Health
A common killer bug is endangering Americans: ‘Pandemic in plain sight’
Five years after the worldwide hyperfocus on COVID-19 began, some are concerned about the next pandemic — whether it could be caused by influenza, bird flu or another pathogen.
Too easily overlooked are non-influenza, non-COVID viruses and bacteria that are burgeoning and spreading unchecked — both in the U.S. and around the world. While they may not cause the next pandemic, they do cause a lot of illness and death.
One such bacteria is Streptococcus Group A, an old enemy that colonizes the throat and tonsils of close to 20% of U.S. children, according to Dr. Joshua Osowicki, team leader and senior research fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia.
CDC WARNS OF INCREASE IN INVASIVE STRAIN OF STREP THROAT IN US
This problematic bacterial strain is easily treated with penicillin drugs when it causes a clinical infection, Osowicki told Fox News Digital in an on-camera interview. (See the video at the top of this article.)
But the problem, he said, is that because the bacteria may be harbored, the diagnosis isn’t always found early enough.
The Streptococcus Group A bacteria has been on the rise around the world, doctors warn. (iStock)
Scarlet fever and rheumatic fever/rheumatic heart disease can result from recurrent or untreated strep — and they are on the increase again in areas without adequate medical care, including parts of the U.S.
“Rheumatic heart disease is a chronic, non-infectious illness that occurs after untreated group-based streptococcal infections — and almost certainly after multiple untreated, group-based streptoococcus infections,” Osowicki said.
STREP THROAT INFECTIONS HAVE SPIKED ABOVE PRE-COVID HIGHS, SAYS REPORT: ‘WE’VE MISSED CASES’
His research reveals that the prevalence of a life-threatening invasive version of strep Group A — which can include deep-rooted skin infections, sepsis, meningitis and deadly pneumonia — is on the rise around the world.
The aggressive skin infections, which are associated with intravenous drug use, can lead to the need for repeated surgeries, along with antibiotics.
A life-threatening invasive version of strep Group A can include deep-rooted skin infections, sepsis, meningitis and deadly pneumonia. (iStock)
In the U.S., there have been more than double the annual incidents of invasive Group A strep in 10 states, affecting about 35 million Americans between 2013 and 2022, with 21,000 cases and about 2,000 deaths, according to Osowicki.
“In many ways, it’s a pandemic in plain sight,” he said of Group A strep, adding that close to a billion people likely experience symptomatic disease from the bacteria each year.
“It actually does its damage in severe, life-threatening cases before the patient receives antibiotics.”
The important thing with group A strep, according to the doctor, is that antibiotic resistance isn’t the primary issue.
“Group A strep is reliably killed by penicillin — and has been since 1941 when penicillin was introduced,” Osowicki noted.
Strep A colonizes the throat and tonsils of close to 20% of U.S. children, according to the researcher. (iStock)
“The point is that it actually does its damage in severe, life-threatening cases before the patient receives antibiotics. There’s this period where it is too hard to diagnose and treatment comes too late.”
In those cases, he said, the patients need ICUs, surgery and “the most intensive treatment we have to offer.”
Among patients over the age of 65 or so, a quarter of them will die with this form of the disease, according to Osowicki.
Need for a vaccine
There is not currently a vaccine for Group A strep.
While the more common form of strep throat and minor skin infections are “less scary,” Osowicki warned of the dangers of overlooking the more invasive version of the disease.
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“We look away sometimes from the life-threatening infections that we struggle to prevent, diagnose and treat, (until) these become the front-page sepsis cases that you see in the newspaper many weeks of the year,” he said.
“They’re headline-catching cases. They’re the cases like Rory Staunton in New York, whose tragic death (in 2012 from sepsis) really triggered the state census mandates across the U.S.”
There are up to 10 different group-based strep vaccines in development, ranging from entirely pre-clinical vaccines that have never seen a person to vaccines that have been tested in phase 1 trials. (iStock)
The need for an effective vaccine is clear — both for invasive strep and the more common variety. Osowicki and others in his group are working hard on developing them.
“The current thrust of my research is all vaccine-related,” he shared. “We do what are called human challenge trials, where we deliberately infect healthy adult volunteers with group A strep, painting it on their tonsils. And we do that in a very careful way, in an inpatient environment.”
The researchers also provide early antibiotic treatments and collect throat swabs, blood and saliva to study how the human-only pathogen works and to explore ways to stop it.
“The ultimate goal is that it becomes a really high-powered platform to establish the efficacy of vaccines,” said Osowicki.
There are many vaccine candidates in various stages of development, from the protein-adjuvant kind (like Shingrix or the Novavax COVID vaccine) to the MRNA platform and various other kinds, the researcher said.
“We’re working with every vaccine company that has a group-based streptococcal vaccine candidate in development,” he said.
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There are up to 10 different group-based strep vaccines in development, ranging from entirely pre-clinical vaccines that have never seen a person to vaccines that have been tested in phase 1 trials, Osowicki noted.
The goal, the researcher said, is to “create a vaccine that the world wants, that the world accepts, that the world says is safe, and that will help our children.”
He said he is concerned about vaccine skepticism, particularly after the COVID pandemic, which can keep people from trusting the emerging science.
Still, the researcher is excited about the future of the strep A vaccine and others, though he expects it could take at least five to 10 years before a worthy candidate reaches doctors’ offices.
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The new vaccine will be geared toward adults with skin infections, as well as the many millions of children who are at risk of both mild and severe disease.
The goal, Osowicki said, is to “create a vaccine that the world wants, that the world accepts, that the world says is safe, and that will help our children.”
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Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests.
The observational study, led by Jorge Nieva, M.D., of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center at Keck Medicine, was presented this month at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in San Diego. It has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Researchers looked at dietary, smoking and demographic data for 187 patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer at age 50 or younger.
PANCREATIC CANCER PATIENT SURVIVAL DOUBLED WITH HIGH DOSE OF COMMON VITAMIN, STUDY FINDS
They found that among non-smokers, there was a link between healthier-than-average diets – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – and the chance of lung cancer development.
Young lung cancer patients ate more servings of dark green vegetables, legumes and whole grains compared to the average U.S. adult, the researchers found.
Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables was found to have a surprising link to lung cancer among younger non-smokers, early research suggests. (iStock)
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association.
“Commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables and whole grains are more likely to be associated with a higher residue of pesticides than dairy, meat and many processed foods,” according to Nieva. He also noted that agricultural workers exposed to pesticides tend to have higher rates of lung cancer.
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“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” Nieva told Fox News Digital.
The disease is becoming more common in non-smokers 50 and younger, especially women – despite the fact that smoking rates have been falling for decades, the researcher noted.
The researchers hypothesized that pesticides applied to conventionally grown produce could be a possible factor in the disease association. (iStock)
“These patients tend to have eaten much healthier diets before their diagnosis than the average American,” he went on. “We need to support research into understanding why Americans – and women in particular – who no longer smoke very much are still having lung cancer,” he said.
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The study did have some limitations, Nieva acknowledged, primarily that it relied on survey data and was limited by the participants’ memories of their food intake.
“Also, the survey participants were self-selected, and this could have biased the findings,” he told Fox News Digital.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking.”
The researchers did not test specific foods for pesticides, relying instead on average pesticide levels for certain types of food. Looking ahead, they plan to test patients’ blood and urine samples to directly measure pesticide levels, Nieva said.
Although the study shows only an association and does not prove that pesticides caused lung cancer, Nieva recommends that people wash their produce before eating and choose organic foods whenever possible.
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“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”
“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but is by no means certain,” a doctor said. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, said the study is “interesting,” but that it “raises far more questions than it answers.”
“It is a small study (around 150) and observational, so no proof,” the doctor, who was not involved in the research, told Fox News Digital.
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“It is possible that the increased lung cancer risk could be due to pesticide exposure in whole farmed foods, but it is by no means certain,” Siegel went on. “How much exposure is needed? How much of it gets into food and in which areas? This requires much further study.”
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Kayla Nichols, communications director for Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, a distributed global network, said the organization agrees with the study’s conclusion that more research should be done on the rise in lung cancer, particularly in individuals eating diets higher in produce and fiber.
“There is a large subset of lung cancer patients whose disease is not caused by smoking,” the researcher told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
“There is a bounty of existing research that already links pesticide exposure to increased risk of multiple types of cancers,” Nichols, who was also not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital. She called for more research on chronic, low-level exposures to pesticides, as well as more effective policies to protect the public from pesticide residues on food.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, as well as industry partners including AstraZeneca and Genentech, among others.
Fox News Digital reached out to several pesticide companies and trade groups for comment.
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Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. New research shows one group getting hit the hardest – those without a college degree.
A recent study from the American Cancer Society analyzed data from over 101,000 adults aged 25 to 49 who died from colorectal cancer between 1994 and 2023.
While death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed.
WIDESPREAD HABIT MAY RAISE COLORECTAL CANCER RISK MORE THAN YOU THINK
For young adults with a high school education or less, the mortality rate rose from 4.0 to 5.2 per 100,000 people, while the rate for those with at least a bachelor’s degree stayed flat, at approximately 2.7 per 100,000.
This does not mean that a degree offers some kind of biological protection, researchers cautioned.
Colorectal cancer, once considered a disease of older age, is becoming a crisis for younger adults. (iStock)
The difference is likely driven by the conditions in which people live and work, which often correlate with education levels, the researchers noted.
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The study suggests that the higher death rates are likely driven by differences in the prevalence of risk factors, including obesity, physical inactivity, smoking and diet, which are “known to be elevated among children and young adults with lower [socioeconomic status].”
Because the study relied on death certificates, researchers couldn’t say exactly why college graduates had better outcomes.
Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes. (iStock)
Certificates typically list the cause of death, age, race and education level, but they do not include a person’s full medical history.
RED FLAGS FOR COLORECTAL CANCER THAT WARRANT SCREENINGS BEFORE 45 YEARS OF AGE
Because the researchers didn’t have the patients’ actual medical records, they couldn’t see things like frequency of screenings or treatment options, which would impact survival outcomes.
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Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for men under 50 and the second leading cause for women in the same age group, according to recent statistics.
While colorectal cancer death rates remained stable for college graduates, they climbed significantly for those without a bachelor’s degree, the findings showed. (iStock)
Because the disease is highly treatable when caught early, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) lowered the recommended screening age from 50 to 45 in 2021.
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Common signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer can include a change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation or narrowing of the stool, that lasts for more than a few days, according to the American Cancer Society.
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Other signs that warrant seeing a doctor include blood in the stool or a persistent feeling of needing to go to the bathroom but being unable to go.
The research was published in JAMA Oncology.
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A young woman who started vaping at the age of 15 has been given just 18 months to live — after being diagnosed with lung cancer in her early 20s.
Kayley Boda, 22, of Manchester, in the United Kingdom, was engaging in heavy vaping on a regular basis when she started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in it in January 2025, news agency SWNS reported.
The retail assistant said doctors turned her away eight times, telling her she had a chest infection — until she began coughing up blood.
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After seven biopsies, Boda was diagnosed with lung cancer. She underwent surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy — and in February 2026, got the all-clear, the same source reported.
Two months later, though, doctors said the cancer had come back in the pleural lining. Now she’s been given 18 months to live.
Kayley Boda, 22, is shown in the hospital. She started coughing up a brown substance with “grainy bits” in January 2025, she said. She had been vaping since the age of 15. (SWNS)
The young woman has now issued a warning to others to be aware of the dangers of vaping.
Boda said she smoked a bit as a young teenager. She took up vaping after that.
Then, “a few months after I switched from reusable vapes to disposable ones, I started coughing up brown, grainy mucus,” as SWNS reported.
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“Doctors turned me away eight times with a chest infection. … Then I started coughing up blood, so they did an X-ray and found a shadow on my lung,” she added.
“They told me they were 99% sure, [since I was] so young, that it wasn’t cancer, so not to worry about it. When I got the results back, and they told me it was lung cancer, it felt so surreal.”
Boda said she was “very naive” before her diagnosis and thought that “something like this would never happen to me.”
She said that she had surgery to remove half of her right lung.
“After the surgery, I started chemo and I had a terrible reaction to it. I couldn’t lift my head up. I was throwing up blood. I was urinating blood. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.”
VACATION HOT SPOT CRACKS DOWN ON VAPING WITH JAIL THREATS AND HEFTY FINES
She said that when she got the “all clear [in Feb. 2026], it felt amazing, but just two months later I was told the cancer had come back, and I have 18 months to live.”
She added, “I’m 22. This isn’t meant to happen to somebody my age.”
“Stay off the vapes because they will catch up with you.”
She blames her cancer on vaping, she said.
“My symptoms started a few months after I started disposable vapes, and there’s no lung cancer in my family,” she said. “I haven’t vaped for three months, I’ve made my partner stop, I’ve made my mom stop, I’m urging all my friends to stop. Stay off the vapes,” she continued, “because they will catch up with you.”
When doctors did an X-ray, they found a shadow on Boda’s right lung. She was later diagnosed with lung cancer and has undergone surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
She said she’d been using reusable vapes since the age of 15 and began using disposable vapes a few months before her cancer symptoms started.
DISPOSABLE VAPES MORE TOXIC AND CARCINOGENIC THAN CIGARETTES, STUDY SHOWS
In November 2024, when she developed a rash all over her body, doctors said it could have been due to shingles, chicken pox or scabies, she told SWNS.
‘Nothing worked’
“I got treated for all three, and nothing worked,” Boda said. “It got to the point where I was cutting myself from scratching so hard.”
A few months after that, she began coughing up a dark brown mucus, with “grainy bits, the consistency of sugar, in it,” she said. When the coughing continued, she visited the doctor’s office, but was told it could be scarring from pneumonia or a chest infection, she also said.
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It wasn’t until March 2025 that she began coughing up bright red blood. At that point, doctors gave her a chest X-ray and told her they’d found a shadow on her lower right lung.
Over the next four months, she had seven biopsies as doctors took samples from the “shadow.” In August, when she went to get the results, she was told she had stage one lung cancer.
Boda is shown in the hospital. She was diagnosed with lung cancer and had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, as well as chemotherapy. (SWNS)
In September 2025, she had surgery to remove the lower lobe of her right lung, and the surrounding lymph nodes. During the surgery, doctors upstaged her cancer from stage one to stage three after finding cancer in six surrounding lymph nodes, she said.
Following the surgery, Boda was unable to breathe properly and had to learn to walk all over again.
“The oncologist said this is so rare.”
After finishing chemotherapy in February 2026, Kayley was given the all clear, leaving her feeling elated.
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However, just a month after that, she began experiencing extreme chest pains and was told by doctors she had a pleural effusion — a build-up of fluid in the lungs. She had the fluid removed, but when doctors tested it, they discovered her cancer had returned to the pleural lining of her lungs, giving her 18 months to live.
“The oncologist said this is so rare, and usually something they see in patients that are 80 years old,” she said, as SWNS reported.
Increasingly, vacation hot spots are enforcing strict bans on the use of e-cigarettes in public venues. (iStock)
Boda claimed that doctors were unable to pin her cancer to a specific cause — but told her that smoking and vaping definitely didn’t help.
Since her diagnosis, she has stopped and is urging others to stop, too.
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She’s hoping to raise the thousands of dollars needed for treatment to try to prolong her life, she said.
Last year, Fox News Digital reported on the case of a Pennsylvania woman, 26, who said she vaped for just one year before her lungs collapsed. She was 22 when she took up the habit, she said in an interview.
“Everybody warned me about it, but I didn’t listen — I wish that I did,” she said.
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Dr. David Campbell, clinical director and program director at Recover Together Bend in Oregon, told Fox News Digital at that time that signs of collapsed lungs include sharp chest or shoulder pain, shortness of breath and difficulty breathing.
Lung issues are just one of the many health issues linked to vaping, he warned. The habit can also increase the risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as exposure to harmful heavy metals.
Melissa Rudy of Fox News Digital contributed reporting.
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