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For the first time since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took charge of the Department of Health and Human Services, vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are meeting publicly to discuss the nation's vaccine policies. A meeting of the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices was initially scheduled for February but was postponed, raising concerns among some scientists and those working in public health about political interference in vaccine policy. The two-day meeting starts Tuesday morning. (Huang, 4/15)

Seven U.S. service members exhibited “COVID-19-like symptoms” during or after their return from the 2019 World Military Games in Wuhan, China, according to a Pentagon report recently made public. The report indicates the service members had symptoms between Oct. 18, 2019, and Jan. 21, 2020. The symptoms all resolved within six days, according to the report, which is dated December 2022. (Fortinsky, 4/14)

Five years after the pandemic’s start, millions of Americans are still struggling with long-lasting symptoms of Covid-19. Cognitive difficulties are among the most troubling and common symptoms in people both old and young. These ailments can be severe enough to leave former professionals like Ken Todd unable to work and even diagnosed with a form of mild cognitive impairment. (Reddy, 4/14)

New studies on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in both adults and young children show that infections are linked to a higher risk of death in adults, and children born prematurely or with pulmonary or neurologic conditions are at greater risk of severe RSV infections. In research presented this week during the annual Congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases meeting in Vienna (ESCMID Global 2025), researchers presented new data showing that adults with RSV acute respiratory infections face a 2.7-fold higher risk of death within 1 year of infection. (Soucheray, 4/14)

Over the last few days the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has reported four more H5N1 avian flu detections in dairy cattle, two from California and two from Idaho, lifting the national total to 1,009 from 17 states since March 2024. Also, APHIS has confirmed more H5N1 detections in poultry flocks from two states. (Schnirring, 4/14)

When President Trump recently griped about Europe's distaste for buying American chicken, his comments touched on a long-running and divisive trade spat that's flared up from time to time. Europeans disparage U.S. poultry as "chlorinated chicken," or "Chlorhünchen" in the German press, and see it as possibly unsafe. The phrase refers to the use of chlorine in poultry processing plants after the birds have been slaughtered in order to cut down on harmful bacteria that are frequent sources of food-borne illness like Salmonella and Campylobacter. (Stone, 4/15)

On four separate occasions, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services secretary, has suggested that the measles outbreak in Texas, which is now over 500 cases, is beginning to subside and grow more slowly. But a review of state data indicates there’s no decline yet in the pace of cases. (McDonald, 4/14)

The City of El Paso confirmed three new cases of measles in an update given on Monday afternoon, April 14, bringing the total to eight in the El Paso region. The newly confirmed cases involve an unvaccinated female infant, a vaccinated male teenager, and a woman in her 30s with unknown vaccination status. (Burge, 4/14)

After seeing the latest case of measles in Colorado, an infection prevention manager with Common Spirit, Aaron Parmet, said things are changing in the fight against the extremely contagious disease. The reported cases have been similar in the sense that in the first two, the patients had recently visited Mexico, but in the third case out of Pagosa Springs, the patient had no obvious travel history where an exposure to the virus could be found. That unknown has Parmet concerned. (Wilson, 4/14)