(NEW YORK) — Spring has sprung and summer is around the corner which means long strolls and rolling strides outside to enjoy the warm weather months.
But with heat waves already setting in across parts of the country, ABC News’ Good Morning America tapped Dr. Liz Weinandy, lead dietitian at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, to explain what to watch out for if dehydration hits, as well as the best things to drink and eat to keep your body nourished.
Symptoms of dehydration
“There are several signs a person might be dehydrated,” she said. “Headache or confusion, extreme thirst, very dark urine, infrequent urination, fatigue, muscle cramping and lightheadedness. In extreme cases of dehydration, it can lead to heatstroke or hyperthermia (abnormally high body heat).”
When it comes to preventative measures and staying hydrated, Weinandy said, “the best way to avoid dehydration is to drink before you get thirsty.”
“In some situations, it is easier to get dehydrated, like being active in hot temperatures,” she continued.
Best drinks for hydration besides water
While some supplements like hydration packets that are added to water can be helpful for some, Weinandy said H2O still reigns supreme for staying hydrated.
“Water is usually best and suitable for most people unless they are excessively sweating, then replacing electrolytes like potassium and sodium start to become more important,” Weinandy explained. “Sports drinks and electrolyte replacement solutions are very appropriate in this situation, although keep in mind most people do not need them.”
“As for food, most fruits and vegetables have a higher water content compared to other foods,” she said. “Melons, strawberries, pineapple, cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce are especially high in water and can help prevent dehydration.”
Who’s at-risk for dehydration?
Weinandy said another factor to keep in mind is that “some groups are at a higher risk of becoming dehydrated.”
“Infants, elderly and people who cannot communicate clearly” can all be more prone to dehydration, she said. “Also, being dehydrated increases the risk of developing kidney stones because urine is more concentrated.”
How much water to drink to stay hydrated
ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton said the amount of water you should consume daily depends on your age, height and where you live.
Most guidelines call for the average woman to drink around 2.7 liters per day, and 3.7 liters for men.
One liter is equivalent to 33 ounces.
“Your body’s own systems will tell you when you need more water and it’s called thirst,” Ashton said. “A lot of times people think they’re hungry and they’re actually thirsty. See how it works for you.”
(NEW YORK) — Five years ago, Shannel Perman nearly became a statistic in the growing Black maternal health crisis in the United States.
In the last week of her pregnancy with her first child, Perman, now 33, said she began to experience complications like swelling, high blood pressure and weight gain that she said were dismissed by her doctor.
Perman, who lives near Baltimore, went onto give birth to a healthy baby, a son named Jyace, 41 weeks into her pregnancy, and said she thought she was medically in the clear.
“As far as I was concerned, I was healthy. My baby was healthy,” Perman told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “That’s all my doctor kept telling me, was that I was OK and my baby was OK.”
It was not until a week after giving birth that Perman nearly lost her life.
She suffered a stroke while at home with her baby and husband, who rushed her to the hospital, where she eventually underwent two emergency brain surgeries.
“I wasn’t stroke-alerted when I came in to the hospital showing signs of a stroke,” said Perman, who added that it was her mom, who met them at the hospital, who demanded she get medical attention for a stroke. “I was failed multiple times.”
As a Black woman in the U.S., Perman is three times more likely to die during childbirth or in the months after than white, Asian or Latina women, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A recent CDC report found the majority of maternal mortality cases — about 53% — occur after the first week of childbirth.
Black women are also more likely than white, Asian or Latina women to die from pregnancy-related complications regardless of their education level or their income, data shows. And in cases of maternal death, Black women are more likely to die from cardiac conditions, like the high blood pressure complications that Perman described experiencing in her last week of pregnancy, according to the CDC.
Perman said that as an otherwise healthy 29-year-old at the time of her son’s birth, with no preexisting conditions, suffering a stroke came as a life-changing shock. She said she underwent several months of rehabilitation and continues to suffer from complications including memory loss, brain fog, migraines and light sensitivity.
Perman said it also came as a shock to learn the disparities Black women like herself face when it comes to giving birth, and how the maternal mortality rates have only continued to grow in the five years since she gave birth.
“A mom should be able to enjoy her pregnancy, enjoy her newborn and postpartum period and not have to worry about dying during childbirth or shortly after her child’s birth,” she said. “So it’s heartbreaking to think about, that this issue is still happening.”
For Perman, the decision to have a second child was one that took several years, a period of time that she said involved mental health therapy, prayer and finding the right medical team.
Last year, Perman gave birth to a healthy daughter, whom she and her husband named Jordyn.
She shared with GMA the things she did differently when giving birth to her second child, and what she wants other women to know.
1. I made sure I felt seen by my medical team.
Perman said she and her husband did their research on doctors, including meeting with several, to make sure they found the right fit.
“We wanted to find someone that made us feel comfortable and made us feel seen and heard. Someone that we didn’t feel rushed with. Someone that took the time to answer every and all of our questions,” Perman said. “And the team that we went with, they were great. If we showed any concerns, they were running tests and just doing all the things we would want from a doctor.”
Dr. Pam Oliver , a board-certified OB-GYN and executive vice president of Novant Health in North Carolina, said she also encourages patients to look around to find a team of doctors with whom they connect.
“I think that patients should look at the team that’s taking care of them and make sure they feel that connection. They feel like this is a place, or this is a team that truly cares about me,” Oliver, who did not treat Perman, told GMA. “And that becomes part of how you choose the team that actually is going to take care of you when you deliver.”
Oliver, also president of the Novant Health Physician Network, said she also encourages patients to work with the same OB-GYN prior to pregnancy, when possible.
“I like to take care of my patients prior to pregnancy so that they understand that how they come into pregnancy matters some with their outcomes,” she said. “We start a nine-month journey once we have a positive pregnancy test, but some of the outcomes and, unfortunately, the deaths that we see may be related to health issues that started way before pregnancy.”
2. I used an at-home blood pressure monitor.
Perman said that with her second pregnancy, she used an at-home blood pressure reader, which can be purchased over-the-counter for as little as $20.
“That can be a life-changing method for so many moms, if they have a blood pressure reader where they can be testing or checking their own blood pressure throughout their pregnancy and even the postpartum period,” she said. “Because for a lot of moms, we don’t get a [postpartum] checkup until the six-week appointment, and so much can go wrong in those six weeks.”
High blood pressure, or hypertension, can put women at risk during and after childbirth, raising the risk of stroke, preeclampsia and preterm delivery, according to the CDC .
The CDC also recommends that women keep track of their blood pressure at home so they can notify their healthcare provider if their blood pressure is higher than usual.
3. I was my own biggest advocate.
Perman said her biggest piece of advice to other women is to speak up and be persistent if they feel anything is off with their body.
“You have to be your own biggest advocate,” she said. “If you feel any symptoms or anything is concerning, you have to speak up. If your doctor isn’t listening to you or you don’t feel seen or heard, you need to find someone else that’s going to hear you because you cannot take any chances when it comes to your life or your child’s life.”
Perman continued, “You have to trust your own intuition and if something something doesn’t feel right, you just have to follow that and speak up and advocate for yourself.”
Oliver said she encourages patients to be persistent with their doctor and proactive with their health.
“Advocating is really about being persistent and making sure that your provider, whether it’s a physician or a midwife, understands what your issue or your concern may be and that you get some answer, even if it means you have to seek another opinion or talk to someone else to make sure that you truly are getting an answer,” Oliver said. “Because there are a lot of things in pregnancy we can’t explain. There are a lot of aches and pains and things that happen.”
4. I was alert for warning signs after giving birth.
With Perman’s second pregnancy, she said she knew that even after she gave birth, she needed to advocate for herself and pay close attention to how she was feeling.
“The experience between the two pregnancies were night and day,” she said. “This time around, I was able to know what to look out for.”
Oliver echoed that once a new mom goes home from the hospital, it’s important that she knows to speak up when something feels off in their body.
Among the warning signs for women to watch for are shortness of breath, chest pain, weakness, severe headaches and excessive bleeding, according to Oliver.
“Those are just a few of the things that we look out for because they may be tied to the most common causes for women dying after childbirth,” she said. “You have to make sure that you you’ve gotten your symptoms out, that you’re heard and that you’ve had an evaluation that feels reasonable to say, ‘We’ve ruled out the bad stuff.'”
Oliver noted that women should listen to their intuition and feel confident telling their doctor, “Something just feels off.” She added that if a woman is told by her doctor that a symptom, like a headache, for example, is normal, she should ask the follow up question, “When should I be concerned about this headache?”
“That is something you can truly act on,” Oliver said. “You need your team to be able to tell you when do you get concerned? When do you follow up? How do you follow up and what should you expect from there?”
5. I knew that maternal mortality was a major crisis.
Perman described it as “difficult” and “heartbreaking” to know that so many women, particularly Black women, die during and after childbirth due to forces beyond their control.
Oliver, too, said she struggles as a doctor to know that outside of medical care, there are issues like poverty, bias and systemic racism that impact the rising maternal mortality rate.
One reason for the maternal mortality disparity is that more Black women of childbearing age have chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which increases the risk of pregnancy-related complications like preeclampsia and possibly the need for emergency C-sections, according to the CDC.
But there are also socioeconomic circumstances and structural inequities that put Black women at greater risk for those chronic conditions. Black women often have inadequate access to care throughout pregnancy which can further complicate their conditions, data shows.
Anecdotal reports also show that the concerns of Black women experiencing negative symptoms during pregnancy and postpartum are specifically ignored by some physicians until the woman’s conditions significantly worsen, at which point it may be too late to prevent a deadlier outcome.
Oliver said one of the most heartbreaking and frustrating things she hears as a doctor is Black women who are afraid to have children, or who have decided not to have children out of fear they will die.
“That hurts my heart because that’s not at all what we intend to do, is to scare people,” Oliver said. “It’s not about fear. It’s about empowering ourselves, advocating for things that we know help all women, getting legislators and others to understand what we need to do to get the data, to cover the services that need to be covered, to approach this from many angles.”
She continued, “It’s important for people to know it is still safe to have babies and every day millions of women are having safe childbirths, but the trouble is that Black women are dying at a rate that is three to four times that of White women.”
(NEW YORK) — One couple found out that they are truly a match — in more ways than one.
After being together for more than 20 years, a husband and wife pair learned they were rare matches as living donors.
Dexter Holaday had been living with a rare genetic disorder called polycystic kidney disease, when in late 2021, he was told he needed a kidney transplant.
“The average timeframe for a kidney, with my blood type, is five years for a deceased donor,” Holaday told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “So it’s kind of a waiting game.”
Living donor kidneys are generally healthier than deceased donor kidneys, which leads to greater long- and short-term survival rates. However, in 2022, living donors accounted for only 29.7% of all kidney transplants nationwide, highlighting the need for living donors, according to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Despite the rarity of living donor kidneys, Holaday and his wife June began their search for a match.
“We had flyers, we had sent out over 400 Christmas cards,” June Holaday told GMA.
More than 90,000 people nationwide are currently waiting for a kidney; the average wait time for a deceased donor kidney is three to five years, and more than 22 people a day die in the U.S. while waiting for a transplant, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
Up against time and despite having different blood types, June Holaday decided to still get tested to see if she could be a living donor for her husband — even if the chances were extremely thin.
After months of testing, June Holaday found out she defied the odds. She was a match and was approved to give her husband the gift of life.
“I think we finally breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in the whole journey,” June Holaday said of learning she was a match for her husband.
Living donor transplant surgeries happen simultaneously in rooms next to each other to ensure the organ is transplanted quickly and safely. On March 28, the Holadays went into the lifesaving operation room, together.
Dr. Leigh Anne Dageford, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, performed June Holaday’s nephrectomy. She said the Holaday’s situation was “beautiful.”
“To be a true perfect match, it’s one out of 100,000, but given the advances we have these days, we don’t always have to have that exact perfect match,” Dageford said. “It is an amazing love story. Her willingness to do this, to continue to have a wonderful life with him. For the rest of their lives together is beautiful.”
Dr. Nahel Elias, the surgical director of the kidney transplant program at Massachusetts General Hospital, was right next door to transplant June Holaday’s kidney into her husband Dexter.
“It is not only life-changing,” Elias said. “It’s life-enhancing and it’s life-extending.”
Dexter Holaday said he is “absolutely grateful” for his wife, describing what she did as “amazing.”
June Holaday called her donated kidney just a “spare,” and wants to encourage others to sign up to be living donors.
“Anyone can function on one kidney. I want to shout it from the rooftops like, ‘Share your spare, share your spare!'” she said. “Someone in this country will need you at some point.”
(NEW YORK) — A new bill introduced in California could potentially do away with some additives that appear in ingredient lists of processed foods from candy to cereals.
Earlier this week, the California State Assembly health committee approved the landmark piece of legislation, AB 418 , which would prohibit brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, Red dye No. 3 and titanium dioxide in food products sold throughout the state.
If enacted, California would be the first state to impose such a prohibition.
With the narrow exception of Red No. 3 used in candied cherries, regulators in Europe previously banned the other four substances outright. In the U.S., such a move would set a precedent for processed food safety going forward.
The bill’s proponents have raised concerns over the potential adverse or negative health impacts, both short-term and long-term, of these chemicals.
“Californians shouldn’t have to worry that the food they buy in their neighborhood grocery store might be full of dangerous additives or toxic chemicals,” Democratic Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, the legislation’s sponsor, said in a press release in February. “This bill will correct for a concerning lack of federal oversight and help protect our kids, public health, and the safety of our food supply.”
Because these chemicals exist in non-natural foods that Americans already eat, it’s important for consumers to understand the impact, but “not make themselves crazy” over their exposure, especially in small amounts, said Dr. Stephanie Widmer, an ABC News medical contributor, board-certified emergency medicine physician and medical toxicologist.
“These chemicals are all kind of in different foods and all exert different effects and different concerns — some of them are associated with neurological problems, some are reproductive problems, some have been linked to cancer. It really depends on the substance,” Widmer told “Good Morning America.”
“I don’t know if there is, for any of these things, a safe level,” she added, underscoring instead the importance of “moderation and variety in diet.”
According to Widmer, “there are tons of chemicals and substances that are in our foods that are not necessarily supposed to be there.”
“But we’re not necessarily being exposed to them in high amounts,” she said. “And you can’t go nuts trying to track down everything in your food.”
Widmer explained that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, while “trying to do everything they can, are just constantly playing a game of catch up” when it comes to tracking new substances coming onto the market.
“It’s nearly impossible to be able to regulate everything,” she added. “We’re learning more and more about the food we eat every day and they’re trying to do the right thing.”
Widmer said it was “unfortunate” that “a lot of these different additives and preservatives that can be harmful have ended up in our food supply,” but added, “I think [the FDA is] trying to stay on top of it as best they can — it’s almost overwhelming.”
Over 10,000 chemicals are allowed for use in food sold in the U.S., 99% of which were approved by the food and chemical industry, but not the agency tasked with ensuring the safety of America’s food supply.
Widmer’s biggest takeaway and advice to others, she said, is to “limit exposure as much as you can and when it comes to diet.”
“Try to just do things in moderation and have variety in your diet — as long as you’re not being exposed to the same thing over and over again in high quantities, you should be OK,” she said.
Potentially harmful effects of 5 food chemicals
Widmer broke down, at a basic level, what science-backed research has found as far as potential links to health problems for the five substances that would be banned under AB 418. At this time, while some evidence is stronger than others, there isn’t conclusive proof that any cause adverse health conditions for humans — just that there could be a risk.
Brominated vegetable oil: In high quantities, Widmer said, it has “often been linked to neurological changes, like balance problems and memory problems” in humans.
Potassium bromate: “Potassium bromate is found in certain soft drinks and can cause issues with hearing and kidney function,” Widmer said.
She noted that “there have been studies suggesting that it’s been linked to cancer in some animals in the laboratory,” but there isn’t research on that link in humans.
Propylparaben: “Propylparaben has been proposed to be a reproductive toxin [that] can cause hormonal dysregulation, which is concerning for some people — there [have] been documented studies where it caused earlier or delayed menstration,” Widmer said.
While the research has hinted at those links to disruptions in the hormone systems in humans, the evidence is weak and research is ongoing.
Red dye No. 3: Red No. 3, which “gives that reddish or pink color, like in those pink Peeps,” Widmer said, is banned in cosmetics as it “is a known carcinogen,” a substance capable of causing cancer. Research in California linked it to behavioral problems in children.
Titanium dioxide: This “is in sunscreen, but it’s also Skittles,” Widmer said, noting that it is a “possible carcinogen and food color additive that can be very irritating to mucous membranes like the eyes, nose and throat.”
She said it has also been “linked to cancer in rodents.” There is no research on that link in humans.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly 100 cases of a rare, fungal infection have been linked to a Michigan paper mill.
Public Health Delta & Menominee Counties (PHDM) said 19 cases of blastomycosis have been confirmed while another 74 are suspected.
The department was notified about the first cases on Feb. 28 among workers with Escanaba Billerud Paper Mill on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
“The health and safety of our Escanaba employees is our first priority,” Brian Peterson, vice president of operation at the mill, said in a statement. “Although the source of the infection has not been established, we continue to take this matter very seriously and are following recommendations from health and government officials.”
Public Health Officer Michael Snyder told ABC News the health department sees a few cases of the infection every year but rarely an outbreak of this magnitude.
Here’s what you need to know about blastomycosis and how it can be treated:
What is blastomycosis?
Blastomycosis is a fungal infection caused by a group of fungi known as Blastomyces.
“These are fungi that live in the environment as a mold and they make spores,” Dr. Teresa O’Meara, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan, told ABC News. “And what happens is that when people inhale too many of those spores, they can sort of set up and evade some of these innate immune responses and cause pneumonia and spread throughout the body.”
The fungi are found in the environment, mainly in moist soil and in decomposing organic material such as wood and leaves, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Most cases of the infection occur in the United States and Canada but are very rare, with the annual incidence being about one to two cases per 100,000 people, the CDC said.
In the U.S., O’Meara said blastomycosis is most common in eastern parts of the Midwest — including states like Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin — the Great Lakes region and Southwest.
“On average over the past five years, only 26 cases have been reported for the entire state of Michigan annually,” PHDM said in a release. “However, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is a known risk area for blastomycosis infection.”
The infection is not transmitted from person to person or from animals to people and can only be contracted by breathing in the microscopic spores, often after activity that disrupts the soil or the decomposing material.
What are the symptoms?
Symptoms can be wide-ranging, O’Meara said. Some patients are asymptomatic while others develop symptoms including coughing, fever, chest pain, muscles aches and fatigue.
Because symptoms resemble other types of infections, it can be hard to diagnose the illness in a person, O’Meara said.
“And so diagnosis is pretty hard, even in places where it’s endemic, just because it’s so rare,” she said.
O’Meara added that evidence suggests symptoms can appear anywhere from three weeks to three months after inhaling spores.
According to the CDC, the infection can spread from the lungs to other areas of the body, including the joints, bones, brain and spinal cord among those who are immunocompromised.
Which treatments are available?
Those are infected with blastomycosis needed to be treated with a prescription antifungal medication.
Those with mild to moderate cases can take a medication known as itraconazole, which stops the growth of fungi.
Patients with severe infections are usually given amphotericin B, an intravenous medication. Because it can have a wide range of side effects, it’s only given to critically ill patients or those who are immunocompromised.
Treatment can range from six months to a year and can depend on how severe a person’s infection is as well as the strength of their immune system.
“One of the really important problems I would like to highlight just for people to know is that we often think about antibiotic resistance as being a real problem,” O’Meara said. “But there’s actually dozens of classes of antibiotics and antifungals. There’s only three classes of antifungals available.”
She continued, “And so this is going to be a big problem going forward just because there are more and more fungal infections that are on the rise and we need to develop new antifungal treatments.”
Is blastomycosis deadly?
It is very rare for blastomycosis to result in death. According to the CDC, there have been 1,216 blastomycosis-related deaths between 1990 and 2010.
What’s more, the age-adjusted mortality rate is 0.21 per 1 million person-years, the federal health agency said.
How can I protect myself?
Because there is no vaccine and it is endemic in some environments, it may be hard to protect yourself against the fungus.
If you work in areas where the fungi is prevalent or you might disturb soil, O’Meara said you can consider wearing protective equipment.
If you think you’ve been exposed, get tested and — if positive — start antifungal treatment if needed.
(NEW YORK) — Shalon Irving knew her newborn daughter Soleil for less than one month.
Three weeks after giving birth to Soleil, now 6, Shalon Irving, who is Black, died from complications of high blood pressure on Jan. 28, 2017 .
“My daughter had wanted a child more than anything on this earth,” Wanda Irving, Shalon Irving’s mother and Soleil’s grandmother, said in an interview with ABC News. “Soleil came to me and said, ‘Nonna, I want to die because I want to go where my mommy is. That’s the only way I’m going to get there.'”
Shalon Irving is part of a growing group of individuals, particularly Black women, dying from pregnancy-related complications several weeks or months after childbirth.
After her daughter’s death, Wanda Irving founded Dr. Shalon’s Maternal Action Project, an organization devoted to connecting Black women to resources and information about maternal mortality.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows Black women die during and just after pregnancy at a rate 2.6 times that of white women.
A recent CDC report found the majority of maternal mortality cases — about 53% — occur after the first week of childbirth. Maternal deaths occur up to a year after delivery.
The causes vary based on race, with Hispanic and white women more likely to die from mental health conditions and Black women more likely to die from cardiac conditions, like the high blood pressure complications that killed Shalon Irving.
While every case is unique, CDC researchers estimated more than 80% of those deaths are preventable. Dr. Kamilah Dixon , a board-certified OB-GYN and maternal mortality expert at Ohio State University, said more awareness is needed.
“We still have to make sure that we are vigilant [even after childbirth],” Dixon told ABC News. “A lot of people think, ‘OK, we did it. All the risk is gone, and we don’t have to worry anymore.'”
One of the risks long after delivery is death from mental health conditions, which is the leading cause of maternal mortality overall, the CDC report found.
That includes deaths from suicide and accidental drug overdose. Blood loss is the second leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths.
The ongoing opioid addiction crisis in the U.S. contributes to the high rate of deaths from mental health conditions, said Dixon.
She said access to overdose-reversing drugs like Narcan is important to combat these deaths. Access to doulas and midwives could serve as mental and emotional support for individuals during pregnancy and after pregnancy.
Attention to cardiac health is key for Black women, who have the highest overall maternal mortality rates overall and are most at risk from heart conditions.
While the data doesn’t explain why pregnant Black women are more likely to die from cardiac conditions, CDC data from 2019 found Black Americans were 30% more likely to die from heart disease than their white counterparts.
Structural racism also plays a role in the stark inequities in maternal mortality, according to Dixon, who said differences between the types of conditions and issues affecting different demographic groups make it difficult to tackle the issue in a consistent way.
“I think it’s important to … understand what’s happening in particular communities so we can really target that,” she said, noting that different groups might need different types of interventions.
Still, big-picture policy changes can also play a role in driving change.
Congress passed a law in 2021 expanding Medicaid coverage for pregnant people from about two months to up to one year after childbirth, which will make resources more accessible to pregnant individuals.
“People need to know this is a problem we have here in the U.S.,” Dixon said. “I’ve had many patients in my office who’ve told me that they’ve chosen not to get pregnant because they don’t want to die.”
While pregnancy-related deaths are rare, individuals who want to become pregnant should be aware of the risks, according to David Goodman, Ph.D., a maternal mortality expert at the CDC.
“Be informed. Make sure that you are working with providers that you trust and have a relationship with,” Goodman told ABC News. “Don’t be afraid to walk away and find another provider as much as you are able.”
Home births are also on the rise, but Dixon and Goodman stressed that childbirths performed outside the hospital are riskier.
They said home births are unlikely to be a safe alternative for many pregnant people, who should consult their medical provider to discuss the options that might be safest for them.
In the meantime, families affected by pregnancy-related deaths, like Shalon Irving’s family, are taking their own steps to combat the problem.
Through the organization named for her late daughter, Wanda Irving helped create Believe Her , an app that provides maternal health resources for Black women and gives them a space to share their experiences.
Wanda Irving underscored that policy work is important, but she said lawmakers need to address structural racism to combat maternal mortality.
“Our whole system — everything — our foundation of America is built on racism, on the backs of Black and brown people. We need to recognize that, accept that and change it,” she said.
She added, “If we don’t start holding doctors accountable for the way that Black women are treated in the medical system, nothing is going to change.”
Aisha Bowen, M.D., is a resident physician in family medicine from Grant Family Medicine and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Michal Ruprecht is a medical student at Wayne State University School of Medicine and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The abortion pill mifepristone will remain on the market for now — but come Saturday morning, access should be severely restricted, a federal appeals court ruled late Wednesday in partially blocking a lower court order.
It’s a bittersweet victory for abortion rights advocates who feared the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals would side with conservative plaintiffs in the case and force manufacturing and production of the drug mifepristone to stop entirely by Saturday morning. Instead, the three-judge panel is allowing the drug to stay on the market — for now — but with tough restrictions on the drug that haven’t been in place since 2000 when it was first approved and regulators wanted to monitor its safety more closely.
“We are going to continue to fight in the courts. We believe that the law is on our side and we will prevail,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Abortion rights opponents said they were pleased with the decision because it paves the way for approval of the drug to be suspended entirely.
“We are very encouraged by this landmark win for women and girls. The Court recognized that the abortion pill is dangerous and rolled back Biden’s reckless mail-order abortion scheme,” said Katie Daniel, the state policy director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.”
The Justice Department could still take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court before the appeals court ruling takes effect.
But for now, the drug would be available only up to seven weeks instead of 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Three in-person office visits would be required: the first to administer mifepristone, the second to administer misoprostol — which causes the pregnancy to be expelled — and the third to assess any complications and ensure there were no fetal remains in the womb.
It would require the supervision of a qualified physician and the reporting of all adverse events from the drugs.
Overall, it would roll back every win the abortion rights movement had on this drug in the past two decades.
“The FDA followed decades of science and evidence when it expanded access to mifepristone — a court with no medical experts that has a long history of extremist rulings on abortion has no place taking that away,” said Kirsten Moore, director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access (EMMAA) Project.
While the appeals court’s decision is temporary while it considers the merits of the case, the panel of judges signaled it was sympathetic to conservative arguments made in the lawsuit, calling the Food and Drug Administration rules around mifepristone “exceedingly unusual” because they allow patients to obtain the drug without seeing a doctor in person.
“Because applicants chose to cut out doctors from the prescription and administration of mifepristone, plaintiff doctors and their associations will necessarily be injured by the consequences. This is an exceedingly unusual regime. In fact, as far as the record before us reveals, FDA has not structured the distribution of any comparable drug in this way,” the panel of appeals court judges wrote.
Danco Labs, which produces the brand name version of the drug Mifeprex, said the FDA’s decisions in recent years to loosen regulation of the drug were based on safety and efficacy data.
“FDA has been empowered by Congress to make decisions about what drugs are safe and effective and how they should be available to patients,” the company wrote in a statement. “Danco remains unchanged in its commitment to do all that we can to support and protect the availability of and access to Mifeprex for healthcare providers and all people in the United States.”
(NEW YORK) — One of only five people in the world to achieve full remission of HIV is stepping forward to share his story in an ABC broadcast exclusive.
Paul Edmonds’ journey into medical history began decades ago. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988 — a time when it was a potential death sentence. Thanks to his own perseverance and advances in treatment, he survived — even thrived — after his diagnosis.
Edmonds met his future husband Arnie House and convinced him to be tested. House also was HIV positive. As years past, better antiretroviral treatments brought both of their HIV levels to undetectable, which means the virus was untransmissable.
But for Edmonds, another diagnosis was looming. In 2018, he learned he had leukemia. Although his heart sank, Edmonds told ABC News’ Juju Chang, “I wasn’t ready to die.”
Edmonds and House sought care at City of Hope Medical Center in California. There, while undergoing treatment for leukemia, Edmonds’ doctors saw a unique opportunity to try to cure him of his HIV, too. After chemotherapy, Edmonds received a stem cell transplant from a donor with a mutation that makes them resistant to HIV. Stem cell transplants carry a significant risk in themselves, as they must be preceded by wiping out the whole immune system. During this time, which can be months, patients have to stay in protected areas of the hospital to reduce the risk of life-threatening infections.
“It’s a very rare mutation. It exists in roughly 1% of the population. So it’s not, it’s not something we find very commonly,” said Edmonds’ physician, Dr. Jana Dickter, City of Hope associate clinical professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine.
The transplant worked. Not only did Edmonds go into remission for his cancer, he also became the fifth person ever to go into remission from HIV. Now, four years after his transplant and two years after doctors took him off HIV medications, the virus shows no signs of coming back.
“We can’t find evidence of replicating HIV in his system,” Dickter said. “It’s been really amazing. It’s been such a journey.”
Dickter and her colleagues announced the details of Edmonds’ case in July 2022, but he was known anonymously as the “City of Hope patient” at the time. Now, he is stepping out of the shadows. He and his husband sat down with ABC’s Chang for an in-depth interview in their California home.
Edmonds said he still struggles to come to terms with being cured after living with HIV for more than three decades and after watching so many of his friends die of AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s.
“I was incredibly grateful. I’m grateful to be alive. I was grateful there was a donor,” he said.
House said he was thrilled when Edmonds’ HIV went into remission.
“I was so happy for him. Because it was like a liberation for me. That he didn’t have to take his HIV medications anymore – it was wonderful,” House said.
There is still no cure for most of the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV today. Rare cures happen only among people with HIV who are also diagnosed with certain types of cancer, and subsequently receive the unique stem cell transplant that cures their cancer and HIV simultaneously.
But scientists say Edmonds’ story is helping them get one step closer. His story is unique because his treatment was less medically intensive than prior cases, giving scientists hope that the procedure he received could be applicable to a wider range of HIV patients with cancer who are aging. At 66, Edmonds is the oldest person to be cured of HIV — and he had been living with HIV the longest.
Edmonds was able to receive a newer, less intensive chemotherapy regimen that City of Hope helped develop for older patients, and his transplant had only mild medical complications, according to Dr. Ahmed M. Aribi, assistant professor with City of Hope’s Division of Leukemia, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation.
Although scientists are still searching for an HIV cure, significant medical advances mean people living with HIV are living longer and healthier lives. In fact, doctors say, modern medication is so effective that many people with HIV can lower the amount of virus in their blood to the point where it is impossible to pass the virus on to others, even after unprotected sex and other high-risk exposures.
Edmonds and House both urged everyone to get tested for HIV, because knowing your status can save a life. They said ignorance is the only killer.
“We have to go out, get tested. It’s so easy to be able to get put on medications. Have yourself followed by a doctor like me,” House said.
(NEW YORK) — Suicides increased during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, new federal data shows.
There were 48,183 people who died by suicide in 2021, according to a report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It comes after two consecutive years of declines and is an increase of 4.7% from the 45,979 deaths recorded in 2020. It’s also the highest number recorded since 2018, when 48,344 Americans died by suicide.
What’s more, the total rate hit 14.1 per 100,000, slightly less than the 14.2 per 100,000 in 2018.
It’s also a 4% increase from the rate in 2020 of 13.5 per 100,000 — the largest seen in two decades.
Both males and females saw an increase of 4% in suicide rates from 2020 to 2021.
The rate for males went up from 22.0 per 100,000 to 22.8 per 100,000 while the rate for females rose from 5.5 per 100,000 to 5.7 per 100,0000.
Males were found to be more greatly affected, with rates increasing for those aged 15 to 24, 25 to 44, 65 to 74, and 75 and older.
By comparison, the only significant increase for females was in the age group 75 and older, the report found.
However, both Black females and white females saw suicide rates significantly increase.
Black females saw rates rise by 14% from 2.9 per 100,000 to 3.3 per 100,000 while white females saw a 3% increase from 6.9 per 100,000 to 7.1 per 100,000.
Although the increase was not significant from 2020 to 2021 for American Indian or Alaskan Native women, they had the highest rate during the second year of the pandemic at 13.9 per 100,000.
In addition, in 2021, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. While this is higher than in 2020, when it was the 12th leading cause, it’s lower than in 2019, during which it was the 10th leading cause of death.
Specifically, it was the second leading cause of death for Americans between ages 10 to 34.
The report did not discuss why suicides increased in 2021, but research has shown the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on mental health.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, four in 10 U.S. adults reported symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder during the pandemic, an increase from one in 10 adults who reported similar symptoms 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 are known to increase the risk of suicide.
Researchers are also studying if there is a link between long COVID-19 patients and higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts.
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
(NEW YORK) — A Texas baby has been discharged from the hospital and reunited with her twin sister and parents Amanda Arciniega and James Finley of Saginaw.
Baby AmieLynn was released from Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday, nearly one month after her twin sister JamieLynn returned home.
The 6-month-old and her twin were formerly conjoined at the chest and faced each other. They also shared a liver.
The girls were born via cesarean section last October at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth and were transferred in November to the neonatal intensive care unit at Cook Children’s Medical Center.
In January, the girls were successfully separated after an 11-hour surgery at Cook Children’s that involved a team of 25 medical professionals. They made history as the first pair of conjoined twins to be separated at the medical center, according to the hospital.
JamieLynn was able to be released from Cook Children’s in March but AmieLynn was kept at the hospital for additional monitoring.
