(NEW YORK) — A 10-year-old boy is on a mission to make life easier for the 37.7 million Americans who suffer from diabetes.
Jameson Wardle was 5 years old when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, a chronic disease in which the insulin-making cells in the pancreas are destroyed, forcing a person to be dependent on insulin, delivered via shots or an insulin pump.
Jameson, a 5th grade student in Boerne, Texas, has met with his local congressmen to urge them to stand up against what he says are unaffordable insulin prices.
“[Diabetes] is when your body attacks the beta cells … which produce insulin which is a hormone that changes carbohydrates into energy,” Jameson told ABC News’ Good Morning America.
More than eight million Americans use insulin, which is a necessity for people like Jameson with type 1 diabetes, who often require multiple injections of insulin each day, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Jameson uses 100 units of fast-acting insulin everyday, said his mom, Jennifer Wardle.
Each vial of insulin, which is about the size of a golf tee, costs $300 without insurance. Wardle, a U.S. Air Force veteran, said her family fortunately has insurance under her military benefits.
“But what happens when [Jameson] turns 26 and he’s not on our insurance anymore?” she said. “And these are the things that we, as parents, have to help him plan for.”
Jameson and Wardle are calling on Congress to pass legislation that would cap the price of insulin. One piece of legislation they support, H.R.6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, would encourage insulin manufacturers to reduce list prices and expand access to insulin.
The legislation passed the House in March but it has stalled in the Senate.
A proposal by Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., to place a $35-per-month limit on insulin costs under private insurances failed this month in the Senate by a 57-43 vote.
Diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States and costs a total estimated $327 billion in medical costs and lost work and wages annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jameson said that he remains committed to meeting with more lawmakers, saying, “I feel empowered.”
He also shared a message of encouragement to other kids out there with diabetes, fighting like he is.
“Keep going and be strong because soon we’ll have a cure,” he said. “Contact your congressman.”
(NEW YORK) — Ryan Reynolds is raising awareness about colon cancer screenings by sharing details into his own experience with the procedure.
The Deadpool star, who is also the co-chairman of the Welsh football club, Wrexham Association Football Club, shared a video from colon cancer awareness organization Lead from Behind in association with the Colorectal Cancer Alliance on Tuesday that documented his colonoscopy procedure to bring awareness to others about lowering the risk of colorectal cancer.
The video, which featured actor Rob McElhenney, who is also the co-chairman of Wrexham AFC, opens with the both of them explaining that Reynolds bet McElhenney that he wouldn’t learn how to speak Welsh. And if he did, Reynolds would film his colonoscopy.
“Rob and I both turned 45 this year and you know, part of being this age is getting a colonoscopy,” Reynolds said in the video. “It’s a simple step that could literally, and I mean literally, save your life.”
Dr. Jonathan LaPook at NYU Langone Health led Reynolds’s procedure and told the actor that he found an “extremely subtle polyp” on the right side of his colon.
“This was potentially lifesaving for you,” LaPook told Reynolds. “This is exactly why you do this.”
The American Cancer Society said there is “no sure way to prevent colorectal cancer,” but there are things that people can do to help lower their risk. At the top of the list is getting screened for colorectal cancer, just like Reynolds.
During the process, doctors will look for cancer or pre-cancer in people who have no symptoms of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. It is one of the “most powerful tools for preventing colorectal cancer” the organization says.
“You are interrupting the natural history of a disease of something a process, that could have ended up developing into cancer and causing all sorts of problems,” LaPook said. “Instead, you’re not only diagnosing the polyp, you’re taking it out. Nobody would know that they had this, but he [Reynolds] reached the age of screening, 45, he got a routine screening, and there you go. And that’s why people need to do this.”
“This saves lives, pure and simple,” LaPook added.
According to the American Cancer Society, “from the time the first abnormal cells start to grow into polyps, it usually takes about 10 to 15 years for them to develop into colorectal cancer.”
Through regular screening, polyps can be found and removed before they turn into cancer, the American Cancer Society said.
Other ways to potentially lower the risk for colorectal cancer are by managing diet and physical activity, quitting smoking and taking daily multivitamins, according to the American Cancer Society.
McElhenney also brought cameras into his procedure where doctors found three small polyps, which they said were not a big deal and were able to remove them.
“It’s not every day that you can raise awareness about something that will most definitely save lives,” Reynolds said.
(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health alert on Friday that common respiratory viruses circulating this fall could lead to a rise in a rare, but serious condition that usually affects children called acute flaccid myelitis, AFM. This condition causes weakness that starts in the arms or legs and can lead to permanent paralysis or become life-threatening in severe cases.
AFM is known to occur every other year and is most common from August through November, according to the CDC. Before 2020, confirmed AFM cases were increasing in 2014, 2016, and 2018 growing from 120, 153 and 238 in these years.
The picture of AFM changed in 2020 when only 33 cases were confirmed. This is believed to be the effect of efforts aimed at mitigating COVID-like physical distancing and masking that led to fewer respiratory viral infections overall. As of early September 2022, 13 cases of AFM have been identified across five states.
But raising concern now is that a specific strain of a virus in the Enterovirus family that is linked to AFM, called EV-D68, has been reported in higher proportions compared to previous years on surveillance testing, the CDC said in the health alert on Friday. Because the neurological complications of AFM occur after the initial respiratory viral infection, there is concern that AFM cases could be on the rise in the coming weeks.
Prevention measures that slow the spread of many viruses can also prevent the viruses that are linked to AFM. The CDC recommends practicing routine hand washing, avoid sharing food or drinks with people who aren’t feeling well, sanitizing surfaces after use by someone who may be sick, and consider wearing a mask around others when experiencing cold-like symptoms.
What are early signs of acute flaccid myelitis
“The warning sign is often, you know, a child who’s recovering from a routine illness and then the recovery stops looking like what you would expect – they’re now getting worse again, and especially if they become weak,” Dr. Matt Elrick, assistant professor of neurology at the Kennedy Krieger Institute who specializes in AFM, told ABC News.
But Elrick said recognizing new weaknesses in kids may be easier said than done because kids may not tell you that they are having weakness in their arms or legs, and instead may say the affected limb hurts, stop using it altogether, or simply appear very tired. This vague onset can make early recognition difficult or delayed.
Still, Elrick said the threat of AFM should not cause panic among caregivers and AFM is rare, noting that asthma flare ups are a more common complication of these viruses compared to AFM.
“This is exceptionally rare even during an outbreak so it’s not something that should necessarily keep everyone up at night. But if your child has an illness and was recovering and is now getting worse again, or not behaving in the way that you might expect the normal recovery from illness to be, that’s a good reason to go see the pediatrician and sort out what’s going on,” Elrick said.
The CDC also said to see a health care provider immediately if you or your child have problems breathing or suddenly have limb weakness and to keep all asthma action plans up to date.
(NEW YORK) — Almost two years into the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, several states are still struggling to immunize their residents.
Among the 10 states with the lowest vaccination rates, as of Wednesday, none have cracked the 60% mark of being fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This is much lower than the nationwide total of 67.6% total U.S. population being fully vaccinated.
Of those states, five also have among the lowest booster rates in the country and among the highest COVID-19 case rate per 100,000 people, the data shows. What’s more, one of the states is recording among the highest death rates as well.
Most of the states fall in the South or the West, which have traditionally been more resistant to vaccines throughout the pandemic.
Experts told ABC News this could spell trouble during the fall, when COVID-19 is traditionally at greater risk of spreading as the weather gets colder and people congregate indoors.
“What has happened is [people in] the states where they refused to get the vaccine, or were hesitant to get the vaccine, got infected,” Dr. Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist with the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, told ABC News. “What we are seeing is due to waning immunity, we are going to enter winter with a higher percentage of people who are susceptible.”
Low vaccination rates and higher cases
Wyoming is the state with the lowest share of residents fully vaccinated against COVID-19 at 51.9%, as of Sept. 7, CDC data shows.
Among the other nine states with the lowest vaccination rates, six — Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — fall in the South, and the remaining three — Idaho, Indiana and North Dakota — fall in the Midwest or West.
There are several reasons why these states have struggled to raise their vaccination rates over the last several months, according to Dr. Jason Schwartz, an associate professor of health policy at Yale School of Public Health.
“We’ve seen vaccination efforts really hit a wall for many months now, in terms of managing to change the minds of individuals who have been either hesitant or resistant about the vaccine,” he told ABC News. “Whether it’s because of anxieties about safety, whether it’s about a lack of appreciation for the value of the vaccines, themselves or for their communities, or because of the way in which it has become so tragically politicized in a way that was really damaging to the public health effort and really damaging to the to the value of the vaccination campaign.”
And these states are doing worse when it comes to other metrics.
Five of those states — Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee — are among the top 10 states with the highest seven-day case rate per 100,000 people as of Sept. 8.
Experts say the evidence is overwhelming that lower vaccination rates lead to a higher number of cases, but it’s more than just looking at the statewide data.
Several counties within those states have vaccination rates way below the national average.
In Cameron Parish, Louisiana — which borders Texas and the Gulf of Mexico — only 18.2% of the total population is fully vaccinated, CDC data as of Sept. 7 shows.
Similarly, in Alabama, two counties – Winston County in the northwest and Cleburne County – which borders Georgia to the northeast – have 22.3% and 29.3%, respectively, of their populations fully vaccinated.
“It’s worrisome enough to have low vaccination rates statewide, but then if you drill down into particular regions where we have even lower vaccination rates, that means that there’s just enormous susceptibility in those communities for the virus to run wild,” Schwartz said. “And without that protection that comes from high vaccination rates, everyone is a greater risk, not just of infections, which we’re seeing in those case rates, but especially when it comes to those severe outcomes.”
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said another reason for the higher case rates in these states is the lack of following mitigation measures.
Studies have shown people who are vaccinated are more likely to practice protections such as mask-wearing and social distancing,
“The kind of reluctance to get vaccinated often moves hand-in-hand with a reluctance to maybe observe other protective measures, masking crowded indoorded settings and so on,” she said.
Deaths not spiking in these states
There are some low vaccination states that aren’t experiencing high death rates.
Only one of the bottom 10 vaccination states, Georgia, is among the 10 states with the highest death rates at 1 per 100,000 as of Sept. 8.
Experts said there may be a few reasons why states with lower vaccination rates don’t have high death rates.
These include that many residents who were at risk of dying already passed early in the pandemic and because many of these states have large rural areas where it’s less likely to come into contact with those are infected and spread the virus.
However, Schwartz said it may also be because those who are at risk are fully vaccinated and those getting sick in the states with the low vaccination rates are younger adults who are at less risk of falling ill or dying.
In Wyoming, for example, which has among the lowest death rates but also the lowest vaccination rate, 75.9% of seniors aged 65 and older are fully vaccinated as of Sept. 5, according to the state Department of Health. Comparatively, just 55.5% of adults aged 18-64 are fully vaccinated and 34.5% of adolescents aged 12-17.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, only 23% of women over age 65 and 21% of men are vaccinated, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
“Even if a state may be lagging in its overall vaccination rate, it could do a better job earlier in the vaccination campaign, or since then reaching those highest risk individuals, that could be something that could change what we’re seeing as far as death rates,” Schwartz said.
Experts say unvaccinated people not likely to get shots at this point
With COVID-19 expected to rise as the U.S. heads into the fall and winter — and peak in December 2022 or January 2023 — there are fears a surge will batter states with low vaccination rates.
“There’s two things happening at the same time, there’s the people that are going more indoors, they’re congregating more indoors, and the colder weather,” El-Sadr said. “There’s also maybe the risk of a new subvariant or a new variant that may then result in a surge.”
However, experts don’t think there will be as many hospitalizations and deaths as previous waves due to widespread immunity.
Schwartz said he’s not sure if there is anything that can be done to boost vaccination rates in these states because previous efforts have been unsuccessful and those who are not vaccinated yet are unlikely to be in the future.
“There had been hope that some folks were concerned that the vaccine hadn’t received full approval and then when the vaccine had received full approval rather than an [emergency use authorization] people would come out of the woodwork to get vaccinated. That didn’t happen,” he said. “There was a thought with the Novavax vaccine that was introduced earlier this summer that maybe there were folks that were sort of hesitant about mRNA vaccines that might be more comfortable with a new vaccine that uses a more familiar technology. That didn’t happen, either.”
Schwartz continued, “I think what we see now is that people who aren’t vaccinated have very deeply held beliefs at this point whether it’s you about safety or just being a part of their of their ideological commitment, unfortunately, makes it hard to see a way to sway them with messaging or encouragement.”
(NEW YORK) — The likelihood of an extreme epidemic, or one similar to COVID-19, will increase threefold in the coming decades, according to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers used data from epidemics from the past 400 years, specifically death rates, length of previous epidemics and the rate of new infectious diseases. Their calculation is a sophisticated prediction based on known risks and can be a useful guide for policy makers and public health officials.
They also found that the probability of a person experiencing a pandemic like COVID-19 in one’s lifetime is around 38%. The researchers said this could double in years to come.
The probability of another pandemic is “going to probably increase because of all of the environmental changes that are occurring,” Willian Pan, an associate professor of Global Environmental Health at Duke University and one of the study’s authors, told ABC News.
Scientists are looking closely at the relationship between climate changes and zoonotic diseases, like COVID-19.
Climate change and zoonotic diseases
Zoonotic diseases are caused by germs that spread between animals and people. Animals can carry viruses and bacteria that humans can encounter directly, through contact, or indirectly, through things like soil or water supply, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“As you make that interface between humans and the natural world smaller, we just come in more contact with those things and climate enhances the ability for viruses to infect us more easily,” said Pan. He said our risk for any zoonotic or emerging viral infections is going to rise over time.
An example of this is the recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa.
“There’s evidence that there is loss of forests in West Africa for palm oil. There’s a whole story around the palm oil industry, destroying forest tropics to plant palm oil trees,” said Dr. Aaron Bernstein, director of the Climate MD program at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard University’s Chan School of Public Health.
“In this case, there are bats that live in those forests but they can’t live in palm oil plantations. And so those bats moved to a part of West Africa where they infected people with Ebola,” said Bernstein.
Zoonotic diseases now account for 60% of all diseases and 75% of emerging diseases, according to the CDC.
“More animals come into contact with more people but they also, in many cases, have resulted in animals bumping into other animals,” said Bernstein. “What we’ve observed is that animals and even plants are racing to the poles to get out of the heat. And as they do that, they may run into creatures that they’ve never run into before. And that creates an opportunity for spillover to happen.”
Looking ahead
Currently, scientists are playing catch up with viral outbreaks by racing to create vaccines, sometimes after an outbreak is already out of control.
“We can’t deal with pandemics with Band-Aids. Meaning after waiting until diseases show up, and then trying to figure out how to solve them,” said Bernstein.
Added Pan: “Globally, if we want to prevent another major pandemic from completely disrupting our society, we need to start investing heavily and sharing information across countries on surveillance of different viral infections. There’s some places in the world where we don’t even have the basic capacity to evaluate or test strains, viral fevers coming into hospitals. And so a lot of those things go unchecked until it’s too late.”
Preventing these diseases not only requires global collaboration, but attention to the source of the problem.
“We need to address spillover. And that means we need to protect habitats. We need to tackle climate change. We need to address the risk of large-scale livestock production because a lot of the pathogens move from wild animals into livestock and then into people,” said Bernstein.
Global spending on COVID vaccines is projected to reach $157 billion, according to Reuters. Annual spending on forest conservation is much less.
“We’re about to throw a whole lot of money at solutions that only address a fraction of the problem. We get very little back relative to what we could get back for $1 spent on post spillover intervention versus root cause prevention,” said Bernstein.
Emma Egan is an MPH candidate at Brown University and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The United States recorded its one millionth organ transplant Friday afternoon, a historic milestone for the medical procedure that has saved thousands of lives.
The record achievement was confirmed at 12:50 p.m. ET by the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit that runs the only organ procurement and transplantation network in the country.
It’s unclear which organ was the record one millionth and details about the patient are unknown at this time.
The very first successful organ transplant occurred In 1954 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston when doctors transplanted a kidney from 23-year-old Ronald Herrick into his identical twin brother, Richard, who was suffering from chronic kidney failure.
The lead surgeon, Dr. Joseph Murray, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his role in the procedure.
Up until the early 1980s, the number of transplants every year remained low. However, success in transplants organs other than kidneys — such as hearts, livers, and pancreases — and the advent of anti-rejection medication led to a rise in transplants, according to UNOS.
Since then, transplants have become a far more common procedure.
More than 500,000 transplants have been performed since 2007 and, in 2021, more than 41,000 transplants occurred, which is the highest number ever recorded and twice as many as occurred 25 years ago.
Despite more patients undergoing transplants than ever before, it doesn’t mean the agency is without its faults.
Approximately 5,000 people die waiting on transplant lists ever year. And a study published today in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology in October 2020 found that many donor kidneys in the U.S. are unnecessarily discarded.
But organ donors and recipients hope that by sharing their stories, they will inspire people will sign up to donate and help reduce those long waiting lists.
When Nicholas Peters was killed in a motorcycle accident in 2020, his mother, Maria Clark, honored his wishes to be an organ donor.
His heart went to Jean Paul Marceaux, a sixth grader in Arkansas who had been suffering from heart conditions for years.
The families have since met and have become close ever since. Clark, of Madisonville, Louisiana, was even able to listen to her son’s heart beating in Marceaux with a stethoscope.
“This is why we tell our story — so that people will sign up to be donors,” Candace Armstrong, Marceaux’s mother, said in a statement.
Clark added, “We are all going to leave here. You have to talk to your family and let them know you want your organs to go on, to extend the lives of other people. I want people to know that Nick was love, he was the element of love, always helping, and it is just like him to keep giving and spreading love.”
(COLUMBIA, S.C.) — The South Carolina State Senate rejected a bill that would ban nearly all abortions just days after House lawmakers approved the ban.
The Senate went on to pass a separate bill that has an exception for fetuses born with a fatal anomaly. Both the House and Senate versions included exceptions for pregnancies that are a result of rape or incest; however, the Senate bill only allowed this exception if the abortion is performed within the first trimester of pregnancy.
When a physician performs an abortion under the rape or incest exceptions, the Senate bill requires the physician to report the allegations to his or her respective county sheriff’s department within 24 hours of performing or inducing the abortion. This includes reporting the name and contact information for the woman making the allegation. The physician would also be required to preserve a DNA sample from the fetal remains and submit the evidence to the country sheriff.
The physician would also be required to add a note to the woman’s medical records that the abortion was performed under the exception.
The Senate bill criminalizes providers who perform abortion services in the state. The bill makes it illegal to perform an abortion or administer, provide or distribute medication or drugs that induce an abortion. A person found guilty of providing an abortion could face a fine of up to $10,000 and jail time of up to two years.
The Senate bill also prevents Planned Parenthood from utilizing state funds for any purposes related to abortions.
South Carolina’s Supreme Court temporarily blocked a six-week abortion ban from going into effect in August. The temporary block was part of a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood in July. The organization alleged that the abortion ban is an invasion of privacy and a violation of equal protection under the state constitution.
The ban was signed into law in February 2021 by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and took effect June 27 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
(LOS ANGELES) — Los Angeles County is investigating the death of a person who had been diagnosed with monkeypox, county officials said during a press conference Thursday.
“This is one of two deaths in the United States that are currently under investigation to determine whether monkeypox was a contributing cause of death,” Dr. Rita Singhal, chief medical officer and director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s Disease Control Bureau, said.
The county is in the preliminary phase of its investigation and doesn’t have many details to share with the public but will share them “while maintaining confidentiality and privacy” when they become available, Singhal said.
There are more than 21,000 cases of monkeypox in the U.S., according to county officials, with California reporting 4,140 — the largest number of cases in the country. About 1,694 people have tested positive for monkeypox in LA County, officials said Thursday.
“Across the world, there have been seven confirmed deaths among monkeypox cases in non-endemic countries,” Singhal said.
Texas health officials revealed last month that a Harris County, Texas, resident, who had been diagnosed with monkeypox, died.
According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, the patient was severely immunocompromised and died at a Harris County hospital.
Health officials have urged the immunocompromised to get vaccinated since they are at an elevated risk of severe disease.
Los Angeles County officials said Thursday that they’re in the fourth phase of their monkeypox vaccine rollout and have received 57,000 vials of the JYNNEOS vaccine, about 113,000 doses.
The county has also expanded vaccine eligibility to people at high risk of future exposures, officials said Thursday.
Most cases in the current monkeypox outbreak have been detected in gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men. However, officials have said that anyone exposed to the virus could become infected with monkeypox.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, monkeypox primarily spreads through prolonged skin-to-skin contact with infected people’s lesions or bodily fluids.
In addition to lesions, which can appear like pimples or blisters, the most common symptoms associated with monkeypox are swollen lymph nodes, fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches.
ABC News’ Mary Kekatos and Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — On the same day that former President Barack Obama returned to the White House to witness the unveiling of the new presidential portraits, a federal judge in Texas ruled against the provisions of his Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled on Wednesday on the side of plaintiffs, businesses and individuals, who wanted to deny free coverage of the HIV medication PrEP on religious grounds.
ABC News’ senior Washington reporter Devin Dwyer sat down with the ‘Start Here’ podcast to explain the legacy of Obamacare, the recent legal challenge and how far the implications could reach.
START HERE: Devin, I think enrollment season for health insurance starts in a couple months, what was this ruling?
DWYER: Yeah, and one of the most popular provisions that’s on all of our minds as we look at those healthcare plans from our employers to pick from Brad are those free preventive care services and medications that insurers are now required to cover because of Obamacare.
Things like cancer screenings and colonoscopies, vaccines, those things covered at no cost, no co-pays, of course. Well, a federal judge in Texas, Reed O’Connor, the same one who’s taken aim at Obamacare before, delivered an opinion striking down, threatening key portions of the preventive services mandate.
He said that this board of U.S. health officials, that decides what insurance companies have to cover free-of-charge, is unconstitutional. They aren’t properly appointed and confirmed by the Senate, in his view, perhaps invalidating them in all the work they do, we’ll see. He held back on the exact scope of his decision, that’s going to come a little bit later. But he also took aim, Brad, and you mentioned it, at this very popular pre-exposure prophylaxis called PrEP. It’s a prevention medicine for HIV.
He said that requiring companies, some companies, to cover that drug could violate their religious freedom. And he sided with one company, Briarwood is its name. It’s a small company, 70 employees. They had challenged this saying in their view, that by having to cover this they are endorsing sexual activity, [and] that they cannot support sexual activity, outside of marriage, among homosexual people, and they wanted to opt out. Judge Reed O’Connor said at least in their case, they don’t have to comply.
START HERE: And I know this ruling could potentially apply to lots of drugs but while we’re on this, could you just talk about what a big deal PrEP is? Because I feel like we don’t spend enough time properly awed that well, there’s not a cure for HIV. It has effectively let people live with this disease we thought was incurable in a more normal way than we ever thought possible.
DWYER: Yeah. PReP Brad has in the eyes of the CDC been a game changer. I mean, it has dramatically slowed the spread of HIV since it was rolled out about a decade ago. And it is 90% effective when taken ahead of time at preventing an HIV infection from any sort of activity. Sexual activity, drug use, a blood transfusion. You cannot, virtually, get it if you’re on this. And if you are infected and begin taking prep after the fact it’s also very effective, according to experts.
So this has been a drug that the CDC says they want more people to take. And in fact, the latest numbers, only about a quarter of at-risk, of the millions at-risk Americans who should be taking it are doing that right now. The numbers are up, but they need, you know, to be broadened.
And the CDC says access to that medication is the key. Letting more people get it cheaply, entirely free according to the mandate under Obamacare would help. And so they’re trying to obliterate HIV and AIDS in this country using this drug, but potentially now a setback with this ruling, if it stands, and if it’s as broad as some fear it might be.
START HERE: Well, that’s the thing, you had this company who said ‘we don’t want to endorse homosexual activity, it’s our, sort of, freedom of religion. So we don’t think this should be covered under our plan.’ Of course, we should say it’s not only gay people that get HIV, it’s not only men that get HIV. But if this ruling got upheld by the future courts, that are going to see it what could happen then to even going beyond HIV? What happens to preventative care in this country?
DWYER: Well, there’s two issues in this case. If the the prep decision stands, obviously a setback, but it’s unclear whether the judge would say the government simply has to provide some mechanism for an exemption for religious companies or religious-minded people who simply don’t want to opt-in to insurance plans like this.
Remember, there was a similar challenge on the law’s contraceptive mandate and similar grounds that has been challenged over the years. So perhaps there’s going to be some kind of exception. Perhaps he strikes it down altogether. We’ll have to see. But this also could potentially have a much broader impact. 140 million Americans rely and have come to enjoy, according to polls, the free preventive services, not just drugs and vaccines, but, you know, your annual physical that is supposed to be covered at no cost, no co-pay, once a year. That’s a benefit of Obamacare. If that task force, that which sets those standards is invalidated, all of that could potentially go away.
START HERE: Cause they’re the ones that sort of make the call on here’s what a regular person should have access to. All right. Fascinating stuff. Devin Dwyer, thank you.
(NEW YORK) — Australia is nearing the end of its worst flu season in at least five years, which could be a sign of what’s to come in the United States heading into the fall and winter.
According to data from Australia’s Department of Health and Aged Care, as of Aug. 28, there have been nearly 218,000 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza reported to the country’s National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System.
The season came on earlier than usual and, during its height in June, more than 30,000 cases were being reported to the NNDDS per week, according to the latest surveillance report. Comparatively, at the height of the season in 2017 there were 25,000 cases being reported every week.
Additionally, there have been 1,708 influenza-related hospitalizations — 6.5% of which were admitted to intensive care units — and 288 deaths associated with the virus in Australia to date during this season.
Meanwhile, there was just one flu-linked hospitalization and no deaths last year, health department data shows.
Researchers and modelers often look to the southern hemisphere, which experiences its flu season first — typically from May to October — to predict how the season will look in the U.S., and experts tell ABC News we should take warning from Australia.
“We often look to Australia and the southern hemisphere as a signal of what we may expect,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “Obviously, it’s not a perfect 1-to-1 match but, more often than not, the severity of the flu season in Australia is a good correlate of what we might expect, and it helps us prepare.”
During the last two years, not as many cases were reported in the U.S. compared to previous years due to COVID-19-related mitigation measures in place, such as mask-wearing and social distancing, as well as school and business closures.
One study from Wayne State University looking at Detroit Medical Center found there were no positive tests for influenza A or B among adults or children during the 2020-21 flu season. However, during the 2019-20 flu season, 13% of adults’ tests and 20% of children’s tests were positive for the virus.
Another study examining Akron Children’s Hospital in Ohio found no cases of influenza A and just two cases of influenza B were detected during the 2020-21 season — a 99% decrease from the prior season.
But with COVID-19 expected to peak again in December 2022 or January 2023 and with less flu immunity among the population and fewer mitigation measures, this could be the first time Americans have to grapple with two respiratory viruses at the same time, which could put a further strain on hospital systems.
“Given the concerns we have about health care capacity and health care burnout, the last thing we want is to have parallel epidemics at a time when our health systems are stretched thin,” Brownstein said.
Health experts said they are highly recommending Americans get their flu shots by the end of October to get the best protection but say it is never too late, even if people get the shot later into the season.
“One of the potential things that could make flu come back with a vengeance is low immunity,” Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease physician and hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, told ABC News. “It’s definitely important now more than ever because there’s a potential for a bad flu season and a bad COVID season.”
She added, “In fact, [Tufts was] still requiring [flu vaccination] of any new employees or vendors until June 1 because last flu season went so long, so it’s never too late.”
The experts also add that flu can lead to severe disease and death, so it’s important to lower the risk of infection as much as possible.
“While COVID has dominated headlines for years now, we have to remember that flu is a serious infection and while most who get the flu recover, we have to recognize that flu leads to tens of thousands and thousands of deaths,” Brownstein said. “A portion of flu infections could result in severe illness and death. Just like we try to mitigate risk of COVID infection, we have to try to provide a similar effort against flu infection.”
