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Tag: Vaccine

  • American Academy of Pediatrics releases childhood vaccine recommendations that differ from CDC

    The American Academy of Pediatrics released its recommendations for childhood vaccines on Monday, breaking significantly with the guidance released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this month. 

    The AAP is recommending immunization against 18 diseases, including RSV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, influenza and meningococcal disease. The CDC had reduced its recommendations for childhood vaccines to 11 diseases.

    “The AAP will continue to provide recommendations for immunizations that are rooted in science and are in the best interest of the health of infants, children and adolescents of this country,” AAP President Andrew Racine said in a statement Monday.   

    Dr. Amanda Kravitz, a pediatrician at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, told “CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil the AAP is “still recommending all of the vaccines that we have been recommending for many, many years.” 

    “So, there are no changes to the old vaccine schedule based on what the AAP is currently recommending,” Kravitz said.

    Both the AAP and CDC recommend vaccinating children against diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (whooping cough), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, human papillomavirus (HPV) and varicella (chickenpox). (Some vaccines, such as the MMR shot for measles, mumps and rubella, protect against multiple diseases.)

    The CDC recommended that only children in high-risk categories receive immunizations for RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, dengue, meningococcal ACWY and meningococcal B. The AAP still recommends all of these, except for the dengue vaccine, which it only recommends for some children who are 9 to 16 years old, live in areas where the disease is endemic and have previously been infected. It also noted distribution of the dengue vaccine was discontinued in the U.S. last year due to low demand. 

    The CDC had also said parents of children not in high-risk groups who want to vaccinate against COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B should base that decision on “shared clinical decision-making” with physicians.

    “It’s important that you partner with your pediatrician,” Kravitz said Monday. “We are here to help you. We want to try to rid some of that confusion from families. So, we want you to bring your questions to us. We, as pediatricians, are going to follow the AAP recommendations, but we also want to have open lines of communication with our families.”

    The AAP called the CDC’s guidance “dangerous and unnecessary” at the time of its release.

    “The AAP formerly partnered with the CDC to create a unified set of vaccine recommendations, but recent changes to the CDC immunization schedule depart from longstanding medical evidence and no longer offer the optimal way to prevent illnesses in children,” the AAP said Monday. “By contrast, the AAP childhood and adolescent immunization schedules continue to recommend immunizations based on the specific disease risks and health care delivery in the United States.”

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, said in a statement Monday, “The updated CDC childhood schedule continues to protect children against serious diseases while aligning U.S. guidance with international norms,” adding it would “work with states and clinicians to ensure families have clear, accurate information to make their own informed decisions.”

    Kravitz said insurance will still cover vaccines no longer recommended by the CDC, like the flu and COVID-19 vaccines.

    “The way the CDC recommended them is there is still the option to get those vaccines if you’d like them, so insurance should cover every vaccine as long as parents want them,” she said.

    The changes in the CDC childhood vaccine recommendations followed a controversial December recommendation on when children should receive their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. For more than 30 years, the CDC advised that the first dose be given within 24 hours of birth. The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, which has been hand-picked by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic, voted to recommend delaying the shot until a child is 2 months old for those born to mothers who test negative for the virus. 

    In an interview with CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes earlier this month, Kennedy insisted, “We’re not taking vaccines away from anybody. If you want to get the vaccine, you can get it. It’s gonna be fully covered by insurance, just like it was before.”

    But Kennedy did concede there is now an added step to getting children the flu vaccine, as it requires consultation with a physician first, rather than it being freely administered at a pharmacy, and he said it might be “a better thing” if fewer people get the flu vaccine.

    Caitlin Yilek

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  • What changed about the CDC’s childhood vaccine recommendations?

    Parents looking to get their children vaccinated are navigating confusing times. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced new guidelines on the shots it recommends for kids. But the Minnesota Department of Health disagrees with the changes.

    For decades, the MDH was in line with the CDC’s childhood vaccination recommendations.

    That started to change last year. But this month, MDH is officially breaking away and siding with organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics.

    The federal versus state clash is creating mixed messaging for families. What changed about the CDC’s childhood vaccine recommendations? Good Question.

    Initially, all children were recommended to get vaccines for 17 diseases. Now, the CDC scaled it back to the following 11 diseases: measles, mumps and rubella; whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria; the bacterial disease known as Hib; pneumonia; polio; chickenpox; and human papillomavirus, or HPV.

    The remaining diseases were split among two new categories. The first is “immunizations recommended for high-risk groups,” which now includes RSV, hepatitis B and hepatitis A, dengue and two vaccines for bacterial meningitis.

    The last category is “immunizations based on shared clinical decision making,” which means parents consulting with a doctor. That’s where the flu, rotavirus and COVID-19 vaccines are now listed, among others.

    The next question: why did the CDC make changes? According to U.S. Health and Human Services, it was after reviewing underlying science and trying to better line up with peer nations.

    “The president asked us to change, to look at what the European countries were doing, which have much less chronic disease than we do, and to find out what the best practices were there and to implement them,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy told CBS News.

    Medical professionals, like those at MDH, said there’s no new evidence warranting a change to the childhood vaccine schedule.

    “The vaccines that had been routinely recommended and are on the AAP schedule are safe, they’re effective,” said Dr. Ruth Lynfield, state epidemiologist and medical director at MDH. “The goal is not to have fewer vaccines, the goal is to have fewer deaths, to have fewer hospitalizations, to have fewer illnesses.”

    One last thing to clarify is the flu vaccine. It’s in the category under shared clinical decision-making, meaning parents would need to talk with a doctor first. Kennedy told CBS News that it may lead to fewer kids getting a flu shot. In Minnesota, there’s a way for parents to skip the extra step of talking with a doctor if their child is at least 3 years old.

    “A pharmacist is someone who can provide the shared clinical decision making, and a pharmacist in Minnesota can vaccinate down to age 3,” said Lynfield.

    Despite the CDC’s changes, federal and private insurance will still cover vaccines for diseases that the CDC no longer recommends, according to HHS.

    CBS News dug deeper into the diseases no longer on the CDC’s recommended vaccination list. To read it, click here.

    To see the American Academy of Pediatrics’ vaccine recommendation schedule, click here.

    To see the CDC’s vaccine recommendation schedule, click here.

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  • Flu surges across U.S. as doctor visits reach highest level since 1997

    Flu cases are continuing to spike in the United States. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that at least 5,000 people have died of the illness this year and that doctor’s visits for flu have reached their highest level in decades. 

    The CDC estimated there have been at least 11 million flu cases as of December 27, as well as at least 120,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths. There have been nine flu-related pediatric deaths, the CDC said. 

    At the same time, 8.2% of outpatient doctor’s visits nationwide were for flu-like illnesses, the CDC said. That’s the highest level recorded since 1997, according to CDC data. 

    Forty-eight jurisdictions are showing “high” or “very high” levels of flu, the agency said. Last week, 32 jurisdictions met that description. 

    Only four jurisdictions had low or minimal flu levels. Nevada has “insufficient data,” the CDC said. 


    A new subtype of influenza A called H3N2 is spreading quickly and fueling this year’s cases, experts told CBS News. The CDC reported that of the 994 influenza viruses that tested positive for flu between Dec. 20 and Dec. 27, 971 of them had influenza A. When 600 of those specimens were subtyped, 91.2% of them were found to be H3N2. The strain is known to cause tough flu seasons, especially for seniors, and is harder for the immune system to recognize. 

    At the same time, fewer people have received the flu vaccine. The CDC estimated that about 130 million doses of the flu vaccine had been given this year. On Monday, the CDC announced updates to its recommended childhood vaccine schedule. The changes included saying that children who are not high-risk should engage in “shared clinical decision-making” with their doctor about whether to get the flu vaccine. The American Academy of Pediatrics called the changes “dangerous” and said they would continue to share their own recommendations. 

    “Making these changes amid ongoing outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases shows a disregard for the real confusion families already face,” said Dr. Ronald G. Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, in a statement. 

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  • Doctor breaks down changes to CDC vaccine guidelines


    Doctor breaks down changes to CDC vaccine guidelines – CBS News









































    Watch CBS News



    The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on Monday announced updated recommendations for childhood vaccines with some significant changes. Dr. Jon LaPook joins to break them down.

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  • CDC announces new childhood vaccine recommendations, suggesting fewer shots

    Washington — The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on Monday announced updated recommendations for childhood vaccines with some significant changes. The new guidelines recommend fewer shots and are likely to face pushback from many doctors and public health experts. 

    Under the new guidelines, the CDC recommends all children be vaccinated against 11 diseases, a decrease from the 17 immunizations previously recommended.

    The vaccines recommended under the new guidelines include diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis (whooping cough), Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), Pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, and human papillomavirus (HPV), as well as varicella (chickenpox). (Some vaccines, such as the MMR shot for measles, mumps and rubella, protect against multiple diseases.)

    Under the new guidelines, it’s recommended that only children in high-risk categories receive immunizations for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), hepatitis A, hepatitis B, dengue, meningococcal ACWY and meningococcal B. 

    For children not in high-risk groups, the determination on whether to receive certain vaccines should be based on “shared clinical decision-making” between physicians and parents, according to the CDC. Those immunizations include COVID-19, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, and hepatitis B. 

    The changes follow a controversial December recommendation on when children should receive their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. For more than 30 years, the CDC advised that the first dose be given within 24 hours of birth. The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, which has been hand-picked by Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., voted to recommend delaying the shot until a child is 2 months old for those born to mothers who test negative for the virus. 

    Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, said in a statement that Monday’s announcement “protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.” 

    “After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent,” he said. 

    The assessment compared the U.S. vaccine schedule to those of 20 other developed nations and found that the U.S. is a “global outlier” in both the number of diseases addressed and total number of recommended doses, according to the Health and Human Services Department. 

    The American Academy of Pediatrics has disputed that, saying the longstanding U.S. recommendations were based on “robust evidence” and are “largely similar across developed countries,” with some variance due to factors like disease threats, demographics and health care systems.

    Dr. Michael Osterholm of the Vaccine Integrity Project, based at the University of Minnesota, warned that the change will put children at risk.

    “Abandoning recommendations for vaccines that prevent influenza, hepatitis and rotavirus, and changing the recommendation for HPV without a public process to weigh the risks and benefits, will lead to more hospitalizations and preventable deaths among American children,” Osterholm told The Associated Press.

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  • US drops the number of vaccines it recommends for every child

    The U.S. took the unprecedented step Monday of dropping the number of vaccines it recommends for every child—leaving other immunizations, such as flu shots, open to families to choose but without clear guidance.Officials said the overhaul to the federal vaccine schedule won’t result in any families losing access or insurance coverage for vaccines, but medical experts slammed the move, saying it could lead to reduced uptake of important vaccinations and increase disease.The change came after President Donald Trump in December asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising its guidance to align with theirs.HHS said its comparison to 20 peer nations found that the U.S. was an “outlier” in both the number of vaccinations and the number of doses it recommended to all children. Officials with the agency framed the change as a way to increase public trust by recommending only the most important vaccinations for children to receive.“This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement Monday.Medical experts disagreed, saying the change without public discussion or a transparent review of the data would put children at risk.“Abandoning recommendations for vaccines that prevent influenza, hepatitis and rotavirus, and changing the recommendation for HPV without a public process to weigh the risks and benefits, will lead to more hospitalizations and preventable deaths among American children,” said Michael Osterholm of the Vaccine Integrity Project, based at the University of Minnesota.

    WASHINGTON —

    The U.S. took the unprecedented step Monday of dropping the number of vaccines it recommends for every child—leaving other immunizations, such as flu shots, open to families to choose but without clear guidance.

    Officials said the overhaul to the federal vaccine schedule won’t result in any families losing access or insurance coverage for vaccines, but medical experts slammed the move, saying it could lead to reduced uptake of important vaccinations and increase disease.

    The change came after President Donald Trump in December asked the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to review how peer nations approach vaccine recommendations and consider revising its guidance to align with theirs.

    HHS said its comparison to 20 peer nations found that the U.S. was an “outlier” in both the number of vaccinations and the number of doses it recommended to all children. Officials with the agency framed the change as a way to increase public trust by recommending only the most important vaccinations for children to receive.

    “This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement Monday.

    Medical experts disagreed, saying the change without public discussion or a transparent review of the data would put children at risk.

    “Abandoning recommendations for vaccines that prevent influenza, hepatitis and rotavirus, and changing the recommendation for HPV without a public process to weigh the risks and benefits, will lead to more hospitalizations and preventable deaths among American children,” said Michael Osterholm of the Vaccine Integrity Project, based at the University of Minnesota.

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  • Vaccine panel’s hepatitis B vote signals further turbulence for immunization policy, public trust

    When Dr. Su Wang was in medical school, she donated blood. That’s when she learned she was infected with hepatitis B, a virus that attacks the liver and can lead to cancer and death decades later.

    “I was 18, healthy, in college,” she said. “And suddenly I had a chronic illness I didn’t even know about.”

    Born in Florida in 1975, Wang grew up before the hepatitis B vaccine was routinely given to newborns. For years, she assumed she had been infected by her mother, only to discover later that both her parents were negative. “It turns out my grandparents, who cared for me after birth, probably passed it to me,” she said. “That’s how easy this virus spreads — not from some exotic risk factor, just family.”

    Today, Wang is the medical director for viral hepatitis programs at RWJBarnabas Health in New Jersey. Her story now sits at the center of a historic turning point in public health.

    On Dec. 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to end the universal U.S. recommendation for the newborn dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, instead adopting a policy urging individual-based decision-making.

    Under the new approach, only infants born to mothers who test positive for hepatitis B will automatically receive a dose of the vaccine and hepatitis B antibodies shortly after birth. For everyone else, if the parents choose to vaccinate, the birth dose can be delayed until 2 months of age.

    All the committee members were appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist. In an 8-to-3 vote, the panel decided that since most pregnant women now receive hepatitis B testing, administering the vaccine at birth should be reserved for infants whose mothers test positive. They framed the shift as a way to reduce interventions deemed unnecessary, align vaccination with test results, and give parents more control over timing. Supporters of the decision described it as a move toward parental choice rather than a reflection of changing epidemiology.

    But to many clinicians and epidemiologists, the change represents a dangerous rollback that could reverse three decades of progress toward eliminating a disease that still infects as many as 2.4 million Americans and kills tens of thousands each year. They see echoes of the 1980s, when risk-based vaccination left entire generations unprotected, and worry the country is about to repeat that mistake.

    Moreover, the panel’s move on hepatitis B — in the face of overwhelming data that shows the birth dose is effective and safe — portends further upheaval for the nation’s childhood vaccine schedule, a cornerstone of public health.

    “They’re not just trying to change one vaccine,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and an editor of the scientific journal Vaccine. “They’re trying to dismantle how vaccine policy is made.” 

    Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Emily Hilliard responded: “ACIP reviews all evidence presented and issues recommendations based on evidence and sound judgment to best protect America’s children.”

    The authors of a new independent review by the Vaccine Integrity Project, which evaluated more than 400 studies and reports, warned in a public comment that delaying the birth dose “would reduce protection for infants and increase the risk of avoidable HBV infections, undermining decades of progress” toward eliminating the hepatitis B virus. The review was led by researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which created the Vaccine Integrity Project in response to what it regards as Trump administration actions that “put the federal vaccine landscape at risk,” and it was vetted by outside experts.

    “We fought hard for that universal birth dose because targeted approaches missed too many babies,” Wang said. “We know what happens when you wait.”

    What’s unfolding now is not just a technical policy update but a fundamental test of the systems meant to protect the most vulnerable. The debate turns on a few critical questions — whether testing is reliable enough to replace universal safeguards, how infectious hepatitis B truly is, why past strategies failed, and what the CDC’s internal shake-ups mean for vaccine policy writ large.

    The limits of testing

    Hepatitis B testing sits at the center of the new ACIP recommendation, but even the CDC acknowledges that testing alone can’t guarantee protection. Pregnant women may test negative if the virus was acquired late in pregnancy or during the “window period,” before hepatitis B surface antigens become detectable. False negatives happen. No testing system, no matter how well designed, can catch every infection. That’s why universal vaccination was created in the first place.

    If a mother’s status is unknown at delivery, hospitals are supposed to give the newborn a hepatitis B vaccine within 12 hours, adding hepatitis B antibodies for premature infants or if the mother later tests positive. But in real clinical settings, these safeguards routinely break down. Results take time. Nurses miss or misread labs. Pharmacies delay deliveries. Documentation gets lost.

    “Every step you add increases the chance that something falls through the cracks,” Wang said. “Delaying the vaccine just adds another.”

    ACIP’s vote shows how that logic is being challenged.

    Some committee members suggested dropping the third hepatitis B shot if antibody levels look high after the second. 

    But Dr. Brian McMahon, a liver disease specialist who has spent decades treating hepatitis B, told the panelists that the data doesn’t support that idea. “Only maybe 20% to 30%” of infants have an adequate antibody level after the first dose, he said.

    “You need two doses to really reach a high level of protection,” he said, with the third shot giving a stronger, longer-lasting response.

    He said the overall message coming from the committee seemed designed to “discourage the birth dose.”

    “They’re making it more and more difficult,” McMahon said.

    In a second vote, ACIP also encouraged parents and clinicians to order post-vaccine serology tests — blood tests that measure protective antibody levels — after the second or third dose. The tests, ACIP said, should be covered by insurance.

    More infectious than HIV or hepatitis C

    Hepatitis B can survive on toothbrushes, razors, and household surfaces for a week. It spreads not just from mother to child but also through ordinary family contact: shared items, open sores, small blood exposures. In the 1980s, researchers found that about half of infections in American children came not from mothers but from other household members.

    That’s why state health departments continue to insist that every newborn be vaccinated within 24 hours of delivery, regardless of maternal status. “Delaying vaccination misses a crucial period of potential exposure,” a New York advisory warned this year. The vaccine, it noted, is 80% to 100% effective when given on time.

    The Vaccine Integrity Project report underscores the stakes. Since the universal birth dose was introduced in 1991, pediatric hepatitis B infections in the U.S. have dropped by more than 99%. A 2024 CDC analysis estimated that the current schedule has prevented more than 6 million hepatitis B infections and nearly 1 million hospitalizations.

    The benefits are lifelong. Infants vaccinated at birth are shielded not just from hepatitis B but also from the liver failure and cancer it can cause decades later. Yet because the disease unfolds slowly, the consequences of policy shifts may not surface for 20 or 30 years.

    Dr. Trieu Pham, a California physician, doesn’t need to imagine those consequences. Born in Vietnam in 1976, he probably contracted the virus at birth. “If the vaccine had existed then, I wouldn’t have gone through what I did,” he said. Diagnosed in his 20s, he developed cirrhosis by 40. At 47, he was coughing blood from ruptured esophageal veins. Eventually, he required a liver transplant to survive.

    “You live with this constant fatigue and fear,” he said. “And the saddest part is it was preventable.”

    His three children, all vaccinated within hours of birth, are free of hepatitis B. “That’s the difference a day can make,” Pham said.

    A lesson already learned

    In 1982, ACIP recommended the new hepatitis B vaccine only for adults at high risk: health care workers, injection drug users, and men who have sex with men. But by the late 1980s, it was clear that risk-based vaccination couldn’t contain transmission. Many newly infected adults didn’t fit any defined risk group. Identifying high-risk people proved imperfect, stigmatizing, and ultimately ineffective.

    Meanwhile, infants infected during or shortly after birth had a 90% chance of developing chronic infection, compared with less than 5% in adults. Yet public health officials repeated the same targeted strategy, this time with newborns. In 1988, the CDC recommended universal prenatal screening and linked an infant’s vaccination to the mother’s test result, again basing protection on a risk marker instead of vaccinating all infants.

    As before, it failed. Many infected mothers weren’t correctly identified. Some were never tested, some were tested too early, and others had results that were misread or never communicated. Too many infants slipped through the cracks, proof that another targeted approach couldn’t reliably protect them.

    In 1991, the CDC issued its landmark guidance recommending that all infants, regardless of their mother’s infection status, receive a hepatitis B vaccine at birth, followed by two additional doses in infancy. By 2005, the policy was fully embedded in the routine immunization schedule, then reaffirmed in 2018. This evolution was based on data showing that a universal strategy, rather than a targeted one, was the most effective in preventing infections.

    A matter of trust

    The CDC’s new hepatitis B policy rests on the premise that moving the decision to parents will strengthen trust in the vaccine system. Supporters frame it as an empowerment shift — a way to give families more control.

    In 1999, when it was last recommended to postpone the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine for infants born to uninfected mothers, vaccination rates also dropped among infants born to those who were infected.

    “Opt-in policies sound patient-centered,” Wang said, “but in practice they’re inequitable. They leave behind the very families who need protection most” — the ones most likely to miss prenatal care and testing, have infections that go undetected or arise after testing, or slip through gaps in hospital care, as well as infants who can be exposed and infected by other caregivers and household members.

    Those are often immigrant families, including from Asian and Pacific Islander communities in which hepatitis B remains endemic. “We already underdiagnose and undertreat these populations,” Wang said. “This change would deepen that gap.”

    The United States is now the only country to abandon a universal hepatitis B birth dose recommendation. Though it will take decades to gather outcomes data, some researchers predict that delaying the first dose of hepatitis B vaccine to 2 months of age could result in over 1,400 preventable infections and about 300 cases of liver cancer per year.

    “We don’t get to choose what we inherit,” Wang said. “But we do get to choose what we pass on.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

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  • Oregon Reports Record-High Pertussis Cases, Health Officials Urge Vaccination – KXL

    PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon has recorded its highest number of pertussis cases ever, prompting state health officials to urge residents—especially those who are pregnant or spend time around infants—to ensure they are up to date on vaccinations.

    As of Dec. 10, the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) has confirmed 1,475 pertussis cases in 2025, surpassing the previous annual record of 1,420 set in 1950. The current outbreak began in spring 2024, when cases climbed to 1,252 by the end of the year. Several other states have reported similar increases.

    Infants Most at Risk

    Pertussis, or whooping cough, can cause severe illness at any age, but infants face the greatest risk of hospitalization and death. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that pregnant individuals receive a Tdap vaccine during the third trimester to provide newborns with protection until they can be vaccinated at two months old. Adults who will spend time around a newborn—such as partners, grandparents and caregivers—are also encouraged to get vaccinated at least two weeks before the baby’s birth.

    Vaccination remains important across all age groups. Tdap is recommended for pregnant people, children beginning at 2 months old, adolescents at 11–12, and adults who have never received a dose.

    “I worry people may not fully appreciate the risk pertussis poses as case counts are rising, especially for babies and older adults,” said Dr. Howard Chiou, medical director for communicable diseases and immunizations at OHA. He noted that maternal vaccination rates in Oregon have declined in recent years.

    Declining Immunization Rates

    According to OHA’s new Pregnancy Immunization Data dashboard, 69% of pregnant people in Oregon received a Tdap vaccine in 2024, down from 72% in 2020. Rates vary widely by county, ranging from 17% to 82%, with the lowest numbers largely in rural areas where access and vaccine hesitancy pose barriers.

    So far in 2025, Oregon has reported 87 cases of pertussis in infants under 12 months, including 22 hospitalizations. One infant in the state has died from the illness this year.

    A Post-Pandemic Surge

    Pertussis outbreaks typically occur every three to five years, but case numbers dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic, when masking and social distancing limited the spread of many respiratory infections. Oregon saw just three cases in 2021, followed by 17 in 2022 and 40 in 2023. Health officials attribute the resurgence to a return to pre-pandemic behaviors combined with waning immunity and reduced vaccination rates.

    Why Vaccination Still Matters

    Studies show that Tdap vaccination during pregnancy is highly effective at preventing severe illness and hospitalization in infants. But because immunity fades over time, some residents misunderstand the need for booster doses, said Dr. Carolina Amador, Benton County’s health officer.

    “When we use the word ‘booster,’ people may think the vaccine isn’t very effective because protection fades,” Amador said. “But in the short term it does a great job protecting the most vulnerable among us.”

    The Disease and Its Diagnosis

    Pertussis spreads through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Many cases go undiagnosed because symptoms vary widely, and not everyone develops the characteristic “whooping” sound.

    Dr. Jennifer Gibbons, a naturopathic pediatrician in Portland who works with vaccine-hesitant families, said she often counsels expectant parents about the importance of maternal vaccination.

    “When parents ask me, ‘Do you think it’s right for me?’ the answer is always yes,” she said. Gibbons described whooping cough in infants as “truly awful,” and said explaining how maternal antibodies work can help parents better understand the benefits.

    OHA has posted videos of Dr. Chiou discussing the outbreak on its Media Resources page.

    Jordan Vawter

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  • FDA official, without providing data, claims link between COVID-19 vaccines and pediatric deaths

    Dr. Vinay Prasad, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division, sent a memo to staff that linked children’s deaths to the COVID-19 vaccine, but did not provide data to back the claim. 

    The memo said that a review “found that at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination,” according to multiple sources familiar with the email. The memo was first reported by the New York Times.  

    Prasad suggested that the deaths were related to myocarditis, or the inflammation of the heart muscle. Prasad did not share any data used in the review, including the children’s ages, whether they had existing health conditions, or how the FDA determined there was a link between their death and the vaccine. The findings were not published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

    Myocarditis has been linked to the COVID-19 vaccine, but studies have largely confirmed that the risk of the condition is significantly higher after a coronavirus infection, pediatric cardiologists told CBS News in 2023. The prognosis following myocarditis due to the vaccine is also better than from infection, studies show. COVID-19 infection is also linked to other long-term complications.

    The risk of myocarditis appears to be higher when vaccine doses are given closer together, as was the case when the vaccines first hit the market. Now, most people receive each dose of the vaccine about a year apart. If someone receives the primary series before age 5, the risk virtually disappears. 

    Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines carry warnings about the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, a condition where the membrane surrounding the heart becomes inflamed. The warnings were expanded in April 2025 to apply to males aged 16 to 25. The rate of myocarditis and pericarditis was around 8 cases per million doses for children and adults under 65 years old after use of that season’s vaccines, the FDA said at the time.

    COVID-19 vaccines, developed during the first Trump administration, have become a target of the second. Top FDA officials selected by the administration under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overrode career staff to limit the approvals of COVID-19 shots from Novavax and Moderna, according to records released by the FDA. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said in June that she was resigning from her role overseeing updates to the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, following an order from Kennedy that forced an update to the agency’s guidance. 

    Changing COVID-19 vaccination guidance has caused confusion for many. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, voted in September to change recommendations for the shot. All members of the committee have been picked by Kennedy, himself a vaccine skeptic. Several of the panel members have criticized the COVID-19 vaccine. 

    The updated CDC guidance recommends people make individual, informed decisions about COVID-19 vaccination, but did not specifically recommend the shots. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it was “strongly recommending” shots for children between 6 months and 2 years old, while the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommended the vaccine for everyone six months and older. State governments have also banded together, forming the West Coast Health Alliance and the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, to issue recommendations that differ from the CDC guidance. 

    Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, told CBS News in August that there’s “a lot of noise out there” when it comes to vaccines, but advises parents to “stick the course” and talk to your doctor about making sure children get all their necessary vaccinations, including the initial COVID vaccination series. 

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  • Whooping cough cases on the rise: symptoms, treatment

    It’s highly infectious and definitely not a welcome Thanksgiving guest.

    Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is on the rise with outbreaks across the country, leaving some parents of infants wondering whether they should travel or visit family at all.

    Pertussis is a bacterial respiratory infection characterized by the “whoop” sound made by sharp intakes of breath between coughing fits. Infected adults and kids can develop a brutal, weekslong cough. Sick infants are at risk of dying. 

    Vaccination offers strong protection against disease, but immunity wanes over time and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show fewer children are getting the vaccine. The CDC recommends adults get a Tdap booster shot every 10 years.

    Infections dropped nationally during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, cases surged. This year, infections are similarly high. As of Nov. 19, preliminary data showed more than 25,000 cases nationwide in 2025. The states of Washington, California, Florida and Oregon have been hardest hit. 

    Heading into the holidays, what are the symptoms to watch for, who is most at risk and who needs to get vaccinated?

    Symptoms to be on the lookout for

    Whooping cough symptoms progress in stages, and the disease’s severity can depend on a person’s vaccination status.

    Symptoms usually appear within five to 10 days after exposure, but they can also take twice as long to develop. 

    During the first one to two weeks, symptoms often resemble an average cold: a mild cough, a low-grade fever and a runny nose. Although the symptoms might seem innocuous, a person is contagious during this stage.

    The second, more severe stage can last up to 10 weeks. The main symptom is intense coughing fits, called paroxysms, that can lead to vomiting. The cough ends with an intake of breath that sounds like a “whoop.”

    “Sometimes the coughing is so severe that ribs are cracked,” said Dr. Joseph Bocchini, a pediatric infectious disease doctor at Willis-Knighton Health. “There’s such shortness of breath that people wake up at night with a coughing spell, they feel like they’re suffocating.”

    Pneumonia is another possible complication. 

    People who have never been vaccinated are likely to experience worse symptoms than their vaccinated peers, Bocchini said. 

    Recovery is often gradual as the cough wanes. As a person recovers, they can be more vulnerable to contracting other respiratory infections, and the cough might return. 

    Getting sick confers natural immunity from the disease for a time, but that protection doesn’t last long.  

    Infections happen year-round, but peak whooping cough season lasts from late summer through fall. Pertussis is a cyclical disease, meaning it might spread widely through a community and then disappear from that population. Infections might return to an area once that immunity has waned.

    What causes the cough?

    The bacteria Bordetella pertussis causes the coughing. 

    The bacteria enter a person’s upper respiratory tract and latch on to cilia, hair-like extensions in the airways. Cilia are essential for clearing mucus and debris from your lungs. The bacteria release a toxin that damages the cilia and causes the airway to swell. With a person’s lung-cleaning apparatus damaged, the body resorts to coughing to get the gunk out. 

    If one person in a household is infected, data shows about 80% of exposed family members also will get infected, if they aren’t vaccinated or immune. 

    Pertussis spreads through droplets when someone sneezes or coughs. 

    How is whooping cough treated? 

    Doctors use nasal swab lab tests to identify infections. 

    Antibiotics are the most effective treatment, especially when taken early in the illness. If taken before the coughing fits begin, antibiotics can prevent the illness from progressing or make symptoms milder.

    That’s why doctors sometimes prescribe antibiotics to the infected person’s family and other contacts: to halt further spread. 

    Once the coughing fits have begun, antibiotics are less effective at reducing symptoms or shortening the course of the illness. The cilia have already been damaged, and the lungs need time to heal.

    Antibiotics are still prescribed at that stage because a five-day course kills the bacteria, making the person no longer contagious, even if the cough persists.  

    To manage symptoms, the CDC advises using a cool-mist humidifier, eating small meals to prevent vomiting and drinking plenty of fluids. The agency also recommends avoiding airway irritants such as dust, smoke or chemical fumes that might trigger coughing.

    Some pertussis cases require hospitalization. 

    Young babies are most at risk

    Whooping cough is most dangerous for babies under 1 year old, especially under 3 months. The CDC reports that 1 in 3 infected babies will need hospital treatment. About 1% of infected babies die from complications, such as pneumonia, damage in the brain or difficulty breathing.  

    Infants with pertussis sometimes don’t cough at all, but have dangerous pauses in breathing called apnea. Babies may turn blue as they struggle to breathe. 

    Older people, people who are immunocompromised and people with moderate to severe asthma also could be at higher risk of complications. 

    DTaP and Tdap vaccines can protect against illness 

    Scientists first developed a pertussis vaccine in 1914. In the 1940s, it became part of a combination vaccine that also protects against diphtheria and tetanus. It’s still combined with those today. 

    Two vaccines protect against whooping cough: DTaP, given to young children, and Tdap, given to adolescents, adults and pregnant women.

    Vaccination doesn’t stop the bacteria from entering a person’s body, but it helps stop an infection from developing. Among the minority of vaccinated people who do get sick, vaccination decreases the illness’ severity. 

    The CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule recommends that babies get their first dose of the DTaP vaccine at 2 months old. The vaccine is delivered in four more doses at 4 months, 6 months, between 15 and 18 months and between 4 and 6 years.

    “Just like we practice baseball or piano with many games of catch or lessons, providing multiple doses gives our immune system additional practice,” said Dr. Lori Handy, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “The vaccine schedule is designed to give enough practice to our system that eventually, the person is adequately protected.”

    Vaccinated children are much less likely than unvaccinated children to get sick with pertussis. 

    During the 2024-2025 school year, 92.1% of kindergarteners received a DTaP vaccine, down from about 95% in the decade before the pandemic.

    Protection from the vaccine wanes over time, which is why we have the Tdap booster vaccine. The CDC recommended preteens get one dose, and adults get a shot every 10 years. Adults can infect children, so staying up to date is important for the little ones in your life. 

    The CDC also recommends pregnant women receive a Tdap booster between the 27th and  36th week of pregnancy, regardless of when they were last vaccinated. “Vaccination of pregnant moms provides immunity to newborn babies, so that they are protected at the time when they are most at risk of deadly disease,” Handy said. 

    How can I stay safe over the holidays? 

    “Far and away, the most important thing is to be vaccinated and be up to date,” Bocchini said. And if you have a small baby, make sure the people around the baby are also vaccinated and up to date. 

    Other strategies are basic: Wash your hands often. Use good cough etiquette. Teach these habits to your kids.

    Since the bacteria spreads through coughs and sneezes, wearing a mask can help slow the spread, whether you are infected or around someone who is. 

    If you think you might have been exposed, you can ask your doctor to test you. In its initial stage, whooping cough is hard to distinguish from other respiratory infections, Bocchini advised patients to ask themselves how they might have been exposed: Have I been around someone with a persistent cough that happens in fits? Although it may be hard, it’s safest to stay home when you are sick.

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  • California braces for early, sharper flu season as virus mutation outpaces vaccine, experts say

    California could see an early start to the annual flu season, as a combination of low vaccination rates and late mutations to the virus may leave the state particularly exposed to transmission, health experts say.

    Already, there are warning signs. Los Angeles County recently reported its first flu death of the season, and other nations are reporting record-breaking or powerful, earlier-than-expected flu seasons.

    Typically, flu picks up right after Christmas and into the New Year, but Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional physician chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said she expects increases in viral activity perhaps over the next two to three weeks.

    “We’re expecting an early and likely sharp start to the flu season,” Hudson said.

    Last year’s flu season was the worst California had seen in years, and it’s not usual for there to be back-to-back bad flu seasons. But a combination of a decline in flu vaccination rates and a “souped-up mutant” is particularly concerning this year, according to Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco.

    “That may translate into more people getting infected. And as more people get infected, a proportion of them will go to the hospital,” Chin-Hong said.

    The timing of this new flu subvariant — called H3N2 subclade K — is particularly problematic. It emerged toward the end of the summer, long after health officials had already determined how to formulate this fall’s flu vaccine, a decision that had to be made in February.

    H3N2 subclade K seems to be starting to dominate in Japan and Britain, Hudson said.

    “It looks like a bit of a mismatch between the seasonal flu vaccine strains” and the new subvariant, Hudson said.

    It remains unclear whether subclade K will reduce the effectiveness of this year’s flu shot.

    In California and the rest of the U.S., “things are quiet, but I think it’s just a calm before the storm,” Chin-Hong said. “From what we see in the U.K. and Japan, a lot more people are getting flu earlier.”

    Chin-Hong noted that subclade K is not that much different than the strains this year’s flu vaccines were designed against. And he noted data recently released in Britain that showed this season’s vaccines were still effective against hospitalization.

    According to the British government, vaccinated children were 70% to 75% less likely to need hospital care, and adults were 30% to 40% less likely. Flu vaccine effectiveness is typically between 30% to 60%, and tends to be more effective in younger people, the British government said.

    Even if there is some degree of mismatch between the vaccine and circulating strains, “the flu vaccine still provides protection against severe illness, including hospitalizations,” according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

    “Public Health strongly encourages everyone who has not received the flu vaccine yet this year to receive it now, especially before gathering with loved ones during the holidays,” the department said in a statement.

    But “while mismatched vaccines may still provide protection, enhanced genetic, antigenic and epidemiological … monitoring are warranted to inform risk assessment and response,” according to scientists writing in the Journal of the Assn. of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Canada.

    Because the vaccine is not a perfect match for the latest mutated flu strain, Chin-Hong said getting antiviral medication like Tamiflu to infected patients may be especially important this year, even for those who are vaccinated. That’s especially true for the most vulnerable, which include the very young and very old.

    “But that means you need to get diagnosed earlier,” Chin-Hong said. Drugs like Tamiflu work best when started within one to two days after flu symptoms begin, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

    There are now at-home flu testing kits that are widely available for sale for people who are showing signs of illness.

    Also worrying is how the flu has surged in other countries.

    Australia’s flu season came earlier this year and was more severe than usual. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said that nation saw a record flu season, with more than 410,000 lab-confirmed cases, up from the prior all-time high of 365,000 that were reported last year.

    “This is not a record we want to be breaking,” Dr. Michael Wright, president of the physician’s group, said.

    Hudson noted Australia’s flu season was “particularly hard on children” this year.

    L.A. County health officials cautioned that Australia’s experience isn’t a solid predictor of what happens locally.

    “It is difficult to predict what will happen in the United States and Los Angeles, as the severity of the flu season depends on multiple factors including circulating strains, pre-existing immunity, vaccine uptake, and the overall health of the population,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said.

    The new strain has also thrown a wrench in things. As Australia’s flu season was ending, “this new mutation came up, which kind of ignited flu in Japan and the U.K., and other parts of Europe and Asia,” Chin-Hong said.

    On Friday, Japan reportedly issued a national alert with flu cases surging and hospitalizations increasing, especially among children and the elderly, accompanied by a sharp rise in school and class closures. The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said children ages 1 through 9 and adults 80 and up were among the hardest-hit groups.

    Taiwanese health officials warned of the possibility of a second peak in flu this year, according to the Central News Agency. There was already a peak in late September and early October — a month earlier than normal — and officials are warning about an uptick in flu cases starting in December and then peaking around the Lunar New Year on Feb. 17.

    Taiwanese officials said 95% of patients with severe flu symptoms had not been recently vaccinated.

    British health officials this month issued a “flu jab SOS,” as an early wave struck the nation. Flu cases are “already triple what they were this time last year,” Public Health Minister Ashley Dalton said in a statement.

    In England, outside of pandemic years, this fall marked the earliest start to the flu season since 2003-04, scientists said in the journal Eurosurveillance.

    “We have to brace ourselves for another year of more cases of flu,” Chin-Hong said.

    One major concern has been declining flu vaccination rates — a trend seen in both Australia and the United States.

    In Australia, only 25.7% of children age 6 months to 5 years were vaccinated against flu in 2025, the lowest rate since 2021. Among seniors age 65 and up, 60.5% were vaccinated, the lowest rate since 2020.

    Australian health officials are promoting free flu vaccinations for children that don’t require an injection, but are administered by nasal spray.

    “We must boost vaccination rates,” Wright said.

    In the U.S., officials recommend the annual flu vaccine for everyone age 6 months and up. Those age 65 and up are eligible for a higher-dose version, and kids and adults between age 2 and age 49 are eligible to get vaccinated via the FluMist nasal spray, rather than a needle injection.

    Officials this year began allowing people to order FluMist to be mailed to them at home.

    Besides getting vaccinated, other ways to protect yourself against the flu include washing your hands frequently, avoiding sick people and wearing a mask in higher-risk indoor settings, such as while in the airport and on a plane.

    Healthy high-risk people, such as older individuals, can be prescribed antiviral drugs like Tamiflu if another household member has the flu, Chin-Hong said.

    Doctors are especially concerned about babies, toddlers and young children up to age 5.

    “Those are the kids that are the most vulnerable if they get any kind of a respiratory illness. It can really go badly for them, and they can end up extraordinarily ill,” Hudson said.

    In the United States, just 49.2% of children had gotten a flu shot as of late April, lower than the 53.4% who had done so at the same point the previous season, according to preliminary national survey results. Both figures are well below the final flu vaccination rate for eligible children during the 2019-20 season, which was 63.7%.

    Among adults, 46.7% had gotten their flu shot as of late April, slightly down from the 47.4% at the same point last season, according to the preliminary survey results, which are the most recent data available.

    “Before the COVID-19 pandemic, flu vaccination coverage had been slowly increasing; downturns in coverage occurred during and after the pandemic. Flu vaccination levels have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels,” according to the CDC.

    The disparaging of vaccinations by federal health officials, led by the vaccine-skeptic secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has not helped improve immunization rates, health experts say. Kennedy told the New York Times on Thursday that he personally directed the CDC to change its website to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism.

    Mainstream health experts and former CDC officials denounced the change. “Extensive scientific evidence shows vaccines do not cause autism,” wrote Daniel Jernigan, Demetre Daskalakis and Debra Houry, all former top officials at the CDC, in an op-ed to MS NOW.

    “CDC has been updated to cause chaos without scientific basis. Do not trust this agency,” Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, added on social media. “This is a national embarrassment.”

    State health officials from California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii on Friday called the new claims on the CDC website inaccurate and said there are decades of “high quality evidence that vaccines are not linked to autism.”

    “Over 40 high-quality studies involving more than 5.6 million children have found no link between any routine childhood vaccine and autism,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said Friday. “The increase in autism diagnoses reflects improved screening, broader diagnostic criteria, and greater awareness, not a link to vaccines.”

    Hudson said it’s important to get evidence-based information on the flu vaccines.

    “Vaccines save lives. The flu vaccine in particular saves lives,” Hudson said.

    Rong-Gong Lin II

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  • Kennedy sharpens vaccine attacks, without scientific backing

    As the federal government prepares for the next meeting of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has intensified his attacks on aluminum vaccine components used in many shots to boost the body’s immune response.

    Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before seeking public office, claims that aluminum adjuvants are neurotoxic and tied to autism, asthma, autoimmune disease, and food allergies.

    But science and medicine advances a different view. Strong recommendations that parents introduce peanut-containing foods to infants early, for instance, have led to a drop in the incidence rate of peanut allergies.

    Since taking office, Kennedy has ordered reviews of vaccine ingredients, citing aluminum as a top concern. A discussion of “adjuvants and contaminants” is on the vaccine advisory panel’s draft agenda.

    A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage that for years has assured the public vaccines do not cause autism was updated Nov. 19 with new language stating that studies have not definitively ruled out a link between vaccines and autism.

    He has also targeted scientists who have published studies showing aluminum adjuvants are safe. In August, Kennedy denounced a large Danish study finding no link between aluminum in vaccines and childhood disease, calling it a “deceitful propaganda stunt” and demanding its retraction. The Annals of Internal Medicine rejected the claim and refused to retract the study.

    And, regarding the upcoming advisory panel meeting, HHS spokesperson Emily HIlliard said ACIP “is independently reviewing the full body of evidence on adjuvants and other vaccine components to ensure the highest safety standards.”

    The stakes are high because Kennedy’s push to cast doubt on aluminum isn’t just about the ingredient itself. It’s part of a broader strategy to foster uncertainty about vaccine safety and lay the groundwork to challenge the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which drug manufacturers say is essential to ensure a stable market for shots.

    But researchers across infectious diseases, immunology, pediatrics, and epidemiology say the data is clear: Aluminum adjuvants are safe.

    “Aluminum is the third most common element on the Earth’s surface,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “So we’re all exposed to aluminum all the time. The water that we drink has aluminum in it. The food that we eat has aluminum in it.”

    Vaccines add only a tiny amount of aluminum to the body — a combined total of about 8 milligrams — after the schedule of childhood vaccines is complete. Offit said that over the first 18 years of life, people naturally take in about 400 milligrams of aluminum from everyday sources.

    “I don’t know why there is so much concern,” said Dr. Rajesh Gupta, a former FDA vaccine scientist. “Aluminum gets distributed in the body everywhere. It is ultimately excreted by the kidneys in the urine. So, it is not that aluminum stays in the body.”

    How they work

    The aluminum in vaccines isn’t foil or metal. It’s a compound of aluminum salts, such as aluminum hydroxide or aluminum phosphate, that help the vaccine work better.

    It’s a bit like zinc in cold tablets: Patients don’t swallow chunks of metal, instead ingesting a zinc salt that dissolves safely in the body.

    In vaccines, these aluminum salts give the immune system an extra nudge so it learns to recognize the target germ more effectively.

    When injected, the vaccine stays near the injection site and causes mild, short-lived inflammation that summons immune cells. Those cells pick up the vaccine antigen, a harmless piece of a virus or bacterium, and carry it to nearby lymph nodes. There, the adjuvants show it around like a wanted poster so the body can identify and destroy the germ quickly.

    Dr. Harm HogenEsch, a professor of immunopathology at the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine, said that aluminum adjuvants work only when they’re injected in the same spot as the vaccine ingredient they’re meant to boost, to help nearby immune cells learn to recognize the germ. If the two shots are given in different places, he said, “you don’t see that effect.”

    In response to Kennedy’s claims, scientists say that anything that acts as an adjuvant can, in principle, also boost an allergic response. But that doesn’t mean aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines are turning children into food-allergic time bombs. Antigens in vaccines such as the hepatitis B surface antigen or HPV proteins are not allergens, and no food proteins are put into vaccines.

    Animal experiments

    Animal studies form the basis of Kennedy’s claim that aluminum adjuvants in vaccines can create allergies. In these experiments, scientists deliberately sensitize rats or mice by injecting them with a food protein mixed with aluminum. The aluminum strengthens the immune response, but it does not cause an allergy by itself.

    “That’s the basis for a lot of the experimental mouse models, where you inject a food allergen with an aluminum adjuvant to sensitize the mice,” HogenEsch said. “I’m not aware of any food antigen being included in vaccines, and so I don’t really see a way by which this could happen.”

    Dr. Ross Kedl, a professor of immunology and microbiology at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, went further, noting that there is no plausible route for vaccines to create a peanut allergy out of thin air. “Someone would have had to mix peanut proteins in with the actual vaccine prior to injection.”

    Dr. Stefan H. E. Kaufmann, director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, said results from mice often don’t match what happens in people, because “mice are much easier to push into allergic reactions than humans.” In other words, what looks dramatic in a rodent study doesn’t automatically apply to human immune systems.

    And in this case, it’s “important to distinguish between how aluminum behaves in lab animals versus people,” Kaufmann said.

    Human studies

    Beyond animal models and theoretical scenarios, scientists have looked hard for signals of harm in large human datasets.

    In 2023, a study by the Vaccine Safety Datalink, a collaboration coordinated by the CDC, reported a slight increase in asthma among children with higher aluminum exposure before age 2, but the association disappeared in further analyses.

    “That paper was roundly criticized,” Offit said. “When they controlled for breastfeeding, the association between asthma and receipt of aluminum-adjuvant-containing vaccines disappeared.”

    “It should have never been published,” he said.

    Dr. Kathy Edwards, professor emerita of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University, said that false signals are common when large databases are mined for dozens of outcomes.

    “When you look at a hundred different things, just by the law of percentages, some of those may look like there is a signal,” she said. “The whole RFK Jr. assessment is really prone to cherry-picking,” she said, adding that “there does need to be some kind of basic understanding of statistics for people to interpret this.”

    Soon after the 2023 U.S. findings drew attention, scientists at the CDC contacted Dr. Anders Hviid, head of epidemiology research at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark, to see whether his team could replicate the work.

    “It makes perfect sense to try to replicate findings of any kind in different data sources,” Hviid said.

    Hviid’s nationwide Danish study followed 1.2 million children over two decades, using linked national health registries that record every vaccination and diagnosis.

    “Our health care system is quite egalitarian. It’s free, and there’s universal access. And everyone is in these nationwide registers,” he said. Their findings: no increased risk of these conditions associated with increasing amounts of aluminum received through the vaccines.

    Rare bumps

    Doctors have documented one genuine reaction to aluminum adjuvants: itchy nodules at the injection site, called “pruritic granulomas.” These small bumps are so rare that most allergists and pediatricians will never see a single case.

    This reaction “doesn’t lead to something bad, and it really isn’t associated with anything other than that local irritation,” Edwards said.

    Researchers believe these bumps represent a localized immune response — meaning only in the area of the injection, not a body-wide allergy — that is very different from the kind of immediate allergic reaction people treat with antihistamines. These include the reactions driven by food or beestings, when histamine, the body’s own alarm signal, floods the system within minutes and causes hives, swelling, or breathing trouble. Kedl said that distinction often gets lost in public debate.

    Eliminating aluminum adjuvants

    For many experts, the real issue is not just whether aluminum is safe but what happens to the entire vaccine program if aluminum adjuvants are stripped out. For many modern vaccines that rely on a single purified protein — such as those for diphtheria and tetanus toxoids, hepatitis B, and HPV — adjuvants are crucial.

    Edwards said that simply swapping in a different adjuvant isn’t realistic.

    “They’re kind of all built on one another,” she said. Once a vaccine has been proved to work and become the standard of care, new or updated versions are generally no longer tested against a placebo in people who should be getting that vaccine. Instead, they’re tested against the existing product, which means each approval rests on the one before it.

    Core childhood vaccines would probably have to be reformulated, and large clinical trials would have to be repeated to prove the new products are safe and effective. Meanwhile, production gaps and shortages would have to be managed, potentially for years, while manufacturers and regulators start over — all while diseases such as whooping cough, hepatitis B, and HPV-related cancers gain more room to spread.

    “The aluminum adjuvants have sort of hit the sweet spot in terms of being effective at inducing a robust antibody response that is protective for those vaccines in which they’re being used and being very safe,” HogenEsch said. “It would be quite frankly foolish to try to eliminate them.”

    A century of safe use

    The DTaP, hepatitis B, and HPV vaccines all contain aluminum adjuvants and have been in use for nearly a century. Large-scale studies show no link between aluminum and systemic allergic disease.

    “We have had aluminum adjuvants in vaccines for decades,” Edwards said. “I have grandchildren. My grandchildren have received all of their vaccines. And I do not worry about the safety of them.”

    If aluminum is falsely cast as the villain and vaccine uptake falls, experts warn, the consequences will not be theoretical: more measles in schools, more meningitis in college dorms, and more young adults dying of cancers that HPV shots could have prevented.

    In their view, the real danger isn’t the trace amounts of a metal that children already encounter every day. It’s rolling back the protection aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines have provided for generations.

    That’s the trade-off Offit hopes parents will see. “A choice not to get a vaccine is not a risk-free choice,” he said. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

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  • CDC website is changed to include false claim about autism and vaccines

    A page of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website was changed to include a false claim about autism and vaccines. Multiple CDC officials familiar with the situation said the change was made by political appointees inside the Department of Health and Human Services without input from relevant agency staffers. 

    The page about vaccines and autism formerly said that “no links have been found between any vaccine ingredients and Autism spectrum disorder.” The website has now been changed to say, “‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim” — a statement the Autism Science Foundation calls “misinformation” that “actually contradicts the best available science.” The CDC page also falsely claims that studies supporting a link between vaccines and autism have “been ignored by health authorities.”

    Previously, changes have only occurred in consultation with subject matter experts at the agency’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities and its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. The CDC sources told CBS News political appointees at HHS devised the change and instructed an employee inside the office of acting CDC Director Jim O’Neil to make it. 

    Autism is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain. It presents with a wide range of symptoms that can include delays in language, learning, and social or emotional skills. The National Institutes of Health has committed hundreds of millions of dollars a year to studying the condition and trying to understand how and why it develops.

    The debunked theory that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism has its roots in a 1998 study that was found to be fraudulent and has been retracted. Since then, “independent researchers across seven countries have conducted more than 40 high-quality studies involving over 5.6 million people,” said American Academy of Pediatrics president Susan Kressly in a statement decrying the website change. 

    “We are at a very dangerous moment for the health of America’s children,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the AAP’s Committee on Infectious Diseases, in a news briefing on Thursday.  

    Research has found no evidence of increased rates of autism among those who are vaccinated compared to those who are not. Vaccines also undergo intensive safety testing. Research shows that genetics play a role in autism diagnoses. The NIH says some possible risk factors for autism include prenatal exposure to pesticides or air pollution, extreme prematurity or low birth weight, certain maternal health conditions, or parents conceiving at an older age.  

    “There is overwhelming evidence that vaccines do not cause autism,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, a former CDC director. “This change to CDC language undermines the agency’s scientific integrity, damaging its credibility on vaccines and other health recommendations. Most concerning, it risks endangering children by driving down vaccination rates and leaving kids vulnerable to preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough.”

    In a statement, HHS communications director Andrew Nixon said, “This is a common-sense update that brings CDC’s website in line with our commitment to transparency and gold standard science.

    “As the updated page explains, the claim that ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not supported by comprehensive evidence, as studies to date have not definitively ruled out potential associations. Some research suggesting possible biologic mechanisms has been ignored or dismissed by public health agencies, and HHS is committed to finding a definitive answer,” Nixon said.

    Leading autism advocacy groups dispute that. 

    The Autism Science Foundation said in a statement it was “appalled” by the change to the CDC’s website, and highlighted the decades of research into the topic. Alison Singer, the co-founder and president of the ASF, said that while researchers “can’t do a scientific study to show that something does not cause something else,” there are a “mountain of studies that we have exonerating vaccines as a cause of autism.”

    “I think the question of whether vaccines causes autism is one that science can answer, and science has answered it,” Singer said in Thursday’s news briefing.

    A subhead saying that “Vaccines do not cause autism” remains on the CDC website with an asterisk next to it. The bottom of the page explains that the header remains in place because of an agreement with Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who is the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and backed HHS Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his confirmation hearings. Cassidy said Sunday on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that he supported Kennedy in part because of “serious commitments” from the Trump administration, but did not specify what those were. 

    “I’m a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine-preventable diseases,” Cassidy wrote on social media on Thursday afternoon. “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.” 

    Cassidy highlighted recent outbreaks of whooping cough and measles. He also called for more research into “the real causes of autism,” and criticized HHS funding cuts. 

    “Redirecting attention to factors we definitely know DO NOT cause autism denies families the answers they deserve,” Cassidy wrote.

    Other health agency pages with information about autism and vaccines had not been changed as of early Thursday afternoon.

    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

    CBS News


    Kennedy has previously pushed the discredited claim that routine childhood shots cause autism. President Trump has also falsely suggested vaccines could be to blame for autism rates. Both expressed concern about rising rates of autism diagnoses, which appear to be driven by a variety of factors including increased awareness and changes in how the condition is diagnosed. 

    O’Leary said he feared the website changes would “scare parents and further stigmatize” people with autism. 

    “We have been dealing with these falsehoods for many years. They are not new. We have been promoting the science, and we’re going to continue to do that, as are the other professional societies,” he said. “The problem is now it’s coming from, these falsehoods are coming for our federal government.” 

    Experts have previously raised concerns about Kennedy reviving debunked theories about the cause of autism. In April, Kennedy announced the CDC would conduct a “massive testing and research effort” to find out what causes the disorder, and hired David Geier, a man who repeatedly claimed a link between vaccines and autism, to lead the effort. Kennedy said the work would be completed by September, though other health officials later pushed the timeline. 

    Dr. Fiona Havers, an infectious disease physician and former CDC official, said that the website change showed scientists “who in the past carefully vetted scientific information have been pushed aside.” 

    The “CDC should be a data-driven agency based on science and not ideology, but when you take the scientists out of the process you get rhetoric that can harm families,” said former CDC chief science and medical officer Dr. Debra Houry, who lresigned from the agency earlier this year.

    Edited by

    Nicole Brown Chau and

    Paula Cohen

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  • CDC website changed to include false claim about autism and vaccines

    A page of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website was changed to include a false claim about autism and vaccines. Multiple CDC officials familiar with the situation said the change was made by political appointees inside the Department of Health and Human Services without input from relevant agency staffers. Dr. Jon LaPook has details.

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  • CDC replaces website on vaccines and autism with false and misleading statements

    The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have altered their website on autism and vaccines, removing unequivocal statements that immunizations don’t cause the neurodevelopmental disorder and replacing them with inaccurate and misleading information about the links between the shots and autism.

    Until Wednesday, the CDC page, “Autism and Vaccines,” began: “Studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD).”

    This was followed, in large font, by the blunt statement: “Vaccines do not cause autism.”

    The rest of the page summarized some of the CDC’s own studies into autism and vaccine ingredients, none of which found any causal links between the two.

    On Wednesday, the page was altered so that it now begins: “The claim ‘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 words “Vaccines do not cause autism” still appear near the top, but with an asterisk that leads to a note at the bottom.

    “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 site states.

    The chair of that committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), cast the deciding vote to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appointment as Health and Human Services secretary, in exchange for Kennedy’s promise that he wouldn’t erode public confidence in vaccines.

    “Studies supporting a link have been ignored by health authorities,” HHS spokesman Andrew Dixon said in an email. “We are updating the CDC’s website to reflect gold standard, evidence-based science.”

    The news was met with outrage by scientists and advocates.

    “We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted, and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism,” the nonprofit Autism Science Foundation said in a statement. “The CDC’s previous science and evidence-based website has been replaced with misinformation and now actually contradicts the best available science.”

    The current CDC page now says the rise in autism diagnoses correlates with an increase in the number of vaccines given to infants. Multiple researchers have argued that the rise in autism spectrum disorder diagnoses is better explained by an expanding diagnostic definition of the disorder, along with better monitoring and diagnosis for more children.

    Cassidy’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

    Corinne Purtill

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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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  • FDA’s top drug regulator resigns after federal officials probe ‘serious concerns’

    The head of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug center abruptly resigned Sunday after federal officials began reviewing “serious concerns about his personal conduct,” according to a government spokesperson.Dr. George Tidmarsh, who was named to the FDA post in July, was placed on leave Friday after officials in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of General Counsel were notified of the issues, HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard said in an email. Tidmarsh then resigned Sunday morning.“Secretary Kennedy expects the highest ethical standards from all individuals serving under his leadership and remains committed to full transparency,” Hilliard said.The departure came the same day that a drugmaker connected to one of Tidmarsh’s former business associates filed a lawsuit alleging that he made “false and defamatory statements,” during his time at the FDA.The lawsuit, brought by Aurinia Pharmaceuticals, alleges that Tidmarsh used his FDA position to pursue a “longstanding personal vendetta” against the chair of the company’s board of directors, Kevin Tang.Tang previously served as a board member of several drugmakers where Tidmarsh was an executive, including La Jolla Pharmaceutical, and was involved in his ouster from those leadership positions, according to the lawsuit.Messages placed to Tidmarsh and his lawyer were not immediately returned late Sunday.Tidmarsh founded and led a series of pharmaceutical companies over several decades working in California’s pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Before joining the FDA, he also served as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. He was recruited to join the agency over the summer after meeting with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.Tidmarsh’s ouster is the latest in a string of haphazard leadership changes at the agency, which has been rocked for months by firings, departures and controversial decisions on vaccines, fluoride and other products.Dr. Vinay Prasad, who oversees FDA’s vaccine and biologics center, resigned in July after coming under fire from conservative activists close to President Donald Trump, only to rejoin the agency two weeks later at the behest of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.The FDA’s drug center, which Tidmarsh oversaw, has lost more than 1,000 staffers over the past year to layoffs or resignations, according to agency figures. The center is the largest division of the FDA and is responsible for the review, safety and quality control of prescription and over-the-counter medicines.In September, Tidmarsh drew public attention for a highly unusual post on LinkedIn stating that one of Aurinia Pharmaceutical’s products, a kidney drug, had “not been shown to provide a direct clinical benefit for patients.” It’s very unusual for an FDA regulator to single out individual companies and products in public comments online.According to the company’s lawsuit, Aurinia’s stock dropped 20% shortly after the post, wiping out more than $350 million in shareholder value.Tidmarsh later deleted the LinkedIn post and said he had posted it in his personal capacity, not as an FDA official.Aurinia’s lawsuit also alleges, among other things, that Tidmarsh used his post at FDA to target a type of thyroid drug made by another company, American Laboratories, where Tang also serves as board chair.The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court of Maryland, seeks compensatory and punitive damages and “to set the record straight,” according to the company.

    WASHINGTON —

    The head of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug center abruptly resigned Sunday after federal officials began reviewing “serious concerns about his personal conduct,” according to a government spokesperson.

    Dr. George Tidmarsh, who was named to the FDA post in July, was placed on leave Friday after officials in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of General Counsel were notified of the issues, HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard said in an email. Tidmarsh then resigned Sunday morning.

    “Secretary Kennedy expects the highest ethical standards from all individuals serving under his leadership and remains committed to full transparency,” Hilliard said.

    The departure came the same day that a drugmaker connected to one of Tidmarsh’s former business associates filed a lawsuit alleging that he made “false and defamatory statements,” during his time at the FDA.

    The lawsuit, brought by Aurinia Pharmaceuticals, alleges that Tidmarsh used his FDA position to pursue a “longstanding personal vendetta” against the chair of the company’s board of directors, Kevin Tang.

    Tang previously served as a board member of several drugmakers where Tidmarsh was an executive, including La Jolla Pharmaceutical, and was involved in his ouster from those leadership positions, according to the lawsuit.

    Messages placed to Tidmarsh and his lawyer were not immediately returned late Sunday.

    Tidmarsh founded and led a series of pharmaceutical companies over several decades working in California’s pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Before joining the FDA, he also served as an adjunct professor at Stanford University. He was recruited to join the agency over the summer after meeting with FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

    Tidmarsh’s ouster is the latest in a string of haphazard leadership changes at the agency, which has been rocked for months by firings, departures and controversial decisions on vaccines, fluoride and other products.

    Dr. Vinay Prasad, who oversees FDA’s vaccine and biologics center, resigned in July after coming under fire from conservative activists close to President Donald Trump, only to rejoin the agency two weeks later at the behest of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

    The FDA’s drug center, which Tidmarsh oversaw, has lost more than 1,000 staffers over the past year to layoffs or resignations, according to agency figures. The center is the largest division of the FDA and is responsible for the review, safety and quality control of prescription and over-the-counter medicines.

    In September, Tidmarsh drew public attention for a highly unusual post on LinkedIn stating that one of Aurinia Pharmaceutical’s products, a kidney drug, had “not been shown to provide a direct clinical benefit for patients.” It’s very unusual for an FDA regulator to single out individual companies and products in public comments online.

    According to the company’s lawsuit, Aurinia’s stock dropped 20% shortly after the post, wiping out more than $350 million in shareholder value.

    Tidmarsh later deleted the LinkedIn post and said he had posted it in his personal capacity, not as an FDA official.

    Aurinia’s lawsuit also alleges, among other things, that Tidmarsh used his post at FDA to target a type of thyroid drug made by another company, American Laboratories, where Tang also serves as board chair.

    The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court of Maryland, seeks compensatory and punitive damages and “to set the record straight,” according to the company.

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

    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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  • Are vaccine makers ‘exempt from all liability’?

    A billboard near West Virginia University questions vaccine manufacturer protections, a topic in the news as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeks to change vaccine policy.

    “Vaccine makers are exempt from all liability for vaccine injury and death,” says the billboard, which was sponsored by West Virginians for Health Freedom, a group that advocates for parental choice on vaccine requirements and risks.

    The billboard has advertised vaccine-skeptical perspectives for years, and passing motorists might wonder if the claim is true. So PolitiFact West Virginia took a closer look.

    Dr. Alvin Moss — a WVU professor of nephrology and medicine who was referred to PolitiFact West Virginia by West Virginians For Health Freedom — pointed to an academic paper that described vaccine manufacturers’ legal immunities as “broad” and a description of a Supreme Court case that characterized the industry’s legal protections as “significant.” (He said he was speaking in his personal capacity, not on behalf of his employer.)

    However, broad and significant are not synonymous with “all,” which is the word the billboard used. In practice, the laws that provide manufacturers with extensive liability protections do include exceptions and limits that allow lawsuits in some circumstances.

    Sign up for PolitiFact texts

    Lawsuits are allowed, eventually, under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act

    The most important law governing vaccine liability is the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. This law created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a no-fault system for people who believe they have been injured by routinely recommended childhood vaccines. A fund is able to pay out awards to people claiming injury; the fund is filled by revenues from a 75 cent tax per disease prevented on each vaccine dose. 

    Initially, this law clamps down on the ability to pursue a lawsuit. Under the act, people who receive a covered vaccine must file a claim through the compensation program before they file suit. They must then wait for 240 days after filing to see if they are presented with an acceptable offer. If the program fails to issue a decision during that period, or if the petitioner loses their case, or they are awarded compensation but the petitioner rejects the program’s offer, the person can then file a civil lawsuit against the vaccine manufacturer.

    There are other limits. A 2011 decision in the Supreme Court case Bruesewitz v. Wyeth held that manufacturers cannot be sued over a claim related to design defects. Suits related to warnings are allowed only if the manufacturer failed to warn the doctor, not the patient.

    Other claims, like those related to negligence and fraud, can be pursued, though they are considered harder to prove.

    An earlier version of the billboard from 2023. (Bob Britten)

    Not all vaccines are covered by the 1986 law

    The law limits the types of vaccines that receive liability protections, said Renee Gentry, a law professor and director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at George Washington University Law School.

    The law covers routine childhood vaccines and does not address adult-only vaccines such as those for shingles or pneumonia. Manufacturers of these vaccines may be, and have been, sued. 

    COVID-19 vaccines fall under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act. This law offers broader liability protection, effectively shielding manufacturers from litigation. 

    So while manufacturers are protected from lawsuits for some of the vaccines they make, these legal protections aren’t across-the-board, said Dorit Reiss, a law professor who specializes in vaccine liability. For instance, Reiss said, more than 200 cases have been brought against Merck related to its Gardasil vaccine, which aims to protect against HPV. Some of that litigation is ongoing.

    Moss, the doctor who was referred to PolitiFact West Virginia by West Virginians For Health Freedom, downplayed the protections for adult vaccines, saying that “childhood vaccines constitute a very high percentage of vaccines given.”

    Data from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration shows that childhood vaccinations are more numerous than adult vaccines, but adult vaccines still account for a large number of vaccines given. The influenza vaccine, which is mostly given to adults, had more than 2.5 billion doses distributed between Jan. 1, 2006, and Dec. 31, 2023.

    Our ruling

    On its billboard, West Virginians For Health Freedom said, “Vaccine makers are exempt from all liability for vaccine injury and death.”

    Under federal law, vaccine manufacturers do benefit from significant lawsuit protections, including being shielded against suits about design defects. These protections are paired with a fund that is empowered to make compensation payments to injured parties in lieu of filing a lawsuit.

    However, vaccine makers’ liability protections are not — as the billboard says — unlimited. Companies may be sued if the injured party rejects the compensation fund’s offer; if negligence and fraud are alleged; and when a company’s vaccines are intended for adult use.

    We rate the statement Mostly False.

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  • Minnesota’s measles case count jumps to 20, with most unvaccinated children

    Dakota County in Minnesota is reporting three new measles cases, bringing the state’s total number this year to 20. 

    The Minnesota Department of Health says each of the new cases involves unvaccinated children who likely caught measles from an unvaccinated adult. 

    When you look at Minnesota’s overall cases, most are unvaccinated children who have not traveled, but have been in close contact with an adult family member who had. Eighteen out of the 20 measles cases are children, the health department reports. 

    “Twenty cases is more than we would like to see in Minnesota,” said Jessica Hancock-Allen, director of infectious disease for the health department. 

    And health officials anticipate there will be more, because more than 1,500 people have contracted the virus so far this year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and vaccinations across the country are down. 

    “We are very, very concerned about measles. We have been working closely with our public health providers, our school providers,” said Hancock-Allen. 

    Minnesota health officials say measles starts out like any other viral infection, with a fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes. About two or three days after those symptoms, people typically get a skin rash. And for children, it can be serious. About one in five kids are hospitalized when they have measles. In rare cases, it can be fatal.

    “It can cause encephalitis or brain swelling. And it’s very, very uncomfortable,” said Hancock-Allen.

    Just like the cold and flu, measles are passed through the air. But unlike those viruses, it can hang out for hours after an infected person leaves the room. Hancock-Allen says the best prevention is the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. 

    “It is an extremely effective vaccine, so about 93% on the first dose and 97% effective on the second dose,” she said.

    Cases fluctuate. Last year, there were 70 in Minnesota, but the year before, none were reported. For health officials, the goal is to keep that number as low as possible. 

    “It can make people very sick. Rarely, but it can have serious consequences. Very preventable by a highly, highly impactful vaccine,” said Hancock-Allen. 

    The CDC says nearly half of all measles cases in the U.S. this year were reported in Texas, three of which were fatal.

    WCCO spoke last month with Stacene Maroushek, pediatric infectious disease specialist with Hennepin Healthcare, who blames the outbreaks of the disease — once thought to be eliminated more than two decades ago — on misinformation spread online, namely, that vaccines can cause autism.

    “I think we as physicians need to do a better job of promoting all of the stuff that we actually know from a scientific standpoint, and good data, to a level that people can readily access and understand,” said Maroushek.

    As of Friday, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services has reported 36 measles cases so far this year. All were unvaccinated.

    John Lauritsen

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