As the flu and covid are on the rise again vaccines are on the decline due to the tRump admin claiming that the best science we have is wrong based on feelings and in the case of the people like JFK Jr it is greed. People don’t realize he makes his money suing drug manufacturers that produce vaccines. Every time he thinks he has some wacked out idea he sues and nothing they can show him will matter to him, all he wants is money and to stop vaccines for other people, as his families kids are protected. Think on it, he is vaccinated, their family has the money to get the vaccines without medical insurance, all he is doing is making it harder and more costly for your kids to get them because you need the medical insurance to help pay for it. Hugs
Under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s guidance, the CDC no longer recommends routine vaccination to protect against meningococcal disease.
Jan. 11, 2026, 7:00 AM EST
By Kaitlin Sullivan
Deaths from a rare and dangerous bacterial infection could rise if fewer teens are vaccinated, doctors warn.
After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that all adolescents get vaccinated against meningococcal disease in 2005, cases of the potentially deadly illness plummeted in the United States by 90%.
However, cases have sharply risen since 2021, likely due to a combination of mutating bacteria and declining rates of vaccination overall, especially among teens getting a booster dose for bacterial meningitis, doctors suggest.
Dr. Luis Ostrosky, an infectious disease doctor at UT Health in Houston, is concerned that as cases of bacterial meningitis climb in the United States, the CDC’s recent overhaul of the childhood vaccine schedule could lead to more deaths.
Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s guidance, the CDC is no longer recommending a meningitis vaccine for all adolescents. The vaccine and booster protect against the most common types of the infection in the U.S., serogroups A, C, Y, W.
“We see quite a few cases of meningitis per year,” Ostrosky said.
Under the new guidance, the vaccines will be recommended for “high-risk groups,” although parents can still ask doctors to vaccinate their children through a process called “shared clinical decision making.”
Teenagers and college-age adults, who often spend a lot of time in groups or communal living spaces such as dorms, and people with HIV are considered at highest risk for the infection, caused by a group of bacteria called Neisseria meningitidis.
Vaccination is important not because the disease is common — around 3,000 people are diagnosed with bacterial meningitis in the U.S. each year — but because the infection is both extremely serious and fast-moving.
Bacterial meningitis can progress quickly, causing the brain to swell and limbs to develop gangrene and sepsis, and can kill within 24 hours.
Symptoms such as headache, stiff neck, vomiting and fever come on suddenly, and may be mistaken for other minor illnesses. It can be treated with antibiotics, but even with rapid diagnosis, about 15% of patients die.
Fast-acting and life-threatening
Why some people are susceptible isn’t well understood. The infection develops when usually harmless bacteria travel through the respiratory tract and infiltrate the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord, causing severe inflammation. These bacteria, which commonly live in the back of the throat, can spread from person to person through close contact.
It can lead to a life-threatening infection in someone whose immune system is compromised — sometimes by a simple cold or flu virus — or who doesn’t have immunity to those bacteria. Viruses and fungi can also cause meningitis, but bacterial meningitis is the most serious.
Among patients who survive, as many as 20% have lifelong disability or complications, including amputated limbs, hearing impairment and neurological problems.
“You can die from a brain hernia, or from sepsis,” Messacar said. “And if you survive a brain hernia, you will most likely have severe complications.”
In 2024, the CDC issued an alert about a rise in cases of a type of invasive meningococcal disease. More than 500 cases were reported, the highest since 2013. Most of the infections were due to a specific strain of the Y serogroup of bacteria, which is included in the previously recommended vaccine. The cases were more common in adults ages 30 to 60, in Black people and in people with HIV.
“It’s even more important now that we get meningococcal vaccines out to people given that we are seeing a spike in this Y strain,” Messacar said.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved three types of meningitis vaccines. In 2005, the CDC began recommending that 11- and 12-year-olds get vaccinated against the most common meningococcal serotypes, A, C, Y and W. Because of waning immunity, the CDC in 2011 added a booster recommendation for 16-year-olds to protect them through young adulthood. A vaccine for meningitis B and a combined shot are available for children or babies who are considered at high risk.
In a statement Monday, Kennedy said that the CDC’s new childhood vaccine schedule was “aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus.”
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease doctor at the UCSF School of Medicine in San Francisco, said the new approach to meningitis vaccination in the U.S., which is based on Denmark’s, is flawed.
“You can’t just look at another country’s vaccine approach and photocopy it. You really have to look at what is happening in your own country,” Chin-Hong said. Given the safety of meningitis vaccines, “it makes sense to vaccinate.”
Alicia Stillman, who serves on a World Health Organization task force for eliminating meningitis, worries that by moving the vaccine into shared decision making, the CDC is creating hurdles for parents who want to protect their children.
Stillman’s daughter, Emily, died from meningitis B in 2013. Emily had been vaccinated against meningitis A, C, W and Y, but the FDA didn’t approve a vaccine for meningitis B until 2014.
Emily Stillman, pictured with her mother, Alicia, was 19 when she died from meningitis B. Courtesy Alicia Stillman
Because many types of bacteria can cause bacterial meningitis, different vaccines are needed. The meningitis B vaccine hasn’t been recommended for all children but is available for people at high risk through the shared decision making process.
“I have watched medical professionals not bring [meningitis B vaccination] up,” said Stillman, who is the co-executive director of the American Society for Meningitis Prevention. “I have watched parents who are maybe a little less educated and not know how to ask about it, or they go to a public clinic instead of a private clinic where they have less time with a provider.”
She believes that could happen more broadly with the changed guidance.
What the research says
A CDC statement said the changes to the recommendation reflect the need for more data on certain vaccines, “including placebo-controlled randomized trials and long-term observational studies to better characterize vaccine benefits, risks, and outcomes.”
While there haven’t been placebo-controlled trials for meningitis vaccines — which would test how well a vaccine works either by deliberately infecting people with bacteria or by seeing how well they fare if they are infected in the real world — there have been many randomized clinical trials and other studies that use decades of data collected from both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals in the real world.
Chin-Hong said placebo-controlled trials aren’t realistic or ethical for every drug, especially for life-threatening and rare diseases.
“A well-designed observational study, especially using decades of experience, can be just as informative as a randomized controlled trial,” Chin-Hong said.
A 2020 CDC report analyzed 20 clinical trials on meningococcal disease vaccines, including data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VS). The most common reported side effects were “mild to moderate,” and included swelling, fever and headache.
In 2005, Katie Thompson, now 39, was infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacterial meningitis when she was a college freshman, the same month the FDA approved the first MenACWY vaccine.
“I don’t know how to describe it besides it’s pure hell,” she said.
After five weeks in the hospital and nearly dying, she went home, but not without lifelong complications. Thompson, who lives outside of Charleston, South Carolina, still struggles with migraines and vestibular disorders that cause vertigo and nausea. The infection was hard on her organs and she uses a bladder stimulator that helps regulate both her bladder and nerves in the base of her spine.
“It’s just not a disease that you want to take a risk on,” she said. “It’s not one that you want to gamble with your child’s life.”
Two vaccines that remain universally recommended by the CDC — the Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine — protect against some causes of bacterial meningitis. However, these vaccines don’t protect against meningitis A, C, W, Y or B.
Kaitlin Sullivan
Kaitlin Sullivan is a contributor for NBCNews.com who has worked with NBC News Investigations. She reports on health, science and the environment and is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.
A representative of Seattle Sperm Bank admitted to selling unused sperm vials to the FBI during an industry conference, purportedly for the agency to research splat patterns, multiple sources told LGBTQ Nation.
The sources say the admission came from the representative – who one source identified as Seattle Sperm Bank General Supervisor Angelo Allard – during an October 2022 meeting at the California Cryobank campus in Los Angeles. Allard did not reply to LGBTQ Nation’s multiple requests for comment, nor did Seattle Sperm Bank CEO Fredrik Andreasson, nor the bank’s communication team.
For decades, commercial sperm banks (on which many LGBTQ+ people rely to build their families) have faced ardent criticism over a host of ethical issues fueled by a lack of industry regulations. Donor-conceived people, recipient parents, and donors themselves have long sounded the alarm on the industry’s shady practices – from failing to enforce reasonable family limits to outright lying about donor medical histories. These activists continue to fight for legislation that would keep the banks in check.
This ongoing tension is why the 2022 meeting occurred in the first place. Sources say sperm banks hosted the gathering as a sort of olive branch to the reform advocates, though some who attended felt the banks were not actually willing to listen. Reportedly in attendance were lawyers, medical experts, activists, and scholars.
Although these activists have long known about the unethical practices of the industry, many were still shocked at what they heard.
Anti-fertility fraud activist Eve Wiley called it a “nails on a chalkboard moment” and said that the admission brought “a collective gasp in the room.” It was “unlike any other procedure any of us had heard,” she said.
She said the comment was skated over pretty quickly and that the man next to the speaker “was kind of like, ‘Dude, stop,’ giving, you know, the death stare essentially.”
A fertility expert who was also present in the room confirmed the story to LGBTQ Nation, saying they are “not sure what precipitated it” but that a “gentleman who was involved at a sperm bank raised his hand and basically said they sent sperm to the FBI at the request of the FBI for training purposes.”
“On one level it makes sense, you know, that you would need sperm to train on or to do some analysis of,” they said, “but I guess none of us had ever considered that law enforcement might reach a sperm bank and do this, certainly without consent from the parties themselves who could be genetically identified and put into a database if this were done.”
They said the representative seemed completely taken aback that anyone found the information troubling.
“They just stated it so matter-of-factly, like, ‘Yeah, this is what we do.’ And it was almost as if they didn’t see any privacy protections that needed to be discussed, any issues with that, any hesitation about turning information over to law enforcement in that manner, even for training purposes.”
Another expert who attended the meeting also heard the admission. They told LGBTQ Nation in an emailed statement that they remembered the representative from Seattle Sperm Bank “telling the group that they… provided the FBI with unused sperm for them to use for ‘practice.”’ The source (the same one who identified the speaker as Allard) said they do not remember the representative saying the sperm was “sold,” though.
A transcript of a Zoom chat obtained by LGBTQ Nation shows those who attended virtually discussing the admission in the chat. Folks called the revelation “shocking” and “incredibly concerning,” with some questioning if the DNA was being added to a criminal database.
LGBTQ Nation reached out to the National FBI office and received the following response from Seattle Field Office public affairs specialist Steven Bernd: “Our policy prohibits us, except in rare circumstances, from disclosing investigative techniques of an FBI investigation. However, I can plainly state that I did not find any information to suggest that the FBI has been purchasing sperm from a sperm bank.”
It’s not clear, however, whether the sperm would have been sold to the local or national office. Additionally, Bernd took less than an hour to reply to our request for a statement, raising the question of how much digging he did before saying he “did not find any information.”
The queer connection
Also reportedly present at the meeting were several LGBTQ+ family-building organizations, though none have corroborated the FBI admission with LGBTQ Nation.
Ron Poole-Dayan, executive director of Men Having Babies, stated over email that he had “no specific recollection” of the admission being made. The representative who attended the meeting from Family Equality no longer works for the organization, and a spokesperson said, “No current staff members have additional information to share.” Representatives from Colage, an organization for the children of LGBTQ+ people, and GLAD, an LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organization, did not respond to a request for comment.
Wiley called it “shocking” and “disheartening” that no LGBTQ+ organizations have come forward.
Laura High, a donor-conceived person and activist who was not present at the meeting, expressed disappointment that these organizations have not taken action.
“Especially right now we need to be able to rely on these organizations to keep the queer community safe,” she told LGBTQ Nation over email. “And the fact that they stayed silent on this incredibly clear violation of rights that clearly puts the queer community in jeopardy, especially under this regime is terrifying.”
High said many people in the activist community have told her they do not want to contribute to this story going public for fear of not being invited to future meetings or losing a seat at the table, and she wonders if perhaps that’s why these organizations also have not spoken up.
“But why on earth would you want to be sitting at that kind of table that clearly has no problem putting the queer community or any marginalized group in utter danger?” she said.
What’s at stake
The prospect of a bank selling sperm to the FBI without informed consent raises a number of ethical concerns, though the legality of it all is murky.
Donor contracts from Seattle Sperm Bank obtained by LGBTQ Nation state, “I understand that once I agree to participate in the donor program and have been accepted into the program, I may not impose restrictions on the manner in which my donor sperm may be used.”
“Technically, people can buy sperm for any purpose… but sperm samples are not intended for that purpose,” explained the fertility expert. “They’re intended for people to buy to family build. That is the assumption.”
“I think there would be a lot of people who would object, for example, if law enforcement just started suddenly going through trash in search of hair or saliva or discarded toothbrushes or fingernail clippings to include people in databases for ‘training purposes.’”
They said the lack of informed consent is one of the biggest issues. “I’ve talked to sperm donors, and they were not informed that this was going on.” LGBTQ Nation independently received direct confirmation from one Seattle donor who said they were never told this was a possibility.
Wiley said she is most concerned with sperm being mishandled or planted as evidence in a crime.
“What if someone steals that sperm and then sells it on the black market, and they plant that?” she said. “And is DNA being extracted and then being used in a database to catch criminals?… It’s hard to say what can happen.”
As someone who has spent her life fighting fertility fraud, Wiley has witnessed firsthand the horrific ways gametes can be mishandled. “It’s unbelievable,” she said, adding that “in the absence of laws and that legal landscape being the wild wild west, it’s really frustrating.”
High said trans people also have specific safety concerns, since they often preserve their sperm or eggs at these banks before starting gender-affirming care.
“We know this administration is targeting the queer community,” High said, “Especially the trans community, who actively uses the fertility industry to store their DNA before they medically transition.”
She said there is also particular concern for people of color. “We are well aware that people of color are actively and heinously targeted by the police force,” she said. “Secretly handing over sperm from Black donors or any donor of color does not just affect that donor, but potentially their entire family. We have a long and terrible history in this country of people of color getting set up for a crime by the police force.”
“This industry who’s already very famous for excluding recipient parents and donors of color is demonstrating that they are also willing to put those donors at risk for severe injustice… Seattle has given the FBI the ability to have a genetic tracker.”
There is also the matter of the DNA of the children conceived from each donor being in the hands of a government agency. One recipient parent, Romy Razuri, who told LGBTQ Nation she became an activist in the space after she had reason to believe Seattle Sperm Bank failed to report critical pieces of her donor’s medical information, called it “creepy.”
“It just doesn’t sound right. I mean, no matter how you look at it and if you try to make sense of it… Whatever the reason is, it’s just not okay.”
Asked if the information made her feel worried about her kids, she replied: “I mean, anything at this point related to donor conception makes me feel scared for my kids.”
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This is a really great video on covid vaccines and why people needed to take them. Tyson explains the social contract, explains why with the first vaccines you might still get a new covid strain, that the vaccine was well studied, and the risk for not taking it. Wonderful video to show every anti-vaxxer. The host is a person on the right, well known right wing media person who pushes the right’s talking point. So him being fully and quickly having his stupidity over the issue displayed to him, his ass handed to him on his own program, with someone who could hold their own and not let the host over talk them or belittle them. It is grand. Hugs
Kyle Neal
Scottie's Playtime 