Organ Donations Fall For First Time In Years As Health Care Mistrust Grows
The vast majority of people on transplant waiting lists need a kidney, AP reported. An analysis of federal data found that 116 fewer kidney transplants were performed in 2025 than the year before. The decrease would have been even larger, experts said, were it not for an increase last year in the number of transplants from healthy, living donors.
Organ donations from the recently deceased dropped last year for the first time in over a decade, resulting in fewer kidney transplants, according to an analysis issued Wednesday that pointed to signs of public mistrust in the lifesaving system. More than 100,000 people in the U.S. are on the list for an organ transplant. The vast majority of them need a kidney, and thousands die waiting every year. (Neergaard, 1/14)
In related news about vaccines and mistrust 鈥
A majority of counties across the U.S. are seeing a steady rise in vaccine exemptions for religious or personal beliefs among children entering kindergarten, a trend that has accelerated since the pandemic, according to a new study. The research, published Wednesday in JAMA, is based on a data investigation by NBC News with Stanford University. Mustafa Fattah, medical fellow with NBC News, is lead author on the study. (Ozcan, 1/15)
Pediatric hospitals 鈥 Children鈥檚 National in Washington, D.C., Texas Children鈥檚, Children鈥檚 Seattle, Children鈥檚 Hospital Los Angeles, and Children鈥檚 Hospital of Philadelphia 鈥 told STAT they would be following the American Academy of Pediatrics鈥 guidance, a plan mirrored by several other pediatric groups throughout the U.S. (Payne, 1/15)
Pfizer鈥檚 Albert Bourla, leader of the first company to launch a vaccine that鈥檚 widely credited with saving millions of lives during the Covid pandemic, was the most forthright. 鈥淚 am very annoyed. I鈥檓 very disappointed. I鈥檓 seriously frustrated,鈥 Bourla said during a lunch with journalists, discussing efforts to curtail use of the Covid shots. 鈥淲hat is happening has zero scientific merit and is just serving an agenda which is political, and then antivax.鈥 (Muller, Smith and Thornton, 1/14)
Amid substantial changes in federal vaccine policy, New Jersey lawmakers passed a bill this week that would give the state Department of Health the authority to rely on expert recommendations beyond the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 vaccine panel. The bill has received backlash from parents rights groups and Republican legislators who say the state Department of Health is trying to become the sole authority on vaccines and bulldoze parents鈥 decision-making power. But its supporters dispute that framing and argue that parents will remain in charge of what vaccines their children receive. (Roman, 1/14)
