Texas measles outbreak surges to at least 400 cases
The measles outbreak in Texas has reached 400 cases, the state announced Friday, an increase of more than 20 percent since the last update on Tuesday.
Officials have said the numbers are likely an undercount.
Nearly all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or in individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. At least 41 people have been hospitalized so far.
An unvaccinated, but otherwise healthy child, died of measles in February, becoming the first measles fatality in the U.S. in a decade.
Just two cases have occurred in people fully vaccinated, according to the data.
The outbreak has also been spreading beyond Texas. The New Mexico Department of Health reported 44 cases on Friday, while Oklahoma reported seven confirmed and two suspected cases.
Friday's updates come after the Trump administration abruptly canceled more than $11 billion in COVID-era public health grants, a move that state and local health departments said could harm Texas's measles response.
Departments are already operating on thin margins and need to balance sometimes competing public health priorities. Due to the loss, some health departments are already starting to cancel contracts and lay off workers.
Grants were used for information modernization, as well as to hire people to help with vaccinations, testing and disease tracking.
Philip Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services, said grant money was going to be used to help equip a new lab that is being built. The new equipment would have expanded the lab's testing capacity for COVID-19, as well as other pathogens, like measles.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump's anti-DEI push ‘politicizes' Pierce County teen mental health guidance
Amid the Trump administration's push to roll back programs that support diversity, equity and inclusion, terms like 'sexual assault' and 'gun violence' were removed from a national mental health program designed to train youth to identify and respond to signs of mental health crisis. Instructors who continue teaching previous guidance will lose their certifications starting in 2026, according to the nonprofit National Council for Wellbeing, which administers the program. The curricula changes, which Tacoma instructors say comes in contrast with evidence-based research, could undermine the program's success in Pierce County and nationally at a time when rates of anxiety, depression, suicide and violence are rising among youth. The Teen Mental Health First Aid program (tMHFA) is currently taught in many Pierce County schools and community organizations. Over several sessions students in the program learn how to identify, understand and respond to common mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety, mood disorders, trauma, psychosis and substance use disorders. Youth also learn how to support others and how to get help from a safe, trusted adult. As of March, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department had trained more than 6,600 youth and 255 adults in the tMHFA program at 32 host sites since December 2022. In May, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing updated its tMHFA curriculum to remove several videos, including a series featuring a transgender youth's mental health journey and recovery. In addition, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing omitted words like 'sexual assault' as an example of trauma and any mention of 'gun violence' and 'school shootings.' The National Council for Mental Wellbeing told The News Tribune in a statement last week the organization 'remains steadfast in its commitment to advancing lifesaving legislation and strengthening the mental health and substance use safety net system across the country.' 'Public funding at both the federal and state levels is essential to that mission. Consequently, our organization and all those that implement Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) must adhere to all applicable federal and state guidelines, executive orders and mandates to ensure our curriculum remains compliant and our services widely accessible to help as many people as possible,' it said June 3. 'In response to recent changes in federal guidance and newly issued executive orders, we have updated our curricula. These updates do not alter the foundational elements of MHFA.' Irene Tung, with the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, said via email June, 'While 'sexual assault,' 'gun violence' and 'mass shootings' were included in a long list of examples of trauma in our previous curriculum, we didn't teach about any of these topics in-depth, so we reframed the examples to be broader in the updated curriculum. For example, instead of 'gun violence,' we now say 'weapon.'' Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department communications director Kenny Via told The News Tribune in a June 4 email that the department remains 'committed to supporting the health and wellbeing of all Pierce County youth.' 'Our program in Pierce County is accredited through the National Council and our instructors are certified through the organization as well,' he said. 'As such, we have reviewed the changes and are working with our instructors and local partners to determine any areas of the curriculum we may need to supplement with additional resources.' Aran Myracle is a drop-in coordinator at the Oasis Youth Center in Tacoma and has been a tMHFA certified instructor teaching the course to LGBTQ+ youth in Pierce County for two years. Myracle said Friday it's not unheard of to see changes to the curricula, but these changes went farther than that. 'I wanted to cry when the changes came down. This is such an important curriculum to deliver to youth, and it's really frustrating to see it politicized and have the way we're delivering this curriculum to youth change, not because we've decided through evidence-based research that it would be better if we did it this way,' he said. 'It's someone's political agenda saying, 'We don't want sexuality and gender to be talked about, so we're going to take out any mentions of those.' 'We don't want guns to be demonized at school, so we're not going to talk about gun violence in schools anymore.'' Although the original curricula didn't dive into gun violence or mass shootings in depth, Myracle said, the training is highly interactive and often generated organic discussions about these topics among youth. 'I genuinely feel that youth are traumatized by going through gun violence drills at school, and it's something that is impacting their lives,' he said. 'The ability to talk about that openly, I think, is important [when] talking about youth mental health and first aid.' One of the most memorable parts of the training were several videos following 'Novak,' a real transgender teen who talked about his mental health journey, which included questioning his gender identity, withdrawing from his friends, being hospitalized for suicidality and recovering to a happy, healthy life, Myracle said. Those videos provided a positive message to teens, especially LGBTQ+ youth, to say that struggles 'could be part of your story, but it's not the end of your story,' he said. 'Removing Novak's videos removes a very important tool for reaching queer youth,' Myracle said. 'They don't see anyone like themselves in the curriculum anymore, and we know that it's very important for youth to see people who are like themselves represented when they're learning new skills and learning about new things.' Youth of color, LGBTQ+ youth and youth experiencing homelessness are more likely to experience sexual violence, and sexual assaults against youth often take place in the child's school, neighborhood or home, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18, according to NSVRC. A vast majority of child sexual abuse (around 80%) is perpetrated by someone known to the child, said Carlyn Sampson, the executive director of the Rebuilding Hope sexual assault center in Tacoma. Sampson said she was 'really discouraged' and 'disappointed' to see the changes to the tMHFA guidance. Over the years Rebuilding Hope has sent providers to the trainings and found benefit in its guidance. Although none of its staff are required to complete the training or adhere to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing's guidance, Sampson said she would reconsider directing people to the guidance in the future. While some might write off the tMHFA changes as semantics, Sampson argued the impacts are far-reaching. Words and language 'names and frames' people's experiences and realities, and the term 'sexual assault' exists as its own very specific form of violence, she said. 'To take away those words is to erase those survivors themselves, to erase those experiences and to erase an entire field that has decades of history of moving the needle forward on better defining, creating policy changes, changes in the law about how sexual violence crimes, how sex crimes against children, against adults, get defined,' she said. Sampson said some human service organizations and nonprofits are finding themselves 'very much in conflicting spaces of not knowing what they are allowed to do' or how to fulfill their missions with new federal and state laws. 'I'm going to operate [on] an assumption that they are just as much caught in a place of conflict and confusion,' she said. 'If nothing else, maybe this story or any further discourse that is generated by this, helps them to pause and realize that there may also be an opportunity, if they have the resources, to stand in defiance of this national guidance.' Rebuilding Hope Sexual Assault Center provides services to any individual whose life has been impacted by sexual assault. Rebuilding Hope's 24/7 Helpline is 1-855-757-7273.
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Effort to ease cannabis rules faces new opposition from experts
The US Department of Health and Human Services during President Joe Biden's term made the case that cannabis warrants rescheduling because it's already widely used as medicine in state programs to offer relief for conditions such as chronic pain, and carries a lower potential for abuse and harm than substances like opioids. Advertisement However, the study's authors criticized the comparison. 'In essence, HHS' reasoning is tantamount to saying that getting hit by a truck is relatively safe because it's less damaging than getting hit by a train,' the authors said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The authors include Bertha Madras, a Harvard Medical School professor and addiction researcher who served on President Donald Trump's 2017 opioid commission. The second author, Paul Larkin, was previously a Justice Department lawyer who's now at the Heritage Foundation, which helped develop the Project 2025 agenda, a conservative policy plan that shares common themes with Trump's policy priorities. They also argue that federal health officials failed to fully consider risks such as youth consumption, rising rates of cannabis-use disorder, cannabis-impaired driving, and growing evidence linking high-potency marijuana to psychosis. Advertisement Rescheduling would move cannabis into a lower-risk category, recognizing its potential medical use. It wouldn't legalize the drug federally but would loosen restrictions, ease tax burdens and make it easier for cannabis companies to access financial services and claim tax deductions. The shift could also spark investment and legalization in more states, analysts say. The effort to reschedule cannabis began in 2022, when Biden instructed federal health and law enforcement agencies to reassess marijuana's status as a Schedule I drug, the government's strictest classification that includes LSD and heroin. The Justice Department later recommended moving cannabis to Schedule III, prompting a formal review by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The rescheduling process has stalled under the current Trump administration, leaving the cannabis industry and investors in limbo. The DEA postponed hearings earlier this year following legal appeals, and federal officials have not announced a new timeline. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who previously supported federal decriminalization, recently warned about the public health risks of high-potency marijuana. In February, Kennedy said there is a need for more research on cannabis effects and called for policies to address its harms. The House Appropriations Committee previously called for an investigation into the cannabis rescheduling process. In a report published last July, lawmakers directed the HHS Inspector General to review whether the Biden-era review followed proper standards and encouraged the FDA to study the mental health risks of high-potency marijuana use among adolescents.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
History Shows the Danger of Trump's Health Policies
U.S. President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attend an event in the East Room of the White House on May 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit - Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images On May 11, 2023, President Joseph Biden ended the COVID-19 public health emergency, calling an finish to the pandemic. By the end of 2023, COVID-19 claimed the lives of over 20 million people around the world. But through international cooperation and evidence-based science, vaccines were developed and the world moved on. Indeed, perhaps the biggest success of the period was the quick production of a COVID-19 vaccine. The research behind the mRNA vaccine had been ongoing since the 1970s, but the emergency of the pandemic and international sharing of knowledge helped bring the vaccine to fruition. Today, the COVID-19 vaccine has been credited with saving 2.4 million lives around the world. But now, the U.S. is choosing competition over cooperation. With President Donald Trump's day one executive order to leave the World Health Organization (WHO)—blaming their COVID-19 response—and the shuttering of USAID, the country is taking steps towards further dividing health efforts across the globe. Here in the U.S., a sudden end to $11.4 billion of covid-related grants is stifling national pandemic preparedness efforts on the local and state levels. And most recently, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. purged experts from the CDC Advisory Committee, putting lives at risk. Historical lessons demonstrate the need for global health infrastructure that works together, shares knowledge, and remembers that pathogens do not stop at borders. White House's Pandemic Office, Busy With Bird Flu, May Shrink Under Trump One of the greatest global health achievements of all time—smallpox eradication—provides a perfect example of what can be done with independent scientific research and international cooperation. During the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR, decades of tension brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Yet, incredibly, the nations managed to find common ground to support the efforts of smallpox eradication. Indeed, they understood the strategic benefits that came from letting public health practitioners and scientists work outside of political divides. The WHO was founded after World War II in 1948. Its formation marked a move from international health, that focused on nations, to global health, that would serve humanity first. The WHO's first eradication effort was the failed, U.S.-backed, Malaria Eradication Program from 1955 to 1969. The Smallpox Eradication Program, with intensive efforts beginning in 1967, provided a chance for redemption for the U.S. and WHO. For the United States, investing in disease eradication and poverty helped to mitigate growing backlash against the Vietnam War. In June of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated, 'I propose to dedicate this year to finding new techniques for making man's knowledge serve man's welfare.' He called for 1965—the same year he ordered ground troops to Vietnam to stop the spread of communism —to be a year of international cooperation that could bypass the politics of the Cold War. Previously, the USSR did not participate in the U.S. and WHO's first, failed global eradication plan for malaria. But upon rejoining the WHO in 1956, it was the Soviets who made the first call and investment into global eradication of smallpox in 1958. The WHO functioning as a mediator was crucial to allowing the USSR and the U.S. to work together. It allowed both nations to avoid giving credit to each other; rather success went to science itself. President Johnson called this 'a turning point' away from 'man against man' towards 'man against nature.' The limited role of politicians in the program proved to be key to its success. Scientists made decisions and worked together—no matter what country they came from—by focusing on disease and vaccination, not international tensions. The Soviet-initiated program was lead by Donald A. Henderson, a U.S. epidemiologist, who worked alongside the Russians until the last case of smallpox occurred in Somalia on October 26, 1977. During the 20th century, smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300 to 500 million deaths. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated by the WHO in October 1980, and is today still the only human disease to achieve this distinction. Less than a year after the declaration of smallpox eradication, the emergence of another pandemic, the HIV/AIDS crisis, reinforced the importance of science-first cooperation over politically-driven decision making. In June 1981, the first cases of a new unknown disease were reported in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In short order, gay men were stigmatized and blamed in what would become one of the biggest public health disasters of all time. It took years of grassroots science-based activism to move beyond HIV/AIDS victim-blaming and find medical solutions. The Poster Child for AIDS Obscured as Much About the Crisis as He Revealed Too often, governments across the globe placed blame on the gay community for their 'sins' and did not provide needed support, leaving the sick to suffer and die. The pharmaceutical companies profited from the limited medications they had available and did not pursue sufficient development. The FDA process for new drugs was scheduled to take nine years, at a time when life expectancy after receiving an HIV/AIDS diagnosis was one year. These issues sparked activism, spawning the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in 1987. ACT UP organizers took science into their own hands and began educating themselves. Members began reading scientific journals religiously, learning the chemistry and epidemiology of drug manufacturing and clinical trials. Members learned how to translate these dense scientific messages to educate the community members on what was—and what was not—being done to help. Because of this work, the FDA changed policies to allow for new treatments to be tested at accelerated rates in times of emergency. ACT UP was able to shift the cultural blame showing that the issue was a result of politics getting in the way of scientific advancements. By 1990, ACT UP influenced the largest federal HIV program to pass Congress, the Ryan White CARE Act. This program was a vital precursor to the 2003 PEPFAR (The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) global initiative. Both of these histories offer a powerful lesson: global health is national health, and national health is local health. With the recent funding cuts from the U.S. government, the future of global health is going in an unknown direction. And yet, the occurrence of pandemics is expected to increase in frequency due to climate change, mass migration, urbanization, and ecosystem destruction. It has been estimated that there is about a 25% chance we will have another COVID-sized pandemic within the next 10 years. No matter how secure the world makes borders, history shows that it can not protect us from disease if we do not have a strong, interconnected public health infrastructure. Luke Jorgensen is a Master of Public Health student at Purdue University where his epidemiology research examines human migration and infectious disease. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@
