Capital area leaders monitor measles outbreak in Texas
BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana First) — Community leaders in the Capitol area said they are closely monitoring the recent measles outbreak in Texas.
According to health officials, an unvaccinated child in Lubbock was the first measles death in the United States.
Local officials said if you're vaccinated you should be OK and that is the reason why they're stressing the importance of getting the vaccine.
Baton Rouge visitor Sharon Jones said she's a vaccine proponent but understands people have the freedom to choose whether they get vaccinated or not.
'People have apprehension, fear and all of these emotions about substances going into their body,' said Jones. 'We tend to care about the fact that they will work, they're important.'
It's a topic on people's minds, as the first measles death in a recent, growing outbreak in the West Texas town of Lubbock.
A spokesperson for the City of Lubbock said the person who passed away was a school-aged, unvaccinated child.
According to the Texas Department of Health Services, over 100 cases of measles related to this current outbreak have been recorded near Lubbock. Most of those cases are in children ages five to 17.
U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.) urges people to protect themselves with a measles vaccine. 'I recommend it,' said Cassidy. 'We want the people of Louisiana protected. And by golly, if it's coming down the I-10, it's going to be in Houston, it's going to be in Lake Charles, it's going to be in Lafayette and Baton Rouge. Then it's going to go up I-49 to Shreveport.'The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 18 people have been hospitalized in the Lubbock area, mainly for quarantine or respiratory issues.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles is a highly contagious respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours.
It can lead to dangerous complications like pneumonia. Other symptoms include – high fever, cough, runny nose, red, watery eyes and white spots on the inside of the mouth.
Capital area leaders monitor measles outbreak in Texas
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Boston Globe
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The VA is currently running 11 clinical trials in various phases, with a total of some 800 veterans expected to participate. "The goal of these trials is to determine whether compounds such as MDMA and psilocybin can treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, treatment-resistant depressive disorder, major depressive disorder and potentially other mental health conditions," said Kasperowicz. An MDMA study published in the Jan. 2025 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry found that the substance is "unlike classical psychedelics." The study noted, "MDMA allows the individual to maintain intact ego functioning and a greater degree of cognitive and perceptual lucidity while still experiencing a prosocial altered state of consciousness that facilitates deeply emotional therapeutic breakthroughs." Click Here To Sign Up For Our Health Newsletter The researchers concluded that MDMA showed "enhanced levels of trust, empathy, self-compassion and a 'window of tolerance'" that traditional psychotherapy lacks. Doug Drysdale, CEO of the Canadian pharmaceutical company Cybin, told Fox News Digital that "the time is now to address the mental health crisis." He said it is "gratifying" that administration officials value the potential benefits of looking into alternative mental health treatments. Cybin is currently in phase 3 of a study of CYB003, a type of psilocybin that has been granted breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA as an additional treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD). "In Cybin's completed Phase 2 MDD study, long-term efficacy results showed that 71% of participants were in remission from depression, and 100% of participants responded to treatment at 12 months after just two 16 mg doses of CYB003," said Drysdale. 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For more Health articles, visit "Psychedelic experiences can sometimes feature anxiety, hallucinations and paranoia," Moss previously told Fox News Digital. "Some patients using traditional psychedelics have reported experiencing adverse cardiovascular events during clinical trials." To mitigate these risks, Moss recommended clinical trial participants receive thorough preparation and monitoring by trained professionals during sessions. Melissa Rudy and Angelica Stabile, both of Fox News Digital, contributed article source: Psychedelics as potential mental health treatment are explored by Trump administration