Recent administrative efforts to endorse new coal-fired power plants and repair outdated plants are making my blood boil. For more than 30 years, I have worked tirelessly along with thousands of other public health and climate scientists to understand the very real public health threats posed by burning fossil fuels like coal. Coal-fired power plants are some of the worst offenders when it comes to causing harm to human health and the environment. In addition to being a health hazard for anyone living downwind of the coal-burning plants, it’s more expensive and less reliable than other cleaner sources for power.

Let’s look at some of the reasons why coal is bad for health. 

• When coal is burned in power plants, it releases soot – tiny particles that get deep into people’s lungs and bloodstreams. Mercury in soot is also a severe health hazard because it releases a potent neurotoxin that contributes to many chronic illnesses. Exposure to soot is linked to cancer, respiratory disease, heart disease, neurological and developmental disorders. Children and senior citizens are particularly vulnerable to impacts from coal-fired soot.
• Coal ash, the hazardous residue left after coal is burned, is a concoction of toxic metals (like lead, mercury and arsenic), cancer-causing compounds, and other dangerous substances. Power plants produce about 70 million tons of it each year. In April 2026, the Trump EPA proposed weakening federal coal ash standards.
• In 2023, a study published in Science magazine reported that:
  • Air pollution from coal power plants is associated with greater mortality than previously thought.
  • Such deaths have decreased due to air pollution regulations and coal power plant retirements.

Coal is not cheap

Prior to this administration, many utilities had already started phasing out coal plants in favor of clean energy because coal plants often need expensive repairs and emit costly, dirty fuel. Coal power is so expensive that, according to a 2023 study, 99% of the time it would be cheaper to get electricity by building entirely new wind and solar farms than it would be to buy power from existing coal plants. 

The Trump administration announced plans to provide up to $500 million in funding to coal-fired power plants in 10 states, along with an export terminal in California. The Columbia Energy Center, coal-fired plant co-owned by Alliant Energy, Madison Gas and Electric, and Wisconsin Public Service near Pardeeville, is expected to receive $19 million in federal funding for a modernization project. The plant was originally scheduled to retire by 2024. Alliant is exploring a gas conversion for one of the two primary generating units, so there is a potential for continued operations beyond the end of 2029 (the updated retirement date for the facility).

Note the Columbia plant has released more emissions of the health-harming pollutants nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide than any other Wisconsin coal-fired power plant from 2019 to 2023, the most recent five years for which data are available.

Additional costs for coal-fired energy also come from federal taxpayers subsidizing the industry for nearly 100 years. In 2026, the subsidies will be around $5.5 billion. Plus think about all the additional costs that taxpayers must absorb from the impacts of air pollutants on their health – at a time when healthcare subsidies have lapsed for millions of Americans.

There is no such thing as clean or cheap coal. As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, it’s more than time for a real Energy Independence Day from throwback policies that harm Americans and a focus on cleaner energy sources that protect human health and the environment.

When her son was a teenager, Connecticut mom Amy Wadsworth said, he was the type of kid parents rarely worry about.

He played sports, cared about his health and stayed away from drugs. In 2018, when he left West Hartford to start his freshman year at American University in Washington, D.C., she expected his biggest challenge would be adjusting to college life.

Instead, she said, he began using cannabis to cope with social anxiety and as a sleep aid.

Within months, Wadsworth’s son was calling home in the middle of the night, terrified and disoriented.

Over the next several years, his behavior became increasingly erratic, he had psychotic episodes and he was eventually diagnosed with severe cannabis use disorder. That’s when a person’s marijuana use becomes difficult to control and begins interfering with daily life.

Now 25, Wadsworth’s son has spent much of the past several years cycling through hospitals and treatment programs across the country.

“It’s definitely changed the trajectory of his life,” Wadsworth said. “It did nothing but harm him, literally harm every facet of his life — every facet, physical, mental, everything.”

States have spent the past several decades debating whether to legalize cannabis. Now, they are debating how intoxicating legal products should be.

A growing body of research suggests that frequent use of high-THC cannabis increases the risk of cannabis use disorder, psychosis and other mental health problems for users, particularly adolescents and young adults. In response, lawmakers in some states this year have moved to impose stricter potency caps, while others have scaled back or rejected such measures amid industry opposition and uncertainty over research findings.

While cannabis flower once commonly contained THC levels in the single digits, many products sold legally today contain 15% to 20% THC or more. Concentrates — such as waxes, oils and shatter — can exceed 80%.

About 15% of Americans ages 12 and older reported using marijuana in the past month in 2024, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. And about 3 in 10 people who use cannabis have cannabis use disorder, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some public health researchers and addiction specialists argue that public perceptions of marijuana have not kept pace with the growing availability of high potency products. They say broader legalization efforts — including the federal government’s recent move to reclassify medical marijuana as a less restrictive drug under the Controlled Substances Act — may reinforce the belief that cannabis is harmless.

“Moving cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III doesn’t help me save lives by decreasing the perception of that risk,” said Dr. Alta DeRoo, the chief medical officer of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit treatment providers for addiction and mental health. DeRoo also is a board-certified addiction medicine physician and OB-GYN.

Some state efforts to impose potency limits have been stalled by resistance from the cannabis industry and questions about how far governments should go in regulating a legal product.

In Connecticut, lawmakers this year reinstated a 35% THC cap on flower just weeks after voting to eliminate it. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle said they were concerned about the potential public health effects of increasingly potent marijuana products.

At the same time, the legislation moved forward with other cannabis market expansions. Lawmakers removed a 70% THC cap on concentrates, increased the amount of THC allowed in certain cannabis-infused beverages and expanded the market to include products such as topicals, tablets and capsules.

Proposals to cap THC potency have surfaced in statehouses across the country for years. This year, lawmakers in California, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Oregon and South Dakota introduced similar measures, though most did not advance.

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law in May that removes the state’s previous 5% THC potency cap starting July 1. The new law will also add a 12,000 mg possession limit for registered medical cannabis patients and allow patients over 21 to vaporize medical marijuana.

‘A perennial debate’

Lawmakers across the country have proposed a range of measures aimed at limiting the potency of cannabis products.

In Washington state, Democratic state Rep. Lauren Davis has spent years trying to place guardrails on high-potency cannabis products. Since 2020, she has introduced at least five bills that would have capped THC levels in concentrates or imposed safeguards, including age restrictions, warning labels and a higher tax rate on products with elevated THC levels.

Most of those measures were thwarted by opposition from the cannabis industry, Davis told Stateline.

Industry groups and cannabis businesses argued that Washington’s existing regulations already protected consumers and kept cannabis away from minors. Opponents also warned that limiting high-THC products would drive consumers to the illicit market, hurting legal businesses and exposing users to unregulated, possibly contaminated products.

“(The industry) then went on to basically rain down all fire and brimstone and crush every bill that I’ve ever attempted in this area,” Davis said.

The only proposal to become law was a 2024 measure that requires retailers to warn customers about the association between high-potency THC products and psychotic disorders.

Washington state does not currently impose THC caps on flower or concentrates, but it does set limits on edibles and beverages.

Nearly all states have some form of medical-only or hybrid medical and recreational cannabis program, but just eight states, Connecticut, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, have potency caps on some products, including flower, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Potency limits on edibles are far more common.

“This is a perennial debate that comes up in Vermont and elsewhere around higher potency products,” said James Pepper, who chairs the Vermont Cannabis Control Board, the agency that regulates the state’s market.

“I feel like the concerns are certainly real,” he added.

In Oklahoma, a recent incident in which a 4-year-old boy was hospitalized and remained unconscious for more than a day after his parents said he ingested a 1,000 mg edible found at a playground has added to growing debate over high-potency cannabis products in the state.

“We know that some of our medical patients truly do need higher potency products, but do we really need a 2,000 milligram gummy available for anyone with a patient license to purchase in an Oklahoma dispensary?” said Adria Berry, the executive director of the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, which oversees the state’s medical market.

Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt also signed a measure into law last month that will take effect in November, adding stricter packaging and labeling requirements, including restrictions intended to prevent products from resembling candy or appealing to children.

While some industry experts acknowledge the potential harms, they say the focus should be on consumer education and clear information about potency and effects, rather than new restrictions.

An official with Trulieve, a cannabis company that operates dispensaries in eight states, told Stateline that its products are independently tested and that potency information is available for customers to review and ask questions about, including a product’s effects.

“We believe that that piece of information is critical for a consumer to make an educated decision on what type and what potency of product they are looking to consume,” said Lauren Niehaus, Trulieve’s executive director of government relations.

Some advocacy and trade groups, such as the National Cannabis Industry Association and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), argue that policymakers should steer consumers into tightly regulated legal markets rather than imposing blanket THC caps that could push some users back to illicit sellers. They say that accurate labeling, child-resistant packaging and public education campaigns are the best strategies to protect public health and prevent youth access.

“It’s undoubtedly safer and better for public health outcomes to regulate these products,” said Adam Rosenberg, who chairs the board of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Paul Armentano, NORML’s deputy director, said potency caps oversimplify the risks of cannabis products and fail to account for how consumers actually use them. Consumers view ultra-potent products as a novelty, he said, and ultimately gravitate toward lower-potency options.

“When you look at state-tracked sales in legal states, cannabis flower or botanical cannabis still outsells every other product, and I would dare say it’s because that is the most moderate to low potency product available on the shelf, and that’s what most people want,” Armentano said.

Armentano also argued that some of the strongest calls for THC limits come from opponents of legalization, who see potency restrictions as a way to gradually roll back access to legal cannabis.

What the research says

A study published earlier this year in JAMA Health Forum found that adolescents who use cannabis, including products with higher potencies, had a significantly increased risk of developing psychotic and bipolar disorders, along with higher risks of depression and anxiety. The research followed about 463,000 adolescents in Northern California between ages 13 and 17 and tracked outcomes into early adulthood. The study did not, however examine whether the use of higher-potency products is more likely to cause psychotic and bipolar disorders.

But other research has linked frequent use of high-potency cannabis to a greater risk of psychosis and psychotic disorders, particularly among heavy users. Several studies have found a dose-response relationship, meaning the risk tends to rise as THC concentration and frequency of use increase. Experts caution, however, that many studies cannot definitively prove that cannabis causes psychosis and that individual risk varies widely.

Other research suggests the risk of developing psychosis may be higher for adolescents and young adults, whose brains are still developing, as well as people with existing mental health conditions or a family history of psychotic disorders.

“I’ve seen patients come through our facilities where they haven’t done any other drugs other than just high-potency marijuana, and their psychosis is remarkable,” said DeRoo, of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. “They don’t have a grasp of reality. They come in seeing things, they come in believing things, alternate realities.”

John Puls, a psychotherapist and addiction specialist in Florida, has seen similar patterns in his practice at Full Life Comprehensive Care, particularly among adolescents and young adults using high-potency products.

He said families often don’t believe cannabis alone could be driving such dramatic changes. Beyond psychosis, he added, cannabis can chip away at more ordinary parts of life: Motivation drops, executive functioning suffers, patients miss appointments or forget obligations, and short‑term memory and relationships start to fray.

Some medical and industry experts say that cannabis can provide meaningful relief for some people, including those undergoing cancer treatment or who have chronic pain. But there is very little consensus on appropriate medical uses, dosing and long-term effects, particularly as products vary widely in potency.

“If there’s no standardized testing of products, or if there’s no enforcement of potency limits, then we might be putting people at more risk,” said Dr. Smita Das, an adult addiction psychiatrist and a clinical professor at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at awatford@stateline.org.

Vaccine hesitancy fed by misinformation is causing new surges of measles and whooping cough, while COVID-19 hotspots persist in some states and a new threat looms from an Ebola outbreak in central Africa.  

Nationally there have been 1,983 measles cases this year, nearly the 2,288 total for all of 2025, which in itself was the worst year since 1991, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Friday.  

Halfway through the year, 12 states and the District of Columbia already have more measles cases than they did for a full year in 2025. That’s true for South Carolina and Utah, where cases are already more than double last year, and also for states such as Florida, which has 139 cases so far compared with eight in 2025, and Virginia, which already has 63 compared with six in all of 2025.  

South Carolina, the state with the highest number of cases this year at 669, declared an end in April to an outbreak that was the nation’s largest in 35 years. The outbreak in the northwestern part of the state was centered in Spartanburg County, where religious exemptions to vaccination have spiked.  

The Utah outbreak, which began in the Short Creek area on the Utah/Arizona border, where vaccination rates are low, has generated 484 cases this year and is now slowing, said Dr. Andrew Pavia, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Utah, speaking at a May 26 briefing for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 

Dozens of measles patients have been hospitalized with serious symptoms such as brain inflammation or pneumonia, he said, and one baby developed life-threatening congenital measles during pregnancy but survived, he said.

The national increases signal that the U.S. will certainly lose the measles elimination status it gained in 2000, Pavia said, in a determination due this fall. 

“Most state public health departments are stretched very, very thin, limiting their ability to contain measles. Anti-vaccine rhetoric has made this all the more difficult,” Pavia said. He referred to $11 billion in federal funding cuts to local public health last year that were delayed by a restraining order when states sued. The case is in settlement negotiations, according to court records. 

The Trump administration cited a “non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago” in the funding cuts, but COVID-19 is still causing more than 1,000 deaths a month and wastewater surveillance still shows hotspots in the Appalachian region and some other states, including Michigan.

Whooping cough is also on the rise with Ohio and Florida most affected. Deaths last year were at the highest level, 22, since 2010, according to the latest CDC WONDER provisional statistics.  

“The rising number of deaths from whooping cough, including among infants, is a reminder of the vital importance of vaccination,” said Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a pediatrician and professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore who follows whooping cough trends. 

“Families who follow public health guidance on vaccination and other precautions can avoid a needless tragedy,” Sharfstein said. 

Louisiana was accused of unusual delays in reporting a whooping cough outbreak last year that claimed at least two lives. Shortly after the deaths were reported, the state ended promotion of vaccines and vaccination events. At least three babies died in Kentucky last year along with at least one in Oregon. 

Unvaccinated people are like fuel for the wildfire of disease outbreaks, said Pavia, of the University of Utah, in his remarks. 

“Until we can restore faith in vaccines and restore funding for our public health agencies and increase measles vaccine coverage, we have to anticipate that there will be many more outbreaks, and some of these may blow up into very large conflagrations,” Pavia said.

Meanwhile the Trump administration announced a new quarantine center in Kenya opening Friday, May 29, for Americans exposed to the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The move was criticized by the Infectious Diseases Society of America in a statement, saying the decision to send exposed Americans to Kenya “raises serious questions about resources, timing and the level of care Americans sent there will receive.”

On Ebola, a May 22 CDC directive prohibited United States entry of non-citizens who had been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or nearby Uganda or South Sudan, in the previous 21 days. The disease has killed 224 people in that region, and there are more than 900 suspected cases. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Health officials from the U.S. cities hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup say they are preparing to deal with infectious diseases, heat-related illness, and an array of other health threats when millions of fans, many of them from overseas, come to watch the games.

The World Cup is expected to draw between 5 million and 7 million soccer fans to the 11 U.S. host cities, which are Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City (in partnership with East Rutherford, New Jersey), Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

The newly formed Big Cities Health Coalition, a consortium of health officials from 36 of the nation’s largest health departments, says it has been formulating a strategy to mitigate any negative health impacts from such a large influx of people entering the country at once.

At a news briefing on Wednesday, health officials from Atlanta, Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, and San Jose said they are preparing for disease monitoring and contact tracing during the weeks of soccer matches, which begin on June 11.

The officials said they aren’t concerned about the hantavirus, which is very rare. However, they are worried about the spread of measles after recent outbreaks around the country.

“Somebody might be here for a game in Atlanta and be exposed to something — let’s say measles, since that’s been so prevalent lately,” said Marcus Plescia, district health director at the Fulton County Board of Health, which includes the Atlanta region, “But by the time we realize that and start to look at who might be at risk, that fan might have traveled to Dallas to see their team playing there.”

“Something that happens here may actually have its impact somewhere else, and we’re going to have to think about how we handle that and hand off information.”

Alister Martin, commissioner of New York City’s health and mental hygiene department, said health officials also are concerned about extreme heat, alcohol and drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases.

“Relevant teams from disease control to mental health have been preparing to work in new capacities for months, and most recently, we tested our emergency capacity at our healthcare facilities,” Martin said.

At the briefing, the health officials said they are strapped for resources as a result of the expiration of COVID-19-era public health funding, and that host cities have gotten federal dollars for security and infrastructure needs but not for public health.

“In Atlanta, at least, there’s been some significant investment in infrastructure improvements, and those are very important things,” Plescia said. “We’ve not received a lot of direct funding for specific public health services.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The State Department must spend the $600 million Congress approved for an international vaccine program, according to a letter sent Monday by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators.

The six senior members of the Appropriations Committee, three Republicans and three Democrats, called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to fulfill the government’s “pledge” to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.

“GAVI plays a critical role in averting the spread of preventable diseases around the globe and helps protect public health in our country by stopping outbreaks before they reach our borders,” the senators wrote. “Congressional support for GAVI endures because of its proven success as a public-private partnership, immunizing more than 1.1 billion children – and in turn preventing 20.6 million deaths – since its inception in 2000.”

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine; ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash.; State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., all signed the letter.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, didn’t sign the letter. 

A State Department spokesperson wrote in an email the department doesn’t “comment on congressional correspondence.” 

Senators wrote in the letter that GAVI “supports U.S. industry and jobs, purchasing more than $12.5 billion in U.S.-manufactured goods and vaccines.”

“It is the world’s leading purchaser of U.S.-produced vaccines and hosts the U.S.-founded global vaccine stockpile,” the senators wrote. “Additionally, vaccines funded through GAVI are approved through the same standards as used by the Food and Drug Administration.”

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom. It is  part of the Grist series Vital Signs, exploring the ways climate change affects your health. This reporting initiative is made possible thanks to support from the Wellcome Trust.

Bailey Magers and Sunil Kumar cut strange figures on Pensacola Beach. Bags of disinfectant solution surrounded them on the white sand; their gloved hands juggled test tubes while layers of rubber and plastic shielded their skin from the elements. As the two organized their seawater samples on the popular Florida beach last August, an older woman wearing a swimsuit walked over to ask what they were doing.

“We’re just actively monitoring water quality,” they told her, but she pressed on.

“Are you looking for that flesh-eating bacteria?”

“We’re looking into it,” they replied, hoping not to frighten her. The woman turned back toward the ocean, her curiosity satisfied. As she walked away, Kumar noticed that she had scrapes and bruises on her body. A few minutes later, he watched her step into the waves. He shook off a chill and returned to the task at hand. 

Magers and Kumar study a bacteria called Vibrio, part of a lineage of ancient marine species that likely emerged sometime around the Paleozoic Era. Enormous, shallow seas flooded the massive, interconnected supercontinents that constituted the Earth’s landmass at the time, and complex marine ecosystems developed that thrived in these temperate, freshly-formed bodies of water. Researchers think there are more than 70 Vibrio species in the environment today, hundreds of millions of years later. The organisms float in warm, brackish water, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. 

A small number of Vibrio species can sicken and even kill. In worst-case scenarios, a person who has been exposed to the most dangerous of them — by swimming in brackish water with an open wound or ingesting a piece of raw shellfish that is contaminated with the tasteless and odorless toxin — may find themselves with only hours before the flesh on one or more extremities starts to bruise, swell, and decay. Without the quick aid of powerful antibiotics, septic shock can set in and lead to death. Anyone can get infected, though it is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. Research shows that temperature and salinity are the largest predictors of how widespread Vibrio bacteria are. As water temperatures rise, so does the concentration of Vibrio in seawater — boosting the risk of infection for beachgoers and shellfish consumers. The bacteria start getting active in water temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as coastal waters warm throughout the summer. In recent years, scientists have documented Vibrio expanding into places that were once too cold to support the bacteria, pushing as far north along the U.S. East Coast as Maine and appearing with more prevalence in temperate seas around the world. 

Vibriosis infections in general are the leading cause of shellfish-related illness in the U.S. They have increased “more than any other illness caused by a pathogen in the U.S. food supply” since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, started keeping tabs on such illnesses in 1996, according to a 2019 analysis by the International Association for Food Protection. The report attributed the precipitous rise to a “perfect storm” of factors that include climate change, food handling practices, expanding globalization, a patchwork of regulatory oversight, and improved diagnosis. 

On their conspicuous expeditions to Pensacola and other Sunshine State beaches, Magers and Kumar are trying to understand where, and when, harmful Vibrio species are present across the state. The research they’re doing is part of an ongoing effort by a laboratory at the University of Florida to create a Vibrio early warning system for the eastern United States — a program that can alert public health departments to high Vibrio concentrations in any given area a month in advance. How many limbs would be saved, Magers wonders, if doctors and nurses could be warned ahead of time that their emergency rooms would soon see an uptick in these chronically underdiagnosed infections? 

The work serves more than one purpose: As Vibrio bacteria spread north into cooler waters, they serve as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions — giving researchers a heads-up that the familiar composition of marine species in their local waters may be starting to shift. In Europe’s Baltic Sea, for example, a spike in Vibrio infections in July 2014 closely mirrored a heatwave that rapidly warmed the shallow sea. The incident showed researchers that Vibrio spikes herald unusually warm marine conditions — and they have since been utilized as barometers for ocean heatwaves and sea-surface warming patterns, not just food safety.

“We see Vibrio as the indicator for climate change,” said Kyle Brumfield, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland who has been studying the bacteria for a decade. “We can use the presence of Vibrio and Vibrio cases as a proxy for water health in general.”

The CDC estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Of those 80,000 cases, most are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most commonly results in gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The vast majority of the deaths, however, are caused by a type of Vibrio called vulnificus — the Latin word for “wound-making.”

Vulnificus is so potent it can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. In the last five years, the CDC registered 429 such vulnificus cases, plus 136 foodborne cases. But even though foodborne cases are less numerous, the patients that contract vulnificus by eating contaminated shellfish are more likely to die than those infected via open wounds. Thirteen percent of those nonfoodborne cases died, compared to 32 percent of people who got the infection from eating seafood. Most cases occur in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions.

As far as infectious diseases go, vulnificus is exceedingly rare: The CDC reports between 150 and 200 cases a year. The sexually-transmitted disease chlamydia, by comparison, one of the most common bacterial infections in the U.S., infects northward of 1.5 million Americans annually. But vulnificus’ astonishing speed and high fatality rate — 15 to 50 percent, depending on the health of the person exposed and the route of infection — makes it a unique public health threat, particularly as climate change grows its pathways of exposure. 

Vulnificus is not the kind of pathogen you’d want behaving erratically, but that’s exactly what it’s been doing since the late 2010s. Across the Eastern Seaboard, local and federal health officials have been reporting “unusual increases” in vulnificus prevalence — jagged spikes in infections that appear to correspond to extreme weather events like hurricanes and marine heatwaves.

In 2022 and 2024, years when the brackish water that Vibrio bacteria thrive in was pushed inland by major hurricanes, Florida’s public health department reported 17 and 19 deaths, respectively, linked to vulnificus exposure via open wounds. North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut also saw small clusters of infections during a record-breaking heatwave in the summer of 2023. “As coastal water temperatures increase,” the CDC warned in its investigation of those outbreaks, “V. vulnificus infections are expected to become more common.”

A 2023 study that analyzed a 30-year database of confirmed vulnificus infections from outdoor recreation along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts found the northern boundary of infections has moved north by a rate of 30 miles per year since 1998. The study noted that “V. vulnificus infections may expand their current range to encompass major population centers around New York,” and that annual case numbers may double as temperatures rise and America’s elderly population grows. 

“In the 1980s, Vibrio abundance would increase in the late spring and stay high through the summer and drop in the middle of October,” Brumfield, who conducts research on Vibrio in Maryland, said. “Now … we can pretty much find them almost year-round.”

Two ways to get infected

Just how worried we should be about the changing dynamics of Vibrio bacteria depends on who you ask and what you read. The gruesome and fast-acting nature of the vulnificus infection makes it enticing fodder for local and national news media, fueling a spree of terrifying reports every time a new severe infection or death surfaces. “Virginia dad wades in calf-high water, dies 2 weeks later of flesh-eating bacteria that ‘ravaged’ his legs,” read a recent headline in People magazine. “2 dead after eating oysters, contracting flesh-eating bacteria, officials say,” per a 2025 web story about two deaths linked to oyster consumption in Louisiana and Florida. Like many others in their mold, neither story mentions how rare the bacteria are. 

The press is bad news for some in the seafood industry, which does not welcome a national conversation about the rise in vibriosis cases, vulnificus in particular. Shellfish farmers and industry representatives that Grist spoke to in Florida and New York argued media attention on the safety of their products is unwarranted. “‘Flesh-eating bacteria,’” said Leslie Sturmer, a researcher who works for the University of Florida’s shellfish aquaculture extension program and consults with the shellfish industry on research and regulation — “the media loves it.”

Paul McCormick, an oyster farmer in Long Island who sells 750,000 oysters a year, thinks all press is bad press. “Even if the title of your article says ‘New York oysters are the safest oysters in the universe,’” he told me on the phone from his office in East Moriches in January, “you’ve already created a problem.”

In unrefrigerated oysters left out in warm conditions, Vibrio bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. But in 2010, states began deploying strict protocols known as “Vibrio control plans,” which require harvesters to rapidly cool their catch onboard and then refrigerate it at a shellfish processing facility within a set number of hours. The measures have proven effective at stopping the growth of Vibrio in harvested shellfish and preventing disease.  

The fact that infections can happen in one of two ways — shellfish consumption and seawater exposure — makes it easy to shift blame and point fingers. Consumers have more control over how much exposure they have to Vibrio than they have with E. coli, for example. A person with a kidney condition can choose not to eat oysters on the half shell. E. Coli, often found in raw vegetables, is far tricker to avoid. Likewise, someone with an open wound can opt not to bathe in brackish waters if they are aware of the risks lurking in the surf.

For shellfish industry representatives, personal responsibility is the primary way to bring caseloads down. “The person is the risk,” said Sturmer. “Not the climate, not the water, not the bacteria.” Implicitly, this appears to be the government’s position as well: There is currently no numerical threshold at which state public health agencies will “shut down” a beach for outdoor recreation, though states will issue public advisories and, very rarely, close beaches if they happen to find high levels of Vibrio in the water.

But that perspective doesn’t account for the rapid marine changes brought on by climate change, the patchiness of vibriosis awareness, and the fact that Americans often make personal decisions that are at odds with their own health and safety.

The shellfishers Grist spoke to fully acknowledged the research underpinning Vibrio’s spread. McCormick studied environmental science in college, and Sturmer is running her own climate experiments in a laboratory in the fishing town of Cedar Key, Florida, putting different kinds of clams and oysters through heat stress tests to determine which species are best equipped to weather the decades ahead. Marine mollusks are uniquely threatened by rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise, issues that can lead to thin shells, low crop yields, and mass die-offs on farms. A detailed understanding of climate science, in other words, is good business for those who make their living fishing.

The problem, according to Sturmer, is that shellfishers have been unfairly singled out for a health issue that doesn’t affect most consumers and is more often contracted by ocean bathing rather than raw oyster consumption. While beaches stay open even when Vibrio bacteria are present in the water and lead to infections, a small number of foodborne vibriosis cases can trigger state closures of shellfish harvesting areas and product recalls. The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science noted that these precautions “erode consumer confidence and likely decrease sales.” 

The panic that ensues after media reports of Vibrio infections has a similar effect: A 2024 study asked more than 350 shellfish consumers in Rhode Island — a state that relies heavily on its shellfish industry, particularly in summer months when people vacation along the coastline — to bid on entrees of raw oysters and clams. After showing study participants a real newspaper article about a 2015 Vibrio outbreak linked to an oyster farm in Massachusetts, the researchers reported that the news had a “significant negative impact” on participants’ willingness to bid on oysters. It had a depressive effect on clam sales, too.

“You should really be out there beating the drum on botulism or salmonella or E. Coli,” Sturmer told me on a recent visit to her lab in Cedar Key. “Why worry about [vulnificus] when the number of cases are so minimal?” Sturmer is quick to point out that even the term “flesh-eating bacteria” is a misnomer. She’s right, in a sense: The bacteria doesn’t “eat” tissue; it destroys it. But it’s hard to say whether someone who has survived a bout of necrotizing fasciitis, the medical term for what vulnificus does to the flesh, would care to dispute the difference.

Protecting consumers from being sickened by the deadly bacteria isn’t as simple as trusting people with underlying medical conditions not to eat shellfish. Americans consume 2.5 billion oysters every year, half of which are eaten raw. Vibrio infections, which most often resemble food poisoning, are still underreported and underrecognized, even among individuals who are most at risk of developing a severe infection. Vulnificus infections are also underreported, but much less so than other Vibrio-related infections because they often require a hospital or emergency room visit. 

“I’ve cared for many people with salmonella infections and water-borne infectious processes, but this is the one that is likely the most serious,” said Norman Beatty, an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine who is also a practicing infectious disease doctor in Gainesville, and has seen limbs and lives lost to vulnificus. 

Identifying coastal areas most at risk

When it comes to preventing Vibrio infections, the work Magers and Kumar are doing could take some of the onus off of individual responsibility. The researchers are identifying which parts of the eastern U.S. coastline will be most risky for overall vibriosis infections, and vulnificus specifically, as waters warm. Alongside a group of microbiologists from the University of Maryland, including Brumfield, the scientists have developed a computer model that can predict how high the vibriosis risk will be in any given coastal county on the Gulf or East coasts a month in advance. The team trained their model by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. 

The system is far from perfect. When the model was first trained and evaluated, it was only 23 percent precise in pinpointing high-risk counties, meaning just one in four of the counties the program labeled as high-risk actually ended up seeing a vibriosis case in a given month. But it was very good at determining which counties were low-risk, capturing those regions with 99 percent precision. And it improved over time as the quality of the data they fed it got better. When they had the model do a test run on data collected by the Florida Department of Public Health from 2020 to 2024, 72 percent of total cases occurred in counties the tool flagged as high-risk for vibriosis. 

Perhaps most significantly, the model was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

The tool is geared toward predicting water-borne infections, but it may also provide useful information to the shellfishing industry, though the system isn’t a replacement for the established protocols farmers already use — protocols that have proven to be effective, particularly in states that are aggressive about enforcing them. What the new tool could do, however, is supplement those Vibrio control plans, especially when an upcoming weather pattern deviates from the historical norm — something that has been happening a lot lately.

States currently use a rolling five-year average illness rate to calculate how many minutes or hours harvested shellfish can stay on a boat before moving into indoor refrigeration. In February, for example, Florida shellfishers have to get their oysters into refrigeration by 5 p.m. on the day of harvest. In July, they have no more than two hours, or they have to cool their catch in ice slurries on board. But these timetables don’t account for sudden temperature anomalies.

“It’s going to be 80 degrees this week in Alabama,” Andy DePaola, a Gulf Coast oyster farmer, told me in February. “Yet I can keep my oysters out for, like, 14 hours, because the rolling five-year average is 20 degrees less than that anomaly.” (DePaola is also a microbiologist who worked on Vibrio at the FDA for the better part of 40 years, and is the author of the 2019 analysis that diagnosed the “perfect storm” for Vibrio spread.)

But the shellfish industry doesn’t appear enthusiastic about the idea of assigning counties a risk category based on Vibrio prevalence. Vibrio researchers, by their own admission, haven’t done a good job of reaching out to shellfishers to find out how such a tool would work best for them. At an August meeting of the Delaware Bay Section of the ​​New Jersey Shellfisheries Council last year, the director of a shellfish research laboratory brought up the idea of using Vibrio predictive models to “determine optimal days to harvest to reduce the transfer of infection to humans.” A lengthy discussion ensued. The consensus, ultimately, was that the model was a bad idea, and could be “used against the industry.”

Not all shellfishers are dead set against the kind of work Magers and Kumar are doing. “If Vibrio is an indicator of global warming, then that’s just an unfortunate bad luck scene for us,” McCormick, the Long Island oysterman, said. But it’s hard for him to see what relevance that research has to an industry that already has its own methods of controlling Vibrio. “In my mind that exists in one realm and the safety of our oysters is a whole different thing.”

As we move deeper into the 21st century, however, those two realms will have more overlap. If countries keep up their current pace of greenhouse gas emissions, most coastal communities along the East Coast will be environmentally primed for vibriosis outbreaks during peak summer months by midcentury. It won’t be a question of if there will be more vibriosis cases — it will be a matter of how to manage them. That’s the scenario Magers and Kumar are preparing for.

“In 30, 40, 100 years, these models won’t even matter because the risk is so high,” said Magers, the lead author of the predictive modeling study. “When it gets to that point, it would probably be a different kind of modeling strategy where we’d be modeling case numbers instead of infection risk.” 

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Know the facts about Vibrio, a bacteria found in coastal waters and raw oysters

Stay informed about your risk level as you enjoy fresh shellfish and beach trips this summer. 

By Lyndsey Gilpin

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom.

What is Vibrio? 

Vibrio is a type of bacteria that has been around for hundreds of millions of years; researchers have identified more than 70 species. These species are mostly harmless, but some can cause infection. The bacteria thrive in warm, brackish (slightly salty) water such as estuaries and bays, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. Serious infections typically happen either through exposure to an open wound in saltwater or, more rarely, ingestion of raw shellfish that contain the bacteria. 

The concentration of Vibrio in coastal waterways is higher from May through October, when temperatures are warmer. Most U.S. cases are in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions. Vibrio is tasteless and odorless. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis (an infection caused by the Vibrio bacteria) occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Florida has the highest number of cases, with about 20 percent reported from the Indian River Lagoon region, a popular recreation destination on the Atlantic Coast. 

What happens if you come into contact with Vibrio?

Most people are not at risk of developing illness, or they may have only mild symptoms. However, those with compromised immune systems can develop life-threatening infections. 

The majority of the 80,000 annual U.S. cases are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most often infects people via the raw seafood they eat and usually leads to gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, fever and chills, weakness, fatigue, and headache. 

A different type of Vibrio, vulnificus, is much less common, but can cause severe illness. The infected wound may be red, swollen, and painful, or you may develop mild gastrointestinal issues such as watery diarrhea, stomach cramps, or vomiting. Symptoms typically appear within 12 to 24 hours and can last up to seven days. Healthy people tend to fight off the infection on their own. But if flesh on one or more extremities to bruise, swell, and decay, or symptoms of sepsis occur, it is a medical emergency. Vulnificus can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. This severe infection is rare, but it has a 15 to 50 percent fatality rate; the vast majority of the 100 annual deaths are from this strain. A severe vulnificus infection is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

How concerned should I be — and how do I stay safe? 

You don’t necessarily need to avoid oyster bars or cancel your beach trip, but you should know how to stay informed and take precautions. Here are a few ways to do so:

• Be aware that there are many fearmongering headlines about flesh-eating bacteria, despite vulnificus being one of the rarest forms of Vibrio exposure. Vibrio doesn’t attack random healthy flesh — there must be exposure through an open wound (a break in the skin) or it must be ingested, most often through raw shellfish. People who get sick often have underlying health conditions. 
• If you don’t feel well after eating raw seafood or swimming in brackish water, don’t wait — go to the doctor. Some medical professionals, particularly those in areas where the bacteria hasn’t historically infected people, don’t know what vibriosis is. Advocate for yourself — ask for a test. 
• If you have liver disease, your risk is much higher than the general population’s. Keep an eye out for public health advisories from state and local health officials and avoid swimming in ocean water with an open wound or consuming raw shellfish in warm months. Note that ocean temperatures, especially along the lower Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, have been elevated outside the typical seasonal range in some recent years.
• Be aware when eating raw shellfish, particularly raw oysters. It’s best to be confident that the shellfish was refrigerated and stored in compliance with government standards. The vast majority of foodborne Vibrio cases lead to food poisoning. (Food poisoning from bacteria is always a risk when eating uncooked shellfish and many other foods like salads or deli meat.)

How is climate change affecting Vibrio?

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. The bacteria start getting active in temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as waters warm throughout the summer. Vibrio is expanding into places that were once too cold to support it, farther north on the U.S. East coast and in other temperate seas around the world. As it spreads, it serves as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions.

What’s being done to address Vibrio?

There’s a lot of research happening to better understand the risks these bacteria pose under changing environmental conditions: A group of microbiologists at the University of Maryland, alongside other scientists, have developed a computer model that can predict how high the risk of vibriosis will be in any given coastal county in the eastern U.S. a month in advance. The team trained its model, which is still under development, by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. It’s far from perfect, but it’s improving. And it was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. testified before Congress on Thursday that he’s not pleased with how spending cuts to programs that help lower-income Americans afford food will affect his efforts to bolster healthy eating habits. 

“Am I happy about the cuts? No, I’m not happy about the cuts,” Kennedy said during a lengthy hearing in front of the House Ways and Means Committee, one of several congressional panels he’ll testify before in the days ahead. 

Kennedy added that President Donald Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought also didn’t truly want to propose funding cuts to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, often called WIC, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. 

“Nobody wants to make the cuts. Russ Vought doesn’t want to make the cuts. President Trump doesn’t,” he said. “But we got a $39 trillion debt.”

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, who asked the questions, then referenced comments Kennedy made earlier in the hearing about Froot Loops, when he said it “isn’t even a food. It’s just poison.”

Moore noted the cereal is “a lot cheaper than good, healthy food.”

Froot Loops includes a corn flour blend, sugar, wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, modified food starch and other ingredients. 

Trump advocates reductions for HHS

The Trump administration’s budget request for the fiscal year set to begin on Oct. 1 proposes Congress increase defense spending by more than half a trillion dollars, accounting for a 43% boost, and that lawmakers cut domestic spending by 10%. 

It suggested Congress reduce spending at HHS by $15.8 billion, or 12.5%, to $111.1 billion, though lawmakers largely rejected proposed spending cuts to the department during last year’s government funding process. 

Vought testified earlier this week that the administration expects to ask Congress for additional defense spending for the war in Iran, though he said he couldn’t give lawmakers a ballpark estimate for how much that will add to the current request for $1.5 trillion in defense funding. 

Lawmakers questioned Kennedy about dozens of other issues throughout the hearing, including how he’s spoken about vaccines since being confirmed HHS secretary, the rise in measles cases throughout the country and comments Kennedy and Trump made about the possible causes of autism. 

Utah Republican Rep. Blake Moore, after sharing that his 10-year-old is on the autism spectrum, said he was “underwhelmed” by what the administration has released so far about possible causes. 

He also said that his wife was hurt by claims from Trump and Kennedy that women who take Tylenol when pregnant could increase the risk their children are later diagnosed with autism. 

“We don’t even know if she took Tylenol during her pregnancy, but that was a hurtful moment for her,” Blake Moore said. “And I just want to encourage the administration and your team to keep at it. And I think there’s more we can do here with low expectations.”

Medical experts say that decades of research shows autism is the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors.  

Measles death

California Democratic Rep. Linda T. Sánchez questioned Kennedy about comments he made during his Senate confirmation hearing on vaccines, arguing that he hasn’t stuck to the commitments he made during that process. 

She then asked him if the measles vaccine could have prevented a boy from dying of the disease in Texas. 

“It’s possible, certainly,” Kennedy said. 

But, he repeatedly declined to answer a question from Sánchez about whether Trump approved the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to remove a messaging campaign to encourage vaccination, even as she asked it several times. 

Sánchez then displayed a poster showing a photograph of Kennedy and Kid Rock to illustrate her discontent with his work so far as HHS Secretary. 

“Now, one thing that I find incredible is that you suspended this pro-vaccine messaging campaign. But somehow you’re spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk shirtless in a hot tub with Kid Rock,” she said. “And somehow you think that’s a better public health message than informing the public about the importance of vaccines.”

Day care, Medicaid, Black maternal health

Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis pressed Kennedy about whether he agrees with a statement Trump made earlier this month when the president said, “We can’t take care of day care. It’s not possible for us to take care of day care. Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things. They can do it on a state basis. You can’t do it on a federal. We have to take care of one thing, military protection.” 

Kennedy responded that he was “told to make a 12% cut across our department” because the national debt, which has accumulated over decades, has reached $39 trillion. 

“We’re now having to tighten our belt,” Kennedy said. 

Davis also questioned Kennedy on funding and initiatives to reduce Black maternal mortality, saying “the Trump administration is undermining Black maternal health from all sides.”

“The GOP slashed over a trillion dollars from Medicaid, which pays for over 40% of births in the United States. President Trump just proposed cutting maternal and child health programs by over $800 million,” he said. “DOGE canceled funds for several research projects that could save countless Black mothers, like the Morehouse School of Medicine research on improving the health of Black pregnant and postpartum women.”

Kennedy responded by arguing that he and others in the Trump administration are “doing more to advance maternal health than any other administration in history.”

“There was tremendous duplication in the departments. We had 42 different maternal health services in our department,” Kennedy said. “And we cut some of those and consolidated them. Right now, we are investing huge amounts of money in maternal health.”