(NEW YORK) — Four out of five pregnancy-related deaths in the United States are preventable, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report looked at data from the Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs) across 36 states between 2017 and 2019.
Most of these deaths, or 53%, occurred between seven days and one year after the pregnancy.
One-quarter of the deaths occurred during the pregnancy and the remaining 22% occurred on the day of delivery.
Mental health conditions — such as deaths linked to suicide or an overdose from a substance use disorder — made up the plurality of deaths at 23%, the report found.
Other underlying causes of pregnancy-related death included hemorrhaging; heart conditions; infections; thrombotic embolism, which is a type of blood clot; cardiomyopathy, which is a disease of the heart muscle; and high blood pressure.
The report also looked at deaths broken down by race and ethnicity and found that Black Americans made up a disproportionate percentage of pregnancy-related deaths.
White Americans make up 59.3% of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau but accounted for 46.6% of deaths. Comparatively, Black Americans make up 13.8% of the population but 31.4% of deaths.
Leading underlying causes varied by race and/or ethnicity. For Black Americans, the leading underlying cause was heart conditions. For white Americans and Hispanic Americans, the leading underlying cause was mental health conditions.
The CDC recently awarded $2.8 million across the U.S. to support additional MMRCs in efforts to prevent future pregnancy-related deaths.
“The report paints a much clearer picture of pregnancy-related deaths in this country,” said Dr. Wanda Barfield, director of the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, in a statement.
“The majority of pregnancy-related deaths were preventable, highlighting the need for quality improvement initiatives in states, hospitals, and communities that ensure all people who are pregnant or postpartum get the right care at the right time,” the statement continued.
(NEW YORK) — It’s the first day of fourth grade for Yara Valerio. As her mother, Emma Mercado, packs her lunch in the kitchen, Yara is finishing up her remaining summer school homework in their New York City apartment.
In a few minutes, they will walk hand-in-hand to P.S. 123 Mahalia Jackson School where Yara will soon meet her new teacher and reunite with friends.
The day marks more than two years since COVID-19 forced students and schools across the country to abruptly switch education plans, including remote learning. Yara said she’s glad that’s finally in the rearview.
“In person, you can talk to your teacher, and it would be way more easier to learn better,” Yara told ABC News.
However, data showing the full extent of COVID-19’s long-term impact on elementary students’ learning is only just starting to emerge.
Earlier this month, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that math and reading test scores among America’s 9-year-olds plummeted during the first two years of the pandemic, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress results. In addition, reading scores decreased by the largest margin in more than 30 years, erasing decades of progress, the report said.
The decline was seen across all races and regions, but students of color, who were more likely to continue remote learning for longer periods of time, were impacted most.
Mercado said Yara, who has mild ADHD and a sensory disorder, found it challenging to focus during her online classes.
“It was a constant battle, her not wanting to pay attention to what I was saying because I wasn’t a teacher, or if she wanted to go play with her friends, or she wanted to take a break,” Mercado said.
After noticing Yara falling behind in reading, Mercado enrolled her in Reading Partners, a children’s literacy nonprofit that offers free tutoring for elementary students in disadvantaged communities in 12 regions across the U.S. Ninety-five percent of participating students are Black and Latinx, the organization’s CEO Adeola Whitney told ABC News.
Whitney said the pandemic didn’t create but rather exacerbated and exposed existing educational inequities, including “the digital divide,” referring to socioeconomic disparities in access to reliable internet service and working devices.
April Stewart, who also enrolled her twin sons Elias and Josiah in Reading Partners, told ABC News their initial school-provided laptops were often “faulty.”
Elias and Josiah, now sixth graders at Samuel P. Massie Academy in Maryland, said they frequently faced technical difficulties while attempting to navigate unfamiliar software as elementary students.
“Everything started crashing,” Josiah told ABC News. “I had to reboot my computer. I had to get a new computer because the other one wasn’t working.”
“When the teacher was talking to us in person, I can write it down,” Elias told ABC News. “But then on the laptop, I had to try to type, and she was talking too fast.”
Whitney also noted the disproportionate burden remote learning placed on working parents with multiple children and limited resources — the case for many of Reading Partners’ participants.
Facing these obstacles, parents had to get creative.
During the pandemic, Stewart said she often had four children in the house doing online schooling, including her eldest son and nephew. Elias usually took classes upstairs on a laptop and Josiah on a desktop computer in the downstairs living room.
“Sometimes people will be walking back and forth, and [Josiah] would get distracted,” Stewart said. “So I’d get a blanket, and I put it over the top of the desktop, so it’s like a tent, and he would just be sitting under there.”
Mercado, who was working as a property manager, said she often had to take Yara “on the go” in the middle of the remote school day while she responded to tenants’ emergencies, setting up a hotspot in the car so Yara could continue her classes uninterrupted.
“As a mom, I had to figure it out. It’s either my job that’s paying for my rent, so I can keep my daughter under the roof, and have food in the refrigerator,” she said. “And also being there for her to do her work.”
Despite these challenges, Whitney said the pandemic was also an impetus for innovation.
During remote learning, Reading Partners developed an online curriculum called Reading Partners Connects, now offering students the option to meet with tutors virtually and in person.
“It’s easy to look at the pandemic and think about all of the challenges. But I’m also amazed at children’s resilience,” she said. “The fact that they learned anything during this time, I think, is huge.”
The nonprofit encourages teachers and parents to take advantage of Reading Partners’ resources. It also hopes to recruit more volunteer tutors and expand to more cities.
In addition to programs like Reading Partners, students should also join their local public library’s free workshops and reading groups, parenting and educational psychologist Reena B. Patel told ABC News.
With the new school year in full swing, Mercado and Stewart said they’re proud of their children’s progress and are both excited for the fresh start the return to in-person learning will bring.
“I’m not stuttering anymore, and it’s easier for me to read big words,” Yara said.
Elias and Josiah said they feel similarly.
“I’m the second-best reader in my class right now,” Elias said.
“That’s because I’m the first best,” Josiah added.
(NEW YORK) — Even as healthcare professionals battle the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 300 Americans dying each day on average from the virus, doctors nationwide are raising awareness about the growing epidemic of suicide within their ranks.
Saturday, Sept. 17, is National Physician Suicide Awareness Day. It’s a day marking a sobering fact: physicians have a higher suicide rate than the general population, according to an article published in the science journal PLOS One.
Doctors dying by suicide means that patients lose good physicians. The growing number of suicides is a public health crisis, health professionals say.
According to a 2019 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, depressed physicians may also commit more medical mistakes. Many physicians are hesitant to seek treatment due to the stigma and fear of losing their jobs.
“It’s a culture that rewards toughness” and “the emphasis is on caring for others, not for yourself,” said Dr. Mimi Winsberg, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of Brightside, an online therapy organization.
Dr. Sansea Jacobson, a psychiatrist and program director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, says suicide is more likely to occur when multiple risk factors pile up.
“And most importantly, when they’re unaddressed or under addressed mental health issues,” said Jacobson.
She added, “We know as doctors that we have all the stressors and risk factors of the general public. Plus, we have our own unique stressors, like the pandemic, patient deaths, medical errors, and malpractice lawsuits.”
In response to the crisis, President Joe Biden signed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act into law in March. The law establishes grants to promote and study ways to improve mental health for health care providers.
The bill was named after Dr. Lorna Breen, an emergency medicine physician who died of suicide in April 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic. She may have feared losing her medical license and did not get help, according to a foundation set up in her honor.
The Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation recently helped to launch ALL IN, a campaign that hopes to remove mental health questions from forms that doctors fill out prior to getting a medical license.
There are several steps that a physician, or anyone dealing with a mental health crisis, can take, experts say.
“The first thing to do is to take an assessment. I always say that’s what gets measured gets managed, so I think understanding the scope of what you’re feeling is really important. And then the second thing is to seek help,” said Winsberg.
One silver lining of the pandemic is that it raised awareness of these issues, Winsberg said. She added, “Reducing stigma has made it more normal to express feelings of loneliness and depression and anxiety. I hope that that will spill over into the medical profession as well.”
Doctors can reach out on the Physician Support Line at 1 (888) 409-0141. The free and confidential hotline connects physicians to psychiatrists from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Eastern, 7 days a week.
Anyone struggling with mental health is also encouraged to dial 988, a nationwide number to connect to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
Evelyn Huang, MD is a resident physician in emergency medicine from Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and a member of the ABC News Medical journalism rotation.
To optimize protection ahead of another pandemic winter, White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said Friday people should consider getting the newly-updated COVID-19 booster before Halloween.
The sooner the better, Jha said, urging people to get a booster between mid-September and mid-October, “but no later than the end of October for maximum protection” ahead of the holidays, he said in an interview with ABC News following his own vaccination.
For people who have recently had COVID, Jha suggested following the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and waiting at least 90 days, or three months, before getting the updated vaccine. Other experts have suggested that waiting four to six months will allow people to mount a stronger immune response to the vaccine.
Waiting longer, Jha said, increases the chance of getting reinfected — and ultimately, “it’s very hard to time the market,” he said.
Jha, who got his updated shot on Friday morning at a clinic in Washington, D.C., alongside second gentleman Doug Emhoff, described the new vaccine as a vital lever in the forecast for this winter’s COVID spread.
While some modeling shows a potential for a large surge this winter, Jha said, others show only a “modest bump” — and the difference could be determined by how many people get an updated vaccine ahead of the colder winter months, a time when the virus has ticked up the past two years.
“If you go get these vaccines, you actually can influence what happens,” Jha said.
“There is nothing fated about what’s going to happen. If a large proportion of Americans go out and get these vaccines, it will have a significant beneficial effect on keeping infections low.”
So far, the government has made 30 million vaccines available to states for distribution, out of an overall order of around 170 million vaccines between both companies Pfizer and Moderna.
Twenty-five million vaccines have shipped out as of Friday, according to the White House, and Jha said he’s been pleased to see that states are already submitting reorders.
But the latest numbers on just how many people have actually rolled up their sleeves for a shot aren’t expected until next week, Jha said. And while the booster campaign is expected to ramp up over the coming weeks, past metrics show Americans are booster fatigued: slightly less than half of vaccinated people have gotten a first booster shot, while one-third of people over 50 have gotten a second booster shot after becoming eligible this past spring.
The newest shot, which targets both the most dominant variant, BA.4/BA.5, and the original COVID strain, carries the potential of being the only shot Americans need this year, similar to an annual flu shot, and offering greater protection against COVID because it matches the virus that’s circulating now.
While experts caution that another new variant could always buck the plan, introducing new factors like heightened spread or evasion of immune protection, Jha said the country is already in a position of giving young, healthy people one shot a year and doesn’t think even a new variant would change that.
For people under the age of 50, they last became eligible for boosters in the fall of 2021, just as omicron was gaining steam. Those people have only just become eligible for another booster shot with the introduction of the updated bivalent booster this fall — one year later.
“I feel very confident based on everything we have that for the average-risk person, even an Omicron-like variant is unlikely to lead us to suggest that [young, healthy] people are going to benefit from a second shot within a year,” Jha said. “I think that is both unrealistic and not necessary.”
That said, older people may see a faster waning of protection from their vaccines, as has been the case throughout the pandemic, warranting another shot to re-up protection sometime in the spring, Jha said.
Though there isn’t evidence from a large-scale clinical trial yet to demonstrate just how much better protection will be from the bivalent boosters, Jha said he believed there was “strong consensus” that they would be better.
He pointed to evidence on safety and efficacy about the millions of vaccines that have already been distributed, as well as a clinical trial on bivalent vaccines that targeted BA.1, an earlier omicron subvariant, which vaccine companies later forgoed in favor of the newer strains, BA.4 and BA.5.
“If you look at the totality of the evidence, everything we know about the initial shots, if you look at the way the BA.1 bivalent clinical trials, what they showed us about how it generates immune response, everything suggests that BA.5 bivalents should provide a much higher degree of protection,” Jha said.
The CDC signed off on bivalent booster shots at the beginning of September and the rollout began in earnest after Labor Day weekend. Pfizer bivalent booster are available to everyone over 12, while the Moderna bivalent booster is available to everyone over 18.
Shots for people under 12 are expected this fall, though vaccine companies must first submit data on the younger age groups to the Food and Drug Administration, which will then review the data for authorization and eventual recommendation from the CDC.
(NEW YORK) — Of all the planning that comes with being a new mom, one woman hadn’t planned for a surprise diagnosis of a neurological condition – just weeks before her due date.
Now, she’s on a journey to spread awareness of Bell’s palsy, a neurological condition that causes temporary facial paralysis or weakness on one or both sides of the face.
Elena Sheppard, who was pregnant with twins at the time, said she woke up one morning in early June with a “weird” feeling around her mouth.
“Later that day, I was having coffee with my husband and he was like, ‘I don’t know what just happened but half your face just fell,’” said Sheppard to “Good Morning America.”
The 35-year-old was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy.
At the time, Sheppard had never heard of the condition.
According to the NIH, Bell’s palsy affects less than 1% of the U.S. population. Pregnant women are two to four times more at risk, according to a study in the Obstetrical and Gynecological Survey.
Sheppard said she still struggles with symptoms nearly three months after her diagnosis.
“My eye is tearing right now, that’s a big symptom,” she said. “I can’t close this eye at all, and in the beginning, I had to tape it shut. I can’t move my lip at all. I can’t scrunch my nose.”
Sheppard has since given birth to two healthy twin boys, Casper and Lyle.
“I do what I think is smiling,” said Sheppard. “It’s more scary than frustrating honestly, because you can’t help but think, ‘Is this what my face is gonna look like forever?’”
According to the NIH, symptoms improve within 3 weeks in most cases, but symptoms can last longer for others. In addition to sudden weakness in the face, those with Bell’s palsy can have trouble closing their eyes or mouth.
“This isn’t just cosmetic, not to minimize that, but you can have tearing issues. You can have damage to the cornea. You can have issues swallowing food or chewing food,” ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton explained on Good Morning America Friday.
Bell’s palsy and a stroke can have similar symptoms, so anyone experiencing these symptoms should seek medical attention immediately.
When it comes to treatment for Bell’s palsy, Ashton said they’re mostly supportive.
“We tend to give steroids, antiviral medications for pain, over-the-counter Tylenol or ibuprofen,” Ashton said. “Most will recover. It can take a very long time. And sometimes the results can be permanent. But the bottom line is, if you notice any of these symptoms, you want to get to an emergency room. Make sure it’s not a stroke since that’s life-threatening.”
The condition can occur at any age and affect any gender. The exact cause remains unknown.
Sheppard said she, and her husband, are focused on taking on the next challenge of parenthood, but she said she wanted to share her story to help others.
“We see images of perfection all the time and that’s completely unrealistic to everybody’s lives,” she said. ”I think if I had seen more images of this, it probably wouldn’t have been as scary. So I think just normalizing all the different things that can happen to a body is really important.”
(NEW YORK) — Although reported COVID-19 case levels in the U.S. are still falling after a viral resurgence over the summer, there are preliminary indicators that infection rates may be back on the rise across the country.
In recent weeks, federal data has shown that the number of U.S. wastewater sites reporting increases in the presence of COVID-19 in their samples appears to be back on the rise, following declines seen throughout the latter part of the summer.
In the U.S., about 50% of wastewater sites, which are currently providing data to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, have reported an increase in the presence of the COVID-19 virus in their wastewater over the last 15 days, up from the 40% of sites reporting increases last month.
From coast to coast, every area of the country has seen a rise, according to a regional breakdown from Biobot, a wastewater monitoring company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Northeast, in particular, appears to be seeing higher growth levels, reporting the highest wastewater levels of any region, Biobot data shows.
“Increase in virus concentration found in wastewater has [predictably] been a key indicator of a forthcoming COVID surge. In fact, given the challenges in case estimation and the decline in testing, wastewater surveillance may be one the last remaining high-quality datasets public health can rely on,” said epidemiologist Dr. John Brownstein, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, who is also a member on the board of advisers for Biobot.
In Boston, wastewater levels had plateaued after a spring and summer surge, but in recent weeks, data indicates that COVID-19 sampling levels have increased again to their highest level in two months.
However, on a national level, federal data is notably unavailable for many areas of the country, particularly across much of the South and the West.
Since last spring, many states have moved to shutter public testing sites, with more at-home COVID-19 tests now available.
COVID-19 testing levels have also plummeted to their lowest point since the onset of the pandemic, with approximately 350,000 tests reported each day, compared to more than 2.5 million tests reported daily at the nation’s peak in January.
Most Americans are not reporting their results to officials, and thus, experts suggest that infection totals are likely significantly undercounted.
With official COVID-19 case data becoming less reliable, many scientists have been turning to wastewater data to monitor the state of the pandemic.
“While there are important caveats in how these data are collected and integrated, we should still take this signal as a warning that we are not out of the pandemic,” Brownstein said.
With fall around the corner, health experts have reignited their calls for all Americans to get vaccinated.
“We’re calling on all Americans: Roll up your sleeve to get your COVID-19 vaccine shot,” White House COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said during a press briefing last week. “If you’re 12 and above and previously vaccinated, it’s time to go get an updated COVID-19 shot.”
To date, less than half of the fully vaccinated population has received their first COVID-19 booster.
(NEW YORK) — Weeks after a trigger ban criminalizing providing abortions went into effect in Tennessee, doctors told ABC News the ban created fear, confusion, anxiety and stress among patients and providers.
Physicians from different parts of the state are pushing back against claims made by lawmakers, including Gov. Bill Lee, who say the ban allows exceptions for pregnancies that threaten a woman’s life or could cause serious bodily injury, saying this is not the case. Under the law, performing or attempting to perform an abortion is a Class C felony.
Lawmakers are in “complete denial” about what the law says, saying it leaves “no exceptions, whatsoever,” Dr. Ashley Coffield, the CEO of Planned Parenthood Tennessee, told ABC News.
The disagreement between some politicians and providers over the ban is about an “affirmative defense” clause in the law that allows physicians being prosecuted for providing an abortion to justify their actions, claiming it was done to prevent the death or permanent bodily harm of a pregnant woman, according to Dr. Amy Bono, a primary care physician in Tennessee.
To utilize the affirmative defense justification, the abortion must be performed or attempted by a licensed physician, the physician must determine the abortion was necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of the pregnant woman, and the abortion must provide the best opportunity for the fetus to survive, unless that threatens the life or could cause serious injury to the pregnant woman, according to the law. The threat to life cannot be related to mental health, according to the law.
Physicians interviewed by ABC News are worried, saying under the law they could still be charged with a felony, even for medically necessary abortions, and say they would only be able to utilize affirmative defense during a trial.
By the time a physician has the chance to exercise affirmative defense, they will have been convicted of a felony and lost their medical license, Dr. Carolyn Thompson, a Nashville physician, told ABC News, adding that they may also have to wait years until the case goes to trial — so their life would be in shambles.
“A less-scary law would put the burden on the state to prove that the abortion was not medically necessary, and instead, the burden is on the doctor to prove that it was,” Coffield said.
This means that when it comes to abortion care options, Planned Parenthood can only help patients find care out of state or provide financial assistance, Coffield said.
Risks and fears
Physicians are worried about what this means they can do to help patients. Doctors interviewed by ABC News said many are afraid of potential prosecution and do not plan on providing abortions, while others, defiantly, plan on giving patients whatever care they need.
OB-GYN physicians and patients are “scared”; doctors feel like there is “a target on their backs,” while patients are “asking their doctors, ‘Will you save my life if I need you to?'” Bono said.
While some officials, including Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk, have said physicians will not face prosecution for providing medically necessary care, this is of little comfort to providers.
In a statement released in July, Funk vowed he would not prosecute women who seek abortions or doctors who will provide them after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe.
“I will use my constitutional powers to protect women, health providers and those making personal health decisions,” Funk said.
In a separate statement, Funk condemned the court’s decision and said it will “forever stain the Court and this nation.”
California wildfire ‘looking a whole heck of a lot better’
“I’m not going to risk my freedom on somebody’s verbal assurance that I’m not going to be prosecuted for providing evidence based care to a patient,” Thompson said.
Thompson said physicians are concerned they won’t be able to provide appropriate care to patients who need it.
“It’s ironic that the name of this law is the Human Life Protection Act, because they’re certainly not concerned about the women’s lives,” Thompson said.
Dr. Ashley Huff, an emergency room doctor, told ABC News she made the personal decision that she will give patients whatever care they need, regardless of the consequences.
Half of the nine gynecologists in the state’s fifth-largest city, Clarksville, have already provided abortions to manage ectopic pregnancies since the trigger ban went into effect, according to Dr. Tracy Coffey, an OB-GYN practicing in the city.
Bono said physicians are “now going to be caught between a rock and a hard place”: either commit a felony by providing a medically necessary abortion, or open themselves up to medical malpractice liability by not providing what could be lifesaving care.
Thompson recalled having a patient’s ectopic pregnancy rupture in her office years ago, and she said the patient would have died if she was not in a hospital to receive an abortion.
“If I have a patient who has an ectopic, according to this law, I can either let her die, which is egregious malpractice, or I can take her to surgery and do the evidence-based, acceptable thing and remove her ectopic and save her life. And then be convicted of a felony and go to jail,” Thompson said.
Thompson said she knows of a patient who had to wait 10 hours for an ectopic pregnancy to be managed because her physician had to consult with the hospital’s lawyers before giving her an abortion.
She also pushed back against rhetoric claiming that managing an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion, saying it is according to the wording of the law.
Unintended impact of the ban
Physicians are already starting to see the impact the trigger ban is having on women in Tennessee, creating fear, confusion and limited access in a state with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, according to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Nearly all the providers interviewed by ABC News about the trigger ban said they are worried physicians, especially OB-GYNs, will leave the state because of the ban.
“I don’t know who they think is going to be doing obstetrics in five years if there’s no change to this law,” Thompson said.
Physicians are worried about what women who cannot get access to abortion care will do, warning they may get desperate or take measures into their own hands.
Huff said she is already seeing patients who have apparently taken matters into their own hands come into the emergency room, some of whom have been admitted for care.
“I’ve been practicing for seven years, and I have never seen people come into the emergency department in this situation before,” Huff said.
The majority of these patients have apparently self-managed abortions, often using medication, but have experienced complications, largely because they were not under the supervision of a physician. Some of the complications that can arise from self-managing abortions include infections, excessive bleeding or incomplete abortions, Huff said.
Thompson said the trigger ban has opened up Pandora’s box, creating a wave of tragedy and trauma for women across the state.
“These legislators had no idea what an absolute disaster that they would be creating,” Thompson said. “It will ultimately impact almost every family in this state.”
The governor’s office did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — Lawmakers are seeking to limit the sale of diet pills and weight loss supplements to children with the introduction of new bills in California and New York.
The bills in California and New York would prohibit retailers from selling dietary supplements for weight loss and over-the-counter diet pills to anyone under the age of 18 without a prescription. Such supplements and pills aren’t required to be reviewed or approved by the Food and Drug Administration and the federal agency has warned the public of the dangers of certain weight loss products, highlighting contaminated pills that have been tainted with dangerous ingredients.
Overall, the diet pill industry in the United States is largely unregulated.
Women between the ages of 14 to 36 who used diet pills were five times more likely to develop an eating disorder in the next one to three years than those who did not take pills, according a study released in 2020 in the American Journal of Public Health that examined data from over 10,000 women from 2001 to 2016.
More research is still needed to determine the correlation between weight loss supplement and diet pill use and eating disorders.
“Observation and association does not prove cause and effect. So we don’t know whether the eating disorder caused the dietary supplement or pill use or vice versa,” ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said Thursday on “Good Morning America.”
“Also, doctors don’t normally write prescriptions for over-the-counter supplements. But the intention here [behind the bills] is a good one, which is to try to protect this vulnerable population,” Ashton added.
For parents concerned about their kids possibly using unregulated diet pills, Ashton recommends that they find out what children are saying and doing and have conversations with them about healthy body perceptions.
“I think parents need to be on the lookout … and not just in girls but in boys as well. So I think they need to pay attention to what their children and their teens are saying and doing. Talk to them. Keep that dialogue in line of communication open and emphasize that health is really just as much internal as it is, if not more than, what you can see,” Ashton said.
In addition to ongoing discussions, parents should also model and encourage healthy eating habits, physical activity and sufficient sleep habits.
(NEW YORK) — It has been more than two and half years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite a return to a new form of normality for many people across the country, there are still hundreds of Americans dying from the virus every day, a grim reality of the pandemic’s continued destruction.
The U.S. is currently averaging just under 400 daily COVID-19 related deaths. Although the daily number of fatalities is far lower than it was at the nation’s peak — in January 2021, 3,400 Americans died of COVID-19 each day.
“The seven-day average daily deaths are still too high, about 375 per day — well above the around 200 deaths a day we saw earlier this spring and, in my mind, far too high for a vaccine-preventable disease,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a White House press briefing with the COVID-19 response team last week.
Over the last seven days, the U.S. has reported 2,500 deaths, and since the beginning of 2022, more than 221,000 Americans have died because of COVID-19.
The vast majority of Americans who are currently dying of COVID-19 are over the age of 75. Although more than 92% of Americans of the age of 65 have been fully vaccinated, many are not up to date on COVID-19 vaccinations, and are at a higher risk for severe disease due to the virus.
The persistently high death rate, alongside concerns over the potential threat of a COVID-19 resurgence, has reignited the call for all Americans to get vaccinated. It is particularly important for those older or more vulnerable to get vaccinated and boosted with the new bivalent shots, which target not only the original strain of the virus, but also the omicron variant, experts said.
“We’re calling on all Americans: Roll up your sleeve to get your COVID-19 vaccine shot,” White House COVID-19 Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said during a press briefing last week. “If you’re 12 and above and previously vaccinated, it’s time to go get an updated COVID-19 shot.”
As the vaccine rollout expands, Jha added the administration plans to put “special efforts” into reaching older Americans, people living in congregate care settings such as nursing homes, and others who may be particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.
Throughout the summer, COVID-19 case and hospitalization numbers have oscillated widely across the country. Numbers appeared to be on the decline, but in recent weeks, the number of U.S. wastewater sites reporting increases in the presence of COVID-19 in their samples appears to be back on the rise, after declines seen throughout the latter part of the summer.
In the U.S., about 50% of wastewater sites, which are currently providing data to the CDC, have reported an increase in the presence of the COVID-19 virus in their wastewater, over the last 15 days, up from the 40% of sites reporting increases, last month, according to federal data.
Several sites across the Northeast, in particular, appear to be seeing notable increases. In Boston, wastewater levels had plateaued, after a spring and summer surge, but in recent weeks, data indicates that COVID-19 sampling levels have increased again to their highest level in two months.
However, it is important to note that data is unavailable for many areas of the country, particularly across much of the South and the West.
The U.S. is currently reporting about 70,000 new cases a day. This comes as testing levels have plummeted in recent months, with now under 350,000 tests reported each day — the lowest total since the onset of the pandemic.
However, hospital admission levels continue to fall nationally. About 4,500 virus-positive Americans are entering the hospital each day, down by about 8.4% in the last week.
There are currently about 33,000 virus-positive Americans receiving care in the U.S., down from about 37,000 total patients receiving care, one week ago. Overall, the totals remain significantly lower than at the nation’s peak in January, when there were more than 160,000 patients hospitalized with the virus.
(NEW YORK) — A 10-year-old boy is on a mission to make life easier for the 37.7 million Americans who suffer from diabetes.
Jameson Wardle was 5 years old when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a chronic disease in which the insulin-making cells in the pancreas are destroyed, forcing a person to be dependent on insulin, delivered via shots or an insulin pump.
Jameson, a 5th grade student in Boerne, Texas, has met with his local congressmen to urge them to stand up against what he says are unaffordable insulin prices.
“[Diabetes] is when your body attacks the beta cells … which produce insulin which is a hormone that changes carbohydrates into energy,” Jameson told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
More than eight million Americans use insulin, which is a necessity for people like Jameson with type 1 diabetes, who often require multiple injections of insulin each day, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Jameson uses 100 units of fast-acting insulin everyday, said his mom, Jennifer Wardle.
Each vial of insulin, which is about the size of a golf tee, costs $300 without insurance. Wardle, a U.S. Air Force veteran, said her family fortunately has insurance under her military benefits.
“But what happens when [Jameson] turns 26 and he’s not on our insurance anymore?” she said. “And these are the things that we, as parents, have to help him plan for.”
Jameson and Wardle are calling on Congress to pass legislation that would cap the price of insulin. One piece of legislation they support, H.R.6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, would encourage insulin manufacturers to reduce list prices and expand access to insulin.
The legislation passed the House in March but it has stalled in the Senate.
A proposal by Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., to place a $35-per-month limit on insulin costs under private insurances failed this month in the Senate by a 57-43 vote.
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and costs a total estimated $327 billion in medical costs and lost work and wages annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jameson said that he remains committed to meeting with more lawmakers, saying, “I feel empowered.”
He also shared a message of encouragement to other kids out there with diabetes, fighting like he is.
“Keep going and be strong because soon we’ll have a cure,” he said. “Contact your congressman.”
