5 mins read

US school vaccination rates inch down yet again and exemptions reach record high

NEW YORK | U.S. kindergarten vaccination rates inched down again last year and the share of children with exemptions rose to an all-time high, according to federal data posted Monday. The fraction of kids exempted from vaccine requirements rose to 4.2%, up from 3.6% the year before. That’s an estimated 155,000 children nationally during the […]

8 mins read

FACT FOCUS: Trump makes false claims as he signs order urging revisions around childhood vaccines

While issuing an executive order on Monday aimed at getting states to revise childhood vaccine recommendations, President Donald Trump and others in his administration repeated several false claims about those vaccines, as well as their relationship to autism. The order recommends separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three separate single-disease shots and […]

3 mins read

Health officials urge caution for Gulf Coast beachgoers during surge of deadly bacterial infections

BATON ROUGE, La. | Health officials in Louisiana are urging beachgoers to take precautions during a summertime surge in infections from a flesh-eating bacteria found in coastal waters. Louisiana has confirmed nine cases of Vibrio vulnificus infections this year, the state’s health department said last week in a news release. All were hospitalized, and five […]