Flu activity nationwide declines but ER visits for school-aged kids increasing: CDC
Stock image of a sick person. (Guido Mieth/STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Flu activity is starting to decline nationwide, according to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC estimated on Friday that there have been at least 19 million illnesses, 250,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths from flu so far this season.
Currently, seven states are seeing “very high” levels of flu-like illnesses while 23 states are seeing “high” levels, CDC data shows.
At least 12 flu-associated deaths were reported among children this week, for a total of 44 pediatric deaths this season. Last season saw a record-breaking 289 children die from flu, the highest since the CDC began tracking in 2004.
Despite flu activity on the decline, flu-related emergency department visits for school-aged children between ages 5 and 17 increased since last week while hospitalizations remained stable.
“I think what distinguished this year’s flu season to previous seasons is that, first of all, it began a little bit earlier,” Dr. Daniel Kurtzikes, former chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told ABC News.
Kuritzkes added that although data does not show that cases increased more dramatically than last year, “we may have perceived it as being worse than it really was, and it now seems like it peaked rather abruptly and is on a rapid decline.”
However, Kuritzkes noted that last year, flu season had a second bump in late winter. He warned that the same thing could happen this year.
Data shows that the majority of this season’s cases are linked to a new flu strain called subclade K — a variant of the H3N2 virus, which is itself a subtype of influenza A.
Subclade K has been circulating since the summer in other countries and was a main driver of a spike in flu cases in Canada, Japan and the U.K.
Dr. Geeta Sood, an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, explained that the annual flu vaccine formulation was decided before subclade K emerged, meaning the vaccine is a “mismatch” for the strain, to an extent, while still providing protection against serious disease, hospitalization and death.
“So, this year, we have a couple of problems,” she told ABC News. “One is that the circulating strain that’s predominantly out there is pretty different from the strains that we’ve seen in previous years. … Again, it changes every year, but the amount that it changes can be a lot some years and not so much other years.”
However, she said that early data from the U.K. shows that the vaccine has been protective against serious complications, particularly among children.
“It certainly protects against severe disease, but it’s not one of our best matching vaccines,” Sood said.
Another problem, according to Sood, is that vaccination rates are lower than she would like to see.
As of Jan. 10, 45.6% of adults aged 18 and older and 44.2% of children have received an annual flu vaccine, according to CDC data.
Sood said it’s not too late to get vaccinated, especially because influenza season can last through early spring.
“Even though it takes two weeks to get full immunity, you still get immunity sooner rather than later,” she said. “There’s still plenty of influenza out there, and there’s reactivity to protect you against other strains”
Doctors told ABC News they recommend other hygiene methods, including thoroughly washing hands with soap and water, avoiding crowded places, getting good circulation by opening windows and considering masking.
Richard Zhang, MD, MA, is a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Yale School of Medicine and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Signs point the way to measles testing in the parking lot of the Seminole Hospital District across from Wigwam Stadium on February 27, 2025 in Seminole, Texas. Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — There have been at least 733 confirmed measles cases reported across the nation, the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed Friday.
In just a few weeks, the United States reported four times as many cases than typically seen throughout an entire calendar year.
Before last year, which had a record breaking 2,276 cases, the U.S. averaged 180 cases annually since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.
The record numbers come as South Carolina is dealing with the largest outbreak recorded in recent memory.
Other states that have reported cases and are dealing with ongoing outbreaks include Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Most of the outbreaks occurring across the country are in pockets of under-vaccinated or unvaccinated communities.
The rate of kindergartners vaccinated with the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine has fallen from 95% in 2019 to below 93% in 2025, CDC data shows. Herd immunity, a threshold for vaccination rates that slow a virus’ ability to spread, is typically achieved at 95% vaccination rates, public health experts say.
Declining vaccination rates have left approximately 300,000 kindergarteners unprotected from measles infection.
The MMR vaccine is given in two doses, the initial shot given after the first year of life and the second shot given after the fourth year of life.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
The healthcare.gov website on a laptop arranged in Norfolk, Virginia, US, on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — One in four Americans covered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are considering going without health insurance if their monthly premiums double next year, a new KFF poll published Thursday finds.
Open enrollment for the ACA began last month, and many Americans experienced sticker shock upon receiving their annual notices and discovering their 2026 premiums would be increasing.
At the same time, enhanced premium tax credits under the ACA, which help lower the cost of monthly premiums for about 22 million Americans, are set to expire at the end of the year, and it’s unclear if Congress will take action to extend them.
The survey, which included a nationally representative sample of 1,350 U.S. adults between ages 18 and 64 and was conducted during early to mid-November, found that many Americans are reconsidering coverage on the ACA marketplaces.
“What we’re really interested in is understanding how marketplace enrollees are thinking about their decisions around coverage in 2026 … and so we wanted to actually hear from the people that were being directly impacted by this,” Ashley Kirzinger, director of survey methodology at KFF, told ABC News.
The survey found that one in three people covered under the ACA said they would “very likely” shop for a cheaper plan if their premium payments doubled, or if they currently don’t pay a premium and would have to pay $50 a month.
Kirzinger said the finding that one in four Americans would “very likely” forego insurance if faced with the same scenario is concerning.
“One of the things that the Affordable Care Act did was decrease our uninsurance rate in this country,” she said. “And so this could have major implications and major consequences as more people become uninsured for the first time in a decade.”
“And so, it’s not that they want to go without coverage. It’s that that may be the only option available to them,” Kirzinger added.
‘We have to judge the value of our health’
One of the survey respondents, Jon, 38, from Florida, who withheld his last name due to privacy reasons, said his family needs a health insurance plan on the marketplace that has good coverage because his wife has an autoimmune disorder.
The monthly premium — which covers Jon, his wife and their two children — is currently $2,000 per month and is going up to $2,500 per month next year.
“Having health insurance is important,” he told ABC News. “We’re one accident from not being financially okay, one accident away from not being able to cover the cost of food, daily expenses.”
Jon said that his family is considering a plan next year that would lower the cost of the monthly premium but would raise their copay for doctor’s visits and emergency room visits
“Now we have to judge what the value of our health and nobody should have to judge the value of that,” he said.
The survey also found that 58% of enrollees, or six in 10 Americans, say they could not afford an annual increase of just $300 per year without significantly disrupting their household finances.
An additional 20% said they would not be able to afford a $1,000 per year increase without disrupting their finances.
If total health care costs — including premiums, deductibles and other expenses increase by $1,000 next year, about 67% of marketplace enrollees said they would likely cut down on daily household needs and 41% said they would likely skip or delay other bills, according to the survey.
‘Our most difficult monthly cost’
More than half of ACA policyholders, or 54%, said they expect the cost of their health insurance coverage next year to “increase a lot more than usual,” with one in four saying it will “increase a little more than usual,” the survey found.
Another survey respondent, Venus, 27, from Kentucky, who withheld her last name due to privacy reasons, told ABC News it’s currently difficult to pay for the cost of her and her husband’s monthly health insurance premiums.
“Mainly because we only have one income and we have to pay for two health insurances for people with two different chronic illnesses,” she said. “It’s our most difficult monthly cost to pay.”
Venus explained that because they need an insurance plan with a higher deductible, their premium is lower, but out-of-pocket costs are higher.
She and her husband pay about $200 each month, and their monthly premium is expected to increase $90, which will eat into their monthly budget.
If premiums doubled, she said she and her husband would have to consider going without insurance.
“I don’t even have the words for that,” she said, “Paying for insulin out-of-pocket, I just couldn’t imagine.”
Jayanta Bhattacharya, director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Last week, the Trump administration announced it was banning the use of human fetal tissue from some abortions in federally funded medical research.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said the policy would go into effect immediately and advance “science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease,” NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement.
Scientists told ABC News that research using human fetal tissue has contributed to understanding diseases better, such as HIV and Ebola, and helped in the development of some vaccines and drugs.
Some scientists worry the ban could prevent groundbreaking discoveries about the behaviors of certain diseases and stop the development of life-saving therapies.
“It’s not a scientific decision,” Dr. Lawrence Goldstein, a professor emeritus of cellular and molecular medicine at the University of California, San Diego, told ABC News. “It’s a moral decision that places the rights of fetal tissue that would be discarded above the rights of sick people who will benefit from that research.”
How human fetal tissue has been used
Human fetal tissue has been used to study serious diseases and disorders, including AIDS, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, dengue, Ebola, hepatitis C, diabetes and spinal cord injuries.
Cell lines have been created from human fetal tissue that have led to the development of vaccines for rubella, rabies, chickenpox, shingles and hepatitis A. Research has also led to the development of drugs to treat HIV, hemophilia and sepsis.
President Donald Trump himself benefited from the research: the experimental antibody treatment he took to treat COVID-19 was developed using cells derived from human fetal tissue. At the time, Trump praised the treatment as a “cure.”
The tissue has been also used in reproductive medicine research to study fertility issues, pregnancy issues, and pregnancy conditions such as pre-eclampsia.
Goldstein said that human fetal tissue research also helps create humanized mouse models to study human immune systems.
“Using fetal tissue, you can make mice that have human blood-forming and immune systems,” Goldstein said. “And that’s valuable because a lot of the viruses that trouble human health don’t grow properly in mice. But if you can make mice with human blood and immune systems, those viruses will frequently grow, and you can learn how to make therapies to block them.”
There are very strict guidelines that researchers have to follow when using human fetal tissue, ensuring they are in compliance with federal and sometimes state requirements.
Additionally, the research must be reviewed and approved by the NIH’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), which specifically assesses federally funded research that uses human subjects.
The IRB assures that donation and reception of human fetal tissue were done with consent and not coercion and that there were no enticements provided to the participant, the clinic or the research team.
A researcher with knowledge of the matter, who asked that their name not be used due to fears of retribution, told ABC News that federal law states that donation cannot be even brought up to a pregnant individual deciding to terminate their pregnancy before the decision to terminate.
“These are extremely important guardrails that are in place to ensure that everything is handled properly,” the researcher with knowledge of the matter said.
Impacts of ending NIH funding
The Trump administration first instituted a ban ending all human fetal tissue research at NIH in 2019, but it was reversed by the Biden administration in 2021.
The current ban stops NIH funds from supporting all “grants, cooperative agreements, other transaction awards and research and development contracts,” the agency said in a statement.
Some groups praised the Trump administration’s new policy, including the Independent Medical Alliance, a group that promoted unproven treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There is no ethical justification for performing experiments on tissue derived from aborted human beings,” Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, said in a statement. “The fact this practice continued for years within federally funded research institutions shows just how far removed parts of HHS had become from foundational medical ethics. This correction is long overdue.”
However, some scientists say the ban will affect ongoing and future work.
Dr. Anita Bhattacharyya, an associate professor of cell and regenerative biology in the school of medicine and public health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said she was hoping to apply for a future NIH grant to study human fetal tissue research and will now not be able to do so.
Bhattacharyya explained she currently uses human-induced pluripotent stem cells, which are reprogrammed cells that are similar to embryonic stem cells, in her work. However, the loss of NIH funding for human fetal tissue research could affect future work.
“My reaction was, ‘How are we going to do some of our research if we can no longer use human fetal tissue?'” she recalled to ABC News. “In particular, my lab studies Down syndrome and so we know that in Down syndrome, the brain develops differently to lead to the intellectual disability that people with Down syndrome have.”
Bhattacharyya said human fetal tissue is valuable when studying Down syndrome or neuropsychiatric disorders because it can recapitulate what’s happening in brain development.
“And so that’s where the human fetal tissue really provides us with a benchmark or the ground truth so that we can validate our models,” she said.
Finding alternative methods of funding is another issue, scientists told ABC News. The NIH was the largest funder of research involving human fetal tissue, and no longer financially supporting such research may leave scientists scrambling to find other donors.
Goldstein said there are private disease foundations that will sometimes fund human fetal tissue research, such as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which funds stem-cell-related research in California.
However, experts say the hole left behind by the lack of NIH funding cannot be made up through private donations.
“There’s really nothing adequate to substitute for the federal effort,” Goldstein said. “It is the largest funder of medical research in the United States. It has systems in place to regulate quality and ensure that ethics and scientific principles are being adhered to. We really can’t move ahead as efficiently as we would like with the absence of the NIH.”
Although the NIH said tissue from spontaneous abortions will still be available, the researcher with knowledge of the matter said this tissue is very often not suitable for research purposes.
“The reason is because, most often, spontaneous abortion happens as a result of some sort of genetic abnormality or some injury, infection, some kind of damage to the fetus itself, that renders that tissue completely unusable for scientific research,” they said.
“Additionally, because spontaneous abortions are just that, they’re spontaneous and therefore completely unpredictable,” the researcher continued. “We have to be very careful in the way that we handle that tissue. It makes those studies intractable. And so, for that reason, spontaneous abortions are not a suitable replacement for fetal tissue research that we would normally obtain.”
