Flea-borne typhus infections are on the rise in SoCal: How to protect yourself and your pets
The good news is there are several common-sense ways to protect your pet and yourself from getting infected.
A flea becomes infected when it bites rats, opossums and stray cats that are carrying the disease. The disease is caused by Rickettsia typhi bacteria, which can be spread to humans when feces from infected fleas is rubbed into cuts or scrapes on the skin or into the eyes.
In the U.S., most cases of flea-borne typhus occur in Texas, California and Hawaii, with an average of about 300 cases each year nationwide, according to the California Department of Public Health.
The disease occurs year-round in areas of Los Angeles and Orange counties, but cases tend to peak during late summer and fall months.
So far this year, 79 cases of flea-borne typhus — confirmed, probable or suspected — have been reported in Los Angeles County, except for the cities of Long Beach and Pasadena, according to the County Public Health Department. For all of last year, the county had a total of 187, cases and it estimated 124 cases in 2023.
The city of Long Beach reported 20 cases as of July 31, a jump from 12 cases during the same period in 2024. On average the city has reported 20 cases each year, and 'if this trend continues, Long Beach is expected to surpass its 2021 record of 28 cases reported in a single year,' according to the city's Department of Health and Human Services.
At least 75% of the people with the disease in Long Beach were hospitalized, and all have recovered.
In areas were the disease is prevalent, you are most at risk of getting typhus from infected fleas if you touch, pet or come into contact with rats, opossums and stray cats.
Even if the disease isn't widespread in your neighborhood, public health experts say you should still stay away from animals that can carry the infected fleas.
People who live outdoors or in housing that is infested with rats or other rodents are also at risk of contracting the disease.
State and local public health experts provide the following guidance on how to prevent fleas from clinging onto your pet and keeping them out of your home.
To keep infected fleas away from pets, keep them indoors and treat them regularly with flea control medicine.
Avoid attracting stray cats or rodents that are carrying infected fleas by keeping your trash cans covered at all times. Don't leave trash or your pet food outside as that can entice animals to your home.
Don't befriend or feed strays in your neighborhood that could be carriers of the infected fleas.
Prevent infected fleas or small animals from getting into or living on your property by clearing overgrown vegetation and clutter. If there are any openings or crawl spaces in your home, seal them.
Symptoms of flea-borne typhus include fever, headache, chills, muscle aches and a rash on or around the chest, sides and back.
Although rare, swelling can occur in the lining of the brain (meningitis) or in the heart valves (endocarditis), according to the Los Angeles County Public Health Department.
Death from the disease is uncommon, but it has occurred in Los Angeles County. In 2022, there were three deaths due to flea-borne typhus, all victims were adults who had other underlying medical conditions.
If you have any symptoms of the disease, reach out to your healthcare provider right away for treatment.
Flea-borne typhus can be treated with antibiotics.
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Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
Why young Americans dread turning 26 as they face health insurance chaos
Amid the challenges of adulthood, one rite of passage is unique to the United States: the need to find your own health insurance by the time you turn 26. That is the age at which the Affordable Care Act declares that young adults generally must get off their family's plan and figure out their coverage themselves. When the ACA was voted into law in 2010, what's known as its dependent coverage expansion was immediately effective, guaranteeing health insurance to millions of young Americans up to age 26 who would otherwise not have had coverage. But for years, Republicans have whittled away at the infrastructure of the original ACA. Long gone is the requirement to buy insurance. Plans sold in the ACA's online insurance marketplaces have no stringent quality standards. Costs keep rising, and eligibility requirements and subsidies are moving targets. The erosion of the law has now created an 'insurance cliff' for Americans who are turning 26 and don't have a job that provides medical coverage. Some, scared off by the complexity of picking a policy and by the price tags, tumble over the edge and go without insurance in a health system where the rate for an emergency room visit can be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars. Today, an estimated 15% of 26-year-olds go uninsured, which, according to a KFF analysis, is the highest rate among Americans of any age. If they qualify, young adults can sign up for Medicaid, the federal-state program for Americans with low incomes or disabilities, in most but not all states. Otherwise, many buy cheap subpar insurance that leaves them with insurmountable debt following a medical crisis. Others choose plans with extremely limited networks, losing access to longtime doctors and medicines. They often find those policies online, in what has become a dizzyingly complicated system of government-regulated insurance marketplaces created by the ACA. The marketplaces vary in quality from state to state; some are far better than others. But they generally offer few easily identifiable, affordable, and workable choices. 'The good news is that the ACA gave young people more options,' said Karen Pollitz, who directed consumer information and insurance oversight at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration. 'The bad news is the good stuff is hidden in a minefield of really bad options that'll leave you broke if you get sick.' Publicly funded counselors called 'navigators' or 'assisters' can help insurance seekers choose a plan. But those programs vary by state, and often customers don't realize that the help is available. The Trump administration has cut funding to publicize and operate those navigator programs. In addition, changes to Medicaid eligibility in the policy bill recently passed by Congress could mean that millions more ACA enrollees lose their insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Those changes threaten the very viability of the ACA marketplaces, which currently provide insurance to 24 million Americans. In dozens of interviews, young adults described the unsettling and devastating consequences of having inadequate insurance, or no insurance at all. Damian Phillips, 26, a reporter at a West Virginia newspaper, considered joining the Navy to get insurance as his 26th birthday approached. Instead, he felt he 'didn't make enough to justify having health insurance' and has reluctantly gone without it. Ethan Evans, a 27-year-old aspiring actor in Chicago who works in retail, fell off his parents' plan and temporarily signed up for Medicaid. But the diminished mental health coverage meant cutting back on visits to his longtime therapist. Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat and the first Gen Z member of Congress, was able to quit his job and run for office at 25 only because he could stay on his mother's plan until he turned 26, he said. Now 28, he is insured through his federal job. 'The ACA was groundbreaking legislation, including the idea that every American needs health care,' he said. 'But there are pitfalls, and one of them is that when young adults turn 26, they fall into this abyss.' Back in 2010, the decision to make 26 the cutoff age for staying on a parent's insurance was 'kind of arbitrary,' recalled Nancy-Ann DeParle, deputy chief of staff for policy in the Obama White House. 'My kids were young , and I was trying to imagine when my child would be an adult.' Before that time, children were often kicked off family plans at much younger ages, typically 18. The Obama administration's idea was that young adults were most likely settling into careers and jobs with insurance by 26. If they still didn't have access to job-based insurance, Medicaid and the ACA marketplaces would offer alternatives, the thinking went. But over the years, the courts, Congress, and the first Trump administration eviscerated provisions of the ACA. By 2022, a shopper on a federal government-run marketplace had more than 100 choices, many of which included expensive trade-offs, presented in a way that made comparisons difficult without spreadsheets. Jack Galanty, 26, a freelance designer in Los Angeles, tried to plan for his 26th birthday by seeking coverage on the California insurance marketplace that would ensure treatment for his mild cerebral palsy and for HIV prevention. 'You're scrolling for what feels like years, looking at 450 little slides, at the little bars, and trying to remember, 'Was the one I liked No. 12 or 13?'' he recalled. 'It feels like it's nearly impossible to make a good choice in this scenario.' Out-of-pocket expenses have soared. Complex plans in the lightly regulated marketplaces featured rising premiums, high deductibles, and requirements that patients pay a significant portion of the cost of care, often 20% — a charge known as coinsurance. More than half of Americans ages 18 to 29 have incurred medical debt in the past five years, a KFF Health News data investigation found. Few have the reserves to pay it off. The networks of doctors to choose from in these plans are often so limited that an insured person struggles to get timely appointments. It can even be hard to find the official websites amid an explosion of look-alikes operated by commercial brokers. Sharing her contact information with one site that appeared legitimate left Lydia Herne, a social media producer in Brooklyn, 'drowning' in texts and phone calls offering plans of uncertain and unregulated quality. 'It never ends,' said Herne, 27. Young Invincibles, an advocacy group representing young adults, runs its own 'navigator' program to help young people choose health insurance plans. 'We hear the frustration,' said Martha Sanchez, the group's former director of health policy and advocacy. 'Twenty-six-year-olds have had negative experiences in a process that's become really complex. Many throw up their hands.' Elizabeth Mathis, 29, and Evan Pack, 30, a married couple in Salt Lake City, turned to the marketplaces two years ago, after Pack went uninsured for a 'really scary' year after he turned 26. 'Every time he got in the car, I thought, 'What if?'' Mathis said. The couple pays more than $200 a month for a high-deductible health plan backed by a federal subsidy (the kind set to expire next year). It's a significant expense, but they wanted to be sure they had access to contraception and an antidepressant. But last year, Pack suffered serious eye problems and underwent an emergency appendectomy. Their plan left them $9,000 in debt, for medical care billed at over $20,000. 'Technically, we gambled in the right direction,' Mathis said. 'But I don't feel like we've won.' The ACA was supposed to help consumers find affordable, high-quality plans online. The legislation also tried to expand Medicaid programs, which are administered by states, to provide health insurance to low-income Americans. But the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states could not be forced to expand Medicaid. Ten states, led mostly by Republicans, have not done so, leaving up to 1.5 million Americans, who could have qualified for coverage, without insurance. Even where Medicaid is available to 26-year-olds, the transition has often proved precarious. Madeline Nelkin of New Jersey, who was studying social work, applied for Medicaid coverage before her 26th birthday in April 2024 because her university's insurance premiums were more than $5,000 annually. But it was September before her Medicaid coverage kicked in, leaving her uninsured while she fought a chest infection over the summer. 'People tell you to think ahead, but I didn't think that meant six months,' she said. When Megan Hughes, 27, of Hartland, Maine, hit the cliff, she went without. An aide for children with developmental delays, she has a thyroid condition and polycystic ovary syndrome. She looked for a health care plan but found it hard to understand the marketplace. (She didn't know there were navigators who could help.) Now she can't afford her medicine or see her endocrinologist. 'I'm tired all the time,' Hughes said. 'My cycles are not regular anymore at all. When I do get one, it's debilitating.' She is hoping a new job will provide insurance later this year. Traditionally, most Americans with private health insurance got it through their jobs. But the job market has changed dramatically since the ACA became law, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, with the rise of a gig economy. Over 30% of people ages 18 to 29 said in recent surveys that they were working or have worked in short-term, part-time, or irregular jobs. The ACA requires organizations with 50 or more employees to offer insurance to people working 30 hours per week. This has led to a growing number of contract employees who work up to, but not past, the hourly limit. Many companies, which say they can't afford the rising costs of traditional insurance, offer their employees only a modicum of help, perhaps around $200 per month toward buying a marketplace plan, or a bare-bones company plan. Young people juggling part-time jobs and insurance options face bumpy, daunting transitions. In Oklahoma, Daisy Creager, 29, has had three employers over the past three years. Insurance was important to her, not least because her former husband had Type 1 diabetes. As she left the first of those jobs, her husband's endocrinologist helped the couple stockpile less expensive insulin from Canada, since they would be uninsured. After a few months, they bought a marketplace plan, but it was expensive and 'didn't cover a lot,' she said. When she found a new job, she dropped that plan, only to discover that her new insurance coverage didn't start until the end of her first month of employment. The couple would be uninsured for a few weeks. A few days later, she came home to find her husband unconscious on the floor, in a diabetic coma. After hovering near death in an intensive care unit for four days, he woke up and began to recover. 'I think I've done everything right,' Creager said. 'So why am I in a position where the health insurance available to me doesn't cover what I need, or I can barely afford my premiums, or worse, at times I don't even have it?' Kathryn Russell, 27, developed excruciating back pain two months before her 26th birthday. After extensive testing, doctors determined she needed a complex surgery, which her surgeon couldn't schedule until after she would be off her family's insurance plan. Forget the pain and the fear of the operation, she said, it was insurance that kept her up at night. 'There's this impending terror of, 'What am I going to do?'' she recalled. (One day before she turned 26, her father's company agreed to keep her on his plan for six more months, if he paid higher premiums.) The idea that the ACA would offer a variety of good options for people turning 26 has not worked as well as the legislation's authors had hoped. The 'job lock' tying insurance to employment has long plagued the United States workforce. Young adults need guidance on their options beforehand, said Sanchez of Young Invincibles. None of those interviewed for this story, for example, knew there were navigators to help them find insurance on the online marketplaces. Experts agree that the marketplaces need stronger regulation. In 2023, the federal government defined clearer standards for what plans in each tier of insurance should offer, such as better prescription drug benefits, defined copays for X-rays, or coverage for emergency room visits. Certain types of basic care, such as primary care, should require just a small copay for at least a small number of initial visits. Each insurer must offer at least one plan that complies with these new standards for every level, known as an 'easy pricing' option or a 'standard plan.' Most plans on the marketplaces don't meet these criteria. Federal and state regulators had long planned to cull such 'noncompliant' plans, gradually — fearing that doing so too quickly would scare insurers away from participating. But with the priorities of the new Trump administration now in focus, and a Republican majority in Congress, it's far from clear what course President Donald Trump, who sought to repeal the ACA outright in his first term, will take. There are hints: Subsidies to help Americans buy insurance, adopted during the Biden administration, are set to expire at the end of 2025 unless the Republican-led Congress extends them. If the subsidies expire, premiums are likely to rise sharply for plans sold on the marketplaces, leaving insurance out of reach for many more young adults. 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—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.
Boston Globe
18 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Man fired 180 shots, breaking 150 windows, in CDC attack
The shooter was stopped by CDC security guards before driving to a nearby pharmacy and opening fire late Friday afternoon, a law enforcement official said. The official wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. The 30-year-old man, Patrick Joseph White, later died, but authorities haven't said whether he was killed by police or killed himself. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. toured the CDC campus on Monday. CDC security pointed out broken windows across multiple buildings, including the main guard booth, according to a Department of Health and Human Services statement. Advertisement HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill and CDC director Susan Monarez accompanied him, according to the statement. Kennedy also visited the DeKalb County Police Department, where he met with the police chief. Later. He also met privately with the widow of the fallen officer, David Rose. Monarez posted a statement on social media Friday night that said at least four CDC buildings were hit in the attack. Advertisement The extent of the damage became clearer during a weekend CDC leadership meeting. Two CDC employees who were told about what was discussed at the meeting described details to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to reveal the information. Details were also in an agency memo. Building 21, which houses Monarez's office, was hit by the largest number of bullets. CDC officials did not say if her office was hit. CDC employees were advised to work from home this week. Kennedy issued a statement Saturday that said 'no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,' and that top federal health officials were 'actively supporting CDC staff." He did not speak to the media during his visit Monday. A retired CDC official, Stephan Monroe, said he worried about the long-term impact the attack would have on young scientists' willingness to go to work for the government. 'I'm concerned that this is going to be a generational hit,' said Monroe, speaking to a reporter near the corner where a poster had been set up in honor of Rose. Kennedy was a leader in a national antivaccine movement before President Trump selected him to oversee federal health agencies, and has made false and misleading statements about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 shots and other vaccines. Years of false rhetoric about vaccines and public health were bound to 'take a toll on people's mental health,' and 'lead to violence,' said Tim Young, a CDC employee who retired in April. Dr. Jerome Adams, the US surgeon general during Trump's first administration, said Sunday that health leaders should appreciate the weight of their words. Advertisement 'We have to understand people are listening,' Adams told 'Face the Nation' on CBS. 'When you make claims that have been proven false time and time again about safety and efficacy of vaccines, that can cause unintended consequences.'
Boston Globe
21 hours ago
- Boston Globe
RFK Jr.'s next target: the federal vaccine court
He said in a social media post last month that the vaccine court had 'devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favoritism and outright corruption.' Parents who believe their children were injured by vaccines are 'facing the monumental power and bottomless pockets of the US government,' he said. Kennedy has also claimed, falsely, that the compensation program prevents families from suing vaccine makers in traditional courts. (This is true of the COVID-19 vaccines, however, which are adjudicated in a separate program.) Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up And Kennedy has claimed that the vaccine court punishes and intimidates expert witnesses and petitioners' attorneys. Advertisement Experts fear that some of the changes Kennedy has hinted at could lead to an onslaught of lawsuits, jeopardizing the manufacture of vaccines and undermining their use. 'Kennedy can fix this system without burning it down,' said Tony Yang, a health policy expert at George Washington University. But Kennedy sounds 'more like a frustrated lawyer who lost cases than an eager secretary trying to fix things.' Indeed, allies of the secretary have fared poorly in the vaccine court. Their litigation in traditional courts -- including a 2022 lawsuit in which Kennedy delivered closing arguments -- also has fallen short. Advertisement The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Public health officials in the United States have been tracking vaccine safety for decades and have long said that shots routinely given to children are safe. But all vaccines have at least occasional side effects, and there are rare instances of serious injury. Congress set up the vaccine court in 1986 after a spate of lawsuits began to drive vaccine makers out of the market. So-called special masters judge claims of injuries from vaccines, weighing the available evidence. The program covers most routine immunizations given to children and pregnant women, and is funded by a small tax on each shot. The vaccine court has paid $5.4 billion in claims since its inception, awarding compensation in about 42 percent of the roughly 28,000 claims filed. But in accordance with a great body of scientific evidence, the court's special masters have denied thousands of claims that childhood vaccines are linked to autism. Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic, believes that there is such a link and has long accused government officials of hiding the risks. Some reforms widely seen as necessary would require Congress to intervene. Among them: more of the special masters who preside as judges over cases. Kennedy said in an interview last month that he wanted to ensure families seeking compensation 'get it very quickly, and they get it without the kind of adversarial impediments that have now been erected over the past 40 years.' A new fast-track system for rare injuries that studies have definitively linked to certain vaccines could speed up the process. In the current system, government lawyers sometimes fight families over settled links, said Altom Maglio, an attorney who has represented people in the vaccine court for 25 years. Advertisement 'Fighting tooth and nail is just not appropriate, and doesn't meet the goals,' he said. At the same time, special masters sometimes make awards even when the connection between a side effect and vaccine is tenuous, said Dr. Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 'There are a lot of things that are being compensated where there's inadequate evidence,' Salmon said. 'We need more science.' Kennedy has also suggested that injury claims regarding COVID-19 shots should be moved to the vaccine court. At present, those claims are piling up in a parallel federal system called the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. Of more than 14,000 injury claims filed regarding COVID vaccines, only 69 have been paid out. More than 9,400 are pending, and about 4,800 have been dismissed. Congress would need to act to move those claims to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. But adding the large COVID backlog to the vaccine court's own poses huge challenges, Yang said: 'You're complaining about your kitchen sink, it's clogged, and then you try to wash your bike in it.' There are some aspects of the program that Kennedy can change without Congress. That includes altering the official table detailing the injuries presumed to be linked to certain vaccines. Changing the table to say that certain vaccines cause autism or asthma, months or years after shots, for example, could hobble the system, opening the doors to tens of thousands of new claims that would previously have been dismissed. Advertisement 'He's talking about opening a can of worms that could result in Americans losing access to some vaccines and huge expenditures in court fees,' said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy has said, falsely, that the vaccine court is the 'exclusive remedy' for families seeking compensation. In fact, claimants can sue vaccine makers in traditional courts if the government does not respond to them within 240 days or if they are dissatisfied with its offer of compensation. But the traditional courts have not been any more generous to Americans who believe they were injured, said Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at George Washington University. 'The idea that going to straight to civil litigation means you're going to win is absurd,' Gentry said. 'These are incredibly difficult cases.' She believes her clients are better off in the vaccine court. Some experts are concerned that Kennedy may open the door to at least one proposal already pending in Congress -- to abolish the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program altogether. 'I think he's been really clear,' said Richard Hughes IV, a lawyer who represents vaccine makers. 'He would be fine with the total collapse of the program.' This article originally appeared in
