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The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children be vaccinated against 18 diseases, more than the U.S. government directs after it overhauled its schedule. The doctors group, which released its recommendations Monday, kept its guidance largely unchanged from its previous version from last year. The group said it doesn’t endorse the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood-vaccine schedule. The agency now recommends all children get vaccinated against 11 diseases. (Petersen, 1/26)

For more than 60 years, doctors have recommended that babies receive a vitamin K shot at birth to protect them from severe bleeding in early life. This recommendation has significantly reduced vitamin K deficiency bleeding. Without this injection at birth, babies are over 80 times more likely to develop severe bleeding, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, in recent years, health care professionals say more parents are refusing vitamin K shots for their newborns. Additionally, a study published earlier this month found that the proportion of newborns who did not receive a vitamin K shot has nearly doubled in recent years. (Cobern and Kekatos, 1/23)

Routine childhood vaccinations, nor the aluminum used as vaccine adjuvants, are not associated with an increased risk of epilepsy in young children, according to a new case-control study published this week in The Journal of Pediatrics. The study, led by a team from the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute in Marshfield, Wisconsin, examined whether being up to date on recommended vaccines or having higher cumulative exposure to vaccine-related aluminum was linked to the development of epilepsy in children under age four. (Bergeson, 1/23)

Dr. William Foege, a leader of one of humanity’s greatest public health victories — the global eradication of smallpox — has died. Foege died Saturday in Atlanta at the age of 89, according to the Task Force for Global Health, which he co-founded. The 6-foot-7 inch Foege literally stood out in the field of public health. A whip-smart medical doctor with a calm demeanor, he had a canny knack for beating back infectious diseases. (Stobbe, 1/25)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced just one day after the U.S. officially withdrew from the World Health Organization (WHO) that his state would become the first to join the organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, in a seeming rebuke of the Trump administration’s withdrawal from international collaborations. Newsom traveled this week to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he was scheduled to speak at an event but was canceled at the last moment. During his trip, he met with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (Choi, 1/23)

The South Carolina Department of Public Health (DPH) today confirmed 54 new measles cases in just three days, raising the size of its outbreak, which DPH first reported in October, to 700 cases. The news comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 416 total US cases so far this month—an increase of 245 infections in the past week—and as US health officials downplay the burgeoning outbreak and the key role that vaccines play in preventing illness. (Wappes, 1/23)

Flu activity is starting to decline nationwide, according to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC estimated on Friday that there have been at least 19 million illnesses, 250,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths from flu so far this season. Currently, seven states are seeing "very high" levels of flu-like illnesses while 23 states are seeing "high" levels, CDC data shows. (Benadjaoud, Zhang, and Kekatos, 1/23)