After being diagnosed with advanced breast cancer when she was 23, she became determined to educate other young people about early detection.When Kris Hallenga was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer — the most advanced form — at 23, questions swirled through her head: “Why didn’t anyone tell me to check my boobs? Why didn’t I know I could get breast cancer at 23?”If she hadn’t known that she could have breast cancer so young, there was a very good chance others were equally uninformed, she said in a 2021 interview with The Guardian. She spent the next 15 years educating young people about early detection through her nonprofit organization, CoppaFeel, and in a 2021 memoir, “Glittering a Turd.”On Monday, CoppaFeel announced that Ms. Hallenga had died at 38. A spokesman for the organization said she had died at home in Cornwall, England, and that the cause was breast cancer.“Survival was never enough,” she said during a publicity tour in 2021. “I don’t just want to survive, I want to be able to really look at my life and go, ‘I’m glad to still be here, and I’m getting the most of what I want from life.’”Kristen Hallenga was born on Nov. 11, 1985, in Norden, a small town in northern Germany, to a German father and an English mother, both of whom were teachers, according to The Times of London. When she was 9, she moved to Daventry in central England with her mother, Jane Hallenga; her twin sister, Maren Hallenga; and their older sister Maike Hallenga, all three of whom survive her. Her father, Reiner Hallenga, died of a heart attack when she was 20.Ms. Hallenga first felt a lump in 2009 when she was in Beijing working for a travel company and teaching on the side. During a visit back home in the Midlands in central England, Ms. Hallenga went to her internist. She told The Guardian that her doctor had blamed the lump on hormonal changes associated with her birth control pill.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

A congressional investigation found that the nation’s largest pharmacies have handed over prescription records to law enforcement without a warrant, raising privacy concerns.Law enforcement agencies have obtained the prescription records of thousands of Americans from the country’s largest pharmacy chains without a warrant, a congressional inquiry found, raising concerns about how the companies handle patient privacy.Three of the largest pharmacy groups — CVS Health, Kroger and Rite Aid — do not require their staff members to contact a lawyer before releasing information requested by law enforcement, the inquiry found. The other five — Walgreens, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart and Amazon — said that they do require a legal review before honoring such requests.The policies were revealed on Tuesday in a letter to Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, from Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon and Representatives Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Sara Jacobs of California, all Democrats.The inquiry began in June, a year after the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to an abortion and cleared the way for Republican-controlled states to enact near-total bans on the procedure. Reproductive health advocates and some lawmakers have since raised privacy concerns regarding access to birth control and abortion medication.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? 

Public advisories from the nation’s top doctor are infrequent, but sometimes become turning points in American life. A warning issued by the United States surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, on Tuesday provided guidance about an issue that has been front of mind for American parents for years: the negative effects of social media on the mental health of young people.These types of public health advisories are infrequent, but sometimes become turning points in American life.Brian McBride, an anti-smoking advocate, in 1989.Brendan Read/Fairfax Media, via Getty ImagesDecades of effort to curb tobacco useIt took a surgeon general’s report in 1964 and decades of effort that followed for smoking in America to go from being seen as a glamorous habit to one with deadly consequences.The annual per capita cigarette consumption in the United States had increased from 54 cigarettes in 1900 to more than 4,000 cigarettes in 1963 when the first research suggested links between smoking and cancer.That prompted Dr. Luther L. Terry, the surgeon general under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, to issue a landmark report on the health hazards and consequences of smoking in 1964.Dr. Terry described the crisis as a “national concern.”The fallout was swift. In 1965, Congress required all cigarette packages distributed in the United States to carry a health warning. In 1970, cigarette advertising on television and radio was banned.Tobacco has continued to be a target of surgeons general, who in later years highlighted concerns about secondhand smoke and tobacco promotions that targeted children. And in 2016, Dr. Murthy published a comprehensive report that called e-cigarettes and tobacco vaping “a major health concern.”Cigarettes smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States today, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there has been progress: Smoking has declined from 21 percent of adults in 2005 to 11.5 percent in 2021.The “People With AIDS Alliance” in the 1983 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade.Getty ImagesA crucial report in the AIDS crisis in 1986Dr. C. Everett Koop, the surgeon general under President Reagan, was credited with changing the public discourse around the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic during the 1980s. In 1986, he issued a generation-defining report on AIDS. In plain language, the report discussed risk factors and ways that people could protect themselves, including the use of condoms for safer sex.But frank discussion of sexual topics later tripped up a surgeon general who served under President Bill Clinton, Dr. Joycelyn Elders. Although her efforts to expand access to health screenings and sex education were praised by some, she resigned under pressure in 1994 after she proposed the distribution of contraceptives in schools and condoned teaching children about masturbation as a way to prevent the transmission of H.I.V., among other views that drew the ire of conservatives.A customer checks out a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV inside a GameStop store in Chicago Tuesday, April 29, 2008.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressConcerns about violence on TV and in video gamesIn 1972, Dr. Jesse L. Steinfeld, the surgeon general under President Richard Nixon, called for “appropriate and immediate remedial action” after a report found a “uniformly adverse effect” on children who watch televised violence.A decade later, Dr. Koop said that video games might be hazardous to the health of young people who are becoming addicted to the machines “body and soul” and that the games created “aberrations in childhood behavior.”The reality is murkier. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has recognized some harm of children engaging with violent media, but has called for moderation.A billboard for Mothers Against Drunk Driving in St. Paul, Minn.Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesA 1980s focus on reducing drunken drivingIn the late 1980s, the numbers were startling: About 25,000 people in the United States died in drinking-related traffic accidents annually.In one of his last acts as surgeon general, Dr. Koop called for tough new blood-alcohol level standards for drivers in 1989, as well as an increase in taxes on alcoholic beverages and a restriction of advertising of alcoholic beverages. He also called for the elimination of happy hours and the immediate suspension of any licensed driver found to be above the legal limit.These and other measures have greatly reduced drunken-driving deaths. In 2021, about 13,380 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving alcohol-impaired drivers, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.The Los Angeles Unified District (LAUD) board, the second largest school district in the country, voted August 27, 2002 to ban carbonated soft drinks in all its schools in an effort to combat childhood obesity.Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty ImagesDeclaring obesity an epidemic in 2001By the turn of this century, some 300,000 Americans were dying from illness caused or worsened by obesity, prompting Dr. David Satcher, a surgeon general under President Clinton, in 2001 to call for major steps by schools, communities and the food industry to act on what he described as an epidemic.But the crisis has only grown. From 1999 through 2017, the prevalence of obesity in the U.S. increased to 42 percent from 30 percent, and severe obesity increased to 9 percent from 5 percent, according to the C.D.C.Travis Dove for The New York TimesA modern focus on guns and a ‘crisis of loneliness’Social media is not the only concern of the current surgeon general. Dr. Murthy has also called gun violence in American a public health issue and more recently an epidemic.He has called for more research and government intervention. Former surgeon generals and researchers have also called for a policy change centered around treating gun violence as a public health crisis. Nearly 50,000 Americans died from gun-related injuries in 2021, more than in any other year on record, according to the C.D.C., including homicides and suicides. It is the leading cause of death among children in the United States.And earlier this month, Dr. Murthy issued a surgeon general advisory and new framework this month to address “the public health crisis of loneliness, isolation, and the lack of connection in our country,” which he likened to the risks presented by daily smoking. This trend was magnified by the coronavirus pandemic, he said.The physical health consequences of poor or insufficient connection include higher risks of other health ailments.Here’s his advice on how to feel less lonely.Notably, the report on loneliness does not recommend social media as a form of connection, and urges Americans to ensure digital interactions do not “detract from meaningful and healing connection.”

The proposal would ban all single-use, disposable vapes, halt the importation of nonprescription vapes and restrict certain flavors, colors and ingredients.The Australian government said it wanted to crack down on the use of e-cigarettes in an effort to “reduce smoking and stamp out vaping” in one of the most sweeping tobacco regulatory moves in the country in years.The proposal, announced on Tuesday, would ban all single-use, disposable vapes; stop the importation of nonprescription vapes; require “pharmaceutical-like packaging”; reduce nicotine concentrations and amounts; and restrict certain flavors, colors and ingredients.The federal government would also work with states and territories to end the sale of vapes in convenience stores and other retail settings “while also making it easier to get a prescription for legitimate therapeutic use,” the Department of Health and Aged Care said in a statement.Nicotine vapes are currently available only with a prescription in Australia, but they thrive on the black market, especially among young people. While the contours of the proposal are still tentative, Mark Butler, the health minister, said its long-term intentions were clear.“I want vaping to return to the purpose that we were told it was invented for, that is a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit,” Mr. Butler said in a speech at the National Press Club of Australia on Tuesday. “We were promised this was a pathway out of smoking, not a pathway into smoking. That is what it has become. That is what it has been sold as so shamelessly and presented as.”In particular, Mr. Butler said, the government wants “to stamp out the idea that this is a recreational product at all, but particularly a recreational product for our kids.”“Knocking that market out is what I am aiming for,” he said.Many health regulators, including the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, consider e-cigarettes to be generally beneficial because they provide an alternative to adult smokers of traditional cigarettes, which coat the lungs in tar. But regulators did not account for young people becoming addicted to nicotine after getting hooked on the fruity flavors of vapes, nor for the mysterious and life-threatening vaping-related illnesses afflicting many young users. The F.D.A. began its own crackdown in recent years.Mr. Butler said the Australian government had no plans to ban smoking or to phase out smoking by birth year, as New Zealand did recently when it placed a lifetime prohibition on cigarette sales to everyone born after 2008.In its statement, the government called the strategy a “new national framework” to reduce daily smoking rates across Australia.Australia’s treasurer, Jim Chalmers, will deliver the federal government’s annual operating budget to Parliament on May 9. It will include 737 million Australian dollars, or nearly $492 million, in funding for the initiative.The budget will call for a 5 percent annual increase in the tobacco tax, effective Sept. 1, generating an additional 3.3 billion Australian dollars, or about $2.2 billion, in revenue over four years. Mr. Butler said on Tuesday that the government would largely invest that money in the nation’s health system, including a new national lung cancer screening program, cancer care services for Indigenous groups and programs to reduce vaping and smoking among First Nations Australians.But the focus of the initiative, Mr. Butler said, was to “shut down a major health risk to the youngest generation of Australians.”“We all know this as we interact as parents or uncles and aunties with young school students — it is just flourishing, particularly over the course of Covid,” he said. “We are going to have to shut down an industry, a market that has been allowed to grow up, in spite of the fact that it wasn’t really supposed to.”But Nicole Lee, an adjunct professor at the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University, said she was skeptical that this kind of approach would have the effect on the black market that regulators hoped it would. A shortage of primary care doctors means that those seeking prescriptions for vapes are less likely to get them, putting more stress on an already explosive black market.“We want to see reduced access and we want to see people able to use it for quitting smoking,” she said. “Quasi banning it means the black market will flourish and young people have more access, not less access.”Yan Zhuang

Local and federal investigators are investigating the source of a rare outbreak of blastomycosis at a paper mill in Escanaba, Mich.At least one person has died and nearly 100 people have gotten sick in a rare fungal outbreak at a paper mill in Michigan, the health authorities said, prompting the plant to temporarily close as local and federal investigators try to identify the source.The outbreak of blastomycosis at the Billerud paper mill in Escanaba, Mich., has escalated since February.Local health authorities initially identified about 15 likely cases. By mid-April, that number had grown to 21 confirmed cases and 76 probable cases. Twelve people have been hospitalized and one person has died.All of the reported cases have been among workers, contractors or visitors to the plant.Billerud, a Sweden-based paper and packaging company, said on Thursday that it planned to close the mill for three weeks to conduct a deep clean, inspect ventilation systems, replace filters and test various raw materials coming into the mill, which employs about 830 people. The additional cleaning requires large portions of the mill to be empty, it said.“Identifying the source can be difficult because the Blastomyces fungus is endemic to the area,” the company said in a statement. “There has never been an industrial outbreak of this nature documented anywhere in the U.S.”Twelve people have been hospitalized and one person has died from a fungal infection at the mill.BillerudBlastomycosis is an infection associated with the Blastomyces fungus, which grows in moist soil and decomposing matter, such as wood and leaves, and can become airborne if disturbed.Blastomycosis infections are rare. In 2019, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 240 cases of blastomycosis in total.On average over the past five years, only 26 cases have been reported in all of Michigan, according to the local health agency. However, the agency noted, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is a known risk area for blastomycosis infection.According to the C.D.C., “Blastomycosis remains poorly understood.” The fungus mainly lives in Midwestern, South Central, and Southeastern states, especially in areas around the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.Most people who breathe in Blastomyces spores will not get sick. Symptoms include a cough (sometimes with blood), fever, chest pain, difficulty breathing, night sweats, fatigue, weight loss, muscle aches and joint pain. Symptoms appear between three weeks to three months after exposure. Blastomycosis can be treated with antifungal medications.Symptoms for the initial patients began in January and February, the authorities said.A team led by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health visited the mill on March 27 and 28 after a request from Billerud, according to an April 7 letter from Marcia Stanton, a health scientist with the agency, which was posted by CBS.The agency advised the company to make N95 masks available to reduce potential exposure and to inspect the ventilation system and ductwork for “evidence of water incursion and microbial growth” while investigations continued.On Saturday, the C.D.C. said in a statement that it planned to return to the mill in late April to offer Blastomyces urine antigen screening tests for potential exposure. Participation would be voluntary.Investigators will use the test results and a questionnaire “to inform an environmental sampling strategy,” the agency said, adding that the data might help to narrow testing sites at the 2,000-acre mill.“Our top priority now and always is protecting the health and safety of our employees and contractors who work at our Escanaba mill,” Christoph Michalski, the president and chief executive of Billerud, said in a statement. “We care deeply about their well-being and are doing everything we can to protect them and identify and address the root cause of the blastomycosis fungal infections.”According to Billerud’s website, the Escanaba mill began making paper in 1911 as the Escanaba Pulp and Paper Company. Today, the mill produces graphic papers used in commercial printing, marketing materials and labels and has the capacity to produce about 660,000 tons of paper per year.

The annual sobriety challenge is more popular than ever, but like many New Year’s resolutions, it can end early in failure. But there are still benefits to trying, experts say.Hilary Sheinbaum’s first Dry January started as a dare.She was texting with a friend on New Year’s Eve several years ago when, she said, “tipsy me” proposed they both cut out alcohol, a huge part of both of their personal and professional lives, for a month.She made it to the end of January. Her friend did not.“He ended up losing, I won, and I’ve been doing it ever since,” said Ms. Sheinbaum, who is now on her seventh Dry January and has chronicled her efforts in a book, “The Dry Challenge.”If you are the friend, and not Ms. Sheinbaum, in this scenario, you are not alone.With the proliferation of nonalcoholic beer and spirits, an embrace of a “sober-curious” lifestyle by Gen Z and millennials and new research that shows any amount of alcohol is just plain bad for your health, Dry January is more popular than ever. But as with many New Year’s resolutions, failure often happens a couple of weeks in, a phenomenon that has been called Quitters’ Day.“Don’t be surprised that it’s not getting a whole lot easier by mid-January,” said Wendy Wood, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California and the author of “Good Habits, Bad Habits.”“It doesn’t mean that you have lost your resolve, that you’re not motivated to do this,” she said, adding that forming new habits, and dropping old ones, can take several months.Dry January is good for you, even if you don’t make it all the way.Quitting alcohol cold turkey can take a toll on your physical and mental health, especially if your daily habits include high consumption. Dry January is meant for social drinkers, not for people seeking recovery, experts say.After seven Dry Januarys, Ms. Sheinbaum’s No. 1 rule is to be kind to yourself. If you slip up on occasion, “call it a Single-Drink January, a Damp January, and start over the next day,” she said. “You can still be successful.”Even a short period of sobriety is good for your health, experts say.“Most people have the very wrong idea that if you do a Dry January and you are not sober the entire time then you’re failure and need to go to rehab,” said Adi Jaffe, a mental health and addiction expert in Los Angeles. “The test that some people take on to see if they can stay sober for a month is worth it and interesting.”By taking a month off from drinking, Dr. Jaffe said, people can learn more about themselves, including their relationship with alcohol, their sleep patterns and stressors in their lives.“Dry January is an incredible time to self reflect and identify these pain points and create and maintain new rituals,” he said.Old habits die hard for a reason.Social drinking can be a routine for many people, and breaking that pattern is difficult. Blame it on your brain, Dr. Wood said.“It’s really part of a memory system that your old habits will be activated — it’s how we can drive without thinking too much about what we’re doing,” she said. “It’s also how we persist with habits we may not want to perform. That is a normal consequence of habit memory: Be prepared that you’re going to have to persist at this effort for control for a little while longer.”Once a habit is formed, Dr. Wood said, the response becomes automatic.“Even if you’ve decided this is Dry January and you’re not going to drink anymore,” she said, “the habit is still in mind, and you have to actively inhibit or control it in order to keep with your resolution of a Dry January, and you have to do that every single time you would normally be drinking alcohol. Yes, it gets easier over time, but habit memory is very slow to decay.”New habits can replace old habits.Habits can take several months to change, Dr. Wood said, and she recommended two steps to make things easier.First, change the context of your drinking habits. People attempt to “control themselves instead of working on the information that is activating the unwanted habit,” she said.If going out to dinner will tempt you to drink, skip it. If there are people you tend to drink with, skip them. If you’re going to be tempted by having alcohol in your house, open or not, remove it altogether.Second, substitute a behavior. That could mean swapping alcohol for juice or a nonalcoholic version of the drink, or plan activities that do not involve drinking.Ms. Sheinbaum, the Dry January M.V.P., suggested taking point on organizing social plans with friends that are not alcohol-centric, such as a fitness class, bowling or a game night — something, she said, that “isn’t posting up at a bar.”Ms. Sheinbaum’s No. 1 rule for Dry January is to be kind to yourself if you slip up. “Call it a Single-Drink January, a Damp January, and start over the next day,” she said.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesShe also recommended recruiting a friend.“There is strength in numbers,” she said. “You can cheer each other on, you can celebrate wins, you can vent to each other if you’re having a hard time with it.”Plus, if you’re able to stick with Dry January, there’s a good chance you can keep it going in some form. Research has shown that people who take a month off from drinking continue to drink less in the weeks that follow. One study found that people who took part in Dry January were still drinking less in August.Nonalcoholic alternatives can help you push through to the end.If sparkling water in a wine glass or a juice aren’t doing it for you, consider replacing your go-to order with a nonalcoholic version, including nonalcoholic wine, champagne, beer or even a nonalcoholic aperitivo.For David J. Wallace, just because he’s not drinking alcohol this month doesn’t mean he can’t embellish a little. Mr. Wallace owns Dream House Lounge, a sober bar and wellness space in New Orleans. His favorite cocktail these days is called the lavender dream, a zero-proof mezcal-based cocktail.“I prefer a more sophisticated sip, I want it to taste like an adult beverage and not a plain old juice,” he said. “I still love complex flavors like smoky, floral and citrus to give you some complexities.”In New Orleans, “where there’s temptation everywhere,” a sober space like Dream House can help people “stick it out,” said Mr. Wallace, who has seen a steady flow of Dry January participants walk through the doors. The lounge offers zero-proof cocktails, botanical mixes and elixirs, an oxygen bar and bottle shop with alcohol-free spirits. But he also offers programming around mental and spiritual health.“When you’re thinking about embarking on Dry January, it is thinking about wellness overall and wellness on a higher level,” Mr. Wallace said.Mr. Wallace said he expects another surge of customers after Mardi Gras, during Lent.

Arrayit Corporation claimed to have invented a technology to test for any disease using a drop of blood, including Covid-19 and cancer.A biotech executive in California was convicted on Thursday of orchestrating a $77 million scheme involving false and fraudulent claims for Covid-19 and allergy testing, federal prosecutors said.The executive, Mark Schena, 59, served as the president of Arrayit Corporation, a biomedical company that claimed to have invented technology to test for any disease using only a finger-prick drop of blood. According to the Arrayit website, its “microarray” technology could test for ovarian cancer, Parkinson’s disease, colon cancer and male fertility, among other diseases and conditions.Mr. Schena was convicted of a total of nine federal charges, including conspiracy to commit heath care, wire and health care fraud and three counts of securities fraud. He faces up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as well as 20 years for each count of securities fraud.Starting in 2018, Mr. Schena paid kickbacks and bribes to recruiters and doctors to run allergy testing for 120 different allergens, including hornet stings, shrimp, peanuts, dairy and Bermuda grass, regardless of medical necessity, federal prosecutors said.The U.S. Justice Department said he then developed “a deceptive marketing plan” that falsely promoted the test’s accuracy “when it was not, in fact, a diagnostic test.”According to the department, Mr. Schena submitted fraudulent claims to Medicare and private insurance for unnecessary allergy testing. The company billed more per patient to Medicare for blood-based allergy testing than any other laboratory in the United States, the Justice Department said. Some commercial insurers were billed more than $10,000 per test.As Arrayit’s allergy-testing business foundered during the coronavirus pandemic, the company turned to Covid-19 testing and claimed to have developed a blood-based test using its purported technology.As Arrayit falsely claimed that its Covid test was more accurate than a PCR test, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had informed Mr. Schena that the Arrayit test was not accurate enough to receive an emergency use authorization. Mr. Schena concealed that rejection from investors.Mr. Schena described himself to investors as “the father of microarray technology,” and falsely stated that he was on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize, the Justice Department said.A phone number listed for the company has been disconnected. A lawyer for Mr. Schena, Todd A. Pickles, declined to comment on Friday.Arrayit compared itself to Theranos, the failed blood-testing start-up, at least once in its Facebook page, writing that its technology can use drops of blood “which are 250,000 times smaller than the volume of the Theranos nanotainer,” according to the Justice Department’s initial complaint in 2020.Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos who once promised to revolutionize health care through a simple blood test, and Ramesh Balwani, a former top executive at the company, were accused of exaggerating the abilities of its blood-testing machines in order to appeal to investors and customers.In January, Ms. Holmes was convicted of four counts of fraud, and in July, Mr. Balwani was found guilty of 12 counts of fraud.

Did you text Mom recently asking if you had been vaccinated against polio? So did we.Michelle Tynan, 32, texted her mother a question last week that had never crossed her mind before: Had she received the polio vaccine?“Yes you did!” her mother wrote back, sending a picture of her polio vaccination records and another, less pressing reminder: “Also, you got mail.”After health officials reported a case of polio in a New York suburb in July — the first detected in the United States in nearly a decade — and traces of the poliovirus circulating in New York City wastewater, some Americans felt the urge to take stock of their immunization history. If you, like Ms. Tynan — or this reporter for that matter — found yourself reaching out to parents and guardians inquiring about polio for the first time, you were not alone.The conversation was one played out across the United States.In Chicago, Tyler Edwards, 33, texted his mother a few times recently about his vaccine status. First it was to see if Mr. Edwards, who is gay, had received the smallpox vaccine, which has shown to provide some protection against monkeypox. (He had not.) He reached out again after the possible polio outbreaks, and she confirmed he had received that vaccine and sent him his old vaccine card as proof.“It went through my head like, I knew I had some vaccines but didn’t know for sure,” said Mr. Edwards, who has also received his monkeypox vaccine. “It was definitely a relief.”For Ms. Tynan, the confirmation came as a relief as well amid coronavirus worries. She had recently tested positive for the coronavirus and had to quarantine in her parents’ basement during a visit home two weeks ago to Olympia, Wash.For younger generations on edge after they thought they had figured out how to fend off one virus, the threat of more — like polio and monkeypox — has caught many off guard. Polio may be seared into the memories of many older Americans as a disease with devastating consequences like paralysis and death, but a successful vaccination campaign beginning in the 1950s largely eradicated polio in the United States, and with it, the virus retreated from the public consciousness.“Polio was once so feared here in the United States, but there’s a reason we don’t fear it anymore, and that’s because of vaccines,” said Dr. William Moss, director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University. “This is one of the challenges of vaccines — you prevent a disease and it goes away, and people kind of forget about the disease or why it went away.”The first polio epidemic in the United States began in Vermont in 1894, an outbreak that killed 18 people and left at least 58 paralyzed. Waves of outbreaks tore through the country over the next half-century, and peaked in 1952, when nearly 60,000 children were infected and more than 3,000 died. Many were paralyzed, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, who went on to start the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later renamed March of Dimes. The organization sponsored vaccine trials and later, vaccination clinics across the country.In 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk introduced the first polio vaccine, a multiple-shot regimen spread out over the school year. By 1955, after the vaccine was licensed, images of Americans with polio in leg braces and wheelchairs were replaced with mass vaccination sites in school gyms. Even Elvis Presley posed for a photograph while getting the vaccine in New York City in 1956.Elvis Presley receiving a Salk polio vaccine shot in New York City on Oct. 28, 1956. AP Photo/FileFrom the 1960s to the 1990s, the United States pivoted to an oral polio vaccine, which was more easily administered through drops. The oral vaccine contained weakened live poliovirus. It is still considered safe and effective, but in very rare instances, the weakened virus from the vaccine can revert to a form that is transmissible to other people who are not vaccinated and can cause paralysis. As a result of the rare side effect, the United States pivoted back to the highly effective shot, which does not contain live virus.If you grew up in the United States, chances are you are vaccinated. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have state laws that require children entering child care or public schools to have certain vaccinations, including polio, diphtheria and tetanus. The C.D.C. now recommends a four-dose regimen for children.Still, after three years of managing their coronavirus status and taking precautions, many young people found themselves whispering aloud their unknown status on social media.Dr. Moss said adults who received vaccines decades ago should not be concerned that their vaccine is wearing off. The C.D.C. is considering whether or not to recommend a booster shot to high-risk individuals, Dr. Moss said, but for the time being, that applies only to people who come into regular contact with polio patients either in the United States or abroad.“In general, people should not worry,” he said. “People who have been fully vaccinated or received at least three doses of a polio vaccine are in general going to be protected and should not worry.”Dr. Moss’s children, who are in their 20s, have not reached out to check on their vaccination status, he said. But he has heard from family members who live near the New York suburb where the polio case in an unvaccinated person was found. His message to them was simple: No extra vaccinations are necessary, but they “shouldn’t drink the wastewater.”