Last year’s flu season was one of the worst ones we’ve seen in decades, with nearly 80,000 flu-related deaths and the highest hospitalization rate for the virus in modern history. But new estimations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are giving us an even clearer idea of just how bad last…

While the flu is no picnic for anyone, it can be especially risky and sometimes deadly for young children. But a new survey suggests many people still avoid the flu shot because of misconceptions about how it works, including that the vaccine actually can give you the flu.

This past winter’s flu season was quickly recognized as one of the worst to come along in a long time. But new data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention highlights just destructive it was in the United States. According to new data, there were 80,000 flu-related deaths last season, the single highest…

The anti-vaccination movement might be getting a boost from Twitter bots and Russian trolls, suggests a new study published Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health. It found that certain kinds of bot accounts were more likely to send antivax tweets than were accounts belonging to actual people, while alleged…

A deadly viral disease spread by bats is once again infecting humans, but in this case, it isn’t Ebola. As of June 1, an outbreak of the Nipah virus has infected at least 18 people and killed 17 in Kerala, India, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported. The outbreak, which is the first to hit South India, raises…

Ebola has once again resurfaced. On Friday, the World Health Organization reported that there have been at least 34 suspected cases of the viral disease and 18 deaths since early April in the Bikoro District of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). But Ebola’s resurgence, hardly unexpected, can’t help but bring…

Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science are trying to create a vaccine for a class of drugs most infamously, if wrongly, accused of turning people into face-eating zombies commonly known as bath salts. And their latest results in rats, presented this week at the annual Experimental Biology…

The Food and Drug Administration has launched a criminal investigation into an offshore herpes research trial that began with secret injections of an unauthorized herpes vaccine in US hotel rooms, according to a report by Kaiser Health News.

If you’ve shirked your societal responsibility by not getting vaccinated against influenza and managed to avoid getting sick, congrats! You’re probably out of the woods now. The latest surveillance report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates this especially severe flu season is finally…

Scientists in the UK are looking to recruit thousands of teens (presumably with attitude) to help them settle a debate over whether vaccines for a certain type of meningitis should be in wider use.

Decades of research has shown that vaccines do not cause autism spectrum disorder (ASD). But the fear of that connection continues to linger. And a new study published today in JAMA Pediatrics suggests that it’s scaring families affected by autism into not getting their children vaccinated.

The track record of Trump appointees tasked with safeguarding the country’s public health has been, in the kindest sense, spotty. So it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that the latest person tapped to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, is alleged to have engaged in research…

Measles has just visited the Big Apple, and public health officials are warning the city’s small unvaccinated population to be on guard.

The HPV vaccine is a fantastic drug that prevents everything from cervical cancer in women to dick cancer in men. But a new study from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has found that vaccination rates for American teenagers is still tragically low.

Even under the best of circumstances, cancer treatment can be an excruciating, costly ordeal that tragically doesn’t even work sometimes. In light of that reality, scientists and doctors have long searched for a way to proactively head off the problem using a vaccine. One potential approach to a cancer vaccine,…

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided the latest updates on how this winter’s flu season is continuing to shape up. And much like anything else these days, it’s a pile of gloom and doom.

Spend time talking to someone who considers themselves an anti-vaxxer—or more generously, a vaccine skeptic—and something becomes apparent pretty soon: The conspiracy well usually runs deep. There’s no shortage of anti-vaxxers who also believe in other iffy things, like “natural” cancer treatments and a…