This week's public health update reviews current covid & measles status, a recent measles-related death, and updates from states stepping up to mitigate the harm to health being caused at the federal level. Grateful for those bright spots! 🙏🏾

"The ACIP is no longer a scientific committee. It is an ideology machine." I can't even bring myself to watch their meetings. Instead, I'm cheering for states and medical associations working to mitigate the damage and fill gaps. But the damage being done is immeasurable.

Smart move! 1st made-in-Canada mRNA vaccines. "By supporting the production of vaccines here at home, we are supporting our economy while strengthening Canada’s ability to respond quickly and effectively to future public health emergencies." -Canadian Minister of Health

A new low! Reports out of SF suggest people are spraying non-overdosing homeless individuals with Narcan to induce painful withdrawal symptoms to get them to move. Another symptom of our society becoming more callous, polarized, and violent by the day. abc7news.com/post/san-fra...

When is the most optimal time to get the Covid vaccine? It depends! But if you haven't had covid in the last 5 months and live in the Northern hemisphere, the best time is right about now. I walk through the evidence in this week's People's Health Briefing 👇🏾

Horrific. SSPE, a late complication of measles, is a progressive brain disorder that develops 2-10 yrs after seeming recovery from initial infection. Gradual, worsening loss of all neurological function, 100% fatal, no cure, occurs in ~1 in 600 who get measles as an infant. abc7.com/post/child-d...

Excellent! The moment I've been waiting for. California, Oregon & Washington will work together on vaccine guidance since we no longer have a credible CDC. Many questions on the authority the alliance will have, but still, a strong and necessary move!

Warning & Call to Action from 9 former CDC Directors/Acting Directors serving under Presidents from Carter to Trump: US lives are being endangered due to a political agenda. Worthy scientists are being pushed out when they won't rubber stamp the insanity.

CDC grant cancellations initially hit blue & red states pretty evenly, and 4 of the 5 jurisdictions with the most terminated grants were led by Democrats (CA, DC, Illinois & Mass). Now, ~80% of the cuts have been restored to blue states, compared with <5% in red states. www.cnn.com/2025/08/26/h...

US public health in crisis: infrastructure being gutted, vaccine access being limited, eliminated virus (measles) making a resurgence, falling childhood vax rates making many vulnerable to vax-preventable illness, infant & maternal mortality rates rising & healthcare safety net being cut via HR1. 👇🏾

New Mexico issues public health order to mitigate challenges with c19 vaccine access. Hoping other states will follow suit.

CDC Director and other top officials are out. “...Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk”

Devastating. Mom with sepsis, lost her unborn child and lucky to be alive herself, toddler w/possible hemolytic uremic syndrome, had surgery for intussusception still under care - all due to raw milk consumption which is being touted by our highest level health "leaders."

I was overjoyed when 600K people were added to Medicaid rosters in North Carolina knowing that county safety nets could finally accommodate people that were not eligible. Now it’s going to crash harder than ever. I don’t know if I have enough steam to continue in community health nursing.

Kicking people off their Medicaid coverage is bad for everyone. More sick people, untreated chronic and communicable disease, and more pressure on our emergency systems and hospitals. "...the math points to a crisis California’s safety net can’t sustain."

8/11/25 Briefing: What to know as kids head back to school; new data on kids and covid vaccine; new CDC Director confirmed; medical groups barred from CDC advisory committee work groups due to allegations of bias, while the real biases of advisory committee members goes ignored.

Alarming! Non-medical exemptions for childhood vaccines are increasing & coverage is decreasing. In Idaho, with 15.4% exemptions, only 78% of kindergartners entered school last year with polio vax - below the immunity threshold! Just one imported case could mean an outbreak.

I genuinely think waste-water surveillance is key to health on a societal level, in general. It's anonymous and invisible, so acceptance is easy to get, it's local enough to matter, can be scaled to global, and relatively low-cost. It allows fast & accurate responses for individuals and groups.

The future of COVID-19? It's in the sewers!🦠 Excellent Minnesota study found SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater predictably surged ~1 week before a rise in symptomatic cases. This bolsters the case for improved wastewater surveillance as a key tool for public health. academic.oup.com/jid/advance-...

ICYMI. Kindergarten vaccine coverage dropping across the US while non-medical exemptions are rising; wastewater predicts symptomatic Covid; measles and respiratory illness updates week of 8/4/2025

Another day, another stunning display of ignorance by RFK Jr. Vaccines are, in fact, a financial burden and a logistical challenge. Medical practices *only* take this on for the health of their patients and the community. RFK Jr is dangerous and must be removed.

😪💔

The administration emboldened this behavior, so of course they're saying nothing.

Please sign and share our petition to remove RFK Jr. www.change.org/p/rfk-jr-mus...

Other nations will likely step in to fill the void we're creating as we fall further behind and become more vulnerable to emerging threats.

Re: Prasad "...his hiring should have been more of a scandal than his firing." Truth!

Most working age Medicaid recipients are already working, or in school, or disabled, or taking care of a family member, or retired unable to find work.

Add this to the list of shameful disparities we seem willing to accept in the US. "...among all subgroups, Latino essential workers who were potentially undocumented were hardest hit, with a staggering 91% increase in deaths compared with 8% for the White US-born subgroup."

Georgia and Arkansas are a cautionary tale of what the entire nation will soon face. Don't be fooled by the rhetoric. Work requirements only work to kick people off of Medicaid.

Our East Oakland community was rocked when 15 yr old Derbing Jose Alvarado Gonzalez's life was tragically cut short in March. We @rootsempowers.bsky.social refuse to normalize the abnormal! We launched this new series to honor those we've lost, find ways to heal & highlight how we're fighting back.

They said it was about "choice" and "medical freedom," but they lied. They're *limiting* access and choice, not based on facts or science - and this is only the beginning! Don't let them get away with it. Ask Congress to Ensure Universal Access to COVID Vaccines by tomorrow, July 28th. 👇🏾

I never got to give my public comment at the Alameda County Board of Supervisors meeting this week about hundreds of millions of dollars for homelessness, so I'm gonna share it with y'all here 🙏🏾

In this week's People's Health Briefing, I'm joined by Dr. Zeest Khan, MD, for a review on #LongCOVID. After I provide a status update on some of the latest research, Dr. Khan shares her invaluable insights as a physician personally impacted by Long Covid. Learn about diagnosis, management and more.

ICYMI, People's Health Briefing week of 7/14/25 - Vaccination Access Under Threat: New Restrictions & Withdrawals - H5N1: Federal Emergency Declaration Ends, vaccine contract canceled - Prepared or Complacent? Responding to Emerging Threats www.youtube.com/live/XSDFoMj...

Just when you think things couldn't get any more twisted, US HHS Secretary justifies healthcare cuts by calling the national debt a social determinant of health. This is peak manipulation and an insult to the intelligence of anyone paying attention.

Another day, another step by the administration to undermine health and access to care.

Awesome conversation today with Davey D at @kpfa.org about the devastating cuts coming to Medicaid. “If we’re not removing barriers to employment, then all of this is pretty much lip service...It’s coercion—telling people they must ‘prove they matter’ to access healthcare.”

Thanks @oaklandside.org for interviewing me on the impending changes to Medicaid which are both inefficient and cruel. Work requirements are really about penalizing people - folks with some of the highest barriers to good health. It’ll lead to more untreated illness and pressure on our hospitals.

I endured (much of) the ACIP meeting so you don't have to! In today's briefing I review some of the highlights (and low lights) of this meeting with the newly seated committee, along with new CDC estimates and updates on measles, flu and Covid.

👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 6 medical societies + 1 patient suing HHS & RFK Jr. for "acting arbitrarily and capriciously" when they unilaterally changed C19 vax recs for children & pregnancy and took other actions designed to "mislead, confuse, and gradually desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric"

The US has no public health leadership. No CDC Director. The ACIP, once a leading expert body, is now a joke, a lost cause. Head of HHS is unqualified & antivax, presiding over the worst measles outbreak in over 2 decades, not saying or doing anything to intervene. Disastrous.

Measles outbreak at a New Mexico prison. Cases continue climbing, now at 13 (12 incarcerated people and 1 staff). Meanwhile, we're poised to exceed the record number of cases we saw in the 2019 surge, the most since measles was eliminated in the US 25 yrs ago. We are heading backward!

"29 yr old guy in the basement" is the new "welfare queen." Nothing more than an emotional yet nonsensical rationale to restrict benefits. Young men are in fact less likely to seek coverage or care and are among the lower cost beneficiaries even if they do.

Setting aside the lack of humanity of it all, how do Big Bad Bill proponents think they will implement the work requirement and increased frequency of redeterminations? Who will administer this? Social service agencies can barely handle the volume as it is.

Maybe there's a bright side to the US pulling out of WHO? The CDCs advisory committee on immunization practices is suddenly deeply unserious, yet WHO seems to be staying on track, using actual, nonfabricated evidence to guide recommendations.

In the US, those with power and money are allowed to operate harmful industries in neighborhoods where health impacts will be the worst due to the very conditions they created.

Poor adults who gained Medicaid coverage under ACA were 21% less likely to die during a given year than those not enrolled, according to the largest study to date, including 37 million people in the US. True not only among older enrollees but also those in their 20s & 30s! Medicaid saves lives.

"Shared decision making" sounds nice...when you have insurance, access, and a primary care provider you can trust - and when healthcare "leaders" aren't flooding the zone with disinformation!

Let's call it what it is: fraud