, at one of Maalimisaq’s last Motherhood Circle gatherings, Somali mothers and grandmothers volleyed questions at facilitators. Won’t a shot for three viruses overwhelm a baby? Why does autism seem more prevalent here than back home?

    Vaccines are tested for safety, Maalimisaq and her panel explained. Delaying a shot is risky, they warned, because of what measles — which is seeing its highest spread in the country in more than three decades — can do.

    Local health officials have long followed best practices: enlisting community members to champion vaccines, hosting mobile clinics and uplifting the work of Somali health providers like Maalimisaq.

    But initiatives have been start-and-stop. Federal funding cuts affected efforts, and public health officials admit their outreach could be more consistent and comprehensive.

    Most parents here vaccinate their children eventually. Many Somali families prefer to wait until a child is 5, despite a lack of evidence that doing so cuts autism rates. Measles is endemic in Somalia, where war and international aid cuts have crippled the medical system, and elsewhere in East Africa where residents here often travel.

    “Measles is just a plane ride away, and measles is going to find the unvaccinated,” said Carly Edson, the state health department’s immunization outreach coordinator. “We are always at risk.”

    About 84,000 Somalis live in the Twin Cities area, of 260,000 nationwide. The community is the country’s largest, and most are U.S. citizens. Before the immigration crackdown, mosques and malls buzzed, with people gathering during evenings to sip chai or have henna drawn on their hands.

    Now, many in the community want to lie low. People are afraid to seek routine medical care. Without those touchpoints, trust quickly erodes, Maalimisaq said.

    Among the last cohort of Somali moms at the clinic, 83% had vaccinated their kids by the end of the 12-month program, she said. Some were making 10-second videos explaining why they vaccinated. But efforts have paused.

    Parents here have long dealt with racism and isolation, though they’ve built a strong community. They want answers for the autism rates, but science has no simple answers for what causes the lifelong neurological condition, said Mahdi Warsama, the Somali Parents Autism Network’s CEO.

    Warsama said Trump’s unproven claims last fall that taking Tylenol during pregnancy could cause autism sparked fears and questions here. The idea that the MMR shot should be split into three vaccines — one backed, with no scientific basis, by acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Jim O’Neill, though no standalone shots are available in the U.S. — has spread, too.

    Warsama traces the issue back more than a decade, when discredited researcher Andrew Wakefield published his study — since retracted — claiming a link between autism and the MMR vaccine. Wakefield visited with Twin Cities Somalis in 2011.

    “The misinformers will always fill the void,” Warsama said.

    Parents want to be heard, not debated — that’s why short doctor appointments don’t work, said Fatuma Sharif-Mohamed, a Somali community health educator.

    “That 15 minutes will not change the mind of a parent,” she said.

    Some doctors are pushing beyond the exam room — work they describe as slow and taxing. Changing one family’s mind can take multiple visits, even years.

    Dr. Bryan Fate, leader of a Children’s Minnesota vaccine confidence committee, said new strategies are underway, including social media videos from doctors and possibly a prenatal classes for expectant parents.

    “I’m going to call you in five days,” Fate said he tells hesitant parents, “and there’ll be no changes to this speech.”

    Overall, Minnesota’s kindergarten MMR vaccination rate has dropped more than 6 percentage points in the past five years, compared with a 2-point drop nationwide.

    State data suggests the effort to catch kids up may be effective: While less than 1 in 4 Somali kids in Minnesota is vaccinated against measles by age 2, 86% get at least one dose by age 6 — just short of the statewide rate, 89%.

    Doctors worry in particular about unprotected young children, for whom severe complications — pneumonia, brain swelling and blindness — are more common.

    Imam Abdulle said when parents ask him about the vaccine, he tells his own story. He wasn’t opposed to it but decided to err on the side of waiting. His son was diagnosed with autism at age 3, Abdulle said, and later was vaccinated.

    Correlation, he reminds parents, is not causation.

    The community doesn’t want to be painted as a source of disease, Abdulle said. But after outbreaks in 2011, 2017, 2022 and 2024, there’s also open acknowledgment that measles isn’t going away.

    “Our kids are the ones who are getting sick,” Abdulle said. “Our community is suffering.”

    Last year, Minnesota logged 26 measles cases. The state health department said the cases were across several different communities with pockets of unvaccinated people.

    In Maalimisaq’s Motherhood Circles, the most effective words often come not from doctors but fellow parents, such as Mirad Farah. Farah’s daughter was born premature. She worried the MMR shot would be too much and delayed vaccination. Her daughter still developed autism.

    “So what did that tell me?” she asked the room. “It confirmed that autism is not from the MMR.”

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Doctors say changes to US vaccine recommendations are confusing parents and could harm kids

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    Dr. Molly O’Shea has noticed growing skepticism about vaccines at both of her Michigan pediatric offices and says this week’s unprecedented and confusing changes to federal vaccine guidance will only make things worse.

    One of her offices is in a Democratic area, where more of the parents she sees are opting for alternative schedules that spread out shots. The other is in a Republican area, where some parents have stopped immunizing their children altogether.

    She and other doctors fear the new recommendations and the terminology around them will stoke vaccine hesitancy even more, pose challenges for pediatricians and parents that make it harder for kids to get shots, and ultimately lead to more illness and death.

    The biggest change was to stop blanket recommendations for protection against six diseases and recommend those vaccines only for at-risk children or through something called “shared clinical decision-making” with a health care provider.

    The phrase, experts say, is confusing and dangerous: “It sends a message to a parent that actually there’s only a rarefied group of people who really need the vaccine,” O’Shea said. “It’s creating an environment that puts a sense of uncertainty about the value and necessity or importance of the vaccines in that category.”

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who helped lead the anti-vaccine movement for years, said in announcing the changes that they better align the U.S. with peer nations “while strengthening transparency and informed consent.”

    But doctors say they are sowing doubt — the vaccines have been extensively studied and proven to be safe and effective at shielding kids from nasty diseases — at a time when childhood vaccination rates are already falling and some of those infectious diseases are spreading.

    On Friday, the American Academy of Pediatrics and more than 200 medical, public health and patient advocacy groups sent a letter to Congress about the new childhood immunization schedule.

    “We urge you to investigate why the schedule was changed, why credible scientific evidence was ignored, and why the committee charged with advising the HHS Secretary on immunizations did not discuss the schedule changes as a part of their public meeting process,” they wrote.

    O’Shea said she and other pediatricians discuss vaccines with parents at every visit where they are given. But that’s not necessarily “shared clinical decision-making,” which has a particular definition.

    On its website, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices says: “Unlike routine, catch-up, and risk-based recommendations, shared clinical decision-making vaccinations are not recommended for everyone in a particular age group or everyone in an identifiable risk group. Rather, shared clinical decision-making recommendations are individually based and informed by a decision process between the health care provider and the patient or parent/guardian.”

    In this context, health care providers include primary care physicians, specialists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses and pharmacists.

    A pair of surveys conducted last year by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania suggested that many people don’t fully understand the concept, which came up last year when the federal government changed recommendations around COVID-19 vaccinations.

    Only about 2 in 10 U.S. adults knew that one meaning behind shared decision-making is that “taking the vaccine may not be a good idea for everyone but would benefit some.” And only about one-third realized pharmacists count as health care providers to talk with during the process, even though they frequently administer vaccines.

    As of this week, vaccines that protect against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, RSV, flu and meningococcal disease are no longer universally recommended for kids. RSV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and meningococcal vaccines are recommended for certain high-risk populations; flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and meningococcal vaccines are recommended through shared decision-making — as is the COVID-19 vaccine, although that change was made last year.

    Shortly after the federal announcement Monday, Dr. Steven Abelowitz heard from half a dozen parents. “It’s causing concern for us, but more importantly, concern for parents with kids, especially young kids, and confusion,” said Abelowitz, founder of Ocean Pediatrics in Orange County, California.

    Though federal recommendations are not mandates — states have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren — they can affect how easy it is for kids to get shots if doctors choose to follow them.

    Under the new guidelines, O’Shea said, parents seeking shots in the shared decision-making category might no longer bring their kids in for a quick, vaccine-only appointment with staff. They’d sit down with a health care provider and discuss the vaccine. And it could be tougher to have a flu clinic, where parents drive up and kids get shots without seeing a doctor.

    Still, doctors say they won’t let the changes stop them from helping children get the vaccines they need. Leading medical groups are sticking with prior vaccine recommendations. Many parents are, too.

    Megan Landry, whose 4-year-old son Zackary is one of O’Shea’s patients, is among them.

    “It’s my responsibility as a parent to protect my child’s health and well-being,” she said. “Vaccines are a really effective and well-studied way to do that.”

    She plans to keep having the same conversations she’s always had with O’Shea before getting vaccines for Zackary.

    “Relying on evidence and trusted medical guidance really helps me to make those decisions,” she said. “And for me, it’s not just a personal choice for my own son but a way to contribute to the health of everybody.”

    But for other families, confidence about vaccines is waning as trust in science erodes. O’Shea lamented that parents are getting the message that they can’t trust medical experts.

    “If I take my car to the mechanic, I don’t go do my own research ahead of time,” she said. “I go to a person I trust and I trust them to tell me what’s going on.”

    Abelowitz, the California doctor, likened the latest federal move to pouring gasoline on a fire of mistrust that was already burning.

    “We’re worried the fire’s out of control,” he said. “Already we’ve seen that with measles and pertussis, there are increased hospitalizations and even increasing deaths. So the way that I look at it — and my colleagues look at it — we’re basically regressing decades.”

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Flu cases quickly increasing throughout US

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    WASHINGTON — Flu is rising rapidly across the U.S., driven by a new variant of the virus — and cases are expected to keep growing with holiday travel.

    That variant, known as “subclade K,” led to early outbreaks in the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada. In the U.S., flu typically begins its winter march in December. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported high or very high levels of illness in more than half the states.

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    By LAURAN NEERGAARD – AP Medical Writer

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  • What are parents to do as doctors clash with Trump administration over vaccines?

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    It’s normal for parents, or anyone, to have questions about vaccinations — but what happens if your pediatrician urges a shot that’s under attack by the Trump administration?

    That’s getting more likely: The nation’s leading doctors groups are in an unprecedented standoff with federal health officials who have attacked long-used, lifesaving vaccines.

    The revolt by pediatricians, obstetricians, family physicians, infectious disease experts and internists came to a head when an advisory panel handpicked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urged an end to routine newborn vaccination against hepatitis B, a virus that can cause liver failure or liver cancer.

    That vaccine saves lives, helped child infections plummet and has been given safely to tens of millions of children in the U.S. alone, say the American Academy of Pediatrics and other doctors groups that vowed Tuesday to keep recommending it.

    But that’s not the only difference. That Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices now is examining possible changes to the entire childhood vaccination schedule, questioning certain ingredients and how many doses youngsters receive.

    Pushing back, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued its own recommendations for youngsters. Other medical groups — plus some city and state public health departments that have banded together — also are issuing their own advice on certain vaccines, which largely mirrors pre-2025 federal guidance.

    This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well.

    “We owe our patients a consistent message informed by evidence and lived experience, not messages biased by political imperative,” Dr. Ronald Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told reporters Tuesday.

    But Nahass acknowledged the inevitable consumer confusion, recounting a relative calling him last weekend for advice about hepatitis B vaccination for her new grandbaby.

    “Most Americans don’t have a Cousin Ronnie to call. They are left alone with fear and mistrust,” he said, urging parents to talk with their doctors about vaccines.

    New guidelines without new data concern doctors

    Hepatitis B isn’t the only vaccine challenge. Kennedy’s health department recently changed a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines don’t cause autism. Federal agencies also moved to restrict COVID-19 vaccinations this fall, and are planning policy changes that could restrict future flu and coronavirus shots.

    But when it comes to vaccine advice, “for decades, ACIP was the gold standard,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician and Stanford University researcher.

    The panel once routinely enlisted specialists in specific diseases for long deliberations of the latest science and safety data, resulting in recommendations typically adopted not only by the CDC but by the medical field at large, he said.

    Last week’s meeting of Kennedy’s panel, which includes vaccine skeptics, marked a radical departure. CDC specialists weren’t allowed to present data on hepatitis B, the childhood vaccine schedule or questions about vaccine ingredients. Few of the committee members have public health experience, and some expressed confusion about the panel’s proposals.

    At one point, a doctor called in to say the panel was misrepresenting her study’s findings. And the panel’s chairman wondered why one dose of yellow fever vaccine protected him during a trip to Africa when U.S. children get three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine is designed to protect children for life from a virus they can encounter anywhere, not just on a trip abroad. And other scientists noted it was carefully studied for years to prove the three-dose course offers decades of immunity — evidence that a single dose simply doesn’t have.

    “If they’ve got new data, I’m all for it — let’s see it and have a conversation,” said Dr. Kelly Gebo, an infectious disease specialist and public health dean at George Washington University, who watched for that. “I did not see any new data,” so she’s not changing her vaccine advice.

    Committee members argued that most babies’ risk of hepatitis B infection is very low and that earlier research on infant shot safety was inadequate.

    Especially unusual was a presentation from a lawyer who voiced doubt about studies that proved benefits of multiple childhood vaccines and promoted discredited research pointing to harms.

    “I don’t think at any point in the committee’s history, there was a 90-minute uninterrupted presentation by someone who wasn’t a physician, a scientist, or a public health expert on the topic — let alone someone who, who makes his living in vaccine litigation,” said Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy expert at Yale University.

    By abandoning data and the consensus of front-line doctors, the ACIP is “actively burning down the credibility that made its recommendations so powerful,” added Stanford’s Scott. “Most parents will still follow their pediatricians, and AAP is holding the line here. But the mixed messages are precisely what erode confidence over time.”

    Parents already have a choice — they need solid guidance

    Trump administration health officials say it’s important to restore choice to parents and to avoid mandates. That’s how the panel’s hepatitis B recommendation was framed — that parents who really want it could get their children vaccinated later.

    Parents already have a choice, said Dr. Aaron Milstone of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The government makes population-wide recommendations while families and their doctors tailor choices to each person’s health needs.

    But many doctors don’t — or can’t — do their own lengthy scientific review of vaccines and thus had relied on the ACIP and CDC information, Yale’s Schwartz noted.

    They “rely on trusted expert voices to help navigate what is, even in the best of times, a complicated landscape regarding the evidence for vaccines and how best to use them,” he said.

    That’s a role that the pediatricians and other doctors groups, plus those multistate collaborations, aim to fill with their own guidelines — while acknowledging it will be a huge task.

    For now, “ask your questions, bring your concerns and let us talk about them,” said Dr. Sarah Nosal, of the American Academy of Family Physicians, urging anyone with vaccine questions to have an open conversation with their doctor.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • RFK Jr. says he’s following ‘gold standard’ science. Here’s what to know

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    The message is hammered over and over, in news conferences, hearings and executive orders: President Donald Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say they want the government to follow “gold standard” science.

    Scientists say the problem is that they are often doing just the opposite by relying on preliminary studies, fringe science or just hunches to make claims, cast doubt on proven treatments or even set policy.

    This week, the nation’s top public health agency changed its website to contradict the scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. The move shocked health experts nationwide.

    Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August, told reporters Wednesday that Kennedy seems to be “going from evidence-based decision making to decision-based evidence making.”

    It was the latest example of the Trump administration’s challenge to established science.

    U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during the Western Governors’ Association meeting Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble)

    In September, the Republican president gave out medical advice based on weak or no evidence. Speaking directly to pregnant women and to parents, he told them not to take acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. He repeatedly made the fraudulent and long-disproven link between autism and vaccines, saying his assessment was based on a hunch.

    “I have always had very strong feelings about autism and how it happened and where it came from,” he said.

    At a two-day meeting this fall, Kennedy’s handpicked vaccine advisers to the CDC raised questions about vaccinating babies against hepatitis B, an inoculation long shown to reduce disease and death drastically.

    “The discussion that has been brought up regarding safety is not based on evidence other than case reports and anecdotes,” said Dr. Flor Munoz, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.

    During the country’s worst year for measles in more than three decades, Kennedy cast doubt on the measles vaccine while championing unproven treatments and alleging that the unvaccinated children who died were “already sick.”

    Scientists say the process of getting medicines and vaccines to market and recommended in the United States has, until now, typically relied on gold standard science. The process is so rigorous and transparent that much of the rest of the world follows the lead of American regulators, giving the OK to treatments only after U.S. approval.

    This April 1, 2025 photo shows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, file)

    This April 1, 2025 photo shows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, file)

    Gold standard science

    The gold standard can differ because science and medicine is complicated and everything cannot be tested the same way. That term simply refers to the best possible evidence that can be gathered.

    “It completely depends on what question you’re trying to answer,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician and Stanford University researcher.

    What produces the best possible evidence?

    There are many different types of studies. The most rigorous is the randomized clinical trial.

    It randomly creates two groups of subjects that are identical in every way except for the drug, treatment or other question being tested. Many are “blinded studies,” meaning neither the subjects nor the researchers know who is in which group. This helps eliminate bias.

    It is not always possible or ethical to conduct these tests. This is sometimes the case with vaccine trials, “because we have so much data showing how safe and effective they are, it would be unethical to withhold vaccines from a particular group,” said Jessica Steier, a public health scientist and founder of the Unbiased Science podcast.

    Studying the long-term effect of a behavior can be impossible. For example, scientists could not possibly study the long-term benefit of exercise by having one group not exercise for years.

    Instead, researchers must conduct observational studies, where they follow participants and track their health and behavior without manipulating any variables. Such studies helped scientists discover that fluoride reduces cavities, and later lab studies showed how fluoride strengthens tooth enamel.

    But the studies have limitations because they can often only prove correlation, not causation. For example, some observational studies have raised the possibility of a link between autism risk and using acetaminophen during pregnancy, but more have not found a connection. The big problem is that those kinds of studies cannot determine if the painkiller really made any difference or if it was the fever or other health problem that prompted the need for the pill.

    Real world evidence can be especially powerful

    Scientists can learn even more when they see how something affects a large number of people in their daily lives.

    That real-world evidence can be valuable to prove how well something works — and when there are rare side effects that could never be detected in trials.

    Such evidence on vaccines has proved useful in both ways. Scientists now know there can be rare side effects with some vaccines and can alert doctors to be on the lookout. The data has proved that vaccines provide extraordinary protection from disease. For example, measles was eliminated in the U.S. but it still pops up among unvaccinated groups.

    That same data proves vaccines are safe.

    “If vaccines caused a wave of chronic disease, our safety systems — which can detect 1-in-a-million events — would have seen it. They haven’t,” Scott told a U.S. Senate subcommittee in September.

    The best science is open and transparent

    Simply publishing a paper online is not enough to call it open and transparent. Specific things to look for include:

    — Researchers set their hypothesis before they start the study and do not change it.

    — The authors disclose their conflicts of interest and their funding sources.

    — The research has gone through peer review by subject-matter experts who have nothing to do with that particular study.

    — The authors show their work, publishing and explaining the data underlying their analyses.

    — They cite reliable sources.

    This transparency allows science to check itself. Dr. Steven Woloshin, a Dartmouth College professor, has spent much of his career challenging scientific conclusions underlying health policy.

    “I’m only able to do that because they’re transparent about what they did, what the underlying source resources were, so that you can come to your own conclusion,” he said. “That’s how science works.”

    Know the limits of anecdotes and single studies

    Anecdotes may be powerful. They are not data.

    Case studies might even be published in top journals, to help doctors or other professionals learn from a particular situation. But they are not used to making decisions about how to treat large numbers of patients because every situation is unique.

    Even single studies should be considered in the context of previous research. A new one-off blockbuster study that seems to answer every question definitively or reaches a conclusion that runs counter to other well-conducted studies needs a very careful look.

    Uncertainty is baked into science.

    “Science isn’t about reaching certainty,” Woloshin said. “It’s about trying to reduce uncertainty to the point where you can say, ‘I have good confidence that if we do X, we’ll see result Y.’ But there’s no guarantee.”

    Doing your own research? Questions to ask

    If you come across a research paper online, in a news story or cited by officials to change your mind about something, here are some questions to ask:

    — Who did the research? What is their expertise? Do they disclose conflicts of interest?

    — Who paid for this research? Who might benefit from it?

    — Is it published in a reputable journal? Did it go through peer review?

    — What question are the researchers asking? Who or what are they studying? Are they making even comparisons between groups?

    — Is there a “limitations” section where the authors point out what their research cannot prove, other factors that could influence their results, or other potential blind spots? What does it say?

    — Does it make bold, definitive claims? Does it fit into the scientific consensus or challenge it? Is it too good or bad to be true?

    ___

    AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • COVID-19 vaccines may help some cancer patients fight tumors

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    WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The most widely used COVID-19 vaccines may offer a surprise benefit for some cancer patients – revving up their immune systems to help fight tumors.

    People with advanced lung or skin cancer who were taking certain immunotherapy drugs lived substantially longer if they also got a Pfizer or Moderna shot within 100 days of starting treatment, according to preliminary research being reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.

    And it had nothing to do with virus infections.

    Instead, the molecule that powers those specific vaccines, mRNA, appears to help the immune system respond better to the cutting-edge cancer treatment, concluded researchers from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the University of Florida.

    The vaccine “acts like a siren to activate immune cells throughout the body,” said lead researcher Dr. Adam Grippin of MD Anderson. “We’re sensitizing immune-resistant tumors to immune therapy.”

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has raised skepticism about mRNA vaccines, cutting $500 million in funding for some uses of the technology.

    But this research team found its results so promising that it is preparing a more rigorous study to see if mRNA coronavirus vaccines should be paired with cancer drugs called checkpoint inhibitors — an interim step while it designs new mRNA vaccines for use in cancer.

    A healthy immune system often kills cancer cells before they become a threat. But some tumors evolve to hide from immune attack. Checkpoint inhibitors remove that cloak. It’s a powerful treatment – when it works. Some people’s immune cells still don’t recognize the tumor.

    Messenger RNA, or mRNA, is naturally found in every cell and it contains genetic instructions for our bodies to make proteins. While best known as the Nobel Prize-winning technology behind COVID-19 vaccines, scientists have long been trying to create personalized mRNA “treatment vaccines” that train immune cells to spot unique features of a patient’s tumor.

    The new research offers “a very good clue” that maybe an off-the-shelf approach could work, said Dr. Jeff Coller, an mRNA specialist at Johns Hopkins University who wasn’t involved with the work. “What it shows is that mRNA medicines are continuing to surprise us in how beneficial they can be to human health.”

    Grippin and his Florida colleagues had been developing personalized mRNA cancer vaccines when they realized that even one created without a specific target appeared to spur similar immune activity against cancer.

    Grippin wondered if the already widely available mRNA coronavirus shots might also have some effect, too.

    So the team analyzed records of nearly 1,000 advanced cancer patients undergoing checkpoint inhibitor treatment at MD Anderson – comparing those who happened to get a Pfizer or Moderna shot with those who didn’t.

    Vaccinated lung cancer patients were nearly twice as likely to be alive three years after beginning cancer treatment as the unvaccinated patients. Among melanoma patients, median survival was significantly longer for vaccinated patients – but exactly how much isn’t clear, as some of that group were still alive when the data was analyzed.

    Non-mRNA vaccines such as flu shots didn’t make a difference, he said.

    —-

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Why is a metal such as aluminum in some vaccines?

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    Trump administration health officials plan to remove a vaccine ingredient that’s been safely in use for decades, aluminum. 

    The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has reduced some vaccine access. The agency scaled back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, approved COVID-19 vaccines for fewer people and aimed to remove the preservative thimerosal from U.S. vaccines. Experts told PolitiFact scientific research did not support its removal.

    During a Sept. 22 press conference in which President Donald Trump told people not to take Tylenol during pregnancy, he also mentioned another objective: “We want no aluminum in the vaccine,” he said. The administration was already in the process of removing aluminum from vaccines, he added.

    About two weeks later on Oct. 8, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, announced a new working group focused on the childhood vaccine schedule. Its discussion topics include vaccine ingredient safety and “aluminum adjuvants.” 

    Robert Malone, an ACIP member who has opposed COVID-19 vaccines, told Axios he expected the committee would determine there was “a lot of evidence” of “issues” with aluminum in vaccines. The committee likely would vote to recategorize vaccines containing aluminum adjuvants so that people would have to discuss with their doctor before getting them, Malone told Axios.

    That could have far-reaching ramifications. Here’s what to know about aluminum in vaccines.

    Q: Why is a metal such as aluminum in some vaccines? 

    A: Small amounts of aluminum are sometimes included in vaccines as adjuvants, or substances that boost the body’s immune response to the vaccine to ensure protection from infection. 

    That boost means people can get fewer vaccine doses in smaller quantities. 

    Q: When used, how much aluminum is in a vaccine? 

    A: Vaccines with aluminum adjuvants usually contain less than a milligram of aluminum per dose, according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. 

    That’s a pretty abstract number. To help make it more concrete: A milligram is one-thousandth of a gram. One gram is about the weight of a raisin or a stick of gum. Imagine cutting one of those items into 1,000 equal pieces. One of the pieces would be about 1 milligram. 

    Here’s another way to think about it. 

    People come in contact with and consume aluminum all of the time. It is one of the most abundant metal elements in the earth’s crust, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It’s naturally occurring in soil, air and water. Food is the main way people are exposed to aluminum. The average adult eats about 7 to 9 milligrams of aluminum per day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

    A baby in its first six months might receive a total of about 4.4 milligrams of aluminum from recommended vaccines. In the same period of time, a breastfed infant would ingest about 7 milligrams of aluminum from breastmilk and a formula-fed baby would ingest about 38 milligrams from formula. 

    Q: How long have vaccines contained aluminum? 

    A: Aluminum adjuvants have been used in vaccines for more than 70 years, the CDC said. 

    “Aluminum is one of our oldest adjuvants, it’s been used in vaccines since the 1920s,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a Baylor College of Medicine professor and codirector of Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. 

    Q: How do we know it’s safe to include small amounts of aluminum in vaccines?

    A: Every vaccine’s safety and efficacy is tested in animal studies and human clinical trials before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration licenses it for public use. Every vaccine containing adjuvants has been tested and health agencies continuously monitor their safety, the CDC said.

    Over several decades of use, vaccines with aluminum adjuvants have been proven safe, the FDA said. 

    Vaccines containing aluminum have been “given to billions of people worldwide now,” said Dr. Kawsar Talaat, a professor at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health.

    A growing body of research has also found aluminum adjuvants don’t cause aluminum toxicity or other adverse outcomes.

    Q: Do aluminum adjuvants have any risks? 

    A: Rarely, some people have allergic reactions to aluminum in the same way they might have allergic reactions to other substances, Talaat said.

    In 2022, researchers published a retrospective, observational study on more than 325,000 children that found an association between vaccine-related aluminum exposure and persistent asthma. Association is not the same as causation, meaning the study did not prove a link between aluminum in vaccines and asthma. 

    Experts from the CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics encouraged more research on the subject because the backward-looking observational study didn’t prove causation and also had limitations — including that it excluded many children who developed asthma before they turned 2 years old. 

    A 2025 study found no increased risk of asthma associated with childhood exposure to aluminum-absorbed vaccines.

    Q: Which vaccines contain aluminum adjuvants? 

    A: At least 25 vaccines approved for use in the U.S. have aluminum adjuvants, the CDC says. That includes vaccines that protect against HPV, hepatitis A and B and diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (whooping cough). 

    Q: Which vaccines do not contain aluminum adjuvants? 

    The CDC’s list of vaccines without adjuvants includes vaccines against COVID-19, Ebola, meningococcal, polio and rabies. Additionally, most seasonal flu shots and the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella do not contain aluminum adjuvants. 

    Q: Can we remove aluminum from vaccines? 

    A: Not quickly. If it could be done at all, it would take years to develop, test and license new, aluminum-free vaccines. Many of the vaccines with aluminum adjuvants don’t have aluminum-free formulas.

    “A vaccine is licensed based on all of its ingredients and the exact manufacturing process,” Talaat said. “If you were to take an ingredient out of a vaccine, you would have to start all over with the clinical trials and the manufacturing, and it is highly possible that some of these vaccines wouldn’t work without the aluminum in there.”

    Although other adjuvants exist, they’re newer and often more scarce than aluminum, which is abundant. 

    An immediate ban on aluminum in vaccines would drastically reduce people’s ability to protect themselves and others against numerous diseases. 

    “I think we’d see outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases,” Talaat said. 

    Q: Why do people think aluminum in vaccines is causing autism? 

    A: A 2011 study said vaccines with aluminum adjuvants “may be a significant” contributing factor to the rising number of autism diagnoses in kids, Nature reported. 

    A year later, a World Health Organization vaccine safety committee called the 2011 study “seriously flawed.” The 2011 study and another by the same authors compared vaccines’ aluminum content and autism rates in several countries, the WHO group said, but that cannot be used to establish a causal relationship. 

    “We studied aluminum, and have no link between aluminum and autism,” Talaat said. 

    RELATED: No, vaccines do not contain unsafe amounts of aluminum for infants, research shows

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  • New Mexico Democrats rush to shore up safety net programs after federal cuts

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    SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico’s Democratic lawmakers were set to meet Wednesday to begin shoring up safety net spending in response to President Donald Trump’s recent cuts in a top state for participation in Medicaid and federal food assistance.

    Legislators are seeking new food assistance spending, while Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is calling for a quick response to federal Medicaid and tax cuts signed by Trump. She wants to provide state grants that can stabilize health care services in rural areas where clinics and hospitals often rely heavily on Medicaid.

    The governor also wants to expand state insurance subsidies on the Affordable Care Act exchange. Exchange subsidies are a sticking point in the federal budget standoff in Washington.

    “We’re not going stand by while Washington abandons New Mexico families,” Lujan Grisham said Tuesday. “This special session is about protecting the people who need help most.”

    Leading Democratic legislators also want to backfill federal spending cuts to public broadcasting. New Mexico could also become the latest state to break with the federal government on vaccine policy and recommendations.

    Nearly one-fourth of New Mexico residents receive food assistance through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.

    “It’s really the first line of defense. It’s not our only solution to food insecurity, but it’s a big one,” said Sovereign Hager, legal director at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.

    New Mexico legislators are considering a quick infusion of state spending on food assistance through SNAP, as well as support for food banks and distribution networks.

    Trump plans to expand work and reporting requirements for SNAP participants, end eligibility for many noncitizens, and alter deductions.

    Jasmin Jaquez of Sunland Park says SNAP changes are looming over her final year at New Mexico State University. She said she and her 7-year-old son rely on the program.

    “It’s one big, huge help that’s getting me through college, and attending full-time,” she said.

    Grants have been proposed to help services continue at rural health clinics and hospitals that rely heavily on Medicaid spending. Rural health care providers across the country are preparing to lose billions of dollars from Trump’s signature tax and spending cut bill signed into law this summer.

    Trump’s bill sets aside $50 billion over five years for rural hospitals, providers and clinics — but that doesn’t offset significant cuts. The stakes are high in New Mexico, where about 38% of residents rely on Medicaid.

    New Mexico may also expand subsidies toward the federal insurance exchange that covers about 75,000 state residents.

    Democratic House Speaker Javier Martínez of Albuquerque acknowledges that many federal health care changes don’t kick in until 2027 or later, but says that funds for rural health care and to offset other cuts are urgent.

    New Mexico expects to lose about $200 million annually because of new federal tax cuts, but starting this fiscal year, it still has a large surplus thanks to booming oil production.

    Many Democratic-led states have begun making their own recommendations for who should be vaccinated for seasonal respiratory viruses, including the flu and COVID-19, saying the Trump administration has jeopardized public health by politicizing the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    New Mexico lawmakers are considering a similar shift to state standards for the immunization of children and adults.

    Changes are needed for access, consistency on childhood vaccines and to give the state’s health department flexibility so that residents can have options, said Democratic state Sen. Majority Leader Peter Wirth of Santa Fe.

    New Mexico legislators are considering spending millions of dollars for public broadcasters in television and radio as federal funds dry up.

    The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS, has announced its closure after being defunded by Congress. Trump also signed federal legislation in July that rescinds more than $1 billion earmarked for public broadcasters.

    The claw-back sent shock waves through at least 13 public public radio and television broadcasters across New Mexico, said Franz Joachim, General Manager at New Mexico PBS.

    “We no longer had two years to figure out how to survive, we had two months,” said Joachim, who oversees a staff of 50.

    Small public radio stations serving remote areas of the country, often beyond internet or cell service, are confronting an uncertain future. Many, including five tribal radio stations in New Mexico, relied on community public service grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said Loris Taylor, president of Native Public Media.

    She warned of stark consequences for public safety initiatives, including the recent deployment of emergency broadcast alert systems for missing and murdered Indigenous people.

    “They’re communication hubs, and they’re also safety hubs,” she said of New Mexico’s public radio stations. “What you want are informed citizens.”

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  • Hillary Clinton slams RFK Jr. and the spread of ‘crackpot ideas,’ saying they are costing lives

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    Hillary Clinton on Wednesday slammed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and accused the Trump administration of turning “the clock back” on public health.

    Clinton expressed alarm about people in the country listening to “crackpot ideas” after a press conference Monday in which the Secretary of Health and Human Services and President Donald Trump made a series of unproven statements about Tylenol, childhood vaccines and autism.

    “I mean, this is so crazy, it’s so wrongheaded, it’s so shortsighted. And it’s going to cause deaths,” she said during an appearance Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” ”These guys want to literally turn the clock back.”

    Clinton, the former secretary of state and Trump’s 2016 Democratic opponent for president, said the statements would lead to confusion.

    “When your president says something, when a Kennedy, who’s the secretary of HHS, says something, what are you supposed to believe?” she asked.

    “You know, people are confused. And too many Americans are listening to this, you know, very destructive anti-science tirade that we’re hearing from this administration. And it’s going to cost lives. It already is costing lives.”

    The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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  • Trump’s comments on autism validate ‘MAHA’ movement

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    NEW YORK — As medical professionals react with alarm to President Donald Trump’s unproven statements about Tylenol, childhood vaccines and autism, a different group of Americans is feeling vindicated.

    For the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, a diverse coalition that includes supporters of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., anti-vaccine activists and others who distrust the American health care system, Trump’s Monday announcement was a watershed moment.


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    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    By ALI SWENSON and JILL COLVIN – Associated Press

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  • Kennedy’s advisory panel is expected to vote on hepatitis B and MMRV vaccines

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    ATLANTA — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory committee meets Thursday to begin a two-day session focused on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox.

    Votes are expected Thursday afternoon on hepatitis B and on a combined shot against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, but Department of Health and Human Services officials have not said exactly what proposals would be considered.

    Information on the meeting agenda suggests the committee may be poised to roll back — at least partly — a longstanding recommendation that all U.S. children get an initial dose of hepatitis B vaccine right after birth.

    The American Academy of Pediatrics and many public health officials support that decades-old practice.

    Dr. Mysheika Roberts, health department director in Columbus, Ohio, said rates of the liver disease among children have dropped tremendously since it was put into place.

    “I don’t understand the rationale of why we would stop providing that vaccine and that guidance to babies when we’ve seen such great progress in that area,” said Roberts, who was scheduled to join the vaccine panel but was dismissed by Kennedy. “If it’s not broken, why change it?”

    The committee’s chair, Martin Kulldorff, also has raised the idea of recommending the MMRV combination shot not be given to children younger than 4. In a June presentation to the committee, he discussed rare instances of feverish seizures that have been associated with the first dose, given to kids between ages 1 and 2.

    The ACIP last dealt with the issue in 2009, when it said either the combination shot or separate MMR and varicella shots were acceptable for the first dose. Today, most pediatricians suggest separate doses for the first round and give the combined shot for the second dose, pediatrics experts say.

    Some doctors and public health experts say they are not aware of any new safety data that would explain the revisiting of those vaccination recommendations. They worry that the panel is raising unwarranted new questions about vaccines in the minds of parents, and that it may limit the ability of families to get their children protected.

    The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how already-approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors have almost always accepted those recommendations, which are widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs.

    Kennedy, a leading antivaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel earlier this year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices. On Monday, HHS announced the addition of five more people, some of them noted skeptics of COVID-19 vaccinations or pandemic prevention measures.

    Doctors’ groups and public health organizations have voiced alarm about Kennedy and his new panel. Concern intensified in May, when Kennedy announced he was removing COVID-19 shots from the CDC’s recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women. The move was heavily criticized by doctors’ groups and public health organizations, and prompted a lawsuit by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other groups.

    The committee is scheduled to make COVID-19 vaccine recommendations on Friday.

    The AAP and some others groups have issued their own vaccination recommendations, which disagree with recommendations put out by federal officials this year.

    In recent weeks, several states have announced policies to help residents maintain access to vaccines, in some cases signing orders that ensure COVID-19 vaccinations at pharmacies without individual prescriptions. Wisconsin this week joined a list of more than a dozen to take steps, when Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order for state health officials to follow the guidance of national physician organizations.

    ___

    Ungar reported from Louisville, Kentucky.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Australia approves world-first vaccine to save koalas from chlamydia

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    MELBOURNE, Australia — A regulator has approved a world-first vaccine to protect koalas from chlamydia infections, which are causing infertility and death in the iconic native species that is listed as endangered in parts of Australia.

    The single-dose vaccine was developed by the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland state after more than a decade of research led by professor of microbiology Peter Timms.

    The research showed the vaccine reduced the likelihood of koalas developing symptoms of chlamydia during breeding age and decreased mortality from the disease in wild populations by at least 65%.

    The recent approval by Australia’s veterinary medicine regulator means the vaccine can now be used in wildlife hospitals, veterinary clinics and in the field to protect the nation’s most at-risk koalas, Timms said on Wednesday.

    “We knew a single-dose vaccine — with no need for a booster — was the answer to reducing the rapid, devastating spread of this disease, which accounts for as much as half of koala deaths across all wild populations in Australia,” Timms said in a statement.

    “Some individual colonies are edging closer to local extinction every day, particularly in southeast Queensland and New South Wales, where infection rates within populations are often around 50% and in some cases can reach as high as 70%,” Timms added.

    Deborah Tabart, chair of the conservation charity Australian Koala Foundation, said resources being spent on vaccinating koalas should be redirected at saving koala habitat.

    “At the risk of sounding flippant, how can anyone be so delusional as to think that you can vaccinate 100,000 animals? It’s just ridiculous,” Tabart said on Friday.

    Tabart’s foundation estimates there are fewer than 100,000 koalas in the wild. The government-backed National Koala Monitoring Program estimated last year there were between 224,000 and 524,000 koalas.

    “I accept that chlamydia is an issue for koalas, but I also want people to understand that they’re sick because they haven’t got any habitat,” Tabart said.

    The Queensland Conservation Council, an umbrella organization for more than 50 environmental groups across the state, welcomed the vaccine. But the council’s director, Dave Copeman, echoed Tabart’s focus on preserving koala habitat.

    “It’s really good news. Chlamydia is one of the key stresses that has been putting pressure on koala populations,” Copeman said.

    “Koalas were at risk before chlamydia outbreaks, and they will remain at risk even if we manage chlamydia perfectly, because we keep on destroying their habitat,” he added.

    Koalas are listed as endangered species in the states of Queensland and New South Wales and in the Australian Capital Territory, with habitat loss due to wildfires and urban expansion as the major threats. Chlamydia can cause urinary tract infections, infertility, blindness and death.

    Treatment with antibiotics can disrupt an infected koala’s ability to digest eucalyptus leaves — its sole food source — leading to starvation, the university said in a statement.

    The research has been supported by the federal, New South Wales and Queensland governments.

    Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt said his government had contributed to the vaccine’s development through a 76 million Australian dollar ($50 million) Saving Koalas Fund.

    “We know that koalas need help to fight diseases like chlamydia. It’s a widespread threat impacting their reproductive health and causing infertility,” Watt said in a statement.

    Koalas are iconic Australian marsupials, like wombats and kangaroos. They spend most of their time eating and sleeping in eucalyptus trees, and their paws have two opposing thumbs to help them grasp and climb up tree trunks.

    Australia’s wild koala populations have declined steeply in the past two decades.

    Facing compounded threats from disease, habitat loss, climate change and road collisions, koalas could become extinct by 2050, according to a 2020 assessment from the New South Wales government.

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  • Florida’s plan to drop school vaccine rule won’t start for 90 days, won’t cover all diseases

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    Florida’s plan to drop school vaccine mandates likely won’t take effect for 90 days and would include only chickenpox and a few other illnesses unless lawmakers decide to extend it to other diseases, like polio and measles, the health department said Sunday.

    The department responded to a request for details, four days after Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, said the state would become the first to make vaccinations voluntary and let families decide whether to inoculate their children.

    It’s a retreat from decades of public policy and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among children. Despite that evidence, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed deep skepticism about vaccines.

    Florida’s plan would lift mandates on school vaccines for hepatitis B, chickenpox, Hib influenza and pneumococcal diseases, such as meningitis, the health department said.

    “The Department initiated the rule change on September 3, 2025, and anticipates the rule change will not be effective for approximately 90 days,” the state told The Associated Press in an email. The public school year in Florida started in August.

    All other vaccinations required under Florida law to attend school “remain in place, unless updated through legislation,” including vaccines for measles, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, mumps and tetanus, the department said.

    Lawmakers don’t meet again until January 2026, although committee meetings begin in October.

    Ladapo, appearing Sunday on CNN, repeated his message of free choice for childhood vaccines.

    “If you want them, God bless, you can have as many as you want,” he said. “And if you don’t want them, parents should have the ability and the power to decide what goes into their children’s bodies. It’s that simple.”

    Florida currently has a religious exemption for vaccine requirements. Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives globally over the past 50 years, the World Health Organization reported in 2024. The majority of those were infants and children.

    Dr. Rana Alissa, chair of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said making vaccines voluntary puts students and school staff at risk.

    This is the worst year for measles in the U.S. in more than three decades, with more than 1,400 cases confirmed nationwide, most of them in Texas, and three deaths.

    Whooping cough has killed at least two babies in Louisiana and a 5-year-old in Washington state since winter, as it too spreads rapidly. There have been more than 19,000 cases as of Aug. 23, nearly 2,000 more than this time last year, according to preliminary CDC data.

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  • Florida surgeon general Ladapo’s vaccine mandates opposition goes against medical mainstream

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    ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Dr. Joseph Ladapo, whose credentials include two Harvard University degrees, says that requiring vaccinations for diseases like measles, polio and chickenpox amounts to government-imposed “slavery.” It’s far from the first time Florida’s surgeon general has cut against the medical establishment grain.

    Ladapo, an appointee of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, made worldwide headlines this week by announcing Florida would seek to eliminate all mandated vaccinations for schoolchildren and others. He cast the immunization requirements, which date back decades and are considered a major global medical achievement that has saved millions of lives, as improper government intrusion in personal health decisions.

    “Every last one is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said at a news conference with DeSantis this week. “Who am I, or anyone else, to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don’t have that right.”

    So far, a concrete action plan for eliminating immunization mandates in Florida has not emerged, despite multiple requests by The Associated Press. Ladapo acknowledged some proposed changes would require the state Legislature to act. Educators and many health professionals are aghast.

    “Removing policies that keep our children healthy creates unnecessary confusion and fear,” said Dr. Rana Alissa, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Schools are tight-knit networks of children, educators, and families, making it easy for contagious diseases to spread.”

    Ladapo, 46, emigrated from Nigeria to the U.S. at age five with his parents. He earned a degree in chemistry from Wake Forest University and then attended Harvard, where he got his medical degree and also a doctorate in health policy.

    This is a well-trodden path for medical expertise. Ladapo was affiliated after Harvard with New York University and later UCLA, where his op-eds against the pandemic response were noticed by DeSantis, who tapped him as Florida surgeon general in 2021. Ladapo also got a professor position at the University of Florida medical school in the deal.

    Like the governor, Ladapo raised questions about COVID-19 policies that forced people to wear masks and move education online, keep their distance from others and show proof of COVID vaccinations to attend public events, go to a restaurant or take a cruise. Ladapo also misrepresented studies to raise doubts about the mRNA vaccine, the studies’ authors said.

    In a 2024 guidance statement, Ladapo’s Department of Health warned against using the COVID vaccine at all, contending that “the federal government has failed to provide sufficient data to support the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 boosters, or acknowledge previously demonstrated safety concerns associated with COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.” Those purported risks include respiratory tract infections, greater chance of autoimmune disease and cardiovascular problems.

    Almost every major medical or public health organization disputed those assertions, including the Food and Drug Administration: “The challenge we continue to face is the ongoing proliferation of misinformation and disinformation about these vaccines which results in vaccine hesitancy that lowers vaccine uptake,” said the FDA statement, adding that the agency “respectfully disagrees with the Florida Surgeon General’s opinion.”

    In his public comments, Ladapo makes clear he does not follow the guidance of government health experts who, in his view, don’t look at the full picture of how to tackle disease and improve public health. His agency did not respond to an Associated Press request for an interview.

    “It’s just this sea of insanity,” he said this week. “People are going to have to choose a side. People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions.”

    Ladapo’s focus on what he and DeSantis call “medical freedom” also fuels his skepticism about other long-established health policies, such as the FDA’s warning against consuming unpasteurized milk that can contain salmonella and other deadly bacteria, or the addition of fluoride in drinking water to promote healthy teeth.

    “At what point are you free to make your own decisions?” DeSantis said this week. “We’ve done a lot over the years to really be on the right side of fighting against the hysteria.”

    Ladapo has many critics in the public health realm and, increasingly, among politicians seeking to tie his unorthodox policies to DeSantis and other Republicans. U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, a Democrat from South Florida, wants Ladapo ousted.

    “Are we losing our minds? This is getting ridiculous and pathetic. Are we trying to kill millions of innocent children? Childhood vaccines save lives,” Wilson posted on social media this week. “Governor DeSantis must either remove Joseph Ladapo as Surgeon General or have him resign.”

    There’s no indication that will happen. Ladapo appears to have full support from DeSantis and many conservatives cheer his willingness to buck the medical establishment, including what some see as the untoward influence of pharmaceutical companies.

    “There are many brave people out there — moms & dads, doctors, scientists, and others — who have shown admirable courage in the fight for medical freedom,” Ladapo posted recently on the X social media platform. “Let’s continue. Much more work to be done.”

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  • Fla. to eliminate school vaccine mandates

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    As the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis prepares to make Florida the first state to remove school vaccine mandates, deep concern is spreading among doctors, parents and public health workers for the safety of children and others who might be vulnerable in a disease outbreak.


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    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

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    By JEFF MARTIN, MIKE SCHNEIDER and DANIEL KOZIN – Associated Press

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  • CDC receives new acting director amid turmoil

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    The turmoil triggered rare bipartisan alarm as Kennedy tries to advance anti-vaccine policies that are contradicted by decades of scientific research.


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    By MIKE STOBBE, AMANDA SEITZ and CHRIS MEGERIAN – Associated Press

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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?”

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

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  • Why is Congo struggling to contain mpox?

    Why is Congo struggling to contain mpox?

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    KAVUMU, Congo — Health authorities have struggled to contain outbreaks of mpox in Congo, a huge central African country where a myriad of existing problems makes stemming the spread particularly hard.

    Last month, the World Health Organization declared the outbreaks in Congo and about a dozen other African countries a global health emergency. And in Congo, scientists have identified a new strain of mpox that may spread more easily. It has reached areas where conflict and the displacement of a large number of people have already put health services under pressure.

    Overall, Congo has more than 21,000 of the 25,093 confirmed and suspected mpox cases in Africa this year, according to WHO’s most recent count.

    Yes, Congo is one of the African countries where mpox has been endemic for decades.

    Mpox, once known as monkeypox, comes from the same family of viruses as smallpox but causes milder symptoms such as fever. People with more serious cases can develop skin lesions. More than 720 people in Africa have died in the latest outbreaks, mostly in Congo.

    Mpox is a zoonotic disease, meaning it can spread to humans from infected animals. In the global mpox outbreak of 2022, the virus spread between people primarily through sex and close physical contact.

    In September 2023, mpox spread to Congo’s eastern province of South Kivu; it had previously been seen in the center and far west. Scientists then identified a new form of mpox in South Kivu that may be more infectious.

    The WHO said that from the outbreak in South Kivu, the virus spread among people elsewhere in the country, arriving in neighboring province North Kivu. Those two provinces — some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa — face escalating violence, a humanitarian crisis and other issues.

    More than 120 armed groups have been fighting each other and the Congolese army for years in the eastern part of the country over the control of minerals. That has forced millions of people fleeing violence into refugee camps or nearby towns.

    That means mpox is hitting already-stretched health facilities. Dr. Musole Mulambamunva Robert, medical director of the Kavumu hospital in eastern Congo, said it is “truly a challenge” — sometimes treating as many as four times the facility’s capacity for patients.

    With more than 6 million displaced people in the east, authorities and aid agencies were already struggling to provide food and healthcare, while fighting other diseases such as cholera. Many people have no access to soap, clean water or other basics.

    Some eastern Congo communities are out of reach of health clinics — roads are unreliable, and hourslong risky boat trips are sometimes the only means of transport, said Mercy Muthee Lake of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent.

    People can be more susceptible to severe mpox cases because of malnutrition and undiagnosed HIV, she said.

    She also said health workers in eastern Congo have requested more mpox training as medications to treat fever and ease pain run out.

    Health authorities “are up against it because it’s such a complex area,” said Chris Beyrer, of Duke University’s Global Health Institute.

    Africa has no capacity to produce mpox vaccines. Around 250,000 doses have arrived in Congo from the European Union and the United States, and more are expected. Congolese authorities say they need around 3 million vaccines. It will likely be weeks before any vaccines reach people in eastern Congo.

    For now, the vaccine is approved only for adults. There’s limited evidence of how it works in children.

    Vaccines are desperately needed, but they’re just “an additional tool,” said Emmanuel Lampaert, the Congo representative for Doctors Without Borders. The key, Lampaert said, is still identifying cases, isolating patients, and executing grassroots health and education campaigns.

    Local conditions make that trying — Lampaert noted it’s almost impossible to isolate cases among poor, displaced people.

    “Families with six to eight children are living in a hut, which is maybe the space of the bed we are sleeping in,” he said. “So, this is the reality.”

    Unlike the millions of dollars that poured into Congo for Ebola and COVID aid, the response to mpox has been sluggish, many critics say.

    Health experts say the sharp contrast is due to a lack of both funds and international interest.

    “Ebola is the most dangerous virus in the world, and COVID wiped out the world economy,” said professor Ali Bulabula, who works on infectious diseases in the medical department at Congo’s University of Kindu. “While mpox is a public health emergency of international concern, there is a lack of in-depth research and interest in the virus, as it’s still seen as a tropical disease, localized to Africa with no major impact on Western economies.”

    ___

    Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria, and Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa. AP reporter Sam Mednick contributed from Kamituga, Congo.

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    For more news on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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    The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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