Wyoming confirms 1st case of measles in 15 years as infections near 30-year high in US

(NEW YORK) — A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that some people with early-stage cancers may be able to skip surgery after being treated with the immunotherapy drug dostarlimab.

In the study, 82 out of 103 participants responded so well to the drug that they no longer needed an operation.

While the results are promising, the study was conducted at a single hospital — Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City — and some patients have not been followed long enough to know if their cancer might return over time.

And because the study included many different types of cancer, there were relatively few patients with each specific cancer type, making it difficult to interpret the results for larger groups of patients.

It also focused on a very select type of patient whose tumors had a “mismatch repair defect,” a genetic problem that prevents cells from fixing DNA damage and makes it more likely they would respond to immunotherapy.

“They kind of selected themselves, in that they had a specific genetic alteration, and that genetic alteration occurs about 2% to 3% of all cancer patients,” said Dr. Luis Diaz, one of the study’s authors and head of the Division of Solid Tumor Oncology at MSK.

When people are diagnosed with early-stage cancers that form a lump or mass, they often need major surgery to try to remove it — and despite surgery, they can also face aggressive treatments like chemotherapy or radiation.

Because these cancers often affect organs in the belly or digestive system, surgery can have a major impact on a patient’s life. Some people lose part or all of their esophagus or stomach, making it hard or impossible to eat normally. Others may need a bag to collect stool or lose the ability to get pregnant.

All 49 patients with early-stage rectal cancer who received six months of immunotherapy were able to avoid surgery.

“And it’s after six months of treatment, their tumors were completely gone,” said another one of the study’s authors, Dr. Andrea Cercek, head of the Colorectal Section at MSK. “They didn’t need any other treatment.”

Two years later, 92% remained cancer-free. Among the first group to reach the five-year mark, all four patients were still disease-free — and two of them had gone on to have two children each.

“The amazing thing is they would not have been able to conceive or carry children had they gone through standard therapy,” Diaz said.

As for patients with other early-stage cancers, 35 of 54 were cancer-free after undergoing immunotherapy and were able to avoid surgery. However, two patients still chose to proceed with surgery — one for peace of mind and the other to remove medical hardware related to the cancer.

Of the five patients whose cancers came back, most were successfully treated again.

Cercek explained that, while immunotherapy alone may not yet help most cancer patients avoid surgery, their work opens the door for the future.

“Just close your eyes and just imagine that one day you’re diagnosed with cancer and you don’t have your esophagus or your stomach or your rectum or your bladder, and you can avoid that,” Diaz said. “For these 3% we can completely eliminate the need for surgery. It’s quite transformational.”

By combining different approaches with this type of immunotherapy, Cercek hoped they can replicate their success in more types of cancer.

“So, we are continuing this trial and we are working on expanding the study outside of Memorial with more patients so that we can offer this therapy as a standard of care,” Cercek said.

Luis Gasca — an internal medicine resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Michigan, and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit — contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of the nation’s most publicly recognized vaccine skeptics, took a softened approach on vaccines when he answered questions before a House committee Wednesday morning, saying, “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.”

Kennedy, who also testified before a Senate committee the same day, defended the massive cuts to the department’s workforce and laid out his priorities for the Trump administration’s proposed budget.

Kennedy’s congressional committee appearances marked the first time he testified before Congress since his confirmation hearings in late January, and forced Kennedy to confront statements he made that critics said were evidence of promises broken.

Kennedy says his ‘opinions about vaccines are irrelevant’

During the House hearing, Kennedy avoided sharing his own thoughts about vaccines — which have previously invited skepticism — instead deferring to the doctors running the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Asked by Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan if he would today vaccinate his own children for measles and chickenpox, Kennedy said “probably” for measles, but that “what I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant.”

“I don’t want to seem like I’m being evasive, but I don’t think people should be taking advice, medical advice from me,” Kennedy said.

He said he has directed NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya to try to “lay out the pros and cons, the risks and benefits, accurately as we understand them, with replicable studies,” for people to “make that decision.”

His comments mark a departure from his strong opinions about vaccines before taking office as HHS secretary.

During his confirmation hearing in January, Kennedy said that he supports vaccines, although he refused to unequivocally say that vaccines don’t cause autism, despite numerous existing studies already showing there is no link. However, in March, the HHS confirmed that the CDC will study whether vaccines cause autism.

Shortly after Kennedy said people should not take his medical advice, some public health experts criticized the comments — with one saying that giving people guidance “is [Kennedy’s] job.”

“The problem is that is his job — the top line of his job description — is the nation’s chief health strategist. That is the top line of every health official, federal, state, local leader. That is his job, is to give people the best advice that he can. I believe that he’s giving up on, in my view, his chief responsibility,” Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told reporters on a call in which he and other health leaders responded to Kennedy’s testimony in front of the House Appropriations Committee.

Benjamin pointed out that Kennedy has, in fact, seemed to advise people on how to treat measles, leading them toward unproven remedies.

Democrats push Kennedy on cuts: ‘You can’t fire 90% of the people and assume the work gets done’

Democrats on both the House and Senate committees questioned Kennedy about cuts to HHS — with several testy exchanges.

In April, HHS began laying off about 10,000 workers and consolidating 28 institutes and centers into 15 new divisions.

Including the roughly 10,000 people who have left over the last few months through early retirement or deferred resignation programs, the overall staff at HHS is expected to fall from 82,000 to around 62,000 — or about a quarter of its workforce.

Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, quoting ABC News’ reporting last week, asked Kennedy about cuts to the CDC’s lead poisoning prevention program.

Though the program has been completely gutted and the expert staff has been laid off, Kennedy said he believes lead poisoning to be an “extremely significant concern” and said he does not intend to eliminate the program.

Kennedy suggested that HHS would still spend the money appropriated to the program — but didn’t offer any details on how the work would continue without any expert staff.

In another heated exchange, Democratic Sen. Patty Murray asked Kennedy about cuts to National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, including the reinstatements that are mostly in Ohio and West Virginia. She said no one has been reinstated in the Western states, including at the Spokane, Washington, office that does research into miner safety.

“The work in NIOSH will not be interrupted,” Kennedy said. “We understand it’s critically important function, and I did not want to see it end.”

Murray quipped back, “I would just say you can’t fire 90% of the people and assume the work gets done.”

During the earlier House hearing, Kennedy continued to maintain that widespread cuts at HHS have not impacted key health programs, saying he has not withheld any funding for lifesaving research at NIH and continues to prioritize pillars such as Head Start, Medicare and Medicaid.

But in a tense back-and-forth with Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, she demanded Kennedy’s assurance that he would not cut programs that have been approved and funded by Congress, which has “the power of the purse” ascribed to it in the Constitution.

Kennedy said he would spend appropriated money — which drew repeated exasperation from DeLauro, who pointed to $20 billion in cuts to NIH.

Kennedy asserted that his goal at HHS is to focus on the chronic disease epidemic and deliver effective services for those who rely on Medicare, Medicaid and other services by cutting costs to taxpayers.

“We intend to do more, a lot more with less. The budget I’m presenting today supports these goals and reflects two enduring American values, compassion and responsibility,” Kennedy said.

DeLauro slammed Kennedy and the Trump’s administration for the cuts to HHS, including the elimination of entire divisions.

“Mr. Secretary, you are gutting the life-saving work of the Department of Health and Human Services and its key agencies while the Republicans in this Congress say and do nothing,” DeLauro said. “Because of these cuts, people will die.”

DeLauro also finished the hearing with an impassioned plea for Kennedy to stop cutting programs, telling him he does not have the authority to go against what Congress allocated in the budget.

“You do not have the authority to do what you are doing,” she said.

Kennedy defends measles outbreak response, measles vaccine stance

Kennedy rebuked criticism of his agency’s response to the measles outbreak, which has surpassed 1,000 cases for the first time in five years, according to the CDC.

A total of 92 patients have been hospitalized over the course of the outbreak and two school-aged children died in Texas. Both were unvaccinated and had no known underlying conditions, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

“We are doing a better job at CDC today than any nation in the world controlling this measles outbreak,” Kennedy said.

DeLauro hit back, saying that Kennedy’s comparison of the U.S. response to measles to the response of other countries was unfair.

“Mr. Secretary, you keep comparing the U.S. to other countries, compare us to Europe, but the Europe you are referring to is the WHO European region, [which] has 53 countries in Europe and in Asia, including those with low … vaccination rates like Romania and that has never eliminated measles,” she said. “If you compare us to western Europe countries that we often compare ourselves to, like Great Britain, they have seen no measles death.”

Kennedy argued that the U.S. is doing better than other countries in the Americas with smaller populations, including Canada and Mexico.

DeLauro scolded Kennedy for promoting vaccine skepticism in the wake of a measles outbreak spreading across the U.S.

Kennedy has shared contradicting views about vaccines. In a post on X on April 6, Kennedy said that the “most effective way to prevent the spread of measles” is to receive the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine. However, in a post later that evening, he said more than 300 children have been treated with an antibiotic and a steroid, neither of which are recognized treatments or cures for measles.

A particularly heated moment occurred when Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy told Kennedy that the secretary has equivocated when discussing the measles vaccine. Murphy noted instances in which Kennedy has touted the effectiveness of the vaccine before listing its potential harms.

Kennedy, angry at the line of questioning, interrupted Murphy, claiming his prior comments were true.

When Murphy pressed for Kennedy to say directly whether he recommended the measles vaccine for people, Kennedy, who told CBS News in an April interview that he did recommend the shot, said, “I am not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective if I know that there’s issues. I need to respect people’s intelligence.”

Vaccine specialists say the measles vaccine is durable and two doses in your youth is sufficient for lifelong protection without the need for a booster. The CDC notes on its website that the agency “considers people who received two doses of measles vaccine as children according to the U.S. vaccination schedule protected for life, and they do not ever need a booster dose.”

Numerous studies over decades across multiple countries have confirmed the safety and efficacy of the MMR vaccine, the American Academy of Pediatrics notes. Additionally, monitoring for the safety of a vaccine does not end after the shot has been licensed for use. There are federal health databases in which anyone can report side effects or reactions following a vaccine — officials are then able to review these reports and identify any potential safety issues.

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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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