At least 88 new measles cases confirmed in South Carolina, bringing total to 646: Health officials

(NEW YORK) — As measles continues to spread across the U.S., with outbreaks popping up around the country, public health experts have been stressing the importance of getting vaccinated to stop the spread of disease.

This has involved local doctors and health department workers going into outbreak areas to offer the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

The MMR vaccine is typically a two-dose series given first at 12-15 months old and again at 4-6 years of age. An extra dose can be given as early 6 months old in high-risk circumstances, including during a measles outbreak. 

Health experts working in and near measles outbreaks told ABC News that vaccine acceptance has been mixed among these communities, with some people begging to get their kids vaccinated early, while others still refuse an immunization. 

“[Measles] can spread so quickly amongst that unvaccinated population,” Dr. Christopher Lombardozzi, chief medical officer at Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, told ABC News. “And if the number of people who remain unvaccinated stays large, then we could have a real problem, not just this year, but in years to come.”

Vaccine hesitancy in outbreak areas

The upstate region of South Carolina is experiencing a surge in measles cases amid the ongoing outbreak. 

The South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) reported 223 new cases over the last week, bringing the total number of cases in the outbreak to 434 since October, with over 400 people currently in quarantine due to exposure. Spartanburg County, which borders North Carolina, is currently the epicenter of the outbreak.

A spokesperson for Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System told ABC News that, as of Jan. 9, there have been 77 confirmed measles cases across the system since the outbreak began.

Lombardozzi said the health care system has seen some increased vaccine uptake, but not as much as they hoped for.

“We certainly have had some more uptake of vaccine in the last six months or so, since the outbreak started here in South Carolina, and I’m happy for that,” Lombardozzi said. “I would love to see a higher uptake. There is still quite a bit of vaccine hesitancy around here, and I think it’s unwarranted.”

Lombardozzi added that addressing vaccine hesitancy takes time and support.

“We try to support people, meet them where they are, and hopefully they will change their mind if they’ve been vaccine hesitant for a while,” he said.

Lombardozzi worries that without increasing immunizations, the negative effects could ripple for years.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Dr. Linda Bell, state epidemiologist and health program branch director for the South Carolina DPH, said the lack of vaccine acceptance amid the growing outbreak has been “disappointing.”  

Bell said vaccines could have helped prevent a majority of cases, adding, “We have an opportunity to prevent further cases, if people can adopt these available tools and help us stop this outbreak sooner rather than later.”

As of Tuesday, another ongoing outbreak in Utah surpassed 200 measles cases since it began in June of last year. The southwest region of Utah has reported 147 of those cases, which equates to a rate of 25.8 cases per 100,000 people in that region. 

David Heaton, public information officer at the Southwest Utah Department of Public Health, told ABC News that cases in southwest Utah and further north have been linked to the same measles virus that spread in Texas and New Mexico last year.

Heaton worries that measles will soon be declared endemic again, ending the decades-long elimination status in the U.S. 

“That’s kind of a discouraging threshold that we’re getting closer to. I think [the loss of elimination status] could be recovered, but it could take a couple of years at least,” Heaton said.

In the Southwest region, vaccine acceptance has been highest among people who were on the fence or those who accidentally missed vaccines, but those with strong beliefs against vaccines have been “fairly immovable,” Heaton added. 

“We’re just seeing the attitude of, ‘I choose not to get vaccinated. I don’t agree with vaccinations, and I’m not going to do it. I don’t feel the risk is high enough to get the vaccine,'” he said.

Some success in vaccine uptake

But there have been examples of success. Last year, during a large outbreak from February to September, the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH) reported that MMR doses administered were nearly 50% higher than the year prior by October.

The largest gains were due to adult vaccination that increased by about 230% in October 2025 compared to October 2024. Children receiving the MMR shot only increased by about 10% compared to that time the previous year.  

Andrea Romero, immunization program section manager at NMDOH, told ABC News communication was key during the outbreak. Romero said most of the adults who got vaccinated did so because they were unsure of their vaccination status and felt a strong sense of duty to get the shot, not just to protect themselves but to protect their community. 

“When they know that they’re making a difference, it matters,” Romero said. “Every time I take that opportunity [to say], ‘Thank you for being a great community and your response, caring about yourself, your family, your neighbor,’ but it means a lot because it’s their efforts. It was their response that made the difference.”

NMDOH data shared with ABC News shows that 384 children with a vaccine exemption on file received at least one MMR shot between Jan. 13, 2025 and Jan. 13, 2026. This suggests parents of these children changed their minds about the vaccine around the time of New Mexico’s measles outbreak, according to health department officials.

During that same timeframe, at least one MMR dose was the only immunization on record for 189 children in the state, the data shows.

Fears of further measles spread

Doctors near outbreak regions are also experiencing the effects of fears and questions about measles and vaccination from their community. 

Dr. Deborah Greenhouse, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics and pediatrician in South Carolina, told ABC News that her community hasn’t had a measles case yet, but parents and healthcare providers are increasingly concerned. 

“As we all know, and as my patients know, measles virus does not respect county borders, so, as the numbers continue to rise, the likelihood that we start seeing cases here in the midlands of South Carolina increases dramatically,” Greenhouse said. 

On Tuesday, health officials announced there was a measles exposure on Jan. 2 in the midlands region at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia. 

“If more families decline the vaccines, our vaccination rates drop and we become an open target, essentially a sitting duck for an outbreak, much like the Spartanburg area,” Greenhouse said. 

In her experience, building a foundation of trust has been essential for vaccine acceptance.

“They know me, they trust me,” Greenhouse said. “They know that as a pediatrician, I have no interest here other than protecting the best interests of their children and their family.”

She went on, “Families that I’ve known for years, who I have a very strong relationship with, are coming in and asking for every vaccine that they can get, and asking to get the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine early, because they’re very concerned about their children being exposed to measles and not being protected.”

Greenhouse said trying to build trust among families has been particularly challenging amid changing guidance from federal health agencies and widespread misinformation.

“Unfortunately, some of the awful sources right now are people that you used to think you could trust and, as a new parent, I totally understand why it would be incredibly difficult to be able to figure out right now,” Greenhouse said.

Despite changing guidance and misinformation, doctors say the science hasn’t changed, and vaccines remain safe and effective. 

“Amongst the medical community, you’re not going to get much disagreement that the vaccines are safe and that they’re effective,” Lombardozzi said. “The message is, go get your kids their shots if it’s time to get their shots. We certainly encourage folks to go talk to your pediatrician, go talk to your doctor.”

Jade A. Cobern, MD, MPH, is a practicing physician, board-certified in pediatrics and general preventive medicine, and is a medical fellow of the ABC News Medical Unit.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s surgeon general nominee is appearing before the Senate on Wednesday for her confirmation hearing.

Dr. Casey Means was originally scheduled to testify before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee in October, but it was postponed for four months after she went into labor.

If confirmed, Means would become the nation’s top doctor, leading more than 6,000 members of the U.S. Public Health Service, including physicians, nurses, scientists and engineers working at various federal health agencies.

Means’ views largely mirror those of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with a focus on tackling the chronic disease epidemic, creating a healthier food supply and expressing vaccine skepticism.

Senators are expected to grill Means on her qualifications as well as her business endeavors. In prior filings, Means pledged that, if confirmed, she would resign from her position as an adviser for a wellness company and promised to stop working as an influencer promoting supplements and other wellness products. 

“Dr. Means would clearly be an atypical or unusual person to serve in the role of surgeon general,” Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told ABC News. “Typically, the surgeon general has been viewed as the nation’s top doctor or America’s doctor, but Dr. Means has never practiced medicine, and so that is unusual. The part that’s not unusual is that the surgeon general’s impact is largely through influence. Dr. Means is skilled in this regard, when it comes to influence.”

Means graduated from Stanford School of Medicine in 2014 with plans to become an otolaryngology surgeon, also known as a head and neck surgeon, but she dropped out in her fifth year, according to her website.

Means went on to study functional medicine, which uses a holistic approach to prevent disease and illness by studying the root causes of health issues. The field has been criticized for promoting some interventions that are not evidence-based and for an overreliance on expensive supplements. Having never completed residency, Means is not board-certified in a medical specialty, and she does not hold an active medical license.

Over the course of her career, she co-founded Levels, an app that allows people to track their food, along with biometric data like sleep and glucose monitoring, to see how their diet is impacting their health.

Means wrote a book with her brother, Calley Means, titled “Good Energy,” which was published in May 2024 and claims to take a look at why Americans are sick and how to fix it.

The siblings rose to prominence within the Trump campaign in 2024 and among Trump allies, including Kennedy. They appeared at a September 2024 roundtable discussion on health with Kennedy hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc.

“The message I’m here to share and reiterate is that American health is getting destroyed,” Casey Means said during her opening remarks at the 2024 event. “It’s being destroyed because of chronic illness.”

Meanwhile, Calley Means currently serves as senior adviser for HHS. He has worked closely with Kennedy and has touted many of his health proposals. Calley Means has a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard University and does not have medical training.

According to a copy of her prepared testimony for her original confirmation hearing in October, obtained by ABC News, Casey Means wrote that she would work to put “Americans back on the road toward wholeness and health.”

Like Kennedy, Casey Means has called for the removal of ultra-processed foods in school lunches and has advocated for organic foods and ingredients sourced from so-called regenerative farming practices in school meals.

In her “Good Energy” newsletter, she wrote that the U.S. needed to move away “from  industrial agriculture that uses synthetic pesticides” in order to create “nutrient-rich food.”

“If she were to use the platform to truly work towards improving the school lunch program in America, that would be that would be terrific, because the Secretary talks a lot about nutrition, the importance of eating healthy food,” Besser said. “But if people can’t afford it, telling people to eat healthy food doesn’t lead to a healthier nation. and one of the ways that we could see big impact in that regard would be if the school lunch program were funded to the extent that every school could have a kitchen, and the people working in that kitchen could actually prepare real food, rather than handing out packaged food.”

While Casey Means’ nomination has received support from members of the administration, including Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, acting CDC acting director and head of the National Institutes of Health, others have expressed concern over some of her more controversial views.

On Tucker Carlson’s show in August 2024, Casey Means said birth control is being “prescribed like candy” and that Ozempic has a “stranglehold on the U.S. population.”

Means has expressed skepticism about the safety of childhood vaccines and has called for more research on the “safety of the cumulative effects” of vaccines when following the CDC vaccine schedule, she wrote in her newsletter.

“There is growing evidence that the total burden of the current extreme and growing vaccine schedule is causing health declines in vulnerable children. This needs to be investigated,” she continued.

Doctors and major medical organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, have said the previous childhood immunization schedule recommended by the CDC was safe and effective. The CDC recently changed the childhood immunization schedule, cutting the number of vaccines recommended  for kids.

“I will be very eager to see whether the members of the health committee use this time to lift up concerns and to get Dr. Means’ perspective on the changes the Secretary has made to the vaccine system in America,” Besser said. “I’ll be interested to see if they ask Dr Means about her perspective on the changes that have taken place at CDC and the impact that these could have on health so that it’s clear coming in where she stands on the draconian cuts that the Secretary has made to our federal public health health system.”

She has also criticized the administration of hepatitis B vaccine among infants. The CDC recently removed the universal recommendation for a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine among babies in the U.S.

Kennedy said on Monday he is “excited” for Casey Means’ confirmation hearing and that the health department has been waiting “a long time” for her to join the team.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time for Dr. Means to come on board,” Kennedy told ABC News on Monday at the department’s rare disease therapies event. “We are very, very excited about her coming on board. She has an extraordinary capacity to communicate to the American public — that is the function of the surgeon general.”

ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud and Arthur Jones II contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Two bills having to do with abortion are making their way through the Wyoming legislature.

The first bill, HB0126, dubbed the Human Heartbeat Act, prohibits abortion if cardiac activity is detected in the fetus, which is around six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant.

If cardiac activity is detected, an abortion can only be performed in the case of a medical emergency, meaning if the life of the mother is in danger or if continuing the pregnancy would cause serious or irreversible impairment of a major bodily function, according to the bill, which does not include exceptions for women impregnated as a result of rape or incest.

Any person who intentionally or knowingly violates the act will be charged with a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $10,000, or both, according to the bill.

“What this bill attempts to do is to provide a line in the sand,” Republican Speaker of the House Rep. Chip Neiman said at a Wyoming House Labor, Health & Social Services Committee meeting on Monday. “This gives the unborn child the right to be protected and the privilege of being carried to term after a fetal heartbeat is detected.”

The bill also asserts that “substantial medical evidence” shows that a fetus can experience pain by 15 weeks of gestation.

“The science conclusively establishes that a human fetus does not have the capacity to experience pain until after at least 24–25 weeks,” according to the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG).

The other bill, HB 117 or “Stop harm-empower women with informed notices,” requires medical professionals to give pregnant women written notices before performing an abortion.

The notice would include a description of the proposed abortion method, if there are medical risks associated with the method, alternatives such as adoption and parenting, and the medical risks associated with carrying the fetus to term

Patients who feel they’ve been coerced into receiving an abortion would be allowed to sue any providers for not less than $25,000.

The bill also includes text about the abortion drug mifepristone, including putting in the written notice that mifepristone alone is not always effective in ending a pregnancy. The written notice must also include that pregnant women should consult a health care provider if, after taking mifepristone, they regret their decision “to determine if there are options available to assist her in continuing her pregnancy.”

ACOG states that medication abortion “reversal” is not supported by science and that so-called reversal procedures are “unproven and unethical.”

Earlier this week, the Wyoming House Labor, Health & Social Services Committee recommended that both bills be passed. The bills will now go to the Wyoming State House for debate, amendment and voting.

Currently, abortion is allowed in Wyoming until fetal viability, which occurs at around 25 weeks of gestation, according to ACOG, defined as a fetus’ chances of surviving outside of the womb.  

Only physicians are allowed to provide abortions in Wyoming, and they are required to submit a report to the Wyoming Department of Health within 20 days of any abortion procedure, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that focuses on sexual and reproductive health.

In 2023, Wyoming passed two abortion bans. However, the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled in January that the bans were unconstitutional, violating a “health care freedom” amendment to the state constitution that was passed in 2012 that states in part that “each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions,” and that “the parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.”

During his State of the State address earlier this month, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon suggested that voters should decide on the issue.

“There’s another arduous task that I bring before you, which is the issue of abortion,” he said. “Protecting life is the most serious responsibility entrusted to government. The question of abortion deserves careful deliberation and I urge this legislature to take up this issue earnestly and put forward a genuine solution to the voters of Wyoming that provides a clear, irrefutable, durable, and morally sound resolution to this fraught issue.”

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