Chagas disease, caused by a parasite, affects people primarily in rural Latin America. But an estimated 300,000 residents of the U.S. have the disease, which can cause serious heart problems. Patient advocates call for much more aggressive efforts to fight it.
In early 2020, U.S. public health labs received covid-19 tests from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that were flawed, as a result of poor design and contamination. Now the CDC is overhauling its lab operations, but efforts to be better prepared for future threats won’t be easy, observers say.
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf has called misinformation one of the deadliest killers in the United States. As the FDA tries to fight that scourge, it sometimes stumbles.
Amid a years-long rise in maternal mortality rates in the United States, Idaho lawmakers decided to disband a committee created to investigate pregnancy-related deaths.
Citing the recent debt ceiling deal, the CDC is trimming its funding to child vaccination programs that focus on communities vulnerable to disease outbreaks. The cuts come despite data showing the percentage of children getting vaccinated has dropped in recent years.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director presided over one of the most tumultuous times in the agency’s history, struggling to regain public trust after it was revealed that Trump officials intervened in its pandemic response.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director presided over one of the most tumultuous times in the agency’s history, struggling to regain public trust after it was revealed that Trump officials intervened in its pandemic response.
The pandemic gave federal officials expanded power to access crucial data about the spread of covid-19, but that authority will change when the public health emergency sunsets in May. That, along with the end of popular covid trackers, will make it harder for policymakers and the public to keep an eye on covid and other threats.
The federal government’s ambitious plan to end the HIV epidemic, launched in 2019, has generated new ways to reach at-risk populations in targeted communities across the South. But health officials, advocates, and people living with HIV worry significant headwinds will keep the program from reaching its goals.
Advocates for improving rural health pushed for the CDC to extend its rural health focus by creating an Office of Rural Health. They hope the agency will commit to rural health research and provide analyses that lead to good public health policies for rural communities.
