Measles Misinformation, Ozone Recovery and Woolly Mice

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

With measles cases on the rise, experts are pushing back against misleading claims about vitamin A as a substitute for vaccination. A Supreme Court ruling has reshaped the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority over water pollution, raising concerns about future environmental protections. And in the world of biotechnology, scientists have genetically engineered woolly mice—an experiment with implications for de-extinction efforts. Recommended reading: Company Seeking to Resurrect the Woolly Mammoth Creates a ‘Woolly Mouse’ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/company-seeking-to-resurrect-the-woolly-mammoth-creates-a-woolly-mouse/ Trump Gives EPA One Week to Decide on Abandoning Climate Pollution Regulation https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-gives-epa-one-week-to-decide-on-abandoning-climate-pollution/ Email us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman. Our show is edited by Alex Sugiura with fact-checking by Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:36.5	Happy Monday listeners.
0:38.1	For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Seltman.
0:41.5	Let's kick off the week with our usual science news roundup.
0:52.4	First, a quick note about measles, which is still spreading in West Texas and has also
0:57.1	cropped up in smaller numbers in eight other states.
1:00.4	In an op-ed for Fox News published on March 2nd, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary
1:05.2	Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arguably downplayed the importance of vaccines, saying the MMR DAB provides protection against
1:12.5	measles while also calling vaccination a, quote, personal choice. He also claimed that vitamin A
1:18.8	supplementation has been shown to, quote, dramatically reduce measles mortality. Since the op-ed's
1:24.3	publication, many experts have sounded the alarm on that plug for vitamin A.
1:29.1	The research RFK Jr. referenced does exist, but there's important context missing from that op-ed.
1:35.9	The analysis he cited focuses on studies that mostly looked at low-income countries where many
1:41.8	people have vitamin A deficiencies. According to the Centers for
1:45.5	Disease Control and Prevention's most recent data, less than 1% of people in the U.S. have vitamin A deficiencies.
1:52.5	Peter Hottaz, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital,
1:57.5	told the Washington Post that vitamin A can play a role in treating children who are
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