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Child Vaccination Rate Drops Sharply in Michigan Under RFK Jr’s Influence
Vaccination rates among young children in Michigan dropped sharply during the first year of the Trump administration, a Reuters analysis of state data shows, providing an early indication of how vaccine-skeptic Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is influencing immunization practices in the United States. Michigan, an influential battleground state in U.S. elections, offers a unique view into the impact of Kennedy’s dismantling of vaccine policies that had successfully prevented large disease outbreaks for decades.
Unlike many other states, Michigan provides detailed, monthly updates on vaccination rates. A national estimate isn’t expected until later in the year. The Reuters analysis comes amid a resurgence of measles cases in the U.S. during President Donald Trump’s second term. The analysis focused on the rate at which toddlers in the state completed a series of seven vaccinations — including the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot as well as whooping cough and hepatitis B — before their third birthday, a benchmark set by federal health officials.
The series completion rate fell nearly three percentage points, to 66.5%, from January 2025 to January this year. That decline is about 13 times greater than the average annual change over the last 18 years. The only years the rate dropped more steeply were during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the U.S. financial crisis in 2008, which hit Michigan especially hard.
What Is ‘Eye Stroke’ and Why Has It Been Linked to Weight Loss Injections?
The phrase “eye stroke” has recently appeared in news reports about a very rare side effect of weight-loss injections. It’s not a formal medical diagnosis, but a shorthand used to describe a condition in which reduced blood flow damages the optic nerve and causes sudden vision loss. The phrase might be misleading. Unlike a conventional stroke — which can cause someone to lose the ability to move their limbs or speak — an eye stroke can be harder to recognize at first. Vision can be lost entirely or partially, in one or both eyes, with no numbness or paralysis.
The word “stroke” is used because, as with the more familiar condition, the underlying cause is a loss of blood supply that leads to cell death and tissue damage. The correct medical term for an eye stroke is non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (Naion). The recent connection between Naion and weight-loss treatments has made headlines following a large study examining semaglutide, the active ingredient in several popular weight-loss drugs.
TrumpRx Isn’t Doing Much for Drug Prices. What Would It Take to Change That?
But more than a month after its launch, the site, TrumpRx.gov, remains small — offering discounts on just 54 prescription drugs. Many of those drugs already have cheaper generic versions or savings programs available elsewhere, and the discounts can’t be used with insurance or count toward a deductible. Awareness of the site remains limited.
Whether TrumpRx actually lowers drug prices matters in ways that go beyond the success of the website itself. For President Donald Trump, it’s tied to a broader push on health care costs as the midterms approach. But for many Americans, the issue taps into something deeper — years of frustration with a system they say feels stacked against them, where prices are hard to track and it’s not always clear if they’re getting a fair deal.
Health policy experts say that what the administration does next will determine whether TrumpRx remains just another option or evolves into something that actually helps make prescription drug costs easier to navigate.
Pharmaceutical Companies Move Away From Horseshoe Crab Biomedical Testing
Horseshoe crabs were crawling along the shallow sandy bottoms of Earth’s oceans 200 million years before the first dinosaurs came on the scene. But some populations have declined dramatically with the rise of humans, raising concerns they may be headed toward extinction. One of the biggest drivers of their population collapse is their unsustainable harvest for their blood to be used in pharmaceuticals. Now, two major pharmaceutical companies, Amgen Inc. and Abbott Laboratories, have publicly announced they will shift toward synthetic blood instead.
The copper-based blood of horseshoe crabs contains an extract called limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) that can help detect bacterial endotoxin contamination in vaccines, injectable drugs and many other pharmaceutical products. To maintain the safety of those drugs, thousands of horseshoe crabs are captured from the wild annually for their blood. The animals, which are more closely related to spiders than to crabs, are returned to the sea after their blood has been drawn, but many don’t survive the ordeal.
Coastal development and habitat degradation are also taking a toll. Synthetic replacements for LAL were developed in 2016, but not widely adopted by pharmaceutical companies — until now. Amgen and Abbott Laboratories announced in February 2026 that they’re transitioning away from horseshoe crab blood for biomedical testing.
Adult ADHD Stimulant Prescriptions Are Surging, and Doctors Are Raising Concerns
Adults are seeking ADHD treatment at record rates. A new Canadian study reveals that stimulant prescriptions have more than doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a trend that mirrors similar surges in the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Finland. Many mental health professionals say the findings align with what they are seeing in their clinics.
The study, which analyzed data from January 2016 to June 2024, found that the demographics of those receiving stimulants have shifted significantly. Before the pandemic, 48% of new recipients were female; during the pandemic, that number jumped to 59%. The most significant growth occurred among adults aged 25 to 34.
The researchers also noted that the time between a patient’s first ADHD-related healthcare visit and their first prescription shortened during the pandemic. By June 2024, the monthly rate of adults being prescribed stimulants reached 10.4 per 1,000 people, a more than sevenfold rise since the start of the study period.
Study of Coroners’ Reports Highlights Safety Concerns Linked to Fentanyl Patch Deaths
Fentanyl is a highly potent and fast-acting synthetic opioid used to treat severe pain and is available in several forms, including injections, nasal sprays and skin patches. The study, which is published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, examined deaths associated with transdermal fentanyl patches between 1997 and 2024.
While fentanyl can be an effective treatment for pain, it has also been linked to increasing numbers of drug-related deaths worldwide. In the UK, the Medicines and Health care products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has issued several safety warnings about the risk of accidental exposure to fentanyl patches and the importance of safe disposal.
To better understand the risks, the research, led by Eman Mshari, Dr. Caroline Copeland and Dr. Georgia Richards, conducted a systematic case series linking two national sources of coronial data, the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality (NPSUM), and the Preventable Deaths Tracker, which collects coroners’ Prevention of Future Deaths (PFD) reports. By linking these datasets, the team created the first comprehensive overview of fentanyl patch-related deaths reported by coroners.
