New research shows measles vaccination rates for children fell in almost 80% of counties across the country after the COVID-19 pandemic. A Johns Hopkins University study tracked immunization records across 2,066 counties and 33 states. Researchers compared the kindergarten vaccination rates from 2017-2020 to averages from 2022-2024.
There was a notable absence last week when U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a 58-second video that the government would no longer endorse the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children or pregnant women. The director of the CDC — the person who typically signs off on federal vaccine recommendations — was nowhere to be seen. The CDC, a $9.2 billion-a-year agency tasked with reviewing life-saving vaccines, monitoring diseases and watching for budding threats to Americans' health, is without a clear leader.
Amazon Pharmacy is rolling out new features in hopes of attracting more seniors covered by Medicare’s drug benefit, a potentially lucrative market dominated by CVS Health and Walgreens. Amazon says it is launching a new 'caregiver support feature' that allows its customers to have someone else manage medications on their behalf. Once the caregivers are verified through a secure invitation, 'caregivers can now manage medications for their loved ones,' the company says.
HHS is terminating a contract with drugmaker Moderna to develop a vaccine to protect against bird flu amid the agency's broader efforts to reevaluate therapies that use mRNA technology. The contract, which was worth $590 million, was announced in mid-January, just before President Donald Trump's second term. Moderna said Wednesday that an early-phase trial of its mRNA-based vaccine against H5 bird flu in about 300 healthy adults showed "a rapid, potent and durable immune response."
The federal government has removed COVID-19 vaccines from the list of shots recommended for healthy pregnant women and children, federal health officials announced Tuesday.
A new Annenberg Poll shows that 87% of Americans say the benefit of childhood measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination outweighs the risk, and 67% say they know that MMR vaccines don't cause autism. 2025 may see the highest measles case count in the United States since the disease was officially eliminated in 2000.