More measles cases in California this year than reported in all of 2024
Los Angeles Times reporter Rong-Gong Lin II breaks down the state of measles in California and the nation.
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8 minutes ago
At least 600 CDC employees are getting final termination notices, union says
NEW YORK -- At least 600 employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are receiving permanent termination notices in the wake of a recent court decision that protected some CDC employees from layoffs but not others. The notices went out this week and many people have not yet received them, according to the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 2,000 dues-paying members at CDC. Officials with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AFGE officials said they are aware of at least 600 employees being cut. But 'due to a staggering lack of transparency from HHS," the union hasn't received formal notices of who is being laid off,' the federation said in a statement on Wednesday. The permanent cuts include about 100 people who worked in violence prevention. Some employees noted those cuts come less than two weeks after a man fired at least 180 bullets into the CDC's campus and killed a police officer. 'The irony is devastating: The very experts trained to understand, interrupt and prevent this kind of violence were among those whose jobs were eliminated,' some of the affected employees wrote in a blog post last week. On April 1, the HHS officials sent layoff notices to thousands of employees at the CDC and other federal health agencies, part of a sweeping overhaul designed to vastly shrink the agencies responsible for protecting and promoting Americans' health. Many have been on administrative leave since then — paid but not allowed to work — as lawsuits played out. A federal judge in Rhode Island last week issued a preliminary ruling that protected employees in several parts of the CDC, including groups dealing with smoking, reproductive health, environmental health, workplace safety, birth defects and sexually transmitted diseases. But the ruling did not protect other CDC employees, and layoffs are being finalized across other parts of the agency, including in the freedom of information office. The terminations were effective as of Monday, employees were told. Affected projects included work to prevent rape, child abuse and teen dating violence. The laid-off staff included people who have helped other countries to track violence against children — an effort that helped give rise to an international conference in November at which countries talked about setting violence-reduction goals. 'There are nationally and internationally recognized experts that will be impossible to replace,' said Tom Simon, the retired senior director for scientific programs at the CDC's Division of Violence Prevention. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Time Magazine
3 hours ago
- Time Magazine
1 in 30 U.S. Teens Identify as Transgender
Nearly 3 million Americans identify as transgender, including one in 30 of those aged 13 to 17, according to a new report. But data on the country's trans community may soon be hard to come by, its authors warned, as the Trump Administration and a number of GOP-led states seek to limit the recognition, and rights, of transgender people. The UCLA Williams Institute has been publishing reports about transgender Americans since 2011, tracking information such as the race, ethnicity, age, regional location, and mental health of transgender individuals. Trans adults and youth make up 1% of Americans aged 13 and older and 3.3% of 13-to 17-year-olds, according to the institute's Wednesday report. Researchers found that younger adults, those aged 18 to 34, were more likely to identify as transgender than their older counterparts, making up more than 50% of the country's transgender population. For its initial 2011 report, the institute relied on just two state-level population surveys. Researchers noted that they have since been able to access broader and higher-quality data through the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): To generate the most recent findings, they used data from the CDC 2021-2023 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System and 2021 and 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The report authors noted that the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in particular 'currently provides the best available data for our estimates of the size and characteristics of youth who identify as transgender in the U.S.' But the agency will no longer collect information on transgender people in compliance with President Donald Trump's Executive Order calling for federal recognition of only two biological sexes. Since Trump returned to office in January, information regarding trans people and health resources for LGBTQ+ people has been quietly removed or modified on federal websites. And the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has stepped away from its previous practice of supporting gender-affirming-care, in spite of numerous statements from all major medical associations in the U.S., including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, declaring the care as best practice. In May, HHS called for 'exploratory therapy' or psychotherapy to treat individuals with gender dysphoria instead of the medically recommended care. Multiple states have also sought to restrict access to gender-affirming care, particularly for minors, amid broader global efforts to target such care for trans youth. A June Supreme Court decision upholding a Tennessee state-level ban on gender-affirming-care for youth delivered a heavy blow to the U.S. LGBTQ+ community, permitting similar bans that have been enacted across the country and presenting a significant obstacle to future efforts to challenge restrictions in the courts. Amid the current political climate, the authors of Wednesday's Williams Institute report say they are unsure whether survey respondents will accurately respond to questions regarding their gender identity moving forward. In addition to the uncertain future of data on the U.S. transgender population, they wrote, 'It is also unclear whether individuals' willingness to disclose on surveys that they identify as transgender will remain unchanged in the years to come.' Despite those looming challenges in gathering information, however, the authors noted it is already clear that younger people are more likely to identify as transgender and they anticipate that to continue being true. 'This has implications for institutions in our society, including educational institutions, the U.S. Armed Forces, civilian workplaces, health care settings, and other areas, regarding how to meet the needs of and provide opportunities for current youth and future generations,' they said.
The Hill
3 hours ago
- The Hill
2.8M in US now identify as transgender: Research
Roughly 2.8 million Americans aged 13 and older identify as transgender, accounting for approximately 1 percent of the U.S. population in that age group, according to a new estimate from the Williams Institute, a research organization focused on sexual orientation and gender identity issues. About three-quarters of people who identify as transgender in the U.S. are under 35, according to the report published Wednesday, and 25 percent are between 13 and 17. Williams Institute researchers used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) — public health surveys administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — and statistical modeling to estimate the population of trans adults and youth in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. About 2.1 million adults identify as transgender, accounting for approximately 0.8 percent of Americans aged 18 and older, according to Wednesday's report. Roughly 3.3 percent of 13 to 17-year-olds in the U.S., or 724,000, identify as transgender. 'Younger generations are more likely to identify as transgender, and we expect that trend to continue,' said Jody Herman, the report's lead author and a senior scholar at the Williams Institute. 'Youth and young adults are more likely to identify as transgender due to a variety of factors, including a greater willingness among younger individuals to disclose that they identify as transgender on surveys.' That finding is consistent with national surveys on LGBTQ identification. In a February Gallup poll, 23.1 percent of Gen Z said they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or 'something other than heterosexual,' compared with 14.2 percent of Millennials and 5.1 percent of Gen X. The Williams Institute, affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, has tracked the number of transgender people in the U.S. since at least 2011. In 2022, the group estimated that 1.6 million Americans identified as transgender. Most transgender people in the U.S. — about 279,000 — live in the South, according to Wednesday's report, consistent with previous years' findings. Around 175,000 transgender Americans live in the West; 156,000 in the Midwest and 114,000 in the Northeast, the Williams Institute found. Of all adults who identify as transgender, 33 percent are transgender women; 34 percent are transgender men and 33 percent are nonbinary, according to Wednesday's report. The group's estimate comes as President Trump's administration works to remove public health datasets and information from federal government websites about transgender people and identities. Affixed at the top of the CDC's webpage for the YRBSS, which the Williams Institute used in its calculation on Wednesday, is an advisory that 'Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there are two sexes, male and female.' 'The Trump Administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children, by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation, and to women, by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well-being, and opportunities,' the advisory reads. 'This page does not reflect biological reality and therefore the Administration and this Department rejects it.' Federal health agencies, including the CDC, were ordered to restore online datasets taken down after Trump issued an executive order in January prohibiting the government from promoting 'gender ideology.' Each of the restored webpages leads with notices condemning 'gender ideology.' The White House has also sought to remove questions about gender identity from national surveys on crime victimization and sexual violence. In February, former U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Santos told NPR that the bureau had moved to strike gender identity questions from several surveys it conducts because of Trump's Jan. 20 order. 'Federal datasets that include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity have provided critical information to researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and the public,' Andrew R. Flores, a distinguished visiting scholar at the Williams Institute and one of the authors of Wednesday's report, said in a statement. 'Removal of these questions from federal surveys — such as the BRFSS and the YRBS — would significantly hinder the ability of researchers to assess the health, experiences, and needs of transgender people in the United States.'
