The U.S. has lost its status as a country where measles is eliminated, a public health triumph secured a quarter century ago.
Researchers with direct knowledge of the deliberations on the country’s status told KFF Health News that the Pan American Health Organization reached the conclusion this week: Measles has reestablished regular transmission in the country.
PAHO had planned a public announcement on Nov. 17.
In public health parlance, measles elimination depends on a country’s sporadic outbreaks ending within a year. That’s no longer happening in the United States.
“It’s a very sad moment,” said Anne Schuchat, an epidemiologist and a former deputy director at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who was not involved in PAHO’s decision.
“Measles causes so much unnecessary suffering, everything from a high fever and missed work and school to long-term complications like progressive degenerative nerve disease and death,” Schuchat said.
Measles outbreaks are entirely preventable: Two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine prevent about 97% of infections, so when almost everyone in a community is fully vaccinated, the virus can’t spread.
In the past two years, over 830 people have been hospitalized with measles in the U.S. More than 8,000 people have been sickened in outbreaks that have cost roughly $125 million in medical care, public health response, and productivity losses, Johns Hopkins University researchers estimate.
States have reported 13 measles-associated deaths, including a 7-month-old in New York and infants in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in recent months. Babies typically aren’t vaccinated before they’re a year old.
PAHO, an international group that oversees health in the Americas and works with the World Health Organization, based its assessment on two analyses: one by the CDC and another by an independent group of measles experts.
Researchers anticipated this conclusion after an outbreak in Utah surpassed the one-year mark in June.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, Emily Hilliard, attributed the resurgence of measles to vaccination gaps that opened years before this administration. Indeed, rates of childhood vaccination have steadily declined since the COVID pandemic started.
But many scientists also blame the Trump administration for spreading vaccine misinformation and stifling a swift, strong response to outbreaks.
For example, the administration cut millions of dollars from children’s immunization programs run by state health departments and terminated funds for research on vaccine hesitancy.
After Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sacked CDC director Susan Monarez in August 2025, she told Congress she was fired because she would not preapprove changes to vaccine recommendations “without reviewing the evidence.”
Monarez added that “we already have seen the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years” and that, “if vaccine protections are weakened, preventable diseases will return.”
Spokespeople for HHS and the White House defended the administration, and Kennedy, who led a prominent anti-vaccine organization before he took the helm at HHS. “The President and the Secretary have repeatedly encouraged measles vaccination, coordinated with states, and facilitated the deployment of vaccine doses across the country,” White House spokesperson Allison Schuster wrote in an email.
Past administrations sounded alarms
For more than three decades, the federal government treated measles as a preventable tragedy, with sizable outbreaks triggering national efforts to boost vaccination and stop the virus from spreading.
That’s no longer the case, said Patsy Stinchfield, executive director of the Measles Collaborative, a new initiative that educates the public about vaccines and assists health workers responding to outbreaks.
Stinchfield was a pediatric nurse at a children’s hospital in Minnesota during the nation’s last surge of measles before elimination, from 1989 to 1991. She recalled an entire ward devoted to children with measles and the enormous effort required to prevent the virus from spreading to kids with cancer and weakened immune systems.
Two children at the hospital died of measles. “That changed my career forever,” she said.
Back then, she said, the federal government “saw the urgency.” Officials held press conferences, spoke on the news about vaccines, issued clinical guidelines, and published reports in the CDC’s flagship journal — the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, or MMWR — that drove policies.
When data suggested that some children weren’t mounting a strong response to a single dose of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, a CDC advisory committee recommended two doses of the shot.
When CDC analyses found that many children with measles hadn’t been vaccinated due to cost, the government launched the Vaccines for Children program to make immunizations available free of charge to underinsured families.
Cases plummeted. By 2000, the CDC and PAHO determined that measles was no longer a national threat — measles transmission had been eliminated.
“Elimination” allows for occasional outbreaks, because measles is not eradicated worldwide and a small fraction of people, such as young infants, can’t be protected by vaccines.
People infected abroad sparked occasional outbreaks after U.S. elimination, but — until now — those fizzled out because of herd immunity, when 95% of people within a community are immunized. In those situations, outbreaks peter out and vulnerable people are protected.
It would be 14 years before another significant outbreak in the U.S. Then in 2015, the virus took off among unvaccinated children at Disney parks in California, giving rise to outbreaks elsewhere. Congress saw some 125 cases as an emergency and summoned the CDC’s Schuchat to testify on the situation.
“Vaccination wasn’t a partisan issue,” she recalled. “This was about problem-solving: What can we do about this?”
National television aired a video of then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy talking with Sesame Street’s Elmo about vaccination. HHS officials worked with vaccine experts on strategies to boost public confidence in vaccines. California and Vermont tightened vaccine requirements.
In 2019, House and Senate committees met again about measles, as a large outbreak took hold in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey took hold. Congress asked HHS leaders how the administration planned to curb the rise of vaccine misinformation online.
“Internet fraudsters who claim that vaccines are not safe are preying on the unfounded fears and daily struggles of parents, and they are creating a public health hazard that is entirely preventable,” Lamar Alexander, then a Republican senator from Tennessee, said at the time.
Alex Azar, health secretary during the first Trump administration, and then-CDC Director Robert Redfield held a press conference stressing the “importance of on-time vaccination.”
And during the 2014, 2015, and 2019 outbreaks, the CDC’s MMWR published detailed articles within weeks of data collection. Timing matters since the reports guide emergency response. “The MMWR is the voice of the CDC,” Schuchat said, “alerting the nation, the media, clinicians, and public health experts to events that require action.”
‘The dog didn’t bark’
Just after President Donald Trump took office in 2025, a measles outbreak exploded in West Texas. Within seven months, it surpassed the size of any in the U.S. since 1992, spread to Mexico and at least three other states, sickened more than 4,500 people in the two countries, and killed at least 16.
Instead of broadcasting clear, repeated messages on the importance of measles vaccines, Kennedy falsely claimed on Fox News that they lead to “deaths every year.”
Congress didn’t call a hearing, and HHS didn’t send funds until after the emergency in West Texas had subsided. Besides an annual measles update, the MMWR didn’t publish a single report on the outbreaks that year.
“A lot of this is the dog didn’t bark,” said Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy researcher at the University of California Law San Francisco. “Something that normally happens isn’t happening.”
Political appointees have delayed or blocked several MMWR articles, according to multiple CDC officials whom KFF Health News agreed not to identify because they feared retaliation for speaking with the press. “There’s a deliberate effort to downplay vaccine-preventable diseases by the administration,” one official said.
“Measles reports from West Texas and New Mexico were intentionally shelved,” another scientist at the agency said. In April, The Washington Post reported that Jay Bhattacharya, who temporarily led the CDC this year and remains head of the National Institutes of Health, had blocked the publication of a study in the MMWR finding that COVID vaccines halved the likelihood of emergency department visits.
“The suggestion that HHS is deliberately suppressing information about measles or other vaccine-preventable diseases is false,” Hilliard, the HHS spokesperson, said in an email to KFF Health News.
Hilliard said Kennedy and the CDC have provided approximately $100 million in additional funding to respond to outbreaks. The timing of MMWR reports, she added, varies due to factors such as data analysis and scientific review.
More than a year after data was collected from Texas, a few reports came out in the CDC’s journal. One study on 60 people hospitalized for measles in West Texas revealed that two required intubation and mechanical ventilation and that a baby born to a mother with measles experienced dangerous brain swelling due to the virus.
The MMWR still hasn’t published detailed reports on massive outbreaks in South Carolina, Utah, and Pennsylvania. The CDC’s national measles update hasn’t appeared in the MMWR this year either. Instead, the journal has featured less urgent articles on scientific techniques that may help characterize future outbreaks.
CDC scientists told KFF Health News that they continue to analyze data but no longer expect to publish their findings in the MMWR because the process has become slow, opaque, and unpredictable. An urgent CDC report on the risks of measles to pregnant women was withheld, The Washington Post reported recently.
“We have two CDCs now,” an official at the agency said. “One is staffed by CDC scientists and civil servants who are committed to public health, and the other is political appointees who go in and change the website.”
The CDC’s measles dashboard counts four fewer measles deaths than state health departments have reported this year. Kennedy has disputed some deaths and made unsubstantiated claims that Pennsylvania health officials misrepresented data.
Kennedy personally instructed the CDC to alter language on a webpage that said vaccines do not cause autism, he told The New York Times last year.
The page now suggests a potential link between the two and no longer lists a slew of peer-reviewed studies that rigorously searched for an association and found none. These have been replaced with speculation about a correlation and unsubstantiated accusations that the scientific establishment has buried a potential link in order “to prevent vaccine hesitancy.”
The Trump administration has muddied the message on vaccines in other ways, Reiss said. Trump incorrectly said in August that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine could be “quite lethal,” and he repeated the debunked idea that vaccines may cause autism.
Stephen Miller, now Trump’s White House chief of staff, has falsely said doctors “pump your kids full of shots days after birth with no understanding of the long-term consequences.” Recommended vaccines and the vaccine schedule have been thoroughly studied.
Kennedy has made such claims for two decades, including as health secretary. “Having top leadership disseminating rumors, disinformation and flat-out falsehoods has been unforgivable,” Schuchat said.
When pressed by journalists and Congress, Kennedy and Trump have recommended measles vaccines. But they haven’t repeated the message clearly and unprompted on social media or on the podcasts and videos that Kennedy regularly appears in.
Kennedy also replaced vaccine experts on a panel advising the CDC with fringe researchers holding anti-vaccine views. And under his leadership, the CDC has laid off or forced out many vaccine specialists, including all of those in a group that partners with community organizations and pharmacies, the Immunization Services Division partnership branch.
At the same time, Kennedy has devoted resources to searching for potential harms from vaccines, including through an attempted clinical trial considered unnecessary and unethical by medical societies and the WHO.
To regain measles elimination status, the current U.S. outbreaks must end — then, future outbreaks must stop spreading within a year, said Paul Rota, a microbiologist and former CDC official. With outbreaks expanding in several states, he said, that moment isn’t on the horizon.
“Bigger fires create more embers, and any one of those embers can seed another fire,” he said.

Want to dodge the common cold, flu, RSV, and more? A habit common in Japan could help.
In fact, folks have been doing it multiple times a day for centuries to prevent colds — at school, at home, and at the office. It’s completely free: It’ll only cost you tap water and a few moments out of your day.
Research suggests it might not just be an old wives’ tale or cultural phenomenon.
It’s called “ugai,” rinsing the mouth with water. In Japan, it’s a practice as common as washing your hands. In fact, the gargling’s often done in the same bathroom visit.
The idea is that it’ll dislodge and wash away harmful microbes before they create infection.
Researchers tested plain water against no gargling, and gargling with a povidone-iodine rinse — an antiseptic sold as Betadine for sore throats in US pharmacies.
They found that gargling water significantly beat both the medicine and not gargling when it comes to keeping people healthy. But other researchers say the benefits aren’t so clear cut.
Here’s what to know.
What researchers found
Researchers split 387 participants aged 18 to 65 into three groups: one continuing their normal habits without gargling, one that gargled with water three times a day, and one that gargled with diluted povidone-iodine three times a day.
They continued through the winter cold season, and many became sick over two months.
Those who gargled with plain water had a much lower incidence rate of illness compared to the other groups — 36% lower.
Those who gargled with the medicine did have a slightly lower incidence rate, but it was not statistically significant.
Authors also noted that those who became sick with the water gargle had milder symptoms like coughing.
Not so fast…
That study was done over 20 years ago in 2005, so we’ve had time to poke holes in it. The results of similar studies haven’t been able to replicate these findings, and have produced mixed results.
A 2014 study did a similar comparison: gargling with tap water compared with no gargling at all. They found no difference in who developed an upper respiratory tract infection.
A meta analysis of both the 2005 and 2014 studies found there was little to no evidence that gargling water only helped with developing upper respiratory tract infections.
Another study, done in 2012, found that gargling water could lower the likelihood young children (aged 2 to 6) developed fevers. Water helped, but green tea was even better.
Since then, a number of studies examined gargling with green tea, which contains antioxidants called catechins some researchers suspected might help us fight off colds.
A 2024 study found that green tea helped lower respiratory infection rates compared to water, while a 2026 study didn’t find a statistically significant difference between the two.
As for other rinses, a 2025 study found that mouthwash could be helpful in preventing respiratory illness, though it’s important to note they only measured symptoms, not confirmed illness.
All this said, what we do know for sure is that once someone is actually sick, gargling can help with symptoms — particularly with saltwater and medicated mouthwash.

Lee died in February. We celebrated his life the Saturday before Father’s Day. I should have been grieving. Instead, I was taking delivery of flowers and preparing brisket for the get-together after the service. I was hugging siblings and grandchildren and neighbors. I was emailing old colleagues and setting up Zoom links for distant friends. But that was OK; I had been grieving my loss of Lee for a very long time — indeed, for the years spanning the distance between middle and old age. I may never completely finish that process, but it certainly is not new; I’m kind of used to it anyway.
I am a historian. My world is structured by events and dates. Lee and I met in 1977 and married in 1978. I was 26 and he was 36. Our four sons were born between 1980 and 1983. (Yes, the youngest are twins.) We rode out lots of ups and downs and managed to stay married until 2010, when we divorced.
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Our split was horribly painful; it was hard to disentangle 32 years of friends, possessions and expectations. We generated enough anger and resentment to flood the gulf of silence between us. Lee had two important committed relationships with women after the divorce, further cementing our estrangement.
We had virtually no contact until our twins’ weddings in 2016 forced a rapprochement. From that point onward, interaction became easier. Conversation was initially awkward, then slid into familiar patterns. Old memories created scaffolding for a tentative new friendship. We even danced with each other. It all felt grown-up, civilized and oddly easy. He didn’t have to hate me any more. I didn’t have to dread his bad behavior or be responsible for him.
Then, in 2019, shortly before his 78th birthday, Lee was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia. No one was surprised; he had been showing signs of cognitive slippage for years. But his girlfriend contacted our sons and me, telling us about his diagnoses and explaining that she could not take on his care.
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This was an enormously wise and loving thing to do, helping to focus family concern and jump-start legitimate intervention. Rather to everyone’s surprise, including mine, it turned out that I was still part of Lee’s family.
Lee was not an easy guy to help. He had an Ivy League Ph.D. and the ego to go with it. He had a terrible temper. He drank too much. He dominated conversations and was always sure he was right about everything.
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Although he was also charming and lots of fun, his diagnoses scared him and made him see enemies everywhere he looked. Doctors had misdiagnosed him. The state, quite unjustly, wouldn’t let him keep driving. His sons were conspiring to break up his romantic relationship and keep him from going from Wisconsin to Arizona for the winter. But, for some reason, he would listen to me.
I convinced him — over and over again — that it didn’t make practical sense for him to move to Arizona. And I began to think about relocating to Minneapolis, where I could be nearer to our grandchildren and help with Lee’s care.
Even before I moved, I started to help. I spent three weeks in Lee’s house, clearing it out so that it could be put up for sale. I got rid of his library, which filled four rooms. I made endless trips to charity stores to dispose of the clothing and household goods Lee would never use again.
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Perhaps, most importantly and painfully, I went through his paper files. This needed to be done page by page, because Lee had kept copies of all of his financial documents, including personal checks, since our separation. These were mixed with correspondence, printouts of bibliographical searches, and 50 years of research notes and teaching materials.
Lee saved and filed everything. During his last few years of independence, he lost the ability to prioritize or categorize anything. His home became a physical map of his disease — cluttered, disordered, dirty and terribly sad. I wept as I burnt out two shredders and drove repeatedly to the recycling center 13 miles away. That gorgeous big brain of his had left home long before Lee did. Going, going, gone.
I closed the door of Lee’s quiet, clean, empty house and went back to my home in Wyoming. The boys told me Lee was doing well, settling into his one-bedroom apartment in a nice new downtown building. I got a puppy and did lots of cross-country skiing.
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Then Covid descended. So, on March 20, 2020, I packed up the dog and drove 1,000 miles to Minneapolis, planning to help care for my two granddaughters, then aged 2 and 4, so that their parents could work from home, and I could be near family during the pandemic.
Our local son and daughter-in-law had been Lee’s nearest relations and family support system for years. He went to my daughter-in-law’s parent’s home for holiday meals; our son clipped Lee’s awful toenails and got his hair cut. However, the pandemic and my move to Minneapolis changed things. Everybody needed more help. And Lee was getting sicker.
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At first, I did things that were easy for me, like finding new health care providers for him: a new primary care doc. A new neurologist. A new ophthalmologist. A new dentist. When Lee became too confused to live independently, I helped to find a memory care facility for him. Then, hands-off gradually became hands-on.
As the pandemic eased, I took him to medical appointments and became both his health care advocate and the family interpreter and communicator of his medical information. I often drove him to and from family social events. We went out to lunch. I bought clothes for him and tried to organize his hopelessly muddled closet and cupboards. I comforted his terrible anxiety about his phone, his wallet, his watch, his belt, his lists.
Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia are horrible. There are drugs that mask symptom progression for awhile, but the damage is ongoing and relentless. Lee lost so much of what had made him Lee during the three-and-a-half years between diagnosis and death.
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Early on, due to short-term memory loss, he stopped being able to read and write, follow a televised sports event or enjoy an old movie. His 6-foot, 3-inch frame bent and stiffened until he could not move or sit without pain. He could neither walk faster than a shuffle, nor could he easily seat himself or rise from a chair. Getting in and out of a car was a miserable ordeal. And the emotional aspects were as awful as the physical ones. Lee was bored, anxious and depressed.
But his amazing long-term memory outlived almost every other part of his personality. And I was the only one around who shared familiarity with the people, places and events of his past. Almost until he lost the ability to speak, we would chat about old colleagues and friends, ideas for research projects and trips we’d taken. Through those slow, rambling, quiet conversations, Lee held on to his identity and I found that the things fractured by our separation and divorce began to heal.
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One of those things was the family we had made together. Our sons had been adults when we separated, but they continued to suffer the pain and betrayal that came with the divorce. They had seen our marriage and family as special, unusual, and somehow indestructible. They had not seen the fissures in that carefully constructed edifice — fissures I had done my best to hide from them.
The sense of betrayal cut deep, and was compounded by Lee’s endless — and, ultimately, unsuccessful — efforts to find a new last partner: a woman who would put up with and take care of him. Our sons had to tolerate, and sometimes embrace, Lee’s ladies. At the same time, while being loyal to their dad, they maintained strong loving relationships with me.
An important and unexpected benefit of my involvement in Lee’s end-of-life care was a kind of family reunification. The out-of-town boys visited. We spent some holidays together and passed grandchildren from one elderly set of knees to another at Sunday dinners and backyard barbecues. We reminisced about that long-ago Christmas when we were all sick, wore our pajamas all day, and watched movies, cuddled up on the sofa. We took some sweet group photographs and consulted, with loving tears, about Dad’s care. And by the time the end came, we faced and experienced it together.
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Just before Thanksgiving 2022, I got a call from the memory care nurse at about 1 p.m. Lee hadn’t moved from his recliner all day. He hadn’t come to meals. He was not talking. Could I come?
This was the beginning of the last stage. Hospice care. Emotional family goodbyes. A strange holiday season. The long wait that became everyday life.
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I grew used to perching on Lee’s wheelchair next to his hospital bed and feeding him tiny pinches of coffee cake from my fingers. I asked the kind, knowledgeable hospice nurses about ways to prevent pressure sores. I requested the relentless increases in morphine doses to ease Lee’s discomfort. And I did what people have done for dying loved ones since the beginning of human time: waited for the end.
It came on a sunny February afternoon. Our eldest son had arrived from California the day before. He was with Lee when he died.
I say “loved ones.” There are many kinds of love. At some point during the last couple of years, Lee asked me, “What is our relationship now?” And I responded, “We are dear old friends.” That was as true as it could be. Lee introduced me to his caregivers as his wife; that was also true in some important ways. It was not legally accurate, but it expressed the central fact that Lee and I were married for most of our adult lives. He was with me when our children were born. I knew his body as completely as I knew my own. Divorce does not erase lived experience.
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As I planned Lee’s celebration of life, I considered the fact that I am not alone. There are many old people out there — mainly women, I suspect — caring and grieving for former spouses. We do this for many reasons; chief among them is love: love remembered, love honored.
Born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, Lucinda Myles McCray is a historian of medicine and public health who spent her professional life at British and American universities as a researcher, administrator and faculty member. The author of numerous books, articles and opinion and personal pieces, she now lives with her dog, Molly, in Minneapolis, reading, writing, grandmothering and spending as much time as possible outdoors.

Another child was sickened with a deadly strain of E. coli after being infected at a San Luis Obispo preschool by one of the five primary cases involved in the initial outbreak that killed an 18-month-old girl.
The San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department reported the case on Saturday morning, saying the child was infected through person-to person transmission and was hospitalized but is now recovering at home.
The child developed hemolytic uremic syndrome due to Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, known as STEC or O157.
“The Department of Public Health was notified by the individual’s medical provider, and our Public Health Laboratory confirmed the infection was caused by E. coli O157,” the agency said in a news release.
Public Health did not identify the preschool but said it had been closed for full disinfection and all families had been notified.
The new case comes after an 18-month-old died and two other children were hospitalized in the Shiga toxin-producing E. coli outbreak linked to Brookshire Farms. The outbreak sickened five people in total.
The preschool child did not visit the farm, Public Health said.
“Since the transmission is thought to have occurred at the school, families were notified, thorough cleaning protocols were initiated, and the affected classrooms will be closed on Monday,” said County Health Officer Dr. Christy Mulkerin. “The preschool has been working collaboratively with Public Health.”
Hemolytic uremic syndrome — or HUS — is a potentially life-threatening complication of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli infection that can damage the kidneys and other organs. It occurs most often in young children.
Symptoms of STEC include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea (which may be bloody), vomiting and, in some cases, fever, Public Health said, warnig that anyone experiencing bloody diarrhea or severe abdominal cramps should contact a healthcare provider immediately.
Young children under the age of 5, older adults and people with weakened immune systems are at greater risk of serious complications from E. coli infections.
How to prevent E. coli infections
Health and safety reminders to help prevent E. coli infections include:
Washing hands thoroughly with soap and water after using the bathroom, changing diapers, handling animals, and before preparing or eating food.
Washing fruits and vegetables before eating them.
Keeping raw foods separate from ready-to-eat foods during preparation and storage.
Avoiding consumption of untreated water.
Avoiding unpasteurized milk and juices.
For more information about Shiga-toxin producing E. coli infections, visit the California Department of Public Health website.
Public Health also shared a resource for parents of children who may be experiencing stress or anxiety over the recent outbreak — a free, online parent support app for children ages 0-12 called BrightLife Kids.

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
The American Cancer Society is recommending regular prostate cancer screening starting at age 50 for men at average risk under updated guidelines released Nov. 12.
The update shifts from emphasizing individual decisions about screening to explicitly recommending regular testing for eligible men.
The new guidelines call for PSA testing every two years for average-risk men ages 50 through 69. Black men should begin annual screening at 45, regardless of family history. Other men with a father, brother or son diagnosed with prostate cancer should also begin at 45, with the frequency depending on their family history.
JOE BIDEN SHARES HEALTH UPDATE AFTER PROSTATE CANCER DIAGNOSIS WHILE ISSUING WARNING TO OTHERS
Men ages 70 to 74 should discuss whether to continue screening with their doctors; routine screening is not recommended at 75 and older.
Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among U.S. men. For disease that has not spread beyond the prostate or nearby areas, the five-year relative survival rate is nearly 100%, according to the American Cancer Society.
MAN GOES TO DOCTOR TO PROVE HE’S ‘IN PERFECT SHAPE,’ TEST REVEALS SHOCKING DIAGNOSIS
“Men think it is going to happen to someone else,” Dr. Ash Tewari, chair of the Milton and Carroll Petrie Department of Urology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, told Fox News.
The doctor, who has performed more than 10,000 prostate cancer operations, said the success rate of treating patients is exceedingly high, but that many men still need to be nudged to get screened.
A prostate cancer screening involves a simple blood test for PSA, which measures the level of prostate-specific antigen, the protein produced by normal and cancerous cells in the prostate gland.
Under the updated guidelines, a PSA level of 3 ng/mL or higher in men younger than 70 warrants a repeat test to confirm the result. There are other explanations for higher PSA levels beyond the existence of prostate cancer, such as an enlarged prostate, inflammation or an infection.
CANCER DOCTOR REVEALS 5 HABITS THAT MAY REDUCE DISEASE RISK AND IMPROVE OUTCOMES
Screening can also identify slow-growing cancers that may never cause harm. The society recommends discussing screening’s benefits and possible harms with a healthcare provider and offering close monitoring as an initial approach for low-risk cancers.
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“We know how to cure 95% of them,” said Tewari, referring to prostate cancer patients. “I can operate, we have developed medications … to get to them in time, my approach is very simple: Go right where they are.”
To reach more men, Tewari and Mount Sinai have created mobile prostate cancer screening vehicles that are deployed in neighborhoods so men can be examined where they live.
The first bus, the Mount Sinai Robert F. Smith Mobile Prostate Cancer Screening Unit, was sent out in New York City in 2022. Last month, another bus was deployed to the Atlanta Falcons-Chicago Bears game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. The Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University offered free screenings in partnership with the Atlanta Falcons during the game.
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Tewari and Mount Sinai are engaged in other ways to get the word out to men.
The ACS estimates that more than 333,000 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed in 2026, and about 36,000 will die from the disease.
Last month, actress Brooke Shields joined Tewari and directed a public service announcement advocating screening and early detection. The goal is to screen more than one million men for prostate cancer under Tewari’s Million Strong Men Initiative.
“We need to be able to talk about …down there,” a son says to his father in the PSA video.
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“I never got to have the talk with my dad early enough,” says Shields in the video. Her father, Frank, died of prostate cancer in 2003 at 61 years old.
“Prostate cancer is treatable when detected early,” she adds.
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“Prostate cancer is often a disease that families don’t talk about until there is a reason to,” said Tewari. “We want to change that. Starting the conversation early can give men an opportunity to learn about their risk, talk with their doctors about screening and act when appropriate.”
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in men. The ACS estimates that more than 333,000 men in the U.S. will be diagnosed in 2026, and about 36,000 will die from the disease.