(NEW YORK) — More than a week after hazardous waste was burned by officials from a train derailment in Ohio, the health and environmental impact on the community remains uncertain.
A few of the cars contained vinyl chloride which breaks down into two main byproducts when burned: hydrogen chloride and phosgene.
“Vinyl chloride is classified as a known carcinogen to humans … it has been associated with a rare form of liver cancer called hepatic angiosarcoma. So that’s the main concern with the vinyl chloride,” said Dr. Stephanie Widmer, an emergency medicine physician and medical toxicologist in New York.
Breathing high levels of vinyl chloride can cause dizziness or sleepiness. With even higher levels, passing out or death can occur, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts say determining potential risk after exposure is tricky.
“Usually these things happen with industrial workers. That’s where you’re seeing these types of cancers, for the most part — people who are exposed to levels of the vinyl chloride for a long period of time,” Widmer said.
Hydrogen chloride and phosgene can cause symptoms like eye or throat irritation or even respiratory issues like difficulty breathing.
“It’s always challenging to evaluate the human health risks from a chemical spill and it increases exponentially when those chemicals burn,” said Stephen Roberts, Ph.D., professor emeritus and former director of the Center for Environmental and Human Toxicology at the University of Florida.
In addition to hazardous chemicals, burning any kind of material can create particle pollution — tiny pieces of solid like dust, dirt, soot, or smoke. Breathing in these particles can be harmful to your health, according to the CDC.
Particle pollution has been linked to eye, lung and throat irritation, trouble breathing and associated with lung cancer and problems with babies at birth.
Those with heart disease are especially at risk, as breathing in particle pollution can cause serious problems like a heart attack.
“I would think the worst of it would have been immediately around when the fire occurred and the release occurred and I’d be surprised at new symptoms that would appear at this point,” Roberts said.
Air monitoring has not detected any levels of health concern in the community since the fire went out on Feb. 8, according to a statement from the Environmental Protection Agency.
“People should be concerned when things like these do happen, but there’s no need to be hysterically concerned. The EPA is keeping everybody up to date with the information that we need to stay safe,” Widmer said.
Water testing results also showed no detection of contaminants in the wells within the city’s water system, according to a statement released by the Ohio governor’s office.
When asked if he would drink the water on ABC News Live, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine replied, “Absolutely, if I was there right now, I would drink it.”
He then went on to say that residents with private wells should have their water tested.
(NEW YORK) — When photographer Shannon Morton shared a baby photo to her business’s Facebook page, she had no idea that it would go viral.
“It was amazing,” Morton told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “I shared it, I think on Thursday. By Friday morning, I looked at it and I saw, ‘Oh my gosh. 5,000. Wow, that’s amazing.’ I looked at it an hour later and it had doubled. It was already at 10,000 likes and loves and shares … and then the comments started happening.”
The photo post, which included a picture of baby Sutton — who was born with a cleft lip and palate and is now 9 weeks old — has since garnered more than 728,000 likes and nearly 7,000 comments. It features the newborn with her eyes closed in what Morton calls an “angel pose.”
“So. Many. Smiley babies in the studio recently! This is sweet Sutton, the cutest little redhead! 👶🏻♥️” Morton wrote in the accompanying photo caption.
Sutton’s photo struck a chord and soon, other parents began to comment with photos and stories of their own children born with a cleft lip, palate or both.
“My little princess was born with a bilateral cleft thankfully her palet was intact. Me and dad assure her everyday that she is the most beautiful girl in the world and her personality is amazing,” one parent wrote alongside a photo of a young girl smiling for the camera.
Another Facebook user shared four sweet photos and added, “Such a beautiful baby 💕 our sweets is a cleft/palate baby also.”
“She’s beautiful,” one mother commented, adding, “as a cleft mama seeing her beautiful face just warms my heart!”
Neither Morton nor Sutton’s parents, Courtney and Gavin Gardner, expected such a big response from people online.
“It was a huge difference compared to what [Morton] normally posted and it was shocking, because I, up until that point, had been keeping my children off of my own personal social media accounts just for their protection. So I never anticipated it getting any attention at all, let alone the amount that it did or the kindness of the comments that it did,” Courtney Gardner told GMA.
Gavin Gardner, Sutton’s dad, added that all of it “was very surprising.”
“We didn’t expect that and of course, reading the comments, everyone had really wonderful things to say. Very encouraging. And I think the nicest thing to do is when people would share about their own stories if they had a child with cleft lip or cleft palate,” he said.
The Gardners told GMA Sutton was diagnosed at their 20-week ultrasound with right-sided unilateral cleft lip and palate. Cleft lip and palate are both birth defects that occur when a baby’s lip or palate does not develop properly during pregnancy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In most cases, doctors don’t know why clefts form but approximately 1 out of 1,600 babies in the U.S. is born with both a cleft lip and palate each year, and 1 out of every 1,700 babies is born with a cleft palate. Additionally, 1 in every 2,800 babies is born with a cleft lip but not a cleft palate.
There are various treatments available for cleft lip and palate, including surgery, dental care and speech therapy.
Courtney Gardner told GMA Sutton is expected to receive her first surgery in March and then at least one more surgery after she turns 1. She will also get speech therapy.
The Gardners also said they’re grateful for the care their daughter has received so far at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, and said finding a community online has helped them through a journey they never imagined they would be on.
“During the pregnancy, I did join a support group on Facebook for cleft moms, which has been instrumental in helping those feelings and I’ve made a lot of really great friends from that and even met up with them and their babies in person. But to connect with people outside of that, from all around the world, was just nothing that we expected but was absolutely just lovely to have happen,” Courtney Gardner said.
Today, the Gardners are also sharing their daughter’s story through their own Facebook page called My Cleft Cutie.
“We started a Facebook page just to show others her journey, what it’s like and stuff like that and words of encouragement or cleft awareness,” Gavin Gardner explained.
The Gardners said they hope sharing will help shine a light on and offer support and encouragement to other expecting parents who may be going through what they had when they first heard Sutton had a cleft lip and palate.
“When you first get that diagnosis and you have six months to just stew on it and wonder what if, seeing other people and what their experiences were just helped my mind process things and and realize that this is something that we could absolutely handle, rather than let my worst fears take hold,” Courtney Gardner said.
(NEW YORK) — Moderna will keep its COVID vaccine on the market at no cost to consumers, even after the federal government stops paying for it, the company announced Wednesday.
“Everyone in the United States will have access to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine regardless of their ability to pay,” the company said in a statement.
Last month, the vaccine maker was slammed for reportedly considering a dramatic price increase for the shot, which it had developed with the help of the federal government.
The proposal was also bad timing: The Biden administration was moving toward ending its designation of a public health emergencyon May 11, which meant that federal funding for vaccines would soon dry up and uninsured Americans would have to pay out of pocket for their boosters.
Among the critics of Moderna’s reported consideration of a price increase — from about $26 a shot to as much as $130 — was Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has long advocated for government-funded health care and alleged the move would result in deaths.
“How many of these Americans will die from COVID 19 as a result of limited access to these lifesaving vaccines?” Sanders, I-Vt., wrote in a January letter to Moderna.
“While nobody can predict the exact figure, the number could well be in the thousands. In the midst of a deadly pandemic, restricting access to this much needed vaccine is unconscionable,” he added.
Now, Moderna will be the sole manufacturer of COVID vaccines offering its shot for free to the uninsured. Under federal regulation, insurance companies are already required to foot the bill for COVID vaccines.
“Moderna remains committed to ensuring that people in the United States will have access to our COVID-19 vaccines regardless of ability to pay,” the company wrote in its statement.
“Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines will continue to be available at no cost for insured people whether they receive them at their doctors’ offices or local pharmacies. For uninsured or underinsured people, Moderna’s patient assistance program will provide COVID-19 vaccines at no cost” after the public health emergency expires.
To date, the federal government paid for all COVID vaccines for Americans, whether they were insured or not using emergency money passed by Congress. But President Joe Biden says he plans to let the nationwide public health emergency expire May 11.
Once that happens, federal support ends for many of the programs put in place to help uninsured Americans, including expanded Medicaid, testing and treatments.
Last month, the World Health Organization said COVID-19 remains a public health emergency worldwide, but that the pandemic was at a “transition point.”
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the “global response remains hobbled because in too many countries, these powerful, life-saving tools are still not getting to the populations that need them most – especially older people and health workers.”
When taken for alcohol use disorder, naltrexone is taken daily in pill form.
A new study published in December in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that taking naltrexone prior to an expected episode of binge drinking, as opposed to taking it daily, can help curb the amount of alcohol consumed.
Binge drinking is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a “pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration to 0.08 grams percent or above.”
That typically means consuming five or more drinks in a two-hour period for men and four or more drinks in a two-hour period for women, according to the CDC.
The new research, first reported by The New York Times, looked at young men who took the pill one hour before they expected to drink.
In addition to the medication, the participants also received education on reducing alcohol use.
After 12 weeks, participants who took naltrexone prior to drinking reported consuming less alcohol than the participants who received a placebo.
The participants who took naltrexone also reported its effect lasting up to six months, according to the study.
The medication works by binding endorphin receptors in the body, which helps block the “effects and feelings of alcohol,” according to SAMHSA.
“Naltrexone reduces alcohol cravings and the amount of alcohol consumed,” the agency states on its website, adding that with alcohol use disorder, the treatment typically lasts for three to four months. “Once a patient stops drinking, taking naltrexone helps patients maintain their sobriety.”
Binge drinking on the rise
The new research on naltrexone for helping to curb excessive alcohol use comes amid an increase in binge drinking in the United States.
The annual number of binge drinks among adults who reported binge drinking jumped on average from 472 in 2011 to 529 in 2017, a 12% increase, according to a CDC study published in 2020.
Increases in binge drinking were most prominent in people 35 or older and those with lower educational levels and household incomes, according to the CDC data.
One in 6 adults in the U.S. binge drinks about four times a month, consuming about seven drinks per binge, and binge drinking is twice as common among men than among women, according to the CDC.
Drinking a steady amount of alcohol in a short amount of time has a different impact on your body than drinking, for example, one glass of wine each night over the course of one week, according to Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News chief medical correspondent and a board-certified OBGYN.
For women, a moderate alcohol intake per week is defined as seven servings of alcohol or less. For men, it is 14 servings of alcohol or less per week, according to the CDC.
One serving of alcohol is defined as 5 ounces for wine and just 1 1/2 ounces for hard alcohol, far less than what is typically served in bars, restaurants and people’s homes.
Dr. Darien Sutton, a board-certified emergency medicine physician and ABC News medical contributor, said people who are concerned about their alcohol use should speak with their medical provider.
“The first step, I always want to advise patients, is acknowledging to yourself that you might have a problem,” he said. “Talk to your physician about your symptoms so that you can get a good gauge on what the issue is and the other possible treatments.”
(LOS ANGELES) — A lawsuit against Cedars-Sinai Health System and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles claims the hospital shared patient data with third parties.
Filed by plaintiff John Doe, the proposed class action lawsuit claims his and other patients’ private information — including data related to their medical inquiries — was shared with marketing and social media platforms including Google, Microsoft Bing and Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
“Cedars-Sinai transmitted to third parties portions of the patients’ private communications with it through pieces of tracking code that it embedded in its website, for the sole purpose of sharing such information with marketing entities,” the lawsuit reads. “This code served as real time wiretaps on patients’ communications.”
According to the lawsuit, originally reported by The Register, patients at Cedars-Sinai can use either the hospital’s website or its app to log into the patient portal and research symptoms about their medical conditions, about doctors who can treat said conditions, as well as other issues related to their health.
However, the lawsuit claims Cedars-Sinai’s website had Meta Pixel programmed. Meta Pixel is a piece of code that can help identify how Facebook users are interacting with content on a website.
Allegedly, when a patient entered any of the following information — types of medical treatment sought; name, sex, language and specialty of a physician; searches related to COVID-19 information and treatment; locations where treatment was sought; or that a telephone call was made to schedule an appointment — it was shared simultaneously with Meta.
“By way of illustration, if a patient made an appointment with a doctor for treatment of cancer, the tracking code Cedars-Sinai put on its website conveyed that information to Meta, which in turn allowed Meta to include that patient in marketing target groups that it offered to its other advertising clients who wanted to market to cancer patients,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit claims John Doe “has noticed an increase in the number of health-related ads that he has received, and he has received ads relating to the condition about which he communicated on Defendant’s website.”
The lawsuit argues this is in violation of Cedars-Sinai’s privacy policy, which assures user information is protected and won’t be shared for other services unless specifically requested by the patient.
In a statement to ABC News, a Cedars-Sinai spokesman said the hospital upholds patient privacy but did not comment on the allegations.
“We are unable [to] comment on pending litigation, but we can say that the health and medical privacy of our patients and community are of the utmost importance,” the statement said. “We will continue to follow regulatory guidance in this area while striving to provide the best website experience for people searching for healthcare information and treatment options.”
Meta declined to comment on the lawsuit but pointed ABC News to their Business Tools policies that prohibit advertisers from sharing an individual’s sensitive health information.
“We have no statement at this time beyond the allegations plead in the complaint,” Rachele Byrd, managing partner of firm Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz’s San Diego office and one of the attorneys for the plaintiff, told ABC News in an email.
Meta is not the only defendant in the lawsuit. The lawsuit also claims Cedars-Sinai placed tracking codes from Google Analytics and Microsoft Bing on its website to help target website visitors with more personal advertisements.
“Google Analytics is a measurement product that helps businesses better understand their web and app performance — businesses own the data collected and can delete it at any time,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. “As a product, Google Analytics was built so that users could not be identified by Google for ourselves or anyone else and data in Google Analytics is obfuscated and aggregated. Additionally, we have strict policies against advertising to people based on sensitive information and take action when a customer violates these terms.”
Microsoft did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
This is not the first time Meta has been targeted in a lawsuit for use of its Meta Pixel.
In a proposed class action lawsuit filed in Louisiana last month, patients alleged LCMC Health Systems, based in New Orleans, and Willis-Knighton Health System, based in northwestern Louisiana, shared sensitive medical data without patients’ knowledge or consent.
“We are learning more and more about this shocking breach of trust as our investigation continues,” attorney Stephen Herman, a partner at law firm Herman Herman & Katz, which is representing the plaintiffs in the Louisiana case, told ABC News in a statement. “This was a gross invasion of privacy that went on for years.”
(NEW YORK) — From “mom brain” to “mommy brain,” “momnesia,” “baby brain” and “pregnancy brain,” the terms used to describe the brain fog many moms say they experience during pregnancy and after are plentiful.
One of the terms, “baby brain,” even made it into Prince Harry’s memoir Spare as he described how the use of the term once caused a confrontation between his wife, Duchess Meghan, and his sister-in-law, Princess Kate.
Despite how common it has become for moms-to-be and moms to be subjectively thought of as scattered or forgetful, a group of scientists says the idea of “mommy brain” needs to be reexamined and rebranded.
The term, they say, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, one that undermines the positive changes that happen to women’s brains and cognitive abilities with motherhood.
“It’s complicated because you internalize or potentially expect to experience something like ‘mommy brain’ in a negative way,” Clare McCormack, Ph.D., a research assistant professor at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, told ABC News. “You might expect to experience fogginess and forgetfulness, so when an everyday moment of forgetfulness happens, there’s a label for it, it’s confirming what you thought you would see, and it can really become ingrained.”
McCormack and two colleagues, Bridget Callaghan, Ph.D., of the University of California Los Angeles, and Jodi Pawluski, Ph.D., of the University of Rennes in France, are the authors of a headline-making article published this week in JAMA Neurology titled, “It’s Time to Rebrand ‘Mommy Brain.'”
“The idea that motherhood is wrought with memory deficits and is characterized by a brain that no longer functions well is scientifically just not so,” the authors write.
In addition to current research not conclusively pointing to the idea of “mommy brain,” the authors say there also has not yet been enough research done on what exactly happens to the brain with pregnancy and motherhood.
“We just don’t have enough information, unfortunately,” Pawluski, a behavioral neuroscientist and psychotherapist, told ABC News. “And this is because I think people don’t support research that’s specific to parenting or women’s health, their maternal health, and that’s a bigger issue.”
Citing studies showing that 80% of pregnant women say they experience some form of memory loss or brain fog, Pawluski added, “There are so, so many questions that need [to be] answered.”
When research does happen, according to Callaghan, it often looks only at negative performance, or cognitive impairments.
“There hasn’t really been a fair test of maternal cognitive abilities because we haven’t actually been looking for the cognitive advantages that pregnancy might pose,” said Callaghan, an assistant professor of psychology at UCLA.
Callaghan, Pawluski and McCormack led their own study that looked at the impact of pregnancy on long-term memory, and found pregnant women performed better cognitively than nonpregnant women.
“This is just one example of the ways that we can kind of think critically about how we’re assessing this phenomenon of mommy brain,” Callaghan said of the study, which was published in 2021. “And when we do, we find evidence of cognitive advantages to pregnancy, which is more consistent with what we see in the animal literature.”
Callaghan said she was inspired by her own pregnancy to start researching some of the benefits of becoming a mom.
“When I looked up any symptom I had during pregnancy, it was like, ‘Your body falls apart. Your mind falls apart when you’re pregnant,'” she said. “I knew that wasn’t the case based on my own experience of pregnancy and seeing other people.”
Callaghan continued, “It’s really important as scientists, and as female scientists, that we try and set the record straight about what the experience of pregnancy and motherhood is actually like, and if female scientists aren’t going to do it, I don’t really know who is.”
All three experts spoke of a desire to “change the narrative” around the changes that come with pregnancy and motherhood, while also acknowledging the fact that the changes are big and do exist.
More recent research has shown that some of the long-lasting brain changes that happen during pregnancy appear to be as significant as the brain changes seen in adolescence, according to McCormack.
“I think of the transition to motherhood as a really important time that is actually all about adaptation,” she said. “So when we’re saying it’s time to ‘rebrand mommy brain,’ we’re really just saying it’s time to reduce focus on what is lost with motherhood, which has been the main focus for a long time, and to start paying attention more to what is gained and how it is gained.”
For example, Pawluski said moms and moms-to-be can think of how their changing brain helps them parent.
Pawluski’s research has shown that in mice, new connections in the brain develop in the postpartum period. She and other researchers have suggested that the brain’s new connections during and after pregnancy don’t necessarily come at the loss of anything else, but are simply the brain adapting to new needs, i.e. parenthood.
“We don’t want motherhood and the brain to immediately be thought of as a deficit,” she said, adding, “I mean, a pregnant person’s brain changes so that they can very quickly learn how to care for a baby because they’ve invested nine months into making it, their whole body and life has been invested into it.”
The experts also described an even more urgent reason more research is needed on brain changes during pregnancy, citing high rates of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.
In the United States, around one in eight women who have given birth experience postpartum depression, a depression that occurs after having a baby, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“If we take for granted that there’s this just kind of magical switch that happens when someone goes from not being a parent to being a parent, and when we don’t understand what goes on in this process, in the best of cases when it goes well, then we can’t help people effectively when they struggle,” McCormack said. “That’s one reason why it’s really important that we seriously try to understand how this process happens.”
(HOUSTON) — A 4-year-old from eastern Louisiana is on the road to recovery at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston after receiving a bilateral lung transplant nearly three months ago. Now, her family and medical team are raising awareness of organ donation, especially since Feb. 14 is National Donor Day.
Ava has a genetic disorder called cystic fibrosis, a condition where an abnormal protein affects the body’s cells, tissues and glands that make mucus and sweat, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. With cystic fibrosis, often abbreviated as CF, the body’s mucus is stickier and thicker than normal, which can lead to blockages, inflammation and infections in various organs, especially lungs.
Ava’s mom Jennifer Thomas told ABC News’ Good Morning America that she and her husband John weren’t familiar with CF until their daughter was diagnosed. It wasn’t until last April when Ava became very sick and was rushed to a hospital and was later moved to a pediatric intensive care unit and placed on a ventilator.
“She was a typical 4-year-old: spunky, sassy, full of life, full of energy,” Thomas recalled. “We had a crawfish boil for her birthday on April 3 and she was doing fine. We had friends and family over and then she had a productive cough so I took her to the doctor and 20 days after her birthday, she was admitted to the hospital.”
The Thomases, who live in Covington, Louisiana, first brought Ava to a local hospital. She was then transferred to Children’s Hospital New Orleans before she arrived at Texas Children’s Hospital, more than five hours away from their home, later that month for higher-level care.
Ava’s cystic fibrosis led to “significant end-stage lung disease,” according to Dr. Maria Carolina Gazzaneo, one of Ava’s doctors and a pediatric critical care and lung transplant physician at Texas Children’s.
“She actually had CF but she was very healthy,” Gazzaneo told GMA. “She had never been admitted before. She was at home. She never was on oxygen. So she was a very special patient and then she became really sick because she got a bacterial infection, and … since then, she developed what we call ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome].”
Among the treatments Ava needed was extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO — a treatment that involves “us[ing] a pump to circulate blood through an artificial lung back into the bloodstream” according to the National Library of Health, part of the National Institutes of Health — and while she was on ECMO, she was placed on the lung transplant waiting list.
Gazzaneo said after 207 days, Ava was able to get her transplant and a new set of lungs, becoming the longest surviving patient on ECMO while waiting for a transplant at the Houston children’s hospital.
“She’s just amazing and she’s actually recovering faster than what we thought,” Gazzaneo said of Ava, post-transplant. “She’s doing so many good things. So I know she will continue to recover and she will go home. We know that.”
Since she received her transplant, Thomas said her daughter is receiving physical therapy, slowly weaning off some medications and was also able to get her tracheostomy, or breathing tube, removed last month.
“She still has an NG (nasogastric) tube, which is through her nose. It goes into her stomach where we give her medicines and liquid and fluid to keep her hydrated but now she’s able to drink some which is a big difference,” Thomas said.
Overall, Thomas said Ava is in “very good spirits” and has been making significant progress. She was even able to go outside on Jan. 22, the first time she’d been able to do so since she arrived at Texas Children’s from Louisiana about 10 months ago.
“She rode her tricycle. It’s all the way on the other side of another building — this hospital is huge. She rode her bike all the way there,” Thomas said. “It was just meant to be that we were out there. … We just enjoyed some fresh air. It was rejuvenating.”
Ava’s doctor said she hopes the 4-year-old’s story can raise awareness for organ donation.
“Lung transplant in pediatric [patients] is completely different than adults,” Gazzaneo said. “Adults, they have more donors, they do a lot more lung transplants. But in the pediatric world, it’s very hard. And Ava had to wait a long time because of [the] scarcity of donors. So I really want to raise awareness … we really need people to donate because that really makes a difference in so many families.”
Ava’s mom added that their family will always be grateful for the lifesaving gift she received.
“We’re very thankful for the organ donation forever. It’s indescribable. It’s a wonderful feeling, but it’s also — we understand that someone else’s life was lost in order to save our child, so we’re thankful all the way around,” Thomas said.
(NEW YORK) — Teenage girls in the United States are experiencing record-high levels of feelings of sadness and acts of violence, according to new federal data.
A report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly 3 in 5 — or 57% — of girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, up from 36% in 2011 and the highest levels seen in the past decade.
By comparison, teen boys also saw an increase, but from 21% in 2011 to 29% in 2021.
“Young people are experiencing a level of distress that calls on us to act with urgency and compassion,” Kathleen Ethier, CDC division of adolescent and school health director, said in a statement. “With the right programs and services in place, schools have the unique ability to help our youth flourish.”
The report includes an analysis of data and trends from the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which looks at the health and behaviors of U.S. high school students.
While several areas of adolescent health improved, including a decrease of risky sexual behavior, misuse of prescription opioids and current alcohol use, it found the state of youth mental health has worsened.
In particular, the crisis is affecting teen girls who report a rise in harmful experiences.
According to the report, 41% of teenage girls surveyed said they had experienced poor mental health over the last 30 days compared to 18% of teenage boys.
What’s more, about one-third of teen girls, or 30%, said they had seriously considered attempting suicide.
Not only is this figure higher than the 14% of teen boys who reported the same thoughts in 2021, but it’s a dramatic increase from the 19% of teen girls who reported considering suicide in 2011.
The percentage of female youth who made a suicide plan also rose from 15% to 24% over the course of a decade.
The report also found that nearly one in five — or 18% — of teen girls said they had experienced sexual violence in the past year. This is an increase of 20% since 2017, the first year the CDC started monitoring this measure.
In addition, more than one in 10 female students, about 14%, said they had been forced to have sex, up 27% from 2019, marking an increase for the first time since the CDC has been tracking this statistic.
The report also found that LGBTQ youth are also facing mental health challenges and reporting high levels of violence.
Nearly 70% of LGBTQ students reported either persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year in 2021 and more than half said they had poor mental health during the past 30 days.
LGBTQ students and students who had any same-sex partners were more likely to seriously consider attempting suicide at 45% and 58%, respectively.
Trend data from 2011 to 2021 was not available for LGBTQ youth because of changes in survey methods, the authors said.
When it came to breakdowns by race and ethnicity, students of all groups saw an increase in feelings of persistent sadness and loneliness over the last decade and white, Black and Hispanic saw increased poor mental health over the last 30 days.
Additionally, despite Black students being less likely to report poor mental health and persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness than some other groups, they were much more likely than Asian, Hispanic, and White students to have attempted suicide.
The report did not go into reasons for the increase in poor mental health, but it did note this data is the first collected since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Although most schools had returned to in-person instruction by that time, the time spent out of school for many students may have impacted the school-related [survey] variables,” the report read. “Disruptions in daily life also remained common during the time of collection.”
The authors said the report shows the importance of offering health-quality education in school as well as school-based activities to teens to help improve their mental health and reduce the negative impacts of violence and other types of trauma.
“High school should be a time for trailblazing, not trauma. These data show our kids need far more support to cope, hope, and thrive,” Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science, said in a statement. “Proven school prevention programs can offer teens a vital lifeline in these growing waves of trauma.”
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
(NEW YORK) — During the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting social interactions and wearing masks kept pesky viruses away. But now, stuffed sinuses and miserable post nasal drip are back — and for some people, feel worse than ever before.
Cold viruses aren’t any more virulent than they were before the pandemic, experts say. But that doesn’t make the experience of having one any better. ABC News spoke to experts about why they might seem harder to bear.
Why do cold symptoms feel worse?
Experts say there is currently no evidence to suggest the viruses that cause cold symptoms are any more severe than they were pre-COVID. However, there are some reasons they may feel more severe.
One reason is because people may have forgotten how miserable cold symptoms can feel after a few years without them.
Cold symptoms can include things like sneezing, coughing and runny nose, but in more severe cases can cause body aches, chest discomfort or even fever, according to the CDC. They also usually last up to 10 days.
“All of us have forgotten about what common colds used to be like, and we’re getting them now again,” said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
Lack of exposure to viruses that cause cold symptoms may also be playing a role. People who haven’t had a cold in a while won’t have as much immunity to viruses, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at UCSF.
“Lack of exposure to viruses over time might make a cold seem much worse than before, because you haven’t been exposed a little bit along the way,” he said.
However, having some immunity isn’t always protective when it comes to colds, as there are over 200 known viruses that can cause symptoms of the common cold, according to the National Institute of Health.
“Being exposed to one doesn’t mean that you’re going to be protected by another one that comes along,” said Chin-Hong.
Are you more likely to catch a cold now than during the height of COVID?
People are socializing more than they did during the height of the pandemic and are in more public spaces without masks. That might make catching a cold more likely, experts said.
“We may have been a little spoiled over the last few seasons, because we’ve been spared this experience of getting one or two or even three common colds during the winter,” said Schaffner.
Socializing also means interacting with other people who also didn’t have much exposure to cold viruses in the past few years.
“There’s less of a forcefield in the population, so the chances of you encountering a cold is higher,” Chin-Hong said.
He added, “When more people are ill, and more people don’t have immunity, they’re more likely to get ill and that leads to a cycle of encounters.”
There were similar trends with RSV and the flu this year.
“We saw a lot more RSV in the beginning of this year, because a lot of kids were not born when there was RSV circulating so of course, they’re going to get it and probably feel it a little bit more,” said Chin-Hong.
What are the best ways to fight the common cold?
Washing your hands.
“We haven’t emphasized washing hands and surfaces for COVID because there’s less evidence for that. But for colds, there’s tons of evidence.” said Chin-Hong.
If you do find yourself getting sick, there are things you can do to help relieve symptoms.
It is important to keep your fluid intake up, according to Schaffner, and taking a steamy shower can help with a runny or stuffy nose.
For a sore throat, Schaffner said, “a little bit of gargling with warm salt water will help. And if you have any pains or perhaps a degree of fever as people do with the cold, then take some acetaminophen, and that’ll help you get through the day and get a little more sleep.”
(ATLANTA) — The number of suicides increased in 2021 to the highest levels seen in four years, according to new federal data.
The report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday, looked at how many people died by suicide between 2018 and 2021 as well as breaking down the chart by race and ethnicity.
Results showed that 48,183 Americans died by suicide in 2021 with a rate of 14.1 suicides per 100,000 people.
These are the highest numbers recorded since 2018 when 48,344 Americans died by suicide with a rate of 14.2 per 100,000, and comes after two consecutive years of decreases in 2019 and 2020.
When researchers looked at 2021 suicide rates by race/ethnicity, they found American Indians/Alaska Natives had the highest rate at 28.1 per 100,000. In addition, this group had the highest percent change from 2018, with the rate increasing 26% from 22.3 per 100,000.
Rates also increased among Black Americans at 19.2% from 2018 to 2021 and among Hispanic Americans at 6.8% over the same four-year period.
White Americans were the only group to see a decrease in suicides rates between 2018 and 2021 at 3.9%.
The report also found that suicide rates significantly increased among Black Americans between ages 10 and 24 over the four-year period from 8.2 per 100,000 to 11.2 per 100,000 — a 36.6% increase.
Rates also increased for people between ages 25 and 44 for American Indian/Alaskan Native, Black, Hispanic and multiracial populations.
Meanwhile decreases were reported for those between ages 45 and 64 overall as well as for Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and white Americans in this age range.
No significant increases or decreases were seen for Americans aged 65 and older.
“These analyses demonstrate disparities in suicide rates among populations based on race and ethnicity and age group in the context of overall suicide rates nearly returning to their 2018 peak after [two] years of declines,” the team wrote.
“Suicide is a complex problem related to multiple risk factors such as relationship, job or school, and financial problems, as well as mental illness, substance use, social isolation, historical trauma, barriers to health care, and easy access to lethal means of suicide among persons at risk,” they continued.
The authors added that suicide rates might initially decrease during a disaster — in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic — only to rise as people begin experiencing the long-term aftereffects.
The report did not investigate why the number of suicides rose, but research has suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on mental health.
According to the KFF, four in 10 adults in the U.S. reported having symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder during the pandemic, an increase from one in 10 adults who reported the same thing from January 2019 to June 2019.
The impact on young adults was particularly severe. According to a 2021 study from Boston College, rates of depression and anxiety rose 61% and 65%, respectively, among those aged 18 to 29 during the first year of the pandemic. Both disorders increase suicide risk.
What’s more, despite the need for help regarding mental, behavioral or emotional disorders, there was a lack of services due to the lockdowns and business closures, as well as staffing shortages, according to the American Hospital Association.
Researchers are also studying if there is a link between people with long COVID and higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts.
“As the nation continues to respond to the short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, remaining vigilant in prevention efforts is critical, especially among disproportionately affected populations where longer-term impacts might compound preexisting inequities in suicide risk,” the authors wrote.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
