Health

(ATLANTA) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alerted doctors across the country Monday about the potential risk of new mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, cases, warning that summer gatherings could lead to a “resurgence.”

Mpox cases have plummeted since a peak in the summer of 2022, with the World Health Organization calling an end to the emergency phase of the outbreak Thursday — but the virus is not completely eradicated.

“While the transmission of monkeypox has reached its lowest levels since its emergence last year, the upcoming summer months, characterized by larger gatherings, present an increased risk of local outbreaks,” John Brownstein, PhD, chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News Contributor, said.

“The most important message is that mpox has not gone away,” Dr. Richard Silvera (MD, MPH, CPH) Associate Program Director of the Infectious Disease Fellowship and Assistant Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told ABC News.

Mpox infection is not usually life-threatening. It often appears as a painful rash, and some people experience flu-like symptoms.

The new CDC warning comes on the heels of a cluster of cases in Chicago, where health officials say there have been 12 confirmed cases and one probable case from April 17 to May 5.

A spokesperson for the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) tells ABC News they are in close contact with the people who tested positive and are working with other health departments and the CDC in an ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, health officials in Chicago are raising awareness ahead of summertime festivals.

“We have been working with community partners to spread awareness of this resurgence and opportunities for vaccination, ahead of [International Mr. Leather], Pride, associated and other events,” a CDPH spokesperson said.

None of the Chicago mpox patients have been hospitalized, but nine cases were among men who had been fully vaccinated.

Experts caution that many vaccines, including mpox, reduce the likelihood of infection but do not completely eliminate risk. Vaccination is still encouraged because people who are fully vaccinated can expect less severe symptoms.

Chicago health officials are not recommending booster doses for fully vaccinated people at this time. Both unvaccinated and vaccinated people should avoid close, skin-to-skin contact with someone who has mpox, according to the CDC.

“It’s important to remember that vaccines—while incredibly helpful—are not our only way to reduce the risk of contracting Mpox,” Silvera said. Other risk reduction strategies include “things like avoiding social and sexual contact if you have new skin lesions and asking your intimate contacts if they are experiencing symptoms or new skin changes,” Silvera said.

The 2022 global mpox outbreak disproportionately impacted gay and bisexual men, but anyone can get or spread monkeypox, regardless of their sexual orientation or how they identify. It spreads most easily through close skin-to-skin contact, often during sex. It does not easily spread via casual contact, such as touching shared surfaces, like elevator buttons, or brushing against someone.

The CDC said that in the U.S., only one-quarter of eligible people are vaccinated, and urged vaccination among those who are high-risk.

The CDC recommends mpox vaccination for people with a known exposure, including close physical contact or sexual contact with someone who had an mpox rash. In addition, the CDC also recommends vaccination for people with HIV who have a higher risk of exposure, for gay, bisexual and MSM who have recently had more than one sexual partner or a recent sexually transmitted infection.

“Vaccination stands as the most effective means of safeguarding oneself against monkeypox. However, only a small fraction of those eligible have received the vaccine thus far. Increasing vaccination coverage is likely to contribute to reducing monkeypox transmission,” Brownstein said.

“The good news is that we have many tools to help prevent mpox including vaccination, as well as strategies to reduce your risk as you socialize this summer,” Silvera said. Along with vaccination, Silvera said, “our best tool is communication: telling those you have intimate contact with if you are experiencing potential Mpox symptoms; asking if they are experiencing symptoms; and listening for updates from public health organizations as we learn more.”

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(NEW YORK) — As the seasons change, our skin care needs change with it, so here are a few dermatologist-approved ideas to help switch up that regimen for summer.

Dr. Rita Linkner shared her top tips with ABC News’ Good Morning America to get your skin ready for the summer sun:

What should you look for in sunscreen?

“There are three things you’re looking for: Broad spectrum is gonna cover UVA, UVB; At least SPF 30; Remember you want it to really be water resistant for up to an hour is what you’re looking for on the label,” Linkner said.

What should change with skin care from spring to summer

“Temperatures are rising, humidity levels are rising. Switch out that pore-clogging, thick cream, you want to go to lighter serums and lotions,” she said.

What ingredients to look for in summer skin products?

“You want to see the titanium oxide [or] zinc oxide in it,” Linkner said. “There are a lot of extra bells and whistles that can protect you against pollution and environmental stressors as well.”

How much sunscreen should you use?

“An ounce is what you need to cover yourself head to toe when you’re at the beach on the weekend. If you’re not using a full ounce you’re not getting the same SPF level that’s on the bottle. Remember, a full shot glass. That’s what you need,” she explained.

How often should you reapply sunscreen?

“Every two hours. Remember if you get out of water sunscreen’s not sweatproof, reapply. And if you’re exercising, reapply every two hours as well,” she said.

What is ultraviolet protection factor clothing?

“In 2023, there’s a lot of fashion involved with upf — ultraviolet protection factor — you want to be around a 50 level. It will block 1/50th of UVB light,” Linkner said.

She suggested a wide-brim hat, sunglasses and other things that cover places aggravated by the sun.

Top body parts to keep covered with SPF

Finally, she said you should remember to apply sunscreen on some neglected body parts: the tip of the nose, top of the ears, lips and hands.

“These are common areas we’re going to see skin cancer and May is skin cancer awareness month,” she said.

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(BUDA, Texas) — Bandages, ice packs, aspirin and epinephrine have long been staples of nurse Dawn Baker’s public high school medical clinic in Texas.

Now, she also stocks Naloxone to treat drug overdoses — keeping a supply by the door in case she needs to save a life in an instant.

“Schools have had drugs in them forever. It’s just that the drug is so much stronger and so much scarier now, and, you know, the outcome is death,” Baker said.

As the nation’s fentanyl crisis claims a growing number of American teenagers each year, school districts nationwide are scrambling to acquire the opioid-reversing drug, train teachers and students how to use it, and combat stigma from openly acknowledging problems with addiction.

Last year, just two weeks after Hays County gave Nurse Baker six doses of Naloxone, also known by the brand name Narcan, she was called to a classroom where a 16-year-old girl was unresponsive.

“She checked all the boxes of an overdose,” she said. I administered Narcan nasally.” The young woman, who was not breathing, survived but only because an overdose antidote was close at hand, Baker said.

“It’s not the answer to all, but it’s definitely going to help,” she said.

While illicit drug use among teens nationwide has been on the decline, overdose deaths – some of them on school property – have been soaring, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Around 500 U.S. teenagers died from a drug overdose each year between 2010 and 2019, CDC data shows. But in 2020, the number nearly doubled to 954 deaths; in 2021, more than 1140 teens died from a drug overdose.

“We’re seeing a significant number of kids getting access to highly lethal drugs that are ultimately leading to an increase in deaths,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News medical contributor.

“We know that there is plenty of fentanyl on the market that is tainting products that people really otherwise wouldn’t know is there. Even in a very small quantity – one tenth of a grain of rice – can lead to an overdose death,” Brownstein said.

The National Association of School Nurses has become so alarmed by the trend that the organization now advises schools nationwide to develop a Naloxone policy.

“I’m seeing more receptiveness,” said Kate King, president-elect of the nurses association.

Thirty states expressly authorize the possession and use of naloxone in K-12 schools, according to the Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association. But only 1 state – Rhode Island – requires all schools to keep it on hand.

Recent FDA approval for over-the-counter sale of naloxone is expected to accelerate interest in the drug and ways to increase its production and availability.

King says unfamiliarity with Naloxone and “stigma” around it are primary barriers to more widespread adoption.

“The fear is that drug users will camp out on the doorstep so that when they use opioids, school personnel will have to run out and save them with naloxone. There’s a fear of danger after administration – that if you administer it, people are going to come up swinging and that you, yourself, are going to be in danger,” King said. “There’s also fear that schools don’t want to get the bad reputation.”

Officials at Hays County Public Schools, just outside Austin, have had to use Naloxone 6 times since the district began stocking the drug in nurses offices. Five students have died off campus in the past year.

“We are being impacted hard. I think what we’re doing differently is we’re hitting it head on,” said Jeri Skrocki, a former county sheriff’s deputy who now oversees safety and security at Hays Consolidated Independent School District’s 26 school campuses with over 22,000 students.

Administrators have produced videos of grieving parents to show students and released surveillance video of student overdose incidents on county campuses.

“Our goal was transparency and really making sure that we were communicating that this is out here, and we wanted them to see those faces,” Skrocki said.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, after a recent rash of student overdoses, administrators are holding community training sessions throughout the year where free doses of naloxone are distributed to parents and children.

“It’s becoming way closer to home,” said high school senior Isabella Juarez Galeas who attended.

Earl Stoddard, a father who joined the session with his daughter Ava, said the dangers need to be talked about openly.

“It’s just important to educate and be aware of what’s going on in your community. She’s going to high school next year. And so I want to have her prepared for that before she gets there,” he sa9id.

Added Ava, “We’ve had strong personal talks at home about drugs, like if you see someone and they’re like, Oh, here’s an Adderall. No, it may not just be Adderall.”

It’s a conversation being had across the country, from Los Angeles, where the nation’s second largest school district is putting naloxone in every K-12 school, to PTA meetings in Arlington, Virginia.

“As a medical professional, if we’re teaching kids to put condoms on bananas, we can teach kids to put Narcan up someone’s nose,” said Dr. Sulman Mirza, a pediatric psychiatrist, during the Arlington meeting last month.

King, who campaigned to get epinephrine and steroid inhalers into the school nurses’ office across Ohio, said the call for naloxone must come with funding for training and education to end stigma.

“Schools already have emergency preparedness plans. We prepare for tornadoes, we prepare for chemical exposures, we prepare for fires, and certainly we prepare for other kinds of health emergencies. This health emergency is no different,” she said.

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(NEW YORK) — A Texas woman said she had to wait until she developed sepsis before physicians could provide her with life-saving abortion care.

Texas has several abortion bans in place that prohibit nearly all abortions, except when a mother’s life is at risk or there is a risk of serious bodily harm. The state has civil and criminal penalties for performing banned abortions.

One of the bans prohibits abortions after fetal cardiac activity has been detected, which meant that doctors couldn’t provide her immediate emergency care, which she would have had access to in states where abortion is not banned or restricted.

Kristen Anaya’s medical records, obtained by ABC News, show she waited 22 hours between when she was admitted to the hospital to when she delivered her baby, despite her spiking a fever and shaking uncontrollably within an hour of arriving.

Anaya said she and her husband Stephen went to see a specialist two years into their marriage, hoping to get pregnant.

After her husband underwent a medical procedure and she went through two rounds of egg retrials for in vitro fertilization, doctors told them they had one embryo, she said.

Anaya said she had the embryo implanted in January and found out she was pregnant nine days later. The couple was elated. Anaya has one 20-year-old son, but this would be her husband’s first child.

Four months later, Anaya said her water broke and she began leaking amniotic fluid — which is essential to keep a fetus alive.

After consulting with her OB/GYN, the couple drove to the hospital and Anaya lost a significant amount of amniotic fluid within the next hour.

An ultrasound confirmed that she had lost nearly all her amniotic fluid, but the baby’s heart was still beating, according to Anaya’s medical records. As she was being examined by a doctor, Anaya began having rigors — shaking uncontrollably — and spiked a fever, both an indication of an infection which could lead to sepsis, the medical records show.

“The pregnant patient has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy, That condition places the pregnant patient at ‘risk of death;’ That condition poses a ‘serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function’,” doctors wrote in her admission medical records.

It was only a few hours later, when they spoke with Anaya’s OB/GYN, that the couple said they realized their baby girl — who they named Tylee — would not survive.

But the couple had no time to process the devastating news — Anaya’s OB/GYN told her she would “get very sick,” before doctors could help her, she told ABC News.

“So it would have been avoidable — me going into sepsis — if they were able to induce labor. The quicker they could get Tylee delivered, the better chance they had at me not going into sepsis. However, Tylee still had a heartbeat,” Anaya said.

“My husband and I are being told that ‘not only did we lose Tylee, but now you’re gonna go into sepsis and there’s nothing we can do about it other than watch you because of the abortion laws in Texas,'” Anaya said doctors told them.

According to her medical records, Anaya’s physician “initiated contact with the termination committee” — a committee of physicians who must approve any abortion care at the hospital — upon her admission to the hospital, a step which is not required of physicians in states where abortion is legal, according to Dr. Aileen Gariepy, an OB/GYN and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. Gariepy was not involved in treating Anaya.

If Anaya was a patient in New York, she would have been able to get abortion care immediately. The fever and chills were an indication of an infection and left untreated, sepsis is fatal, Gariepy told ABC News.

“That would be an indication to proceed immediately to start some kind of intervention to end the pregnancy. We can give antibiotics, but the cure is to deliver the pregnancy,” Gariepy said.

“There would be no state laws prohibiting us from giving her the highest level of medical care,” she said.

An ethics committee also had to approve the abortion, Anaya and her husband said.

“As a husband, now I’ve lost my daughter and now I could potentially lose my wife and the doctors kind of have to let it happen. That doesn’t make sense,” Stephen Anaya said.

Kristen Anaya said she then began to get sicker, with a high fever, shaking uncontrollably for hours and vomiting at least 8 times.

“They were going to be monitoring me, doing bloodwork every three hours, monitoring my vitals and ‘building a case’ to prove that my life was in great danger and they needed to induce labor,” she said.

Medical records show that Anaya’s lactic acid reached 2.8 mmol/L before she was induced — the normal range is between 0.4 to 2.0 mmol/L. Her white blood cell count went up to 17.6 k/uL, while the healthy range is between 4.5 to 11 k/uL.

When she was admitted to the hospital, her lactic acid was 1.5 mmol/L and her white blood cell count was 12.3 k/uL, according to her medical records.

“I was crying, asking for help. And I remember them literally not saying anything. [The doctors and nurses] would just literally look at me and look at Stephen and they’re just blank. There’s literally nothing they could do,” Anaya said.

She added, “I’m freezing, shaking so hard that I had body aches for a week after getting discharged from the hospital because my body was so tense and just shaking uncontrollably.”

Once Anaya’s test results met the threshold doctors had set, the hospital approved the abortion. She still had to wait from 30 minutes to an hour until the paperwork was in the system before her labor could be induced, according to her.

Despite a dilation and evacuation procedure being more effective at removing all the fetal tissue and the placenta, according to Gariepy, Anaya said she was only offered a labor induction.

The placenta usually detaches itself once a pregnancy is full term. By inducing labor and not performing the surgical procedure there is a risk the placenta will not be delivered, Gariepy said.

“There’s a 25% chance of still needing surgery [after induction] because the placenta get stuck,” Gariepy said.

Even after receiving four rounds of induction medication, Anaya’s placenta was not delivered, according to her medical records.

She has since needed two dilation and curettage procedures to remove the placenta and stop her bleeding. The first was during her 5-day hospital stay.

Then, Anaya began bleeding heavily in early May and needed a second procedure to remove placenta tissue, her medical records show.

The hospital where Anaya received care, and her physician did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

She said she is still having pain and complications and her cervix was still dilated at an appointment last week, despite delivering on April 16. Doctors said her uterus still does not look normal, Anaya said.

“I’m kind of in a gray area, I’m not taking the path of recovery that they would expect. Because I’m still having some complications,” Anaya said. “They’re really unsure as to why I’m still feeling the way that I’m feeling and so we’re kind of gonna wait and see.”

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(NEW YORK) — Actress Tori Spelling is sharing a warning with other parents about mold in their home after experiencing a “spiral of sickness” with her own children.

Spelling, who shares five children with her husband Dean McDermott, shared photos on Instagram Wednesday of herself with at least four of her children at an urgent care clinic.

Spelling said in the photos’ caption that she was prompted to look for answers after her kids were in what she described as a months-long “continual spiral of sickness.”

“Used to think… well that’s what happens when you have young kids in school. They just continually bring sicknesses home,” Spelling wrote. “But, when it gets to the point where they are at home sick more than being in school we had to reassess what was going on.”

Spelling wrote that among the symptoms her children have experienced are skin rashes, extreme fatigue, dizziness, fevers and respiratory infections. Her five children range in age from 6 to around 16.

Spelling said a professional mold inspection company found “extreme mold” in the family’s California home, which she said they had been renting.

“It’s hard to just uproot a huge family especially in midst of all feeling so sick and in bed,” she wrote. “But, we now will vacate the home asap.”

How to reduce kids’ exposure to mold at home

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mold can cause health effects ranging from skin rashes and burning eyes to coughing and sneezing and a sore throat.

The effects of mold may be more severe, according to the CDC, for people with asthma and those with mold allergies, as well as people who are immune-compromised and who have chronic lung disease.

Inside a home, mold can enter through everything from heating and air conditioning systems to open doors and windows, vents and even on clothing, shoes and pets, according to the CDC.

When looking for mold in the home, the CDC notes that mold shows up as spots and can be different colors. It also has a musty smell.

Mold may also be hidden, in which case a professional would need to find the source.

Mold growing in the home should be removed immediately, according to the CDC, by using soap and water, a mold-removing product or a bleach solution.

The Environmental Protection Agency has a comprehensive online guide with tips to prevent mold from growing in the first place.

The most important tip is to control moisture inside the house, according to the agency.

The EPA recommends cleaning indoor water leaks and spills quickly, cleaning and repairing roof gutters frequently and keeping the air conditioning system clear and unobstructed so moisture doesn’t accumulate.

In addition, the agency says to keep indoor humidity below 60% relative humidity, which can be measured with a moisture or humidity meter.

Tips for reducing humidity in a home include using a de-humidifier when needed and running exhaust fans or opening windows when showering, cooking and washing dishes, according to the EPA.

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(NEW YORK) — A patch that sits on a person’s skin could help reduce the risk of severe allergic reactions in toddlers with peanut allergies, according to the newly published results of a small clinical trial.

The results, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that toddlers who wore the patch for 22 hours a day for one year were able to tolerate the equivalent of one to four peanuts, meaning their sensitivity to peanuts had been reduced.

The phase 3 trial, led by a physician at Children’s Hospital Colorado, involved more than 300 children ages 1 to 3, all with peanut allergies.

The patch, named Viaskin, works by releasing small doses of peanut protein powder that are absorbed into the skin, thereby exposing the child to peanuts, according to DBV Technologies, the biopharmaceutical company behind Viaskin.

The Viaskin patch is designed to be switched out daily and worn between the shoulder blades.

The latest medical guidelines recommend that if a child does not have any eczema or food allergy, a parent may start exposing them to peanut-containing foods as young as 6 months of age in order to reduce the risk of developing a peanut allergy, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

Peanuts are one of the eight foods that “account for the most severe allergic reactions in the United States,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . A food allergy affects 1 in 13 children in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Dr. Matthew Greenhawt, a lead author of the trial, said in a statement released by DBV Technologies that the patch has “the potential to give new hope” to families.

“This publication shows that, if approved, the Viaskin Peanut patch has the potential to give new hope to toddlers and their families who currently have no approved treatment options and must instead rely on avoidance, which can severely impact quality of life,” Greenhawt said. “The EPITOPE data are a meaningful advancement in potentially offering the first-ever FDA approved treatment option for peanut-allergic toddlers.”

DBV said in a statement it is “advancing regulatory efforts” to get Viaskin approved for children ages 1 to 3.

People with a peanut allergy must, in most cases, avoid peanut products in their diet and carry an injectable epinephrine — also called an EpiPen — for immediate use.

There is currently not an approved treatment for children under age 4 with a peanut allergy.

In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first drug designed to minimize the frequency and severity of a child’s allergic reaction to peanuts.

The drug, Palforzia, is a powder that comes in the form of pull-apart capsules. The powder is emptied from the capsules at the time it is taken and mixed into a semisolid food, like applesauce or yogurt, according to the FDA.

Palforzia is taken in three phases over the course of several months.

It is currently approved only for kids ages 4 to 17 with a “confirmed diagnosis of peanut allergy,” according to the FDA.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Food and Drug Administration has dropped all restrictions specific to gay and bisexual men donating blood, a move long anticipated by public health experts and gay rights activists.

The new guidance, first proposed in January and finalized Thursday, will not restrict donations based on someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, and instead move towards an “individual risk-based” approach to reduce the risk of accidental HIV infection through the blood donation system.

The FDA originally banned donations from gay and bisexual men in the midst of the 1980s HIV/AIDS crisis. In recent years, the FDA relaxed these rules, but had not lifted them completely.

Now, the new blood donation risk assessment will be the same for every donor regardless of how they identify.

It’s a move that public health experts and advocates have long argued for. Advocates say the HIV crisis has changed significantly since the 1980s, undercutting the rationale for restrictions based on sexual orientation. For example, the HIV epidemic has spread far beyond gay and bisexual men, with women accounting for roughly 1 in 5 new HIV diagnoses in the United States, according to the most recent CDC data available.

Meanwhile, testing of the blood supply improved, dramatically reducing the risk of blood-borne transmission through the blood donation system.

“This change reflects advancements in molecular tests as well as the accrual of reassuring data from other countries that implemented similar individual behavior (not population) based testing,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.

In 2015, the FDA relaxed an outright ban on donations from gay and bisexual men, but the 2015 guidance asked men to abstain from sex for at least one year before donation.

Under Thursday’s finalized guidance, every prospective donor will be asked about their sexual history within the past three months – regardless of their sexual orientation. If they report a new sexual partner, more than one sexual partner, or having anal sex, they will be deferred. In addition, any person who takes HIV medications intended to treat or prevent infection will be deferred.

The FDA says this move could expand the pool of people eligible to donate blood.

“As a physician I feel a sense of relief, this will likely lead to the increased supply and availability of a vital resource needed for life saving and life sustaining treatment,” said Dr. Darien Sutton, an emergency medical physician and ABC News contributor.

In a press release, the FDA said it has “carefully reviewed numerous data sources” that give the agency “a solid foundation to support this new policy.” The FDA said it strongly believes this new recommendation will not compromise the safety of the blood supply.

In prepared remarks, Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s CBER division that handles blood donations, said the new recommendations “represent a significant milestone for the agency and the LGBTQI+ community.”

Chin-Hong added, “As a doctor I enthusiastically welcome this news … Above all, this is a victory of science over stigma.”

“The FDA’s decision to follow science and issue new recommendations for all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation, who selflessly donate blood to help save lives, signals the beginning of the end of a dark and discriminatory past rooted in fear and homophobia,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement Thursday.

Ellis, however, took issue with one part of the updated recommendation, which urges deferral for anyone taking HIV medications — including people who are HIV negative who are taking medications called PrEP to prevent infection.

The deferral period could continue to erect barriers to LGBTQ blood donors, she said.

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(NEW YORK) — Medical and scientific experts advising the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously Wednesday in favor of allowing a birth control pill to be sold without a prescription.

The vote could sway the FDA, which ultimately needs to sign off. But if the FDA agrees, the progestin-only pill Opill could be on shelves this summer as the first over-the-counter pill sold in the U.S.

“The large body of evidence on the safety and effectiveness is very reassuring,” said Dr. Kathryn Curtis, a reproductive health expert with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after voting in favor of easing access.

Opill, made by the French drugmaker HRA Pharma, which is owned by Perrigo, has been on the market since the FDA approved it in 1973. Known as a “mini pill,” the drug is considered by doctors to pose fewer risks than combination pills that rely on estrogen.

Still, the FDA has posed questions about whether women could screen themselves for risks. For example, certain breast cancer survivors shouldn’t take the drug and women shouldn’t ignore abnormal uterine bleeding while on the drug, which could be a sign of an unrelated medical problem like an ectopic pregnancy.

Another concern was whether there was enough data on how teens would use the pill and if young teens in particular – ages 11 to 14 – would read the labeling and take the medication correctly.

But after two days of discussion, panel members said they didn’t think those concerns were serious enough to insist that a person see a provider first — a hurdle that keeps many patients from preventing unwanted pregnancies. Of particular concern was the lack of health care access by people of color and those who struggle to find child care or transportation.

Dr. Eve Espey, an FDA adviser and chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico, said an over-the-counter birth control pill is particularly needed in rural states like hers.

“I see it firsthand — people who face all of these barriers and who also experienced the maternal … mortality that goes along with unintended pregnancy,” Espy said.

“From my perspective, despite the FDA concerns about the study design and different interpretations of the studies, the overall very rare and unlikely harms are outweighed by the tremendous benefits of improved access without any restrictions,” she added.

Perrigo President and CEO Murray Kessler called the vote a “new, groundbreaking chapter in reproductive health,” while advocacy groups cheered the move as historic.

“It is past time for an over-the-counter birth control pill, which has the potential to advance reproductive justice and expand health equity,” Victoria Nichols, project director at Free the Pill, said.

Manufacturers of the drug haven’t said how much Opill will cost if sold without a prescription, although officials say the plan is to ensure it will be affordable.

ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — In the first guidance of its kind, the American Psychological Association (APA) has issued sweeping recommendations intended to help teenagers use social media safely.

The guidance is primarily directed toward parents and formalizes prior recommendations around social media use, including setting time limits, family discussions about social media and parental monitoring.

The recommendations acknowledge that more research is needed to understand the full impact social media has on mental health.

“Social media is neither inherently harmful nor beneficial to our youth,” said APA President Thema Bryant in prepared remarks. “But because young people mature at different rates, some are more vulnerable than others to the content and features on many social media platforms that science has demonstrated can influence healthy development.”

During the pandemic, for example, social media helped ease loneliness. Used in the wrong context, however, it can be harmful to mental health.

“Overall, I think the advisory is great. I appreciate that the APA took a balanced approach and discussed both the benefits and risks. This highlights the importance of taking an individualized approach to every child,” said Ariana Hoet, a pediatric psychologist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital who was not involved in making the guidance.

The guidance contains 10 recommendations designed to ensure that teens get the proper training on how use social media safely. For most families, that means staring with an active discussion about which sites teens are using, how often and how those experiences make them feel.

Psychologists say that adolescent brain development starts around age 10 and continues through early adulthood. APA cautions that sites that use “like” buttons and artificial intelligence to encourage excessive scrolling “may be dangerous for developing brains” and recommends limiting social media use on these types of platforms through phone settings.

In addition to setting limits, APA strongly encourages ongoing discussions about social media use and active supervision, especially in early adolescence. Parents are encouraged to model healthy social media use, including taking social media “holidays” as a family.

Children should also be monitored for problematic social media use, including interference with normal routines, choosing social media over in-person interactions, lack of physical activity, strong cravings to check social media and lying to spend more time online. In these cases, a mental health provider might be able to help.

Parents should also teach social media literacy, which includes educating teens about the pitfalls of social media. They shouldn’t place too much emphasis on “likes” as a measure of their own self-worth, experts say, and they should understand that social media is often a highly sanitized or glamorized version of the real world.

“The APA advisory outlines that there are two things we can do for best outcomes: limits and boundaries and open discussion and coaching,” said Hoet, who runs a program called On Our Sleeves that offers free-downloadable resources for families, including conversation starters for parents who don’t know where to start.

“Parents and caregivers have to remember that children’s brains are still in development, so they need monitoring and support in order to make the healthiest choices,” Hoet said.

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(BURLINGTON, Vt.) — Jes Kraus was supposed to be going to the University of Vermont Medical Center every day for aggressive radiation and chemotherapy treatments to fight stage three colorectal cancer, for which he was diagnosed in September 2020.

But at the end of October 2022, the hospital called to tell him not to come in for his appointments until further notice. The medical center had just been hit by a cyberattack, which infected computer systems across the state and locked out health care workers from his treatment plan and other critical tools.

“Radiation was canceled for a week,” Kara Kraus, Jes’s wife, told ABC News. “We were afraid. We weren’t sure if that would affect the outcome. Again, the tumor, would it start growing back within that week? What was going to happen?”

The Kraus family’s experience is an increasingly common one, research shows. Hospitals have become a top target for ransomware gangs, which take control of vulnerable online networks and demand a ransom to unlock them, severely disrupting patient care in the process.

The number of attacks on U.S. hospitals each year doubled between 2016 and 2021, from 43 to 91, according to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Last year saw an even greater number of incidents, the American Hospital Association said.

Health care systems are often underprepared to stop these attacks, cybersecurity experts said, even though research shows they come with very real health risks for patients.

“These are direct threats to patient safety,” John Riggi, national advisor for cybersecurity and risk at the American Hospital Association, told ABC News.

When ransomware attacks hit hospitals, internet-based tools critical to patient care, which can include patient health records, imaging and lab results, communication links with other departments and hospitals and more, are suddenly frozen.

When UVM Medical Center’s computers went down, the impact on patient care was “significant,” hospital President and COO Dr. Stephen Leffler, who was seeing patients as electronic communications went down, said.

“When the laboratory had a critical lab result on someone, they couldn’t put it in the electronic medical record,” he told ABC News. “They couldn’t call the floor. And so we literally had our administrators start going in the lab, standing there and running a paper result to the floors.”

“Everything that we do and rely on was down,” he said. “We actually sent some staff to Best Buy to buy Walkie Talkies!”

The attack disrupted UVM systems for 28 days, costing more than $50 million in damage.

For years, discussion of cyberattacks at hospitals has focused on threats to privacy. Hacks could expose personal information about patients and subject hospitals to fines under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. But experts now say privacy concerns are increasingly overshadowed by potential harm to patients when a medical facility is forced to delay treatments and divert ambulances.

“This is not just a patient privacy issue,” Josh Corman, a leading expert on cybersecurity and health care, told ABC News. “This is a patient safety issue.”

Using data from the state of Vermont during the UVM ransomware attack, Corman and colleagues found that hospitals experiencing a ransomware attack hit a stress level linked to more patient deaths. The findings were published by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

And cyberattacks don’t just affect an individual hospital hit with the ransomware.

Newly published research in the journal JAMA Network Open documents a ripple effect that can impact health care and the patient experience across an entire region.

The study looked at fallout from a single ransomware attack on a single San Diego hospital in 2021. It found that emergency rooms at adjacent hospitals had more ambulances arrive and saw more patients than normal, and had longer wait times for all patients seeking care. The number of situations where a patient left without being seen by a doctor rose by 127%.

“Patients don’t stop getting sick just because a hospital is hit by a ransomware attack,” Dr. Christian Dameff, lead author on the study and emergency physician at the University of California, San Diego, told ABC News. “They have to go somewhere. So what this research shows is that those patients go to neighboring hospitals that can be overwhelmed.”

Dameff calls it the blast radius.

“It truly affects the entire community,” he said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services concluded in an April report that cyberattacks are the single “largest threat” to America’s hospitals, deserving “immediate attention” because of the “threat to life.”

Most hospitals still aren’t adequately prepared to prevent and respond to the threat, experts say. Bigger hospitals generally have the resources to invest in cybersecurity, but smaller ones don’t — particularly after the financial strain of the pandemic. Nearly all hospitals surveyed in the HHS report said they use software with “known vulnerabilities;” only half said they had a plan to address those shortcomings.

“We’re not yet in a place where we can reliably say the hospital your family depends upon in most of America is, at a minimum, cyber hygiene-level sufficient to fend off preventable attacks,” Corman says.

It’ll take investment and more federal regulation to fill those gaps, Corman said. There’s some movement: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now requires that medical devices meet cybersecurity standards, and members of Congress are considering introducing legislation that would set mandatory cybersecurity minimums for hospitals.

There also needs to be more cybersecurity and preparedness education for healthcare workers, Dameff said, so that doctors and nurses are prepared for a situation when their networks do go down and they’re not able to rely on digital tools.

“It can happen to you – even when you think it’s impossible,” said Leffler of his message to other hospital administrators.

Raising awareness and encouraging action around health care cybersecurity has been difficult, Dameff said. People in the field worry that talking about it will discourage patients from trusting healthcare institutions, for example, he said.

But more and more leaders in health care are starting to recognize the issue.

“These attacks are becoming so frequent and so sophisticated. Hospital defenses aren’t nearly up to snuff to prevent these types of things from happening,” Dameff said.

Hospitals are, instead, left scrambling when an attack hits. That’s what happened with Jes Kraus’ care at UVM. Luckily, his oncologist was able to get his radiation treatments moved to another hospital, and his cancer is currently in remission. Still, it was stressful to figure out and coordinate a new way to get care.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s easy to look at it now and say, okay, yeah, it was a week delay [in treatments] and it didn’t really impact [my prognosis], but I hope that it’s been a lesson learned to hospitals,” Kraus said.

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