Publisher Health

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the outbreak in West Texas last week as a “top priority.” But he did not explicitly encourage Americans to get vaccinated.In a first test of the Trump administration’s ability to respond to an infectious disease emergency, its top health official has shied away from one of the government’s most important tools, experts said on Sunday: loudly and directly encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, was widely criticized as minimizing the measles outbreak in West Texas at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. In a social media post on Friday, he took a new tact, saying that the outbreak was a “top priority” for his department, Health and Human Services.He noted various ways in which the department is aiding Texas, among them by funding the state’s immunization program and updating advice that doctors give children vitamin A. But on neither occasion did Mr. Kennedy himself advise Americans to make sure their children got the shots.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of H.H.S., did not send its first substantive notice about the outbreak until Thursday, almost a month after the first cases in Texas were reported.“They’ve been shouting with a whisper,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota and a former health department official.“I fear that their hands have been tied,” he added.C.D.C. officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 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.

Heat from the eruption in A.D. 79 was so intense that it vitrified the brain tissue of one unfortunate Herculaneum resident, a new study confirms.Five years ago Italian researchers published a study on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. that detailed how one victim of the blast, a male presumed to be in his mid 20s, had been found nearby in the seaside settlement of Herculaneum. He was lying facedown and buried by ash on a wooden bed in the College of the Augustales, a public building dedicated to the worship of Emperor Augustus. Some scholars believe that the man was the center’s caretaker and was asleep at the time of the disaster.In 2018, one researcher discovered black, glossy shards embedded inside the caretaker’s skull. The paper, published in 2020, speculated that the heat of the explosion was so immense that it had fused the victim’s brain tissue into glass.Forensic analysis of the obsidian-like chips revealed proteins common in brain tissue and fatty acids found in human hair, while a chunk of charred wood unearthed near the skeleton indicated a thermal reading as high as 968 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly the dome temperature of a wood-fired Neapolitan pizza oven. It was the only known instance of soft tissue — much less any organic material — being naturally preserved as glass.On Thursday, a paper published in Nature verified that the fragments are indeed glassified brain. Using techniques such as electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry, scientists examined the physical properties of samples taken from the glassy fragments and demonstrated how they were formed and preserved. “The unique finding implies unique processes,” said Guido Giordano, a volcanologist at the Roma Tre University and lead author of the new study.The archaeological site of Herculaneum with Mount Vesuvius looming in the background.Pier Paolo PetroneForemost among those processes is vitrification, by which material is burned at a high heat until it liquefies. To harden into glass, the substance requires rapid cooling, solidifying at a temperature higher than its surroundings. This makes organic glass formation challenging, Dr. Giordano said, as vitrification entails very specific temperature conditions and the liquid form must cool fast enough to avoid being crystallized as it congeals.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.

Sam Runyon navigated to the house by memory as she reviewed her patient’s file, a “problem list” of medications and chronic diseases that went on for several pages. Sam, a 45-year-old nurse, had already seen Cora Perkins survive two types of cancer. During previous appointments, she had found Cora’s arms turning blue from diabetes, or her ankles swollen from congestive heart failure, or her stomach cramping from hunger with no fresh food left in the house. It had been a week since Sam’s last visit, and she wondered if anyone had come or gone through the front door since.Listen to this article with reporter commentaryShe knocked, but nobody answered. She walked across the porch to a hole in the window and called into the house. “Cora, honey? Are you OK?” A light flickered inside. A dog began to bark. Sam pushed open the door and walked into the living room, where she found Cora wrapped under a blanket.“Sam. Thank God you’re here,” said Cora, 64. She tried to stand, but she lost her balance and sat back down in a recliner.“It looks like you’re wobbly this morning,” Sam said. “Are you feeling really bad or just normal bad?”It was the same question she asked her patients dozens of times each week as she made home visits across West Virginia, traveling from one impending emergency to the next in a country where feeling bad had become the new normal. All 31 patients in her caseload for the Williamson Health and Wellness Center were under 65 years old, and yet each had at least one of the chronic diseases that had become endemic in the United States over the last two decades: death rates up 25 percent nationally from diabetes, 40 percent from liver disease, 60 percent from kidney disease, 80 percent from hypertension and more than 95 percent from obesity, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.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.

42 minutes ago

In the stretch of rural Kentucky that borders West Virginia, voters reliably send Republicans to Congress. Representative Hal Rogers, who […]

Researchers found that compounds in black and green tea leaves acted like “little Velcro” hooks on lead molecules.Tea leaves pull heavy metals from water, significantly lowering the amount of lead and other dangerous compounds that people may be unknowingly drinking, a new study found.Recent research has highlighted potential applications for used tea leaves, from biofuels to gluten-free cookies. But the new study shows a public health benefit from something that countless people are already doing. About five billion cups of tea are consumed each day around the world, according to one estimate.“You can see the implications,” said Vinayak Dravid, a materials scientist at Northwestern and an author of the study, which was published this week. “How often do we touch billions of people?”In many countries, the water used to steep tea is contaminated with lead from aging pipes. In the United States, nine million homes get their water through pipes that contain lead, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Lead is especially dangerous to children. Exposure can lead to developmental delays and behavioral issues.Dr. Dravid and his team tested how different types of tea — black, white, oolong, green, rooibos, herbal, loose leaf and plain old Lipton — behaved in water with varying amounts of lead.The tea was then allowed to steep for variable periods of time. Afterward, the scientists measured how much lead remained in the water.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.

Vaccine hesitancy has been rising for years in the United States. Doctors and parents in one rural county are confronting the consequences.Every day, as Dr. Wendell Parkey enters his clinic in Seminole, a small city on the rural western edge of Texas, he announces his arrival to the staff with an anthem pumping loudly through speakers.As the song reaches a climax, he throws up an arm and strikes a pose in cowboy boots. “Y’all ready to stomp out disease?” he asks.Recently, the question has taken on a dark urgency. Seminole Memorial Hospital, where Dr. Parkey has practiced for nearly three decades, has found itself at the center of the largest measles outbreak in the United States since 2019.Since last month, more than 140 Texas residents, most of whom live in the surrounding Gaines County, have been diagnosed and 20 have been hospitalized. Nine people in a bordering county in New Mexico have also fallen ill.On Wednesday, local health officials announced that one child had died, the first measles death in the United States in a decade.It may not be the last. Large swaths of the Mennonite community, an insular Christian group that settled in the area in the 1970s, are unvaccinated and vulnerable to the virus.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.

The Ebola outbreak in Uganda, which had seemed to be in retreat, has claimed a new victim: a 4-year-old boy who died on Monday, according to a State Department cable viewed by The New York Times.News of the child’s death comes even as the Trump administration has canceled at least four of the five contracts with organizations that helped manage the outbreak. It also placed the manager of the Ebola response at U.S.A.I.D. on administrative leave.Uganda’s Ministry of Health informed U.S. officials of the death on Thursday. The confirmed case has not yet been announced by the Ugandan government nor the World Health Organization, but federal officials involved in the response alerted the White House on Thursday night.“Continued support from the terminated awards is not only vital to save lives but also vital in protecting the health and security of the United States and global community,” William W. Popp, the U.S. ambassador to Uganda, wrote in the cable.Uganda has experienced a serious Ebola outbreak since January that had appeared to be receding. The new case brings the total number of cases to 10, including two deaths. The first known fatality, a 32-year-old nurse, was reported in late January.The boy’s family had sought care for him at three different hospitals, the cable said, and he died at the third, Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala. His three siblings were reportedly ill but have recovered, according to the child’s father.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.

47 minutes ago

Patients will be able to book more appointments online and request to see their usual doctor under a new contract agreed with England’s GPs, the government has said.