Health

(NEW YORK) — Cases of invasive group A strep infections, which can cause severe illness and be deadly, remain elevated in some parts of the country, officials warned Wednesday.

In a statement to ABC News, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that “preliminary” data from 2023 suggests cases have remained elevated above pre-pandemic levels in some areas of the U.S.

This follows confirmed reports that five children have died of invasive Strep A so far this year in Illinois.

After a lull of invasive Strep A cases during the COVID-19 pandemic, recently, cases of invasive Strep A have been ticking up again. The CDC warned in December that cases of Invasive Strep A were on the rise. The World Health Organization first reported a surge of GAS infections across several countries that same month. Data from the U.K. revealed that in late 2022, there was nearly triple the number of Group A Strep infections than the same period over the last five years.

The CDC told ABC News Wednesday that the number of invasive strep A illnesses in children in the U.S. have returned to — and in some places exceeded — levels seen prior to the pandemic.

In December, the CDC warned that cases of Invasive Strep A were on the rise. A subsequent CDC analysis suggested a roughly threefold increase of cases in Colorado and Minnesota during October through December 2022, as compared to pre-pandemic years.

“Preliminary 2023 data indicate that [invasive Strep A] infections have remained high in children in some areas of the country even after some respiratory viruses decreased in those areas,” the CDC said in a statement. “Some areas of the country are seeing higher levels than were seen pre-COVID-19 pandemic.”

The typical Strep A season runs from December through April, according to the CDC.

Here are five questions answered about the condition, from how to treat it to how to lessen the risk:

1. What causes invasive group A strep?

Group A Strep (GAS) is a common bacteria which lives on our skin and often in our throats. It can cause different types of infections, most often strep throat.

Rarely, it can cause severe infections like streptococcal toxic shock syndrome or necrotizing fasciitis, a rare bacterial infection.

The severe infections occur when strep A bacteria invades other parts of the body like the bloodstream or spinal fluid.

2. How common is invasive group A strep?

Invasive group A strep is a dangerous but rare disease that leads to around 1,500 to 2,300 deaths in the United States annually, according to the CDC.

The agency says between 14,000 and 25,000 cases usually occur each year.

Cases of invasive group A strep are more common among children.

3. How is invasive group A strep treated?

The condition is usually treated in the hospital with IV antibiotics and other supportive measures.

The treatment for mild to moderate strep infections is amoxicillin, which is on national shortage. If strep goes untreated or undertreated, it can lead to invasive group A strep.

At this stage, there is no data to suggest a direct link between the shortage of amoxicillin and the spike in cases.

4. What are the most common symptoms of invasive group A strep?

Doctors tell ABC News that all cases of strep should be seen by a doctor, severe or not.

Parents and caregivers should be on the lookout for fever, sore throat, trouble swallowing, or kids not acting like themselves.

Parents should also keep an eye out for signs of toxic shock syndrome and “flesh-eating” skin infections, which can be a sign that a strep infection is invasive. Symptoms of toxic shock include fever, chills, muscle aches, nausea and vomiting, according to the CDC.

Early signs of a serious skin infection include a fast-spreading swollen area of skin, severe pain and fever. Later on it might look like blisters, changes in skin color or pus at the infected area.

5. How can a person lessen their exposure to invasive group A strep?

Because strep spreads through coughs and sneezes and surfaces, practicing good hygiene — like washing hands, surfaces and plates or glasses — can keep it from spreading.

Viral infections can set the stage for a subsequent bacterial infection in the lungs, so parents and caregivers should also make sure children are up to date on flu and COVID-19 vaccinations in order to help protect them.

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(NEW YORK) — Death rates from COVID-19 varied dramatically across the United States, a major new analysis finds.

The report, published Monday in medical journal The Lancet, looked at the rate of deaths throughout the country between January 2020 and July 2022.

COVID death rates in states like Arizona and New Mexico were roughly four times higher than in states like Hawaii, New Hampshire and Maine, researchers found.

The highest COVID-19 death rates were seen in Arizona with 581 deaths per 100,000 and Washington D.C. with 526 deaths per 100,000.

By comparison, the lowest rates of death were seen in Hawaii with 147 deaths per 100,000, New Hampshire with 215 deaths per 100,000 and Maine with 218 deaths per 100,000.

The authors of the study noted that Arizona’s high death rate from COVID-19 deaths may be due to “inequality, some poverty…ultimately [low] vaccination rates and behaviors didn’t line up to have good outcomes.”

States that did well, like Hawaii, New Hampshire and Washington state, are states — in most cases — “[that] have done a good job restricting travel, and in some cases have less poverty, less inequality, and relatively high vaccination rates.”

Additionally, states with larger proportions of people who identified as Black or Hispanic witnessed higher death rates.

Lower rates of infection and death from COVID-19 were seen in states with higher education levels, lower poverty levels and higher rates of self-reported trust in the federal government and in the scientific community.

“Nearly every state, from the 26 worst performing states in the pandemic, fall into one of the three…[either] disproportionately high population of people identifying as Hispanic…higher than the national average identifying as black…or high levels of support for the 2020 republican presidential candidate,” said lead author Tom Bollyky, a senior fellow for global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of law at Georgetown University, in a video commentary.

The authors further discussed parts of the study highlighting racial, economic and social inequities in the U.S. that led to differences in rates of infection and death rates between states.

States with higher poverty rates of poverty had higher death rates. For every 2.6% increase in poverty rates above the national average within a state, there was a 23.3% increase in the cumulative death rate, reflecting a significant economic healthcare disparity.

“The COVID-19 pandemic clearly exacerbated fundamental social and economic inequities, but science-based interventions and policy changes provided clear impact on mortality rates at the state level,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

Policies adopted by states during the pandemic, including mask mandates, social distancing and vaccine mandates, were associated with lower COVID-19 infection rates and higher vaccination rates were associated with lower death rates.

“We can invest in programs that protect the communities that we see disproportionately affected by the pandemic,” said co-lead author Emma Castro, a researcher at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, in the video commentary. “We can invest in programs such as paid family and sick leaves, expanded health insurance and expanded Medicaid.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Health Resources and Services Administration announced plans to overhaul the U.S. organ transplant system, after congressional scrutiny of the current operation — which critics said has poor oversight that has led to wasted organs, serious errors, and patient deaths.

The department says it aims to modernize the IT systems, improve transparency, and solicit contracts from various groups to manage various parts of the organ transplant system. Biden’s proposed 2024 budget also includes a $36 million increase in investment in the organ transplant system.

HRSA, an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, also launched an online dashboard sharing information about organ donors and transplant waitlists.

“Every day, patients and families across the United States rely on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to save the lives of their loved ones who experience organ failure,” said Carole Johnson, HRSA Administrator, in a statement. “At HRSA, our stewardship and oversight of this vital work is a top priority. That is why we are taking action to both bring greater transparency to the system and to reform and modernize the OPTN. The individuals and families that depend on this life-saving work deserve no less.”

The U.S. organ transplant network currently operates as a partnership between HHS and the United Network for Organ Sharing, or UNOS, which has held the contract to manage the system since 1986. UNOS both runs the logistical system that distributes organs and decides how to prioritize distribution. It oversees 56 Organ Procurement Organizations, which are responsible for recovering organs for transplant.

But a government review, reported by the Washington Post last summer, found that UNOS relied on out-of-date technology and didn’t allow appropriate scrutiny of its systems by government officials. The Senate Finance Committee found in an investigation that there were over 1,000 complaints filed against the system between 2010 and 2020. Most of the 56 Organ Procurement Organizations are underperforming, according to data from CMS.

“For too long it’s been clear that UNOS has fallen short of the requirements for this contract and the expectations of Americans waiting for a transplant,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore, said in a statement.

HRSA says opening up the transplant network to more contracts will increase competition and promote innovation.

In a statement, UNOS said that it supports the changes outlined by HRSA. “We welcome a competitive and open bidding process,” the organization said in a statement to ABC News.

“We believe we have the experience and expertise required to best serve the nation’s patients and to help implement HRSA’s proposed initiatives.”

Over 100,000 people in the U.S. are awaiting organ transplants.

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(SANDPOINT, Idaho) — An Idaho hospital said it will no longer be providing obstetrical care due in part to the state’s “legal and political climate.”

In a news release, Bonner General Health in Sandpoint — 400 miles north of Boise and serving about 9,000 people — said it would end its labor & delivery services by mid-May.

“We have made every effort to avoid eliminating these services,” Ford Elsaesser, BGH’s board president, said in a statement. “We hoped to be the exception, but our challenges are impossible to overcome now.”

The release cited several reasons for the maternity ward closure including a loss of pediatricians to provide neonatal and perinatal care, fewer babies being born at the hospital and the changing political landscape.

Without specifically referencing the state’s abortion laws, the hospital said the legal and political climate was causing physicians to leave the hospital and it was becoming difficult to recruit replacements.

“In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care,” the news release stated. “Physicians providing the standard of care may include civil litigation and criminal prosecution, leading to jail time or fine.

In March 2022, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Idaho became the first state to enact a law modeled after the legislation passed in Texas that bans abortions after six weeks, before many women know they’re pregnant.

There are exceptions for medical emergencies as well as incest or rape, but women are required to file a police report and show it to the medical provider before the abortion for the latter two.

Additionally, a provider has to prove in court that an abortion fell under the exception criteria, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The law also allows the father, grandparents, siblings, uncles or aunts of the fetus to sue a medical provider who performs the procedure.

The abortion ban was temporarily blocked but went into effect in August. At the time, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the temporary injunction would “prevent serious harm to women in Idaho.”

BGH said it will continue delivering babies through May 19, but the day may be pushed up if staffing changes.

The hospital is not accepting any new obstetrics patients, effective immediately, and will be coordinating care for women scheduled to deliver in May or later.

BGH posted a list referring patients to new OB/GYN providers, with the closest being Newport Hospital in Newport, Washington, about 30 miles away.

The hospital did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.

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(NEW YORK) — A new study is offering more information for women about whether the type of birth control they take increases their risk of breast cancer more than another.

The study, published Monday in PLOS Medicine, found that new forms of progestin-only hormonal birth control — including pills, patches, implants and injections — carry the same, small increased risk for breast cancer as the types of birth control that contain both estrogen and progestin.

“We’ve known for a while that estrogen and progestin birth control pills, oral contraceptives, have a slightly increased risk of breast cancer,” Dr. Jennifer Ashton, a board-certified OB-GYN and ABC News’ chief medical correspondent, said Wednesday on Good Morning America. “What we didn’t know is the newer forms of progestin-only pills, IUDs, injectable implants, what their associated risk, if any, was in comparison.”

The study, which drew on data from a primary care database in the United Kingdom, found that women taking any type of hormonal contraceptive had a relative increased risk of breast cancer of 20% to 30%. That seems like a high number, but the 15-year absolute risk, which indicates the likelihood of something actually happening, is 1 in 12,500 women from ages 16 to 20 and 265 in 100,000 women from ages 35 to 39.

The slight risk increased for women as they aged, the study found. However, the longer a woman is off hormonal birth control, the lower the risk.

Progestin is a form of progesterone, which is the hormone that plays a role in pregnancy and the menstrual cycle, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Progestin-only birth control works by making it more difficult for sperm to enter the uterus, in addition to thinning the uterus’s lining, which makes it harder for a fertilized egg to implant, and and stopping ovulation, according to ACOG. When taken in pill form, a progestin-only pill is taken once per day, at the same time each day.

Ashton, who was not involved in the study, said it is important to recognize how slightly the use of hormonal contraceptives raises the risk of breast cancer.

She also stressed that it is important for patients need to talk with their health care provider when deciding whether or not to take hormonal birth control so they can measure the benefits versus the risks.

Hormonal contraception is proven to lower the risk of ovarian and uterine cancers, for example, but it is also shown to increase the risk of clotting.

“It’s about individualizing that risk benefit and option risk for the woman,” Ashton said. “If you talk to any OB-GYN, they will say, we have a line, ‘Pregnancy is much higher risk than any associated risk with birth control pills or hormonal contraception.'”

Among women ages 15 to 49 in the United States, around 14% of those using contraception use oral contraception pills and around 10% use long-acting devices like IUDs, according to 2019 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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(ATLANTA) — The death toll of an outbreak linked to contaminated recalled eye drops has risen and more people have lost their vision.

According to an update issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday, the number of deaths has risen from one to three.

What’s more, at least eight people have gone blind and four people have had their eyeballs surgically removed.

The CDC did not provide any information in its update about the affected patients including names, ages, sexes or where they live.

More than 10 different brands of artificial tears have been recalled. Most cases have been linked to EzriCare and Delsam Pharma eye drops, made by India-based Global Pharma Healthcare.

According to the CDC, the eye drops were contaminated with an antibiotic-resistant form of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an aggressive bacterium.

Pseudomonas are a type of bacteria found in the environment, with P. aeruginosa being the most common to cause infections in humans.

The infection is common health care settings and spreads from improper hygiene either due to unclean hands or medical equipment and surfaces not being properly cleaned.

P. aeruginosa is resistant to multiple types of antibiotics and has caused about 32,600 infections among U.S. hospitalized patients and an estimated 2,700 deaths, according to the CDC.

The strain that has been linked to the outbreak, however, had never been reported in the United States before, the CDC stated in its update.

As of March 14, 68 people across 16 states have been infected with P. aeruginosa. Of those cases, 37 have been linked to four health care clusters.

Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning, backed by the CDC, urging health care personnel and the public not to buy EzriCare Artificial Tears or Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears due to potential bacterial contamination.

After the warning, Global Pharma Healthcare issued a voluntary recall of both products, notifying distributors and advising wholesalers, retailers and customers who have the products to stop usage.

Not long after, the FDA also recommended that Global Pharma recall Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Eye Ointment, which the company agreed to. So far, no reports of infections have been linked to this product.

The CDC has warned anyone with symptoms of an eye infection who used EzriCare or Delsam Pharma eye drops to seek medical care immediately.

Such symptoms include yellow, green, or clear discharge from the eye; eye pain or discomfort; red eyes or eyelids; feeling of something in the eye; increased sensitivity to light; and blurry vision.

The CDC did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

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(NEW YORK) — Some of Gerber’s powdered infant formula products that were manufactured at a facility in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, have been voluntarily recalled due to possible bacterial contamination.

The infant formulas are “being recalled out of an abundance of caution due to potential presence of cronobacter sakazakii,” Perrigo Company, which makes the recalled formulas, announced Friday.

Cronobacter sakazakii is the same type of bacteria that led to the recall of Enfamil’s plant-based powdered infant formula last month.

No adverse events have been reported in connection to the recall, according to Perrigo Company, and no distributed product has tested positive for the presence of the bacteria.

What type of infant formula is being recalled?

Only powdered infant food products under the Gerber Good Start Infant Formula Brand that were manufactured between Jan. 2 and Jan. 18 are currently impacted by the recall, according to Perrigo Company, which purchased Nestlé’s Gateway infant formula plant in Eau Claire, as well as the U.S. and Canadian rights to the Good Start brand from Gerber last November, according to a press release that same month.

The specific items recalled include Gerber Good Start SoothePro products in 12.4-ounce, 30.6-ounce and 19.4-ounce cans with July 2024 use-by dates. Consumers can find a full list of recalled infant formulas on the Gerber website.

What is cronobacter sakazakii?

Cronobacter sakazakii is a common bacterium found in people’s homes and in the broader natural environment overall. This type of pathogen tends to thrive in dry foods such as powdered infant formula, powdered milk or starches, and herbal teas, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

For many people, contact with the bacteria is harmless, but in infants and young children under 12 months old, it can turn into a rare infection. If left untreated, it can be life-threatening, according to the FDA.

The FDA notes that babies under 2 months old, premature babies, children with weakened immune systems and kids with a low birth weight are especially at risk if they develop a cronobacter sakazakii infection.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the agency receives between two and four reports of cronobacter infections every year, but notes that the low number of reports may not accurately reflect how many people each year get ill from the bacteria.

What are the signs of a cronobacter sakazakii infection?

According to the FDA, a cronobacter sakazakii infection in babies and children can cause a fever and lead to other symptoms such as excessive crying, poor feeding and low energy. In some cases, infants may also develop seizures. If you suspect a baby has an infection, experts recommend the child be examined by a medical provider immediately.

What do I do if I have a recalled infant formula product?

The Perrigo Company said consumers who have recalled infant formulas should stop using the product and call the Gerber Parents Resource Center any time at 1-800-777-7690 to request a refund.

Consumers should expect to provide a photograph of the recalled product with the product’s batch codes visible.

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(ATLANTA) — A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed the fungus Candida auris is spreading rapidly through U.S. health care facilities.

Also known as C. auris, reports of cases linked to the drug-resistant fungus have doubled in 2021.

In addition, the fungus is behind an outbreak in Mississippi that began in November, infecting at least 12 people and potentially responsible for about four deaths, according to figures provided by the state Department of Health to ABC News.

Although C. auris does not present a threat to most healthy people, and infections are rare, it can affect vulnerable groups of people and can be resistant to several classes of drugs.

Here’s what to know about the fungus, why these rare cases occur and how Americans can help prevent the spread:

What is Candida auris?

“C. auris is a species of Candida and Candida is the most common yeast that causes human infections,” Dr. Shira Doron, chief infection control officer for Tuft Medicine, told ABC News. “People are quite familiar with the term ‘yeast infections’ or ‘thursh’; those are caused by other species of Candida.”

According to the CDC, it’s a relatively new type of fungus, being first identified in Japan in 2009.

However, studies conducted since then have found samples of C. auris can be dated back to South Korea in 1996.

Public health experts refer to C. auris as an emerging pathogen, which means an organism that has newly appeared or been discovered but has since rapidly spread — either in terms of cases or countries where it is now reported.

Why is C. auris potentially dangerous?

Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director of infection prevention at Yale School of Medicine, told ABC News that C. auris can spread either from person-to-person transmission or by people coming into contact with contaminated surfaces.

“This spreads person to person and we do not think of really any other fungus as spreading person to person in a meaningful way,” he said. “And it’s really hard to kill. Standard Lysol wipes, disinfectant wipes don’t kill it. We need dedicated bleach wipes or additional products geared for Candida auris.”

The other issue is there are strains of C. auris that are drug-resistant, meaning infections caused by the yeast will not respond to multiple antifungal drugs commonly used to treat Candida infections.

How is it diagnosed?

Patients with C. auris infections are typically diagnosed after cultures of blood or other bodily fluids are analyzed.

However, experts said this can be difficult because analyzing these cultures requires updated machines or updated libraries, not all labs of which have the capability.

Additionally, it can be hard to identify C. auris on the culture results and it can be confused with other species of Candida.

“The way cultural results come back, first it’s like, ‘Okay, it looks like yeast,'” said Doron. “Then it’s like, ‘Okay, it looks like Candida’ only it could take days before it’s Candida auris and you may be using the wrong drugs.”

Who is at risk?

Most healthy people do not need to worry about C. auris infections, experts said.

However, those with weakened immune systems or who are immunocompromised are at risk of hard-to-treat infections.

Additionally, nursing home patients or hospital patients who have or have had lines and tubes in their body — such as a catheter or a breathing tube — are also at high risk.

How are C. auris infections treated?

Despite several strains C. auris infections being multi-drug resistant, there is a class of antifungal drugs called echinocandins that can be used and are given intravenously.

According to the National Institutes of Health, echinocandins prevent a key enzyme needed to maintain the cell wall of the fungus.

In some cases, when the infection is resistant to all three main classes of drugs, multiple high doses may be required, the CDC said.

Are C. auris infections fatal?

According to the CDC, studies are limited but anywhere between 30% and 60% of people with C. auris infections have died.

However, many of these patients also had other serious illnesses that also increased their risk of death.

“Unless there’s a break in the skin or some sort of deeper systemic infection, the risk of mortality, or some deeper complication, is relatively low unless that fungus gets in a place that it should not be,” Robert said. “For example, there’s a break in the skin, it gets in the bloodstream and there’s a Candida auris blood stream infection, and that can be quite fatal.”

He continued. “Candida auris, it sticks to everything. It can stick to heart valves and stick to catheters. I do want to emphasize that’s a rare occurrence, though.”

What can we do to prevent the spread?

There’s not much that can be done on an individual level to prevent the spread of the fungus, but the experts recommend avoiding patients with C. auris infections and that people practice proper hand hygiene when visiting at-risk populations such as hospital patients or nursing home residents.

Doron said people also need to be careful about the overuse of antibiotics. While they can be helpful in treating some infections, these medications can kill off bacteria in the gut and give more room for yeasts like C. auris to grow.

Roberts said there needs to be continued focus on equipping more labs to easily identify C. auris and focus on public health infrastructure that can identify, isolate and group patients who are infected.

“There’s many examples of this but, you know, a nursing home, a patient has Candida auris,” he said. “They spread it to their roommate, for instance. It’s really critical in that standpoint to have a mechanism to test everyone else in the nursing home to see who’s infected, put them in an isolated area, like one hallway, and put those who aren’t colonized in the other hallway.”

Roberts continued, “And if that patient needs to get admitted to the hospital, we let the hospital know this patient should be in Candida auris isolation. Don’t reuse blood pressure cuffs on that patient and go to the next patient, for instance.”

ABC News’ Aerial Petty contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Drug Enforcement Administration is warning that a powerful veterinary sedative is being combined illicitly with fentanyl, making it even more dangerous.

DEA issued a public safety alert about the widespread threat posed by a mixture of a non-opioid animal sedative called xylazine, also known as “Tranq,” and fentanyl. There has been a sharp increase in the trafficking of the drug combination, according to DEA.

The fentanyl-xylazine mix has been found in 48 states, according to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.

“Xylazine is making the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, fentanyl, even deadlier,” Milgram said. “DEA has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 States. The DEA Laboratory System is reporting that in 2022 approximately 23% of fentanyl powder and 7% of fentanyl pills seized by the DEA contained xylazine.”

Xylazine is a powerful sedative approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1972 for veterinary use, but it is not approved for use in humans.

Users of the mixture can be at higher risk for deadly overdose because unlike fentanyl, xylazine is not an opioid, and so the common opioid overdose treatment naloxone (Narcan) is not known to be effective in reversing its effects, according to the federal government.

In addition to the risk of increased risk of death posed by xylazine, “people who inject drug mixtures containing xylazine also can develop severe wounds, including necrosis — the rotting of human tissue — that may lead to amputation,” the DEA said in a statement.

Xylazine is not readily detected by routine toxicology screening, making exposure to the drug difficult to diagnose, according to an FDA warning to stakeholders in the health care community last November.

Since 2020, drug overdoses have been linked to more than 100,000 deaths annually in the U.S., about two-thirds of which are fentanyl-related.

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(NEW YORK) — Flight attendants are renewing calls to ban children 2 years and younger from sitting in the laps of their adult caregivers and parents while flying, citing safety concerns that have come under the spotlight again following recent incidents of mid-air and extreme turbulence.

Many domestic airlines including American Airlines allow infants under 2 to travel for free while seated “in the lap of their parent (any age), or any accompanying adult 16 years or older traveling in the same cabin.”

Sara Nelson is the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the largest union of flight attendants in the U.S., which represents nearly 50,000 flight attendants across 19 airlines. Nelson told the Washington Post the union has been advocating for a change in lap baby rules for the last three decades.

“The G-forces are not something even the most loving mother or father can guard against and hold their child. It’s just physically impossible,” Nelson told the Post.

The union has in the past called for every passenger on an airplane to be seated in their own seat and with a restraint, like a seat belt, and continues to do so.

“The current practice of merely recommending that infants and small children under the age of 2 be in child restraint seats during critical phases of flight is inadequate to protect our most vulnerable passengers,” Nelson said previously in 2019.

At a safety summit held last Wednesday, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, noted that turbulence is “especially dangerous for flight attendants” and accounted for “3 out of every 4 flight attendant injuries.”

“We issued a report in 2021 to prevent turbulence-related injuries. It had 21 new recommendations and four that we re-iterated on weather reports, increased sharing of turbulence events, the need for flight attendants to be seated with their seatbelt buckled during certain phases of flight, and the need for parents to secure children under 2 in their own seat with an [Federal Aviation Administration]-approved child restraint system,” Homendy said. “All 25 turbulence recommendations remain open.”

The FAA agrees that children ages 2 and under sitting in another passenger’s lap while flying is not a safe practice.

“Although children who have not reached their second birthday are permitted to travel as lap children, the FAA strongly discourages this practice and recommends that you secure your child in an approved [child restraint system] in their own seat for the entire flight,” the agency advises. “While there is no regulatory prohibition from using a booster seat or harness vest (or other non-approved devices) for a lap child during the cruise portion of the flight only, airlines have policies which may or may not allow the use of those devices. Check with your airline.”

Congressional lawmakers are currently reviewing federal aviation rules and legislation in order to reauthorize the FAA by the end of September, which is currently funded until the end of fiscal year 2023.

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