Case of tuberculosis confirmed at Florida high school: Officials
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(FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.) — A case of active tuberculosis has been confirmed at a Florida high school, according to state health officials.
The Florida Department of Health in Broward County (DOH-Broward) identified the infected individual, who was recently on campus at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, John J. Sullivan, chief of communications and legislative affairs for Broward County Public Schools (BCPS), told ABC News in a statement.
“In collaboration with DOH-Broward, Broward County Public Schools has identified and notified individuals who may have been in close contact. With parental consent, DOH-Broward will be on-site to provide testing. Impacted students and staff have been directly contacted,” the statement read.
Additionally, the school principal sent a letter to the community on Tuesday, making them aware of the case, BCPS told ABC News.
“No further action is needed unless you are contacted directly. Once again, if you have not been contacted directly or your child has received a letter to present to you, there is no action required at this time,” the letter read, in part. “We certainly thank you for your understanding as we continue to navigate through this.”
It’s unclear if the individual is a student, faculty member or staff member.
It comes after Kansas health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the state experienced one of the largest recorded tuberculosis outbreaks in U.S. history earlier this year.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a disease caused by a type of bacteria called Mycobacterium tuberculosis, according to the CDC. It is one of the world’s leading infectious disease killers, the federal health agency says.
TB is spread in the air from one person to another. When a person with TB coughs, speaks or sings, germs are expelled into the air — where they can linger for several hours — before another person breathes in the air and becomes infected.
Signs and symptoms include a cough that lasts for three weeks or longer, coughing up blood or phlegm, chest pain, weakness, fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, fever, chills and night sweats, according to the CDC.
Some people become infected with TB germs that live in the body for years without causing illness. This is known as inactive TB or latent TB.
People with inactive TB do not feel ill, do not have symptoms and cannot spread germs to other people, the CDC says. However, without receiving treatment, people with inactive TB can develop an active infection.
Last year, the U.S. saw more than 8,700 cases of TB, according to CDC data. Although TB cases have been steadily declining since the mid 1990s, rates increased in 2021, 2022 and 2023, with 2023 matching pre-pandemic levels.
There are several treatment regimens for TB disease that may last anywhere from four months to nine months depending on the course of treatment. Health care providers may consider specific regimens for patients with co-existing medical conditions such as diabetes or HIV.
A vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is commonly given to children in countries where TB is common, although it is generally not recommended in the U.S. due to the low risk of infection with the bacteria, variable vaccine effectiveness among adults, and the vaccine’s potential interference with TB tests, the CDC notes. The BCG vaccine often leaves a scar where the recipient was given the shot.
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(WASHINGTON) — For John Robinson, a retired coal miner who spent his career in the Virginia mines helping to power America into the 21st century, not a moment passes that he isn’t feeling the full effects of his black lung diagnosis.
With the support of a burdensome oxygen machine, Robinson joined a handful of other retired Central Appalachian miners to sit down with ABC News’ Jay O’Brien in the heart of coal country.
“You are suffocating. You are suffocating. And that’s what’s going to kill you,” Robinson told O’Brien. “I got a wife and two kids and two grandbabies, you know, and I want to live.”
Black lung, the debilitating respiratory illness common in coal miners, has made a staggering resurgence in the past 25 years, particularly among the younger generation of miners as they cut through more rock to access deeper, hard-to-reach coal seams, exposing them to harmful dust particles called silica — which experts say is about 20 times more toxic to the lungs than pure coal dust.
And even as President Donald Trump vows to reinvigorate America’s coal industry, critics say his administration has stripped away key protections for the miners. In his first 100 days in office, Trump’s administration has decimated the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, the federal agency that protects miners from black lung, and paused enforcement of a new safety rule that would lower the level of silica dust in the mines.
“You don’t take care of the miners, you ain’t going to mine coal,” another miner told O’Brien. “The machine don’t run by itself, you know what I’m saying?”
“There is no block of coal worth any man’s life,” said another miner.
Some of the more than 800 NIOSH employees placed on administrative leave — around two-thirds of the entire workforce, sources said — have taken matters into their own hands, setting up a guerilla “war room” around a Morgantown, West Virginia, dining table to do what little federal work they can before they’re officially laid off in June, while campaigning for their important work to continue.
“So, what is going to happen now to the average coal miner if this work isn’t being done?” O’Brien asked Dr. Scott Laney, a veteran NIOSH epidemiologist who was placed on administrative leave.
“It’s going to lead to premature mortality and death in these miners,” Laney said. “There’s just no getting around it.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to ABC News that “the Trump Administration is committed to taking care of coal miners, who play a vital role in supporting America’s energy,” and that a black lung surveillance program previously run by NIOSH would be folded into a new bureau called the Administration for a Healthy America.
But the spokesperson did not say when the program’s work would fully resume or how the work would continue without any of the experienced employees who have been laid off.
“Somebody has to continue to do the work to protect the coal miners, to protect U. S. workers — the work that NIOSH does,” said Dr. Noemi Hall, another NIOSH epidemiologist on administrative leave. “They can’t just stop everything. Yeah, we just can’t stand for that.”
For current miners, the stakes couldn’t be higher — or more urgent.
Sources said hundreds of unread X-rays conducted as part of the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program, the NIOSH program that screens and monitors the respiratory health of miners, remain in limbo, with no doctors to analyze the results and report them to patients.
“[Those miners] will go on continuing to be exposed at the rates that they are,” Laney said. “Their disease will progress more quickly than it ever should have.”
ABC News obtained a letter sent by HHS this month to coal mine operators telling them the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program was paused, saying, “We cannot accept any miner’s respiratory health screenings (x-ray, spirometry, or forms) at this time.”
“Nobody else in the federal government does the work that we do to protect U.S. workers,” Hall said. “Nobody else, you know, specifically at CDC, nobody else at NIH, nobody else in the United States does what we do. When we are gone, when our work is gone, our research is gone — nobody steps up to take our place.”
Amanda Lawson, who works at a health center in West Virginia, told ABC News that last week three miners came in and had horrible X-rays. She says she’s already feeling the effects of the NIOSH cuts.
“There’s nobody to send them to get them some protection and get them moved out of the dust,” Lawson said. Without NIOSH’s right-to-transfer program, those miners will remain working in the mines, rather than being transferred to safer working conditions.
On Capitol Hill, even some of Trump’s most fervent supporters have rebuked Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for their removal of those positions.
Sen. Shelly Moore Capito, R-W.V., said earlier this month that she harbors “strong disagreements with the administration,” and Rep. Riley Moore, a congressman who represents the West Virginia’s Morgantown area, said the NIOSH cuts were a “mistake that we are working to roll back.”
“I believe in the President’s vision to right size our government, but I do not think eliminating the NIOSH coal programs and research will accomplish that goal,” Capito wrote in a letter to Kennedy earlier this month, urging him to reinstate NIOSH employees, whose work she called a “vital health program.”
The HHS spokesperson did not answer a question about Capito’s concerns.
Robinson’s wife Vonda says she’s spoken to members of Congress about the Coal Workers’ Health Surveillance Program cuts.
“If we’re going to have coal and we’re going to have to produce it for America and we’ll have a coal industry, we’ve got to have coal miners and we have to take care of our coal miners,” Vonda Robinson told ABC News.
“I don’t think the people in Washington have any, well, had any idea what the Coworkers Health Surveillance Program even did,” Anita Wolfe, who was the director of the program for 20 years, told ABC News. She says she’s also spoken to members of Congress.
Wolfe says a critical part of the program has been its state-of-the-art mobile unit that’s equipped with an X-ray machine. She said the vehicle would often be parked in easily accessible locations to make it easier for the miners to get screenings. It’s now parked at the NIOSH facility in Morgantown.
“It breaks my heart,” Wolfe said. “I mean, the miners liked that mobile.”
In deep red coal country, several of the miners who met with ABC News have faith that Trump will reinstate protections for coal miners.
“If they’ll give Trump time and let him work out his — he’s got a plan,” Robinson told O’Brien. “I mean, he knows what he’s doing. He’s a smart man.”
“What if he doesn’t?” O’Brien asked.
“I feel sorry for the miners,” Robinson replied.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
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(WASHINGTON) — Sixteen state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Friday over its cancellation of research grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, argues the cancellation of the grants is “unlawful” and the attorneys general “seek relief for the unreasonable and intentional delays currently plaguing the grant-application process.”
The defendants named in the suit include the NIH, almost all of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers, NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Department of Health and Human Services and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The NIH told ABC News it does not comment on pending litigation. The HHS did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
“Once again, the Trump administration is putting politics before public health and risking lives and livelihoods in the process,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Millions of Americans depend on our nation’s research institutions for treatments and cures to the diseases that devastate families every day.”
“The decision to cut these funds is an attack on science, public health, and medical innovation — and I won’t stand for it. We are suing to restore these critical funds because the people of New York, and the entire nation, deserve better,” the statement continued.
Over the past several weeks, active research grants related to studies involving LGBTQ+ issues, gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have been canceled at the NIH because they allegedly do not serve the “priorities” of President Donald Trump’s administration.
As of late March, more than 900 grants worth millions of dollars have been terminated, an NIH official with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named, told ABC News.
In previous termination letters, viewed by ABC News, they state that, “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities. It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize these research programs.”
“The premise…is incompatible with agency priorities, and no modification of the project could align the project with agency priorities,” the letters continue.
The plaintiffs argue that the terminations, “if left unchecked,” could cause “direct, immediate, significant, and irreparable harm to the plaintiffs and their public research institutions. “
The attorneys general are seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction asking the defendants to review delayed applications and barring them from carrying out terminations of grants.
Earlier this week, researchers who had millions of dollars’ worth of grants terminated by the NIH sued the agency, the HHS, Bhattacharya and Kennedy in the hopes of stopping any further research cancellations.
(WASHINGTON) — Researchers who had millions of dollars’ worth of grants terminated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are suing the federal government in the hopes of stopping any further research cancellations.
The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday evening against the NIH and its director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Among the plaintiffs are Dr. Brittany Charlton, an associate professor in the department of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who said all of her grants were terminated because they allegedly “no longer [effectuate] agency priorities,” according to termination letters.
“Why am I standing up? I am a scientist, and therefore not a lawyer, but I appreciate that contract law is complex, and yet NIH’s contract cancellations set off my alarm bell,” she told ABC News in a statement.
Co-plaintiffs include the American Public Health Association; Ibis Reproductive Health; and United Auto Workers as well as three other researchers.
Both the NIH and the HHS told ABC News that they don’t comment on ongoing litigation.
Over the past several weeks, active research grants related to studies involving LGBTQ+ issues, gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have been canceled at the NIH because they allegedly do not serve the “priorities” of President Donald Trump’s administration.
As of late March, more than 900 grants have been terminated, an NIH official with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named, told ABC News.
The terminations come after Trump passed a flurry of executive orders including vowing to “defend women from gender ideology extremism,” which has led to new guidance, like that from HHS, which now only recognizes two sexes.
The administration has also issued several executive orders aiming to dismantle DEI initiatives.
In previous termination letters, viewed by ABC News, they state that, “Research programs based on gender identity are often unscientific, have little identifiable return on investment, and do nothing to enhance the health of many Americans. Many such studies ignore, rather than seriously examine, biological realities. It is the policy of NIH not to prioritize these research programs.”
The lawsuit alleges that the grant terminations are a “reckless and illegal purge to stamp out NIH-funded research that addresses topics and populations that they disfavor.”
Charlton said she was alarmed by Project 2025 — a nearly 1,000-page document of policy proposals unveiled by the Heritage Foundation during the 2024 campaign intended to guide the next conservative administration — which allegedly attacked fields like hers, centering on LGBTQ+ health research, as “junk gender science,” she said.
On the campaign trail, Trump tried to distance himself from Project 2025, saying he didn’t know anything about the proposals.
Five of Charlton’s grants were terminated, including a five-year grant, of which Charlton said she and her colleagues were in their fourth year, focused on documenting obstetrical outcomes for lesbian, gay and bisexual women, she said.
Another grant was focused on how to improve the experience of lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals who are trying to form their families, she said.
A third was research looking to understand how laws identified by the team as discriminatory affect mental health among LGBTQ+ teens and potentially lead to depression and suicide, according to Charlton.
Charlton said the cancellations are not only affecting her ability to conduct research but the ability to keep open the LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence — based at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health — of which she is the founding director.
“My current NIH research contracts are worth $15.9 million, of which $5.9 million still needs to be spent to finish our research,” Charlton said. “I have essentially no salary now, and I may need to shutter our newly launched LGBTQ Health Center of Excellence, which was a career goal of mine that I finally met when we launched less than a year ago.”
She went on, “These grant terminations may end my academic career, and I’ve already been forced to make really tough decisions like terminating staff, including our newly appointed center’s executive director.”
According to the lawsuit, Dr. Katie Edwards, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, has had at least six grants terminated worth about $11.9 million, including one studying sexual violence among men who fall under sexual minorities. She can no longer pay several of the roughly 50 staff members who are funded through the research grants, the lawsuit states.
Dr. Peter Lurie, president and CEO of the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, was a paid consultant and adviser on a grant evaluating the impacts of over-the-counter access to pre-exposure prophylaxis to reduce HIV transmission, according to the lawsuit. The grantee institution, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, received a termination letter from the NIH in late March, the lawsuit states.
Meanwhile Dr. Nicole Maphis — a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine — who was studying the link between alcohol use disorder and Alzheimer’s disease, applied for a MOSAIC grant, “intended to help diversify the profession,” according to the lawsuit. Her proposal was pulled and her current funding ends September 2025.
“Without additional funding, which the MOSAIC award would have provided, she will lose her job,” the lawsuit states.
Charlton said she is hopeful the lawsuit results in a preliminary injunction and therefore halts further NIH terminations.
“I believe these contracts are binding agreements and are constitutionally grounded,” she said. “It’s been less than 100 days since inauguration, and I’m concerned. Concerned about signs of growing authoritarianism, and yet there is absolutely hope executive orders can’t rewrite laws, and I pray courts ensure justice, pursuing truth, including via science, unites us, and it’s the only way to ensure a healthier future for all.”
