#measles-outbreak

#measles-outbreak

It is, in short, a weed killer. It's the active ingredient in Roundup, the commercial weed killer that has been targeted by thousands of lawsuits alleging that exposure to Roundup/glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a deadly cancer. And guess who previously represented plaintiffs in court cases against the evils of glyphosate? That would be Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in his previous existence as a prominent environmental attorney. In 2018, RFK Jr. helped his plaintiff win a historic $289 million jury verdict against Roundup maker Monsanto.

If you're based in the United States, you've probably gotten used to government bodies issuing nationwide alerts - including ones that relate to public health. These have, historically, been good ways for health-conscious people to know what to look out for and for regional public health experts to develop strategies to help keep potential outbreaks contained.Unfortunately, now both individuals and institutions are reckoning with a big question: what to do when those warnings are much smaller in number?

Elizabeth and her mother were taken by federal agents on 6 January, the first of five students from the Columbia Heights district to be detained by ICE during the Trump administration's aggressive immigration crackdown in the region, school leaders said. The family, originally from Ecuador, has an active asylum case, school officials said. The girl and her mother were at a Texas shelter as of Wednesday morning, a family attorney said, and would be heading back to Minnesota to reunite with her father.

Napa County has just reported its first case of measles since 2012. The patient is an unvaccinated child who recently traveled to South Carolina, which has been having a severe outbreak of measles. [KTVU] A few more details have come out about Thursday morning's police shooting on I-80 in Hercules, including that the subject was reported driving erratically and at high speeds through Vallejo, getting into several collisions. [ABC 7]

Cases have nearly doubled in the last week alone. "We have right now the largest outbreak in the U.S., and it's going to get worse before it gets better," Dr. Helmut Albrecht, an infectious disease physician with Prisma Health and the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, said in a briefing Friday. Hundreds of people in other parts of the state are already in quarantine or isolation, he said.

We now have our first confirmed measles case of 2026 in the Bay Area and the first of 2026 in California as an unvaccinated international traveler apparently brought some back home to San Mateo County. Though first of 2026 may not be that distinct of a deal, considering we saw another new measles case in Contra Costa County when there was still two more days in 2025. [KQED]

We have 25 beds [in] isolation for measles, but every day the number of cases is increasing, Almohammed said in an interview from Amsterdam. The capacity of MSF to respond to all the needs of the people in Darfur is really limited. We cannot cover everything. Yes, we are trying to focus on the most lifesaving medical care, but still, our capacity is also limited, he said.

Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last week as the CDC's director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told me that the agency deliberately rebutted Kennedy by publishing a fact sheet, noting that vitamin A had been found to be effective against measles in countries that, unlike the United States, have high rates of vitamin-A deficiency. "We had to put up that PDF to subtly counter it, because providers were like, What the hell is actually happening? " Daskalakis said.

"The last six months have seen rapid and wasteful changes which have undermined our mission and caused catastrophic impacts on NASA's workforce," says a declaration signed by more than 280 NASA employees past and present, including at least 4 astronauts.

Mr. Kennedy's failure to manage the measles outbreak amidst his anti-vaccine stance raises serious concerns about his capability as Health Secretary.