The patient acquired bird flu from backyard chickens.

The horrific Guinea worm once infected millions of people a year. Thanks to Jimmy Carter and others, the leg-infesting parasite is now on the brink of eradication.

There have been over 32,000 cases of whooping cough this year, CDC data shows—the highest count seen in a decade.

The cat death appears to be the first case of H5N1 in the U.S. traced to raw pet food.

New research is the latest to show that raw milk can be a viable transmission route for bird flu.

President-elect Donald Trump dispelled rumors Monday that his administration would seek to ban the polio vaccine, telling reporters Monday, "that's not going to happen." 

Questions about how Trump's nominee for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has made a name for himself challenging the efficacy of vaccines, and on Friday the New York Times published a report that raised concerns he will attempt to ban the polio vaccine. According to the report, a lawyer assisting Kennedy with staffing the department, previously petitioned to pause the distribution of 13 vaccines while working for nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network, including a vaccine for polio. 

The report spurred criticism of Kennedy's nomination, including from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said "efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are … dangerous."  

When asked by reporters during a press conference from Trump's Mar-A-Lago resort whether his administration would ban the vaccine, Trump replied "No," but said he wanted Kennedy "to come back with a report as to what he thinks" about the polio vaccine.

RFK JR SET TO FACE ABORTION, VACCINE SCRUTINY IN SIT-DOWNS WITH SENATORS ON CAPITOL HILL

"We're going to have reports – nothing is going to happen very quickly," Trump told reporters. "I think you're going to find that [Kennedy] is much – he's a very rational guy. I found him to be very rational."

"You're not going to lose the polio vaccine, that's not going to happen," Trump reiterated. 

Trump pointed out to reporters that he has friends who have been affected by the poliovirus and noted how when they took the vaccine "it ended." He also lauded Dr. Jonas Salk, inventor of the first polio vaccine, for his efforts to help people like his friends. 

NOBEL LAUREATES CRITICIZE RFK JR. HHS NOMINATION OVER ‘LACK OF CREDENTIALS,’ VACCINE STANCE

While Trump's response squashed rumors his administration was planning on banning the polio vaccine, he did raise concern about the rising rates of autism in the United States, which Kennedy has linked to vaccines in the past.

"We're going to look into finding why the Autism rate is so much higher than it was 20, 25, 30 years ago," Trump said during his response about banning the polio vaccine. "I mean it's, like, 100 times higher. There's something wrong and we're going to try finding that."

In response to an inquiry about the future of the polio vaccine, a Trump transition team spokesperson said, "Mr. Kennedy believes the Polio Vaccine should be available to the public and thoroughly and properly studied."

While the exact fate of the misplaced samples is still unknown, they likely pose no danger to the public, government officials have said.

A new CDC report details how splash pads have caused dozens of waterborne outbreaks and plenty of gastrointestinal illness since they became popular in the 1990s.

A potential outbreak of a flu-like illness has killed nearly 150 people in the region, mostly children over 15.

There's nothing quite like a deep dive into the shallow, vomitous puddles of children's splash pads. Even toeing the edge is enough to have one longing for the unsettling warmth of a kiddie pool. But the brave souls at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have done it, wading into 25 years' worth of records on gastrointestinal outbreaks linked to the wellsprings of fecal pathogens. And they unsurprisingly found enough retch-inducing results to make any modern-day John Snows want to start removing some water handles.

Between 1997 and 2022, splash pads across the country were linked to at least 60 outbreaks, with the largest sickening over 2,000 water frolickers in one go. In all, the outbreaks led to at least 10,611 illnesses, 152 hospitalizations, and 99 emergency department visits. People, mostly children, were sickened with pathogens including Cryptosporidium, Camplyobacter jejuni, Giardia duodenalis, Salmonella, Shigella, and norovirus, according to the analysis, published Tuesday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The tallies of outbreaks and illnesses are likely undercounts, given reporting delays and missed connections.

Though previous outbreak-based studies have provided bursts of data, the new analysis is the first to provide a comprehensive catalog of all the documented outbreaks since splash pads erupted in the 1990s. Together, they provide a clear, stomach-churning explanation of how the outbreaks keep happening. Basically, small children go into the watery playgrounds while they're sick and spread their germs.

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