Health

(NEW YORK) — Despite a recent increase in COVID-19 breakthrough infections, an updated report illustrates the significant impact the nation’s vaccine campaign has had in preventing millions of virus-related deaths, hospitalizations and infections.

The U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program is now estimated to have prevented 2.2 million deaths, 17 million hospitalizations and 66.1 million additional infections through March 2022, according to updated modeling from the Commonwealth Fund, an organization advocating for improved healthcare for marginalized communities.

In the analysis of recent trends, researchers estimated that the daily peak of deaths pre-omicron, and without vaccination, would have exceeded 24,000 per day, far surpassing the actual peak of 4,300 per day, experienced by the country during the winter of 2021.

Without the vaccines, the omicron wave could have been substantially larger, the study suggested.

In addition, the researchers estimate that without vaccines, there would have been nearly $900 billion in associated health care costs.

The model accounts for waning immunity and changes in population behavior over time, as schools and businesses have reopened and travel has increased. As immunity wanes, researchers stressed that “redoubling efforts to increase vaccine uptake, especially among the elderly and other vulnerable groups, will be critical to avert outbreaks as pandemic restrictions are lifted,” particularly as the omicron subvariant, BA.2, spreads.

“Our findings point to the tremendous power of vaccination to reduce disease burden from COVID-19. This may be even more important if newer variants arise or population immunity ebbs. Without continued funding, the lifesaving impact of vaccinations are at risk,” researchers said.

Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have both taken credit for the development and implementation of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Following the release of the study, the White House said in a statement that the loss prevented by the vaccine is the “the result of the Biden Administration’s efforts to use every tool to make vaccinations easy and convenient for every American, Congress providing us the vital resources we needed, and the American people stepping up and doing their part.”

“Together, we’ve spared millions of families the immeasurable loss that too many others have suffered, and turned unthinkable pain into extraordinary purpose and progress,” the statement said.

Trump has also touted his administration’s leadership in the nation’s vaccine rollout, asserting that the vaccines would not have been developed at such a fast pace without his pressure on drug companies.

“There are some people that say my greatest achievement was getting the vaccine, because the vaccine was said to take three to five years, and most people said it wasn’t going to happen,” Trump said during a panel interview at Princeton University in July 2021. “We made maybe one of the best bets in history because we bought billions and billions of dollars worth of the vaccine by saving time long prior to knowing whether or not it was going to work.”

Despite Trump’s support of the COVID-19 vaccine, last month, an ABC News analysis of federal data found that on average, the death rates in states that voted for Trump were more than 38% higher than in states that voted for Biden, following the widespread availability of vaccines.

“The irony of course, is that the Trump administration was responsible for fighting for this pandemic funding, in fast-tracking the vaccine process that has really saved a lot of lives,” Peter Jacobson, professor emeritus of health law and policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, told ABC News.

In order to protect more Americans moving forward, the Biden administration and its top health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the White House, and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have continued to push for COVID-19 funding.

“COVID-19 is not over. And we have an obligation to protect our country, the American people and make sure we’re taking steps to prepare,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a press conference this week.

The White House asserted inaction on funding for Covid-19 relief will leave the nation vulnerable to the emergence of future surges and variants. Weekly allocations of many COVID therapies have already been scaled down with the funding stalled in Congress.

“This is deeply disappointing – and it should be unacceptable to every American. We’ve worked too hard and come too far to leave ourselves and our economy vulnerable to an unpredictable virus,” the White House statement said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Clea Shearer, co-founder of The Home Edit, a home organizing company, announced she has breast cancer and shared a message encouraging women to be their own advocates when it comes to their health.

Shearer, a Nashville, Tennessee-based mom of two, shared on Instagram Thursday that she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer after finding a lump in her breast in February.

She said that her OBGYN was not able to see her, so she had to seek out her primary care doctor to have a mammogram done.

“I had to request a mammogram from my general doctor, which led to an ultrasound, and then an emergency triple biopsy,” Shearer wrote in an Instagram post. “I have two tumors, 1 cm each, that are aggressive and fast moving – but I caught it early. Had I not taken this upon myself, I would be in a completely different situation right now.”

Shearer, 40, said in a later Instagram story that she has an invasive type of breast cancer, which means the cancer has spread into surrounding breast tissue, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).

The star of Netflix’s Get Organized with The Home Edit, said she is undergoing a double mastectomy and shared a photo of herself Friday in the hospital awaiting surgery.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On average, over 255,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year in the U.S., and over 40,000 people die each year from the disease, according to the CDC.

Screening for breast cancer — which includes mammograms, at-home breast self-exams and clinical breast exams done by a doctor or nurse — can help catch the disease early, when it is easier to treat, according to the CDC.

Shearer said she decided to share her cancer battle publicly to encourage other women to “to self-examine on a regular basis, self-advocate always, and to prioritize your health over your busy schedules.”

She noted that she was under the age of 40 when her tumors were found and has no family history of breast cancer.

“The most important thing for everyone to remember is that I found these tumors myself,” Shearer said in her Instagram stories. “I felt something and I said something.”

“I’m begging you all. I’m pleading with you. Please examine yourself on a regular basis. Please fight for your own testing and your own scans, even if your doctor is not being helpful, and please prioritize your health,” she added.

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(NEW YORK) — Being infected with COVID-19 raises the risk of developing serious blood clots, a new study suggests.

An international team of researchers from Sweden, the United Kingdom and Finland compared more than 1 million people in Sweden with a confirmed case of the virus between February 2020 and May 2021 to 4 million control patients who tested negative.

They found three to six months after contracting COVID-19, patients were at increased risk of being diagnosed with blood clots in their legs or lungs, according to results published in the journal BMJ on Wednesday.

Specifically, patients had a significantly increased risk of deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot that forms deep in the thigh or the lower leg, up to three months after a COVID-19 infection.

Patients also had a heightened risk of developing a pulmonary embolism, a clot that develops in a blood vessel and travels to a lung artery, up to six months after having the virus.

The team said its results add to a growing body of evidence about the link between COVID-19 and serious blood clots, while adding new information about how long the risk might last.

“The present findings have major policy implications,” the authors wrote, adding that the report “strengthens the importance of vaccination against COVID-19.”

They also said the findings suggest that COVID-19 patients — “especially high-risk patients” — should take anticoagulation medicine, which are medications to help prevent these clots.

During the course of the study period, the team saw 401 cases of DVT among the COVID-19 patients, compared to 267 cases among the negative patients.

Meanwhile, there were 1,761 cases of PE among virus patients in comparison with 171 cases among the control patients.

COVID-19 patients were at higher risk of blood clots if they had underlying conditions, had a severe case of the virus or if they were infected during the first wave of the pandemic in early 2020.

However, there wasn’t just a risk of blood clots. The study also found an increased risk of any kind of bleeding up to two months after a COVID-19 infection.

The team noted there were limitations, including that the study was observational rather than a randomized controlled trial.

Additionally, the researchers recognized that clotting in COVID-19 patients may be underdiagnosed and information about patients’ vaccination status was not available.

Despite the risk of blood clots following COVID-19 infections being well-documented, it’s unknown what biological mechanisms are at play. However, there are theories.

One study from Michigan Medicine and the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute suggested “rogue” antibodies from a COVID-19 infection cause blood cells to lose their anti-clotting properties.

Another study from Yale School of Medicine suggested specific proteins are produced by endothelial cells — cells that line blood vessels — due to inflammation from the virus and lead to blood clots.

“It remains to be established whether SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of venous thromboembolism or bleeding more than it does for respiratory infections, such as influenza, but also whether the period of [anticoagulation medicine] after COVID-19 should be extended,” the authors wrote.

Dr. Raffaele Macri contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(BOSTON) — A Massachusetts toddler who weighed just over one pound when she was born at 25 weeks is home after spending the first 19 months of her life hospitalized.

Bradi Foster, of Plymouth, Massachusetts, was greeted with cheers and bubbles from her doctors and nurses when she left Franciscan Children’s, a hospital in Boston, this month with her parents, Darlene and James Foster.

The toddler was born on Aug. 9, 2020, in an emergency cesarean section after Darlene Foster suffered a placenta abruption, which is when the placenta separates from the wall of the uterus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

Bradi spent her first several months fighting for her life in the neonatal intensive care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where she was born.

“I think they said it was around 40% chance of survival,” James Foster said of his daughter’s condition at birth. “Her lungs were not fully developed so she needed a lot of assistance just breathing and regulating her oxygen.”

The Fosters, also the parents to three older daughters, ages 6, 4 and 3, recalled having to wait nine days after she was born to even hold Bradi.

“It was scary,” Darlene Foster said. “She was smaller than our hands.”

In Bradi’s first months of life, she underwent heart surgery and battled a number of infections and lung and gastrointestinal issues, according to her parents.

Because Bradi was born early on in the coronavirus pandemic, the Fosters said they were typically allowed to have just one person with her at the hospital, an approximately 75-minute commute from their home.

“It was the toughest thing leaving our house to go to Boston to go see her and then have her sisters be like, ‘We want to go too. We want to see our sister,'” Darlene Foster said. “And some of the times I would just watch her in her little isolette and just look because she was sometimes too sick to hold.”

In January 2021, at just 5 months old, Bradi became so sick she had to be placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, machine, which removes carbon dioxide from the blood and sends back blood with oxygen to the body, giving the heart and lungs time to heal.

That same week, in a hospital across the street, Darlene Foster’s dad died after battling COVID-19.

“We had to say goodbye to him … and we were so sure that it was it for her,” she said, referring to Bradi’s critical condition.

Darlene Foster said that while she was at her dad’s funeral, she was notified by the hospital that Bradi had taken a turn for the better and would be taken off the ECMO machine.

From there, according to the Fosters, Bradi’s condition began to improve.

In July 2021, she was transferred to Franciscan Children’s, a post-acute rehabilitation hospital, where she continued her recovery.

After a tracheostomy was performed and Bradi no longer had to be on sedatives to keep her breathing tube in place, the Fosters said they saw their daughter come alive.

“We finally got to see her smile. Her eyes opened and she wanted to play,” Darlene Foster said. “We completely got our baby as soon as she got her trach.”

In the 19 months she spent hospitalized, Bradi underwent around 10 major surgeries and a dozen smaller ones, according to the Fosters.

Now that she is home, Bradi still has a tracheostomy tube and a gastrostomy tube (g-tube) for nutrition, but her parents said they expect both will be removed in the near future.

“We definitely have high hopes that she will be a normal kid, but it’s just going to take a little bit longer for us to get all those things out and progress her to where she should be for her age,” said James Foster. “But we definitely believe that she will be fully capable.”

Describing Bradi’s personality, he added, “We can’t believe how happy she is. After all of this experience that she’s had in life, she’s remained such a happy soul.”

When she arrived home for the first time, Bradi got to see her sisters for just the second time in her life.

“It is the best feeling in the world,” Darlene Foster said of having their family of six home together. “We just want to give hope to any other NICU parents, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — Valerie Bertinelli is opening up about mental health.

In a first-person essay published by New Beauty magazine on April 4, the actress and Food Network host revealed that her “mental health has improved immensely” since she ditched the scale.

“I stopped weighing myself when I finished writing my book, which was a big thing for me, and I haven’t gotten on a scale since,” Bertinelli wrote. “My clothes still fit; my jeans still zip up. I guess I was afraid that if I didn’t see what number I was and if I wasn’t able to keep an eye on it, that I would balloon up … but that hasn’t happened.”

“I feel like once that gets on its full journey, then maybe my body will follow. Maybe I’ll want to eat more fruits and vegetables, and drink less alcohol, and eat less sugar, and put things in my body that make both my body and my mind feel better,” she added. “It’s all a test and we’ll see how it works, but I do know that my mental health has improved immensely because I stopped looking at the scale every morning — and that’s the first big step for me.”

The One Day At A Time actress has been vocal about her struggles with her weight and body image. Last year, Bertinelli took a stand against body-shamers in an Instagram video after a follower told her that she needed to lose weight.

Bertinelli’s post resonated with many who then started sharing some of their own struggles. Celebrities also commended her for being open about her experience.

“For me, the big thing is my weight — it’s the thing that holds me back,” Bertinelli wrote in her essay for New Beauty. “But I want to start feeling the same about myself — no matter what weight I am. I don’t have to wait until I’ve lost weight to be kind to myself and to be kind to others.”

“It shouldn’t matter what I look like,” she added. “I’m trying to make that a reality in my life, and then, hopefully, my body will follow.”

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(NEW YORK) — From sayings like “mommy juice” and “rosé all day” to happy hours, drinking is part of American culture, particularly for women.

One thing that is less discussed though is alcohol’s link to cancer, and how that impacts women.

“We’re finding that probably anywhere between 5% and 10% of all cancers worldwide are due to alcohol use,” Dr. Suneel Kamath, a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center in Ohio, told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “It’s something that we need to talk a lot more about.”

In addition to potentially facing depression, liver disease and obesity, women who consume about one alcoholic drink per day have a 5% to 9% higher chance of developing breast cancer than women who do not drink at all, and that risk increases for every additional drink a woman has per day, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

One study published in 2019 found that women who were not at high risk for breast cancer based on family history increased their risk of breast cancer from moderate drinking.

For women, a moderate alcohol intake per week is defined as seven servings of alcohol or less, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which advise women to have no more than one drink per day.

Heavy drinking is typically defined as consuming eight drinks or more per week, according to the CDC.

One serving of alcohol is just five ounces for wine and just one-and-a-half ounces for hard alcohol, far less than what is typically served in bars, restaurants and at home.

The data shows that even casual drinkers face a greater risk of cancer, most commonly liver and throat cancers but also colon and head and neck cancers, in addition to breast cancer.

“Over 100,000 cases of cancer a year were attributed to that type of drinking,” said Kamath. “I think that’s most surprising, that many of us really are comfortable with doing that and consider that to be very safe.”

Drinking alcohol is listed by the Department of Health and Human Services as a known human carcinogen.

Research shows that just as women metabolize alcohol differently than men, they also face more serious health consequences.

Women are more susceptible to alcohol-related heart disease than men; alcohol misuse produces brain damage more quickly in women than in men; women may be more susceptible than men to alcohol-related blackouts, or gaps in memory; and women who regularly misuse alcohol are more likely than men who drink the same amount to develop alcoholic hepatitis, a potentially deadly condition, according to the NIAAA.

“This is a perfect example of gender-specific medical differences,” said Dr. Jennifer Ashton, a board-certified OBGYN and ABC News chief medical correspondent, explaining the difference lies primarily in enzymes that women lack to metabolize alcohol. “This is significant and we can’t look at this, like so many other things in medicine, like it’s one size fits all.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, data showed that heavy drinking among women especially soared, while alcohol-related liver disease also rose among young women amid increased pandemic drinking.

Liz Piscatello, 37, describes herself as a moderate, social drinker and said she is willing to put the reward of alcohol over the risk.

“I’m a firm believer that everything causes something, and you cannot live your life being scared,” she said. “Live your life because you only live once. Tomorrow’s not promised, so have fun while you can.”

Kamath is among the medical experts warning though that the less alcohol intake the better for your health.

“What I recommend to people really is to limit alcohol intake as much as you can,” he said. “The less you can do, the better.”

According to Ashton, it is important that women be aware of the risks of alcohol and make a “deliberate choice” if they choose to consume.

“It’s not the only thing that we do that can have negative effects,” she said of alcohol. “It has to be a deliberate choice and we have to go into it with the awareness that we know, unfortunately, it’s just not good for us.”

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(NEW YORK) — Being infected with COVID-19 raises the risk of developing serious blood clots, a new study suggests.

An international team of researchers from Sweden, the United Kingdom and Finland compared more than 1 million people in Sweden with a confirmed case of the virus between February 2020 and May 2021 to 4 million control patients who tested negative.

They found three to six months after contracting COVID-19, patients were at increased risk of being diagnosed with blood clots in their legs or lungs, according to results published in the journal BMJ on Wednesday.

Specifically, patients had a 4% raised risk of deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot that forms deep in the thigh or the lower leg, up to three months after a COVID-19 infection.

Patients also had a 17% heightened risk of developing a pulmonary embolism, a clot that develops in a blood vessel and travels to a lung artery, up to six months after having the virus.

The team said its results add to a growing body of evidence about the link between COVID-19 and serious blood clots, while adding new information about how long the risk might last.

“The present findings have major policy implications,” the authors wrote, adding that the report “strengthens the importance of vaccination against COVID-19.”

They also said the findings suggest that COVID-19 patients — “especially high-risk patients” — should take anticoagulation medicine, which are medications to help prevent these clots.

During the course of the study period, the team saw 401 cases of DVT among the COVID-19 patients, compared to 267 cases among the negative patients.

Meanwhile, there were 1,761 cases of PE among virus patients in comparison with 171 cases among the control patients.

COVID-19 patients were at higher risk of blood clots if they had underlying conditions, had a severe case of the virus or if they were infected during the first wave of the pandemic in early 2020.

However, there wasn’t just a risk of blood clots. The study also found an increased risk of any kind of bleeding up to two months after a COVID-19 infection.

The team noted there were limitations, including that the study was observational rather than a randomized controlled trial.

Additionally, the researchers recognized that clotting in COVID-19 patients may be underdiagnosed and information about patients’ vaccination status was not available.

Despite the risk of blood clots following COVID-19 infections being well-documented, it’s unknown what biological mechanisms are at play. However, there are theories.

One study from Michigan Medicine and the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute suggested “rogue” antibodies from a COVID-19 infection cause blood cells to lose their anti-clotting properties.

Another study from Yale School of Medicine suggested specific proteins are produced by endothelial cells — cells that line blood vessels — due to inflammation from the virus and lead to blood clots.

“It remains to be established whether SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of venous thromboembolism or bleeding more than it does for respiratory infections, such as influenza, but also whether the period of [anticoagulation medicine] after COVID-19 should be extended,” the authors wrote.

Dr. Raffaele Macri contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(BOULDER, Colo.) — Last September, Ryan Christoff found his then 16-year-old daughter barely breathing in their home near Boulder, Colorado.

Little did he know at the time, but his daughter was suffering from an overdose. She had taken a half of a Percocet pill given to her by her then boyfriend not knowing that it was laced with Fentanyl – a synthetic opioid used to treat severe pain and is up to 50 times more powerful than heroin.

“I’m bored in my room,” said Sofia Christoff, who said she had found some “powder” substance. “I crushed it up, took a line. Felt kind of sparkly for two seconds and then I woke up in the hospital.”

Ryan Christoff said he had known that his daughter “smoked a little weed” occasionally, but had no idea that the sophomore had actually been secretly experimenting with a long list of drugs.

“Cocaine, Xanax, Ketamine once. Acid, Shrooms, Adderall,” said Sofia Christoff. “So just pills. Just like everything I could get my hands on.”

During that year, she was suspended from school and her grades fell.

“I felt stupid that I should have known,” said Ryan Christoff. “I just didn’t think she was doing that.”

Sergeant David Cohen of the Lafayette Colorado Police Department was in the vicinity when the frantic 9-1-1 call came in from Sofia Christoff’s father.

Cohen arrived on the scene in minutes as the 9-1-1 dispatcher and started chest compressions. He quickly administered Narcan to an unconscious and barely breating Sofia Christofff. Within seconds, she began gasping for air, according to Cohen. She was taken to the hospital, but was released only hours later.

Cohen said he used his training and experience to recognize the situation.

“I mean, I don’t know if it ever became clear to me until I administered Narcan, and it worked,” said Cohen, who said he also noticed “miscellaneous drug paraphernalia” in the bedroom.

On that day, Sofia Christoff survived. Others who have experienced Fentanyl-linked drug overdoses have not been as lucky.

“I get daily reports of suspected individuals who have passed away as a result of Fentanyl overdoses,” said Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen.

Pazen said bringing awareness to the issue is key.

“Folks think that this might be something else that they’re ingesting. So bringing awareness to this issue that that pill may not be Percocet. That pill may not be Xanax. That that pill may contain Fentanyl and potentially could be deadly is critical.”

Deaths linked to synthetic opioids like Fentanyl have nearly doubled over the past two years, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Additional CDC data revealed that of the more than 100,000 people who died from drug overdoses in a 12 month period ending in October 2021, nearly two-thirds of those deaths are linked to synthetic opioids like Fentanyl.

Fentanyl is cheap to produce and extremely potent, so it is sometimes mixed into other illicit drugs heroin, meth and cocaine and other pain pills like Percocet, Xanax, Vicodin and Oxycontin and can create a lethal combination, according to Pazen.

“It’s so cheap, it’s so easy to move, it’s so addictive for the end user,” Pazen said. “We are going to need everybody coming together as a country, as a state, federal, state, local law enforcement.”

In March, Colorado’s House of Representatives introduced a bill to enact stiffer criminal penalties on those involved with the sale and distribution of Fentanyl.

For Sofia Christoff, she said that buying drugs is as easy as sending the right emoji to a “plug,” a drug dealer who often finds customers on apps like Snapchat.

“I’m looking for a little plug emoji or like a fire emoji or you’re just whatever emoji the normal dealers have,” said Christoff.

“If you know where to go, it’s really easy,” she added.

The use of emojis to connect with drug dealers is not unique to Colorado, but now so common across the country that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency released a cheat sheet for parents and guardians to raise awareness of the emojis commonly used to buy drugs on social media.

“I cannot emphasize enough how deadly this drug is to human life, especially to unsuspecting youth in our community,” said Tatum King, a Homeland Security investigator. “These pills are widely available and often sold for dollars apiece on social media.”

On April 1, Snapchat issued a statement that detailed their efforts to flush out drug-related content and announced steps to curb illegal activity, saying they have “zero tolerance” for the promotion of illegal drugs on its platform.

Sofia Christoff said she carries the weight of her near-death experience everyday.

“’I’m the one that came back like, why me? So I’m just trying to have the mindset that I’m here, and I was a lucky one, and I gotta make it worth it,” said Christoff.

Sofia Christoff is now enjoying her junior year of high school and said she’s looking forward to being back on the field with her softball team next season. Her father is now on a mission to educate other teens and parents on the dangers of drug use and carries Narcan wherever he goes.

“I would want people to see that it can happen to even someone like Sofia, to even their daughter, to even their son,” he said. “Even [to] people you think you know it is the least likely to happen to, it can happen.”

Last month, Ryan Christoff and his now 17-year-old daughter visited the Lafayette Police Department to meet Sergeant David Cohen again, six months after his quick actions saved a life. After both giving him giant hugs of gratitude, Ryan Christoff gave the officer a framed picture of his daughter saying, “that’s her celebrating her birthday which she was only able to experience because of you.”

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(NEW YORK) — Tennis superstar Serena Williams is describing in her own words the life-threatening complications she faced while giving birth to her daughter, and how she advocated to save her own life.

Williams, 40, gave birth to her daughter, Olympia, with husband Alexis Ohanian, in September 2017, in an emergency cesarean section.

In the new book Arrival Stories: Women Share Their Experiences of Becoming Mothers, a collection of essays helmed by Amy Schumer and Christy Turlington Burns, Williams writes, “Giving birth to my baby, it turned out, was a test for how loud and how often I would have to call out before I was finally heard.”

Williams writes in her essay, an adaptation of which was published by ELLE.com, that after her C-section, she underwent three surgeries due to complications that included an embolism, or clot, in one of her arteries, and a hematoma, a collection of blood, in her abdomen.

She describes in the essay what she remembers happening the day after she gave birth, when the complications began.

“In 2010, I learned I had blood clots in my lungs—clots that, had they not been caught in time, could have killed me. Ever since then, I’ve lived in fear of them returning. It wasn’t a one-off; I’m at high risk for blood clots. I asked a nurse, ‘When do I start my heparin drip? Shouldn’t I be on that now?,'” she wrote, referring to a drug that is delivered by IV and helps to prevent blood clots. “The response was, ‘Well, we don’t really know if that’s what you need to be on right now.’ No one was really listening to what I was saying.”

“The logic for not starting the blood thinners was that it could cause my C-section wound to bleed, which is true. Still, I felt it was important and kept pressing,” she wrote. “All the while, I was in excruciating pain. I couldn’t move at all—not my legs, not my back, nothing.”

Williams said at times she felt like she was dying, but she insisted to a nurse that she get on a heparin drip and have a CAT scan done on her lungs.

“Finally, the nurse called my doctor, and she listened to me and insisted we check. I fought hard, and I ended up getting the CAT scan. I’m so grateful to her,” said Williams. “Lo and behold, I had a blood clot in my lungs, and they needed to insert a filter into my veins to break up the clot before it reached my heart.”

The discoveries from the CAT scan led Williams to undergo her third and fourth surgeries. One week later, she was discharged from the hospital and able to go home with Olympia.

Williams writes that she believes it was because she was “heard and appropriately treated” that her life was saved.

“In the U.S., Black women are nearly three times more likely to die during or after childbirth than their white counterparts. Many of these deaths are considered by experts to be preventable,” she writes. “Being heard and appropriately treated was the difference between life or death for me; I know those statistics would be different if the medical establishment listened to every Black woman’s experience.”

The United States has the highest rate of maternal mortality among developed nations, data shows, with a growing and disproportionate impact on women of color.

Black women are more likely than white, Asian or Latina women to die from pregnancy-related complications regardless of their education level or their income, data shows.

One reason for the disparity is that more Black women of childbearing age have chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, which increases the risk of pregnancy-related complications like preeclampsia and possibly the need for emergency C-sections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But there are socioeconomic circumstances and structural inequities that put Black women at greater risk for those chronic conditions. And Black women often have inadequate access to care throughout pregnancy, which can further complicate their conditions, according to a 2013 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

In December, when the Biden administration issued a “nationwide call to action” on the maternal health crisis in the U.S., Vice President Kamala Harris called the “systemic inequities” that affect pregnant people of color a “matter of life and death.”

“Regardless of income level, regardless of education level, Black women, Native women, women who live in rural areas, are more likely to die or be left scared or scarred from an experience that should be safe and should be a joyful one,” said Harris. “And we know a primary reason why this is true — systemic inequities, those differences in how people are treated based on who they are, and they create significant disparities in our health care system.”

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(NEW YORK) — April is Autism Acceptance Month, a time to embrace the differences of people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a developmental disability that impacts roughly one in 44 children in the United States, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For Eric Garcia, a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and the author of the book We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation, it’s also a time to remember that people with autism are “everywhere.”

“Autistic people work in every sector,” he told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “They’re doctors and lawyers and waitresses. They’re car mechanics. They’re journalists. They’re everywhere.”

Fashion designers Tommy and Dee Hilfiger said three of their seven children have been diagnosed with ASD.

The couple said they first noticed signs of autism in their kids early on.

“Our son was counting steps at one-and-a-half years old and at 2, he stopped counting, stopped speaking. He was babbling quite a bit and then just stopped,” Tommy Hilfiger said Tuesday on GMA. “So we had him tested and obviously, it was a bit of a shock. But once you get over the shock, you then plan to do something about it.”

The designer said he and his wife sought out expert advice for each of their children, who have exhibited different symptoms.

He added that one of his top tips for parents is to know the signs of autism in order to be able to recognize them in your child and get help early on.

“Early intervention is really the key,” said Tommy Hilfiger. “If you sense that your child is off in any way … if they’re not responding or if they seem like they’re in their own world, you should get them tested, and the earlier you get them tested, the sooner you can intervene.”

In addition to seeking out expert advice, the Hilfigers say building a support system within the autism community has really helped them as parents.

“I think it’s really crucial that you talk to pediatricians,” said Dee Hilfiger. “And once the child is diagnosed, I think the most helpful thing for us and for other parents is to seek out other parents.”

“When you receive that diagnosis, it can be quite devastating but I think seeking out the support of friends made a big, big difference for us,” she added.

What to know about autism

People with autism have a wide variety of traits affecting communication, behavior and socialization, according to the CDC. The “spectrum” in autism spectrum disorder means that there’s a wide range of symptoms and severity.

A child of any race, socioeconomic status or ethnic group can get ASD. Boys though are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls, based on a study of children aged 8 years old. Kids that have a sibling with autism, and especially a twin, are more likely to have autism. Those with developmental disabilities or genetic and chromosomal diseases such as Down syndrome are also more likely to have ASD. There is also evidence that kids born to older parents have an increased risk of autism, according to several studies.

Garcia points out that autism “manifests itself in very different ways” in each person with the condition.

For Garcia, he experiences “stimming,” which involves making repetitive movements or sounds, a calming tactic for when one feels overwhelmed. Garcia said for him that can mean playing with his tie and taking his class ring on and off.

“A lot of times I can just completely be overwhelmed and almost want to have a meltdown, like to the point where it’s difficult for me to communicate or speak,” he said. “And that’s just my way to deal with all the sounds that we’re having all around here.”

Autism can be identified as early as infancy, although most children are diagnosed after the age of 2. There is no medical test to diagnose autism, so doctors watch a child’s behavior and development to make a diagnosis, according to the CDC.

“Someone might have the communication delay, but may not have the motor skill delay,” said Dr. Jen Clark, a New York-based clinical psychologist and specialist in autism. “They may experience sounds and lights in a very different way than you and I would and sometimes they can experience a sensory overload and they may wear headphones and this will help to make the noise not as severe, but also they may avoid certain situations where it’s just too overwhelming.”

The CDC notes that in some cases, people are not diagnosed with autism until they are teens or adults.

Experts say though that early detection of ASD is key, as is early intervention.

“When a child is young, the brain is capable of change,” said Clark, also the director of COAST Club, which offers therapy and social groups for children, teens and young adults with autism.

Early signs of autism in children may include, but are not limited to, little or no smiling and limited eye contact by 6 months; little to no babbling, pointing or response to their name by 12 months; and few or no meaningful two-word phrases by 24 months, according to the CDC.

Clark added that children may exhibit additional signs such as flapping of the hands, spinning, twirling and walking on their toes. She also says lining up toys, instead of playing with them in the way they’re intended to be played with, may also be a sign.

“If you do see these behaviors in your child, these are behaviors that are associated with ASD and important to mention to your pediatrician,” she said.

Treatment comes in many different forms, from mental health therapy to occupational, physical and speech therapies. Sometimes medications can be helpful for things related to ASD, like mood problems or inability to focus.

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