Politics
Wastewater testing helps public health officials detect measles early
Wastewater testing can alert public health officials to measles infections days to months before cases are confirmed by doctors, researchers said in two studies published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Colorado health officials were able to get ahead of the highly contagious virus by tracking its presence in sewer systems, researchers wrote. And Oregon researchers found wastewater could have warned them of an outbreak more than two months before the first person tested positive.
The findings add to evidence that wastewater testing is a valuable weapon in tracking disease, including Covid-19, polio, mpox and bird flu.
But the national wastewater surveillance systemrun by CDC since 2020, is newly at risk, under a Trump administration budget plan would slash its funding from about $125 million a year to about $25 million.
Peggy Honein, director of the CDC’s division of infectious disease readiness and innovation, said the proposed funding level would “sustain some of the most critical activities” but “it would likely require some prioritization.”
The national system covers more than 1,300 wastewater treatment sites serving 147 million people. It includes six “centers for excellence” — Colorado among them — that innovate and support other states in expanding their testing.
States brace for cuts
The funding cut is still a proposal, and Congress has started pushing back against cuts to health care in general.
But state health departments say they are preparing for a potential loss of federal support regardless. Most state programs are entirely federally funded, Honein said.
Colorado started its wastewater surveillance program in 2020 with 68 utilities participating voluntarily. The program has since narrowed in its focus even as it grew to include more diseases, because it is 100% federally funded, said Allison Wheeler, manager of the Colorado’s wastewater surveillance unit.
The work is funded through 2029, Wheeler said, and the department is talking to state leaders about what to do after that.
“I know that there are other states that haven’t been as fortunate as us,” Wheeler said. “They need this funding in order to sustain their program for the next year.”
Measles found in wastewater before patients are diagnosed
In the Colorado studywhich Wheeler co-authored, officials started testing wastewater for measles in May, as outbreaks in Texas, New Mexico and Utah were growing and five cases had been confirmed in Colorado.
In August, wastewater in Mesa County tested positive about a week before two measles cases were confirmed by a doctor. Neither patient knew that they had been exposed to measles. As they traced 225 household and health care contacts of the first two patients, health officials found five more cases.
In Oregonresearchers used preserved sewage samples from late 2024 to determine if sewage testing could have discovered a burgeoning outbreak.
The 30-case outbreak spanned two counties and hit a close-knit community that does not readily seek health care, the study’s authors wrote. The first case was confirmed on July 11 and it ultimately took health officials 15 weeks to stop the outbreak.
The researchers found that wastewater samples from the area were positive for measles about 10 weeks before the first cases were reported. The virus concentration in the wastewater over the weeks also matched the known peak of the outbreak.
“We knew that we were missing cases, and I think that’s always the case in measles outbreaks,” said Dr. Melissa Sutton, of the Oregon Health Authority. “But this gave us an insight into how much silent transmission was occurring without us knowing about it and without our health care system knowing about it.”
State see value in sewage tracking
Other states, such as Utahhave integrated wastewater data into their public-facing measles dashboards, allowing anyone to track outbreaks in real time.
And in New Mexico, where 100 people got measles last year and one died, the testing helped state health officials shrink a vast rural expanse. The state’s system flagged cases in northwestern Sandoval County while officials were focused on a massive outbreak 300 miles (483 kilometers) away in the southeast, said Kelley Plymesser, of the state health department.
The early warning allowed the department to alert doctors and the public, lower thresholds for testing and refocus their resources. The outbreak ended in September. But because measles continues to spread across the Southwest, the state is still using the system to look for new cases.
Sutton, of Oregon, said she’s hopeful federal leaders will see the power of the system, its adaptability, affordability and reach.
“The widespread use of wastewater surveillance in the United States is one of the greatest advancements in communicable disease surveillance in a generation,” she said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
NEW YORK — As South Korea’s largest automobile manufacturer, Hyundai Motor Group is known for its cars. But now, as one of FIFA’s longest-running commercial partners, it’s using the World Cup stage to announce a new focus: robots.
That ambition is clearly laid out in the FIFA Museum presented by Hyundai in New York City. At the iconic 50 Rockefeller Plaza, a robot dog greets visitors at the entrance, nodding its head up and down and shaking its hind. Another humanoid robot, referred to as Atlas, strikes a pose by the door. Above that door, there’s a banner of Atlas rejoicing with its arms up. Inside the building, Atlas stands with a soccer ball in its hands — it’s a popular photo spot with children.
And once inside the elevator leading up to the exhibition hall, the closing doors reveal yet another picture of Atlas, merged into the iconic image of Diego Maradona hoisting the World Cup trophy in 1986. The robots, they are everywhere.
Aside from the museum, Hyundai has also released a five-part documentary on teaching Atlas to play soccer as part of its World Cup marketing. And to cement the role of its robots in the tournament, a number of its robot dogs have been deployed in stadiums to patrol the area for added security.
The incessant display of robots is meant to send a message: Hyundai is now a robotics company — and it wants the world to know. What better place to advertise that than the largest sporting event on the planet?
Hyundai’s robotics ambitions began in earnest in 2020, when the automaker agreed to acquire a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics, the company behind Atlas and the dog-like robot Spot. Since then, the company has increasingly positioned itself as more than a carmaker, describing robotics as a core pillar of its future and investing in robots that can automate factory work and assist with other industrial tasks. The World Cup campaign is the latest step in that bid.
The effort, of course, is not without controversy. Hyundai’s plan to stock its factories in South Korea with robots has met strong resistance from its union, which fears that the humanoid robots will one day replace factory workers. As talks to negotiate wages and the deployment of these robots has stalled, the union overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to authorize a strike. Industrial action from the union, which is considered one of the largest and most influential in South Korea, would be a blow for Hyundai and cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars.
That labor dispute is notable because it could land in the U.S. as well: Hyundai plans to deploy its Atlas humanoid robots in the U.S. by 2028, starting with the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America in Georgia, ultimately deploying more than 25,000 robots.
It’s why the PR push for Atlas during the World Cup is so crucial to Hyundai. Hyundai Motor Group is one of FIFA’s select group of global sponsors, ensuring that no other automakers can advertise at official World Cup locations worldwide. When Hyundai renewed its sponsorship contract with FIFA in 2023, it included Boston Dynamics to “showcase future mobility solutions,” as a press release put it at the time.
Within the FIFA Museum, visitors look at the robots with awe rather than the fear associated with job loss and an uncertain future. At a table dedicated to miniature Atlas figures recreating iconic goal celebration poses — Lionel Messi raising his fingers to the sky, Son Heung-min making a camera gesture, Cristiano Ronaldo throwing his arms down — people lean in to take pictures, widening their eyes at the display.
“Mobility and robotics turn every match into a glimpse of new talent, energy, and possibilities,” a nearby sign about Hyundai’s future reads — a promise of optimism that can only be bottled inside the World Cup bubble.
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LOS ANGELES — Despite months of controversy beforehand, Friday’s encounter in Seattle did not turn out to be much of a “Pride Match” at all. Expressions of sexual and gender identity were sparse in the crowd, perhaps due to the random lottery pairing of Iran and Egypt, which have two of the world’s least hospitable societies and most repressive governments towards LGBT people.
Chance has produced a political pairing today that has a much stronger political claim to a “Pride Match” designation: the opening round-of-32 fixture in Los Angeles this afternoon. Canada and South Africa will meet because of the tournament’s bracket architecture, but they are parallel pioneers in gay and lesbian rights — the first two non-European countries to legalize same-sex marriage.
Canada got there first. Courts in its most populous provinces began to rule in 2003 that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, making it possible for gay men and lesbians to marry in much of the country. In 2005, the Liberal Party government led by Prime Minister Paul Martin introduced the Civil Marriage Act, creating a single legal standard for all provinces and territories. It passed a parliamentary vote on July 19, 2005, and became law the next day — placing Canada alongside the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain as the only countries that allowed same-sex marriage nationwide.
South Africa joined them the following year. In December 2005, the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled that the common-law definition of marriage violated the equal-protection promises of the country’s post-apartheid constitution, which specifically protect people from discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation.” After the court essentially ordered Parliament to rewrite the law, lawmakers drafted the Civil Union Act, which passed and became law on November 30, 2006.
Now more than three dozen countries allow same-sex unions, including the World Cup’s three North American co-hosts and all of the tournament favorites including Argentina, France, Brazil, Germany, Portugal and England (which along with Wales legalized them in 2014). South Africa, however, remains the only country in Africa.
Canada and South Africa have different constitutional regimes and cultural traditions, but one person links their shared arc as pioneers in LGBTQ+ rights: Montreal human-rights attorney Irwin Cotler, who served on Nelson Mandela’s legal team before becoming Canada’s justice minister. In that role, he was the driving force with Martin’s government to codify same-sex unions through the Civil Marriage Act.
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