Public health

COVID Vaccine Myth-Busting Can Work: Study
A COVID-19 misinformation-busting messaging intervention that presented a myth followed by a fact among people who had completed the initial vaccine series strengthened their resolve to follow up with a booster dose.
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We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health
Nine former leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who served as directors or acting directors under Republican and Democratic administrations, serving under presidents from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trrump, argue that HHS Secretary Roert F. Kennedy Jr. poses a clear and present danger to the health of Americans. He has placed anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists at top HHS positions, and he appears to be guided by a hostility to science and a belief in bizarre, unscientific approaches to public health.
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Florida Plans to Scrap Kid Vaccine Mandates as HHS Employees Demand RFK Jr Resignation
In ongoing upheaval over antivaccine policies espoused by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his allies in Florida today—in a national first—announced plans to scrap requirements for school-based vaccination.
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How Vaccines Changed the World
Vaccination campaigns have nearly eradicated some of the most deadly and transmissible diseases. However, against a backdrop of a rising tide of vaccine hesitancy, and U.S. leaders pulling global support, outbreaks are cropping up again.
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What Is the Potentially Deadly Flesh-Eating Bacteria and Why Can Infections Be So Hard to Treat?
Vibrio vulnificus thrives in warm, salty water. Cases are on the rise, with a man on Cape Cod being one of the latest to fall ill.
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A Shining Star in a Contentious Legacy: Could Marty Makary Be the Saving Grace of a Divisive Presidency?
While much of the Trump administration has sparked controversy, the FDA’s consumer-first reforms may be remembered as its brightest legacy. From AI-driven drug reviews to bans on artificial dyes, the FDA’s agenda resonates with the public in ways few Trump-era policies have.
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Parasitic Diseases Researcher Talks “Flesh-Eating” Screwworm Infection After First Confirmed Human Case in U.S.
True to its name, the flesh-eating screwworm larvae do indeed thrive on mammalian (human included) tissue, says Lori Ferrins, who studies neglected parasitic diseases.
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The CDC Shooting Was a Matter of Time, Health Experts Say
“A lot of the current political rhetoric is not a good-faith discussion or debate, but outright labeling of other humans as somehow evil and not worthy of walking the earth,” says Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health. In a conversation with The Trace, she notes that “It is almost inevitable that when you combine evil rhetoric with isolation, lack of support for physical and mental health, and lack of ability to temporarily remove a firearm from someone who has the intent to kill, that we’re gonna end up with tragedies.”
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Immunologic Study Shows Rebound of Other Viruses After COVID Measures Lifted
The lifting of COVID-19 prevention measures such as masking and social distancing, which also tamped down the circulation of other respiratory viruses and left young children without immunity, may explain the rebound in non-COVID-related diseases.
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HHS Scraps Further Work on Life-Saving mRNA Vaccine Platform
In what experts say will hobble pandemic preparedness, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the dismantling of the country’s mRNA vaccine-development programs—the same innovation that allowed rapid scale-up of COVID-19 vaccines during the public health emergency.
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RFK Jr Is Wrong About mRNA Vaccines – a Scientist Explains How They Make COVID Less Deadly
In announcing the cancellation of US government support for research into mRNA vaccines, Kennedy has claimed that mRNA vaccines “encourage new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics” – a misleading statement that contradicts the scientific consensus on viral evolution and effects of vaccination. The false assertions by RFK Jr. and other vaccine-skeptics notwithstanding, mRNA vaccines do not cause viruses to mutate. Mutations are part of viral evolution: a natural process that happens regardless of our intervention. What vaccines do is give us a fighting chance.
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I’m a Physician Who Has Looked at Hundreds of Studies of Vaccine Safety, and Here’s Some of What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong
In the five months since he began serving as secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made many public statements about vaccines that have cast doubt on their safety and on the objectivity of long-standing processes established to evaluate them. Many of these statements are factually incorrect. The evidence is clear and publicly available: Vaccines have dramatically reduced childhood illness, disability and death on a historic scale.
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Plugging America's Forgotten Wells: Study Addresses Decades Long Problem
Since the drilling of the first oil well in 1859, millions more oil and gas wells have been drilled across the nation. Today, millions of wells – bout 3.4 million of them — sit idle, some for decades. One option for limiting the environmental and health impacts of orphaned wells is to plug them. But the question remains, with so many orphaned wells in the United States, what’s the best way to address this issue?
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FDA Layoffs Could Compromise Safety of Medications Made at Foreign Factories, Inspectors Say
Beyond staff cuts, the departures of some longtime investigators in recent months have left less experienced people tasked with rooting out dangerous manufacturing practices.
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Potential Environmental Effects of Nuclear War
In the 1980s, in response to the buildup of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals during the Cold War, scientists issued warnings about the potential for a “nuclear winter” scenario which would follow a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Since then, military, political, and technological changes have reshaped the nuclear weapons landscape, while scientific advances have deepened the understanding of and ability to model Earth system processes.
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