Derek Crowe, a spokesman for the nonprofit People’s Action Institute, speaks with ABC News. (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Fury, anger and resentment toward the health care industry have exploded in the public rhetoric in the wake of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killing and one activist said that “volcanic” eruption of emotion has been boiling up for years.
People have been flooding social media posts with statements chastising UHC for its policies, bringing up times they were personally denied coverage or hit with huge bills for services.
In some instances, some users have even praised Thompson’s murder and the shooter, who is still on the lam and not been publicly identified as of Friday evening. UHC’s Facebook post memorializing Thompson was filled with “laughing” emojis and comments chastising the insurer before comments were shut off.
Derrick Crowe, a spokesman for the nonprofit People’s Action Institute, a social advocacy nonprofit that has protested UHC and other health care, told ABC News that he was horrified by Thompson’s shooting and offered his condolences to his loved ones.
However, he noted the anger online has been a long time coming.
“I think the reason that anger was pent up and it came out in such a volcanic way is that corporations have too much power in this country and they’re standing in the way of dealing with two big epidemics,” he told ABC News. “One is the epidemic of gun violence, which we saw an example of in Manhattan, and one is an epidemic of care denials across the country.”
Crowe said more than 250 million health claims are denied annually by health insurance companies. He claimed the UHC “by far leads the clear care denials of people’s claims when they’re seeking health care.”
He cited examples such as patients claiming they were denied coverage for a congenital defect or infant care.
“Many of the folks that we’ve talked to have had personal stories of needing acute health care quickly and have found that this company has been standing in their way,” he said.
When asked by ABC News about the increase in rhetoric against the healthcare industry following the shooting, a UHC spokesperson deferred to its latest statement about Thompson’s killing.
“While our hearts are broken, we have been touched by the huge outpouring of kindness and support in the hours since this horrific crime took place. So many patients, consumers, health care professionals, associations, government officials and other caring people have taken time out of their day to reach out. We are thankful, even as we grieve,” the statement said.
“Our priorities are, first and foremost, supporting Brian’s family; ensuring the safety of our employees; and working with law enforcement to bring the perpetrator to justice. We, at UnitedHealth Group, will continue to be there for those who depend upon us for their health care. We ask that everyone respect the family’s privacy as they mourn the loss of their husband, father, brother and friend,” the statement continued.
In the past, protests have been held against UHC in Minneapolis, where its headquarters are based, including one back in July.
Crowe said that his organization has led many movements to call out the insurance companies for their practices.
“The purpose of that action was to draw attention to the epidemic of claims, denials and care denials across the country, and to bring people who have had their health care directly affected by a care denial by this corporation to the place where the denial is coming from, and to demand that they stop putting profits over people’s lives,” he said.
Crowe reiterated that his group only supports non-violent and peaceful means of protesting the industry and condemned Thompson’s murder. However, he reiterated that the fight against greed in the health insurance industry needs to continue.
“We believe that in keeping with the principles behind the First Amendment, that there are democratic, powerful, nonviolent ways that we can take that private pain and turn it into public power when we bring people together. And we’re going to continue to do that. And we think that’s an essential part of making change in our democracy,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Raw samples nationwide will now be collected and shared with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in order to test for bird flu, according to a new federal order issued by the agency on Friday.
The new federal order by the USDA includes three new requirements. Raw milk samples must now be shared upon request by dairy farms, bulk milk transporters or dairy processing facilities.
Herd owners with cattle that test positive for bird flu have to provide information that allows health officials to perform contact tracing and disease surveillance. Private laboratories and state veterinarians must now report positive bird flu test results to the USDA.
The decision comes after bird flu virus was found in samples of raw milk from a California farm, which issued a recall of all of its raw milk products earlier this week. The farm was also placed under quarantine by state health officials.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
LW, who asked not to show her face, is a 16-year-old transgender teenager challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical treatments that have improved her quality of life. (ABC News)
(WASHINGTON) — Medical treatments for transgender children, endorsed by major American medical associations and safely used for decades, hang in the balance at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday as the Biden administration and three families with transgender teenagers ask the justices to strike down a state law banning some gender-affirming care for kids.
The landmark case — U.S. v. Skrmetti — comes from Tennessee, which is among 26 states that have moved to prohibit administration of puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapy to minors who seek to identify with, or live as, a gender identity inconsistent with his or her sex at birth.
Oral arguments mark the first time the nation’s highest court has openly considered a state law targeting transgender people. It is also the first time an openly transgender litigator, ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, will argue a case in the Supreme Court chamber.
The historic hearing thrusts the justices to the forefront of a cultural debate that has sharply divided the country and tested the limits of science and parental rights.
The outcome of the case could determine access to health care for hundreds of thousands of trans teens and more broadly influence how communities treat transgender people in hospitals, schools and on sports fields.
The government argues that Tennessee’s SB1, which was enacted in March 2023, violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause because it discriminates on the basis of sex to decide who can receive otherwise legal medical treatments available to youth.
“Put simply, an adolescent assigned female at birth cannot receive puberty blockers or testosterone to live as a male, but an adolescent assigned male at birth can,” the administration wrote in its brief to the court.
The Tennessee law expressly allows minors who are not transgender to receive gender-affirming treatments to address a “congenital defect, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury.”
Denying discrimination, the state argues its law is a reasonable regulation of medical treatment based on its purpose, meant to protect children from potential long-term health risks and possible irreversible changes to the body.
The law’s Republican sponsors claim that contradictory scientific evidence and documented regret among some young people who have transitioned both warrant caution in developing standards of care.
The law also cites a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty” and preventing them from becoming “disdainful of their sex.” The government says the text proves an intent to enforce gender conformity.
Hundreds of Tennessee transgender children were receiving treatments before SB1 was enacted, legislators concluded. It is not known how many suffered alleged harm.
The plaintiffs in the case include 16-year-old LW and her parents Brian and Samantha Williams of Nashville. After several years of successful hormone therapy, LW now has to travel out of state to continue treatments she says have dramatically improved her quality of life.
“I feel normal now,” LW said in an exclusive interview with ABC News last month.
“Our state legislature had made such a big deal out of parents rights during COVID, about masks and vaccines — that that’s for parents to decide these medical decisions for their children,” noted Samantha Williams. “And then, they made this medical decision for our child.”
Nationwide, an estimated 300,000 Americans ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Of those, nearly 100,000 live in states that have banned access to gender-affirming medical treatments for minors.
“It’s a case of enormous significance that presents fundamental questions about the scope of state power to regulate medical care for minors, of the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children… and the level of scrutiny that courts should apply to laws that discriminate against transgender people in general,” said Deepak Gutpa, a veteran Supreme Court litigator. “This is a major, major constitutional civil rights issue.”
More than 60% of Americans say they oppose law banning certain types of gender-affirming medical treatment for minors, according to Gallup.
Major American medical associations have endorsed the treatments for more than a decade as part of “individually tailored interventions” to support trans kids and affirm their sense of self. Not all transgender children seek medical care to facilitate transition to another sex.
“It needs to be part of a very deliberate process that involves medical specialists, who are expert at doing this, and, again, are following the science,” said Dr. Ben Hoffman, a pediatrician and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “It all begins and ends with science. This is not about any sort of agenda.”
Clinical practice guidelines from the American Endocrine Society, based on more than 260 research studies, recommend the use of puberty-delaying medications and waiting until a child reaches adulthood to consider gender-affirming surgery.
The American Academy of Pediatrics says the effects of puberty blockers are not permanent if treatment is discontinued. Many effects of hormone therapy can also be reversed. Long-term risks may include fertility challenges and possible harm to bone density, but the group says those risks require further study.
In contrast to the U.S. medical establishment, several European countries, including the United Kingdom, have reversed course on the use of gender-affirming treatments as a standard-of-care for transgender children, citing insufficient scientific evidence of long-term benefits.
“When you look at the totality of the medical research, to me there is more than enough uncertainty and evidence of bad outcomes for kids who’ve gone through these treatments when they reach the later stages in life,” said Tennessee Senate GOP Leader Jack Johnson.
A federal district court sided with the plaintiffs, temporarily halting enforcement of SB1, but the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed. The panel of judges concluded Tennessee had a rational basis for enacting the law.
“Kind of the whole ballgame in the case is the debate about whether there actually is discrimination on the basis of sex,” said Erin Murphy, a Supreme Court litigator and former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts.
“It’s really not,” Murphy argued. “To say providing testosterone to a biological boy and biological girl is the same thing because testosterone is involved — it’s a different treatment that has different risks.”
David Cole, former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the Williams family, says the court’s conservative majority will have to confront the legacy of its decision.
“I think there’s no question in 25 years that the court will have recognized that treating people differently because their gender identity is sex discrimination,” Cole said.
“The question is whether the court wants to write a decision will be overturned, you know, in the course of the next 10 years or 15 years,” he said, “or whether it wants to recognize what is going on, which is sex discrimination.”
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June 2025.
(NEW YORK) — A growing number of people under 50 are being diagnosed with more advanced stages of colon cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
The 2020 death of 43-year-old actor Chadwick Boseman due to colon cancer drew attention to the shift, and “Dawson’s Creek” star James Van Der Beek, 47, announced his Stage 3 colorectal cancer diagnosis in November.
A diagnosis at a younger age was also the case for Brooks Bell, a Raleigh, North Carolina, entrepreneur who ran a data analytics company. At 38, she was alarmed to discover blood after using the rest room.
She said she called a telehealth doctor, who told her it may be hemorrhoids. She decided to get second and third opinions, which led to a colonoscopy referral and diagnosis.
“I found out that it was Stage 3 colon cancer,” Bell told “GMA3.”
In a different case, Los Angeles stylist Sarah Beran’s doctors suspected a parasite could be causing her symptoms. Ultimately, she said a colonoscopy revealed the truth.
“They found over 100 polyps on my colon, a mass on my rectum,” the 34-year-old said. “And that’s when my world changed.”
She had to undergo a colon transplant and 12 rounds of chemotherapy.
Even though the pair lived on opposite sides of the U.S., their experiences brought them together after Bell shared her story online.
“I reached out and asked her how I could get involved and help, so that more people don’t have to go through what we went through,” Beran said. “And we teamed up.”
The duo dreamed up a fashion brand with a cause, Worldclass. The streetwear and athleisure line includes hoodies, crewneck sweatshirts, tees, hats and totes — all designed to break the stigma about colon cancer.
“All proceeds go towards a colonoscopy fund that helps underinsured communities get screened,” Beran said. “So literally saving lives through fashion.”
Convincing people to get screenings has a specific goal, Bell noted.
“With colon cancer, we should be talking about prevention, being able to avoid the entire cancer experience, period, rather than just talking about early detection,” she said.
A proactive approach to health can make a huge difference, according to Beran.
“A colonoscopy is way easier than going through chemo and the surgeries and all the icky stuff that we went through,” she said. “So we’re lucky that we did catch ours in time and that we did advocate for ourselves. And we got in there and got our colonoscopies. And now we’re here now telling our story.”
(NEW YORK) — The deadly E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders was declared over on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In total, 104 people reported falling ill across 14 states with about one-third of them being hospitalized, according to the CDC.
The true number of people who got sick was likely much higher because many people recover from E. coli without medical care and are never tested, the CDC noted.
Americans between ages 1 and 88 were affected in the outbreak, according to he CDC. Colorado had the greatest number of cases with at least 30 people falling ill. The state also reported one death.
An outbreak notice was first released by the CDC in late October. Evidence from health officials’ investigation at the time showed that slivered onions served on Quarter Pounders were a likely source of contamination.
Nearly all the people who fell ill and were interviewed by health officials reported eating at McDonald’s and the overwhelming majority remembered eating a menu item that contained the fresh, slivered onions, according to the CDC.
The fast food chain’s distributor of the onions, Taylor Farms, initiated a voluntary recall of the onions in late October. McDonald’s stopped using the ingredient and removed the Quarter Pounder entirely off the menu in a dozen states.
The latest reported illness was on Oct 21. All the confirmed cases occurred before the onions were recalled and the ingredient was taken off of the McDonald’s menu at some locations, according to health officials.
The fast-food chain is no longer serving the recalled onions and there “does not appear to be a continued food safety concern related to this outbreak,” the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday. The agency also noted that its investigation is now closed.
McDonald’s North America chief Impact officer Michael Gonda and chief supply chain officer Cesar Piña shared a message on Tuesday, saying the announcements from the CDC and FDA provide “certainty and validation” that the outbreak is over and the risk to the public has remained low since late October.
While the issue had been fully contained — and any contaminated product associated with this issue had been removed from our supply chain as of Oct. 22, 2024 — it can now be classified as “closed” and remediated,” the message read, in part.
Flu activity is increasing slightly among children while RSV activity is elevated in the southern, central and eastern U.S., according to data updated Monday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As of the week ending Nov. 23, the latest date for which data is available, 0.6% of emergency department visits were for flu and 0.4% were for RSV. While the overall percentages are low, they are higher than the percentages at the beginning of October, CDC data shows.
Meanwhile, about 5.6% of weekly tests are coming back positive for RSV and 2.5% are coming back positive for flu, according to CDC data.
Currently 14 states are experiencing moderate levels of overall respiratory illness: Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. The remaining states are seeing low levels.
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer for Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor, said the current season is trending similarly to pre-pandemic seasons.
“Compared to the pandemic years, we’re witnessing a return to more traditional seasonal patterns of respiratory illnesses,” he said. “During the pandemic, measures like masking and social distancing significantly reduced the spread of viruses like flu and RSV. Now, with those measures relaxed, the circulation of these viruses resembles pre-pandemic seasons.”
He added, “These are typical seasonal increases. Every cold and flu season is different in terms of start, end and severity but, like clockwork, we see a rise in respiratory viruses during the fall and winter months.”
Brownstein said it is unsurprising that young children are currently the most impacted by these respiratory viruses.
CDC data shows that children aged 4 and under accounted for 6.7% of emergency department visits for COVID-19, flu and RSV compared to 1.1% among those aged 65 and older during the week of Nov. 23. Children aged 4 and under also had the highest rate of hospitalizations over the same period.
“Managing capacity is going to be on the minds of every pediatric hospital for the next few months,” Brownstein said.
The CDC also noted that cases of so-called “walking pneumonia” among young children remain high. The illness is due to a respiratory tract infection caused by the bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae.
Brownstein said the best way for Americans to stay protected is to stay up-to-date with their vaccinations.
To prevent RSV, there are three vaccines approved for adults ages 60 and older as well as some adults between the ages 50 and 59 who are at higher risk. There is also a vaccine available for pregnant women between 32 weeks and 36 weeks of pregnancy.
For babies under eight months, there are two monoclonal antibody products available. Monoclonal antibodies are proteins manufactured in a lab that mimic the antibodies the body naturally creates when fighting an infection.
“Additionally, practicing good hygiene — like frequent hand washing, covering coughs and sneezes, and staying home when feeling unwell — can significantly reduce the spread of these viruses,” Brownstein said.
After more than two years of gender-affirming treatments, LW, the Tennessee teenager behind a landmark case at the U.S. Supreme Court, says, “I feel normal now.” (ABC News)
(NASHVILLE) — The transgender Tennessee teenager behind a historic hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court this week doesn’t want to show her face on television but is eager to speak about a case she says has the potential to make thousands of American kids feel “seen” for who they are.
“The court has definitely ruled in ways that would make me think that they don’t exactly value bodily autonomy, but I have heard that they’ve been a little bit better about trans cases than people would think,” said 16-year-old LW in an exclusive interview with ABC News alongside her parents Samantha and Brian Williams.
The court on Wednesday will hear the Williams family’s challenge to Tennessee’s 2023 ban on gender-affirming medical treatments for minors, including puberty-blocking medication and hormone therapies that have dramatically improved LW’s quality of life.
While the medications have been used safely to treat minors of all genders for years, they are now prohibited in Tennessee when used to treat trans kids struggling with gender dysphoria, the distress experienced when one’s gender assigned at birth is different from one’s sense of identity.
“It’s not very comfortable being trapped in [your body] because it just doesn’t feel like you,” said LW, who reports significant improvement since beginning the treatments in 2022.
Since the state law took effect, LW now has to take time away from school to make a 10-hour round trip out of state to continue receiving care. The travel has also been a costly and time-consuming burden, her parents say.
“It would definitely be horrible for me to have to continue to go out of state to get care,” said LW. “I feel normal now.”
Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Biden administration, and major American medical associations, the Williamses sued Tennessee last year alleging the ban on certain gender-affirming treatments for minors discriminates on the basis of sex and overrides the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children.
“Our state legislature had made such a big deal out of parents’ rights during COVID, about masks and vaccines that that’s for parents to decide these medical decisions for their children,” Samantha Williams said. “And then they made this medical decision for our child.”
State lawmakers who support the law, SB1, say it is meant to protect kids from potentially irreversible effects from treatment and that contradictory scientific evidence and uncertainty about long-term adverse consequences warrant caution.
“We made the policy decision on behalf of our constituents that in Tennessee we think this is a risky procedure,” said state Sen. Jack Johnson, the Senate GOP leader who sponsored the bill. “It is our role as policymakers here in the state of Tennessee to set those guardrails.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics says the effects of puberty blockers are not permanent if treatment is discontinued and that many effects of hormone therapy can also be reversed. Long-term risks may include fertility challenges and possible harm to bone density, but the Academy says those risks require further study.
Worldwide, several countries which had previously embraced the treatments for transgender children have subsequently reversed course, citing unclear data about their purported benefits and alleged harms. In many of those places, the treatments remain available, but on a much more limited basis.
In Tennessee, there are an estimated 3,000 transgender teenagers between ages 13 and 17, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School, which has analyzed Census data. It is not known how many were receiving treatments that are now outlawed or how many suffered alleged harm.
A study published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics in October 2024 found the overwhelming majority of participants in a long-term survey of 220 transgender youths reported high levels of satisfaction and low levels of regret in the three to five years after receiving puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
Major American medical associations have for more than a decade endorsed the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy as part of “individually tailored interventions” to support trans kids and affirm their sense of self.
“It all begins and ends with science. This is not about any sort of agenda,” said Dr. Ben Hoffman, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, in an interview with ABC.
Clinical practice guidelines from the American Endocrine Society — based on more than 260 research studies — recommend consideration of medications to treat gender dysphoria in young people but waiting until a child reaches adulthood to consider gender-affirming surgery.
“It’s crucial that there be a deep understanding of both the risks and benefits, and truly informed consent,” Hoffman said. “And for that reason, it is, by definition, going to take months or years.”
The Williams family said the decision to use medication to delay LW’s puberty followed months of careful consultation with medical experts and mental health providers. They said they grew worried that masculine changes to LW’s body would compound her gender dysphoria.
“There is this time clock sitting here,” said Brian Williams. “The kids can go through puberty and it can have permanent effects on them. So these two things you’re trying to balance at the same time.”
“She’s not suicidal, but she shouldn’t have to be suicidal, right?, to get the care that she needs,” added Samantha Williams. “When that really hit me, I was like, ‘OK, let’s do blockers. Let’s get moving.'”
More than a year later, LW began receiving hormone therapy to better align her body with her gender identity. The course of treatment led to a reduction in discomfort.
“That was incredibly helpful,” LW said. “I feel amazing after that. You know, maybe it’s just because the gender dysphoria was so bad.”
The outcome of the case U.S. v. Skrmetti could have a sweeping impact on health care for the more than 300,000 American teens who identify as transgender, as well as the broader LGBTQ community.
“This is one of the most significant LGBTQ cases to ever reach the Supreme Court. I think this is an inflection point,” said Chase Strangio, the ACLU attorney representing the Williams family. He will be the first openly transgender person to argue a case before the nation’s highest court.
“Is this going to be a Bowers v. Hardwick type moment that sets off years of government legitimized discrimination against LGBTQ people? Or, is this going to be a Bostock moment that clarifies what we all have been assuming all this time, which is that LGBTQ people are protected under the Constitution and civil rights laws,” Strangio said.
In its 1968 decision in Bowers, the court upheld state laws criminalizing private same-sex conduct; it was overturned in 2003. The Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County found that employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal.
Twenty-six states have laws banning gender-affirming treatments for minors, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group.
“What concerns me as a physician is that legislators are going to be able to make decisions about a diagnosis, which is very unusual. I mean, that really hasn’t happened,” said Dr. Susan Lacy, a physician who specializes in hormone management and transgender care for teens and adults at her private practice in Memphis.
Lacy, who is also a party to the Supreme Court case, agrees with Tennessee lawmakers that more research is needed on gender-affirming treatments for minors, but that a debate over the data shouldn’t deny patients the chance to make an informed decision of their own.
“I think the most compelling thing is to listen to the patients,” Lacy said. “I have about 700 transgender patients out of about 3,000 total patients, and I have not seen anybody have a serious complication — not one.”
“I think we’re just at a point where we’re still in the process of treating people and having studies that will give us more and more data to support this treatment,” she said.
Johnson said he hopes the Supreme Court will uphold an appeals court ruling that affirmed Tennessee’s right to impose restrictions on treatments for transgender minors.
“States should be the laboratories of democracy,” he said. “We should be making the vast majority of decisions about what’s best for our people, our constituents here in the statehouse.”
The Williams family says care that has improved the life of their daughter should not be up for political debate.
“I want to listen to the doctors. I want to listen to my kid. I want to take care of her, you know?” Brian Williams said.
Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — With e-cigarettes and flavored vapes booming in popularity, the Supreme Court on Monday will examine whether the Food and Drug Administration unlawfully blocked the marketing and sale of more than a million new sweet and candy-flavored nicotine products in recent years.
The case comes as kid-friendly flavors, such as fruit, candy, mint, menthol and desserts, which are not approved by the FDA and are on the market illegally, have been fueling an explosion in retail sales of e-cigarettes.
While vaping among youth is declining, more than 1.6 million children use the products, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly 90% of them consume illicit flavored brands.
Two manufacturers of flavored nicotine-laced e-liquids such as “Jimmy the Juice Man Peachy Strawberry” and “Iced Pineapple Express” sued the FDA after their product applications were rejected, alleging regulators imposed unclear and unreasonable requirements to win approval.
Triton Distribution and Vapetasia acknowledged that their products may appeal to youth but insisted that a “growing body of scientific evidence” shows that “flavors are crucial to getting adult smokers to make the switch and stay away from combustible cigarettes.”
A federal appeals court sided with the companies last year, saying the agency had acted arbitrarily. If the Supreme Court upholds that ruling, it could clear the way for broader marketing and sale of flavored nicotine products.
Since 2009, when Congress passed legislation aimed at curbing tobacco use among young people, the government has almost universally denied tobacco company requests to sell flavored nicotine e-liquids, citing risks of addiction among minors.
Under federal law, companies must provide the FDA with reliable and robust evidence to show that the products would promote public health and that, on balance, the benefits to adult smokers would outweigh the risks of youth addiction.
The FDA has said the two companies in this case provided insufficient evidence that the benefits of their flavored e-products in helping tobacco smokers quit exceed the dangers of hooking children.
“If you ask adults who smoke if they were to switch to e-cigarettes what kind of flavors are they interested in, the majority of responses are tobacco flavor. If you ask kids, they like the fruit or candy flavor,” said Caroline Cecot, an administrative law expert at George Washington University Law School. “This was a big part of what the FDA was sort of thinking about. And we have this evidence.”
Nearly a quarter of high school students who use e-cigarettes consume illicit menthol-flavored varieties, according to the 2023 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
Josie Shapiro, the 2024 national youth ambassador for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids who testified before Congress on the dangers of nicotine addiction, said illicit flavored vapes hooked her at age 14.
“I think that by marketing any sort of flavored product as bubble gum or any of the genres of candy, it’s going to catch the eyes of children,” Shapiro said. “I’m still addicted, and I’m still trying to fight my addiction. Honestly, the FDA needs to regulate all flavored tobaccos to flavor ‘tobacco’ products and get them off the market.”
Public health experts have credited the FDA’s restrictions on flavored nicotine products with helping to drive down the number of teenagers who vape gradually from an “epidemic” level just five years ago.
The case, Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments, LLC, will be decided before the end of the Supreme Court’s term in June 2025.
(WASHINGTON) — Named to lead the nation’s sprawling Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has big ideas for busting public health policy norms.
His Senate confirmation hearings — should they happen — will come with lots of questions about what Kennedy’s ideas would look like in practice.
His new role would mean relinquishing his outsider critic status and working from within a massive government system, leading an agency of 80,000 employees and dealing with everything from drug approvals to food recalls to the pandemic response.
So, what happens when his motto “Make America Healthy Again” collides with one of Washington’s largest government bureaucracies?
“He seems very clear on what it is he wants to get done. I’m just not sure he has an understanding of what it will take to get that done,” said one former senior HHS official who worked in the Biden administration.
Vaccines
On vaccines, President-elect Donald Trump’s picks of Johns Hopkins University professor Marty Makary to lead the Food and Drug Administration, former GOP Rep. Dave Weldon to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as surgeon general certainly add to Kennedy’s ability to make changes — if they’re confirmed by the Senate.
Both Makary and Weldon have raised questions about vaccine side effects, although they’ve also at times been supportive overall of the role vaccines play in public health. Kennedy himself has falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism, which has been debunked by numerous studies.
In their new positions, Makary, Weldon and Kennedy would have the power to select the experts who sit on important FDA and CDC advisory panels. Those panels play a key role in vaccine recommendations and authorizations for the general public, ultimately creating public health guidance for years to come.
“I think massively, in large part, the health care community would continue to move forward on vaccines as they do now, as they are considered to be one of the massive successes of public health in the last 100 years. And I don’t think that would change,” said Tom Inglesby, a former senior adviser to HHS and the White House during COVID-19 during the Biden administration.
“But what could change is potentially the cost of vaccines, the access to vaccines, guidance around new vaccines that might come online, and also confusion around public messaging from the federal government about safety and effectiveness of vaccines,” Inglesby said.
Food and nutrition
When it comes to chemicals and the food Americans consume, it’s less clear how Kennedy could make changes at HHS, as opposed to the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Agriculture, which have more oversight of areas such as water fluoridation, which Kennedy opposes, or school lunches, which he says he wants to make healthier. He has said, however, that he would gut the entire nutrition department at the FDA.
Kennedy could also move around funding — he’s said he’d deprioritize infectious disease research in favor of chronic illness research, for example. As avian flu cases continue to rise — raising concerns about a new pandemic — public health experts and former government officials have pushed back strongly on that idea.
But he has also called for restrictions on food additives, dyes and ultra-processed foods, something he could have direct influence over through the FDA, which determines safe thresholds for the “Acceptable Daily Intake” on substances.
Kennedy has generally received a more cautious welcome from the public health community regarding his focus on healthy food.
“There are some things here that are worth working on. You know, if we’re looking at the school lunch program in America, 30 million children get more than half of their calories from that program. It would be a wonderful thing to make that the best school lunch program possible,” said Dr. Richard Besser, former CDC acting director.
But many public health experts are also wary of giving Kennedy credit, for fear it could lend credibility to other false information he promotes. He advocates drinking raw milk, for example, even though the pasteurization process kills off bacteria that can cause serious illness, including the fast-spreading avian flu.
“One of the dangerous things about RFK Jr. is that there are bits of things he says that are true, and they’re mixed in. And it makes it really hard to sort out what things you should follow because they’re based on fact, and which things are not,” Besser told ABC News, where he was former chief health and medical editor.
Experts also question Kennedy’s ability to counter powerful Washington lobbies — one of his stated main goals — in a Trump administration focused on working with big business on deregulating industries.
Abortion access
Another area where Kennedy could be out of line with the Trump administration is abortion access. Kennedy has said he supports legal abortion access until fetal viability (despite an earlier comment on the campaign trail that he later walked back about supporting a 15-week ban) and that such decisions should be up to women.
Many abortion rights advocates still expect the Trump administration to quickly move to rescind protections and halt legal fights the Biden administration initiated after the fall of Roe v. Wade — but are hopeful that Kennedy and the broader administration would not attempt sweeping bans.
“[Trump’s] obviously waffled on this and other issues a thousand times so I’m not going to trust every word he says, but I do think there’s the possibility that he and his administration has seen that actually, abortion access is very popular,” said Katie O’Connor, senior director of abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center.
“We have seen that over the past three elections, and there could be pushback if this administration does something to further restrict abortion access.”
There are certainly members of Trump’s orbit who would support broader restrictions on abortion, but Trump himself has said he would not sign a federal ban if Congress passed one.
Some of the policies O’Connor expects to see rolled back would include the Pentagon paying for service members who need to cross state lines to get an abortion because of where they were stationed, as well as expanded access to abortion pills through telemedicine.
As HHS secretary, Kennedy could undo these rules and also build on the first Trump administration’s efforts. He could expand protections for health care providers who don’t want to perform abortion procedures, allowing more providers to deny care, and make it more difficult for private insurers to cover abortion, leaving it more expensive for patients, O’Connor said.
Large-scale bans, were they executed, would focus on removing access to the medication abortion pill called mifepristone, either by attempting to take medication abortion off the market by way of the FDA approval process, or employing a very old law called the Comstock Act to prohibit the pills from being mailed.
“I do hold out hope that this administration doesn’t want to expand political capital on abortion,” O’Connor said.
(WASHINGTON) — President-elect Donald Trump is nominating a critic of COVID-19 lockdown policies to serve as the head of the National Institutes of Health.
In a statement, Trump said he has picked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to serve as NIH director to work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — whom Trump named as his pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services — to direct the nation’s medical research.
“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease,” Trump said in the statement. “Together, they will work hard to Make America Healthy Again!
Bhattacharya is a professor of health policy at Stanford University who gained notoriety for openly opposing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
In addition to a medical degree, he has a doctorate in economics.
Trump also nominated Jim O’Neil to serve as the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to “oversee all operations and improve Management, Transparency, and Accountability,” according to a statement.
