内容摘要：Balazs Szigeti of University of California San Francisco, who has studied microdosing, said it may be a way to harness the placebo effect for personal benefit.

Balazs Szigeti of University of California San Francisco, who has studied microdosing, said it may be a way to harness the placebo effect for personal benefit.

Chihuahua is a particularly worrisome place, officials say — as a border state, the risk that the preventable disease will continue spreading internationally and affect the most vulnerable is high.“We have a massive flow of people,” said Alexis Hernández, a Cuauhtemoc health official. “That makes things a lot more complicated.”

An aerial view of Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Silva Rey)An aerial view of Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Martin Silva Rey)Mexico considered measles eliminated in 1998. But its vaccination rate against the virus was around 76% as of 2023, according to the World Health Organization — a dip from previous years and well below the 95% rate experts say is needed to prevent outbreaks.

Mexico’s current outbreak began in March. Officials traced it to an 8-year-old unvaccinated Mennonite boy who visited relatives in Seminole, Texas — at the center of the U.S. outbreak.Cases rapidly spread through Chihuahua’s 46,000-strong Mennonite community via schools and churches, according to religious and health leaders. From there, they said, it spread to workers in orchards and cheese plants.

Farm worker Fernando Pedro Cruz Vencinos tends to an apple orchard in a Mennonite community, the epicenter of a measles outbreak, in Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, Mexico, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Megan Janetsky)

Farm worker Fernando Pedro Cruz Vencinos tends to an apple orchard in a Mennonite community, the epicenter of a measles outbreak, in Cuauhtemoc, Mexico, Mexico, Thursday, May 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Megan Janetsky)Andrews started physical therapy and returned six months later about 30 pounds lighter and “running down the hallway almost,” Riella recalled. “He was just, you know, a different person,” so they started checking if he’d qualify for the pilot study.

One big question was cardiac fitness: Mass General’shad underlying heart disease that killed him. But Riella said intense exams showed Andrews’ “heart was in the best shape possible.”

Still, Andrews was a little nervous and sought advice from the only other person who knew what a pig kidney transplant was like — the NYU patient, Towana Looney.“We just prayed together and talked about how it would be,” Andrews said of their phone calls before and after his transplant. He said Looney advised “to just stay strong and that’s what I’m doing.”