It is the second confirmed measles death in the U.S. in a decade. If the outbreak continues at the current pace, the nation may lose its “elimination” status. The measles crisis in West Texas has claimed the life of another child, the second death in an outbreak that has burned through the region and infected dozens of residents in bordering states. The eight-year-old girl died of “measles pulmonary failure” at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, according to records obtained by The New York Times. It is the second confirmed measles death in a decade in the United States. The first was an unvaccinated child who died in West Texas in February. Another unvaccinated person died in New Mexico after testing positive for measles, though officials have not yet confirmed that measles was the cause of death.A Trump administration official said on Saturday night that the girl’s cause of death is “still being looked at.” Since late January, when the outbreak began, West Texas has reported 480 cases of measles and 56 hospitalizations. The outbreak has also spread to bordering states, sickening 54 people in New Mexico and 10 in Oklahoma.If the virus continues to spread at this pace, the country risks losing its measles elimination status, a hard fought victory earned in 2000. Public health officials in West Texas have predicted the outbreak will continue for a year.Robert F. Kennedy, the nation’s health secretary, has faced intense criticism for his handling of the outbreak. A prominent vaccine skeptic, he has offered muted support for vaccination and has emphasized untested treatments for measles, like cod liver oil. According to doctors in Texas, his endorsement of alternative treatments has contributed to patients delaying critical care and ingesting toxic levels of vitamin A.Experts also fear that Trump administration’s recent decisions to dismantle international public health safeguards and pull funding from local health departments have made large, multistate outbreaks more likely. Measles is one of the most contiguous pathogens. The virus can linger in the air for up to two hours after an infected person has left the room and spreads when a sick person breathes, coughs or sneezes. Within a week or two of being exposed, those who are infected may develop a high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes. Within a few days, a telltale rash breaks out as flat, red spots on the face and then spreads down the neck and torso to the rest of the body.In most cases, these symptoms resolve in a few weeks. But in rare cases, the virus causes pneumonia, making it difficult for patients, but especially children, to get oxygen into their lungs. It may also cause brain swelling, which can leave lasting problems, like blindness, deafness and intellectual disabilities.For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus also harms the body’s immune defenses, leaving it vulnerable to other pathogens.Christina Jewett

States that were once reluctant to expand Medicaid now have their state budgets tied to the fate of the program by constitutional amendments.If congressional Republicans go through with some of the deep Medicaid cuts they are considering, three states would be left in an especially tight bind.South Dakota, Missouri and Oklahoma have state constitutions requiring that they participate in Medicaid expansion, the part of Obamacare that expanded the health program for the poor to millions of adults.If Republicans choose to make the projected budget reductions by cutting into Medicaid expansion, the other 37 states (and D.C.) that participate in the expansion could stop covering working-class adults. Nine states have laws explicitly requiring them to stop Medicaid expansion or make significant changes if the federal share of spending drops.But South Dakota, Missouri and Oklahoma can’t do that. They either need to amend their constitutions, a lengthy process that can take years, or figure out how to fill the budget hole, most likely by cutting other services or raising taxes.How States Adopted Medicaid ExpansionIn recent years, voters in seven states led by Republican governors expanded Medicaid through referendums, with voters in three of them amending the constitution.

Source: KFFBy The New York TimesThe constitutional amendments were put on state ballots by progressive activists, who wanted to entrench the Medicaid program in places that had been hostile to that part of the Affordable Care Act. The idea was twofold: to get health coverage to more people, and to tether more states and their Republican lawmakers to Medicaid.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.

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For a child who is not vaccinated against measles — one of the world’s most infectious viruses — no classroom, […]

Recent Trump administration actions are setting the stage for a measles resurgence, experts fear.As the Trump administration moves to dismantle international public health safeguards, pull funding from local health departments and legitimize health misinformation, some experts now fear that the country is setting the stage for a long-term measles resurgence.If federal health officials do not change course, large multistate outbreaks like the one that has torn through West Texas, jumping to neighboring states and killing two people, may become the norm.“We have really opened the door for this virus to come back,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In order for an outbreak to occur in the United States, the virus must first be imported into the country, and it must reach a large, unvaccinated population.Recent events have made both conditions seem increasingly likely, said Dr. William Moss, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.Efforts to control the spread of measles internationally have been disrupted by the Trump administration’s recent decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization, which runs a network of more than 700 laboratories that track measles cases in 164 countries.

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The United States can no longer keep tabs on drug-resistant gonorrhea, among other infections, scientists said.Drug-resistant gonorrhea, a form of the widespread sexually transmitted infection, is considered an urgent health threat worldwide. The United States has just lost its ability to detect it.Among the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees fired on Tuesday were 77 scientists who, among other work, gathered samples of gonorrhea and other S.T.I.s from labs nationwide, analyzed the genetic information for signs of drug resistance, and readied the samples for storage at a secure facility.No other researchers at the agency have the expertise, or the software, to continue this work. The abrupt halt has stranded about 1,000 samples of gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted pathogens that had not yet been processed, and perhaps dozens more headed to the agency.There are as many as 30 freezers full of samples that now have no custodians, said one senior C.D.C. official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.“We were just really shut down midair, like there was no warning,” the official said. “It was just completely unplanned and chaotic.”The C.D.C.’s work on S.T.I.s had taken on greater urgency in the past few years as rates of new infections soared. More than 2.4 million new S.T.I.s were diagnosed in 2023, about one million more than 20 years ago.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.

Administration officials reversed a decision made during the Biden presidency that would have given millions of people access to weight-loss drugs paid for Medicare and Medicaid.The Trump administration on Friday rejected a Biden plan that would have required Medicare and Medicaid to cover obesity drugs and expanded access for millions of people.Under the law that established Medicare’s Part D drug benefits, the program was forbidden from paying for drugs for “weight loss.” The Biden administration’s proposal last November had attempted to sidestep that ban by arguing that the drugs would be allowed to treat the disease of obesity and its related conditions.Expanding coverage of the drugs would have cost the federal government billions of dollars. The Biden administration estimated the federal expense at about $35 billion over 10 years.The decision announced Friday was part of a larger 438-page regulation updating parts of the programs through which beneficiaries get drug and private medical coverage. The latest revision did not explain why Medicare should not cover the drugs.Catherine Howden, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in an email that the agency believes expanding coverage “is not appropriate at this time.” But she said the agency had not ruled out coverage and “may consider future policy options” for the drugs.The most popular weight loss drugs come from Novo Nordisk, which sells its medicine as Wegovy for weight loss and as Ozempic for diabetes, and from Eli Lilly, which sells its product as Zepbound for weight loss and Mounjaro for diabetes.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.

President Trump wants to bring pharmaceutical manufacturing back to the United States. Experts warn that tariffs could result in shortages and higher prices for generic drugs.The drug industry got a temporary reprieve on Wednesday when foreign-made medicines were exempted from President Trump’s far-reaching new tariffs.But Mr. Trump has been saying for weeks that he plans to impose tariffs specifically on pharmaceuticals, with the goal of shifting overseas production of medications back to the United States. He has said those levies could be 25 percent or higher. Drugmakers still expect tariffs targeting them to be announced soon.“The pharmaceutical companies are going to come roaring back, they’re coming roaring back, they’re all coming back to our country because if they don’t, they got a big tax to pay,” Mr. Trump said in remarks at a Rose Garden event on Wednesday.While there is still some drug manufacturing in the United States, most of the drugs Americans consume are produced at least partly overseas.The most important places in the industry’s supply chain are China, India and Europe. For example, plants in China and India make nearly all of the world’s supply of the active ingredients in the painkiller ibuprofen and the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, according to Clarivate, an industry data provider.Drugmakers have powerful financial incentives to produce their products overseas. For most companies and most medications, tariffs are unlikely to reverse that, experts said.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.