CDC

Healthy 18-year-old welder nearly died of anthrax—the 9th such puzzling case

anthrax, bacillus, CDC, health, Infectious disease, metalwork, welders / Mike M. / January 2, 2026

In 2022, CDC researchers found an unexpected pattern. Since 1997, there had been seven cases of infections from Bacillus group bacteria producing the anthrax toxin—all in metalworkers. Six of the seven were welders, hence the term “welder’s anthrax,” with the remaining case in a person working in a foundry grinding metal. Of the six cases where a specific Bacillus species was identified, B. tropicus was the culprit, including in the newly reported case.

Speculating risks

It’s unclear why metalworkers, and welders specifically, are uniquely vulnerable to this infection. In their 2022 report making the connection, CDC experts speculated that it may be a combination of having weakened immune responses in the lungs after inhaling toxic metal fumes and gases created during metalwork, and having increased exposure to the deadly germs in their workplaces.

In the latest case, the teen did welding work four hours a day, four days a week, with limited ventilation, sometimes in confined spaces, and often didn’t use personal protective equipment, like a respirator. Environmental sampling of his workplace found anthrax-toxin-producing Bacillus in 28 of 254 spot samples. Other investigations of welder’s anthrax cases have found similar results.

So far, all nine cases have been detected in either Louisiana or Texas. But the experts note that cases are likely underreported, and modeling suggests these dangerous germs could be thriving in many Southern US states.

The experts also speculated that iron exposure could play a role. Bacillus bacteria need iron to live and thrive, and metalworkers can build up excess iron levels in their respiratory system during their work. Iron overload could create the perfect environment for bacterial infection. In the teen’s case, he was working with carbon steel and low-hydrogen carbon steel electrodes.

For now, the precise risk factors and why the healthy teen—and not anyone else in his workplace—fell ill remain unknown. CDC and state officials recommended changes to the workplace to protect metalworkers’ health, including better use of respirators, ventilation, and dust control.

There is also a vaccine for anthrax that’s recommended for those considered at high risk, such as certain military members, lab workers, and livestock handlers. It’s unclear if, in the future, metalworkers might also be considered in this high-risk category.

Healthy 18-year-old welder nearly died of anthrax—the 9th such puzzling case Read More »

Ars Live: 3 former CDC leaders detail impacts of RFK Jr.’s anti-science agenda

Ars Live Chat, CDC, health, Science / Shannon Garcia / December 11, 2025

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in critical condition. This year, the premier public health agency had its funding brutally cut and staff gutted, its mission sabotaged, and its headquarters riddled with literal bullets. The over 500 rounds fired were meant for its scientists and public health experts, who endured only to be sidelined, ignored, and overruled by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist hellbent on warping the agency to fit his anti-science agenda.

Then, on August 27, Kennedy fired CDC Director Susan Monarez just weeks after she was confirmed by the Senate. She had refused to blindly approve vaccine recommendations from a panel of vaccine skeptics and contrarians that he had hand-selected. The agency descended into chaos, and Monarez wasn’t the only one to leave the agency that day.

Three top leaders had reached their breaking point and coordinated their resignations upon the dramatic ouster: Drs. Demetre Daskalakis, Debra Houry, and Daniel Jernigan walked out of the agency as their colleagues rallied around them.

Dr. Daskalakis was the director of the CDC National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. He managed national responses to mpox, measles, seasonal flu, bird flu, COVID-19, and RSV.

Ars Live: 3 former CDC leaders detail impacts of RFK Jr.’s anti-science agenda Read More »

CDC vaccine panel realizes again it has no idea what it’s doing, delays big vote

anti-vaccine, CDC, health, robert f kennedy jr / Beth Washington / December 6, 2025

Today’s meeting was chaotic and included garbage anti-vaccine presentations.

Dr. Robert Malone speaks during a meeting of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at CDC Headquarters on December 4, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. Credit: Getty | Elijah Nouvelage

The panel of federal vaccine advisors hand-selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has once again punted on whether to strip recommendations for hepatitis B vaccinations for newborns—a move it tried to make in September before realizing it didn’t know what it was doing. The decision to delay the vote today came abruptly this afternoon when the panel realized it still does not understand the topic or what it was voting on.

Prior to today’s 6–3 vote to delay a decision, there was a swirl of confusion over the wording of what a new recommendation would be. Panel members had gotten three different versions of the proposed recommendation in the 72 hours prior to the meeting, one panelist said. And the meeting’s data presentations this morning offered no clarity on the subject—they were delivered entirely by anti-vaccine activists who have no subject matter expertise and who made a dizzying amount of false and absurd claims.

“Completely inappropriate”

Overall, the meeting was disorganized and farcical. Kennedy’s panel has abandoned the evidence-based framework for setting vaccine policy in favor of airing unvetted presentations with misrepresentations, conspiracy theories, and cherry-picked studies. At times, there were tense exchanges, chaos, confusion, and misunderstandings.

Still, the discussion was watched closely by the medical and health community, which expects that the panel—composed of Kennedy allies who espouse anti-vaccine views—will strip the recommendation for a hepatitis B vaccine birth dose. Decisions by the committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have historically set national vaccine policy. Health insurance programs are required to cover, at no cost, vaccinations recommended by the ACIP. So rescinding a recommendation means Americans could lose coverage.

Medical and public health experts consider the birth-dose vaccination to be critical for protecting all infants from contracting the highly infectious virus that, when acquired early in life from their mother or anyone else, almost always causes chronic infections that lead to liver disease, cancer, and early death. There is no data suggesting harms from the newborn dose, nor any safety data suggesting that delaying the first dose by a month or two, as ACIP is considering, would be safer or better in any way. But studies do indicate that such a delay would lead to more hepatitis B infections in babies

These points were hard to find in today’s presentations. Abandoning standard protocol, the meeting did not include any presentations or data reviews led by CDC scientists or subject matter experts. Kennedy has also barred medical and health expert liaisons—such as the American Medical Association, the Infectious Disease Society of America, and the American Academy of Pediatrics—from participating in the ACIP working groups, which compile data and set language for proposed vaccine recommendations.

Anti-vaccine presentations

Instead, today, ACIP heard only from anti-vaccine activists. The first was Cynthia Nevison, a climate researcher and anti-vaccine activist with ties to Children’s Health Defense, Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization. She was also a board member of an advocacy group called Safe Minds, which promotes a false link between autism and vaccines, specifically the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal, which was removed from routine childhood vaccines in the early 2000s. (Safe Minds stands for Sensible Action For Ending Mercury-Induced Neurological Disorders.) According to her academic research profile at the University of Colorado Boulder, her expertise is in “global biogeochemical cycles of carbon and nitrogen and their impact on atmospheric trace gases.”

Far from that topic, Nevison gave a presentation downplaying the transmission of hepatitis B and the benefits of vaccines. She falsely claimed that the dramatic decline in hepatitis B infections that followed vaccination efforts was not actually due to the vaccination efforts—despite irrefutable evidence that it was. And she followed that up with her own unvetted modeling claiming that CDC scientists overestimate the risk of transmission. She ended by presenting a few studies showing declines in blood antibody levels after initial vaccination, which she claimed suggests that the hepatitis B vaccine does not offer lifelong protection, an incorrect takeaway based on her lack of expertise.

The author of one of the studies just happened to be present at today’s meeting. Pediatrician Amy Middleman, who is an ACIP liaison representing the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) and a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, was the first author on a key study Nevison referenced. Middleman was quick to point out that Nevison had completely misunderstood the study, which actually showed that cell-based immune protection from the vaccine offers robust lifelong protection, even after initial antibody levels decline (called an anamnestic response).

“This is where a really experienced understanding of immunization comes into play,” Middleman said. “The entire point of our study is that for most vaccines, the anamnestic response is really their superpower. So this study showed that memory cells exist such that when they see something that looks like the hepatitis B disease, they actually attack. The presence of a robust and anamnestic response, regardless of circulating antibody years later, shows true protection.”

The next presentation was from Mark Blaxill, an anti-vaccine activist installed at the CDC in September. Blaxill gave a presentation on hepatitis B vaccine safety, despite having no background in medicine or science. He previously worked as an executive for a technology investment firm and, like Nevison, also worked for Safe Minds, where he was vice president. Blaxill has written books and many articles falsely claiming that vaccines cause a variety of harms in children. In 2004, when an Institute of Medicine analysis concluded that there were no convincing links between vaccines and autism, Blaxill publicly protested the result.

In his presentation, he attacked the quality of safety data in past hepatitis B studies. Though he stopped short of suggesting any specific harms from the vaccine, he aired unsubstantiated possibilities popular with anti-vaccine activists. He also noted a study finding that some babies had fatigue and irritability after vaccination, which he bizarrely suggested was a sign of encephalitis (inflammation of the brain).

Real-time feedback

Cody Meissner, a pediatrician and voting member of ACIP who is the most qualified and experienced member of the panel, quickly called out the suggestion as ridiculous. “That is absolutely not encephalitis,” Meissner said with frustration in his voice. “That’s not a statement that a physician would make. [Those symptoms] are not related to encephalitis, and you can’t say that.”

As in previous meetings, Jason Goldman, the ACIP liaison representing the American College of Physicians, gave the most biting response to the meeting overall, saying:

Once again, this committee fails to use the evidence to recommend framework and shows absolutely no understanding of the process or the gravity of the moment of the recommendations that you make. We need to look at all the evidence and data and not cherry-pick them… This meeting is completely inappropriate for an administration that wants to avoid fraud, waste, and abuse. You are wasting taxpayer dollars by not having scientific, rigorous discussion on issues that truly matter. The best thing you can do is adjourn the meeting and discuss vaccine issues that actually need to be taken up… As physicians, your ethical obligation is primum non nocere, first do no harm, and you are failing in that by promoting this anti-vaccine agenda without the data and evidence necessary to make those informed decisions.

The panel will reconvene tomorrow for an all-day meeting in which the members will consider a vote on the hepatitis B vaccine for a third time. The meeting will also host other anti-vaccine presentations attacking the childhood vaccine schedule in its entirety.

Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes.

CDC vaccine panel realizes again it has no idea what it’s doing, delays big vote Read More »

Without evidence, RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel tosses hep B vaccine recommendation

ACIP, anti-vaccine, CDC, health, hepatitis B, robert f kennedy jr / 9u50fv / December 5, 2025

Retsef Levi, an operations management expert and ACIP member who expressed strong anti-vaccine views, said, “I think that the intention behind this [recommendation change is] that parents should carefully think about whether they want to take the risk of giving another vaccine to their child, and many of them might decide that they want to wait far more than two months, maybe years and maybe up to adulthood.”

In the discussion before the vote, Meissner described the motivation as “baseless skepticism.”

With a second vote, the panel created a new recommendation that parents and health care providers should consider testing a child’s antibody levels after each dose of the three-dose hepatitis B series. The recommendation suggests that if a baby’s antibody levels reach a certain threshold, they can forgo completing the series.

CDC subject matter experts, medical organizations, and members of the committee pointed out that there is no data to support this recommendation. Vaccine efficacy data is based on the entire three-dose series, and antibody levels are not sufficient to presume the same level of lifelong protection.

This vote “is kind of making things up,” Meissner said in frustration. “I mean, it’s like Never Never Land.”

There was no data or discussion on the administrative burden or clinical feasibility of testing the antibody levels of a baby after each dose.

The panel approved the recommendation on antibody testing in a vote of 6–4, with one abstention.

Medical experts were quick to condemn today’s votes. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, a board member of the American Medical Association, said the vote is “reckless and undermines decades of public confidence in a proven, lifesaving vaccine.”

“Today’s action is not based on scientific evidence, disregards data supporting the effectiveness of the Hepatitis B vaccine, and creates confusion for parents about how best to protect their newborns,” Fryhofer said in a statement.

Without evidence, RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel tosses hep B vaccine recommendation Read More »

12 former FDA chiefs unite to say agency memo on vaccines is deeply stupid

CDC, clinical trials, COVID-19, fda, health, Science, vaccines, vinay prasad / Mike M. / December 4, 2025

On Friday, Vinay Prasad—the Food and Drug Administration’s chief medical and scientific officer and its top vaccine regulator—emailed a stunning memo to staff that quickly leaked to the press. Without evidence, Prasad claimed COVID-19 vaccines have killed 10 children in the US, and, as such, he announced unilateral, sweeping changes to the way the agency regulates and approves vaccines, including seasonal flu shots.

On Wednesday evening, a dozen former FDA commissioners, who collectively oversaw the agency for more than 35 years, responded to the memo with a scathing rebuke. Uniting to publish their response in the New England Journal of Medicine, the former commissioners said they were “deeply concerned” by Prasad’s memo, which they framed as a “threat” to the FDA’s work and a danger to Americans’ health.

In his memo, Prasad called for abandoning the FDA’s current framework for updating seasonal flu shots and other vaccines, such as those for COVID-19. Those updates currently involve studies that measure well-characterized immune responses (called immunobridging studies). Prasad dismissed this approach as insufficient and, instead, plans to require expensive randomized trials, which can take months to years for each vaccine update.

FDA staff who disagree with the plans can “submit your resignation letters,” Prasad wrote. And airing concerns or criticisms is seen as “unethical” and “illegal.”

Together, the former commissioners called Prasad’s memo the “latest in a series of troubling changes at the FDA,” and the planned policy updates “not … coherent.” Prasad’s arguments against immunobridging, they add, “misrepresent both the science and the regulatory record, especially in the case of vaccines that target well-understood pathogens through an established mechanism of action.”

12 former FDA chiefs unite to say agency memo on vaccines is deeply stupid Read More »

Meet CDC’s new lead vaccine advisor who thinks shots cause heart disease

ACIP, anti-vaccine, CDC, fda, health, Kirk Milhoan, myocarditis, robert f kennedy jr, vinay prasad / Kelly Newman / December 2, 2025

Milhoan has a history of touting unproven COVID cures while disparaging vaccines.

Kirk Milhoan, James Pagano, and Robert Malone are seen during a meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on September 18, 2025 in Chamblee, Georgia. Credit: Getty | Elijah Nouvelage

When the federal vaccine committee hand-picked by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. meets again this week, it will have yet another new chairperson to lead its ongoing work of dismantling the evidence-based vaccine recommendations set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the chairperson who has been in place since June—when Kennedy fired all 17 expert advisors on the committee and replaced them with questionably qualified allies—is moving to a senior role in the department. Biostatistician Martin Kulldorff will now be the chief science officer for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), HHS said. As such, he’s stepping down from the vaccine committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Kulldorff gained prominence amid the COVID-19 pandemic, criticizing public health responses to the crisis, particularly lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccines. He was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration that advocated for letting the deadly virus spread unchecked through the population, which was called unethical by health experts.

As ACIP chair, Kulldorff frequently made false and misleading statements about vaccine safety and efficacy that were in line with Kennedy’s views and statements. While Kulldorff presided over the committee, it made a series of decisions that were sharply denounced by scientific and medical groups as being based on ideology rather than evidence. Those include voting for the removal of the vaccine preservative thimerosal from some flu vaccines, despite well-established data indicating it is safe, with no evidence of harms. The committee also added restrictions to a combination measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (chickenpox) MMRV vaccine and made an unprecedented effort to prevent Americans from getting COVID-19 vaccines, though the moves were largely ineffective.

In his new role, Kulldorff will be working with ASPE to provide analyses on health policy options, coordinate research efforts, and provide policy advice.

“It’s an honor to join the team of distinguished scientists that Secretary Kennedy has assembled,” Kulldorff said in a press release announcing his new role. “I look forward to contributing to the science-based public health policies that will Make America Healthy Again.”

The new chair, Kirk Milhoan

With Kulldorff moving on, ACIP will now be chaired by Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric oncologist with a track record for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and anti-vaccine views. In August 2021, the Hawaii Medical Board filed a complaint against Milhoan after he appeared on a panel promoting ineffective COVID-19 treatments, downplaying the severity of the disease, and spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, according to the Maui News. The complaint was dropped in April 2022 after state regulators said they had insufficient evidence to prove a violation of statutes regarding the practice of medicine.

While Milhoan claimed at the time that he is “pro-vaccine,” his statement, affiliations, and prescribing practices suggest otherwise. Milhoan is a member of the Independent Medical Alliance (formerly the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance), a group of dubious health care providers set up amid the pandemic to promote the use of the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and the de-worming drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19. Both drugs have shown to be ineffective and potentially harmful when used to treat or prevent COVID-19. The IMA also emphasizes vaccine injuries while pushing vitamins and other unproven treatments.

In 2024, Milhoan appeared on a panel set up by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to discuss alleged injuries from COVID-19 vaccines alongside other prominent anti-vaccine and COVID-19 misinformation voices. In his opening statement, Milhoan suggested that COVID-19 vaccines were causing severe cardiovascular disease and death in people aged 15 to 44—an unsubstantiated claim he frequently echoes. In his bio for the IMA, he touts that he offers treatment for “vaccine-related cardiovascular toxicity due to the spike protein.”

CDC data has found that boys and young men, aged 12 to 24, have a heightened risk of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) after COVID-19 vaccination. However, the cases are rare, relatively mild, and almost always resolve, according to CDC data. In a COVID-19 safety data presentation in June, CDC staff scientists reported that its vast vaccine safety monitoring systems indicated that in males 12–24, there are 27 myocarditis cases per million doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered (roughly one case in 37,000 doses). In cases identified during 2021, 83 percent recovered within three months, with more than 90 percent recovering within the year. The monitoring data found no instances of cardiac transplant or death from COVID-19 vaccination.

While anti-vaccine activists have seized on this minor risk from vaccination, health experts note that the risk of myocarditis and other inflammatory conditions from a COVID-19 infection is significantly greater than the risk from vaccination. Exact estimates vary, but one CDC study in 2021 found that people with COVID-19 infections had a 16-fold higher risk of myocarditis than people without the infection. Specifically, the study estimated that there were 150 myocarditis cases among 100,000 COVID-19-infected patients versus just nine myocarditis cases among 100,000 people without COVID-19 infections and who were also unvaccinated. Similar to what’s seen with vaccination, the study found that young males were most at risk of myocarditis.

Kennedy’s allies attack on COVID-19 shots

Kennedy and his allies, like Milhoan, have consistently inflated the risk of myocarditis from COVID-19 vaccination, with some claiming without evidence that they have caused sudden cardiac arrest and deaths in young males, though studies have found no such link. In 2022, Milhoan and fellow ACIP member and conspiracy theorist Robert Malone were featured in a viral social media post suggesting that 50 percent of college athletes in the Big Ten athletic conference had myocarditis linked to COVID-19 vaccines, which could lead to deaths if they played. But the two were referencing a JAMA Cardiology study that examined subclinical myocarditis in Big Ten athletes after COVID-19 infection—not vaccination. In fact, researchers confirmed for an AFP fact check that none of the athletes in the study were vaccinated. And the rate of subclinical myocarditis in the group was 2.3 percent, not 50 percent.

Milhoan’s misinformation about the cardiovascular harms from COVID-19 vaccines seems particularly pertinent to the direction of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine allies. On Friday, Vinay Prasad, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine regulator, sent a memo to staff claiming without evidence that COVID-19 vaccines have killed 10 children. The memo provides little information about the extraordinary claim, but it hints that the deaths were linked to myocarditis and found among reports submitted between 2021 and 2024 to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

VAERS is a system by which anyone, including members of the public, can report anything they think could be linked to vaccines. The reports are considered a type of early warning system, but the vast majority of the reports submitted are not actually related to vaccines. Further, CDC scientists have thoroughly evaluated VAERS reports and ruled out deaths attributed to COVID-19 vaccines. Prasad’s memo—which experts have speculated was designed to be leaked to produce alarming headlines about child deaths—claimed that before Trump administration officials with anti-vaccine views began sifting through the data, these deaths were “ignored” by FDA and CDC scientists. Prasad also claimed that there could be many more deaths that have gone unreported, despite the fact that healthcare providers have been legally required to report any deaths that occurred after COVID-19 vaccination, regardless of cause.

This week’s ACIP meeting

In this week’s scheduled ACIP meeting on Thursday and Friday, COVID-19 vaccines don’t appear on the draft agenda. Instead, ACIP is expected to vote to remove a recommendation for a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. That dose protects newborns from contracting the highly infectious virus from their mothers during birth or from other family or acquaintances shortly after birth. About half of the people infected with hepatitis B are not aware of their infections, and testing of mothers before birth is imperfect. That can leave newborns particularly vulnerable, as infections that start at or shortly after birth almost always develop into chronic infections that can lead to liver disease, liver transplant, and cancer. In a previous ACIP meeting, CDC staff scientists presented data showing that there are no significant harms of birth doses and there is no evidence that delaying the immunization offers any benefit.

The committee is also taking on the childhood vaccine schedule as a whole, though the agenda on this topic is not yet clear. In his memo, Prasad attacked the common practice of providing multiple vaccinations at once, hinting that it could be a way in which the committee will try to dismantle current childhood vaccination recommendations. On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that the committee will examine whether the childhood vaccine schedule as a whole is causing allergies and autoimmune diseases, something Kennedy and his anti-vaccine organization have long floated despite evidence refuting a link.

Under clear attack are aluminum salt adjuvants, which are used in many vaccines to help spur protective immune responses. Aluminum salts have been used safely in vaccines for more than 70 years. The FDA notes that the most common source of aluminum exposure is from food and water, not vaccines.

Meet CDC’s new lead vaccine advisor who thinks shots cause heart disease Read More »

Four-inch worm hatches in woman’s forehead, wriggles to her eyelid

CDC, eye, health, Infectious disease, New England Journal of Medicine, parasite, worm / Mike M. / November 27, 2025

Creeping

For anyone enjoying—or at least trying to enjoy—Thanksgiving in America, you can be thankful that these worms are not present in the US; they are exclusive to the “Old World,” that is Europe, Africa, and Asia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They’re often found in the Mediterranean region, but reports in recent years have noted that they seem to be expanding into new areas of Europe—particularly eastward and northward. In a report earlier this year of cases in Estonia, researchers noted that it is also emerging in Lithuania, Latvia, and Finland.

Researchers attribute the worm’s creep to climate change and globalization. But in another report this year of a case in Austria (thought to be acquired while the patient was vacationing in Greece), researchers also raised the speculation that the worms may be adapting to use humans as a true host. Researchers in Serbia suggested this in a 2023 case report, in which an infection led to microfilariae in the patient’s blood. The researchers speculated that such cases, considered rare, could be increasing.

For now, people in America have less to worry about. D. repens has not been found in the US, but it does have some relatives here that occasionally show up in humans, including D. immitis, the cause of dog heartworm, and D. tenuis. The latter can cause similar cases to D. repens, with worms wandering under the skin, particularly around the eye. So far, this worm has mainly been found in raccoons in Florida.

For those who do find a worm noodling through their skin, the outlook is generally good. Treatment includes surgical removal of the worm, which largely takes care of the problem, as well as anti-parasitic or antibiotic drugs to be sure to stamp out the infection or any co-infections. In the woman’s case, her symptoms disappeared after doctors pulled the worm from her eyelid.

Four-inch worm hatches in woman’s forehead, wriggles to her eyelid Read More »

RFK Jr.’s new CDC deputy director prefers “natural immunity” over vaccines

anti-vaccine, CDC, health, public health, ralph abraham, Robert F Kenned Jr., vaccine / Kelly Newman / November 26, 2025

Under ardent anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has named Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham as its new principal deputy director—a choice that was immediately called “dangerous” and “irresponsible,” yet not as bad as it could have been, by experts.

Physician Jeremy Faust revealed the appointment in his newsletter Inside Medicine yesterday, which was subsequently confirmed by journalists. Faust noted that a CDC source told him, “I heard way worse names floated,” and although Abraham’s views are “probably pretty terrible,” he at least has had relevant experience running a public health system, unlike other current leaders of the agency.

But Abraham hasn’t exactly been running a health system the way most public health experts would recommend. Under Abraham’s leadership, the Louisiana health department waited months to inform residents about a deadly whooping cough (pertussis) outbreak. He also has a clear record of anti-vaccine views. Earlier this year, he told a Louisiana news outlet he doesn’t recommend COVID-19 vaccines because “I prefer natural immunity.” In February, he ordered the health department to stop promoting mass vaccinations, including flu shots, and barred staff from running seasonal vaccine campaigns.

RFK Jr.’s new CDC deputy director prefers “natural immunity” over vaccines Read More »

RFK Jr.’s loathesome edits: CDC website now falsely links vaccines and autism

aluminum, anti-vaccine, autism, CDC, health, MMR, vaccines / 9u50fv / November 20, 2025

With ardent anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the country’s top health official, a federal webpage that previously laid out the ample evidence refuting the misinformation that vaccines cause autism was abruptly replaced Wednesday with an anti-vaccine screed that promotes the false link.

It’s a move that is sure to be celebrated by Kennedy’s fringe anti-vaccine followers, but will only sow more distrust, fear, and confusion among the public, further erode the country’s crumbling vaccination rates, and ultimately lead to more disease, suffering, and deaths from vaccine-preventable infections, particularly among children and the most vulnerable.

On the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website titled “Autism and Vaccines,” the previous top “key point” accurately reported that: “Studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD).”

But, under Kennedy, the top “key point” is now the erroneous statement: “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to questions from Ars Technica about the change, including why it appears to be dismissing the substantial number of high-quality studies providing evidence that there is no association between lifesaving immunizations and the neurodevelopmental disorder. It also did not address questions of whether CDC scientists were included in the rewrite.

An emailed response attributed to HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said, “We are updating the CDC’s website to reflect gold standard, evidence-based science.”

RFK Jr.’s loathesome edits: CDC website now falsely links vaccines and autism Read More »

CDC data confirms US is 2 months away from losing measles elimination status

arizona, CDC, health, Infectious disease, measles, outbreak, texas, Utah, vaccination / 9u50fv / November 19, 2025

Unsurprising

This 9171 subtype “continues, unfortunately uninterrupted, across multiple jurisdictions,” David Sugerman, who leads the CDC measles response, said on the call.

According to the Times, local health officials are pessimistic that they’ll be able to stamp out the virus’s spread, saying that vaccination efforts have had “limited” impact. As Ars reported previously, vaccination rates are dangerously low in two measles hotspots: northwestern Mohave County, Arizona, and the southwest health district of Utah. Vaccination rates among kindergartners in the 2024–2025 school year were 78.4 percent and 80.7 percent, respectively. That’s well below the 95 percent target needed to keep the virus from spreading onward in the communities.

In addition, public health officials in Arizona and Utah have reported barriers to responding to the outbreak. Around a quarter of cases don’t know how they were exposed, suggesting cases and exposures are being missed. In late October, health officials in Salt Lake County, Utah, said that a person likely infected with measles refused to cooperate with their investigation, leaving them unable to confirm the probable case.

David Kimberlin, who sits on a panel of experts that analyzes measles data for the United States’ elimination status review, told the Times, “It would not surprise me in the least if there’s continued spread across these next several months.”

To date, the CDC has tallied 1,723 measles cases across 42 states. Most (87 percent) of those cases were linked to outbreaks, of which there have been 45 this year. For context, there were 16 outbreaks and a total of 285 measles cases in the US last year. This year’s measles cases mark a 33-year high.

CDC data confirms US is 2 months away from losing measles elimination status Read More »

As shutdown ends, dubious CDC panel gets back to dismantling vaccine schedule

ACIP, american academy of pediatrics, anti-vaccine, CDC, health, hepatitis B, kennedy, robert f kennedy jr, vaccines / Mike M. / November 15, 2025

Nevertheless, Kennedy’s ACIP members planned to push the first dose back a month. A vote was prepared to recommend not giving a birth dose unless there was “individual based decision-making.” While at first the panel seemed poised to vote in favor of the change, the plan collapsed with basic questioning.

Voting ACIP member Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist, noted: “I’m unclear if we’ve been presented with any safety or data comparing before one month to after one month,” he said. They had not.

“And,” Hibbeln continued, “I’m wondering why one month was selected as our time point and if there are data to help to inform us if there’s greater risk of adverse effects before one month or after one month at all.”

There is no data suggesting that such a move would be more or less safe.

The discussion quickly spiraled from there with an eventual vote of 11-1 to table voting on the vaccine recommendation. According to the Federal Register notice, ACIP will try to take up the topic again. They could revive the vote or attack some other aspect of vaccine recommendations.

Pediatricians fight back

Health experts have blasted Kennedy’s lineup and their attacks on childhood vaccines, including the hepatitis B vaccination schedule. The current schedule “remains the best protection against serious health problems like liver disease and cancer,” the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasized to Ars.

With ACIP’s standing tarnished under Kennedy, AAP has put forth its own evidence-based vaccine schedule for pediatricians to trust. They’ve also been a prominent opponent among medical organizations to Kennedy’s efforts. For instance, in a revised federal lawsuit, the AAP along with other medical organizations is seeking to overturn all decisions made by Kennedy’s ACIP and replace the entire panel with actual experts.

Kennedy’s appointees “lack the credentials and experience required of their role,” and all their votes should be declared “null and void,” the organization said.

AAP President Susan Kressly said that pediatricians are already seeing the effects of having an anti-vaccine activist as the US health secretary, namely “fear, decreased vaccine confidence, and barriers for families to access vaccines.”

“The nation’s children are already paying the price in avoidable illnesses and hospitalizations,” Kressly said. “We urge federal leaders to restore the science-based deliberative process that has made the United States a global leader in public health. Urgent action is needed.”

As shutdown ends, dubious CDC panel gets back to dismantling vaccine schedule Read More »

Formula with “cleanest ingredients” recalled after 15 babies get botulism

botulism, ByHeart, CDC, fda, Formula, health, outbreak, recall / 9u50fv / November 12, 2025

Infant botulism

The US sees around 100 cases of botulism in infants each year. The potentially deadly disease is caused by a potent neurotoxin produced by Clostridium botulinum and related species. These bacteria can form hardy spores that are ubiquitous in the environment, including in dust, water, and soil. When the spores germinate, the growing bacteria produce the toxin. This toxin can kill by blocking the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in motor neurons that would activate muscle movement. The result is flaccid paralysis that spreads down the body.

People can develop botulism in a variety of ways, including via infected wounds or by inhaling spores. Generally, foodborne botulism occurs when people eat the toxin directly, such as in improperly canned foods where the bacteria grew. But babies have their own unique form of botulism when they ingest just the spores.

In humans older than about 12 months, the stomach’s acidity is usually enough to kill off botulism-causing spores. But infants have lower gastric acidity, and their immune responses and protective gut bacterial communities aren’t fully established yet. Thus, if they ingest the spores, the bacteria can start growing in their gastrointestinal tracts—and start producing toxin, causing infantile botulism. Symptoms usually develop 10 to 30 days after ingestion. About 70 percent of all botulism cases are in infants.

Honey is one of the most well-known sources of botulism-causing spores for infants, accounting for about 20 percent of cases. But environmental sources are also key culprits, such as living near construction sites as well as dust debris from vacuum cleaners.

The common early symptoms of botulism in infants are constipation, poor feeding, loss of head control, and difficulty swallowing. As the disease progresses, shallow breathing and overall floppiness develops. About half of all babies with botulism will need to be intubated, even if they’re treated with BabyBIG. A century ago, infant botulism had a 90 percent fatality rate, but today most infants make a full recovery, though it can take weeks to months.

Formula with “cleanest ingredients” recalled after 15 babies get botulism Read More »