Measles News:

• Texas measles cases appear to be slowing, with only one new confirmed case since Tuesday. (TX DSHS)
• Houston’s wastewater tested positive for measles weeks before the first cases were identified in January. (Health Day)
• Meanwhile, cases are rising fast in Alberta, Canada with 14 new cases in the past 24 hours for a total of over 400 cases in the province. (Global News)

Health News:

• FDA is investigating two new outbreaks: Salmonella Montevideo and E. coli O145, neither of which are linked to a specific product yet. (FDA)
• Federal officials may limit recommendations for COVID vaccines, removing recommendations for kids and pregnant women, sources say. (NY Times)
• The Missouri state senate voted Wednesday to repeal part of a voter-approved law that allowed employees to earn paid sick leave. (STLPR)
• A Brazilian scientist won the World Food Prize for her research into growing food with fewer chemicals. (AP)
• Ultra-processed foods have made U.S. diets among the least expensive - and most unhealthy - in the world. The movement to make Americans eat healthier will be costly. (Bloomberg)
  

Mental Health & Substance Use News:

• Overdose deaths dropped a whopping 27% last year, though they are still higher than pre-COVID. (CNN)
• One quarter of U.S. kids have at least one parent with substance use disorder. (NPR)
• More Californians are talking to a therapist by phone or video than in-person. (KFF Health News)
  
  

Best Questions:

Will COVID and flu vaccines be available in the fall? 

We’ve started to get this question a lot this week. If you’re not keeping up with all the news out of Washington (and honestly, who can keep up with ALL of it these days?), you may be wondering why this is even a question. 

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The administration recently announced new requirements for testing vaccines, mandating that all new vaccines are tested against a placebo before they’re made available. An HHS spokesperson said this includes updated COVID shots and “may” include the seasonal flu vaccine. Right now, that’s not needed for minor updates to existing seasonal flu and COVID vaccines. Coordinating large-scale placebo-controlled trials would take a lot of time and money, so it’s possible that these new requirements may delay the availability of seasonal COVID and flu vaccines as early as this fall. 

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And just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that HHS may stop recommending routine COVID shots for children and pregnant women, though that hasn’t been officially announced yet. This, plus a broader move toward a more risk-based approach to vaccine recommendations that’s being considered by the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, could both result in less insurance coverage for any seasonal vaccines that are available. 

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If flu and COVID shots aren’t available or covered by insurance this fall, we could see higher numbers of employee sick days and more outbreaks in businesses. That said, we’re not panicking just yet. Most of this is still up in the air, and we've had so many decisions reversed or challenged in court that we think the best thing to do is keep a level head and stay the course.

Sources: WSJ, NPR, NY Times, Osterholm Update

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Why aren’t all vaccines tested against a placebo? 

Brand new vaccines already are tested against a placebo, but updated vaccines are tested against existing ones, because it’s been considered unethical to withhold effective preventive treatment in order to study new ones. 

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When scientists made the new COVID vaccine back in 2020, they tested it against a control group who got a placebo shot that was just saline solution. But when we update vaccines, they’re generally compared to the existing vaccine. Take polio, for example. There was an effective vaccine that saved thousands of kids from being paralyzed in the U.S. Later, they developed another vaccine that might be better - but they tested it against the first vaccine, because we knew the first vaccine worked, and that it had been tested against a placebo, and it didn’t seem fair to risk polio in thousands of children when there was a good vaccine already, just to prove that the new one was better. 

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But just because updated vaccines aren’t directly compared to a placebo doesn’t mean they aren’t studied against those who are unvaccinated. In lots of cases, researchers do what’s called a “post–marketing study,” where they compare unvaccinated kids to vaccinated ones after the updated vaccine is available to the public. 

Sources: WSJ, NPR, NY Times, Osterholm Update

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Best Read: 

Leafy greens - especially romaine lettuce - have a notorious track record when it comes to foodborne illness. A new article in The Atlantic highlights growing concerns after the FDA recently chose not to disclose an outbreak tied to lettuce. Combined with broader rollbacks in federal food safety oversight, the piece argues that bagged, pre-chopped lettuce may now be more dangerous than ever.

Note: This is a gift article, so you can read it without a paywall. 

Now Is Not the Time to Eat Bagged Lettuce - The Atlantic

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