In the early days of the West Texas measles outbreak, Thang Nguyen eyed the rising number of cases and worried. His 4-year-old son was at risk because he had received only the first of the vaccine’s two doses. So, in mid-March, he took his family to a primary care clinic at the University of Texas…
Recreational beaches at National Park Service sites are coping with a shortage of lifeguards caused by Trump administration staffing freezes and cuts, lawmakers and advocacy groups told KFF Health News. Some of the parks are reducing the hours when lifeguards are available, rushing to recruit hires, or opening beaches without any lifeguards at all. Fewer…
As fired and retired scientists rallied outside in the Atlanta heat, an advisory panel that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. handpicked to replace experts he’d fired earlier met inside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s headquarters to plan a more skeptical vaccine future. The new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began their…
Within an hour of receiving a covid vaccination in November 2020, Utah preschool teacher Brianne Dressen felt pins and needles through her arms and legs. In the medical odyssey that followed, she suffered double vision, chronic nausea, brain fog, and profound weakness. Once a rock climber, she became a couch potato. Although Dressen’s symptoms were…
GREENVILLE, Miss. — Cedric Sturdevant woke up with “a bit of depression” but made it to church, as he does every Sunday. In a few days, he would drive from Mississippi to Washington, D.C., to join HIV advocates at an April rally against the Trump administration’s actions. It had clawed back more than $11 billion…
Kim Beckham, an insurance agent in Victoria, Texas, had seen friends suffer so badly from shingles that she wanted to receive the first approved shingles vaccine as soon as it became available, even if she had to pay for it out-of-pocket. Her doctor and several pharmacies turned her down because she was below the recommended…
Kim Beckham, agente de seguros en Victoria, Texas, había visto a sus amigos sufrir tanto por la culebrilla (shingles) que quería recibir la primera vacuna aprobada contra esta infección tan pronto como estuviera disponible, incluso si tenía que pagarla de su bolsillo. Su médico y varias farmacias le dijeron que no podían administrarle la vacuna…
The Host Julie Rovner KFF Health News @jrovner @julierovner.bsky.social Read Julie’s stories. Julie Rovner is chief Washington correspondent and host of KFF Health News’ weekly health policy news podcast, “What the Health?” A noted expert on health policy issues, Julie is the author of the critically praised reference book “Health Care Politics and Policy A…
Millions of Americans who have waited decades for fast internet connections will keep waiting after the Trump administration threw a $42 billion high-speed internet program into disarray. The Commerce Department, which runs the massive Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, announced new rules in early June requiring states — some of which were ready to…
LIBBY, Mont. — Dozens of feet of tubing connect Gayla Benefield to her oxygen machine so she can walk from room to room inside her home on the picturesque Kootenai River, surrounded by the Cabinet Mountains. Like many people who live in this remote town about 80 miles from the U.S.-Canada border, the 81-year-old Benefield…