• FOOD SECURITYWhat to Know About Screwworm in Texas

    By Stephen Simpson and Berenice Garcia

    The first case of New World screwworm in 60 years has been confirmed in Zavala County, near the Mexican border. The flesh-eating fly poses a threat to the state’s $15 billion cattle industry.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHMeasles, Whooping Cough Spike Amid Low Vaccination Rates

    By Tim Henderson

    Vaccine hesitancy fed by misinformation is causing new surges of measles and whooping cough, while COVID-19 hotspots persist in some states and a new threat looms from an Ebola outbreak in central Africa. Twelve states and DC already have seen more measles cases than in all of 2025.

  • FOOD SECURITYFlesh-Eating Screwworms Head for American Livestock

    By Kevin Hardy

    Southern states are bracing for a potential invasion of the New World screwworm that could disrupt livestock markets and raise already high meat prices. Federal officials eradicated the parasite decades ago, but it’s inching closer to the U.S. border.

  • GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITYFrom Medieval Plague Ships to Hantavirus: How Outbreaks at Sea Helped to Shape the International Public Health System

    By Katrine L. Wallace

    Whatever its source, outbreak response depends on cooperation between major governments, rapid information sharing and coordinated logistics. When a country as globally connected as the U.S. steps back from those systems, managing international health emergencies becomes slower, more fragmented and more dependent on ad hoc negotiations. Ultimately, this may make the world less safe.

  • GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITYHantavirus at Sea: A Test for Global Health Security

    By Alex Kyabarongo

    Cruise ships can facilitate disease transmission because of close social interactions and shared environments. In the last two years, at least 4 major outbreaks have occurred on a cruise ship, including norovirus, Legionnaires disease, Salmonella and now hantavirus.

  • CYBERSECURITYNew Chip Can Protect Wireless Biomedical Devices from Quantum Attacks

    By Adam Zewe

    Ultra-efficient chip design enables extremely strong cryptography algorithms to run on energy-constrained edge devices.

  • VACCINESThe Return of Measles: Vaccine Hesitancy and the Erosion of U.S. Public Health

    By Cameron Daniel Benton

    Previously eradicated diseases are reemerging in the United States due to vaccine hesitancy and shifting policies under the current presidential administration. The 2025 measles outbreak in West Texas serves as a warning sign of what may follow if the nation continues to neglect preventable diseases.

  • BIODEFENSENIAID Staffers Ordered to Remove Biodefense, Pandemic Preparedness Language on Website

    By Mary Van Beusekom

    Staff members at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been told to delete the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute’s website.

  • VACCINESStudy Finds No Link Between COVID-19 Vaccines and Autism

    By Liz Szabo

    A study today finds no increase in autism rates in babies born to mothers who received COVID-19 vaccines just before or during pregnancy, compared with children of unvaccinated moms. A growing number of studies show that COVID-19 vaccines are safe for women who want to start a family.

  • THE PROBLEM WITH ICEHealth Care Workers Want ICE Out of Hospitals, and Blue States Are Responding

    By Shalina Chatlani

    As the Trump administration intensifies its immigration crackdown, health care workers in multiple states say ICE is increasing its presence in health care facilities, deterring people from seeking medical care and creating chaos that jeopardizes the safety of their patients.

  • DEPORTATIONSICE Is Using Medicaid Data to Find Out Where Immigrants Live

    By Anna Claire Vollers

    A recent court ruling has cleared the way for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to resume using states’ Medicaid data to find people who are in the country illegally. States fear immigrants will shy away from seeking health care.

  • WAR ON VACCINESVaccine Myths That Won’t Die and How to Counter Them—Part 2

    By Jake Scott, MD

    This article and its Part 1 catalogue the debunked myths driving the vaccine skeptics who now run HHS. These myths share four fundamental errors: First, the conflation of temporal association with causation. Second, the confusion of regulatory paperwork with the totality of scientific evidence. Third, the demand for impossible standards. Fourth, the selective citation of evidence. The current political moment has given unprecedented platforms to vaccine skepticism. But politics cannot change biology.

  • WAR ON VACCINESVaccine Myths That Won't Die and How to Counter Them—Part 1

    By Jake Scott, MD

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has spent decades promoting vaccine skepticism. He has replaced scientists at different HHS such as CDC and NIH with vaccine skeptics and anti-vaccine activists. They have polluted the information environment with, and base their policy changes on, myths about the supposed risks of vaccines. Each of these myths has been studied extensively. Each has been refuted. And yet each persists, because misinformation travels faster than correction and because these myths tap into fears that are genuinely human.

  • WAR ON VACCINESStates Go Their Own Way as RFK Jr. Shifts Federal Vaccine Policy

    By Tim Henderson

    In response to the new federal vaccine guidance, advanced by anti-vaxx activists now determining vaccine policy at HHS, many states have created formal alliances to share health information and formulate science-based policies for their residents. “The science is clear. Vaccines remain the best protection for keeping children and communities healthy,” the Northeast Public Health Collaborative said in a statement.

  • WAR ON VACCINESQuiet Dismantling: How “Shared Decision-Making” Weakens Vaccine Policy and Harms Kids

    By Jake Scott, MD

    Shared clinical decision-making was designed to acknowledge complexity where it exists. Using it to manufacture complexity where none exists is a betrayal of the concept and, ultimately, of the patients it was meant to serve.