Health

(NEW YORK) — Bella Weems-Lambert and Dallin Lambert always knew they wanted to raise a family. They just hadn’t known that the journey — which would take them overseas and back — would be followed by hundreds of thousands of supporters online.

The duo share their struggle with infertility openly with their social media followers in hopes that it will make others feel better about their own stories.

Recently, after years of struggling with infertility and a series of unsuccessful in vitro fertilization treatments, the two shared an exciting update: They’re going to be parents through adoption.

“Adoption for us was never a last option. It was never like a last resort because of our infertility. We feel so strongly about adoption and we know that this is the right step for our family,” Weems-Lambert told “Good Morning America.” “But I feel like we had to go through those hard things to get to where we are now and I’m so grateful for our infertility to lead us to where we are right now.”

The couple married in 2017 and decided to take the first two years of their marriage to travel and “live up the married life” before trying to grow their family. After that, they decided they wanted to start a family, but after about a year of trying, they hadn’t had any success.

“I felt like I was so alone in that journey of trying and getting the negative pregnancy tests every month,” said Weems-Lambert, who said the couple decided to see a fertility specialist near their home in Gilbert, Arizona, in 2020.

Lambert said turning to a specialist felt “defeating” at first.

“It was really hard going and seeing that specialist because it’s kind of like it turned everything that you didn’t think was going to happen into a reality,” he said. “It was hard to especially watch Bella go through that.”

Weems-Lambert said she was diagnosed with diminished ovarian reserve and that the doctor had initially recommended a round of IVF, a well-known treatment for infertility, where a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm are combined in a laboratory to create an embryo or embryos. If the embryo is viable, it is transferred into the woman’s uterus through her cervix.

Weems-Lambert said she wasn’t ready for IVF at the time and wanted to seek other treatment options.

“I am so young. I’m so healthy. I felt like I was in denial. I was like, ‘There’s no way that I have to do IVF,'” she said. “For six months, we did a bunch of different procedures. We did an IUI. We did some medicated cycles, we did injections…. And all were unsuccessful. It was really mentally draining and exhausting.”

The couple then decided it was time to try IVF. After a mutual friend connected them with an IVF doctor in Oman, they decided they were going to travel to the Middle East to “make an adventure” out of the treatment.

“We’re big travelers, we love traveling. So we felt like, let’s make light of the situation. Let’s go overseas,” said Weems-Lambert. “Let’s go and do IVF and try to make it fun.”

The couple also said the adventure spurred them to start sharing their infertility journey online.

“In the beginning, we weren’t very open with it. It was kind of scary to be vulnerable and talk about it with others,” said Lambert. “But then once we realized that we had the potential to help other couples going through it, we thought that it would be best to put it out there and start sharing it.”

Since then, the couple has amassed nearly 700,000 Instagram followers combined, and more than 1 million subscribers on YouTube.

“The more you share it, the more real it feels. And so, it was really hard at first starting to share our infertility journey or even saying the word infertility — like, it hurt to say out loud,” said Weems-Lambert. “But once we did share it, we were so happy because we realized that so many people struggle with infertility. I had no idea.”

According to a recent report from the World Health Organization, around 17.5% of the adult population — nearly 1 in 6 adults worldwide — experiences infertility.

Ultimately, after two trips to the Middle East and three unsuccessful rounds of IVF treatments, the couple decided on something that they always wanted to do: adopt.

“As we’re going through these infertility treatments, I always just kept thinking like, ‘It would be just so cool to adopt’ and I always had that on my heart,” said Weems-Lambert. “So we talked to some friends of ours and even family members who had adopted before, and every story was so beautiful.”

According to recent data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System within the U.S. Children’s Bureau, there were more than 114,000 children and youth waiting to be adopted in the United States in 2021 alone.

Prospective adoptive parents, like the Lamberts, who choose to utilize adoption agencies must typically undergo a strict review before an adoption is allowed to proceed, which can include verifying U.S. citizenship, meeting an age requirement and determining the “suitability” of each adoptive parent. Candidates undergo a criminal background check, fingerprinting and a home study, during which a professional will come to evaluate whether the home is suitable for the child.

After undergoing the evaluative process, Lambert and Weems-Lambert were adoption-certified on March 26. Now, the couple has connected with a few different agencies to help “match” expectant mothers with prospective adoptive parents.

“Every situation is different. You can [wait for a match] for a couple of years, or we’ve heard that it can be a couple of weeks or a couple of months,” said Lambert.

While they are waiting for the right match, the Lamberts are continuing to share their story online. Weems-Lambert said she even designed a necklace for her jewelry company, Think Goodness, and wrote a song for those who are also struggling with infertility.

For both, she shared the same message: You are not alone.

“If you’re struggling with infertility, you are not alone. It is so hard and it can be so isolating. And it’s totally valid to feel those heavy and sad days,” she said. “Find something that brings you hope and brings you that light that you need in your life.”

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(ATLANTA) — The number of teenage girls experiencing suicidal thoughts and behaviors increased during the second year of the pandemic, new federal data showed.

The percentage of high school female students who seriously considered attempting suicide rose from 24.1% to about one-third, or 30%, between 2019 and 2021, according to the latest results of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The percentage of those who made a suicide plan increased from 19.9% to 23.6% and there was also an increase in suicide attempts from 11.0% to 13.3%, according to the CDC survey.

Differences were seen when it came to students’ ages, race/ethnicity or gender identity.

For example, 9th and 10th-grade girls were more likely to seriously consider attempting suicide than 12th-grade girls.

Ninth graders who were seriously considering suicide increased from 23.7% in 2019 to 30.7% in 2021 and 10th graders saw an increase from 23.6% to 33.6% over the same period. However, for 12th-grade girls, the risk went up from 24.0% in 2019 to 25.6% in 2021.

Freshman and sophomore high school girls were also more likely to make a suicide plan and attempt suicide compared to senior high school girls, according to the CDC.

“Because of the increased prevalence of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among female students, particularly for those in 9th- and 10th-grade, the importance of early prevention and intervention to prevent suicide is evident,” the authors wrote.

In 2021, Black students were nearly 1.5 times more likely than white female students to report having attempted suicide.

Compared to white female students, Hispanic female students had increased rates of suicide attempts requiring medical attention.

Additionally, LGBQ+ students had higher rates of reporting attempted suicide than heterosexual students, the CDC said.

Those identifying as lesbian or gay were found to have nearly 1.9 times higher rates, identifying as bisexual nearly 3.3 times higher rates, and identifying as questioning 1.5 times higher rates compared to heterosexual students.

Meanwhile, when it came to suicidal thoughts and behaviors among male students, percentages were relatively stable between 2019 and 2021.

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey is conducted every other year and surveys thousands of high school-age children from public and private schools between grades 9 and 12 across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Although suicide is the 11th leading cause of death overall in the United States, it is the third among U.S. high school students between the ages 14 and 18, accounting for one-fifth of all deaths among this age group, the report said.

The authors said the findings in the report are consistent with trends before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the rising rates of suicide risk among teen girls may be linked to how measures, such as social distancing and remote learning, may have increased students’ social isolation and anxiety.

Common risk factors for suicide include a history of depression and other mental illness, bullying, loss of relationships, and social isolation, according to the CDC.

The CDC team added that understanding why rates were stable among male students, even during an event such as the pandemic, “could yield insights into protective factors.”

“A comprehensive approach to suicide prevention, which reduces risk and supports youths at increased risk, provides support to those at risk and can ultimately save lives,” they wrote.

It comes after a report released earlier this year from the CDC showed teen girls were experiencing record-high levels of feelings of sadness and acts of violence.

Nearly three in five — or 57% — of girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, up from 36% in 2011 and the highest levels seen in the past decade, the data found.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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(NEW YORK) — Some women are willing to go the distance to preserve fertility — and make it more affordable.

After the age of 30, a woman’s fertility decreases every year, leading some women to turn to fertility preservation treatments, such as egg freezing, so they can delay starting a family while ensuring their chances of having one.

Egg freezing for fertility preservation is a process that has been around since the late 1990s, according to the National Institute of Health. The technique, which includes retrieving and subsequently freezing a woman’s viable eggs, was first used for young women with cancer who are at risk of infertility as a result of their treatment.

Now, it’s being offered to all women who are typically 38 and younger “who want to preserve the option of having healthy, genetically related children at a later date,” according to the National Institutes of Health.

However, egg freezing comes at a cost.

In the U.S. broadly, among the 180 clinics listed in Freeze Health’s Compare Clinics tool, the average cost for one cycle of egg freezing is, on average, approximately $12,450. That price tag doesn’t even include multiple cycles or annual storage fees, which can range between $600 to $800.

The high cost drives some women, like Spring Inés Peña, to go abroad in search of an insurance policy for their fertility that won’t break the bank.

“I figured, you know, Spain might be a nice little European relaxed vacation where I can go and do this very important procedure,” Peña told ABC News’ Good Morning America.

Peña, a 36-year-old from Los Angeles, traveled to Barcelona for her egg-freezing procedure. In Europe, the median cost of egg freezing is about 40% of the cost in the U.S. and in Spain, it’s even less expensive, according to data from Freeze Health.

Jennifer Lannon, the co-founder of Freeze Health, a free resource that allows women to compare clinics, said the price matters.

“It naturally makes sense that a lot of women have been catching on to this and whether they have friends or family abroad, they’re traveling for work, or they just want to take a trip somewhere else and save some money. They’re choosing to go to a cheaper location,” Lannon said.

According to Lannon, 1,000 women per month will click on Freeze Health’s guide to international egg freezing. She said the most popular countries are Mexico and Spain.

“If you’re looking to stay close to the U.S. and perhaps in the same time zone, maybe for work purposes, then Mexico tends to be the best option,” Lannon said. “If you’re looking to travel to Europe, then Spain, and specifically Barcelona, tends to be one of the hottest cities with the most options, the most reasonable prices, and also just does the most volume of egg freezing.”

The number of assisted reproductive technology cycles performed using embryos from frozen patient eggs or embryos increased from 32,180 in 2011 to 129,692 in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

National data on success rates are scarce. One study found that the frozen egg live-birth rate is around 42%.

“It’s not a panacea. It is not a guarantee — the largest challenge is after the egg is frozen. It’s supposed to be a backup, that’s all it’s designed for,” said Dr. Karenne Fru, the medical director at OMA Fertility.

According to the CDC, there are several things to consider when opting for medical tourism. The risk of infectious disease and antibiotic resistance is higher in some countries and continuity of care may be challenging if you need follow-up care in the U.S. Importantly, you should be sure to look into your provider. Some countries’ requirements for maintaining licensure, credentialing and accreditation may be less than what would be required in the United States.

Aside from the physical challenges, freezing eggs abroad has its downsides, including language barriers. Ultimately, for Peña, the vacation and two cycles of egg freezing were worth the trip abroad.

“So with the vacation included and two cycles, since I did end up doing two, that ended up being what it would have cost for me to do it here in L.A., one cycle with no European vacation included,” she said. “So it was about half price.”

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(NEW YORK) — A popular drug currently approved to treat Type 2 diabetes could soon also be approved for weight loss.

Eli Lilly, the maker of the drug Mounjaro, said Thursday it expects the medication could be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for weight loss as early as the end of the year.

The company made the prediction on the timing of FDA approval as it announced top-line results of a Phase 3 study showing a nearly 16% overall weight loss over a 17-month period among people who have both Type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Prior studies among people with obesity without Type 2 diabetes have shown a weight loss within the range of 15% to 21%, depending on the dose of the medication given.

Eli Lilly is using the data from the Phase 3 study as part of its weight-loss approval request to the FDA. The company said Thursday it plans to complete the U.S. submission for the drug tirzepatide, sold under the brand name Mounjaro, in adults with obesity or overweight with weight-related comorbidities in the coming weeks.

Eli Lilly announced in October the FDA granted Fast Track designation to studying tirzepatide to treat obesity or excess weight with a secondary medical condition.

The FDA has not said when it would announce a decision about weight loss approval for tirzepatide.

Here are three questions answered about the medication:

1. How does Mounjaro work?

Mounjaro, approved by the FDA last year to treat Type 2 diabetes, is an injectable medication that patients take once per week.

Doctors will typically start out with a low dose of the injection and increase the dose after four weeks based on your body’s response.

The active ingredient in Mounjaro, tirzepatide, works by activating two naturally produced hormones in the body: glucagon-like peptide-1, known as GLP-1, and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or GIP.

The combination is said to slow the emptying of the stomach, making people feel full longer, and suppress appetite by slowing hunger signals in the brain.

In Type 2 diabetes, Mounjaro is recommended to be used along with “diet and exercise to improve blood sugar,” according to its website.

Mounjaro cannot be given to patients with certain medical conditions, including medullary thyroid cancer, pancreatitis, or gallstones.

Side effects can include severe nausea and constipation.

Its safety has not yet been established in minors.

2. How does Mounjaro differ from other drugs like Ozempic?

Ozempic and Wegovy are made from a different compound, called semaglutide.

These drugs, called GLP-1 RAs, help people produce insulin and lower the amount of sugar in the blood.

The FDA approved Ozempic in 2017 as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes alongside diet and exercise if other medications cannot control blood sugar levels well enough. Although Ozempic is not explicitly approved for chronic weight management, it can be prescribed off-label and used for people who are obese.

Wegovy is essentially the same injectable drug prescribed at a higher dosage. The FDA has specifically approved Wegovy for patients with severe obesity, or who are overweight and have one or more weight-associated conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol.

3. What changes if Mounjaro is FDA-approved for weight loss?

Formal FDA approval of Mounjaro for weight loss would have implications for insurance reimbursement, meaning people prescribed the medication for weight loss would be better able to have it covered by insurance.

The out-of-pocket cost for a drug like Mounjaro can run as high as $1,400 for a one-month supply.

If the FDA approves Mounjaro for weight loss, it also means Eli Lilly would be able to explicitly advertise Mounjaro as a weight loss drug.

Nearly 42% of all adults in the U.S. qualify as obese, defined as having a body mass index at or above 30, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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(NEW YORK) — In Camilla Luddington’s role as Dr. Jo Wilson on Grey’s Anatomy, the actress was tasked with portraying a character who experienced mental health struggles, including a stay in a psychiatric facility.

Offscreen, Luddington is opening up about the mental health struggles she has experienced herself, including a battle with postpartum anxiety.

Luddington, a mom of two, said in a new interview with Wondermind , the Selena Gomez-backed mental fitness ecosystem, that she started therapy for the first time.

“I never felt like I needed to [undergo therapy], and then my daughter was born,” Luddington said. “I now look back and realize I had postpartum anxiety, which I didn’t know was a thing. I knew about postpartum depression, and I knew I didn’t have that, but I had so much anxiety.”

Luddington and her husband, actor Matt Alan, announced the birth of their daughter Hayden in April 2017. The couple announced the birth of their second child, a son named Lucas, in August 2020.

While some level of worrying is normal with a newborn, worries that turn irrational and incessant are signs of postpartum anxiety. Around 10% of postpartum women develop anxiety, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Despite its prevalence, there is no category for it in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Postpartum anxiety is most often grouped under postpartum depression, which affects about 1 in 7 women, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Luddington said that for her, anxiety manifests in physical conditions. She said that by working with a therapist, she has learned tools to help her cope.

“I can feel myself physically getting anxious, which is a vicious circle [because] it gives me more anxiety to feel the anxiety,” Luddington said. “I feel anxiety, for example, in my feet. My feet start to tingle — that’s how I know I’m starting to get anxious. There are different parts of my body that I then start honing in on, like my heart racing.”

“[My therapist] tells me to find a place in my body that feels neutral, and, the funny thing is, I always think of my butt. My butt is never racing like my heart or tingling like my feet or hands,” she continued, laughing. “And actually honing in on that part of my body, or any part of [my] body that is not feeling the anxiety, is something that, in the moment, can kind of cool me down. … I know it [might] sound funny to some people, but figuring out an area of my body that is not manifesting that physical anxiety really helps me.”

After the birth of her second child in 2020, Luddington said she experienced another condition, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which she said she did not know about before it happened to her.

“I never really had PMS growing up. … I hadn’t suffered from depression before [either], so I didn’t really understand what was going on. I just felt like there were times when, for a few days, I was just sad. Just depressed,” Luddington said. “My son was born during COVID in August 2020, so I kind of chalked it up to, ‘This is hard, this year’s hard, there are a lot of sad things happening in the world, and I’m just having one of those days.'”

Luddington said she began to notice that her bouts of irritability and depression coincided with the start of her menstrual cycle, which prompted her to go her doctor for help.

“When I went to go see my [doctor], I said, ‘I’m kind of noticing this happening every month,'” Luddington recalled. “I described my symptoms, and she said, ‘Well, that’s PMDD.’ And I had never even heard of that before.”

What to know about PMDD

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder affects as many as 5% of women of childbearing age, according to the Office on Women’s Health.

It is described as a condition similar to PMS but more severe in the symptoms it brings, including depression, thoughts of suicide, irritability, fatigue, anxiety and tension. Physical symptoms may include headaches, cramps, bloating, joint and muscle pain, insomnia and binge eating or food cravings.

PMDD happens in the week or two before a woman’s period starts, according to the Office on Women’s Health.

Exactly why PMDD occurs is not yet known, though it is suspected to have to do with hormonal changes. Serotonin levels, which also change during the menstrual cycle, may also play a role.

People who have a family history of depression, postpartum depression or other mood disorders may be more at risk for PMDD, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

When diagnosing PMDD, health care providers look for five or more PMDD symptoms, including a mood-related symptom, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

PMDD can be treated, which is why it is important to seek medical help.

Treatments can include everything from antidepressants and hormonal birth control to lifestyle changes like diet, exercise and stress-management tools, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Luddington said that for her, starting on a prescription antidepressant was helpful, after meeting with a psychiatrist.

“I went on Zoloft for the first time this year, which I think is important to talk about because I feel like there’s still a stigma about medication,” Luddington said. “I was nervous about going on it because I was like, I’m an actress. Can I still be in touch with my feelings? Will I be able to cry on camera? Will I feel different? Will I seem out of it? [But] honestly, it has been super amazing for me, and this is the first time I’m talking about it.”

She added, “It definitely took away my PMDD, so I don’t have that dip every month. But then, also, it just helped any general anxiety I have. I feel like I’m a lot less anxious.”

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, substance use or other mental health crises, please call or text the new three digit code at 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new drug Tuesday to treat a rare form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

The drug Qalsody (tofersen) is expected to help people with a very specific mutation, SOD1, which applies to only 2% of the ALS population.

In a statement, the FDA said it estimates “there are fewer than 500 patients with SOD1-ALS in the United States.”

Among those who qualify, the drug has the potential to slow muscle degeneration by targeting SOD1 mRNA, or mRNA, genetic material that tells the body how to make proteins to reduce the protein being made.

Studies showed that the drug reduced plasma neurofilament light (NfL), a blood-based biomarker of axonal (nerve) injury and neurodegeneration, according to the FDA.

“Patients receiving Qalsody had nominally significant reductions in plasma NfL concentration at Week 28 compared to the placebo arm,” the FDA said in a statement.

The drug is given via a lumbar puncture — or a spinal injection — with three doses in 14-day intervals, followed by monthly dosing.

Researchers determined Qalsody to be safe with the most common side effects being pain, fatigue, joint and muscle pain and increased white blood cells in cerebrospinal fluid.

The drug was given conditional approval by the FDA under the fast track designation. Biogen, which makes the drug, will still need to complete additional and larger studies on its effectiveness.

It comes after the FDA approved another drug from Biogen, Aduhelm, in 2021 to treat Alzheimer’s disease despite a lack of evidence that it is effective.

ALS, also sometimes known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurodewngerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain, leading to weakness and paralysis.

The disease often begins with patients experiencing muscle twitching and weakness in one arm or leg followed by having difficulty swallowing or slurring speech.

Patients’ conditions eventually decline to a point at which they are unable to move, speak, eat or even breathe on their own.

According to an 2017 estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 32,000 people in the U.S. live with ALS.

There is no cure, but some already approved treatments may help. It is always fatal, according to the ALS Association.

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(NEW YORK) — American Samoa has issued a public health emergency after an outbreak of measles has spread across the U.S. territory.

As of Tuesday, there has been one laboratory-confirmed case among an 8-year-old and 31 suspected and/or probable cases of the highly infectious disease, according to the Department of Health.

During a press briefing, Dr. Scott Anesi, the department’s lead epidemiologist, the suspected cases are all in children between ages 2 months old and 13 years old.

Anyone who tests positive for measles has been ordered to isolate for 21 days, while those who have or may have been exposed must quarantine for up to 21 days.

The emergency declaration, signed by Gov. Lemanu P.S. Mauga, is for 30 days and is set to expire Wednesday, May 24.

The outbreak has led the Department of Education in American Samoa, which serves 12,000 students, to close all schools until Friday, May 12.

Parents have been told that they can pick up their children’s virtual learning packers and any meals they are eligible for at their school sires through Friday.

This is not the first time there has been an outbreak in the area. According to a World Health Organization report, a 2019 outbreak swept the Pacific.

In American Samoa, there were 12 measles cases and no deaths reported. However, in the nation of Samoa, there were more than 5,700 cases and 83 deaths reported, most occurring in children under 5 years old.

The WHO and UNICEF said the outbreak came after measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine vaccination coverage fell from 74% to 34% between 2017 and 2018 after two infants died following immunization with improperly prepared vaccines, which led to vaccine hesitancy.

Measles is incredibly contagious, with the CDC saying every individual infected by the virus can spread it to up to 10 close contacts, if they are unprotected including not wearing a mask or not being vaccinated.

Complications from measles can be relatively benign, like rashes, or they can be much more severe, like viral sepsis, pneumonia or brain swelling.

The CDC says anybody who either had measles at some point in their life or who has received two doses of the MMR vaccine is protected against measles.

In the decade before the measles vaccine became available, an estimated 3 to 4 million people were infected every year, 48,000 were hospitalized and between 400 and 500 people died, according to the federal health agency.

One dose of the measles vaccine is 93% effective at preventing infection if exposed to the virus. Two doses are 97% effective.

Children are recommended to receive their first dose between 12 and 15 months old and their second dose between ages 4 and 6.

According to a report from the CDC published in January, during the 2021-22 school year, 88.3% of kindergartners in Ohio had received two doses of the MMR vaccine, less than the national average of 93%.

The American Samoa Department of Health says 89% of the students in daycares, elementary schools and high schools have received both doses of the MMR vaccines as of April 22.

The department shared a post on Facebook Tuesday of several clinics, halls and churches that will be offering the MMR vaccines for those aged 6 months and older.

Anesi said the goal for the territory is to achieve at least 95% and 100% among all school-age children.

“The main concern here is that those children that are one years old up to high school should be fully immunized as required by the DOE,” he said.

ABC News’ Eli Cahan contributed to this report.

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(INDIO, Calif.) — At Coachella, a group of independent volunteers handed out fentanyl test strips and carried the overdose treatment Narcan in an effort to curb overdoses related to the deadly synthetic opioid that is 50 times more powerful than heroin.

The nonprofit Team Awareness Combatting Overdose, or TACO, was behind the giveaway at the festival, which included performances by Bad Bunny, Blondie, Gorillaz and blink-182, among other acts.

“I will usually just ask them like, ‘Hey, are you interested in potentially having a test strip for testing for fentanyl?’ And people usually know what fentanyl is,” said Hanna Raskin, one of dozens of TACO volunteers.

TACO was founded by several students at the University of Southern California in the wake of several overdose deaths that occurred there in 2019.

Federal data from the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics shows that over half of people over the age of 12 have used illicit drugs at least once. TACO and similar groups advocate for harm reduction, an approach that seeks to lower the risks associated with drug use rather than advocating for total abstinence.

Ahead of the annual music festival, Raskin and TACO founder Madeline Hilliard hosted a virtual training session for their ambassadors, teaching them how to detect if common drugs are laced with fentanyl using the test strips.

“Couple grains of salt or sand-worth of fentanyl — it’s a white powder, it’s totally odorless, flavorless, so you can imagine how easily that could get mixed into something like a pill or MDMA or a bag of cocaine that’s also a white powder,” Hilliard said. MDMA is commonly known as ecstasy or molly.

And when people take contaminated drugs, the consequences are often devastating.

In 2022, synthetic opioids like fentanyl were the leading cause for the record number of drug poisonings and overdose deaths in the U.S, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Drug Enforcement Administration issued a public safety alert after lab testing found that 6 out of 10 fentanyl-laced pills contain a potential lethal dose. In 2021, the United States suffered more deaths related to fentanyl than gun- and auto-related deaths combined, according to the CDC. In the 12-month period ending in October 2021, the agency reported that more than 105,000 Americans died of drug overdoses; 66% of those deaths were related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

Riverside County, where Coachella took place over two weekends, saw the growing crisis kill nearly 500 residents last year, when a staggering 6.2 million fentanyl pills were seized there by the sheriff’s narcotics division, according to a press release from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office.

“[Test strips are] not 100% effective, but they are highly effective from what we’ve seen. When people use fentanyl test strips immediately, they’re now aware that fentanyl is a risk,” Hilliard said at the training.

Hilliard and Raskin also taught volunteers how to spot the telltale signs of an opioid overdose, such as slow breathing, unconsciousness and pinpoint pupils that don’t respond to light.

The nonprofit’s efforts have already saved lives like that of Charlie, a college student who survived an overdose after taking a drug he didn’t know contained fentanyl at a party last year. [Charlie is a pseudonym. The student asked not to be identified with his real name because of privacy concerns.]

“Everyone thinks that, ‘Oh it’s not going to happen to me. How could it be me?’ But it’s when you start becoming careless like that, that it can be you,” Charlie said.

Charlie says he was near death when a quick-thinking friend who had been trained by TACO swiftly administered Narcan.

“He’s alive today because we were able to educate his friends around him, so that when he did overdose, they were prepared to respond,” Hilliard said.

Hilliard said that a TACO volunteer administered Narcan to an unresponsive Coachella attendee exhibiting signs of an overdose who then regained consciousness after the treatment was used.

Raskin believes that everyone who chooses to use recreational drugs should be testing them for fentanyl.

“I want people to know that using drugs does not determine whether or not someone deserves to wake up the next morning. I also think it’s important to understand that if you are using drugs and you want to prevent experiencing an overdose, it’s essential that you test your drugs and also that you carry Narcan,” Raskin said.

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(NEW YORK) — A study released in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week has shed some new light on how breast cancer rates have been disproportionately affecting Black female patients and pressed for earlier screenings.

The study found that Black women had the same risk of dying from breast cancer if they were screened starting at age 42 as the general population had with screenings starting at the recommended age of 50.

Researchers, who examined data from 415, 277 breast cancer deaths between 2011 and 2020, found that breast cancer death rates for women between 40 and 49 were highest among Black female patients, with a rate of 27 deaths per 100,000.

“These findings suggest that health policy makers and clinicians could consider an alternative, race and ethnicity-adapted approach in which Black female patients start screening earlier,” the authors wrote.

Although the researchers noted that there is “currently insufficient data to make specific recommendations for different racial and ethnic populations,” they said that race and ethnicity need to be factored in to “optimize the benefit of screening.”

The study didn’t prospectively test what would happen if screening started earlier, but instead used the data to calculate a risk threshold for breast cancer based on the screening age.

For screenings that started at 50, Black female patients reached that threshold for breast cancer at 42, while non-Hispanic white females did so at 51, American Indian and Alaska Native and Hispanic females at 57 years, and Asian and Pacific Islander females at 61, according to the study.

For screenings that started at 40, Black females would reach the risk threshold level at 34, white females at 41, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native and Asian or Pacific Islander females at age 43 years, researchers said.

Researchers acknowledged their study didn’t look at the possible risks of earlier breast cancer screening for various races and ethnicities, such as false positives and the mental and emotional toll of waiting for test results.

“Although Black women may experience disproportionate rates of false positives because of breast density, the added risk of false positives from earlier screenings may be balanced by the benefits associated with earlier [breast cancer] detection in this group,” researchers said.

The report concluded that to decrease breast cancer mortality, “the starting age for the general population could be decreased from 50 to 45 or 40 years like what is done for colorectal cancer screening in the U.S,” and “health policy makers may consider the alternative, risk-adapted approach in which individuals, such as Black females, who are at high risk are screened earlier.”

Several organizations have different recommendations for breast cancer screenings.

The United States Preventive Services Task Force says women ages 50 to 74 should get a mammogram every two years, and women 40 to 49 should talk to their doctors about mammograms.

The American Cancer Society, which found that Black women have the lowest five-year relative breast cancer survival rate compared to all other racial/ethnic groups, recommends that women at mean risk levels should start annual mammography screening from age 45 years but have the opportunity to start from age 40 years.

Dr. Arif Kamal, the chief patient officer of the American Cancer Society, told ABC News that more research is showing a trend of younger women being diagnosed with breast cancer, and earlier screenings that are tailor-made based on a patient’s race, may be needed.

“I think it highlights beyond race, people should evaluate their own risk of breast cancer, such as family history and the age at which they were diagnosed,” he told ABC News.

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(NEW YORK) — Over the weekend, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he had tested positive for COVID-19, his third time battling the virus.

Lopez Obradour, who suffered a heart attack in 2013, wrote on Twitter on Sunday that his case is mild and that “my heart is at 100 percent.”

Studies suggest that most Americans have been infected with COVID at least once but a growing number have been infected multiple times.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not provide reinfection data but state-level data paints a varied picture.

Data from the New York State Department of Health shows that about 8.5% of total infections are reinfections. In Washington state, about 1% of all infections are reinfections as of October 2022, the latest date for which data is available, the state health department said.

Experts say reinfection is caused by a number of factors — including waning immunity and more transmissible variants — but the risk is highest for those who are vulnerable to serious complications from COVID.

What is the risk of being reinfected?

There are several factors tied to a person’s likelihood of being reinfected.

As of March 19, CDC data shows the COVID-19 case rate for unvaccinated people was 81.11 per 100,000 — more than three times higher than the rate of 25.81 per 100,000 among people fully vaccinated and boosted.

While being fully vaccinated and getting the bivalent booster shot can lower the risk of reinfection, studies have shown that immunity does wane over time.

Additionally, the chances of reinfection increases if a person lives in a county with high community transmission levels versus low transmission levels.

Another study from the CDC looked at essential workers who had previously been infected. It found that being unvaccinated, not frequently wearing a mask since first infection and being Black all increased the risk of being reinfected.

“The reality is three years into the pandemic, we know that infection is dependent on a variety of factors, including prior immunity,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation office at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “It’s not impossible especially over a long period of time, with immunity waning, whether that’s through infection or through vaccination.”

He continued, “We’ve seen many people with two, three, even four times COVID infection. It’s related to behavior. It’s related to practices around masking or travel.”

Role of variants

Currently, XBB.1.5, a subvariant of omicron, makes up the majority of new COVID cases in the U.S., CDC data shows.

Meanwhile, another subvariant, XBB.1.16, which was first detected in India, makes up nearly 10% of new cases.

Dr. Maria van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for COVID-19, said at a briefing that the variant “has one additional mutation in the spike protein, which in lab studies showed increased infectivity.”

Currently, no data suggests XBB.1.16 causes an increase in more severe illness, hospitalizations or deaths.

Brownstein said it’s important to stay vigilant because a new variant could change how likely reinfection is.

“We still have concern about being thrown a curveball when it comes to variants,” Brownstein said. “So far, we’re seeing a pretty predictable path along this omicron front but it is possible we’ll see something completely out of left field that could challenge that underlying immunity that we’ve had from previous infections and vaccines.”

Is reinfection dangerous?

Brownstein said there has been conflicting data on whether or not COVID reinfection raises the risk of chronic illness. Having a prior infection, however, does offer some protection, experts say.

“At the end of the day having the underlying immunity is beneficial … some level of immunity will provide some cross protection to new variants,” he said.

Brownstein said there is still a risk for those who are more likely to have severe complications from COVID-19, including the elderly and those who are immunocompromised.

Additionally, every COVID infection increases the risk of someone developing long COVID, which occurs when a person has ongoing symptoms of COVID lasting three months or longer.

“The concern that we have is not just about hospitalizations and deaths; it’s the long-term chronic impact of COVID,” Brownstein said. “And each time that you get infected, there’s a potential for having longer-lasting symptoms, which we’ve seen strong data support, how debilitating some of these impacts can be for the population.”

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