HHS appears to delete Surgeon General gun violence advisory webpage
Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Find Your Light Foundation
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) appears to have taken down a webpage from the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) that included an advisory on gun violence.
In June 2024, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory declaring gun violence to be a public health crisis in America, calling for an evidence-based approach to public health change as well as a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use.
“Firearm violence is an urgent public health crisis that has led to loss of life, unimaginable pain, and profound grief for far too many Americans,” Murthy said in a statement at the time.
The OSG issued a press release at the time showing that at least 10 national medical organizations — including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Surgeons, American Public Health Association and the YWCA — wrote statements in support of the advisory.
However, the webpage where the advisory existed currently displays a “Page Not Found” message.
“We’re sorry, but there is no www.hhs.gov page that matches your entry. Possible reasons: The page may have been moved, it no longer exists, or the address may have been typed incorrectly,” the website states, as of Monday.
The White House did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
In a statement to ABC News, the HHS said that the department “and the Office of the Surgeon General are complying with President Trump’s Executive Order on Protecting Second Amendment Rights.”
Last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, directing the Attorney General to review “[a]ll Presidential and agencies’ actions from January 2021 through January 2025 that purport to promote safety but may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has previously stated he believes in the Second Amendment but that he wants to determine the cause of mass shootings.
In a 2023 live stream on X with Elon Musk, Kennedy falsely claimed there is “tremendous circumstantial evidence” that people using antidepressants were more likely to commit school shootings. Experts previously told ABC News there is no evidence to suggest that patients with mental health disorders, or those who are on medications for disorders, are more likely to be violent.
Firearm-related injuries are the leading cause of death in the U.S. among kids and teens. Gun-related suicides have risen among all age groups from 2012 to 2022; the greatest rise has been among 10–14-year-olds, according to Murhty’s advisory.
Gun violence prevention programs, such as GIFFORDS — which was founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords — criticized the Trump administration for the removal of the advisory.
“By removing this important public health advisory with lifesaving resources, President Trump has chosen to prioritize gun industry profits over protecting kids and families,” Emma Brown, executive director of GIFFORDS, said in a statement. “Guns have been the number one killer of American children and adolescents since 2020, and non-partisan health care experts have understood gun violence as a public health crisis for years.”
ABC News’ Medical Unit’s Dr. Jade Cobern contributed to this report.
(LUBBOCK, Texas) — An unvaccinated school-aged child in Texas has died of measles, the first associated with an outbreak in the western part of the state that has infected more than 100 people.
Lubbock city spokesperson Lauren Adams confirmed the death to ABC News on Wednesday.
In a press release, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) said the child was hospitalized in the northwestern city of Lubbock last week and tested positive for measles.
As of Wednesday, 124 cases of measles have been confirmed associated with the outbreak, according to data from DSHS.
Almost all of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals or individuals whose vaccination status is unknown, and 18 people have been hospitalized so far, DSHS said.
Children and teenagers between ages 5 and 17 make up the majority of cases with 62, followed by 39 cases among children ages 4 and under.
The outbreak began in Gaines County, which has become the epicenter, with 80 cases confirmed among residents, according to DSHS.
The outbreak has since spread to several counties in the region and is “suspected” to have spread into New Mexico, according to New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH). Nine cases have been confirmed in Lea County, which borders Texas. Of the nine cases, four are among children, according to NMDOH.
“This death underscores the real danger of measles — it’s a severe disease that can take lives despite being preventable with vaccination,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and ABC News contributor. “Every new case is a reminder of why vaccination is critical. Tragically, with an outbreak of this scale, a fatal case was not unexpected, especially among those unvaccinated. Given how contagious measles is, we anticipate more cases in the coming weeks.”
During Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting, Health and & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to a question about the outbreak, saying the agency was following the cases in Texas.
Kennedy appeared to downplay the outbreak, noting there have been four outbreaks so far this year compared to 16 last year. However, the number of cases in Texas alone amount to nearly half of the 285 cases confirmed in 2024.
“It’s not unusual; we have measles outbreaks every year,” he said.
Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known to humans. Just one infected patient can spread measles up to nine out of 10 susceptible close contacts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Health officials have been urging anyone who isn’t vaccinated to receive the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine.
The CDC currently recommends people receive two vaccine doses, 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. Most vaccinated adults don’t need a booster.
Measles was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, due to the highly effective vaccination program, according to the CDC. However, vaccination rates have been lagging in recent years.
About 93% of kindergarteners nationwide received select routine childhood vaccines, including the MMR vaccine, for the 2022-23 school year, according to a November 2023 CDC report.
This is about the same as the previous school year, but lower than the 94% seen in the 2020-22021 school year and the 95% seen in the 2019-2020 school year, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latter percentage had been the standard for about 10 years.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Transgender adults who received gender-affirming hormone therapy had a significantly lower risk of moderate-to-severe depression over four years compared to those who did not receive such care, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open.
The study tracked 3,592 transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse adults and found that those prescribed hormones like estrogen or testosterone had a 15% lower risk of depression symptoms, reinforcing the mental health benefits of this treatment.
The findings “support the mental health-promoting role of hormones” and their status as “a medically necessary treatment,” said Sari Reisner, an associate professor of epidemiology at University of Michigan School of Public Health and one of the study’s authors. “Hormones play a vital role in the mental health of trans people who need them.”
The study acknowledges that other factors, such as mental health treatment, social support and other influences on mood, could have affected the findings. It also did not track the duration patients received gender-affirming hormone therapy or whether they underwent other forms of gender-affirming care, such as surgery.
Transgender people in the U.S. are two to three times more likely to have a history of depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The study warns that mental health disparities continue to worsen in transgender and gender diverse communities, as access to gender-affirming care becomes more difficult.
Dr. Alexes Hazen, a New York City plastic surgeon specializing in gender-affirming procedures, says she has seen a rise in depression among her patients in recent months. Many have expressed concerns over the wave of state laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care, which has made finding treatment more difficult and left many feeling hopeless.
“Unfortunately, some states are not as friendly to patients and care providers,” Hazen said. “Some states have publicly stated their allegiance to trans and nonbinary folks, and those places will become safe havens for care.”
As barriers to gender-affirming care grow, the new study underscores its importance for mental health in transgender patients. These services “address the pervasive mental health inequities that trans people experience,” Reisner said, emphasizing that access to this care is both medically necessary and essential for reducing depression risk.
“Our findings underscore the importance of protecting and upholding the right to accessible healthcare for trans people,” Reisner said,
Hazen recommended community-based health centers that cater to LGBTQ+ patients as a key resource for gender-affirming care. The study also reinforced the importance of these clinics, arguing that the gender-affirming treatment they provide improves access and supports mental health, particularly for those in underserved communities.
Alice Gao, MD, MPH, is a family medicine resident at Temple Northwest Community Family Medicine and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — Meta — the company that operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp –announced on Tuesday it was ending third-party fact-checking.
Some social media policy experts and public health experts are worried that the end of fact-checking could lead to the spread of medical and science misinformation and disinformation. This is especially worrisome as the U.S. is in the throes of respiratory virus season and is fighting the spread of bird flu.
“There’s going to be a rise in all kinds of disinformation, misinformation, from health to hate speech and everything in between,” Megan Squire, deputy director for data analytics and open-source intelligence at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told ABC News. “[Health] is supposed to be a nonpartisan issue, and … we do see people trying to leverage health [misinformation], in particular, toward a political end, and that’s a real shame.”
“I’m hopeful, but I’m also concerned that this new structure that all the Meta properties are embarking on, it’s just not going to end well,” she added.
The social network giant said it was following the footsteps of X, replacing the program with user-added community notes.
In a press release of the announcement, Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer for Meta, said that the choices about what was being fact-checked showed “biases and perspectives.”
How fact-checking, community notes work
Meta started fact-checking in December 2016. Meta’s fact-checking works by Meta staff identifying hoaxes or by using technology that detects posts likely to contain misinformation. The fact-checkers then conduct their own reporting to review and rate the accuracy of posts.
If a piece of content is identified as false, it receives a warning label and the content’s distribution is reduced so fewer people see it.
Fact-checkers put in place following Donald Trump’s 2016 election win were found to be “too politically biased” and have destroyed “more trust than they’ve created,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video posted by the company.
By comparison, community notes work by a user adding context to a post that may be misleading. It is then upvoted or downvoted by other users.
Zeve Sanderson, executive director of NYU Center for Social Media Politics, said after the 2016 election, there was immense pressure for social medial platforms, including Meta, to commit resources to combatting misinformation.
Following the election, most posts being fact-checked were to combat political misinformation, according to Sanderson. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this was expanded to combat medical misinformation, he said.
Sanderson said there were a lot of claims going unchecked online because Meta has not had enough fact-checkers to check every post. Additionally, he said some people didn’t trust fact-checkers.
“There were groups of people online who didn’t trust fact checkers, who saw them as biased, often in a liberal direction,” he told ABC News. “This crowd-sourced content moderation program … it’s going to do different things well and different things poorly. We just don’t know how this is actually going to work in practice.”
Meta referred ABC News back to its Tuesday announcement in response to a request for comment on plans for its community notes or potential spread of misinformation.
Spread of misinformation during COVID-19
During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions were exposed to a deluge of information including news, research, public health guidance and fact sheets, which the World Health Organization referred to as an “infodemic.”
People were also exposed to misinformation and disinformation about what treatments work against COVID-19, how much of a risk the virus poses to children and whether COVID-19 vaccines are effective.
A 2023 KFF survey found that most Americans were not sure if health information they had encountered was true or false.
A report from the U.S. Surgeon General in 2021 found that misinformation led to people rejecting masking and social distancing, using unproven treatment and rejecting COVID-19 vaccines.
Experts told ABC News that members of the general public often do not have enough health literacy to determine if they should trust or not trust information they encounter online or on social media.
Squire said sometimes government agencies do not put out information in an “interesting” format, which may lead people to click on “entertaining” content from misinformation and disinformation peddlers.
“Some of these YouTube videos about health misinformation are a lot more entertaining. Their message just travels faster,” she said. “When you’re presenting scientific information — I know this firsthand as a former college professor — that’s a struggle. You have to be pretty talented at it and, a lot of times, where the expertise lies is not necessarily where the most expedient, fun videos are and stuff.”
How to combat health misinformation
Meta’s change comes as the U.S. faces an increase in bird flu cases and continues treating patients falling ill with respiratory illnesses.
As of Jan. 8, there have been 66 human cases of bird flu reported in the U.S., according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s also flu season. As of the week ending Dec. 28, 2024, there have been at least 5.3 million illnesses, 63,000 hospitalizations and 2,700 deaths from flu so far this season, according to CDC estimates.
Meanwhile, health care professionals have been encouraging Americans to get their flu shot and other vaccines — including COVID and RSV — to protect themselves against serious disease.
Experts are worried that with the change from fact-checking to community notes that misinformation could spread about the effectiveness of vaccines or how serious an illness is.
“I am concerned about the sheer amount of inaccurate information that’s out there,” Dr. Brian Southwell, a distinguished Fellow at nonprofit research institute RTI International and an adjunct faculty member at Duke University, told ABC News. “That’s something that you know ought to bother all of us as we’re trying to make good decisions. But there’s a lot that could be done, even beyond, you know, the realm of social media to try to improve the information environments that are available for people.”
Southwell said one thing that public health experts and federal health agencies can do is to get an idea of the questions that users are going to have about medical topics — such as bird flu and seasonal flu — and be ready with information to answer those questions online.
To combat being exposed to information, the experts recommended paying attention to where the information is coming from, whether it’s a respected source or someone you are unfamiliar with.
“There are various skills that are important, things like lateral reading, where rather than just evaluating the claim, you do research about the source of that claim and what you can find out about them to understand what some of their incentives or track record might be,” Sanderson said.
“This is obviously something that, sadly, social media platforms are not designed in order to incentivize this sort of behavior, so the responsibility is thrust on users to sort of look out for themselves,” he added.
