(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is launching a new effort with The Rockefeller Foundation to encourage schools to set up surveillance COVID testing for students and staff, ABC News has learned.
The effort, which will be led by the Education Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comes seven months after President Joe Biden pledged $10 billion for testing by schools.
The idea is that school districts around the country, particularly elementary schools with large populations of unvaccinated children, would routinely test kids, teachers and other staff for COVID-19 to prevent the spread of the virus.
But some states have rejected their share of the $10 billion in federal funds for COVID-19 testing in schools while others have been painfully slow in actually implementing virus mitigation plans.
A survey of the nation’s 100 largest school districts from the Center on Reinventing Public Education found that less than 15% of those schools are utilizing federal funding dollars to establish COVID-19 in-school screening programs.
Meanwhile, pediatric COVID cases increased this summer with many school districts reporting mass quarantines at the beginning of the school year.
(NEW YORK) — ABC News’ Amy Robach was diagnosed with breast cancer eight years ago, on Oct. 30, 2013.
Following a live mammogram on “Good Morning America” to kick of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Robach, then 40, received a phone call several weeks later, on Oct. 30, telling her she had stage 2 invasive breast cancer.
“It can make me emotional literally thinking about it right now,” Robach said of that phone call. “When I first got diagnosed, it’s just a whirlwind of so many decisions … and it all happens so quickly.”
Very soon after her diagnosis, Robach underwent a double mastectomy, followed by eight rounds of chemotherapy and then breast reconstruction surgery.
She also began to take a daily medication, tamoxifen, that she will continue to take for three more years. The drug, which helps lower the risk of cancer recurrence, can induce symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes, night sweats and menstrual changes, according to the American Cancer Society.
Robach described the treatments she underwent as grueling, and the process of fighting cancer as a long and dark tunnel, one that included mental and physical changes including short-term memory loss and the loss of her hair.
What surprised Robach even more in her cancer journey was what happened once she finished treatment and was declared a cancer survivor.
“You think you’re going to celebrate,” said Robach. “But you’re so sick still. You’re so weak still. All of those chemicals are still in your body.”
Robach said she struggled emotionally and physically as she adjusted from fighting breast cancer to surviving it, noting, “Cancer never leaves you.”
“Once you’re finished with the treatments and the surgeries, there’s a fear that steps in,” she said. “You don’t even have time to really think about it when you’re fighting. When you stop actually fighting with treatments, you then think, ‘Oh no, what’s next? What happens now?'”
Those are questions likely asked by millions of people who have battled breast cancer, the second-most common cancer among women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But while people and organizations rally around those undergoing breast cancer treatment, it can still be taboo to talk about breast cancer in general, and the struggles that survivors of breast cancer can face in the weeks, months and years after treatment.
“I’ve had so many conversations where if I mention cancer or talk about being a breast cancer survivor, or thriver, people immediately get uncomfortable,” said Robach. “It’s something that nobody necessarily wants to talk about it, and some people feel really uncomfortable knowing what to say next about it.”
Following treatment, Robach and other breast cancer survivors face bodies that can be dramatically different than pre-cancer.
“When you’re fighting for your life, it sounds silly to think about vanity, but it is a part of the cancer journey,” said Robach, who experienced hair loss, changes in her skin tone and scars and the loss of her breasts from her double mastectomy. “Looking at your body, and not recognizing it is a really frightening thing, actually, because it happens so suddenly, and even with reconstruction, things are not the same, they never will be.”
Physically, after finishing chemotherapy, Robach said it took at least one year for her to rebuild her strength, noting that in the aftermath of treatment, “You just feel weak, and you feel scared and you are dealing with all of the aftermath of chemo for months and months and months.”
Mentally, it would take another year for her to feel like she could regain control of her life.
“I would say it took me a full two years before I felt like, ‘OK, how am I going to live my life? What am I going to do with my life?'” she said. “The truth is, I was scared to even plan for a future, to even plan for the next year or five years or 10 years. I felt like it was maybe jinxing my health, jinxing my remission.”
Robach said what has helped her navigate the unknowns of her breast cancer journey has been finding someone she can talk about it with honestly, someone who has walked the same path before.
In Robach’s case, that person has been “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts, also a breast cancer survivor, whom Robach called a “beacon of light.”
“I remember when I finished treatment, she told me this, ‘Be careful. We all want to celebrate the end of chemo. We all want to celebrate the end of surgery, but you should prepare yourself for the next phase of cancer,'” Robach recalled. “When you’re in remission, sure you’re grateful, yes, you’re excited, but there’s a fear. … You always have the threat of recurrence.”
Like many breast cancer survivors, Robach gets blood work done twice each year to check if any cancer has returned in her body, a reminder, she says, that cancer is “something that you live with for the rest of your life.”
“I have a tough time, every time,” she said, noting the days leading up to the test can be filled with “depression” and “fear.”
But the biannual tests have also, in more recent years, become what Robach calls her “biannual reminder to live, and to live out loud.”
In Robach’s case, that has meant climbing mountains, traveling the globe, running marathons, feeling gratitude every day and fighting to become the healthiest version of herself in the years since her diagnosis.
“It makes me feel so joyful to know that I am challenging myself physically, and believing in my body again, trusting in my body, again, investing in my body again, and really doing everything in my power to make sure that if this thing comes back, or even if it’s living in me now, I am in fight mode,” said Robach. “At 48 years old, I’m significantly more healthy than I was in my 20s and 30s.”
“Cancer gave me a reason to be the best version of myself, and that’s what I’ve done,” she said. “You realize that fear can either cripple you or it can motivate you, and it had been crippling me. And I decided to change it, and let that fear be motivating.”
Robach said that after not wanting to do the mammogram on-air eight years ago because she did not want people talking about her breasts, she is now incredibly proud and grateful that she shared her breast cancer battle publicly.
“I would just encourage everyone to tell your story because it does save lives, it does impact lives and it frees you,” she said. “I find talking about it makes it a little bit less painful because you’re releasing it and you can have a shared experience with someone else because there are so many of us out there who’ve been through it. We’re all brothers and sisters in this fight.”
(NEW YORK) — Some 911 call centers across the country say they are experiencing staffing shortages.
Some centers are struggling with as much as 30% to 50% vacancies, according to reports from the International Academies of Emergency Dispatch.
“We have actually been experiencing much higher staffing shortages throughout the pandemic,” April Heinze, operations director at the National Emergency Number Association, told “Good Morning America.” “It’s actually really starting to kind of take a head.”
For Ashley Bagwell, the mom of 6-year-old Hadlee, experienced the effects of those staffing shortages when she couldn’t get through to 911 earlier this month when Hadlee was having a seizure.
“I was terrified,” said Bagwell, whose oldest daughter also ran to the neighbors to try 911 but they also couldn’t get through. “I remember just screaming, I just said, ‘What do I do? I need them to talk me through what to do.’ It was the scariest moment of my entire life.”
In Lexington County, South Carolina, where Bagwell lives, officials say they are facing challenges when it comes to staffing shortages. Calls like Bagwell’s were not answered “due to a large volume of 911 calls received within a 15-minute period, which overload call takers,” according to officials.
But county officials say dispatchers called back the initial caller within three minutes and there was no answer. And “several other calls were made finally connecting with a caller” 10 minutes after the first call.
Other parts of the country that are seeing staffing shortages include Alabama, where there are 88 dispatcher jobs open across 10 agencies, and Chesapeake, Virginia, where a 911 call center is struggling to hire dispatchers.
“We’re about 30% short of overall staffing,” said 911 coordinator Lt. James Garrett of Chesapeake, who told “GMA” that there are delays in getting to 911 callers. “We’ve seen a drop in our ability to answer 911 calls and within 10 seconds and within 30 seconds, which is some of our standard, we’re not able to be as fast as we were because I don’t have enough and available people to answer those phones.”
Officials say COVID is playing a role in the staffing shortage, but so is burnout and low salaries.
To attract more people to apply for these open dispatcher roles, some states are working on or have passed legislation reclassifying 911 dispatchers as first responders so they can get better benefits. A similar bill is currently in Congress.
In the meantime, as call centers try to keep up with the large volume of 911 calls, dispatchers are urging the public to be patient. They’re also advising folks not to hang up if they don’t get to a dispatcher on the phone right away, otherwise, it will move them back to the end of the queue.
“I just hope no one ever has to experience the terror of this,” Bagwell said. “I just don’t want anyone to have to go through the stress of 911 not answering when your child is unresponsive.”
(NEW YORK) — With Halloween just days away, kids across the country are gearing up for candy and fun, while many parents are wondering how to keep their kids safe amid the coronavirus pandemic, especially while kids younger than 12 wait to be eligible for a vaccine.
The good news for families is this Halloween can be celebrated with more ease than last year, according to the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a CNN interview earlier this month that kids can “go out there and enjoy Halloween,” an approach he attributed to the fact that more and more people are now vaccinated against COVID-19 and that most Halloween activities, including trick-or-treating, are held outdoors.
“It’s a good time to reflect on why it’s important to get vaccinated,” he said, urging unvaccinated adults and teens to get shots before Halloween. “But go out there and enjoy Halloween.”
“This is a time that children love,” Fauci added. “It’s a very important part of the year for children.”
Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, is the father of two young children. He said he also plans to have a more “normal” Halloween with his kids this year, complete with outdoor trick-or-treating.
“It’s safe to say that trick-or-treating is an activity that all kids can partake in,” said Brownstein, who is also an ABC News contributor. “Kids can feel quite excited by the fact that I think they will have a generally normal Halloween compared to last year.”
Here are four questions answered by Brownstein about how to have a safe Halloween this year.
1. Does my child need to wear a mask while trick-or-treating this year?
In most cases, no, according to Brownstein.
“Every parent has to make their own sort of risk calculation, but given where we are in this pandemic, I think, generally, mask wearing outside is probably unnecessary,” he said, noting that data from nearly two years of the pandemic show that outdoor activities are “generally safe,” even for children who are not yet vaccinated.
“Of course, every family should make decisions that are right for them and the underlying risks of their kids and household members,” Brownstein added. “And luckily, Halloween costumes can make mask-wearing less stigmatizing.”
2. Are indoor Halloween events safe for my kids to attend?
While Brownstein is planning to trick-or-treat outdoors with his kids, he said they are planning to wait another year before attending big, indoor Halloween events.
“The bigger questions that come into play around indoor activities may involve unvaccinated people,” he said. “That’s where masking and good ventilation may be more appropriate.”
Brownstein added that people who do choose to attend indoor Halloween events this year should make sure people at the event are vaccinated if they are eligible. He also suggests relying on additional layers of protection like social distancing and COVID-19 testing, in addition to masking and good ventilation.
3. Should my family use rapid tests? Are they reliable?
Brownstein said that in addition to vaccination, another major difference between this Halloween and last is that rapid tests are now widely available for use and are particularly smart for indoor events.
“Because rapid tests are becoming more and more pervasive, we should all be using them as a tool to limit the risk to unvaccinated people or the risk of breakthrough infections,” said Brownstein. “Within a short time frame of an event, taking a rapid test, while not 100% foolproof, will give some good reassurance that you’re not putting other people at risk by joining an indoor event.”
“I have a bunch on hand at home, ready to use as needed, so I think those are incredibly effective,” he said.
4. Does a ‘normal’ Halloween mean we’ll also have a ‘normal’ Thanksgiving and Christmas?
Brownstein said he is hopeful that more and more families and friends will be able to spend the holidays safely together this year, but stressed the importance of maintaining good public health practices to keep everyone safe, especially since the upcoming holidays typically involve more travel and time spent indoors.
“While this holiday means that we can gather more seamlessly and in a slightly more normal way, there are small things that we can all do to try to limit transmission,” he said, citing masking as a critical tool. “Transmission takes place through droplets and aerosols so whatever we can do to limit transmission will ultimately have a direct impact on whether we see a surge post-holiday.”
He added, “As we know, those surges can lead to even more significant public health measures that we’re all trying to avoid, so the small things we do during the holiday can mean even a more enjoyable life post-holiday.”
(NEW YORK) — Children 5 to 11 may be able to start getting vaccines as early as Wednesday, marking a major milestone in the ongoing fight against COVID-19 in the United States.
An advisory panel with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is scheduled to meet Nov. 2 and vote on whether to recommend the Pfizer vaccine for the approximately 28 million U.S. children aged 5 to 11.
It will then be up to CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky to make the final decision, one she’s expected to make quickly.
That potentially quick turnaround has left many parents scrambling to answer vaccine-related questions about how it could affect their kids.
The nation’s top health experts though have said that getting more kids vaccinated will be key to managing the pandemic in the U.S.
“If we can create a situation where more of these kids are not getting infected, we should be able to drive this pandemic down, which is what we really hope to do, even as we face the cold [weather] and other concerns about whether we might see another surge,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said Tuesday on Good Morning America. “We don’t want that, and this would be one significant step forward in getting our country really in a better place.”
GMA spoke with leading pediatricians from across the country, and here are some of their answers to five questions about vaccines for children 5 to 11.
1. Why does a child need a COVID vaccine?
Getting kids vaccinated against COVID-19 helps protect them against serious illness, according to Dr. Mark Kline, physician-in-chief at Children’s Hospital New Orleans.
“The idea that children don’t get very sick from COVID was a myth,” he said. “The delta variant that hit us so hard over the summer really disabused us of that myth once and for all.”
Over 1 million children were diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past six weeks, adding to the total of more than 6 million children who have tested positive since start of the pandemic, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
While it’s true kids often have more mild cases of COVID-19, they can still get “very sick” from the virus, according to Dr. Mobeen Rathore, division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Florida College of Medicine.
“Many children, as we saw this last surge, do get very sick,” he said. “They do get in the hospital, they do get into the ICU, and they can be on a breathing machine — and, unfortunately, they can die.”
More than 700 children and teens under 18 have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic, according to the CDC.
2. How do we know a vaccine is safe for kids under 12?
Pfizer has conducted clinical trials with its COVID-19 vaccine on kids ages 5 to 11 since last year, and the company’s most recent data shows that it was nearly 91% effective against symptomatic illness.
The vaccine also appeared safe. None of the children in the clinical trials experienced a rare heart inflammation side effect known as myocarditis, which has been associated with the mRNA vaccines in very rare cases, mostly among young men.
“We learned a lot from the vaccination of 12-to-18-year-olds, especially about rare side effects like myocarditis,” said Dr. Andrew Nowalk, a clinical specialist in pediatric infectious diseases at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “The vaccine trials that were done in the 5-to-11-year-olds looked at a range of doses, including the higher dose that we used in the adolescents and adults and then lower doses, and the lower dose was found to be very effective with fewer side effects and that’s what the vaccine is being based on.”
“I think this is a tribute to our dedication to vaccine safety throughout all of these trials,” he said.
3. Is the vaccine dose for kids different than for adults
For kids, the Pfizer vaccine will be smaller, one-third of the adolescent and adult dose.
Like adults and adolescents, kids ages 5 to 11 will be fully vaccinated after two shots. Their vaccine is proposed to be given in two 10-microgram doses administered 21 days apart.
The smaller doses will allow kids to develop a strong immunity while minimizing possible side effects, according to Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatric hospitalist at University of California, San Francisco.
“The thought there is, this will actually give those young robust immune systems enough information to tank up those antibody levels,” he said. “But also at a smaller dose, it’s going to reduce the chances of immune reactogenicity. It’s going to make it a safer vaccine.”
When it comes to dosing, differing immune systems among people of different ages help explain why the cutoffs for vaccine eligibility rest on age and not body size.
“You don’t need to worry that your 11-year-old is going to be under-dosed if they get the the smaller pediatric dose,” said Dr. Allison Bartlett, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital. “Conversely, we’ve had plenty of small 12 and 13 and 75-year-old people get the full adult dose and are doing just fine.”
In addition to the COVID-19 vaccine, other immunizations are also scheduled and administered based on age and not weight. This is partially due to the fact that the body’s immune responses to vaccinations and infection are known to be different based on age.
4. Will the vaccine affect kids’ development?
“There’s no evidence that this vaccine has any effect on the development,” said Rathore. “There’s also no biologically plausible reason that it would affect the development of your child, and the reason for that it is a protein that, once it does its job in the body, it goes away.”
There is also currently no clinical evidence to suggest any of the COVID-19 vaccines can have long-term effects on puberty or fertility.
Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use mRNA technology, which doesn’t enter the nucleus of the cells and doesn’t alter human DNA. Instead, it provides a genetic “instruction manual” that prompts cells to create proteins that look like the outside of the virus — a way for the body to learn and develop defenses against infection.
5. Why should I get my child vaccinated now?
The pediatricians GMA spoke with collectively agreed it is important for parents to get their child ages 5 to 11 vaccinated as soon as they are eligible in order to help protect their child’s health, and to help protect the health of others.
“I would say that the most important reason not to wait is kids are dying from COVID right now in the United States,” said Nowalk. “We’ve actually had more pediatric deaths in the last couple of months than at any other time during this epidemic.”
Kline, of Children’s Hospital New Orleans, said he hopes his grandchildren will be among the first in line for a vaccine once eligible.
“I don’t see any virtue in waiting and putting children further at risk for preventable illness or even death,” Kline added. “The advice that I’m giving to parents that I counsel in the clinic, and the advice that I have given to my own daughters about my grandchildren is, the moment those vaccines are available at the pharmacy or at the pediatricians office, they should avail themselves of the opportunity to get the vaccine.”
If parents have questions and concerns, they should talk with their health care provider, advised Dr. Robert Frenck, lead investigator of the pediatric COVID-19 vaccine trials at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
“What every parent is trying to do is to protect their child and to make sure their child is healthy and happy,” said Frenck. “And while doing something new or different can be scary, we have a lot of information around the COVID-19 vaccines that we have a good safety profile.”
Parents should reach out to health care providers and ask questions to make sure they’re comfortable, Frenck added.
“I hope that you’ll find that the right decision is to vaccinate your children,” he said, “because this is really what we need to get things back to normal.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court has a real opportunity this year to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion a federally protected right, or otherwise lessen the right to abortion.
The court will be hearing a case out of Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, that asks the justices to directly reconsider the landmark precedent in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which many court watchers believe is closer to a possibility than ever with the current makeup of the court.
Should the court decide to overturn Roe, the right to abortion in the United States would be decided on a state-by-state basis. In that case, 26 states are “certain or likely” to ban abortion, according to a new report published Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights research organization.
The domino effect of that in the extreme, according to Guttmacher’s report, would be that a person in Louisiana, where abortion would be banned, would have to drive 666 miles, one-way, on average to reach a provider. That’s a 1,720% increase from an average Louisianan’s current distance from a provider, which is 37 miles.
“Increases in driving distances would pose hurdles for many people,” Dr. Herminia Palacio, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, said in a statement. “However, research shows that some groups of people are disproportionately affected by abortion restrictions — including those with low incomes, people of color, young people, LGBTQ individuals and people in many rural communities.”
Twenty-one states already have laws on the books that would immediately ban abortion if Roe were overturned. This comes in the form of laws that predate Roe but were never removed from the books, so-called “trigger” laws that would go into effect in the event of the precedent being overturned, state constitutional amendments, and six- or eight-week bans that are not currently in effect but would ban nearly all abortions.
Five states in addition to those 21 are likely to ban abortion should Roe be overturned, the Guttmacher report says.
Those 26 states likely to ban abortion encompass a majority of the central United States, with the exception of Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. States on both coasts — excluding South Carolina, Georgia and Florida — are likely to keep abortion legal if Roe is overturned, according to the data. Guttmacher’s full report, including its data set and an interactive map, is available here.
However, that doesn’t mean people seeking abortions in states likely to keep the procedure legal would be unaffected. The Guttmacher report highlights that many of those states would become go-to destinations for people in states where abortion is banned. So a person seeking an abortion in Kansas could face a longer wait for an appointment because Kansas would be the nearest location for people from Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and other states to get an abortion.
This is already the case for people in Texas, where a near-total ban on abortion was allowed to go into effect in September. Since then, Texans have already traveled hundreds of miles to other states to obtain the procedure, as ABC News has documented. The Supreme Court is hearing a challenge to that law, focusing more on its enforcement mechanism than the right to abortion, next week.
The Supreme Court also does not need to fully remove protections to the right to abortion to have an impact. They could instead decide to weaken the stipulations of Roe, such as by limiting for how long into a pregnancy the right to abortion is protected.
The precedents of 1973’s Roe and 1992’s Casey encoded “the constitutionally protected liberty of the woman to decide to have an abortion before the fetus attains viability and to obtain it without undo interference from the State.”
“Viability” means a fetus can survive outside of a uterus, and that typically happens around 24 to 28 weeks. The Mississippi case the court is hearing in December is about a ban on abortion after 15 weeks. That is before viability, but after, say, the first trimester of a pregnancy.
The Guttmacher Institute report includes the impact if the right to abortion were still protected, but only up to 15 or 20 weeks.
According to the CDC’s latest data, 92.2% of abortions were performed at or before 13 weeks, and only 1% were at or after 21 weeks.
(NEW YORK) — The summer surge of COVID-19, fueled by the delta variant, raised alarm bells among scientists and citizens alike that unlike prior variants of the virus, this one was different.
Those fears solidified in July, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported an outbreak in Provincetown, Massachusetts, among mostly vaccinated people. This early data hinted, alarmingly, that the delta variant could be equally likely to spread among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated.
Prior to the emergence of the delta variant, the risk of spreading the virus while vaccinated appeared to be so low the CDC said it was safe for vaccinated people to ditch their masks. But CDC Director Rochelle Walensky described the Provincetown findings as “concerning,” and she promptly reversed the agency’s mask guidelines for vaccinated people, prompting renewed fear and uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines against variants.
“I think the people who are really concerned are parents with children under 12 who are concerned that even if they’re vaccinated, they could have a breakthrough infection and transmit it to their unvaccinated children,” said Dr. Anna Durbin, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “I get that.”
But reassuringly, experts told ABC News, new studies show those fears may have been overblown.
“Data are coming out that it’s the opposite,” said Dr. Paul Goepfert, an infectious disease physician and director of the Alabama Vaccine Research Clinic.
The CDC’s Provincetown study relied on something called viral load — the amount of virus in a person’s body. Researchers found that viral load levels were the same in vaccinated and unvaccinated people, prompting speculation the virus transmits just as readily among a vaccinated person. But viral loads change over time.
“The problem with the Provincetown study is they just looked at one early point in time,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“That’s just the first time point,” Goepfert said. “If you keep following them, they’re much less infectious more rapidly.”
Experts said there’s no doubt the delta variant is among the most hyper-transmissible versions of the virus to have emerged. That hyper-transmissibility makes it possible to spread between vaccinated people. But that risk is still low. Even if the delta variant is transmissible among vaccinated people, new data suggests “it’s for a shorter period of time” compared to the unvaccinated, said Durbin.
In late July, researchers following patients in Singapore who had breakthrough infections with the delta variant after vaccinations with mRNA vaccines — such as Pfizer and Moderna — showed this exact decrease in infectivity. The study compared viral load counts during the first few weeks of each breakthrough infection. The delta variant caused the same peak viral load in all infected individuals — a sign of active infection and risk of infectious spreading — but the vaccinated group cleared the infection faster.
Research by a separate group found similar results with the AstraZeneca vaccine, which is authorized in many countries outside the United States. In that study, researchers found that being vaccinated also appeared to shorten the time of breakthrough infection by the delta variant, according to an abstract presented at the Infectious Disease Society of America’s conference in early October.
Both studies have yet to be peer reviewed, but vaccine experts said they offer reassuring evidence that being vaccinated still dramatically reduces the risk of spreading the virus to a friend or loved one — even the highly-transmissible delta variant.
As families prepare for the 2021 holiday season, those who are vaccinated can rest assured that there’s increasing evidence that being vaccinated remains the best defense against the spread of infection, especially in the event of an unlikely breakthrough case.
(NEW YORK) — Young people everywhere are giving themselves lip filler using DIY methods seen on TikTok, and medical professionals want it to stop.
The popularity of lip filler has been on the rise for years, much thanks to celebrities like Kylie Jenner, who constantly promote the plump lip look. But because the beauty trend has become so common and the procedure so accessible, many people seem to have forgotten that it is, in fact, still a medical procedure that must be taken seriously.
“The omnipresence of medically-enhanced and Instagram filter-enhanced lips and other body parts on social media has led to a false perception that the procedures are easy to perform and carry no risk at all,” said Dr. Dmitry Schwarzburg, M.D., of New York City-based clinic Skinly Aesthetics.
Over the past two years, as people — possibly bored in quarantine during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — spent more time on TikTok and Instagram, interest in and conversation around DIY filler and Botox treatments spiked. The hyaluron pen, for example, which can be purchased on Amazon or Etsy, has become one of the most popular tools to self-administer filler, thanks to social media. TikTok even has a #hyaluronpen hashtag where one can find over 65 million videos of people using or speaking about the pen.
Though at first glance, the tool does seem to work, Schwarzburg said it can cause life-threatening issues, or at the very least long-term damage to the lips. Unlike many other cosmetic procedures, it is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
“The hyaluron pen device essentially forces hyaluronic acid into the lips through the skin with very intense pressure,” he said. “This results in severe bruising, uneven distribution, lumping, and can cause severe and permanent tissue damage and potential for tissue infarction, secondary to obstruction of the blood vessels.”
He added that dermal filler, if desired, should only be applied with a needle, by a trained medical professional, using an approved substance.
Schwarzburg said he believes TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are responsible for the recent popularity of the hyaluron pen, and that unfortunately, many millennial and Gen Z users have bought into it, as they believe it means they can get their cosmetic procedure done at home, without a doctor, for a much lower price. At a reputable clinic, lip filler can cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, whereas a hyaluron pen goes for as little as $40 through an online vendor — a fact that matters greatly to many, especially those who’ve lost financial stability during the pandemic and are looking to take the cheaper route when it comes to their cosmetic procedures.
But medical professionals are advising people not to take a more dangerous, though inexpensive, route when it comes to fillers.
Stephanie Magana, 26, visited Skinly Aesthetics to get her lip filler dissolved after a different clinic used the hyaluron pen on her and left her with what she described as “white bumps all over my lips.”
She said she found the clinic on Instagram, and though “some of the results didn’t look so bad,” but as soon as the aesthetician administered the filler through the pen, she said she saw her lips swell up, bruise and develop strange bumps.
The clinic she went to did not answer ABC News’ request for comment.
“You don’t really think about it as being as scary, because it’s a pen,” she said, explaining that she chose to try out the pen because she initially thought it was safer and less invasive than a syringe.
After more than a week, with the bumps still not gone, Magana went to Schwarzburg, who dissolved the existing filler and injected her with FDA-approved Juvederm, to give her her desired results.
Schwarzburg said Magana is just one of many patients who’ve come to him this year with “botched filler” caused by unexperienced injectors.
What exactly is filler, and is it safe?
Fillers are often biodegradable substances that can be injected into or just below the skin. Hyaluronic acid — which is what most lip fillers are made up of — is a polysaccharide that is naturally produced by the body, and the filler works because when injected into the lip, it absorbs water from the body, “like a dry sponge thrown into water, which then creates volume and focal sterile inflammation,” Schwarzburg said.
Juvederm Ultra, Juvederm Voluma, Restylane Lyft and Revanesse tend to give more volume to the injected area, according to Schwarzburg, while Juvederm Volbella, Restylane Kysse, RHA fillers and Belotero are more subtle in their volume creation. These types of FDA-approved fillers are all often used by trained professionals to achieve volume in the lips and face.
“If injected properly, they essentially have a 100% safety profile,” Schwarzburg said, adding that some people can develop an allergy to the product, but that is rare and true of any injectable. Correctly administered fillers tend to last 6-15 months.
“As far as the technical aspect is concerned, the most dreaded complication is vascular occlusion, if the filler is inadvertently injected into one of the smaller branches of the facial artery, which if left unnoticed would lead to tissue necrosis, scarring and deformation,” Schwarzburg said, that’s why it’s so important that if a person is looking to get lip filler, they go to a trained expert who understands the human anatomy and the depths of the injections.
The qualifications of who can inject a patient with lip filler vary by country and by state, but in New York, doctors, physician assistants and nurses under the supervision of a doctor can legally administer it, Schwarzburg said.
Earlier this month, the FDA issued a warning about the use of the hyaluron pens.
“Today, the FDA is warning the public and health care professionals not to use needle-free devices such as hyaluron pens for injection of hyaluronic acid or other lip and facial fillers, collectively and commonly referred to as dermal fillers or fillers,” their statement, published on their website, reads. “Patients and healthcare providers should know that FDA has not approved any dermal fillers for over-the-counter sale for at-home use or for use with needle-free injection devices. These unapproved needle-free devices and fillers are often sold directly to customers online, bypassing consultation with a licensed health care provider, a critical safety measure for patients to make informed decisions about their personal health.”
It also said it is monitoring online platforms promoting these devices.
“We also want patients and providers to be vigilant by understanding which products have been approved by the FDA and the dangers of using unapproved products, some of which may be irreversible,” they said. “The FDA will continue to alert the public and take additional actions as necessary in order to protect public health.”
How to put a stop to this trend
Schwarzburg said that while he and other medical professionals are glad millennials are helping destigmatize safe cosmetic medicine by opening up about their experiences and procedures on social media, that openness has unfortunately also helped spread misinformation about the field as a whole, and essentially caused this potentially risky DIY filler trend.
The solution? Do your research, read the FDA guidelines, don’t take the cheap route when it comes to altering your appearance and don’t fall for the fake doctors who make these kinds of procedures appear safer and easier than an actual medical procedure, Schwarzburg said.
“I don’t think that this trend will last very long, as eventually people will come to realize that the whole thing is a dangerous scam, similar to the suction lip enhancements or suction butt enhancements that were trendy a few years ago, that are now joked about on the internet due to the ridiculous results that people were getting,” he added.
(NEW YORK) — Imagine being a mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and months later you find out your daughter was diagnosed as well. This is the reality two mother-daughter duos faced over the last year.
Sonia Jeffers and her daughter, Mysean Powell, from Savannah, Georgia, and Diana Serano and her daughter, Miriam Fajardo, from Miami, opened up on “The View” Wednesday about the unexpected journey of battling breast cancer side by side.
Dr. Elizabeth Comen, a breast oncologist from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, also joined to shed light on their situation.
“For a mother and a daughter to be diagnosed at the same time is not so common,” Comen said. “What is relatively common is for a woman who’s been diagnosed with breast cancer to have a first-degree relative, such as a mother or a sister or a daughter, who’ve been diagnosed.”
She went on to say that “between 10% to 20% of women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer do have a first-degree relative who’s had breast cancer,” and that “about 5% to 10% of those women will have inherited a known genetic mutation.”
Jeffers, a 53-year-old veteran with two daughters, went to her routine mammogram in 2020 and later received a letter saying she needed to come back to the office. After another series of tests, her doctor called to inform her that she tested positive for breast cancer.
“I just screamed at the to top my lungs, ‘No, no, no, not me,'” she said on “The View.” To make matters worse, she lost the job the same day as her diagnosis, which put a “big financial strain” on her and the family.
Because Jeffers’ diagnosis carried the BRCA2 gene, Powell and her sister had an increased risk of developing breast cancer.
With her mom pushing her to get tested, Powell went and ultimately found out that she had breast cancer. “It was scary because at 32, you don’t hear about us getting breast cancer, so I just broke down,” she said.
“To find out that my child had it, I had to make sure that she makes it through it whether I make it through it or not,” Jeffers said.
“To have someone who’s there to understand everything you’re going through — the hurt, the pain, the tiredness — it was definitely a blessing,” Powell said.
Powell began chemotherapy in October 2020. She told “The View” that young women should examine themselves monthly to check for abnormalities because “who know[s] your body better than you?”
After getting treatment, Jeffers was considered cancer-free on Oct. 19, 2020, and rang a bell to signal the end of her treatment. Nearly a year later, on Oct. 14, Jeffers’ doctor told her the breast cancer returned and metastasized to her stomach.
Her doctors now say her cancer is stage 4 terminal.
Despite the news, Jeffers’ message to those going through metastatic breast cancer is don’t give up. “Just because I have a prognosis of terminal cancer don’t mean that you have to give up on life and give into the prognosis. Fight to continue to live even though it’s terminal,” she said.
Serano is a 60-year-old mother and grandmother who also went for her routine mammogram in 2020 and everything checked out healthy. Nine months later, she felt a lump in her breast and was diagnosed with breast cancer.
“Hearing that my results were positive was a really scary feeling,” Serano said. “I was thinking about my children, my grandchildren, my mother.”
Her daughter, Fajardo, was with her when she was diagnosed. “It was very emotional, but at the same time, I was very optimistic,” she said. During her mother’s diagnosis, she also felt a lump in her breast and “decided to be an advocate” for herself and get a mammogram.
Serano knew that her daughter was at her doctor’s appointment and decided to give her a call. “When she answered the phone, all she said to me was, ‘I’m OK, mom, I’m OK.’ So right away I knew that it wasn’t OK,” she said.
Being that Fajardo is only 30 years old and her mother was diagnosed with the same type of breast cancer three months prior, she said the diagnosis came as a “huge shock” to her. “A positive mindset, it’s extremely important,” she said.
“My mother and I, we know and understand that we’re going to have bad days and that’s OK. That doesn’t mean you’re not strong,” she continued. “She lifts me and I lift her. We’re each other’s rock.”
“We lift each other,” Serano said. “On my bad day, Miriam lifts me. On Miriam’s bad day, I lift her.”
After six rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, Fajardo was considered cancer-free and rang the bell in celebration.
To help with the financial struggles these women have went through during their breast cancer treatments, woman-owned company and “The View” sponsor 84 Lumber gave $25,000 each to Jeffers, Powell, Serano and Fajardo.
“It will surely help,” Jeffers said in reaction to the surprise. “We’re truly grateful.”
(NEW YORK) — “I’m sorry, I think my veins are camera shy,” I joked to the nurse who was having trouble finding the right place on my hand for an IV.
I was surrounded by cameras and wearing nothing but a gown and some unflattering yellow socks that all patients are required to wear at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. The awkwardness of having several people in the hospital room and the discomfort of the bone marrow donation I was about to undergo was all voluntary and for a good reason: to give a stranger a second chance at life.
Three months prior to the procedure, the Be The Match Registry, a list of millions of prospective blood stem cell and bone marrow donors operated by the Minneapolis-based National Marrow Donor Program, informed me via email that I was a potential blood stem cell match for a patient. I had been on the registry for nearly a decade and this was the third time I was a possible match for a patient, but it would be the first time I actually got to donate.
Early on, I decided to approach this experience not just as a donor but also a reporter. I’m an immigration reporter and producer for ABC News, and learning as much as I could about the donation process kept the focus off my nervousness. I learned that as a Mexican male on the registry, I was part of an astonishing minority. Latinos are severely underrepresented when it comes to bone marrow donors. Of the 9 million U.S. registered donors on the Be The Match Registry, only 13% are Latino compared to 57% who identify as white.
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to tell a story about how ethnicity could play a crucial role in finding a donor, and I started thinking about who my transplant recipient would be. In order to maintain privacy, donors and recipients are kept anonymous until a year after the procedure when they have the opportunity to meet, if they both agree. To this day, I still don’t know the most basic things about my recipient. I often wonder what their name is and where they’re from. What I do know is that the patient was a young individual battling leukemia and that, as a Mexican male on the registry, I was helping to better the odds for people like them to survive a deadly disease.
Despite being sold on the idea of reporting about this experience, it was actually the death of a good friend that sealed the deal and made me go forward with the process.
I received that email from Be The Match Registry a few days after my friend and colleague, ABC News photojournalist Jim Sicile, passed away from cancer. Reeling from the death of such a lovable and caring person, I wanted to honor his legacy.
“What better way than by helping a stranger?” I asked myself.
Why ethnicity might play a role
Hispanics have a 48% chance of finding a donor on the Be The Match Registry. In other words, less than half of Hispanic patients are likely to find one. That probability is even lower for Asian or Pacific Islanders and Black or African American patients.
At the start of the vetting process, I was sent a buccal swab kit to collect cells from inside my cheek. Scientists analyze the human leukocyte antigens (HLA), which are proteins — or markers — found on the surface of most cells in the body and make up a person’s tissue type. HLA are an important part of the immune system, which uses these markers to recognize the cells that belong in the body and those that do not.
HLA tests is used to match tissues and DNA between the donor and the person receiving a bone marrow or cord blood transplant. Since these markers are inherited, patients have a higher likelihood of finding a donor that shares the same ethnic background. In some cases, donors from different backgrounds can also match.
“Your ancestors for generations and generations have gone through a lot, depending on which area of the world your ancestors are coming from,” Dr. Abeer Madbouly, principal bioinformatics scientist at the Be The Match Registry, told ABC News. “People who survive these conditions have a common agent.”
Stem cells, which are largely found in blood and bone marrow, that soft, spongy tissue in the center of certain bones, produce cells that help the body carry oxygen to organs and tissue, fight infections and stop bleeding. The majority of stem cell donations happen non-surgically through a process that collects the cells from the blood. In other cases, a patient must undergo a medical procedure under general anesthesia that harvests marrow from the hip bones.
Day of donation
I’m admittedly squeamish when it comes to needles — you couldn’t pay me to look at my arm when I’m getting a flu shot. So when I learned that my patient required a bone marrow donation, I became very nervous.
The Be The Match Registry provides a team of caseworkers to ensure that the donor’s needs are met. All expenses incurred as a result of the donation process are covered, including missed days of work. Each donor is also assigned a counselor, and mine helped calm my nerves as the date of the procedure drew near.
On the day of the donation, Dr. Wolfgang Rennert drew a picture of my pelvic bones and explained to me that a small incision would be made on each of my hips so that a thin needle could harvest the marrow.
The last thing I recall before the anesthesia worked its magic is looking around the hospital room. I thanked the doctors for their life-saving work and said a silent prayer for my recipient. It went something along the lines of: “I hope this helps you and you have a long life.”
I woke up about an hour and half later feeling some soreness in my hips. I was tired from the anesthesia but still managed to take a selfie video before falling asleep.
“I just woke up from the procedure,” I said in the video. “I’m very, very groggy but overall feeling pretty good. I’m happy, proud and hopeful for the recipient.”
I spent the night in the hospital. The next day, I interviewed Rennert about why minorities are underrepresented in bone marrow donations.
“The background of it is the sad truth that our health care system is unevenly distributed in its access to health services,” he said, “so that minority populations have less access not only as recipients but also as donors.”
Alfredo’s story
“I have a motorcycle,” Alfredo Diaz said as he tried to tickle me and climb on my shoulders. Before I could inquire further, he darted into his backyard and came riding back on a battery-powered “motorcycle.”
I had known the playful 9-year-old for less than an hour and we already had a secret handshake. Most importantly, we had a common goal for our meeting: to do an interview for ABC News at his home in Chicago and to help find him a bone marrow donor. It had been almost a month since I had donated to a different patient.
Alfredo suffers from a very rare genetic disorder called IL-10 receptor deficiency, and he is one of just 100 known cases in the United States. The illness causes severe inflammation in his gut and affects his organs, which means Alfredo’s body is unable to absorb nutrients the way healthy ones do. He has spent his life in and out of hospitals. He has an ostomy bag and eats through a feeding tube. Without a bone marrow donor, he is not expected to survive.
“We’ve been struggling since the first week he was born, and I don’t want to lose my son,” Alfredo’s mother, Natalia Torres, told ABC News. “I’ve been asking God to please help us find this matching donor for him.”
Natalia and her husband Reuben have been trying to raise awareness in the Hispanic community about the benefits of donating bone marrow. Of the 9 million U.S. registered donors on the Be The Match Registry, only 13% are Latino compared to 57% who identify as white. By building a wider network of willing donors, patients like Alfredo have a better chance at overcoming their illness.
“Our culture really isn’t educated on donating or being donors,” Alfredo’s father, Reuben Diaz, told ABC News.
My hope for my patient and Alfredo
Donating bone marrow has been the most fulfilling experience of my life. It’s also the most immersive story I’ve ever told.
I may not ever meet the recipient, but my wish for them is the same for Alfredo.
I hope one day you overcome your illness and get to witness the beauty this life has to offer. May you one day find fulfillment in an act of kindness or a silly handshake. Most importantly, may you be able to dream big and unafraid.
