(NEW YORK) — Cervical cancer is usually caused by human papillomavirus, a sexually transmitted infection so common nearly all sexually active men and women will get the virus in their lifetime, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite a widely available vaccine that prevents most types of HPV and available screening that allows early detection and treatment, rates of advanced cervical cancer have increased over the last two decades, according to a new study from the University of California Los Angeles.
The CDC reports that 13,000 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed annually in the U.S., taking 4,000 lives a year. Though advanced cervical cancer is a rare form of this disease, it has a five-year survival rate of only 17%.
Researchers at UCLA analyzed data from 2001 to 2018 using the United States Cancer Statistics program and showed that late-stage cervical cancer is more prevalent in Black and Hispanic women, compared to their white peers. White women, however, have seen the steepest annual rise in rates of this advanced cancer and the lowest rates of HPV vaccinations were found among white teens.
Specifically, white women in the South ages 40-44 have the highest rise in advanced cervical cancer rates (4.5%) per year and were also found to be significantly less likely to have cervical cancer screening done on time.
Dr. Jessica Shepherd, board-certified OBGYN and chief medical officer of Verywell Health, told ABC News these findings are “a bit shocking.” She pointed to the need for more cervical cancer screening and HPV vaccinations, saying men and women have a shared responsibility to get vaccinated and stop the spread of HPV.
“I think for women, you know, we are all in this together. Our goal really should be to fortify the health of every woman,” said Shepherd.
Two doses of the HPV vaccine separated by six to 12 months can be given to kids starting at age 9, long before encountering the virus, according to the CDC. Both safe and effective, HPV vaccines were first used in the U.S. in 2006. Since then, the CDC says infections and HPV types that cause genital warts and cancer have dropped 88%.
“Men are actually going to be very, a very big part of how that virus is transmitted and sexually transmitted. So, I think that they are a very big part of the vaccination process in order to decrease it across the board,” said Shepherd.
Women should have cervical cancer screening using a PAP test that is done in a clinical setting in routine intervals starting at age 21 that may be coupled with HPV testing, according to the CDC.
Shepherd added, “I believe that this is a moment where there should be a call to action to really drive the importance of regular screening, testing.”
Jade A Cobern, MD, board-eligible in pediatrics and MPH candidate, is a part of the ABC News Medical Unit and general preventive medicine resident at Johns Hopkins.
(NEW YORK) — Dr. Martha Gulati will never forget the first time she saw a young, healthy athlete die of heat stroke.
It was 1995 in Chicago, in the middle of a heat wave that would ultimately claim nearly 700 lives. In the decades that followed, Gulati watched in alarm as the climate warmed and heat catastrophes grew even more intense.
“The medical community was not prepared for what these temperatures would do to people; we were ultimately learning on the fly,” said Gulati, now associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and president of the American Society of Preventive Cardiology.
Since that heat wave in 1995, climate change has intensified globally with wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves and cold spells leading to famine and drought. As a result of these extreme changes, the medical community is noticing an increasing rate of heart disease.
“The world we live in right now is not a very hospitable environment for the heart,” Gulati said. “With heart disease prevention, we tend to focus on controlling blood pressure and lipids, but we should consider the other aspects of prevention, like our environment.”
Sixty-two percent of deaths attributed to climate change were from cardiovascular disease, according to a study published in Lancet in 2020.
“We know that air pollution is a cause of heart disease.” said Dr. Sadeer Al-Kindi, a cardiologist at University Hospitals in Ohio and assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. “Evidence shows that air pollution increases heart disease, heart failure and insulin resistance.”
Particulate matter, tiny particles in the air invisible to the naked eye, are produced by greenhouse gasses and carbon emissions. These particles can enter your lungs and bloodstream, wreaking havoc on tissues that are vital to a healthy cardiovascular system. Over time, prolonged exposure to pollution can contribute to increased clotting, high blood pressure and sleep disturbances.
Dr. Kai Chen, assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health and director of research at the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health, said that when inhaled, these pollutants cause stress and inflammation in the body that can result in cardiometabolic syndromes, such as hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes.
Experts say it’s difficult to directly blame individual heart attacks on heat waves based on currently available data. However, there is research to suggest a close relationship, as regions with excessive heat or freezing temperature had alarmingly higher episodes of heart attack, according to a June study in Nature Reviews Cardiology.
It’s not clear exactly why temperature shifts are correlated with higher rates of heart attacks. Experts believe that temperature shifts affect the body’s ability to regulate normal body temperatures in response to the extreme temperatures.
Al-Kindi said that a concept called “climate penalty” could explain these patterns. Extreme weather conditions from climate change are able to increase and distribute those invisible molecules that are detrimental to our body, he said.
“Fires, winds, heat and cold driven by climate change increases the production and distribution of these pollutants,” Al-Kindi said. “[Climate change] both directly elevates the number of particles in the air that people breathe in, but also indirectly by causing droughts, famine, malnutrition and limiting accessibility to care.”
A study published earlier this month in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research found that even medications used to treat heart disease may work differently during heat waves.
Chen, who was the lead author in the study, found that patients who were taking two medications used to treat heart disease had higher rates of heart attacks on days with record heat waves.
Regardless of the age, people who were on beta blockers and antiplatelet medications had a number of heart attacks, explained Chen.
“What is interesting,” Chen said, “is that young people on the same medications, who we typically do not expect to have heart disease, also had higher episodes of heart attacks than those who were not taking these medications.”
Al-Kindi, who was not involved in the study, believes this paradox of medications treating heart disease causing more heart attacks on extremely hot days could be from blunting our nervous system that regulates our “fight or flight” response and regulates the way we respond to temperature.
While avoiding cigarettes, eating healthy, sleeping well and exercising are ways to prevent heart disease, doctors agree that protecting yourself from the impacts of climate change is essential to your heart health.
Experts advise changes should be made as a community by reducing plastic waste, using public transport, recycling, avoiding red meat and advocating for policies to help prevent worsening climate change.
On an individual level, Al-Kindi said people should stay inside on extremely hot and cold days, avoid pollutants by wearing a mask, move away from fossil fuels and move toward clean energy.
“The impact of climate change is not a question of whether it’s happening — it is happening and we are seeing evidence of it every day,” said Gulati. “If we don’t act now, we won’t save lives and our job as physicians is to save lives.”
Lily Nedda Dastmalchi, D.O., M.A., is a cardiology fellow at Temple University Hospital and a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — The New York State Department of Health reported its first known case of monkeypox in a child in New York.
According to the new data, one child under the age of 18 has tested positive for monkeypox. The age of the child or the county where the case was reported was not specified in the report. The case was not reported in New York City.
According to the latest data reported by the NYC Department of Health on Thursday, no cases of monkeypox in children have been found in the city.
There are a total of 2,798 confirmed monkeypox cases in New York as of Friday, according to the NYSDOH. Of those, 2,596 are in New York City.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other health officials declared monekypox to be the “epicenter of the outbreak” in July. Hochul declared a State Disaster Emergency executive order in response to the growing outbreak.
“My team and I are working around the clock to secure more vaccines, expand testing capacity and responsibly educate the public on how to stay safe during this outbreak,” Hochul said in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — As it gets harder to access abortion care because of state laws and restrictions, self-managed abortions may become more common, abortion providers told ABC News.
Self-managed abortions are done by a pregnant person without the formal supervision of a healthcare professional, according to Guttmacher.
In a pre-Roe era, self-managed abortions were often risky — but today, managing an abortion at home can be much safer thanks of the advent of medication abortion pills.
Unwanted pregnancies can be exceedingly distressing. Health providers are raising concerns that some people in situations without access to safe, legal abortion could try any means possible to end a pregnancy, that may or may not be safe or effective, Dr. Deborah Bartz, a gynecologist at Brigham and Women’s in Boston, told ABC News in an interview.
“Now, because of the post-Dobbs situation, we are recognizing that there’s going to be much greater desire for patients to undertake self-managed abortion because they can’t legally access the services that they desperately want and need through the standard health care system,” Bartz said.
Medication abortion isn’t a new practice, first approved by the FDA in 2000, and now allows abortions to be done outside of a medical facility that is safe and effective, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Even prior to the overturn of Roe, the Guttmacher Institute estimated that roughly half of abortions in the U.S. were medication abortions.
While patients in the U.S. need a prescription to obtain misoprostol, one of the drugs used in the FDA-approved medication abortion regimen, the drug can be purchased without a prescription in other countries, including Mexico, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
While there is limited data on how common self-managed abortions are that do not involve a medical provider at all in the U.S., there are reports that it does happen and may be on the rise as states impose barriers to abortion access, according to Shah.
According to a 2014 national survey by the Guttmacher Institute, 1.3% of people obtaining clinical abortions reported having used misoprostol on their own to “bring back” their period or end a pregnancy.
In a 2017 survey of 7,022 women in U.S., 1.4% reported ever attempting to end a pregnancy on their own. The majority of these individuals reported using drugs or substances other than misoprostol, and only 28% successfully ended the pregnancy.
The spectrum of how people self-manage their abortions on their own ranges from effective to ineffective treatments, including herbal treatments, unsafe chemicals, incorrect medication or dangerous physical harm, according to Shah.
Research shows that medication abortions using the abortion pills, that are FDA-approved, mifepristone and misoprostol, are safe and effective. But there is little known about the safety or efficacy of these same medications when obtained and used by going around the regulatory steps in the United States.
(NEW YORK) — It has now been two months since the start of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout for the youngest Americans, and despite some initial enthusiasm from a select group of parents, the vast majority of children under the age of 5 remain completely unvaccinated.
About 941,000 children, under the age of five have now received their first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, newly updated federal data shows. The overall total represents approximately 4.8% of the 19.5 million U.S. children in that age group.
Just 182,000 of those children, or less than 1%, have been fully vaccinated.
When broken down by age group, data shows that the majority of children under 5 who have received at least one shot are between the ages of 2 and 4 — 682,000, compared to just 259,000 children under the age of 2.
Preliminary data reported by states shows that several states in the Northeast currently have the highest share of children under 5 vaccinated with at least one dose. Washington, D.C. continues to lead the nation with nearly 15% of its jurisdiction’s children under 5 vaccinated with their first shot, followed by Vermont (10.4%), and Massachusetts (6.87%).
Mississippi has the lowest percentage of children under 5 vaccinated, with 0.47% of children with their first shot, followed by Alabama (0.64%) and Louisiana (0.79%).
The overall totals, thus far, are notably lower than prior predictions, which had already suggested the initial rollout would be sluggish.
A recent Kaiser Family Foundation COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor survey found that many parents remain reluctant to vaccinate their young children.
As of July, 43% of parents with children ages 6 months to 4 years old said they will “definitely not” get their child vaccinated against COVID-19. In comparison, when polled in April, 27% of parents had stated they would “definitely not” get their child vaccinated against the virus.
Thirteen percent of parents said they would only inoculate their child, if required, and 27% reported they were waiting to see whether to vaccinate their child.
Only 7% of parents reported they got their child vaccinated right away, while another 10% of parents said that they were still planning to get their child vaccinated “right away.”
However, some officials have said that more children, particularly those under 5, may be vaccinated as the rollout continues, and they visit their pediatrician for their annual visit.
To date, about 29.6 million children ages 17 and under have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. However, data also shows that just under 43.4 million eligible kids are still completely unvaccinated.
Less than a quarter of eligible children, ages 5 to 17, have also been boosted.
(NEW YORK) — Since the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June, several states have enacted strict abortion bans.
At least 15 states have ceased nearly all abortion services and an additional four states have bans that have been blocked in court and are undergoing legal challenges.
Despite an ABC News/Washington Post poll finding 79% of Americans support making abortion legal in exceptions of rape, only four states with active bans allow for such exceptions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group focusing on sexual and reproductive health.
Proponents of anti-abortion bills have argued that a fetus should not be “punished” because of the crime and be allowed a chance to be born, but they are trying to help women find some recourse after suffering through a horrific act.
But abortion rights advocates and experts told ABC News it’s more complicated than that. They say that while such exceptions do help prevent a pregnant person from living through the trauma of giving birth to their rapist’s baby, they say the exceptions may work in theory but not in reality.
They explained some of the language in these laws make it unclear how a provider is supposed to validate a patient’s accusation of rape, or the providers may be scared to act due to fear they will be prosecuted if they act outside the law.
Additionally, they say women may be too scared to come forward when they’ve been raped, or if they do and are required to report the assault to the police, may experience additional trauma by having to relive the crime.
“It’s not whether there’s simply a law that happens to be on the books,” Michele Goodwin, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, whose expertise includes health law and reproductive rights, told ABC News. “It’s whether the law is more real than illusory. For so many of the exceptions that are being drafted now, what you have is not entirely meaningless but so difficult to navigate that they essentially become kind of a fool’s gold.”
She added, “One can have rights on paper, but they become very useless and lack meaning until they’re placed in practice.”
Of the states with abortion exceptions for rape, three — Georgia, Idaho and Mississippi — require a police report to be filed before requesting an abortion.
Oklahoma also has an abortion ban, HB 4327, signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt in May with exceptions for rape that requires a police report as well. However, the state has passed multiple contradictory abortion bills in the past year including one a month earlier that Stitt signed, which does not have exemptions for rape or incest.
State Rep. Jim Olsen said the exceptions for rape were added because the bill allowed anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion to be sued for up to $10,000 in damages but lawmakers didn’t want the rapist to be allowed to sue.
However, he believes that generally abortion bans should not include exceptions for rape.
“It is not the baby’s fault the circumstances of their conception, if it was something as horrible as that,” he told ABC News. “The baby has the same right to life that you and I have. And again, it’s not the baby’s fault the circumstances of their conception.”
Olsen continued, “Now, rape is a horrible, horrible, horrible crime and somebody needs to be punished for that. But it shouldn’t be the baby. It should be the rapist who gets punished for it.”
Most sexual assaults are not reported
However, most rapes are not reported to the police. In fact, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, two out of every three sexual assaults go unreported.
Elizabeth Nash, interim associate director of state issues at the Guttmacher Institute, said there are several reasons why someone might not report their rape – especially if they’re pregnant – including fear of retribution from the rapist [or the person who raped them], fear people won’t believe them or fear of ostracization from their community.
“When you combine the need to report in order to access an abortion, you’re really putting a barrier in place for someone to get the abortion that they need,” she told ABC News.
Goodwin said having to report the assault can be like a second trauma for a victim of rape.
“There is tremendous trauma that can result from being pregnant when one does not wish to be that is only magnified after one has been raped, becomes pregnant, and due to that rape, and then has to go through the interrogation,” she said. “Because, when a person, when a woman, when a child files a report about being raped, it’s not as if someone presents them with a comfortable environment. Instead, questions are asked, and those questions without the proper training and sensitivity can be quite harsh.”
Experts say abortion providers may be unsure how to proceed in exceptions for rape. Although the laws require a police report to be filed, it’s unclear if anything specific needs to be in the report or if the victim needs to take any other steps.
“It’s not entirely clear what all is required or if providers will be able to meet the letter of the law in providing an abortion under the rape exception,” Nash said. “There’s this concern that if a provider tries to meet the requirements of the exception that, in some way, they will fall short and then the state will prosecute them in some way.”
She said these exceptions could potentially dissuade providers from performing abortions under the rape exception for fear of potential prosecution or lead to clinics moving their services across state lines where abortion access is freer.
For example, even though North Dakota’s abortion ban, which includes an exception for rape, is currently blocked in court, the state’s sole abortion clinic — the Red River Women’s Clinic located in Fargo — said it will be providing abortions in Minnesota.
“Abortion is still legal in North Dakota, for now,” the clinic wrote on its website. “However, Red River Women’s Clinic has made the commitment to continue to provide abortion care to our region, so we have moved our services across the river to Moorhead, MN.”
(NEW YORK) — The monkeypox outbreak continues to grow globally with over 14,000 cases in the U.S. alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Rosamund Lewis, the World Health Organization’s Technical Lead for the monkeypox outbreak, spoke with “ABC News Live” Thursday about the latest updates and what health agencies are doing to combat the spread.
ABC NEWS: Thank you so much for your time tonight, Dr. Lewis. Big picture is the World Health Organization’s thinking about declaring monkeypox a pandemic.
LEWIS: At the moment, the situation is that there are 38,000 cases of monkeypox in the world reported.
It certainly is a concerning figure that the number of cases continues to rise. On the 23rd of July of this year, the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern. This is under the international health regulations, and it is the highest level of alert the WHO can already declare. So, we are on alert and doing everything possible.
ABC NEWS: So focusing a little bit on the U.S., [which] accounts for about a third of all cases worldwide. Why do you think that is?
LEWIS: There are a number of countries that have concerning situation. So, at the moment there are other countries in the Americas that are also seeing steep increases in the number of cases. And part of that may be the spread of the virus. Another component may be increasing access to testing. There are countries in Europe that began their outbreak earlier and they are already beginning to see some sort of leveling off of the new cases being reported.
ABC NEWS: Dr. Lewis, when you speak about control, 98% of the cases have been among men, almost all of whom are men who have sex with other men. How can you balance the need to warn gay men that they’re at higher risk without stigmatizing them?
LEWIS: It’s a really fine line to walk and it’s a really most important question, so thank you for that. It’s the most important work that any public health agency can be doing right now and working with community organizations of people who are affected by this outbreak. Contributing to stigma is not a solution and not for anyone. Because what happens with that is it actually undermines the outbreak response. Contributing to stigma, in any way, may drive people away from testing, [and] drive people away from seeking vaccines. They may even drive people away from seeking care. And so in that way, the outbreak can continue to spread.
ABC NEWS: To your point that all segments of the population feel supported, we would like to do a quick rapid fire round through some of the common questions that people may have. I hope you’re okay with that. First up, can the virus be spread among people with no symptoms?
LEWIS: This is something we don’t know yet. We do know that people can have infection without symptoms, but it is not yet known whether they can spread it at that time. That’s another area that we’re monitoring very closely.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Can you get infected twice?
LEWIS: This has occurred. People have been infected more than once. We don’t know yet how often this might happen.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And what are the first signs of infection?
LEWIS: So the first symptoms have been fever, feeling unwell, backache, muscle aches, and then followed by a rash. And now we’re seeing right now sometimes that is flipped around. Sometimes people are having a rash and then followed by fever or other symptoms, and the rash can be milder or can be more severe. We are basically seeing a whole range of how this disease can present right now.
ABC NEWS LIVE: Lastly, Dr. Lewis, with schools starting across the globe, there is a concern about cases starting to spread more among children. What do people need to know in that context?
LEWIS: So this pattern, as you described, has been very consistent. And the folks who are at higher risk and need to figure out what information, they need to protect themselves are people who are having predominantly multiple sexual partners.
It doesn’t have to be only men. It can be other groups who may be having active sexual activities with people that they don’t know so well or in situations where they’re multiple partners at once. So this could happen on a college campus, for example. Obviously, we’re talking about young people here.
The risk to children is really quite low at the moment because the spread in general population has not really manifested; it’s not taken off. We have seen some children exposed in different ways, but the numbers are really very small at the moment. Usually, that happens in a household setting and that is typical. That is very common.
It’s always been known that people can transmit through hugging, kissing, whether that be household members who also share towels, for example. And so historically, for monkeypox, that has been described as the mode of transmission-close proximity in the household.
(NEW YORK) — Some of New York City’s area have less than 60% of kids fully vaccinated against polio, according to data from the city’s Department of Health.
Just last week, officials found traces of the poliovirus in the city’s wastewater system. Officials believe the virus has been in the system since April.
This comes after an unvaccinated Rockland County man tested positive for polio and displayed symptoms of paralysis.
According to the DOH data, the Williamsburg, Battery Park City and Bedford-Stuyvesant/Ocean Hill/Brownsville zip codes all report a vaccination level under 60% for children 6 months to 5 years of age.
The Brooklyn neighborhoods that show low vaccination rates in young kids are linked to the Hasidic Jewish populations that have become increasingly adamant against vaccinations, experts say.
The overall New York City polio vaccination rate for that age group is 82.6%, according to the DOH.
Experts say the rates in low-vaccinated neighborhoods are alarming because unvaccinated populations will allow a greater spread, opening the way for more severe cases.
Adam J. Ratner, director of pediatric infectious diseases at NYU Langone Health, told ABC News that 75% of those infected with polio have no symptoms. Another 20-25%, he said, will experience mild symptoms such as fatigue or low fevers. Less than 1% of polio cases are paralytic, according to the CDC.
Because of the rarity of the Rockland County case, experts believe many individuals must have been infected in the area to lead to the paralytic case.
“When we see one case of paralysis, that very likely means that several hundred people have actually been exposed and infected with the polio virus,” Roy M. Gulick, chief of the Weill Cornell Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, told ABC News.
New York state has some of the strictest vaccination requirements for schools across the nation. In 2019, the state eliminated all nonmedical exemptions for required vaccinations in schools, including the three-dose vaccination for polio.
So, how are so many young children in New York City unvaccinated?
Experts say there are two main factors: the COVID-19 pandemic and the spread of misinformation.
The pandemic had multiple effects on vaccination status, according to experts, including the fact that kids weren’t physically in school, so vaccination enforcement was essentially paused, and that parents weren’t taking their kids to the doctor for routine checkups and immunizations due to lockdowns.
Ratner said that despite the harsher requirements established in 2019, many communities are still playing “catch-up,” particularly because parents faced less pressure to take their kids to the doctor for routine vaccinations during remote learning.
Part of why today’s parents are not so worried about getting their kids vaccinated is because people have forgotten how terrible the virus actually is, Ratner and Gulick both said.
Practically all adults in the U.S. are vaccinated against polio because their parents watched the destruction of rampant polio in the 1950s, Gulick said.
“People may have heard of it, but others will have not,” Gulick said. “It’s the older people who remember it well, about how transmissible it was, the fear of getting polio and the dreaded complications in terms of paralysis.”
Parents today take the vaccine for granted, Gulick said. The other part, though, is misinformation.
“I’m thinking specifically of Orthodox Jewish communities in in Brooklyn, where there are some Orthodox Jewish groups that have very high levels of vaccine hesitancy,” Ratner said. “I think that the Orthodox Jewish community has unfortunately been directly targeted by anti-vaccine groups that have spread misinformation in the community, which is unfortunate.”
Walter Orenstein, a polio expert at Emory University and former director of the United States’ National Immunization Program, told ABC News that these communities have been plagued by anti-vaccination groups spreading allegations of danger with vaccines.
Orenstein said it’s all about finding “the right messenger to give the right message” when it comes to battling misinformation.
“We need to work with them, to better understand what vaccines are, how they work and all the efforts that are made to assure they’re not only effective, but safe before they’re made available,” Orenstein said.
Ratner said it’s essential for parents to understand that it is a dangerous choice to not vaccinate their kids against polio, both for those children and for their communities.
If these low-vaccinated communities do not decide to start vaccinating their children, paralytic cases will increase, Ratner said.
(NEW YORK) — A new report is shining a spotlight on potential privacy concerns loopholes in apps that collect women’s personal health information following the reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Abortion is now nearly banned in at least 15 states as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision on June 24 to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe ruling — which legalized abortion at the federal level — and send the issue back to the states.
A report released Wednesday by the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization that advocates for online privacy, concluded that among 25 popular reproductive health apps, most apps were found to have very vague privacy policies surrounding how they will share data with law enforcement.
Eighteen of the products earned Mozilla’s label of “*Privacy Not Included” meaning users’ data may not be secure, and eight failed to meet the foundation’s “minimum security standards.”
Among the apps examined by Mozilla’s staff researchers were pregnancy apps, period trackers and wearables, all products that collect personal reproductive information like weight, birth plans, pregnancy journals and doctors’ appointments.
Only one app – Euki – was ranked in Mozilla’s “Best of” category. The app Natural Cycles earned a commendable mention by Mozilla.
Other wearables and apps that ranked near the top of Mozilla’s list include Garmin, Apple Watch, Whoop Strap 4, Oura Ring and Fitbit.
Caltrider said the privacy policies of the reproductive health apps researched were similar to the privacy policies of apps used for things like sharing recipes and photos.
“Anything that you share is no longer secure and that’s just an expectation that you should have if you share something with these apps and it’s not stored locally,” Jen Caltrider, a co-author of the report and the lead of Mozilla Foundation’s *Privacy Not Included online guide, told ABC News. “If the app collects information about your sexual activity, your sexual orientation, your moods, symptoms, pregnancy, your due date, any of it, just expect that that that information is no longer yours to control.”
Pregnancy and period-tracking apps have millions of users every month who utilize the technology to better understand and help control their reproductive health. The apps can tell you when to expect your next period, if you might be pregnant and how far along you are, when you are the most fertile for conceiving and what sorts of symptoms you usually experience.
Reproductive health apps’ ability to share data with law enforcement is of particular concern for women who live in states where abortion has been limited or banned, according to Caltrider.
“What we found was most companies had fairly vague statements, that it was hard to tell whether companies would voluntarily disclose data to law enforcement if they came asking,” said Caltrider. “Unfortunately there were a number of companies where we just couldn’t tell what their data sharing plans were, and that worries us.”
Leah Fowler, a research assistant professor at the University of Houston Law Center, told ABC News that consumers should not expect the health data they enter on apps to be protected in the same way it would be at a hospital or doctors’ office.
“When we think about data in a consumer context, it doesn’t have any of those special protections we tend to expect in other health contexts, like going to the doctor,” said Fowler, whose research focuses on health law and policy. “The information you might give an app when you’re playing Candy Crush or Angry Birds in many ways isn’t different than the type of data you’re giving an app in a health context, even if it feels particularly intimate and can become quite intimate when you’re talking about period and fertility trackers.”
Both Caltrider and Fowler said that period tracking, pregnancy and fertility apps can be smart, useful tools to use, as long as users do their own research.
“I think that each individual consumer has to do a cost-benefit analysis of how useful they find the product and the types of risks they may be exposed to depending on where they live,” said Fowler. “And I think that there are lots of products available that will allow them to use what are ultimately very useful, very popular tools without exposing them to as much risk. For example, one that might store data locally on your phone or that doesn’t participate in third-party data sharing.”
Consumers should be able to find an app’s privacy policy when they download the app on their phone, according to Caltrider.
She said to be wary of privacy policies that are either too short or too long, adding, “If companies can’t clearly articulate what data they’re collecting, how they’re using that data, who they’re sharing that with, it’s a flag.”
Both experts said another red flag warning is if a company uses the word “sell” or “share” in its privacy policy, meaning they can sell and share your information.
And if you go to download an app and can’t find the privacy policy, Caltrider said she would advise not downloading the app.
In addition, Caltrider said that apps made by companies based in Europe tend to have tighter privacy restrictions than do companies based in other locations, including the United States.
“I do encourage people to at least look and see if they have a privacy policy,” said Caltrider. “If you don’t want to read the whole thing, do a search and see if they have the word sell in there and talk about selling your data. See if they do targeted, interest-based advertising with third parties.”
She continued, “There are some little tells that will let users know oh, this company is treating my data more like a business asset and using it for purposes beyond just providing the service.”
Statements from companies
ABC News reached out to all of the companies listed in Mozilla’s report. Here are the responses we received.
Sprout
“It appears [the Mozilla Foundation] incorrectly stated the app does not have a Privacy Policy. It has always been and is freely available since the launch of the app on the app’s product page on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store — a Privacy Policy is required by Apple and Google and can be viewed in the corresponding app privacy and data safety sections. Customers can also access our Privacy Policy within the app and on our website: https://sprout-apps.com/privacy-policy.html.
Our Sprout Pregnancy app has always been privacy focused and is one of the only pregnancy apps on the market that does not require an account to use the app (no username or password) and the app data is only backed up to the user’s personal iCloud or Google Drive account.
We have also responded to Mozilla’s questions and you can contact them for additional information.”
Euki
“We are pleased that Euki is being recognized in this way. Our ultimate goal remains getting Euki to anyone who can benefit from a comprehensive, inclusive and of course secure app for sexual and reproductive health. Access to abortion services is essential health care, a critical part of our human rights, and abortion access must be protected. Euki can help and we want to ensure that it gets in the hands of anyone who can benefit from its unique features and privacy protocols.
Natural Cycles
“At Natural Cycles we have always been committed to protecting our user’s data as a regulated medical device and we’re fully supportive of Mozilla’s mission and assessment. We are of the mindset that every app – even if they have strong privacy protections like ours – should be working even harder to protect data on their user’s behalf. I can confirm our team is working rigorously to ensure that not only is Natural Cycles the most scientifically-backed fertility app, that we have the strongest data protections too.”
Clue Period & Cycle Tracker
“You can find Clue’s stance about privacy here from the co-CEOs: Data is power, and responsibility: what we believe as Clue’s Co-CEOs and here: Patient Data Privacy at Clue: A statement from the Co-CEOs.
Whoop Strap 4
“At WHOOP, our mission is to unlock human performance. We exist to improve the lives of our members, not invade them. We have invested heavily, and will continue to invest, in features and security to protect the privacy and security of our members’ data. We believe this should be the standard for all companies providing wearable devices and health tracking technology.”
Flo Ovulation & Period Tracker
“We understand that our users place trust in our technology to keep their sensitive information private, and the responsibility we have to provide a safe and secure platform for them to use. This is why Flo has never, and will never share any health data with any company but Flo. We will never make user data the source of our revenue because that would go against our core promise to our users.
In March 2022, Flo completed an external, independent privacy audit which confirmed Flo’s own practices are consistent with its publicly stated privacy policy. Beyond this, the independent audit specified, “From both a governance and operational perspective, Flo was able to demonstrate a commitment to the privacy and security of its users’ data and has devoted appropriate resources and personnel to ensuring it maintains those commitments.”
In an effort to further protect reproductive health information of our users, Flo recently announced the launch of ‘Anonymous Mode.’ Flo already uses security best practices, including encryption of all data and passcode protection, however this new feature deidentifies data on a deeper level by removing personal email, name and technical identifiers. In the event that Flo receives an official request to identify a user by name or email, Anonymous Mode will prevent Flo from being able to connect data to an individual, meaning Flo would not be able to satisfy the request.
Beyond this, we provide security measures designed to protect individual user data and privacy rights. As of last week, Flo is now the first period & ovulation tracker to achieve the ISO 27001 certification, the internationally recognized standard for information security. This certification affirms that Flo protects users’ data at the highest standard possible.
Flo remains committed to ensuring the utmost privacy for our users. Some of the additional measures we take include: – Data Encryption: Data is transferred to our servers in an encrypted form. – Data Separation: Personal user data (that can be used to identify an individual person, e.g., e-mail) is kept separately from data logged in the app (e.g., specific user inputs). This measure helps to prevent users from being identified. – Rigorous Supplier Due Diligence: We only work with suppliers who meet our minimum privacy and security standards – Regular Privacy Risk Assessments: We undertake regular risk assessments on all processing activities to ensure risks are identified and removed.
“We are very happy that Mozilla is [doing] audits like this. Personal privacy is something we take very seriously, and we are positive for all efforts that highlight the importance of privacy.
Not so happy about not performing better than what we did but when reading the audit, it clearly states that we at Preglife take privacy very seriously. Our privacy policy is well written, easy to understand, and I am confident that our wish to keep our user’s privacy secure shines through. The fact that we allow simple passwords is unfortunate but true. We don’t deny that. However, it is on our “to-do list” and something that we were about to fix within the coming weeks. But in the light of this audit and the increased need for privacy for our U.S. users, we will make this our top priority, meaning we will fix this ASAP.
In the audit Mozilla were unable to verify if we use encryption or not — but we do. All personal data that is transferred from the app is encrypted. All databases are encrypted.
Also stated in the audit, we allow users to use Preglife without creating an account. If you use Preglife in that way you never have to worry about any data loss since all data is stored locally on your handset. The downside is that if you lose your phone or if it breaks you risk losing valuable data. However, in the light of current events in the U.S., some users may feel that is a risk they are willing to take to be totally ‘off the grid.'”
Glow Nature & Glow Baby
“We strongly disagree with Mozilla’s review and we are working closely with Mozilla on their rating process, including sending them all the legal facts to address their concerns and claims.
We do not share personal data with anyone and will never sell user’s data. It’s simply against our core values. We have an extensive set of features and internal protocols that protect user data. We have also implemented 3rd party annual privacy and security assessments to ensure our platform provides the highest level of data protection for our users. Every single employee at Glow is required to go through privacy and security-related training.
Our number one goal is to build the best products for our users and doing anything that violates their trust would go against our values. Even in the case where we have been asked to provide information to law enforcement, we have always examined those requests in extreme detail and take action ONLY when it is protecting our users. We will continue to uncompromisingly protect our users’ privacy and personal health information. Period.”
ABC News’ Laryssa Demkiw, Michela Moscufo, MaryAlice Parks, Jeca Taudte, Sony Salzman and Cheyenne Haslett contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Apple on Monday made headlines as the latest major company to call its workers back to the office, setting a deadline for early next month that will require workers to do their jobs in person three days each week, Bloomberg reported.
The move came days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines that softened the recommended precautions for preventing the spread of COVID.
The guidelines, announced last Thursday, recommended institutions screen otherwise healthy individuals for the virus in most settings, and the new rules set aside the 6-feet standard for social distancing.
Further, the guidelines relaxed a five-day quarantine period for unvaccinated individuals after an exposure to COVID. Instead, following an exposure, unvaccinated people should forego the quarantine but wear a mask for 10 days and test after five days, the CDC said.
The change in CDC policy will make it easier for employers to bring workers back to the office, shifting the public health responsibility to individual workers and away from businesses, while allowing all workers to stay on the job after a COVID exposure, public health experts told ABC News. The move reflects an approach that aims to mitigate spread but not prevent infection entirely, as widespread immunity and treatments reduce the risk of severe illness, they added.
However, the CDC guidelines will not spur a rapid shift back to in-person work, or even any shift at all, since public health concerns no longer make up the primary reason behind remote work, economists told ABC News. Rather, the widely held preference among employees for some degree of remote work — combined with the leverage afforded to workers as employers struggle to fill openings — should preserve the current level of remote work, the economists added.
“Even as COVID recedes as a reason for all these work arrangements, they’ve now developed a momentum of their own,” Julia Pollak, a labor economist for job site ZipRecruiter, told ABC News. “It’s difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.”
In recent months, the U.S. economy has reached a stable level of roughly 30% of all paid working days done from home, said Jose Maria Barrero, a finance professor at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, a private university in Mexico City, who co-authors a regular survey on remote work. When limited to jobs for which it is possible to work from home, such as managerial-style roles, the proportion of paid working days done at home rises to between 50% and 60%, he added.
Early in the pandemic, employees wanted to work remotely far more than businesses wanted to accommodate them, Barrero said. Over time, however, that gap has narrowed considerably, in part because companies have conceded to the preferences of workers, who retain significant leverage in a tight labor market. In light of how stable the level of at-home work has become, even if economic or public health conditions change, the proportion of workdays done in-person will likely remain consistent, he said.
“We’re actually pretty close to what the post-pandemic normal is going to be,” Barrero said.
That view of a permanent remote workplace contradicted the newfound ease for employers under the recently released guidelines. However, the outlook aligned with the reaction to the guidelines voiced by several epidemiologists, who said the new rules reflect a shift toward living with covid as a permanent feature of everyday life, much like remote work.
The removal of quarantine for unvaccinated people upon exposure, for instance, shows a willingness to accept that people have largely given up stringent limits in the activity of their personal lives, Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told ABC News.
“This is much more real-world guidance,” he said. “Because people live in a certain way outside of work, that means exposures are ubiquitous.”
Meanwhile, workplaces benefit from the widespread immunity that has resulted from vaccine uptake or contraction of covid, said Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Plus, remedies like vaccine boosters and treatments limit the likelihood of severe illness in the event of an infection, she added.
“There is a major shift in how people consider Covid-19, and getting infected with this virus,” El-Sadr told ABC News. “The shift has been happening slowly and this solidifies that shift to a different frame of mind.”
Still, the relaxation of workplace precautions like testing of asymptomatic people risks making businesses vulnerable to outbreaks, especially if the U.S. experiences another surge in cases, said Julia Raifman, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.
“Each of the tools we have are important — none of them are sufficient on their own to mitigate the harms of covid,” she said. “We need all of them.”
In either case, the ranks of those working at the office are not likely to grow anytime soon, said Barrero, the Mexico City-based economist.
“The question of return to work is much bigger than the pandemic, infections, and COVID at this point,” he said.
