(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is preparing to roll out 171 million newly formulated vaccines this September as part of a $5B effort aimed at trying to blunt the impact of the highly contagious omicron variant.
The effort follows an internal debate among President Joe Biden’s top officials on whether to allow younger Americans to get a fourth shot now or wait until a more effective vaccine is released this fall.
The current vaccine was designed to work against the original strain of COVID. And while it continues to dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death, its effectiveness has slowly waned as the virus mutated.
As a result, Americans over 50 have already been told to get second booster doses, while younger Americans have been directed to get one additional booster.
Moderna and Pfizer say they now have new formulas of the COVID vaccine that will hopefully hold up better against the omicron variant.
Federal regulators would still need to sign off on the new vaccines. But industry and government officials say they are hopeful Food and Drug Administration will authorize the shots and that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will recommend them.
According to two administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, industry officials assured the government that it could deliver the newly formulated shots by September.
At that point, the officials said, the decision was made to hold off on a nationwide rollout of additional boosters for people under age 50.
Overall, the government now has the option to buy 600 million new vaccines that are targeted toward the omicron variant, with plans to deliver 171 million this fall.
Moderna and the government announced Friday a $1.74 billion contract for the manufacture and delivery of 66 million doses and the option to buy another 234 million doses later on.
The government had already agreed to pay $3.2 billion to Pfizer for 105 million doses this fall with the option to buy another 195 million doses later on.
The Biden administration says it’s moved $10 billion around in its current budget to cover the cost of these vaccines and other treatments.
But officials warn that there is a trade-off being made to buy these vaccines so Americans can get them cost-free even without insurance.
According to a statement provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, money has been moved away from testing and ensuring stockpiles of protective gear are ready to go ahead of another pandemic or surge in cases.
(NEW YORK) — A Minnesota woman is sharing her health battle on TikTok, she says, in order to raise awareness and encourage women to advocate for themselves and their health.
Raquel Rodriguez, 25, said doctors first found a cyst on her ovary in 2016 while doing testing to determine why she was experiencing kidney infections so severe she had to be hospitalized.
“They just kind of said, ‘Oh, you have a cyst. We’re not worried about it,'” Rodriguez told Good Morning America, referring to her doctors at the time. “They didn’t tell me the size and they didn’t really tell me much about it at all, so I just kind of moved on and was like, OK, they’re not worried about it.”
Ovarian cysts, fluid-filled sacs that forms on or in the ovaries, can happen monthly in the ovulation process. Most of the cysts are what gynecologists call “functional cysts” that resolve on their own and are typically benign, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.
Rodriguez said over the course of the next several years, she continued to experience intermittent kidney and bladder issues, as well as pain during intercourse.
Though the pain during intercourse was often severe, Rodriguez said she struggled to seek help.
“Me being a teen, I was kind of embarrassed, like, I don’t know if this is normal,” Rodriguez said, adding that after a negative experience with a male emergency room doctor, whom she said she felt undermined her pain, she never sought help for the pain again.
Even though Rodriguez said she continued to experience symptoms such as continued pain and frequent urination, it was only this past year that she said she began to notice more physical changes, including extreme bloating.
“I kind of took it into my own hands to do as much research as possible,” she said. “I really started to dig and look at Reddit threads and talk to other women that had the same thing, and then I really started to advocate for myself.”
Rodriguez said she wanted to be “as educated as possible” about what was going on with her body because the previous times she sought medical care for her symptoms, she “wasn’t taken seriously.”
Through her research, Rodriguez said she assumed it was her cyst that was growing and went to a midwife, noting, “I thought they would listen to me better than anyone else had.”
The midwife she saw ordered an emergency ultrasound with a doctor that same day, according to Rodriguez. On the ultrasound, a cyst was found that extended from Rodriguez’s pubic bone to her sternum.
“She said, ‘I’ve never, ever in my life seen something this big before,'” Rodriguez said of the reaction of the doctor who performed the ultrasound. “I remember after walking out of the appointment, I called my mom immediately and told her, and I called my sister and told her, and everyone was really excited because we’d dealt with this for so long. I was really, really relieved.”
In June, on her 25th birthday, Rodriguez underwent a two-hour surgery to remove the cyst, which weighed 10 pounds and carried more than four liters of fluid.
“The first thing I noticed after surgery was not having to pee right away. I could drink a glass of water and not have to go pee immediately,” she said. “That night after the surgery, I looked down at my stomach and it looked like it was sunken in, which was super weird.”
Rodriguez’s surgeon, Dr. Adrienne Mallen, a gynecologic oncology specialist, said the cyst was large enough that it looked like Rodriguez was carrying a full-term pregnancy.
“The abdominal cavity, I tell people it’s like thinking of the inside of a beach ball. It’s easy to hide growths,” Mallen said. “The body is pretty adaptive, so it can be very easy to not notice something in that area, and sometimes it’s not noticed until it comes out of what we refer to as the pelvis, especially in women’s bodies.”
Mallen said that because there is no common way to check women’s ovaries, ovarian cysts can often go undetected.
“The best test we have to determine if there’s growth is a pelvic examination with your doctor,” Mallen said, adding that ultrasounds are then used to help determine if a cyst is benign. “We don’t have a standard test that you can get to check your ovaries, it’s only if you’re having a problem.”
Though ovarian cysts affect millions of women each year, only around 5% to 10% of women, like Rodriguez, have cases severe enough to require surgery to remove an ovarian cyst, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I tell people to just focus on body awareness so they can feel empowered because they know their body well,” Mallen said, adding of her own patient, “Raquel was a great advocate for herself and made sure she found a team that was listening to her.”
Ovarian cysts — which can be caused by hormonal changes, endometriosis, pregnancy and severe pelvic infections — often cause no symptoms at all.
If an ovarian cyst does cause symptoms, they may include bloating, pressure or pain near where the cyst is located. Symptoms of a ruptured ovarian cyst may include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, bleeding and intense pelvic or abdominal pain on the side of the body where the cyst is located, according to the Office on Women’s Health.
Over the past year, as Rodriguez got answers herself, she began to share her health journey on TikTok to help raise awareness about ovarian cysts and women’s health.
“I wished I had been a bigger advocate for myself because I felt had I been a bigger advocate, I would have gotten the help I needed back when this first started,” she said. “And I really wanted people to understand that women do go through a lot, and there are a lot of things that people go through that we don’t talk about.”
Rodriguez said that as she has shared her journey, she has been surprised both by the number of people who do not know about ovarian cysts, and the number of people who have messaged her thanking her for speaking out.
She said that as she continues to recover and improve, she has also been surprised to find herself with a platform to help empower women when it comes to their health.
“Women are dismissed so often and it is not really talked about,” Rodriguez said. “I realized just how strong I was getting through this surgery, advocating for myself, and then being able to share my journey with other people. It has really made me feel empowered.
(ALABANY, N.Y.) — New York state’s health commissioner declared monkeypox an “imminent threat to public health” on Thursday amid a rapid increase in cases.
The declaration means that “local health departments engaged in response and prevention activities will be able to access additional State reimbursement, after other Federal and State funding sources are maximized,” Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett said in a statement.
The United States has one of the highest levels of monkeypox in the world, with over 4,600 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York has the highest number of cases out of any state reporting those figures, CDC data shows.
There are 1,341 confirmed monkeypox cases in New York as of Thursday, according to state data.
San Francisco declared monkeypox a public health emergency on Thursday, effective Aug. 1, which will also help expedite resources to better respond to the “rapidly rising cases,” city officials said. The city has reported 261 cases of monkeypox.
“We need to be prepared and this declaration will allow us to serve the city better,” San Francisco Department of Public Health Director Dr. Grant Colfax said in a statement. “Our COVID-19 response has taught us that it is imperative that we mobilize city resources. The declaration helps us ensure we have all the tools available to augment our outreach, testing and treatment, especially to the LGBTQ+ [community] who remain at highest risk for monkeypox.”
The Biden administration continues to weigh whether monkeypox should be declared a public health emergency, federal health officials said on Thursday.
“We continue to monitor the response throughout the country on monkeypox,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told reporters Thursday.
“We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the response we’re seeing throughout the country. The bottom line is: We need to stay ahead of this and be able to end this outbreak,” he continued.
Last week, the World Health Organization declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Globally, more than 20,000 cases have been reported in over 75 countries, including in dozens that have not historically reported monkeypox cases.
U.S. health officials have warned for weeks that the number of monkeypox cases would likely increase nationwide, as the government ramps up testing capacity and surveillance.
“We know monkeypox symptoms usually start within three weeks of exposure to the virus, so we anticipate we may see an increase in cases throughout the month of July and into August,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said during a press briefing earlier this month.
Monkeypox is primarily spread through close, physical contact between people. Symptoms include fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches. Patients can develop a rash and lesions that often begin on the face before spreading to the rest of the body.
Most cases in the U.S. have been reported among the gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men community and related to male-to-male sexual contact. Though health officials have repeatedly stressed that the virus can affect anyone who has close contact with people who have monkeypox. Those with weakened immune systems, pregnant people and children under the age of 8 may be at heightened risk for severe outcomes, according to the CDC.
“Every American should pay attention on monkeypox,” Becerra said. “Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous.”
ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — With new cases of monkeypox emerging rapidly across the country, the Biden administration is weighing whether to declare the growing outbreak a public health emergency, federal health officials said on Thursday.
“We continue to monitor the response throughout the country on monkeypox,” Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra said at a briefing Thursday. “We will weigh any decision on declaring a public health emergency based on the response we’re seeing throughout the country. The bottom line is: we need to stay ahead of this and be able to end this outbreak.”
Across the country, more than 4,600 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed across 48 jurisdictions, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Globally, more than 20,000 cases have been reported — a total that health experts say is likely significantly undercounted.
“Every American should pay attention to monkeypox. Monkeypox is not COVID, but it is contagious. It is painful and can be dangerous,” Becerra said.
Ninety-nine percent of the cases reported domestically have been reported among people who were assigned male at birth, officials said, and the “vast majority” have been related to male-to-male sexual contact.
“We need everyone — whether it’s state and local health officials — who oversee health care and are responsible in their jurisdictions for health care, we need people who are at risk and we need all Americans to do their part and take responsibility to help us tackle monkeypox,” Becerra said.
However, federal officials had previously confirmed that other populations have been affected.
Last week, federal officials reported that two children in the U.S. had tested positive for monkeypox. In addition, a pregnant woman, who just recently delivered, has also contracted the virus, the CDC confirmed to ABC News on Thursday.
Although infections can occur through placental transfer to the baby, that does not appear to have happened in this case, the CDC’s Dr. John Brooks said during a webinar with the Infectious Disease Society of America.
The infant received immunoglobulin prophylactically, in an effort to boost the baby’s immune response, and “both mom and baby are doing well,” he said.
Officials from the Food and Drug Administration announced Wednesday that it had inspected and approved the manufacturing of the 786,000 more doses of JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine for distribution in the U.S. Thus far, the U.S. has distributed at least 338,000 doses of the JYNNEOS monkeypox vaccine. Overall, in the coming weeks, a total of 1.1 million doses will have been made available.
“More than 1.1 million vaccines that we can say with confidence will be in the hands of people who need them over the course of the next several weeks,” officials said, adding that including doses already distributed, the federal government will have secured more than 6.9 million monkeypox vaccine doses by May 2023.
Pending additional funding from Congress, 11.1 million additional doses could also be made available.
“We don’t know what comes next and we need to be prepared for the spread into the larger population and have additional doses that we can turn to so that’s the reason why we would like to go ahead and get that additional 11.1 finished, have it available,” officials said.
At this time, approximately 1.5 million Americans are currently considered eligible for vaccination, the CDC told ABC News, last week.
Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, the CDC’s Deputy Director of Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, said officials have updated the federal plan for allocating doses to include two key factors: the total population of people at risk in a jurisdiction, and the number of new cases in each jurisdiction, since the last allocation.
“This update gives greater weight to prioritizing vaccine to areas with the greatest number of people at risk, which includes men who have sex with men who have HIV, or who are eligible for HIV prep, while still considering where we are seeing cases increased,” McQuiston said.
In addition to vaccinations in high-risk populations, testing, prevention, and treatment, as well as education and outreach, will all be critical tools to ensuring the outbreak is kept under control.
(NEW YORK) — A 66-year-old man who was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 is said to be free of both the HIV virus and cancer, following a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor for leukemia, according to a breakthrough announcement at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal, Canada.
The patient was treated at City of Hope, one of the largest cancer research and treatment organizations in the U.S. and one of the leading research centers for diabetes and other life-threatening illnesses, the organization said.
The City of Hope patient is reportedly the fourth patient in the world and the oldest to go into long-term remission of HIV without antiretroviral therapy (ART) for over a year after receiving stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation.
“We were thrilled to let him know that his HIV is in remission and he no longer needs to take antiretroviral therapy that he had been on for over 30 years,” Jana K. Dickter, an associate clinical professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at City of Hope who presented the data, said in a press release.
According to City of Hope, the patient received a chemotherapy-based, reduced-intensity transplant regimen prior to his stem cell transplant. “Reduced-intensity chemotherapy makes the transplant more tolerable for older patients and reduces the potential for transplant-related complications from the procedure,” the organization said in the release.
The patient received a blood stem cell transplant at City of Hope in early 2019 for acute myelogenous leukemia from an unrelated donor who has a rare genetic mutation, homozygous CCR5 Delta 32, City of Hope said. That mutation makes people who have it resistant to acquiring certain strains of HIV.
CCR5 is a receptor on CD4+ immune cells, and HIV uses that receptor to enter and attack the immune system. But the CCR5 mutation blocks that pathway, which stops HIV from entering the cells and therefore replicating.
The City of Hope patient has not shown any evidence of having replicating HIV virus since the transplant, the organization said.
“We are proud to have played a part in helping the City of Hope patient reach remission for both HIV and leukemia. It is humbling to know that our pioneering science in bone marrow and stem cell transplants, along with our pursuit of the best precision medicine in cancer, has helped transform this patient’s life,” said Robert Stone, the president and CEO of City of Hope, in a statement.
While the announcement provides hope for millions living with HIV, medical experts have cautioned that a procedure like this is not a viable cure for the virus.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, urged caution in February after researchers announced that an American woman had been cured of HIV after undergoing a new transplant procedure using donated umbilical cord blood.
“It is not practical to think that this is something that’s going to be widely available,” Fauci said. “It’s more of a proof of concept.”
Because bone marrow transplantation is a dangerous and risky procedure, it is considered unethical to perform it on people with HIV, unless the person also has cancer and needs a transplant as part of their cancer treatment.
Despite the fact that this is not a practical and applicable cure for HIV on a large scale, there have been incredible strides in HIV treatment and innovation over the years that allow individuals living with HIV to live a normal and healthy life.
Known as U=U, or Undetectable=Untransmittable, if an HIV-positive person begins appropriate HIV treatment, takes it daily and brings the virus in their body to an undetectable level, the individual cannot transmit the virus to someone as long as their virus levels remain undetectable on said treatment or medication.
In December 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first long-acting injectable drug for HIV prevention.
A less reliable, though still highly effective, way of preventing HIV infection is post-exposure prophylaxis or PEP. These pills are meant to be taken right away or within 72 hours if someone has been exposed or potentially exposed to HIV to try and prevent the virus from entering immune cells causing infection. It’s like an emergency pill for HIV prevention and must be taken daily for 28 days.
When taken as prescribed, PrEP services reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99%, according to new data from the CDC. Now, individuals who feel at-risk of HIV infection have the option of taking the daily pill, or the new shot every two months, after two initiation injections administered one month apart.
On the vaccine front, Moderna recently announced that it’s launched early stage clinical trials of an HIV mRNA vaccine. ABC News previously reported that the biotechnology company teamed up with the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to develop the shot, which uses the same technology as Moderna’s successful COVID-19 vaccine.
ABC News’ Eric Strauss, Sony Salzman and Jennifer Watts contributed to this report.
(ATLANTA) — Minorities are bearing the brunt of monkeypox cases in the United States, new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows.
During a telemedia briefing Thursday, Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the division of high consequence pathogens and pathology at the CDC, shared the first breakdown of infections by race and ethnicity.
Of the more than 4,600 cases reported in the U.S., Hispanic and Black Americans make up a disproportionate share of cases compared to their share of the U.S. population.
Hispanics account for 31% of all monkeypox cases in the country so far and Black people make up 27% of cases, McQuiston said.
However, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanics only make up 19% of the population and Black people account for 13%.
By comparison, white Americans make up 37% of monkeypox cases while accounting for 59% of the U.S. population.
Only Asian Americans had roughly the same share of monkeypox cases compared to their share of the U.S. population accounting for 4% of cases and 6% of the population.
“It’s incredibly important to understand the populations that are being impacted by the virus and, unfortunately, minorities are being impacted the most,” Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said. “It’s not dissimilar to what we saw with COVID.”
He continued, “The concern you have is some of these populations are challenged in terms of access to testing and vaccination and this puts the pressure on the public health officials to make sure they have access to testing and vaccines.”
The CDC also said the median age of monkeypox patients is 35 with cases identified between those aged 17 to 76, excluding two pediatric cases.
Additionally, the CDC said 99% of monkeypox patients are those who were of male sex at birth and the “vast majority” of cases occurred during sexual contact, but there is no evidence the disease is sexually transmitted.
The breakdown of cases by race and ethnicity is similar to what’s been seen in localized outbreaks across the country.
Joshua O’Neal, the sexual health program director of the state of Georgia’s Fulton County Board of Health — which includes Atlanta — said during a virtual town hall July 21 that of the 106 people in the county confirmed with monkeypox, 63% are Black and 15% are white.
This is in stark contrast with the racial makeup of the county that shows 39% of residents are white and 42% are black, according to census data.
In Santa Clara County in California — 45 miles from San Francisco — the Public Health Department found 41% of monkeypox cases are among Hispanic gay and bisexual men, as of Wednesday, despite Hispanic people making up 26% of the county’s population.
“We are doing all we can to vaccinate the people who need it most, with the limited vaccine supply available,” Dr. Sara Cody, health officer and director of the County of Santa Clara Public Health Department, said in a statement. “Public health is about equity and making sure all people have access to the health care they need.”
(NEW YORK) — As the number of cases of monkeypox continue to rise in the United States, pregnant women are now among those affected.
The first case of monkeypox in a pregnant woman in the U.S. has been reported, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC’s Dr. John Brooks confirmed the case over the weekend, adding that the mother safely delivered the baby and both mother and baby are “doing well.”
Pregnant people are already among those whom the CDC considers at “increased risk” for severe monkeypox, along with children under the age of 8, people who are immunocompromised and those who have a history of atopic dermatitis or eczema.
The U.S. has reported a total of over 4,600 known monkeypox cases as of July 27, federal and global data shows, surpassing Spain’s 3,738. Health experts have said that the number of monkeypox cases is likely much higher than the total that is officially reported, and U.S. health officials have been warning for weeks that the number of monkeypox cases would likely increase across the country, as the government increases testing capacity and surveillance.
Monkeypox, a cousin of the smallpox virus, has been known to cause adverse outcomes in pregnancy, according to Dr. Joanne L. Stone, chair of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Health System.
“There’s a lot of unknown but there have been reported adverse outcomes,” said Stone. “So this is why it’s on people’s radar and why it’s important to get the relevant information that we have to pregnant individuals.”
Stone stressed that pregnant women should not panic because, so far, the number of infected individuals remains low, but added, “Because we know there are potentially adverse outcomes, avoiding as much as you can anyone who shows signs of symptoms of infections is really important.”
Here are five things for pregnant women to know about monkeypox.
1. Avoiding contact with people with monkeypox is critical.
Monkeypox can spread through direct contact with an infectious rash, scab or bodily fluids or via respiratory secretions during prolonged face-to-face contact or intimate physical contact, according to the CDC.
The agency recommends avoiding close, skin-to-skin contact — including touching, having sex with, kissing, hugging or cuddling — with people who have a rash that looks like monkeypox.
In addition, people are advised to not touch the bedding, towels or clothing of a person with monkeypox, and to wash hands often with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
Dr. Amy Arrington, medical director of the Special Isolation Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital, stressed that close contact is required to spread the disease.
“You cannot get this virus from touching an elevator button, from walking past someone in the mall casually,” she told ABC News this week. “It is spread by close contact — contact with lesions — so touching infectious lesions or infectious scabs.”
2. Monkeypox can be transferred to the fetus.
Monkeypox can be transmitted to the fetus both during birth and by close contact during and after birth, according to the CDC.
Stone noted that if a pregnant woman gives birth with monkeypox, her newborn will need to be isolated to avoid further close contact with the mother.
There are only five laboratory-confirmed cases of monkeypox in pregnancy currently published in medical literature, according to research summarized by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, of which Stone is president.
Three of those five cases resulted in pregnancy loss, according to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
In addition to miscarriage and stillbirth, monkeypox also brings an increased risk of preterm delivery, according to Stone.
3. Symptoms should be taken seriously.
Because monkeypox is so contagious and potentially dangerous for pregnant women, the first signs of it should be taken seriously, according to Stone.
“You need to be evaluated by a doctor to see if [a symptom] is due to monkeypox or to some other kind of infection,” she said. “And if you know that you are exposed, consulting with an infectious disease specialist or the CDC as well as your obstetrician is really important.”
Typically, the disease begins with a fever, headache, fatigue, chills and muscle aches. Unlike smallpox, however, monkeypox also causes swollen lymph nodes.
Within one to three days, those infected will typically develop a rash either on their face or other parts of the body.
Lesions start out as dark spots on the skin before progressing to bumps that fill with fluid.
The CDC said that with pregnant people, a “broad approach to testing” for monkeypox is recommended since so many of the symptoms, like fever and rash, may be common in pregnancy.
4. Why exactly pregnant people are more at risk is not known.
Health experts are not 100% sure why conditions like monkeypox are more severe in pregnancy, according to Stone.
One hypothesis, she noted, is that it could be due to a change in immunity that happens during pregnancy.
Smallpox is also associated with “more severe illness” during pregnancy, according to research published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
5. It’s important to get medical care.
Although monkeypox is typically mild and does not require treatment in non-pregnant people, pregnant people with monkeypox need to be closely monitored, according to the CDC.
“Treatment for monkeypox virus should be offered, when indicated, to people who are pregnant, recently pregnant, or breastfeeding,” the agency says on its website.
There are several antiviral medications that have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of monkeypox, including in pregnant people.
ABC News’ Meredith Deliso, Arielle Mitropoulos, Sony Salzman and Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
(TETON COUNTY, Wyo.) — “Trigger laws” that would place a near-total ban on abortion were temporarily blocked in Wyoming and North Dakota on Wednesday, just as they were to go into effect.
Both states are among more than a dozen that had passed laws that would enact bans on abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
Wyoming’s law bans abortion in all circumstances except rape, incest or if the mother is in serious risk of death or injury. It briefly went into effect on Wednesday, until a Teton County judge shortly issued a temporary restraining order blocking it.
The order is in response to a lawsuit that argues the law violates rights guaranteed by the state’s constitution — a claim the state has contested.
Wellspring Health Access, a national abortion rights organization that is building a full-service abortion clinic in Casper, is among those suing the state. Its founder and president, Julie Burkhart, called Wednesday’s ruling a “temporary victory.”
“If allowed to take effect, the abortion ‘trigger ban’ that was temporarily blocked today would severely restrict Wyomingites’ freedom to make decisions about their own bodies,” Burkhart said in a statement. “We will continue our efforts to ensure that Wyoming residents maintain their fundamental, constitutionally protected right to make their own health care decisions.”
Burkhart’s clinic was set to open last month until an arson fire in May delayed the launch for several months.
ABC News has reached out to the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office for comment.
With the ban blocked, abortions in Wyoming are still legal up to the point of viability, or around 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Meanwhile, North Dakota’s trigger law, which would similarly ban abortion except in the cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother, was set to go into effect on Thursday. A state district court judge granted a temporary restraining order against the law on Wednesday, barring it from taking effect.
In its ruling, the court stated that the state attorney general “prematurely attempted to executive the triggering language” before the U.S. Supreme Court issued its certified judgment overturning Roe v. Wade — which the high court did on Wednesday.
The order is in response to a lawsuit brought forth by the Red River Women’s Clinic, the state’s lone abortion provider, which claimed the ban violates the state constitution.
“We’re relieved that a North Dakota state court has blocked its devastating trigger ban for now,” Meetra Mehdizadeh, staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit, said in a statement. “If allowed to go into effect, this near-total abortion ban would close the state’s sole abortion clinic, leaving North Dakotans with no clinic within the state to turn for essential health care.”
North Dakota Attorney General Drew Rigley told ABC News that his office took steps “within an hour” of the court’s decision to issue the certification for the law, which he said is now slated to go into effect on Aug. 26 based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s certified judgment.
The block allows Red River Women’s Clinic, which is relocating to Minnesota in the wake of Roe being overturned, to provide abortion care while the case proceeds.
Abortions in North Dakota are still legal up until 20 weeks into a pregnancy.
Several other states, including Kentucky, Louisiana and Utah, have had trigger laws temporarily blocked amid lawsuits.
(NEW YORK) — Mark Hall, a nurse practitioner who was diagnosed with monkeypox, says he isn’t exactly sure who he contracted the disease from.
However, he found out he was exposed by someone a week before he started showing symptoms. That person, he says, knew they had monkeypox and didn’t tell him.
Hall, a gay man living in New York City, said shame and stigma surrounding the virus have made some people afraid to come forward.
“Whenever anybody gets sick — even if it’s COVID — half the time, people don’t want to tell because sometimes it feels like a moral failure,” Hall told ABC News in an interview. “We’ve stigmatized these things in so many ways that if you get sick, that you somehow have failed morally. I think people are scared to admit that.”
“It’s a system problem rather than an individual problem,” Hall added.
Of the more than 18,000 confirmed monkeypox cases reported globally, in countries that don’t usually have monkeypox researchers have found the vast majority are among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men.
In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that most known cases in the current outbreak are among people who identify as gay or bisexual, but that anyone can get it.
“Stigma and discrimination can be as dangerous as any virus,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press conference Saturday. “In addition to our recommendations to countries, I am also calling on civil society organizations, including those with experience in working with people living with HIV, to work with us on fighting stigma and discrimination.”
The parallels between the failings of the HIV/AIDS crisis — including slow-moving action from the government and poor outreach that failed to contain the epidemic — were highlighted by monkeypox’s growing impact on gay and bisexual people, activists say.
Prior to the outbreak, most cases occurred in countries where the virus is usually found or endemic — typically central and western Africa.
Monkeypox, a cousin of the smallpox virus, is generally a mild illness with the most common symptoms being rash, swollen lymph nodes, fever, headache, fatigue and muscle aches. The rash may be painful and have lesions that look like pimples or blisters that can occur on the face and other parts of the body.
Hall said his lesions caused “probably some of the worst pain that I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
People are typically infected by close person-to-person contact though it is possible to be infected by animals through a bite or a scratch or through preparation and consumption of contaminated bush meat.
However, in the current outbreak, most of the spread has come from coming into prolonged skin-to-skin contact with infected people’s lesions or bodily fluids. The illness can also be contracted from the clothes or other fabrics, such as bedsheets, used by an infected patient.
Anyone can contract the virus and despite misinformation circulating online, it is not a sexually transmitted disease or infection though it can be contracted through sexual contact.
One study in The New England Journal of Medicine reported that 95% of recent cases were likely transmitted through sexual close contact.
“Let’s start with the designation and differentiation between a sexually transmitted infection, and disease you can get when being intimate. These are two different concepts,” Dr. Perry Halkitis, dean of Rutgers School of Public Health in New Jersey, told ABC News. “Syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia are sexually transmitted infections, but you can make out with someone as a precursor to sex and give them COVID. That doesn’t make COVID a sexually transmitted infection.”
He continued, “It’s the same thing with monkeypox. Monkeypox is a disease that does not require sexual intercourse to be transmitted and if we continue to call it a sexually transmitted infection, it mischaracterizes the manner in which it is transmitted.”
At least two pediatric cases have been identified in the United States as well as one case in a pregnant woman, according to the CDC.
“The stigma associated with this disease and gay men happened because this disease ended up, first and foremost, attacking and perpetuating in the gay population,” Halkitis said. “I call [monkeypox] an infection or a disease of connectedness and intimacy that you could get from your grandma or you can get from your child or you can get from someone you’re not engaging in sex with.”
Activists say misinformation about monkeypox can worsen public health efforts.
The rollout of the monkeypox vaccine, as well as outreach to populations at a higher risk of contracting the virus, faced a rocky start.
“We’re all experiencing this, and it seems like either nobody’s listening or everybody’s downplaying,” Zac Mordechai Levovitz, clinical director of LGBTQ Jewish youth group JQY, told ABC News.
Activists say that shame and lack of outreach have silenced those who contracted the illness and have left many at-risk populations mis- or underinformed.
“[There’s] a lot of slut-shaming messaging that we’re seeing,” Jason Rosenberg, an activist at ACT UP NY, told ABC News. “We need to meet each other where we are. And that is through harm reduction, that is through sharing healthy ways to reduce risk.”
Stigma against the illness has prompted concern from activists, who say monkeypox has become a tool for anti-LGBTQ haters against the community.
LGBTQ activists say they have noted a rise in homophobic or transphobic messages about monkeypox online, something doctors say may make those diagnosed with monkeypox — LGBTQ or not — reluctant to come forward about their illness.
“I’m certain there are patients out there with monkeypox who are not coming forward or who have a concern they have monkeypox or were exposed to monkeypox who, because of the stigmatization, are not reaching out to their health care providers or getting the help that they need at a time when it is really critical,” Dr. Scott Roberts, an assistant professor and the associate medical director of infection prevention at Yale School of Medicine, told ABC News.
He continued, “We’re at this critical phase of this outbreak where we should be doing everything we can to stop this before it becomes endemic. The obvious risk is that people go about their daily lives while infected and spread this to other people.”
Roberts said he has seen patients who have told him that monkeypox is restricted to the men who have sex with men community so there is no reason for them to be concerned.
“We do need to warn people who have exposures that they might be at risk if this continues to grow,” he said. “As this does get bigger, which we’re all anticipating, it’s only a matter of time until this hits other groups.”
“And when that happens, you know, our hope is that we haven’t really done damage from stigmatization where either people haven’t come forward or those people who are exposed do not seek vaccination or any medical care because they don’t think they can be infected with it,” Roberts added.
Hall said he shared his story online in hopes of shattering the stigma.
“I want to normalize this for people and say like, ‘Hey, I’m here. Here’s my face. I have monkeypox. This is what the experience has been like for me. And it’s okay to talk about it,”‘ Hall said.
(NEW YORK) — Laura High has a brain tumor, but she says that’s not her defining characteristic.
High is a stand-up comedian whose routine consists of jokes about being a millennial and living in New York City. High also jokes about being a donor-conceived child and her search for her biological father.
“I’m what happens when a woman needs to become a mother and a man needs $200,” High joked at a recent appearance in New York City.
Behind all the giggles, High said she is fighting for concrete action to help protect donor-conceived people and provide them access to their medical records.
“It’s shocking to learn and to find out how many donor-conceived people [there are] especially in my age group, who have never been told, and who only found out by accident via a DNA test,” said High, 34, referring to donor-conceived people who discover their biological parent only through a DNA test.
High said her parents told her when she was 14 that she was conceived using donor sperm.
She took her own DNA test many years later, after she got engaged, because she said she feared that the man she loved might be her half-brother.
“I live in the same city that my donor was donating, so chances are the majority of my siblings are probably in New York City,” High said. “I have no idea if my neighbor is a sibling. I have no clue.”
High said she discovered she and her fiancé were not related — but through the DNA test, she found three of her biological siblings.
All of the siblings had similar genetic health issues. In High’s case, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2016.
Without medical records, High said doctors can’t prove it is due to a genetic issue, but it’s suspected given her biological siblings’ own medical records.
When High found her father, she said he refused to give her and her siblings access to his medical records, which High claims could have helped catch her brain tumor sooner.
High said she and her siblings all have hormonal disorders that she said, in her case, put her at risk of developing her brain tumor. She said she was diagnosed when she was just 13.
“I’m very lucky I caught it in time before I needed surgery, and before I started trying to have children, because the tumor, while it is still in my head, essentially makes me infertile,” High said. “It’s taking a year for it to [decrease in size], so thank God I caught it now.”
As she continues to undergo treatment, High is continuing to fight for access to her own medical records and to pave the way for other donor-conceived people.
A bill proposed in High’s home state of New York would require disclosures from donors on diagnosed medical conditions, family medical conditions, doctors seen, names of schools attended and criminal felony convictions.
The bill, called the Donor Conceived Person Protection Act, would require fertility clinics to give donor-conceived people access to their updated medical records.
“It’s not going to just save my life, it’s also going to potentially save my children’s lives,” High said, adding that donor-conceived people “are just asking for the same knowledge you would get if you knew your parents.”
The fight for donor-conceived rights
New York State Sen. Patrick Gallivan, a Democrat, is the sponsor of the bill, S7602A. He said he believes most people are not aware of what he described as the loose regulations that currently exist around the fertility industry.
“People have the same reaction I did,” Gallivan told ABC News. “So far, they’re completely shocked.”
Gallivan explained that state requirements vary, but in New York, there is no requirement for screening for mental health, physical health or criminal records in order to be a donor.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that sperm donors be tested within a week of their donation. Donations are tested for nine sexually transmitted diseases, but certain donors could be tested for more, according to a 2020 FDA pamphlet.
Gallivan’s bill would create action against fertility fraud and a doctor would not use reproductive tissue from a donor if the recipient did not consent. If a doctor used a donation that was not the one a client consented to use, it would become a crime of aggravated assault, according to the bill.
In High’s case, she claims the sperm donation her mother received was not the one her mother and father selected. She said she later found that her biological father was a colleague and friend of her mother’s OB-GYN.
High has advocated for Gallivan’s bill on TikTok, where she has more than 10 million likes on her platform.
Gallivan said his bill would help provide structure to New York fertility procedures. Currently, for example, it is not illegal for a doctor to switch out a promised sperm donation with any other donation or a doctor’s own sample.
The bill also would give a definition of professional misconduct for physicians, physician’s assistants and specialist assistants. Fertility clinics would have to disclose donor information such as medical records, prior felonies and previous doctor visits, according to Gallivan.
The bill would require that information would have to be updated as children become adults and donors find more potential medical issues as they age.
New York State Sen. George Borrello, a Republican, co-sponsored the bill and said there is no reason for donor-conceived children to suffer mental and physical health issues when genetic testing and background checks are widely available.
“If you buy a vehicle, that used car that has some problems, you have recourse,” Borrello said. “In this, you’re talking about a human being, a life.”
Gallivan and Borrello said that no one from the fertility industry has reached out to their offices directly, but emphasized that this area in protecting children is one of the few bipartisan efforts they think everyone can support.
The bill is currently in the New York Senate’s Health Committee, where Gallivan and Borrello say they are pushing their colleagues to see the necessity of this bill.
While there are other bills around the U.S. that deal with donor anonymity, this is the first proposed bill that would directly provide access to medical records for donor-conceived people.
ABC News reached out to six fertility clinics in the New York area for comment on the bill. None have responded.
Richard Vaughn, the founder of International Fertility Law Group, said that the New York bill is a good start, but that laws need to look at the fertility industry as a whole.
“The issue with donor-conceived persons and their right to know is a bit of a love triangle,” Vaughn said.
He said the donor-conceived children, the donors and the parents all have to be represented, but the bill only looks at protection for the children.
“I don’t think anybody disagrees with the part that it’s so important that donor-conceived kids have accurate information about their medical history and their genetic heritage,” Vaughn said. “So the trick is balancing all three of those, and in the middle, you’ve got medical providers.”
Vaughn said in his practice, about half of parents choose to tell their kids if they are donor-conceived.
Vaughn said the issue is balancing the health of the family with the accessibility of donors. He said there is a fear that shifting to making more personal information about donors accessible would cause fewer people to donate.
“All donations should be open,” Vaughn said. “That’s healthy for the donor-conceived children, it’s healthy for the parents to know that this isn’t something you really have to hide.”
Georgetown Law professor Susan Crockin, who specializes in fertility ethics, said she believes New York’s law could be the start of a national trend.
She said she hopes new laws don’t go too far to place an “impossible burden” on providers to fully investigate every donor.
“My biggest hope is that we have laws that are reasonable, and that provide more assurances, that donors don’t shrink back from it, but that we give everybody more background and more context for who they are,” Crockin added.
