US sees 733 measles cases nationwide in just over a month
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.
It comes as South Carolina is dealing with the largest outbreak recorded since measles was declared eliminated within the U.S. in the year 2000.
A total of 20 states have reported cases so far including Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Last year had a record breaking 2,276 cases nationwide, the highest number since 1992. There were also three measles deaths, the first in a decade.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee On Immunization Practices at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (Megan Varner/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on Monday it is changing the childhood immunization schedule.
The federal health agency is removing the universal recommendation for multiple shots, in what it calls an attempt to mirror the schedules of peer countries.
Instead of being universally recommended for almost all children at certain age cut offs, vaccines are now split into three categories: vaccines for all children, vaccines for certain high-risk groups and vaccines based on shared clinical decision making.
Shared clinical decision making is the term used by CDC to imply that patients, and parents, should talk to their provider about whether they should be vaccinated.
Some of the vaccines and immunizations that are no longer universally recommended include RSV, flu and COVID, as well as the hepatitis and meningococcal vaccines.
For children not in certain high-risk groups, no vaccine is recommended before the age of two months.
The change comes after President Donald Trump signed a memo in early December last year directing Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to examine how other nations structure their childhood vaccine schedules.
HHS officials say the change will not affect health insurance coverage of vaccines.
“President Trump directed us to examine how other developed nations protect their children and to take action if they are doing better,” Kennedy said in a statement. “After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent. This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.”
The changes drew rebuke from doctors, who expressed concern that such a change did not undergo further debate before being implemented.
The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee met last month to discuss the childhood vaccine schedule, but only voted to remove the universal recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.
“I thought there might be proposals that were debated amongst experts in a public meeting, and then maybe something like this resulting from that, but not in the way this has been done, where a new schedule is released, which has already been signed on to by all the health advisors for the president,” Dr. Dave Margolius, an internal medicine physician and director of public for the city of Cleveland, told ABC News.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said altering the schedule without consulting U.S. experts in pediatrics, infectious diseases and public health “undermines both scientific rigor and transparency.”
He told ABC News that the American health care system is unique, which makes it difficult to align the U.S. vaccine schedule to those of peer nations.
“Vaccine schedules should be crafted to reflect the specific patterns of disease and access to healthcare in the United States; unfortunately, these vital factors were not adequately considered in the development of the new schedule,” Daskalakis said.
In a press briefing representing the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Dr. Sean O’Leary, an infectious disease physician and chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases, said the federal government can no longer be trusted in its role to protect American children from vaccine-preventable diseases.
“Tragically, our federal government can no longer be trusted in this role,” O’Leary said. “Unfortunately, our government is making it much harder for pediatricians to do our jobs, and they’re making it much harder for parents to know what to do.”
O’Leary confirmed the AAP was not consulted by HHS ahead of this decision to change the vaccine schedule.
Additionally, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician and chair of the Senate’s health committee, distanced himself from the CDC’s decision to change the childhood vaccine schedule.
“Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker,” Cassidy wrote in a post on X, rejecting the recent changes.
Cassidy added that the schedule is “not a mandate,” but rather a recommendation that gives parents the “power” to choose which vaccines their children receive.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters is seen on February 13, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration walked back an Obama-era environmental decision that has been the legal basis for establishing federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday it was rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding, which determined that six key greenhouse gases threaten human health and welfare.
The regulations that resulted cover everything from vehicle tailpipe emissions to the release of greenhouse gases from power plants and other significant emission sources.
President Donald Trump called the move “the single largest deregulatory action in American history” and said the repealed finding had “no basis in fact” and “no basis in law.”
The endangerment finding stemmed from the 2007 Supreme Court decision Massachusetts v. EPA, which held that the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases from motor vehicles under the 1970 Clean Air Act because those gases are air pollutants.
Some environmental scientists disagree, telling ABC News that the rescission is concerning and could have major implications for health. They add that decades of research has shown the impact climate change has on human health.
“The evidence is so overwhelming,” Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, chair of the department of environmental health sciences at Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, told ABC News.
“The scientific evidence showing the connection between greenhouse emissions, climate change and then the related health effects — it’s massive, it’s substantial, it has been reviewed by independent organizations,” she said. “So, the fact that this body of evidence has become so well established, it just speaks to the level of rigorous science that has been done.”
How greenhouse gases, climate change impact health
Research has shown that greenhouse gases — such as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — drive climate change, and, in turn, can harm human health by exposing people to events including wildfire smoke, extreme heat, flooding and waterborne diseases.
For example, rising temperatures have direct harms on health by increasing risk of dehydration and causing more stress on the heart.
During heat waves, the risk of death from heart attack increases by 64%, according to a 2024 study from researchers at Yale School of the Environment.
Additionally, a 2025 study from Yale School of Public Health found that between 2000 and 2020, there were more than 3,400 preventable deaths in the contiguous U.S. due to high temperatures.
The World Health Organization has warned there will be an estimated 250,000 additional deaths around the world annually from 2030 to 2050 due to climate change-related heat exposure.
“We have recent studies showing heat exposure can lead to heart attack events … and it goes beyond just the cardiovascular system,” Kai Chen, an associate professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health and faculty director of the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health, told ABC News. “It goes beyond these kinds of physical conditions or physical health, [also] impacting our mental health.”
High temperatures can also negatively impact the quality and quantity of sleep, which can raise levels of cortisol in the body.
Studies have also shown that extreme heat can exacerbate conditions such as depression, anxiety and suicide ideation. For the latter, a 2023 meta-analysis found that even a slight bump in the average monthly temperature can lead to increases in suicide and suicidal behavior.
“So, really, heat can lead to a broad spectrum of diseases,” Chen added.
In recent decades, wildfires in the western U.S. have become larger, more intense, and more destructive due to a combination of factors, including human-amplified climate change and rapid urbanization, according to the federal government’s Fifth National Climate Assessment.
The same report found that these fires are worsening air quality in many part of the country due to wildfire smoke, which is a mixture of gases, water vapor, air pollutants and fine particulate matter. The latter, known as PM2.5, is at least 30 times smaller in diameter than a human hair.
Experts say these particles are of concern because they are too small to be seen with the naked eye and can easily enter the nose and throat. They can travel to the lungs and even circulate in the bloodstream.
PM2.5 can cause both short-term health effects, even for healthy people, including irritation of the eyes, nose and throat; coughing, sneezing; and shortness of breath and long-term effects such as worsening of conditions such as asthma, heart disease or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease flare-ups.
“Recent evidence has shown that the fine particulate matter in the air can also impact dementia and cognitive function,” Chen said. “It can also affect birth outcomes, leading to pre-term birth and low birth weight. So, air pollution is a major risk factor.”
Regulating fossil fuel combustion reduced PM2.5-related deaths by approximately 54% from 1990 to 2010, according to 2018 joint study from researchers in the U.S. and China.
Short- and long-term implications
Navas-Acien believes that, in the short-term, the rescinding of the endangerment finding will lead to higher pollution levels.
“Higher pollution levels, if we allow that to happen, that means more pollutants in the air that we breathe, in the water that we drink, in the food that we eat,” she said. “And that’s going to result in a higher burden of chronic diseases and even not just chronic disease, but also like heart attacks.”
Research has shown that in the days following an increased level of air pollutants, there are more visits to emergency rooms and hospital admissions for cardiorespiratory events, according to Navas-Acien.
“So that tells you that the impacts of pollution, in the short term, are very rapid,” she added.
In the absence of federal protections, Navas-Acien and Chen said state and local leaders can take actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality.
On the individual level, to protect yourself, the experts recommend frequently checking the air quality in your area, wearing a mask if air pollution levels are high and supporting the creation of urban green spaces to combat climate change.
Chen said the EPA rescinding the endangerment finding is “very concerning” because “the scientific evidence has not become weaker, but actually became much stronger, showing the health harms from the climate change stirring from the greenhouse gas emissions. This rollback of policy will actually be threatening millions of Americans’ lives.”
“Climate change is impacting our health right now,” Chen continued. “It’s not a political debate. It is science and the science is clear. We need to take action.”
(NEW YORK) — Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly changed the childhood immunization schedule, reducing the number of recommended shots for all children from 18 down to only 11.
According to the new schedule, shots will now be categorized in three groups: those recommended for all children, those recommended for only certain high-risk children and others left up to shared clinical decision making, meaning only given if recommended by an individual’s doctor or based on parental preference.
Some pediatricians told ABC News that this decision will only cause more confusion and fuel a growing trend of vaccine skepticism and refusal amid a rise in some vaccine-preventable illnesses around the U.S.
Dr. Anita Henderson, a pediatrician at the Pediatric Clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, told ABC News that removing seven shots from the schedule recommended for all kids is “reckless” and confusing.
This isn’t the first change to vaccine recommendations that has been made in the past year by the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In 2025, guidance for vaccinating healthy children against COVID-19 was reversed and the universal birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine was eliminated. Kennedy also fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and handpicked their replacements, and has been criticized.
“Pediatricians are already facing families who are confused about vaccine recommendations. This confusion is intentional and meant to weaken vaccination rates in the US and sow seeds of doubt and division,” Henderson said.
Under the updated schedule, only seven vaccines are recommended based on shared clinical decision making between a doctor and parent and are no longer universally recommended for all children.
These include shots that protect against influenza, COVID-19, rotavirus and some types of bacterial meningitis and viral hepatitis. All of these vaccine-preventable illnesses can lead to severe infections or death and have limited to no treatment options.
“These latest changes will undoubtedly shake confidence in vaccines even further, to the detriment of the children we care for,” Dr. Molly O’Shea, a practicing pediatrician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told ABC News.
O’Shea said that, in her practice, she’s had to navigate more vaccine skepticism and refusal over the past year, but wants parents to know that the science on effectiveness and safety hasn’t shifted “even though the recommended vaccine schedule has shifted.”
She continued, “The reason for that shift has nothing to do with whether or not vaccines are safe and effective and all children benefit from avoiding illness and being healthy, to attend school and be a part of the community.”
To address growing concerns about vaccines, O’Shea said the pediatric offices she works in have had to change their workflow to allow more time for discussions about vaccines and to address vaccine misinformation.
While happy to have these conversations with families, O’Shea said reserving time for these additional visits for vaccine counseling becomes more difficult during flu season, when more kids need to be seen due to illnesses.
She added that the offices have already had to scale back ordering some vaccines in bulk because uptake has decreased for some shots.
Henderson and O’Shea both reaffirmed that vaccines are safe — far safer than the dangerous illnesses they prevent.
“Over the last 30 years, I have hospitalized hundreds of children with complications from influenza, RSV, rotavirus and other vaccine-preventable diseases that have now been removed from the CDC schedule,” Henderson said. “I have never hospitalized a child from a vaccine reaction. Vaccines are safe and effective and protect our most vulnerable patients … our babies and children.”
“Vaccines are the safest way for a child’s immune system to become familiar with any of these illnesses, way safer than the disease itself,” O’Shea added.
Doctors are also concerned that the vaccination schedule updates may have secondary impacts, including how often children and families see their pediatrician.
Pediatric wellness checks include recommended vaccines, particularly in young childhood, but pediatricians say that there’s more to those visits than shots alone. Skipping visits could miss critical windows of a child’s growth, development, and recommended screenings.
“Absent vaccine, kids are really going to miss out on important other screening aspects of the wellness visits if their parents are opting out,” O’Shea said.
Pediatricians continue to urge parents to talk to their own child’s doctor and to trust their medical guidance.
“Your pediatrician really is your trusted source of information, and we have nothing to gain in the way things are going here,” O’Shea said.
“Vaccines are certainly not a way in which we make any money,” she went on. “But [a] pediatrician’s goal is to partner with parents to make the right decision for your child, and so, bringing your concerns and questions to your pediatrician is the best way to get quality information.”
Amid the shrinking childhood vaccine schedule, many vaccine-preventable illnesses remain common in the U.S. and other diseases, such as measles and whooping cough, are increasing.
Last year, the U.S. saw more measles cases than at any other time in the last 30 years and three people died from the disease. Two children died from whooping cough during an outbreak in Louisiana and more kids died from influenza than in any other year on record since it became a reportable illness in 2004.
