The Presidential Fitness Test will help 'motivate kids,' says WWE's 'Triple H'
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Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Childhood vaccination rates fall for 5th straight year, CDC data shows
Childhood vaccination rates for the 2024-25 school year fell for the fifth year in a row, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published Thursday. Vaccine coverage for shots that protect against measles, polio, chickenpox, whooping cough and hepatitis B have now been under 95% -- a threshold many experts consider herd immunity -- since at least the 2020-2021 school year. Exemptions for vaccines also hit a record high, increasing to 3.6% for the 2024-25 school year compared to 3.3% during the previous school year. The number of kindergarteners exempt from one or more vaccines was about 138,000. MORE: Members of CDC vaccine panel ousted by RFK Jr. say committee has 'lost credibility' "That gap, combined with concentrated pockets of exemptions, is exactly how sustained outbreaks gain a foothold," said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and ABC News medical contributor. "Kindergarten vaccination rates are an early warning indicator. Persistent declines predict conditions for more frequent and larger outbreaks are already in place." Exemptions increased in 36 states, with 17 states reporting exemption rates exceeding 5%, according to the CDC data. Nearly all the exemptions were listed as non-medical, typically related to religious or personal reasons. "The surge in non-medical exemptions reflects a growing influence of misinformation and shifting policy. When these beliefs concentrate geographically, they erode the very network of immunity that protects all children," Brownstein said. An estimated 92.5% of kindergarteners were vaccinated with the polio vaccine as well as the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, leaving an estimated 286,000 vulnerable to the diseases. It comes as the U.S. is seeing the highest number of measles cases since 1992, with dozens of outbreaks reported across the country, CDC data shows. About 94% of kindergartners were vaccinated against hepatitis B. Even fewer children were vaccinated against chickenpox and whooping cough with rates at 92.1%, according to the data. MORE: Medical groups sue HHS, RFK Jr. over 'unlawful' vaccine changes Last year saw a record level of whooping cough cases, with more than 35,000 cases reported -- roughly six times as many cases compared to 2023. Federal health officials in the Trump administration have also recently shifted messaging around vaccination, now pushing for personal choice -- advocating that parents should decide whether or not to immunize their kids. "Public health messaging has shifted in ways that place personal choice ahead of community protection. When federal leadership softens its stance on vaccination, it can accelerate hesitancy and legitimize non medical exemptions, further weakening population level immunity," Brownstein said. "As pediatricians, we know that immunizing children helps them stay healthy, and when everyone can be immunized, it's harder for diseases to spread in our communities," Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement. "By making sure all children can access immunizations before entering school with their classmates, children are best able to stay healthy to play, learn, and grow."
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Hunger strike at Alligator Alcatraz reaches Day 9 as inmate protests conditions
A detainee at the Florida immigration detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz has been on hunger strike for at least nine days, the latest in a string of detainees to allege being mistreated at the prison in the Everglades. 'Since my life no longer belongs to me, it's up to them to decide whether I live or die,' detainee Pedro Lorenzo Concepción, 44, told El País from inside the facility. State officials run the Florida detention camp, housing migrants in a series of hastily assembled tents and chain link enclosures on a converted airstrip as they await federal immigration court and potential deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Independent has contacted the Florida Division of Emergency Management, one of the state agencies overseeing the facility, for comment. Concepción, who came to the U.S. from Cuba in 2006 but lost his permanent resident status after going to prison, has been in detention since being arrested on July 8 after a check-in at a Florida Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, according to his family. The Independent has contacted ICE for comment. On July 22, he went on hunger strike and has collapsed multiple times inside Alligator Alcatraz. During the strike, he was taken to Miami's Kendall Hospital, according to his family, where he said he sat in handcuffs as doctors tried to get him to eat, but he refused. 'I don't want food, I refuse any treatment,' reads a document he signed about his protest, obtained by El País. 'I didn't even ask to be taken to the hospital, because I'm fighting for my family and all Cubans, and I belong where my people are, in prison, suffering the same hardship they are.' The Independent has contacted Kendall Hospital for comment. Concepción's wife said she's worried he could be deported back to Cuba without her or the couple's two children. 'In a minute, your life falls apart,' she told the paper. 'It's been 19 years of being together.' Concepción, who said he was shackled and left on a floor at Alligator Alcatraz for more than 10 hours upon his arrival, is not the only one to complain of alleged poor conditions at the facility, which federal officials say they plan to support with millions in reimbursement funds and use as a model for future detention centers. Other inmates say they have faced poor sanitation and other brutal conditions inside the facility, which sits in the middle of a sweltering swamp. 'They only brought a meal once a day and it has maggots,' Leamsy 'La Figura' Izquierdo, a Cuban artist who was housed at the facility, told CBS News. 'They never take of the lights for 24 hours. The mosquitoes are as big as elephants.' The facility is facing lawsuits on environmental and civil rights grounds, with lawyers accusing officials of largely barring them from being able to speak with detainees. Deportation flights for detainees held at the facility have begun, state officials announced last week. Earlier this month, Florida news outlets found that among those held at Alligator Alcatraz, only about one-third had a past criminal record, despite officials touting the prison as being designed to hold the worst of the worst.
Medscape
27 minutes ago
- Medscape
Treatment Considerations for End-Stage COPD
This transcript has been edited for clarity. Hi, everyone. Dr Chandrasekaran here, and today I'm going to talk about end-stage COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). We commonly diagnose COPD based off one of three things. One being imaging, showing emphysema or bronchitis; one being pulmonary function tests that can show obstruction; and one being symptom-based. Together, these help us to stage, define, manage, and treat patients with COPD. Once they do reach end-stage COPD, this becomes a healthcare burden associated with increased hospitalizations. We manage these patients by making sure they are on triple-therapy inhalers, including a LAMA (long-acting muscarinic antagonist), LABA (long-acting beta agonist), and inhaled corticosteroids. In addition, we can add theophylline or roflumilast to help decrease hospital readmissions. Chronic azithromycin therapy, 250 mg three times a week, has been shown to decrease shortness of breath and recurrent hospital admissions. Prior to starting this, sensorineural hearing tests along with QTc must be done to make sure that they are not increasing or addition, noninvasive ventilation can help these patients, as they do suffer from sleep-disordered breathing, and help decrease the hypercapnia that these patients face. Long-term oxygen therapy needs to be considered for end-stage COPD, along with lung volume reduction surgery in a handful of patients that do qualify and endobronchial valves in patients who have emphysema and qualify for these mechanisms.
