Measles vaccinations are increasing in some areas hit hard by cases: Officials
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(WASHINGTON) — Measles vaccination rates appear to be increasing in some areas of the U.S. that have been affected by outbreaks this year.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that people receive two doses of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine — the first at ages 12 to 15 months and the second between 4 and 6 years old. One dose is 93% effective, and two doses are 97% effective, the CDC says.
Of the 378 measles cases confirmed by the CDC so far this year, the majority have been among those who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
In western Texas, an outbreak has infected 327 people, according to data from the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS). Of those cases, just two have been among people fully vaccinated with the MMR vaccine.
Health officials have been urging anyone who isn’t vaccinated to receive the MMR vaccine or to catch up on missed doses.
In Texas, as of March 16, at least 173,362 MMR vaccine doses have been administered across the state this year, according to DSHS data provided to ABC News.
This is higher than the number of doses administered in the state over the same period since at least 2020.
A DSHS spokesperson told ABC News that because there is no statewide requirement to report vaccine administration, the data is not a comprehensive accounting of all MMR vaccines administered in the state.
Lubbock County, in western Texas, has seen 10 measles cases so far this year, DSHS data shows. Despite not being at the epicenter of the outbreak, the number of people being vaccinated has increased, according to Katherine Wells, director of public health for the city of Lubbock.
“We’re 75 miles east of the actual outbreak, but we’re seeing an increase in the number of vaccinations that we’re giving in our community,” she told ABC News. “Over the last four weeks, our health department has been operating a walk-in vaccine clinic that’s just for MMR, and that vaccine clinic [has] administered a little over 300 vaccines.”
She added that health officials have seen multiple babies under 6 months old who have been exposed to measles. Because they are too young to be vaccinated, they have been given shots of immunoglobulin, which are antibodies that act as a post-exposure prophylaxis.
Wells said the vaccines are available at no cost, and health officials have been trying to spread the word over social media and the local news.
“So we’re kind of just getting the people that, I think, either their children are behind on vaccines, just because parents get busy and it’s hard to get your four-year-old sometimes into the doctor’s office, or people that were kind of on the fence about vaccines and maybe said, ‘Well, I don’t want to vaccinate my kids, because you never see measles.’ But now that you’re seeing measles, they’re bringing their children in for vaccinations,” she said.
In conversations with colleagues in nearby health departments, such as in epicenter Gaines County, Wells has said it’s been harder to reach residents to distribute the MMR vaccine, making the process somewhat of a “struggle.”
She explained that in Lubbock, the health department building is large — with most residents knowing where it is — and the department has more outreach staff than smaller departments.
“I think it’s a little bit harder in some of these rural areas, because they’re setting up in places that might not be as familiar to individuals,” Wells said. “They’re finding different locations in order to have those clinics; they’re starting to focus a lot more on school-based clinics. So, let’s go to where the children are and get the parents to come to that school and then offer the vaccine there, which I think is a great tactic.”
Meanwhile, in nearby New Mexico, the state Department of Health (NMDOH) reported a total of 43 measles cases so far this year. Most of the cases have been confirmed in Lea County, which borders western Texas.
Health officials suspect there may be a connection between the Texas and New Mexico cases, but a link has not yet been confirmed.
Data from NMDOH provided to ABC News shows that between Feb. 1 and March 24 of this year, more than 13,100 MMR doses have been administered. Of those, about 7,000 doses have been administered among those under age 18 and about 6,100 have been administered among adults.
This is more than the double the number of MMR vaccine doses that were administered over the same period last year, according to Robert Nott, communications director for the NMDOH. The vaccines are being administered at no charge.
“We’re encouraged by the number of people getting vaccinated but we’re not taking it for granted,” Nott told ABC News. “You can see nationwide: measles is highly contagious.”
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to humans. Just one infected patient can spread measles to up to nine out of 10 susceptible close contacts, according to the CDC.
The measles virus can linger in the air and live on surfaces for up to two hours after an infected person has left a room, the CDC says.
Wells, from Lubbock, said during a press briefing last week that it could take up to a year to gain control over the outbreak.
“Our number of cases are continuing to increase daily. There [are] also still cases that are unreported or under-reported because people aren’t seeking testing,” she told ABC News. “So, I still think we’re on the growth side of this outbreak, and it’s going to be until we get a significant number of vaccines and really be able to identify all of those cases. So, it’ll take both of those things happening before we can get this under control.”
(WASHINGTON) — During his confirmation hearings two weeks ago to lead the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated several unfounded claims about autism.
Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has made money through books, speeches and lawsuits while sharing vaccine skepticism, refused to say that vaccines don’t cause autism despite many high-quality studies finding no such link.
He stated during the hearing that autism rates have “have gone from 1 in 10,000 … and today in our children, it’s one in 34.” His claims have been repeated by President Donald Trump on Truth Social.
It’s unclear where Kennedy got his 1 in 10,000 statistic. In 2000, approximately 1 in 150 children in the U.S. born in 1992 were diagnosed with autism compared with 2020, during which one in 36 children born in 2012 were diagnosed, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Some psychiatrists and autism experts told ABC News it’s important to highlight the rising rates of autism, and that at least Kennedy is putting a spotlight on it.
“On the bright side, I think it is really important to place an emphasis on these very high rates, it’s kind of great putting a spotlight on autism, these increased rates,” Dr. Karen Pierce, a professor in the department of neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego and co-director of the UCSD Autism Center of Excellence, told ABC News. “We need more funding. We need more infrastructure to support everybody who is now recognized as on the spectrum. So, I think that that’s actually a really good thing.”
However, the experts said Kennedy and others are missing important context about why autism rates are increasing. They say reasons may include a combination of widening of the definition of the spectrum and of types of symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as well as people having children at older ages, better awareness and access to diagnostic testing.
“With the rates increasing, there certainly are valid reasons for that,” Pierce said. “There’s better awareness, and doctors can find autism a lot easier than they could before in the past…. and I think a very big reason is just better record keeping nowadays and easier access to reviewing records.”
What is autism?
ASD is a developmental disability caused by differences in the brain, according to the CDC.
People with ASD often communicate, interact, behave and learn differently, the CDC says. ASD symptoms typically begin before age 3 and can last a lifetime, although symptoms may change over time.
“There can be differences in how one is reading social cues and interpreting them, and then there’s also certain behaviors that we see,” Dr. Anna Krasno, clinical director of the Koegel Autism Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told ABC News.
“So those include a preference for sameness, a difficulty with transitioning, some cognitive and behavioral rigidity,” she continued. “We also see intense interests, so topics that people are super, super into and want to research, repetitive speech and motor movements. And then we also see really significant sensory differences as well.”
ASD is a spectrum, which means symptoms vary by person — some need little support in their daily lives and some may need a great deal of support in performing day-to-day activities. Some may have advanced conversation skills and others may be nonverbal.
Wider recognition, better understanding
Experts told ABC News there is a wider recognition and a better understanding of what is now understood as autism/ASD.
Traits of what is now known as ASD are built on early observations in the 1940s from Austrian-American psychiatrist Dr. Leo Kanner and Austrian physician Dr. Hans Asperger.
A 1943 paper from Kanner described 11 children who presented with “inborn autistic disturbances of affective contact” while Asperger’s 1944 report focused on boys who had marked social difficulties; unusual, circumscribed interests; and good verbal skills.
It was not until 1978 that autism was recognized as a developmental disorder distinct from schizophrenia by the World Health Organization. It was also in the 1970s that psychologists and psychiatrists first came to describe autism as a spectrum.
“When autism was first described, it was new to people understanding that there was a condition that included social communication difficulties and restricted and repetitive behavior, and people primarily only recognized it when it was at its most extreme,” Dr. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, division director in child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia University, told ABC News.
“And so, if you go back and read the initial descriptions today, those are kids who we would recognize in the waiting room, recognize in the grocery store, in whom autism would be very obvious and would not require much assessment in order to diagnose,” he continued.
Better diagnostic tools
Experts say another reason for the increase in rates is having better diagnostic tools than what was available decades ago.
There is no single tool used as the basis of an ASD diagnosis. Typically, tools rely on descriptions from parents or caregivers of a child’s development and a professional’s observation of a child’s behavior, according to the CDC.
Currently, the Autism Society encourages all children to be screened for signs of autism by their family pediatrician three times by the age of three — at nine, 18, and 24 or 30 months. If a child shows symptoms of ASD, more rigorous diagnostic testing can be carried out by a specialist including a full neuropsychological exam.
Additionally, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) provides standard criteria for helping diagnose autism.
Under DSM-5, a child meets the criteria if they have deficits in three areas of social communication and interaction and at least two of four types of restricted, repetitive behaviors.
While the first edition of DSM came out in 1952, it was not until the third edition, DSM-3, in which autism was listed under an entirely new “class” of conditions — the Pervasive Developmental Disorders.
Veenstra-VanderWeele said the change in the criteria is another reason why the number of those diagnosed with autism rose. He likened it to changing the definition of what it means to be tall.
“To just use a crude example, if you would define somebody as tall if they were over six-foot-six, and then 30 years later, say that somebody is tall if they’re over five-foot-10, you’d get very, very different numbers, and that’s part of what’s happened here,” he said.
Pierce added that because of limited knowledge and awareness in the past, there may have been many children who were underdiagnosed and misdiagnosed.
“It’s understandable that people wouldn’t even necessarily think that somebody has autism, because nobody knew what really autism was,” she said. “So, you know, large numbers of people were just put in the books as just having special education needs, maybe as a language delay or of having a cognitive impairment.”
Older reproductive age
Some studies have suggested that people who become pregnant at an older age have an increased risk of giving birth to a child with autism.
A 2012 review and meta-analysis of 16 papers from researchers in New York, London, Israel and Sweden found an association between advanced maternal age and the risk of autism.
Advanced paternal age may also be a risk factor. A 2006 study conducted jointly by researchers in New York, London and Israel found that men who were above age 40 were 5.75 times more likely to have a child with ASD compared to men younger than age 30 after controlling for other factors.
However, questions still swirl about whether or not there is a risk from the age of parents, and not all researchers are convinced.
“I know that there is some research looking at maternal and paternal age with regard to autism, and there’s research around environmental causes,” Krasno said. “I think where I always firmly land is that it is inherited, and it is genetic. So, I don’t know the exact correlation between age and diagnostic rate, but we do know that genetics are highly associated with diagnosis.”
Environmental risk factors
Researchers are also divided over whether or not environmental risk factors play a role in causing autism.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences says the “clearest evidence” involves events before and during birth, including prenatal exposure to air pollution or pesticides; maternal obesity or diabetes; extreme prematurity; and periods of oxygen deprivation to the brain during birth.
“But these factors alone are unlikely to cause autism. Rather, they appear to increase a child’s likelihood for developing autism when combined with genetic factors,” NIEHS states on its website.
Pierce said from the studies she’s read, evidence suggests autism is a genetic condition. She added the environmental factors may play a role but “to a small degree.”
Myth that vaccines cause autism
The myth that vaccines cause autism was born out of a fraudulent 1998 study, hypothesizing that the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine caused intestinal inflammation, which, in turn, led to the development of autism.
The paper has since been discredited by health experts, retracted from the journal in which it was published, and its primary author, Andrew Wakefield, lost his medical license after an investigation found he had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly” in conducting his research.
More than a dozen high-quality studies have since found no evidence of a link between childhood vaccines and autism.
However, Kennedy has held fast to this claim, saying during a 2023 interview on Fox News that he believes autism comes from vaccines.
During the HHS confirmation hearings, Kennedy said he was not “anti-vaccine” but “pro-safety.” At the same time, Kennedy repeatedly refused throughout the hearings to say that vaccines were not linked to autism, while still insisting he supports vaccination in general.
Experts told ABC News there is no evidence to suggest a link between vaccines and autism, and perpetuating the myth can be dangerous.
“Once there’s a lie and it’s spread, it doesn’t matter that it’s a lie. Once people hear it, then they believe that it’s true despite all of the Herculean efforts to disprove it and debunk it,” Pierce said. “There’s no evidence for it whatsoever, and there’s actually extremely, as far as scientific evidence is concerned, there’s extremely strong evidence to suggest absolutely not.”
Christopher Banks, president and CEO of the Autism Society of America, said the false claim that vaccines cause autism can divert financial resources from much-needed research.
“Instead of advancing support and therapies, time and funding are wasted disproving a debunked theory,” he said. “This misinformation also fuels stigma, implying that autism is something to be feared rather than understood and supported, leading to discrimination against autistic individuals.”
ABC News’ Dr. Jade Cobern, Cheyenne Haslett and Will McDuffie contributed to this report.
In this undated stock photo, signage for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is shown. (STOCK PHOTO/Adobe Stock)
(WASHINGTON) — Medical groups are expressing deep concern about the sudden removal or alteration of government data sets and webpages from agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the behest of President Donald Trump’s administration.
The American Cancer Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating the disease, called on the administration to “restore access to comprehensive data, refrain from changes that would lead to incomplete future data collection and commit to ensure evidence-based science can proceed without additional bureaucracy or red tape” in a statement published on its website on Thursday.
“Any restriction to gather and release these data could thwart our ability to address and reduce the cancer burden across all communities,” interim CEO Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick said in the statement.
The organization highlighted the removal of the Social Vulnerability Index, which uses U.S. census data to identify county-level risk and vulnerability factors facing communities, taking into account poverty, race, disability, housing and more, according to the CDC.
“Data from public sources like the Social Vulnerability Index are key to deploying the right resources to those who could benefit the most,” the group said. “Therefore, any barriers to accessing these data can also have repercussions on planning and deployment of support services for cancer patients and survivors.”
The Trump administration transition team didn’t immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Across the federal government, webpages and datasets were removed or altered following Trump’s executive orders on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and transgender identities called for an “end” to any related policies within the federal government.
Webpages about HIV, LGBTQ+ people and multiple other public health topics were taken down. Some of the terms being flagged for removal include pregnant people, chestfeeding, diversity, DEI and references to vaccines, health and gender equity, according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity.
Several data tools were also removed or modified, according to Frederick.
Frederick said data collected by a plethora of federal and state agencies play a key role in many of the organization’s reports and publications, including the agency’s “Cancer Statistics, 2025” report and its companion, the “Cancer Facts and Figures” report.
The organization’s reports provide up-to-date trends on cancer occurrence, survival, symptoms, prevention, early detection and treatment, Frederick said.
“ACS develops guidelines for cancer screening and prevention, informed by the latest available data and evidence, to meet the needs of clinicians, the general public, and policy,” he said. “We are very concerned that the changes in data collection and dissemination have the potential to impact these efforts in the future.”
The organization is concerned about how the scope and impact of data removal and potential long-term changes to data collection will impact its research capabilities.
The ACS warning came just days after the medical nonprofit group Doctors For America filed a lawsuit against several Trump administration agencies over its sudden removal of health information from multiple government websites.
The suit targets the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Health and Human Services (which controls the CDC and FDA), asking a federal court in Washington, D.C. to order the government to restore the webpages and datasets.
ABC News has reached out to the agencies for comment.
In a statement to ABC News, the CDC confirmed that changes “to the HHS website and HHS division websites are in accordance with President Trump’s January 20 Executive Orders, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government and Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.”
The Office of Personnel Management provided guidance on both executive orders, prompting HHS and divisions to respond accordingly, the spokesperson stated.
In a separate emailed statement to ABC News, the CDC’s SVI coordinator also attributed the online restrictions to the HHS “pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health.”
It said the pause will be brief, “to allow the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization.”
In the lawsuit, Doctors for America expressed concerns that the lack of data “creates a dangerous gap in the scientific data available to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, deprives physicians of resources that guide clinical practice, and takes away key resources for communicating and engaging with patients.”
Asked last Friday afternoon if government websites would be shut down to be scrubbed, the president said it wouldn’t be a “bad idea.”
“DEI … would have ruined our country, and now it’s dead. I think DEI is dead,” Trump said. “So, if they want to scrub the website, that’s OK with me. But I can’t tell you.”
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud and Peter Charalambous contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — New research shows the far-reaching effects of the abortion bans that have proliferated the United States since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Three new studies have provided some of the first nationwide data on the effects of those bans in the states where they are currently active — revealing more births but also a rise in infant deaths.
The impact of those bans have even spread to states where abortion is still legal, the studies showed.
In the first study, Johns Hopkins researchers found that birth rates rose 1.7% in states with abortion bans. It showed that the bans primarily affect racial minorities, younger individuals and those with lower income or education, especially in the South.
“Those experiencing the greatest structural disadvantages and in the states amongst the worst in maternal and child health outcomes experience the greatest impact of these abortion bans on the number of live births,” Suzanne Bell, PhD, MPH, the paper’s lead author and an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told ABC News.
“Many of these occurred in states with among the weakest social services and worst outcomes, potentially deepening existing disparities and placing additional burdens on already strained resources,” she said.
At the same time, infant deaths rose in states with abortion bans, according to another Johns Hopkins study. Analyzing birth and death records from 2012 to 2023, Bell’s team noted 478 more infant deaths than expected in 14 states with the bans. The highest increases were seen in Black infants (about an 11% higher death rate), infants in Southern states and infants born with severe medical conditions.
“When you look at Texas’ contribution to the overall findings, we see that Texas is responsible for 73% of the additional births and 80% of the excess infant deaths,” Bell said.
But states without bans have also felt the effects.
Abortion also rose in Colorado, a state that maintained access to abortion with no gestational limits, according to a research letter recently published in JAMA Network Open.
Colorado State University researchers found that abortions for out-of-state residents in Colorado rose from 13% in 2020 to 30% in 2023. Abortions among Colorado residents also peaked six months after Texas’ abortion ban, with an 11% increase in first-trimester abortions and an 83% increase in second-trimester abortions compared to before the ban.
The surge in demand led to delays, possibly raising costs, emotional toll and procedure complexity, the authors said. However, second-trimester abortions have since stabilized, possibly due to expanded telehealth, self-managed abortions and access in other states, they added.
Currently, abortion is illegal in 12 states, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and 29 states have some sort of abortion limitation based on gestational age. Nine states have no restriction on abortion.
“The literature we have demonstrates that not being able to obtain an abortion has negative physical, mental and economic implications for birthing persons, their children and their families — and undermines achieving health equity,” Bell said. “These bans are deepening or worsening some of these existing population health disparities that exist.”
Jessica Yang, DO, is a family medicine resident at Main Line Health Bryn Mawr Hospital and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
