U.S. records most measles cases in single year since record 2019 wave
The U.S. has seen at least 308 measles cases so far this year, according to figures published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, marking the most infections reported nationwide in a single year since a record 2019 wave.
More than 90% of the cases have been from a growing outbreak in Texas and neighboring New Mexico – totaling at least 284 measles infections in the CDC's data.
Two additional "probable" cases linked to the outbreak this week in Oklahoma have so far not been added to the CDC's tally.
This year's total of 308 cases now tops the 285 infections reported for all of last year, which saw a large outbreak in a Chicago migrant shelter.
A total of 1,274 cases were reported in 2019, according to the CDC, the most reported in the U.S. in decades. Health officials were alarmed at the time about large and ongoing outbreaks, driven mostly by spread in undervaccinated communities in New York.
Before this year, the last U.S. measles death in the CDC's death certificate records was also in 2019. This past February, a child who was hospitalized with measles died in West Texas. This month, an unvaccinated adult in New Mexico tested positive for measles after their death, although health officials said the official cause of death is still under investigation.
The U.S. is not the only country seeing an increase in measles cases. A separate record outbreak in Canada has driven up cases across the Americas, prompting the World Health Organization to warn earlier this month that the region's "elimination status" was at risk.
Health officials in Europe and Asia also warned this week of an increase in measles cases there, amid gaps in immunization coverage.
"Measles is back, and it's a wake-up call," Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the World Health Organization's regional director for Europe, said in a statement. "Without high vaccination rates, there is no health security. As we shape our new regional health strategy for Europe and central Asia, we cannot afford to lose ground. Every country must step up efforts to reach under-vaccinated communities."
The CDC urged Americans this month, in a health advisory ahead of the travel season this spring and summer, to make sure they are up to date on their measles vaccinations.
Outside of Texas and New Mexico, most measles cases in the U.S. so far have been linked to unvaccinated or undervaccinated people exposed to the virus during international travel.
Maryland, New York state and Vermont were added to the CDC's tally of measles cases this week.
Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York City, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington state had previously reported infections this year in the agency's tally.
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Boston Globe
41 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
A member of RFK Jr.'s MAHA movement and a public health expert met on Zoom. Here's what happened next.
The conversations are the brainchild of Brinda Adhikari, a journalist and former television producer who grew increasingly concerned about Americans' mistrust of institutions after Donald Trump's reelection. 'These are two groups that talk a lot about each other,' said Adhikari, who has worked for ABC News and the podcast 'The Problem with Jon Stewart.' 'I just don't see a lot of spaces where they talk to each other or with each other.' The conversations are captured on Adhikari's weekly podcast, ' Advertisement Despite the high stakes, the goal wasn't to change anyone's mind, said Adhikari, who lives in Brooklyn. She hoped both sides would discover shared concerns and better understand their opponents' perspectives. Those common worries included the risks of corporate influence in science and medicine, the possible harms Medicaid cuts could cause, and the safety of Americans' food. 'I didn't expect the areas of agreement would be so obvious that we would actually find spaces to work together almost immediately,' said Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, who participated in the conversations. Advertisement Though 'We really came into this feeling ostracized,' said Elizabeth Frost, a panelist who led Kennedy's Ohio presidential campaign operation. 'What really surprised me is a lot of people in public health feel the same way.' The two groups, five MAHA representatives and the same number of public health experts, met twice in May. A third conversation involved a few of the same panelists, plus MAHA representatives from Georgia. Some meetings took on the tenor of estranged family members working to heal rifts. MAHA is grounded in a deep skepticism of establishment medicine. Many gravitated toward the movement after feeling let down by doctors they had trusted. Public health experts derive their knowledge from establishment medicine: They rely on hard-won data and the scientific method for their conclusions. One side feels ignored or dismissed. The other is frustrated and dismayed by how little sway scientific evidence and expertise hold with some MAHA adherents. Advertisement 'Scientists try their best to be open-minded, and ... we push and test each other to make sure that we're coming up with new ideas and using the best methods possible and getting as close to truth as we can,' Ranney said during the podcast. She then asked Frost, 'What would help folks to feel like science was being done with and for them?' 'There was a lot of outrage for having any questions about the way that the COVID pandemic was handled,' Frost responded. 'People on the MAHA side of it felt very demonized and very othered, that they weren't allowed to be a part of the conversation.' The MAHA movement coalesced around Kennedy's presidential campaign last year, though it adopted its name only after he suspended his campaign for president and endorsedTrump and his Make American Great Again movement. MAHA emphasizes personal choice in health, with a focus on addressing chronic illness, food quality, and distrust of the pharmaceutical industry. It also is associated with opposing longstanding, and well-proven, public health cornerstones, including the importance of widespread vaccination and water fluoridation to improve dental health. It's proven to have surprising appeal to members of both political parties, drawing liberals, MAGA Republicans, and independents, said Frost. As a result, members' beliefs are highly heterodox. Antivax sentiments are far from uniform, and dissatisfaction with overall policies in the Trump administration isn't unusual. Mark Harris, another Ohio MAHA leader, described himself as an independent thinker. He disapproves of proposed deep cuts to Medicaid and was among the first in his friend group to recognize how serious COVID would be. He did take the COVID-19 vaccine, he said. Advertisement 'I do believe in herd immunity,' he said in an interview. 'I believe in vaccines being very helpful in achieving that.' He emphasized during one of the podcasts, though, that the word vaccine implies permanent protection against an illness, and seems like a misnomer when applied to the COVID shots. COVID shots reliably offer long-term protection against serious illness and death but don't keep the virus entirely at bay over more than a few months. 'I completely agree with you,' said Paul Offit, one of the nation's most prominent vaccine experts and a member of the Food and Drug Administration's Vaccine Advisory Committee. 'Very early we should have made that very clear what the vaccine can and can't do.' The two sides also generally agree on why so many Americans have lost faith in the medical establishment. Access is expensive and difficult. Insurance coverage can appear arbitrary and confusing. Interactions with physicians are often through overcrowded emergency departments or with harried primary care physicians with barely the time to spend 10 minutes with a patient. Public health officials are not often visible, trusted figures in a community until an emergency arrives, leaving them with limited credibility, noted Craig Spencer, associate professor of the practice of health services, policy and practice at Brown University. Many public health officials wish scientific evidence spoke for itself, particularly when it comes to the power of vaccines. Polio is virtually unheard of in the United States. Measles was eliminated in this country before lower vaccination rates allowed it to resurface. The absence of these illnesses makes it hard for people who didn't live before widespread inoculation to fully believe in the value of vaccines, Spencer said, and data alone can't compete with a powerful messenger. Advertisement People like Kennedy have stepped in to fill that communication gap. Many of his ideas aren't supported by science, Spencer said, but his ability to command an audience is enviable. 'They've done such an incredible job just being out there,' he said of MAHA leaders and influencers. 'Even if they're saying some things, a lot of things that I wouldn't agree with, they're out there and that is instilling trust." During the podcast, Frost described how angry she was that people with COVID had been denied ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Offit responded with a layman's explanation of the evidence that the drugs aren't effective against the virus and, in the case of hydroxychloroquine, may do harm. Yet in the interview Frost didn't sound especially convinced, saying she gives the most weight to what her physician recommends. That wasn't evidence of the podcast's failure, Adhikari said. 'That you're going to sit down with someone whom you've never met and act as though you could say something to them within a two hour conversation that will completely change something that is a deep-rooted value for them, it's just not reasonable,' she said. 'What I am trying to do is to build the bridge, to trust each other enough to even be at the same table.' Jason Laughlin can be reached at
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
NIH chief sidesteps controversy while other officials court it
National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya didn't aggressively push back and defend Trump administration budget cuts and grant freezes when senators grilled him last week about plans for his agency. An $18 billion cut in the 2026 NIH budget request was just a starting point for negotiations, he said. Why it matters: The hearing showed how the former Stanford professor is trying to deflect controversy over the administration's health agenda while others on President Trump's health team under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have leaned into their roles as disruptors. That's raising questions about who has the final say over the government's biomedical research hub. Bhattacharya is "in a difficult position with limited influence," Capital Alpha Partners analyst Rob Smith wrote in a note on Friday. "RFK appears to be running the show at the subagencies he oversees as HHS Secretary. It's our understanding that very little happens without his input." What they're saying: An HHS spokesperson told Axios that NIH and Bhattacharya are fully committed to advancing research, improving health outcomes and supporting scientific discovery. Constructive criticism pushes this innovation forward, they said. The big picture: NIH is the largest public payer of biomedical research in the world. It funds academic research and develops and funds much of the science behind products that drug companies eventually commercialize. The Trump budget's plan to cut its funding 40% next year could kneecap pharma and the biotech industry. State of play: Bhattacharya tried to find a middle ground during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, taking credit for fighting what he called "politicized science" while telling lawmakers he didn't accept the job to terminate grants. "This is my first time through this budget fight, and so I'm still learning, but I'll tell you what I understand is that this — the budget — is a collaborative effort between Congress and the administration," Bhattacharya said. "We have tremendous health needs that we have to address. It's only excellent research that's going to solve those problems," he said. His written testimony didn't mention the cuts, instead laying out the administration's policy priorities for NIH and the funding they are requesting. Zoom in: It's true that the budget proposal is just the first step in a negotiation process, and Congress gets the final say on funding levels. But Bhattacharya's decision not to explicitly defend the budget cuts shows that his role remains cryptic on a health team that's eagerly pushing boundaries. Kennedy defended the cuts strongly when he appeared in front of the same panel last month. "All the money that we've been pouring into these programs for years has not resulted in better health for Americans. ... We won't solve this problem by throwing more money at it. We must spend smarter," Kennedy said. The intrigue: Bhattacharya was sworn in as NIH director in April — just as mass layoffs at the agency ordered by Kennedy and DOGE went into effect. He quickly sent an all-hands letter to staff expressing gratitude for their work and pledging to implement changes "humanely." Bhattacharya has set up an appeals process to review grants that were terminated through keyword searches and other aggressive efforts to root out DEI initiatives. NIH was one of the first agencies to tell employees they didn't have to answer Elon Musk's "five things" weekly emails, and Bhattacharya reportedly called the task silly in an address to NIH staff. But the frozen grants and budget request haven't earned him much of a grace period with Congress. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said last week the proposed budget cuts would "delay or stop effective treatments and cures from being developed for diseases like cancer, Alzheimer's, Type 1 diabetes — I could go on and on." "A President's budget is not a 'negotiation with Congress,' it's a statement of priorities and values," Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the ranking member of the committee's subpanel on health, told Axios in a statement. Reality check: Bhattacharya is no stranger to controversy. During the pandemic, he was disparaged by the medical establishment for co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration, a petition arguing for COVID to spread among young, healthy people to reach herd immunity faster. He's been receptive to the idea that NIH-funded research in China led directly to the spread of COVID, and he's cast doubt on the merits of gender-affirming medical care for kids. "I think Dr. Bhattacharya wants NIH to continue to set the pace for medical progress, but what matters is whether he acts on intention and stops the dismantling of American-led research," Ellie Dehoney, senior vice president of policy and advocacy at Research!America, told Axios in an email. What we're watching: Bhattacharya is demurring, and there's bipartisan interest in keeping NIH well-funded. Congress in the near term is likely to maintain the status quo through stopgap spending measures.
Axios
an hour ago
- Axios
Former surgeon general fears precedent from vaccine board purge
President Trump's first-term surgeon general thinks people shouldn't be focused as much on who Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy appointed to the expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy as the way he purged all 17 of the sitting members. What they are saying: "Everyone jumped so quickly from 'they fired everybody' to 'let's talk about these new people' that we stopped talking about the fact that they fired everybody," said Adams, an anesthesiologist who's now a professor at Purdue University. If a new administration doesn't like the panel members or their recommendations, "they can just throw them all out and start over again," he said. Between the lines: Since the 1960s, the ACIP has served as a highly vetted advisory board that's informed the government through public debate on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, Adams said. The system operated for decades largely free from outside interference, he said, allowing doctors to safely rely on it to make recommendations to patients. ACIP recommendations also heavily influenced which shots insurers would cover. What to watch: Adams said some in Washington policy circles have questioned whether Kennedy perjured himself when he pledged during his confirmation hearing not to cut funding for vaccine programs or take away people's vaccines. "RFK and Dr. Makary and Dr. Bhattacharya and others have said, under oath, 'We will not take vaccines away from people,'" Adams said, referring to the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health leaders. "I'd argue that they literally did with the recent FDA guidance saying that certain people no longer could get a booster. I mean, I don't know how much more definitive you can be in terms of taking away vaccines from folks." "If ACIP begins dropping recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines and other shots, it would disrupt the process by which vaccines are paid for. Then you're indirectly taking away vaccine access from people," he said. The bottom line: "No government body is flawless or universally embraced, but ACIP remains truly a cornerstone, at least up until this week, of America's public health framework, and it saved countless lives over the decades," Adams said. While it's possible the new ACIP could have great conversations and recommendations, "the process that they went through to get to where we are right now — the lack of transparency, the unprecedented nature — are going to absolutely create doubt in people's minds," he said.
