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Some Measles Response Plans Crash to a Halt after Trump Cuts
Cities and states fighting a historic measles outbreak find themselves undermined by the Trump administration as they struggle to provide crucial vaccinations and overcome disinformation.
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Public Health Groups Call for Kennedy to Resign or Be Fired as Biomed Sector Airs Concerns
In the wake of dramatic cuts to US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) staff, cutbacks for state public health efforts, and mixed messages on battling measles and other infectious diseases, two public health groups called for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign or be fired.
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A Deadly Mosquito-Borne Illness Rises as the U.S. Cuts All Climate-Health Funding
Climate change is driving an explosion in dengue cases. Studying that connection is about to get much harder.
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AI Tools Can Enhance U.S. Biosecurity; Monitoring and Mitigation Will Be Needed to Protect Against Misuse
A new report recommends ways for the U.S. to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence in biotechnology while minimizing risks that AI may be misused to develop harmful biological agents.
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The CDC Buried a Measles Forecast That Stressed the Need for Vaccinations
The move — along with the CDC’s explanation — is a sign that the nation’s top public health agency may be falling in line under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines.
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Forging the Biological Weapon Convention: A Brief History of the Creation of the BWC
The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) stands as a monument to international ambition: the first multilateral treaty to comprehensively ban an entire category of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The treaty’s origins are deeply rooted in the horrors of 20th-century warfare, advancements in biotechnology, and the geopolitical tensions of the Cold War.
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After COVID, Texas Is Less Prepared for the Next Pandemic
Five years after Texas’ first COVID death, the state spends less on public health, vaccination rates have dropped and a distrust of authority has taken hold.
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Flu Deaths Rise as Anti-Vaccine Disinformation Takes Root
Americans are facing the highest death toll from influenza since 2018, just as more people become vulnerable because of growing vaccine skepticism taking hold in statehouses and the Trump administration.
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The Far-Reaching Impacts of Agricultural Biorisk Research
There is a deep interconnection between agricultural biorisks and human health. It is critical that this perspective is brought to the forefront of policy and research discussions so that agricultural biorisks are prioritized as a threat to national security and receive the necessary research funding: .A summary of the USDA ARS 8th International Biosafety & Biocontainment Symposium.
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Droughts Are Getting Worse. Is Fog-Farming a Fix?
Tapping low-hanging clouds could be a cheap way to boost dwindling water supplies, according to new research.
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Amid Growing Numbers of Measles Cases, Chaos Continues at HHS
While continuing to peddle alternative remedies to those suffering from measles, Secretary Kennedy also did an interview in which he implied that contracting measles is better than being vaccinated for it. Unfortunately for Kennedy – and those who have contracted the disease — vitamin A and cod liver oil are not going to cut it in responding to this expanding outbreak.
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Trump’s Data Deletions Pose a Stark Threat to Public Health
In just the first few weeks of his second presidency, Donald Trump has taken an axe to the US government’s stockpiles of health data. Sweeping changes have been made to federal websites, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). By gutting government records, the president is obscuring information about life-and-death issues.
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With Crumbling Public Health Infrastructure, Rural Texas Scrambles to Respond to Measles
The measles outbreak in rural Texas has exposed how hospital buildings are ill-equipped. Meanwhile, long distances between providers makes testing people and transporting samples difficult.
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Second Death Reported as Measles Cases Climb in Texas, New Mexico
Health officials in New Mexico said yesterday that an unvaccinated adult who recently died tested positive for measles.
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U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Texas Nuclear Waste Disposal Case
The case could establish the nation’s first independent repository for spent nuclear fuel in West Texas, despite the objections of state leaders.
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The long view
Vaccine Myths That Won't Die and How to Counter Them—Part 1
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.
Vaccine Myths That Won’t Die and How to Counter Them—Part 2
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.