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Tag: vaccination

  • Person with measles traveled through Maryland, Virginia last week, health officials say – WTOP News

    The Maryland Department of Health said the person traveled on trains from Jan. 7-8.

    A confirmed case of measles was reported in a person who traveled last week through Maryland while infectious, state health officials announced Sunday.

    The Maryland Department of Health said the person traveled on trains from Jan. 7-8, according to a news release.

    However, the agency said anyone who may have been near the following public areas may have been exposed:

    • Amtrak Northeast Regional train from Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station to D.C.’s Union Station from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 7.
    • Amtrak’s BWI Marshall Airport shuttle bus to and from the BWI Marshall train station and the drop-off points outside of the lower level of the airport from 10:45 p.m. on Jan. 7 to 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 8.
    • BWI Marshall Airport parking shuttle bus to and from the lower levels outside of the BWI Marshall Airport and the airport’s long-term parking lots from 11 p.m. on Jan. 7 to 2 a.m. on Jan. 8.

    State health officials said people who were not in these locations at the times specified were not exposed to the infectious person while they were in Maryland.

    MDH also said there were no exposures identified inside the terminals of the BWI Marshall Airport.

    The agency said additional exposures sites occurred in other states, and that information related to those exposures will be provided by those states.

    In a separate statement, the Virginia Department of Health also flagged the Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center Emergency Department and Executive Medicine Suite in Fort Belvoir as a potential exposure site.

    Officials said anyone who traveled to the site Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. to midnight, may have been exposed.

    VDH described the patient as a “preschool-age child” who had “recently traveled internationally.” The department said the incident marks the state’s second measles of the year.

    What to do if you’ve been exposed

    If you think you’ve been exposed, MDH suggests finding out if you’ve been vaccinated for measles or have had it before. If you’ve gotten two doses of a measles vaccine, or were born before 1957, you are generally considered protected.

    If you’re not sure if you’ve been immunized, check your status by calling your health care provider or requesting records through the My Immunization Record online portal.

    Now, if you’re not fully vaccinated or otherwise immune to measles and you might have been exposed, contact your health care provider or your local health department to discuss the best next steps.

    MDH said exposed individuals need to monitor for any early signs of measles for 21 days after the initial potential exposure. Symptoms can range from runny nose, cough, red and watery eyes, and a fever exceeding 101 degrees.

    If symptoms develop, the health agency stresses individuals must stay home, and to avoid public spaces. Individuals should contact a health care facility before arriving to any care centers.

    Diane Morris

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  • US overhauls childhood vaccine schedule to recommend fewer shots

    (CNN) — The US Department of Health and Human Services is recommending fewer vaccines for most American children, health officials said Monday.

    Health officials will continue to recommend the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines and immunizations against polio, chickenpox, HPV and others, but they are narrowing recommendations for vaccination against meningococcal disease, hepatitis B and hepatitis A to children who are broadly at higher risk for infections.

    They recommend that decisions on vaccinations against flu, Covid-19 and rotavirus be based on “shared clinical decision-making,” which means people who want one must consult with a health care provider.

    HHS said that its recommendations for immunizations against respiratory synctytial virus, or RSV, remain unchanged and that infants born to mothers who did not receive the vaccine should have one dose.

    The changes come amid a sharp increase in flu cases across the country. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported nine pediatric deaths from flu this season.

    HHS said that all insurers will still cover these vaccines without cost-sharing. However, the changes could present new hurdles for parents who need to consult with doctors about immunizations no longer recommended for healthy children.

    ‘Public health is not one size fits all’

    The new US schedule of childhood vaccines more closely resembles that of other developed nations such as Denmark, as CNN reported last month.

    Denmark does not currently recommend childhood vaccinations against rotavirus, hepatitis A, meningococcal, flu or chickenpox.

    US health officials initially planned to announce the changes in December, weeks after Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, newly named acting director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, gave a presentation on the Danish vaccine schedule to the CDC’s panel of vaccine advisers.

    The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices, was reconstituted last year with a new group of members after US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine skeptic, dismissed all previous appointees.

    The overhaul comes one month after President Donald Trump ordered the health department to review the childhood vaccine schedule.

    “It is ridiculous!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in December, after his executive order. “That is why I have just signed a Presidential memorandum directing the Department of Health and Human Services to ‘FAST TRACK’ a comprehensive evaluation of Vaccine Schedules from other Countries around the World, and better align the U.S. Vaccine Schedule.”

    In a post on X, Kennedy responded: “Thank you, Mr. President. We’re on it.”

    The new vaccine schedule is a “far more reasonable” one that protects children against “11 of the most serious and dangerous diseases,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday night. “Parents can still choose to give their children all of the Vaccinations, if they wish, and they will still be covered by insurance.”

    In a separate post, Trump signaled that he still wanted to see more changes: Namely, the separation of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three separate shots.

    Several public health experts warned that the changes announced Monday could fuel outbreaks of preventable diseases.

    “I think that a reduced schedule is going to endanger children and lay the groundwork for a resurgence in preventable disease,” said Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Outbreak Response Innovation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

    Denmark is not a good blueprint for US vaccine policy, said Anders Hviid, who leads vaccine safety and effectiveness research at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.

    They’re “two very different countries. Public health is not one size fits all,” he told CNN in an email.

    In Denmark, “everyone has access to excellent prenatal and childhood care. As I understand it, that is not the case for everyone in the US. Vaccines prevent infections that may have poor outcomes for children who do not have access to good healthcare.”

    Faltering information

    HHS in a statement said that reducing the number of recommended vaccines would help restore public trust in health agencies — and possibly confidence in vaccines themselves. The agency reasoned that despite recommending more shots, the US does not have higher vaccination rates than peer countries that rely on “education rather than mandates.”

    The government’s vaccine outreach and messaging has been vastly reshaped under Kennedy, who has questioned vaccine safety for decades.

    It is a “confusing time” for doctors and parents, Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Association of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, said Monday.

    “What was announced today is part of a decades-long effort on the part of the health secretary to spread fear and falsehoods about vaccines, and this is another step in the secretary’s effort to dismantle the US vaccination system,” O’Leary said.

    At the same time, public information about vaccination rates is faltering.

    Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services dropped requirements for states to report childhood vaccination status for beneficiaries, a move that experts say may raise unnecessary doubts about the importance of vaccines. CMS sent a letter to state health officials on December 30 stating that vaccination data no longer needs to be submitted to the agency that oversees Medicaid and Medicare.

    “This is another message that could create doubt in people’s minds about the need for vaccines, and that isn’t something that’s supported by current science,” said ​Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician and chief medical officer of the Association of Immunization Managers.

    The CMS requirement for reporting childhood immunization status was relatively new — it was implemented in 2024 — and there are other federal systems to track immunization rates. But more than 40% of children in the US are covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, and immunization surveillance offers important insights.

    CMS said it plans to “explore options to facilitate the development of new vaccine measures” after dropping this requirement. These new measures may include tracking how often parents are informed about vaccine safety and side effects and alternative vaccine schedules, as well as how to capture “preferences related to vaccines” and how religious exemptions may be accounted for.

    States may continue to voluntarily report childhood vaccination data to CMS, but Fiscus says that may depend on the political party of local leaders.

    “I think this is going to contribute to this schism between states based on their party of government,” she said. “We’ll see more of this patchwork of state policies around immunizations, and that’s unfortunate, because these diseases don’t really care about state borders so much.”

    Can’t ‘cowboy’ change

    The changes drew criticism from Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who voted for Kennedy as health secretary only after assurances that he would “work within” the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems.

    “Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker,” Cassidy wrote in an X post that also pointed to ongoing measles and whooping cough outbreaks.

    Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Pensions and Labor Committee, asked Kennedy months ago to testify before the committee. The request followed a September hearing with ousted CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez, who alleged that Kennedy sought to override vaccine decisions.

    Health officials said Monday that they consulted with career staff at the CDC and the FDA about the changes to the vaccine schedule.

    Officials also insisted that these changes do not sideline ACIP, the panel of vaccine advisers that convenes for public meetings several times a year to discuss and vote on recommendations.

    A senior official said that ACIP will continue to meet several times a year and that the CDC will update the vaccine schedule based on their advice.

    But a sudden, broad change to the schedule without public debate won’t instill confidence, said public health experts including former ACIP member Dr. Noel Brewer, a professor of public health and health behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    “We can’t cowboy the nation to good health with a bunch of sudden and poorly considered health policy changes,” Brewer added.

    Correction: A previous version of this report incorrectly listed RSV among the vaccinations with new recommendations.

    Sarah Owermohle and CNN

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  • CDC website changed to include false claims that link autism and vaccines

    (CNN) — Scientific information on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website was replaced Wednesday with anti-vaccine talking points that don’t rule out a link between vaccines and autism, despite an abundance of evidence that there’s no connection.

    Bullet points on the top of the page now state that “vaccines do not cause autism is not an evidence-based claim” because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.

    The language is a common tactic used to cast doubt on the safety of vaccines, said Alison Singer, president and co-founder of the Autism Science Foundation.

    “You can’t do a scientific study to show that something does not cause something else,” she said Thursday.

    “All we can do in the scientific community is point to the preponderance of the evidence, the number of studies, the fact that the studies are so conclusive,” Singer said. “These studies all agree. They’re very clear, and it’s time to move on.”

    The preponderance of scientific evidence shows that vaccines do not cause autism, Singer said.

    “No environmental factor has been better studied as a potential cause of autism than vaccines. This includes vaccine ingredients as well as the body’s response to vaccines,” the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday.

    Dr. Paul Offit agrees. In a post on Substack on Thursday, Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said scientific studies can “never prove never.”

    “If RFK Jr. wanted to be honest with the American public, he would make it clear on the CDC’s website that chicken nuggets also might cause autism, which has never been and will never be disproven,” Offit wrote.

    HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said Thursday, “We are updating the CDC’s website to reflect gold standard, evidence-based science.”

    However, Dr. Marty Makary, commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, recently told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta on an episode of his “Chasing Life” podcast that he doesn’t think vaccines cause autism.

    “I think there’s no medicine that’s 1,000% safe,” Makary said. “And I think we have to remember that with everything. I think the absolutism around some of this stuff creates mistrust. And when we say they’re 1,000% safe and it’s impossible for there to be a single complication of a vaccine, that’s the kind of rhetoric, I think, that doesn’t resonate well. So I think we have be humble and take a very honest approach.”

    Studies find no relationship

    Other bullets on the updated CDC page say studies supporting a link between vaccines and autism have been ignored by health authorities. This too is not true: Studies showing a connection between vaccines and autism have proved to be poorly done or were fraudulent. There are, however, many well-done, credible studies that find no such relationship.

    One of the largest studies looking at this question was published in 2019. Researchers in Denmark enrolled more than 650,000 children born between 1999 and 2011 and followed them from the time they were 1 year of age until the end of August 2013. Roughly 6,500 children were diagnosed with autism during the study period.

    When the researchers compared those who received the MMR vaccine with those who did not, they found no significant difference in the risk of developing autism. That held true whether the kids got other vaccines, such as the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine; whether they had siblings with autism; or a host of other factors, such as whether certain kids might be prone to developing a form of regressive autism after getting their shots.

    “This study strongly supports that MMR vaccine does not increase the risk for autism,” the authors wrote in the conclusion.

    This study is not cited on the CDC’s updated “state of the evidence” on MMR vaccines, however. Instead, it mentions older evidence reviews and raises questions about aluminum, an ingredient added to some vaccines to boost their protection.

    The new CDC updates do mention another recent Danish study, published in 2025, which found no link between aluminum in childhood vaccines and any of 50 disorders, including neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism. But instead of accepting the overall conclusion of the study, the new CDC page tries to cast doubt on it by homing in on details of data in a supplementary table, saying the findings and other “warrant further investigation” into aluminum exposure and chronic diseases.

    The CDC page also says the US Department of Health and Human Services has launched a comprehensive assessment of the causes of autism, including investigations on plausible biologic mechanisms and potential causal links.

    Singer said this is a waste of valuable research money and a distraction from strong science showing that most cases of autism can be traced to genes that affect a baby’s brain development.

    The main heading on the page states that “Vaccines do not cause Autism,” but it has an asterisk that directs readers to a footnote: “The header ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ has not been removed due to an agreement with the chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that it would remain on the CDC website.”

    The footnote seems to refer to a commitment by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician and Republican from Louisiana, during his confirmation process that language on the CDC website “pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism” would not be removed. Cassidy described the promise in a speech in which he explained his support for Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist.

    Cassidy told CNN on Thursday that he had spoken with Kennedy.

    In a statement posted on X on Thursday, Cassidy said, “I’m a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine-preventable diseases. What parents need to hear right now is vaccines for measles, polio, hepatitis B and other childhood diseases are safe and effective and will not cause autism. Any statement to the contrary is wrong, irresponsible, and actively makes Americans sicker.”

    ‘Dangerous health disinformation’

    Dr. Peter Hotez, who is director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and wrote a book called “Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism” about his daughter’s diagnosis, said the updated information on the CDC’s page follows a well-worn playbook.

    “They’ve decided they want to prove vaccines cause autism. So they keep making a series of assertions,” Hotez said, going back to debunked research that claimed the MMR vaccines caused autism and a retracted 2005 Rolling Stone article by Kennedy that asserted the preservative thimerosal caused autism.

    There have also been claims that aluminum in vaccines was a cause of autism, and those have been disproved, Hotez said.

    Hotez says the updates to the CDC’s page are “pure garbage.”

    “I consider it a piece of dangerous health disinformation, and it needs to be removed right away,” he said.

    Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who recently resigned as director of the CDC’s National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on social media late Wednesday that the changes are “a national embarrassment.”

    “The weaponization of the voice of CDC is getting worse. This is a public health emergency,” he wrote.

    Daskalakis said the agency’s scientists were completely blindsided by the page update.

    “This distortion of science under the CDC moniker is the reason I resigned with my colleagues,” he told CNN.

    Rather than restoring trust in America’s health agencies, moves like this have undermined it, said Dr. Sean O’ Leary, a pediatrician who chairs the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

    “I fear that it’s going to lead to fewer children being vaccinated, children suffering from diseases they didn’t need to suffer from,” O’Leary said.

    This is the latest move by the Trump administration to alter longstanding US vaccine policy and practice and cast doubt on vaccinations.

    Kennedy has hired longtime anti-vax allies – including David Geier, a discredited researcher who was once disciplined by the Maryland State Board of Physicians for practicing medicine without a license, and Lyn Redwood, a nurse who was president of the World Mercury Project, which later became Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group Kennedy ran before campaigning for office – to undertake new evaluations of government data in an effort to prove conspiracy theories that hazards of vaccines have long been hidden from the public.

    The rate of routine childhood vaccinations has dropped in the United States, allowing preventable diseases including measles and whooping cough to surge. In a call with state health officials Monday, the CDC disease detectives leading the measles response suggested that the US status as a country that has eliminated continuous measles spread was in jeopardy.

    Brenda Goodman and CNN

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  • A new virus variant and lagging vaccinations may mean the US is in for a severe flu season

    The United States may be heading into its second severe flu season in a row, driven by a mutated strain called subclade K that’s behind early surges in the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.Last winter’s season was extreme, too. The U.S. had its highest rates of flu hospitalizations in nearly 15 years. At least 280 children died of influenza, the highest number since pediatric death numbers were required to be shared in 2004.Now, with a new variant in the mix, experts say we’re on track for a repeat. And with flu vaccinations down and holiday travel on the way, they worry that things may look much worse in the weeks ahead.The good news: Early analysis shows that this season’s flu shots offer some protection against being hospitalized with this variant, especially for kids. The bad news is that many Americans appear to be skipping their flu vaccines this year. New data from prescription data company IQVIA shows that vaccinations are down compared to where they usually are at this point in the year.A new playerFlu activity is low but rising quickly in the United States, according to the latest FluView report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Most of the flu viruses identified this season have been an A strain called H3N2, and half of those have come from subclade K, a variant that was responsible for a rougher-than-normal flu season this summer in the Southern Hemisphere.That variant wasn’t a major player when scientists decided which strains should be in the annual flu shots, so the vaccines cover a related but slightly different group of viruses.”It’s not like we’re expecting to get complete loss of protection for the vaccine, but perhaps we might expect a little bit of a drop-off if this is the virus that sort of dominates the season, and early indications are that’s probably going to be the case,” said Dr. Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for studies on the ecology of influenza in animals and birds at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.Early analysis by the U.K. Health Security Agency shows that subclade K has seven gene changes on a key segment of the virus. Those mutations change the shape of this region, making it harder for the body’s defenses to recognize.”That’s the predominant thing that our immune system targets with antibodies, and that’s also pretty much what’s in the vaccine,” said Dr. Adam Lauring, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School.UKHSA scientists found that the current flu vaccines are still providing decent protection against subclade K viruses. Vaccination cut the odds of an emergency department visit or hospitalization for the flu by almost 75% in children. The effectiveness for adults, even those over 65, was lower, about 30% to 40% against needing to visit the hospital or ER.But the scientists offer a caveat: These results are from early in the season, before the protection from seasonal flu vaccines has had time to wane or wear off. The findings are posted in a recent preprint study, which means it was published ahead of scrutiny from outside experts.Still, some protection is better than no protection, and while subclade K is expected to dominate the season, it won’t be the only flu strain circulating. No one gets to pick what they’re exposed to. Lauring said his daughter has just recovered from the flu, but it was a B-type strain.At the same time this new variant has emerged, flu vaccinations appear to be down in the U.S. According to IQVIA, about 64% of all flu vaccinations were administered at retail pharmacies, which administered roughly 26.5 million flu shots between August and the end of October. That’s more than 2 million fewer shots than the 28.7 million given over the same time frame in 2024.”I’m not surprised,” said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, who directs the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health. Vaccine skepticism expressed by leaders of the US Department of Health and Human Services has “injected chaos into the whole vaccination system,” she said.”There’s been a lot of attention on really non-issues,” like vaccine ingredients and separating shots, that she thinks “at the best, left people confused but possibly at the worst have left people worried about getting vaccinated,” she added.Flu vaccinations have also fallen in Australia, where subclade K was the predominant virus this year. As a result, flu hit a record, with more than 443,000 cases. Flu season in the Southern Hemisphere typically runs from May to July, so infectious disease experts often look to those countries for a preview of what might be on the way to North America.”What they saw in Australia is that they had a bad season. And so it’s concerning for you and us, what’s coming,” said Dr. Earl Rubin, director of the infectious disease division at the Montreal Children’s Hospital in Canada.’This is the time we start to see the rise’It’s difficult to say whether subclade K actually makes a person sicker than other flu strains, but if it drives more cases, it will certainly drive hospitalizations too, Rubin said.”When you look at severity, the more cases you have, if the same percentage get hospitalized, obviously you’re going to have more hospitalization if you have more cases. So it sometimes will look like the severity is also worse,” he said.Lab testing data has begun to show an uptick in flu cases.”This is the time we start to see the rise,” said Dr. Allison McMullen, a clinical microbiologist at BioMerieux, which makes the BioFire test, a popular diagnostic tool for respiratory pathogens.The company anonymously compiles its test results into a syndromic surveillance tool, which can offer a glimpse of what bugs are making people sick at any given time. At the beginning of the month, less than 1% of tests were positive for type A flu. Now it’s 2.4% – still low numbers but going up briskly, which aligns with the CDC trend.”We’re going to start seeing heavy holiday travel before we know it,” McMullen added. “With the rising cases that we’re seeing the U.K. and Japan, it can definitely be a bellwether for what we’re going to see in North America.”Signals are also rising in wastewater, said Dr. Marlene Wolfe, an assistant professor of environmental health at Emory University. In October, 18% of samples in the WastewaterSCAN network — an academically led wastewater monitoring program based at Stanford University, in partnership with Emory — were positive for type A flu, Wolfe said. In November, that number had risen to 40%.”Flu is something where, when it’s not in season, we don’t detect it very frequently in wastewater,” Wolfe said. COVID, on the other hand, can be detected pretty much all the time, which makes it challenging to know if it’s going up or down, she said.The scientists can set a threshold for when they can declare that a specific area is in flu season, Wolfe says. So far, just four of the 147 sites they monitor in 40 states have reached that threshold. Those sites are in the Northeast — in Maine and Vermont — in Iowa and in Hawaii.”I am concerned, I guess, that we could have a big flu season this year based on what we’re seeing in other parts of the world, and particularly Europe and elsewhere,” Michigan’s Lauring said.”It’s not too late. Go and get your flu shot,” Lauring advised. “And be alert that it’s out there.”

    The United States may be heading into its second severe flu season in a row, driven by a mutated strain called subclade K that’s behind early surges in the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.

    Last winter’s season was extreme, too. The U.S. had its highest rates of flu hospitalizations in nearly 15 years. At least 280 children died of influenza, the highest number since pediatric death numbers were required to be shared in 2004.

    Now, with a new variant in the mix, experts say we’re on track for a repeat. And with flu vaccinations down and holiday travel on the way, they worry that things may look much worse in the weeks ahead.

    The good news: Early analysis shows that this season’s flu shots offer some protection against being hospitalized with this variant, especially for kids. The bad news is that many Americans appear to be skipping their flu vaccines this year. New data from prescription data company IQVIA shows that vaccinations are down compared to where they usually are at this point in the year.

    A new player

    Flu activity is low but rising quickly in the United States, according to the latest FluView report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Most of the flu viruses identified this season have been an A strain called H3N2, and half of those have come from subclade K, a variant that was responsible for a rougher-than-normal flu season this summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

    That variant wasn’t a major player when scientists decided which strains should be in the annual flu shots, so the vaccines cover a related but slightly different group of viruses.

    “It’s not like we’re expecting to get complete loss of protection for the vaccine, but perhaps we might expect a little bit of a drop-off if this is the virus that sort of dominates the season, and early indications are that’s probably going to be the case,” said Dr. Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for studies on the ecology of influenza in animals and birds at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

    Early analysis by the U.K. Health Security Agency shows that subclade K has seven gene changes on a key segment of the virus. Those mutations change the shape of this region, making it harder for the body’s defenses to recognize.

    “That’s the predominant thing that our immune system targets with antibodies, and that’s also pretty much what’s in the vaccine,” said Dr. Adam Lauring, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School.

    UKHSA scientists found that the current flu vaccines are still providing decent protection against subclade K viruses. Vaccination cut the odds of an emergency department visit or hospitalization for the flu by almost 75% in children. The effectiveness for adults, even those over 65, was lower, about 30% to 40% against needing to visit the hospital or ER.

    But the scientists offer a caveat: These results are from early in the season, before the protection from seasonal flu vaccines has had time to wane or wear off. The findings are posted in a recent preprint study, which means it was published ahead of scrutiny from outside experts.

    Still, some protection is better than no protection, and while subclade K is expected to dominate the season, it won’t be the only flu strain circulating. No one gets to pick what they’re exposed to. Lauring said his daughter has just recovered from the flu, but it was a B-type strain.

    At the same time this new variant has emerged, flu vaccinations appear to be down in the U.S. According to IQVIA, about 64% of all flu vaccinations were administered at retail pharmacies, which administered roughly 26.5 million flu shots between August and the end of October. That’s more than 2 million fewer shots than the 28.7 million given over the same time frame in 2024.

    “I’m not surprised,” said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, who directs the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health. Vaccine skepticism expressed by leaders of the US Department of Health and Human Services has “injected chaos into the whole vaccination system,” she said.

    “There’s been a lot of attention on really non-issues,” like vaccine ingredients and separating shots, that she thinks “at the best, left people confused but possibly at the worst have left people worried about getting vaccinated,” she added.

    Flu vaccinations have also fallen in Australia, where subclade K was the predominant virus this year. As a result, flu hit a record, with more than 443,000 cases. Flu season in the Southern Hemisphere typically runs from May to July, so infectious disease experts often look to those countries for a preview of what might be on the way to North America.

    “What they saw in Australia is that they had a bad season. And so it’s concerning for you and us, what’s coming,” said Dr. Earl Rubin, director of the infectious disease division at the Montreal Children’s Hospital in Canada.

    ‘This is the time we start to see the rise’

    It’s difficult to say whether subclade K actually makes a person sicker than other flu strains, but if it drives more cases, it will certainly drive hospitalizations too, Rubin said.

    “When you look at severity, the more cases you have, if the same percentage get hospitalized, obviously you’re going to have more hospitalization if you have more cases. So it sometimes will look like the severity is also worse,” he said.

    Lab testing data has begun to show an uptick in flu cases.

    “This is the time we start to see the rise,” said Dr. Allison McMullen, a clinical microbiologist at BioMerieux, which makes the BioFire test, a popular diagnostic tool for respiratory pathogens.

    The company anonymously compiles its test results into a syndromic surveillance tool, which can offer a glimpse of what bugs are making people sick at any given time. At the beginning of the month, less than 1% of tests were positive for type A flu. Now it’s 2.4% – still low numbers but going up briskly, which aligns with the CDC trend.

    “We’re going to start seeing heavy holiday travel before we know it,” McMullen added. “With the rising cases that we’re seeing the U.K. and Japan, it can definitely be a bellwether for what we’re going to see in North America.”

    Signals are also rising in wastewater, said Dr. Marlene Wolfe, an assistant professor of environmental health at Emory University. In October, 18% of samples in the WastewaterSCAN network — an academically led wastewater monitoring program based at Stanford University, in partnership with Emory — were positive for type A flu, Wolfe said. In November, that number had risen to 40%.

    “Flu is something where, when it’s not in season, we don’t detect it very frequently in wastewater,” Wolfe said. COVID, on the other hand, can be detected pretty much all the time, which makes it challenging to know if it’s going up or down, she said.

    The scientists can set a threshold for when they can declare that a specific area is in flu season, Wolfe says. So far, just four of the 147 sites they monitor in 40 states have reached that threshold. Those sites are in the Northeast — in Maine and Vermont — in Iowa and in Hawaii.

    “I am concerned, I guess, that we could have a big flu season this year based on what we’re seeing in other parts of the world, and particularly Europe and elsewhere,” Michigan’s Lauring said.

    “It’s not too late. Go and get your flu shot,” Lauring advised. “And be alert that it’s out there.”

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  • Missed your annual flu shot? Local doctor says: ‘Time to get it’ – WTOP News

    This year’s flu season may arrive later than usual, but that does not necessarily mean it will be mild. It does mean that it’s not too late to get your flu vaccine.

    There is no one-to-one correlation between cold weather and getting sick.

    That old adage about stepping outside and catching a cold does not tell the whole story. What does matter is that winter pushes people indoors and into closer contact, making it easier for viruses to spread.

    Children’s National Hospital infectious disease physician Dr. Alexandra Yonts told WTOP that this year’s flu season may arrive later than usual, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be mild.

    She warned flu cases could start climbing “after Christmas and New Year’s,” when people travel and families gather.

    “Last year, almost 300 children died from influenza, and most of (them) were previously healthy,” Yonts said.

    She said one reason the flu shot remains essential is for protecting people with respiratory illnesses, existing health conditions or weakened immune systems.

    And no, the flu shot cannot give you the flu.

    “In common vocabulary, we throw around the term ‘flu’ to mean any sort of viral illness that gives us a fever. But there are hosts of other viruses that are not covered by the influenza vaccine that can still make you sick,” she said. “Protecting you against influenza specifically is still a priority.”

    Yonts added that getting vaccinated is especially important before visiting young children, elderly relatives or immunocompromised family members during the holidays.

    “Think of it as doing it for those people, if you aren’t interested in doing it just for yourself,” she said.

    If you’re behind, Yonts said getting both the flu shot and the updated COVID booster at the same visit is completely safe: “That has been studied, and it shows there’s no major difference in the side effects. If anything, you’re getting them both out of the way at once.”

    Flu shots are recommended for those 6 months old and older, and doctors say it takes about two weeks to build full immunity.

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

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

    Abigail Constantino

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  • A new virus variant and lagging vaccinations may mean the US is in for a severe flu season

    (CNN) — The United States may be heading into its second severe flu season in a row, driven by a mutated strain called subclade K that’s behind early surges in the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.

    Last winter’s season was extreme, too. The US had its highest rates of flu hospitalizations in nearly 15 years. At least 280 children died of influenza, the highest number since pediatric death numbers were required to be shared in 2004.

    Now, with a new variant in the mix, experts say we’re on track for a repeat. And with flu vaccinations down and holiday travel on the way, they worry that things may look much worse in the weeks ahead.

    The good news: Early analysis shows that this season’s flu shots offer some protection against being hospitalized with this variant, especially for kids. The bad news is that many Americans appear to be skipping their flu vaccines this year. New data from prescription data company IQVIA shows that vaccinations are down compared to where they usually are at this point in the year.

    A new player

    Flu activity is low but rising quickly in the United States, according to the latest FluView report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Most of the flu viruses identified this season have been an A strain called H3N2, and half of those have come from subclade K, a variant that was responsible for a rougher-than-normal flu season this summer in the Southern Hemisphere.

    That variant wasn’t a major player when scientists decided which strains should be in the annual flu shots, so the vaccines cover a related but slightly different group of viruses.

    “It’s not like we’re expecting to get complete loss of protection for the vaccine, but perhaps we might expect a little bit of a drop-off if this is the virus that sort of dominates the season, and early indications are that’s probably going to be the case,” said Dr. Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for studies on the ecology of influenza in animals and birds at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

    Early analysis by the UK Health Security Agency shows that subclade K has seven gene changes on a key segment of the virus. Those mutations change the shape of this region, making it harder for the body’s defenses to recognize.

    “That’s the predominant thing that our immune system targets with antibodies, and that’s also pretty much what’s in the vaccine,” said Dr. Adam Lauring, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School.

    UKHSA scientists found that the current flu vaccines are still providing decent protection against subclade K viruses. Vaccination cut the odds of an emergency department visit or hospitalization for the flu by almost 75% in children. The effectiveness for adults, even those over 65, was lower, about 30% to 40% against needing to visit the hospital or ER.

    But the scientists offer a caveat: These results are from early in the season, before the protection from seasonal flu vaccines has had time to wane or wear off. The findings are posted in a recent preprint study, which means it was published ahead of scrutiny from outside experts.

    Still, some protection is better than no protection, and while subclade K is expected to dominate the season, it won’t be the only flu strain circulating. No one gets to pick what they’re exposed to. Lauring said his daughter has just recovered from the flu, but it was a B-type strain.

    At the same time this new variant has emerged, flu vaccinations appear to be down in the US. According to IQVIA, about 64% of all flu vaccinations were administered at retail pharmacies, which administered roughly 26.5 million flu shots between August and the end of October. That’s more than 2 million fewer shots than the 28.7 million given over the same time frame in 2024.

    “I’m not surprised,” said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, who directs the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health. Vaccine skepticism expressed by leaders of the US Department of Health and Human Services has “injected chaos into the whole vaccination system,” she said.

    “There’s been a lot of attention on really non-issues,” like vaccine ingredients and separating shots, that “I think, at the best, left people confused but possibly at the worst have left people worried about getting vaccinated,” she added.

    Flu vaccinations have also fallen in Australia, where subclade K was the predominant virus this year. As a result, flu hit a record, with more than 443,000 cases. Flu season in the Southern Hemisphere typically runs from May to July, so infectious disease experts often look to those countries for a preview of what might be on the way to North America.

    “What they saw in Australia is that they had a bad season. And so it’s concerning for you and us, what’s coming,” said Dr. Earl Rubin, director of the infectious disease division at the Montreal Children’s Hospital in Canada.

    ‘This is the time we start to see the rise’

    It’s difficult to say whether subclade K actually makes a person sicker than other flu strains, but if it drives more cases, it will certainly drive hospitalizations too, Rubin said.

    “When you look at severity, the more cases you have, if the same percentage get hospitalized, obviously you’re going to have more hospitalization if you have more cases. So it sometimes will look like the severity is also worse,” he said.

    Lab testing data has begun to show an uptick in flu cases.

    “This is the time we start to see the rise,” said Dr. Allison McMullen, a clinical microbiologist at BioMerieux, which makes the BioFire test, a popular diagnostic tool for respiratory pathogens.

    The company anonymously compiles its test results into a syndromic surveillance tool, which can offer a glimpse of what bugs are making people sick at any given time. At the beginning of the month, less than 1% of tests were positive for type A flu. Now it’s 2.4% – still low numbers but going up briskly, which aligns with the CDC trend.

    “We’re going to start seeing heavy holiday travel before we know it,” McMullen added. “With the rising cases that we’re seeing the UK and Japan, it can definitely be a bellwether for what we’re going to see in North America.”

    Signals are also rising in wastewater, said Dr. Marlene Wolfe, an assistant professor of environmental health at Emory University. In October, 18% of samples in the WastewaterSCAN network – an academically led wastewater monitoring program based at Stanford University, in partnership with Emory – were positive for type A flu, Wolfe said. In November, that number had risen to 40%.

    “Flu is something where, when it’s not in season, we don’t detect it very frequently in wastewater,” Wolfe said. Covid, on the other hand, can be detected pretty much all the time, which makes it challenging to know if it’s going up or down, she said.

    The scientists can set a threshold for when they can declare that a specific area is in flu season, Wolfe says. So far, just four of the 147 sites they monitor in 40 states have reached that threshold. Those sites are in the Northeast – in Maine and Vermont – in Iowa and in Hawaii.

    “I am concerned, I guess, that we could have a big flu season this year based on what we’re seeing in other parts of the world, and particularly Europe and elsewhere,” Michigan’s Lauring said.

    “It’s not too late. Go and get your flu shot,” Lauring advised. “And be alert that it’s out there.”

    Brenda Goodman and CNN

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  • Ex-CDC director set to tell senators that RFK Jr. required political sign-off on decisions, called for firings without cause

    (CNN) — Dr. Susan Monarez, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is expected to say in a Senate committee hearing this week that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put politics before public health when he required that all CDC policy and personnel decisions be cleared by political staff, according to her prepared testimony.

    Monarez is set to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in a hearing Wednesday.

    She was ousted last month, just 29 days into her tenure as CDC director, amid clashes with Kennedy over vaccine policies. She will be joined at the hearing by Dr. Debra Houry, who stepped down from her role as the CDC’s chief medical officer in protest after Monarez’s ouster.

    “I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity,” Monarez says in her prepared testimony. “I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials without cause, or resign.”

    HHS has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on Monarez’s claims.

    In her prepared testimony, Monarez offers new details about her brief tenure as CDC director, including saying Kennedy issued a directive that CDC policy and personnel decisions required prior approval from political staff — a break from the practice of past administrations.

    Bloomberg first reported on the prepared testimony Monday.

    Monarez also says that on August 2, she learned from media reports that Kennedy had removed liaison members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — an influential group of outside experts who advise the agency on vaccinations – essentially being blindsided by the news.

    Then, “on the morning of August 25, Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official,” Monarez says. “He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy, without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign.”

    Monarez says she told Kennedy that she could not “pre-approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence” and that she had no basis to fire scientific experts.

    “On August 25, I could have stayed silent, agreed to demands, and no one would have known,” Monarez’s testimony says. “What the public would have seen were scientists dismissed without cause and vaccine protections quietly eroded — all under the authority of a Senate-confirmed Director with ‘unimpeachable credentials.’ I could have kept the office and the title. But I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity.”

    Kennedy removed all 17 sitting members of ACIP in June. The committee now includes an entirely new group of experts, who are scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday to discuss Covid-19 vaccines as well as immunizations against hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella and varicella. Several of the new members have made unproven claims about vaccines, including one who said, without evidence, that Covid shots are causing “unprecedented levels of death and harm in young people.”

    Monarez says the new composition of the committee has “raised concerns from the medical community.”

    “There is real risk that recommendations could be made restricting access to vaccines for children and others in need without rigorous scientific review,” she says. “With no permanent CDC Director in place, those recommendations could be adopted. The stakes are not theoretical. We have already seen the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years, which claimed the lives of two children. If vaccine protections are weakened, preventable diseases will return.”

    Jacqueline Howard and CNN

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  • RFK Jr. promised to ‘Make Our Children Healthy Again.’ Here’s how he plans to do it

    (CNN) — President Donald Trump’s strategy to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ includes investigating vaccine injuries and pharmaceutical practices but stops short of new regulatory action, for now.

    US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unveiled the MAHA strategy on Tuesday, joined by Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, and other top Trump officials.

    The report hews closely to a draft document circulated in August that cites earlier Trump administration announcements — developing a definition for ultraprocessed foods, educating the public about synthetic kratom — but largely bypassed industry crackdowns.

    Language around pesticides strategy also remained unchanged. Environmental and food activists had rallied for the administration to include steps to reduce pesticide usage and probe potential health risks of commonly used chemicals such as RoundUp.

    The report says that USDA, EPA and the National Institutes of Health will develop a framework to study cumulative exposures to chemicals including pesticides and microplastics. USDA and EPA will also invest in new farming approaches to reduce chemical use, and EPA will launch a public awareness campaign about the limited risk of approved products.

    The commission’s first report this May suggested a broad range of factors driving chronic disease in the US, including ultraprocessed foods, environmental exposures, and overprescription of pharmaceuticals like antidepressants.

    The report noted previous announcements that HHS, the NIH and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are studying the causes of autism. Kennedy had previously promised some answers on the root causes in September; NIH is expected to announce autism research grants this month.

    Recent reports suggest that HHS will issue a report that links the development of autism to taking Tylenol during pregnancy.

    Medicines and vaccines

    Kennedy has drawn criticism for suggesting antidepressants, particularly those that are part of a family known as SSRIs are as addictive as heroin and can be dangerous. Following the August 27 shooting in Minneapolis, he told Fox News that HHS is launching studies “on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence.”

    SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are the most prescribed class of antidepressants for depression, anxiety disorders and many other mental health conditions. Several SSRIs have been on the market in the United States since the 1990s, including Prozac, Zoloft and Celexa. Experts agree that there is no scientific evidence or correlation between these drugs and violence towards others.

    Tuesday’s report states that HHS will assemble a working group of federal officials to evaluate SSRI prescribing patterns, specifically among children. HHS will also “evaluate the therapeutic harms and benefits of current diagnostic thresholds,” or the current common practices doctors use to diagnose patients with mental health disorders.

    Dr. Theresa Miskimen Rivera, president of the American Psychiatric Association said access to care, not over-medication is the bigger problem when it comes to helping kids’ mental health in the country, and there is no mention of the issue in the report. The report said addressing a child’s nutrition, screen time, and exercise can improve their mental health, but can’t address everything. “Psychiatric conditions are complex in nature,” she said. Extreme poverty, post traumatic stress disorder, trauma-related factors should also be addressed, but there is no mention in the report of any of those issues either.

    “In terms of over medication, that’s not what we do. We have a comprehensive evaluation and we are evidence based. We diagnose than create a comprehensive treatment plan, “ Miskimen Rivera told CNN. “Medication can save lives, not only in children, but in adults and elderly.”

    When asked about whether or not the commission chose to consider gun violence – the leading cause of death for children – as one of the issues to be investigated, Kennedy doubled down on the issue of prescription drugs, saying “We are doing studies now, or initiating studies to look at the correlation and the connection, potential connection between over medicating our kids and this violence.”

    HHS will also work with the White House Domestic Policy Council on a new vaccine framework that, the report said, will ensure “America has the best childhood vaccine schedule” and ensure “scientific and medical freedom.”

    The report comes as Kennedy continues to defend his shakeup of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over vaccine policy, including the ouster of CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez.

    The administration will also increase oversight of “deceptive” direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical products, including from social media influencers and telehealth companies, it said.

    Food policy stays the course

    FDA will continue work on developing a definition for ultraprocessed foods, but the report bypasses recommendations, like those of former FDA Director Dr. David Kessler, to essentially order certain additives off the market until they are reviewed.

    Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tufts Food is Medicine Institute said a definition of ultraprocessed foods would be “really important.” With more than half of calories in the food supply coming from ultraprocessed foods, addressing this and other issues involving the nation’s diet would mean a “massive fight with the industry and is going to be incredibly controversial, but is much needed.”

    “Overall, this is really quite thorough, quite specific, and even if parts of this are accomplished, this could have tremendous positive impact for Americans,” Mozaffarian told CNN.

    Other experts, like Marion Nestle, agreed the report was ambitious in scope, but noted it fell short on regulatory action. “What’s still missing is regulation. So much of this is voluntary, work with, promote, partner,” said Nestle, who is the Paulette Goddard professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.

    The report also nods to new, user-friendly dietary guidelines expected later this year. Kennedy has promised a vastly shortened set of recommendations that will emphasize whole foods.

    The commission also cited ongoing work to reduce ultraprocessed foods in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Head Start.

    While the report also touches on agriculture deregulation with the aim of making it easier for small farms to get greater access to markets and schools, Ken Cook, co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, a health advocacy organization said the report abandons earlier MAHA promises to ban toxic pesticides and instead “echoes the pesticide industry’s talking points.”

    “Secretary Kennedy and President Trump cynically convinced millions they’d protect children from harmful farm chemicals – promises now exposed as hollow,” Cook said in a statement.

    There were minor changes from the draft document leaked in August. For instance, the August 6 draft stated that the FDA and other agencies will crack down on “Illegal Chinese Vapes,” while the final version promises enforcement on vapes more broadly.

    “We support the goal of making children healthier and addressing and preventing chronic disease, but unfortunately, the recommendations fall short in some really critical ways,” Laura Kate Bender, vice president nationwide advocacy and public policy for the American Lung Association told CNN.

    “They continue to cast doubt on vaccines, one of the most, important, proven public health interventions that we can have for kids health. They don’t address some major contributors to diseases in kids like pollution, tobacco use, beyond the mention of vaping, and this report is coming out at the same time that we’re continuing to see dramatic cuts in staff and funding of a lot of the programs that could make the good parts of the report a reality.”

    The report’s emphasis on kids’ health can help overall, Dr. Michelle Macy, director of the Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research and Evaluation Center in Chicago told CNN. “I’m really trying to look for bright spots in this report, and I think that the focus on data and infrastructure for us to be able to answer big questions about what environmental and food exposures and medication exposures do to shape the trajectory of someone’s health and chronic disease across the lifespan is something that has promise and potential.”

    Dr. Richard Besser, pediatrician and president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said that having a focus on preventing chronic disease in children is a good thing, but he said, with Kennedy’s track record that includes firing thousands of federal health employees, slashing millions in health research funding, dismantling entire offices that managed important issues like smoking and chronic disease specifically, in addition to his “assault on vaccinations” will undermine any potential good of this kind of report.

    “Neither RFK Jr.’s record, nor his policies outlined in the report give me confidence that he is going to make any difference whatsoever on chronic diseases in children,” Besser told CNN.

    Sarah Owermohle, Jen Christensen and CNN

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  • Florida plans to end vaccine mandates statewide, including for schoolchildren

    (CNN) — Florida will move to end all vaccine mandates in the state, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced Wednesday.

    The move would make Florida the first state to end a longstanding – and constitutionally upheld – practice of requiring certain vaccines for school students.

    The state health department will immediately move to end all non-statutory mandates in the state, Ladapo said at a news conference. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was also at the event, said state lawmakers would then look into developing a legislative package to end any remaining mandates.

    Ladapo said that every vaccine mandate “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”

    All 50 states have had school immunization requirements since the beginning of the 1980s, with incoming kindergartners needing shots to protect against diseases including measles, polio and tetanus. No states require a Covid-19 vaccine for schoolchildren.

    All states allow medical exemptions from these school vaccine mandates, and most also allow for exemptions due to personal or religious beliefs. Exemption rates have been on the rise for years in the US, with a record share of incoming kindergartners skipping the required shots in the 2024-25 school year.

    Florida’s school vaccine exemption rate last school year– about 5% – was higher than the national average, data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows, and nearly all were for nonmedical reasons.

    “We are concerned that today’s announcement will put children in Florida public schools at higher risk for getting sick, which will have a ripple effect across our communities,” Dr. Rana Alissa, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.

    “For many kids, the best part of school is being with friends – sharing space, playing on the playground, and learning together. Close contact makes it easy for contagious diseases to spread quickly,” she said. “When everyone in a school is vaccinated, it is harder for diseases to spread and easier for everyone to continue learning and having fun. When children are sick and miss school caregivers also miss work, which not only impacts those families but also the local economy.”

    A study published last year by the CDC estimated that routine childhood vaccinations – such as those included in school mandates – will have prevented about 508 million illnesses, 32 million hospitalizations and 1,129,000 deaths among children born between 1994 and 2003. They also were estimated to avert $540 billion in direct costs.

    Ladapo said that vaccination should be an individual choice.

    “People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,” he said. “What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your god. I don’t have that right. Government does not have that right.”

    But experts say that freedom comes with responsibilities.

    “We’re all routinely subject to rules that enable us to live together safely, and I personally want those rules in place to protect me and the people I care about. We abide by speed limits, traffic lights, infant car seat and seatbelt laws – all requirements that have expanded over the years as safety technology and engineering has improved,” said Dr. Kelly Moore, president and CEO of immunize.org, a nonprofit organization focused on vaccine access.

    “I share with many other people the belief that all children who are required to attend school should also have a right to the best possible defense from vaccine-preventable diseases while they are there,” she said.

    Some vaccine mandates in Florida can be rolled back unilaterally by the state health department, Ladapo said, but others will require coordination with lawmakers.

    Experts who oppose the move to end vaccine mandates emphasize that the change is not final and that timing is critical.

    With the announcement coming after the start of the school year, Floridians will have a chance to experience and reflect on what a year of low vaccination coverage looks like, Moore said.

    “This timing gives leaders several months to reconsider whether this is what’s best for Florida families. It’s quite likely that Floridians will have reasons to regret that decision as time goes by and outbreaks disrupt learning,” she said.

    The American Medical Association “strongly opposes” the plan to end vaccine mandates, Dr. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, an internal medicine physician and member of the professional organization’s board of trustees, said in a statement.

    “This unprecedented rollback would undermine decades of public health progress and place children and communities at increased risk for diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox resulting in serious illness, disability, and even death,” she said. “While there is still time, we urge Florida to reconsider this change to help prevent a rise of infectious disease outbreaks that put health and lives at risk.”

    Deidre McPhillips, Shawn Nottingham and CNN

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  • Texas Declares Measles Outbreak Over – KXL

    (Associated Press) – Health officials in Texas have declared the state’s measles outbreak over.

    The virus sickened 762 people since late January.

    Nearly 100 were hospitalized and two children died.

    State health data shows that the last outbreak-related measles case in Texas was on July 1.

    The cases were linked to outbreaks in Canada and Mexico and jumped to other states in the U.S. Measles is prevented by vaccine.

    State officials say they will keep monitoring for new cases.

    They credit testing, vaccination, monitoring and education with helping to end the outbreak.

    More about:

    Grant McHill

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  • COVID surges nationwide with highest rates in Southwest as students return to school

    COVID-19 rates in the Southwestern United States reached 12.5% — the highest in the nation — according to new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released this week. Meanwhile, Los Angeles County recorded the highest COVID levels in its wastewater since February.

    The spike, thanks to the new highly contagious “Stratus” variant, comes as students across California return to the classroom, now without a CDC recommendation that they receive updated COVID shots. That change in policy, pushed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been criticized by many public health experts.

    The COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2, mutates often, learning to better transmit itself from person to person and evade immunity created by vaccinations and previous infections.

    The Stratus variant, first detected in Asia in January, reached the U.S. in March and became the predominant strain by the end of June. It now accounts for two-thirds of virus variants detected in wastewater in the U.S., according to the CDC.

    The nationwide COVID positivity rate hit 9% in early August, surpassing the January post-holiday surge, but still below last August’s spike to 18%. Weekly deaths, a metric that lags behind positivity rates, has so far remained low.

    In May, RFK Jr. announced the CDC had removed the COVID vaccine from its recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.

    The secretary argued it was the right move to reverse the Biden administration’s policy, which in 2024, “urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children.”

    That statement promptly spurred a lawsuit from a group of leading medical organizations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Public Health Assn. — which argued the “baseless and uninformed” decision violated federal law by failing to ground the policy on the recommendation of the scientific committee that looks at immunization practices in the U.S.

    The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has been routinely recommending updated COVID vaccinations alongside the typical yearly flu vaccination schedule. In its update for the fall 2024-spring 2025 season, it noted that in the previous year, a COVID booster decreased the risk of hospitalization by 44% and death by 23%.

    The panel argued the benefit outweighed isolated cases of heart conditions and allergic reactions associated with the vaccine.

    The panel also acknowledged that booster effectiveness decreases as new COVID strains — for which the boosters were not designed — emerge. Nevertheless, it still felt that most Americans should get booster shots.

    The CDC estimates that only about 23% of adults and 13% of children received the 2024-25 COVID booster — even with the vaccine recommendation still in place. That’s compared to roughly half of adults and children who received the updated flu shot in the same time frame.

    Noah Haggerty

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  • German Man Receives 217 Covid Vaccines

    German Man Receives 217 Covid Vaccines

    A German man who voluntarily received 217 Covid 19 vaccines in the span of 29 months has experienced no negative health effects, according to researchers, although doctors still do not endorse hyper-vaccination to boost immunity. What do you think?

    “Looks like someone has Pfizer stock.”

    Sandra Bodnar, General Fireproofer

    Marianne Williamson Successfully Primaries Biden In All 63 Counties Of Astral Plane

    “Uh oh, now he’s got to get 217 boosters!”

    Doug Rinaldo, Trivia Aggregator

    “Jeez, I can’t imagine getting more than 150.”

    Cyrus Sprecher, unemployed

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  • New coronavirus variant has experts on alert and WHO is urging countries to step up COVID surveillance

    New coronavirus variant has experts on alert and WHO is urging countries to step up COVID surveillance

    A new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has put epidemiologists around the world on alert, and the World Health Organization is asking countries to sustain early warning, surveillance and reporting systems as it works to evaluate the current COVID-19 risk level.

    The BA.2.86 variant, which was first detected in Israel, was designated a new variant under monitoring by the WHO on Aug. 17, after the agency received nine sequences from five countries — three in the WHO’s European Region, one in the African Region and one in the Region of the Americas.

    The variant has more than 30 mutations in the spike protein compared with the XBB variants that are currently dominant in the U.S. and around the world, namely XBB.1.16 and EG.5, which has been dubbed Eris, following the Greek-alphabet designation used for other variants.

    The WHO made EG.5 a variant of interest, or VOI, earlier this month, which is an upgrade from the designation of variant under monitoring, or VUM.

    But BA.2.86 is worrying experts because there is too little data to assess its potential impact.

    “It is crucial to sustain early warning, surveillance and reporting, variant
    tracking, early clinical care provision, administration of vaccine boosters to high-risk groups, improvements in ventilation, and regular communication,” the agency said in its latest weekly update.

    That update, which reviews the state of the virus for the 28-day period through Aug. 20, contains no data from the WHO’s Region of the Americas, as reports for the period were incomplete. That’s a worry that the WHO has consistently warned about as countries pull back on their monitoring of the illness as they seek to put the pandemic behind them.

    The WHO officially declared the emergency phase of the pandemic to be over on May 5 but emphasized that COVID remains a major threat. Many countries have dismantled much of their systems of oversight and greatly reduced testing and data measurement.

    See also: New ‘Eris’ COVID variant is dominant in the U.S., but a shortage of data is making it hard to track

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offered an update this week on BA.2.86 — which it said has been detected in Denmark, South Africa, Israel, the U.S. and the U.K. — and said the multiple locations are a sign of international transmission. The CDC acknowledged the surveillance challenge.

    “Notably, the amount of genomic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 globally has declined substantially from previous years, meaning more variants may emerge and spread undetected for longer periods of time,” the U.S. agency said in its update.

    The CDC also noted a current increase in hospitalizations in the U.S., although it said that’s not likely driven by the BA.2.86 variant.

    “It is too soon to know whether this variant might cause more severe illness compared with previous variants,” said the CDC.

    Perhaps the bigger issue is whether the new variant has greater escape from existing immunity from vaccines and previous infections, compared with other recent variants.

    “One analysis of mutations suggests the difference may be as large as or greater than that between BA.2 and XBB.1.5, which circulated nearly a year apart,” the CDC said. “However, virus samples are not yet broadly available for more reliable laboratory testing of antibodies, and it is too soon to know the real-world impacts on immunity.”

    Americans gearing up for what’s expected to be an annual COVID vaccine booster this fall can be confident those vaccines will be designed to protect against all subvariants of XBB, including Eris, the agency said.

    The CDC said it’s likely that antibodies built up in the population through infection, vaccination or both will provide protection against BA.2.86. However, it said, “this is an area of ongoing scientific investigation.”

    Eric Topol, the chair of innovative medicine at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif., said the ability to neutralize the virus depends on the levels of neutralizing antibodies, and those are bound to be lower against BA.2.86 than earlier variants that people have been exposed to or immunized against.

    “Also to note, the burden of new mutations for BA.2.86 is not confined to the spike and is seen broadly across other components of the virus,” he wrote in commentary this week. “If BA.2.86 takes off, it will be a real test of how good our T-cell response can rev up to meet the challenge.”

    Meanwhile, the CDC’s weekly projections for where Eris and other variants are circulating continue to be hampered by a shortage of data. In early August, the CDC said it would unable to  publish its “Nowcast” projections because it did not have enough sequences to update the estimates.

    “Because Nowcast is modeled data, we need a certain number of sequences to accurately predict proportions in the present,” CDC representative Kathleen Conley told MarketWatch at the time.

    The agency had received data from just three U.S. regions. In its most recent weekly update for the week through Aug. 19, it also got data from just three regions.

    Separately, the CDC reported a 21.6% increase in U.S. hospitalizations for COVID in the week through Aug. 12. Deaths rose 21.4% in the week through Aug. 19.

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  • New ‘Eris’ COVID variant is dominant in the U.S., but a shortage of data is making it hard to track

    New ‘Eris’ COVID variant is dominant in the U.S., but a shortage of data is making it hard to track

    A new variant of COVID-19 dubbed EG.5 has become dominant in the U.S., according to projections made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although a shortage of data is hampering the agency’s efforts to surveil the illness.

    The CDC said on Friday it was unable to publish its “Nowcast” projections for where EG.5 and other variants are circulating for every region, which it releases every two weeks, because it did not have enough sequences to update the estimates.

    “Because Nowcast is modeled data, we need a certain number of sequences to accurately predict proportions in the present,” CDC representative Kathleen Conley said in a statement to CBS News.

    “For some regions, we have limited numbers of sequences available, and therefore are not displaying nowcast estimates in those regions, though those regions are still being used in the aggregated national nowcast.”

    It is estimated that EG.5, an omicron subvariant, accounted for 17.3% of COVID cases in the U.S. in the two-week period through Aug. 5. That was up from an estimated 11.9% in the previous period and more than any other variant.

    But the data are based on sequencing from just three regions; Region 2, comprising New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands; Region 4, comprising Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee; and Region 9, comprising Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands and Republic of Palau.

    The next most common variants are XBB.1.16, accounting for 15.6% of cases, and XBB.2.3, accounting for 11.2% of cases.

    All are subvariants of XBB, which COVID vaccines in the fall will be designed to protect against.

    The symptoms of EG.5, which Twitter users have nicknamed “Eris,” are similar to early variants, and it’s not deemed to be more virulent than early variants. It may be more infectious, however, as has been the pattern with new strains. Symptoms include a cough, fever, chills, shortness of breath, fatigue and a loss of taste or smell.

    The World Health Organization said last week that EG.5 increased in prevalence globally to 11.6% in the week through July 30 from 62% four weeks earlier.

    The variant is for now a variant under monitoring, or VUM, for the agency, which is a less serious designation than a variant of interest, or VOI, according to its weekly epidemiological update.

    The WHO is monitoring two VOIs, XBB.1.5 and XBB.1.6.

    It is tracking seven VUMs and their descendent lineages, namely BA.2.75, CH.1.1, XBB, XBB.1.9.1, XBB.1.9.2, XBB.2.3 and EG.5.

    CDC data show that hospital admissions with COVID started to rise again in July after being flat or falling for several months. But the number of deaths continues to decline with 81.4% of the overall population in the U.S. having had at least one vaccine dose.

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  • The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    Pet Adoption Special: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays, through Sept. 30, Burlington Animal Services, 221 Stone Quarry Road, Burlington. All dogs weighing more than 20 pounds and all cat adoptions are reduced to $20. Adoptions include…

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  • The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    Pet Adoption Special: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays, through Sept. 30, Burlington Animal Services, 221 Stone Quarry Road, Burlington. All dogs weighing more than 20 pounds and all cat adoptions are reduced to $20. Adoptions include…

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  • The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    Pet Adoption Fair: 9 a.m.-noon May 21, Temple Emanuel, 1129 Jefferson Road, Greensboro. With Red Dog Farm Animal Rescue Network. 336-288-7006.

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  • The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    Pet Adoption Fair: 9 a.m.-noon May 21, Temple Emanuel, 1129 Jefferson Road, Greensboro. With Red Dog Farm Animal Rescue Network. 336-288-7006.

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  • The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    Community Play Date: 5-7 p.m. May 19, Purina Bark Park, inside of Freedom Park, 121 N. Edgewood Road, Eden. The event will commence with a “ribbon tugging” ceremony and feature live performances from the Purina Incredible Dogs team as well…

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  • The Pet Shop: Calendar of events

    Community Play Date: 5-7 p.m. May 19, Purina Bark Park, inside of Freedom Park, 121 N. Edgewood Road, Eden. The event will commence with a “ribbon tugging” ceremony and feature live performances from the Purina Incredible Dogs team as well…

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