7 Important Health Stories We’ll Be Following in 2026NEWS | 30 December 2025From immune cell therapies to measles outbreaks to federal attacks on public health, these are some of the health topics we’ll be watching next year
A lot of this year’s health news was exhausting and demoralizing, as the Trump administration weakened scientific agencies and questioned public health and science itself. Deadly outbreaks of measles, bird flu, foodborne illness and infant botulism shone a light on the holes in our surveillance systems. "Backsliding" is the term I used to describe the year’s developments in our annual recap episode of our podcast Science Quickly. But it wasn’t all bad news—there were a number of exciting discoveries on everything from male birth control to GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. As we close the door on 2025, here are some of the health developments we’ll be watching next year.
Trump’s War on Public Health
Health experts have sounded the alarm this year on the systematic dismantling of federal health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a longtime antivaccine activist who leads the Department of Health and Human services. HHS took particular aim at lifesaving vaccines: the CDC changed the universal birth recommendation for hepatitis B vaccine and is planning more extensive changes to the vaccine schedule next year. Kennedy’s FDA may also add a “black box” warning label to COVID vaccines, which agency officials have linked, without evidence, to the deaths of children. Next year we’ll be watching developments on the vaccine and drug approval front, as well as other federal government policy changes that could effect Americans’ health.
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GLP-1 Pills Are Here
Blockbuster weight-loss medications such as Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide) have been in the news a lot the past couple of years, as study after study has shown their potential for triggering profound weight loss and treating metabolic, heart and kidney disease. Now the companies that make these popular injectable glucagonlike peptide 1 (GLP-1) drugs are developing pills for weight loss. Wegovy manufacturer Novo Nordisk’s pill for type 2 diabetes, Rybelsus, was approved in 2019. A version of that pill gained FDA approval specifically for weight loss on December 22. But Eli Lilly—maker of Zepbound—has a pill in the works, too. It remains to be seen how effective the pill formulations will be.
U.S.’s Measles-Free Status under Threat
The U.S. could lose its measles-free status as soon as January 2026 if current infection trends continue. Measles—an extremely contagious yet vaccine-preventable illness—was declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000. But the past year has seen multiple large outbreaks of the disease in states such as Texas, Utah and South Carolina. Canada lost its measles-free status in November, and if measles spreads continuously in the U.S. for a year, the disease will be considered endemic here again.
Personalized Gene Therapies
In May 2025 the world learned that a baby boy with a rare, life-threatening genetic disease had become the first person to receive a bespoke gene-editing treatment. The gene-editing tool CRISPR has already been used to functionally cure people with sickle cell disease, but this was the first time it was used to develop a treatment for an individual with a specific mutation. These therapies can take years to develop, so they are unlikely to bring cures to other genetic diseases immediately. But in the coming year, we’ll be watching for other personalized gene-editing treatments.
More Bird Flu
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, has been sickening wild birds and other animals for several years now. It has continued to infect U.S. dairy cattle and poultry flocks; the outbreaks in chickens were so deadly they caused a spike in egg prices earlier this year. After a summer lull, bird flu came back in force this fall, as seasonal bird migrations seeded new infections.
HEAR MORE: Part one of our three-part podcast series on bird flu
Next year we’ll continue to follow the outbreak. H5N1 has already caused 71 human cases and two deaths in the U.S. since 2024, according to the CDC. Though the virus does not appear to spread efficiently from person to person yet, the more opportunities it has to infect people and animals, the more likely it could mutate and mix into a more dangerous form that could potentially set off an epidemic or pandemic.
“Peacekeeper Cell” Treatments
This year was a big one for research on immune system cells, called T regulatory cells, that stop the body from attacking itself: the discovery of these “peacekeeper cells” won a Nobel Prize. And next year regulatory T cell therapies may finally become a reality. As soon as the spring of 2026, the FDA could approve the first of these therapies: a regulatory T cell therapy that could prevent graft-versus-host disease in bone marrow transplant recipients. This complication develops when the donor’s bone marrow attacks its new host. Similar therapies are in development for autoimmune diseases as well.
The AI Will See You Now
Artificial intelligence—and specifically generative AI—models are reshaping a lot of fields right now, and medicine and health care are no exception. Models already exist to predict a person’s risk of developing breast cancer, and researchers are now using AI to predict someone’s risk of 1,000 different diseases. We’ll be closely watching new uses of AI in health care in 2026. But don’t try using it for your therapist just yet.Author: Andrea Thompson. Tanya Lewis. Lauren J. Young. Source
