(NEW YORK) — Kate Korson was living out her dream of caring for rescue horses in Colorado and preparing to celebrate her 34th birthday when she said she received a surprising diagnosis.
Just one week shy of her birthday, Korson said she was diagnosed with stage 3, triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive and invasive form of the disease.
“How am I 34 with stage 3 breast cancer,” Korson told Good Morning America, describing her thoughts at the time of her diagnosis last January. “Why is this happening to me? How is this possible?”
Triple-negative breast cancer is one of the smallest categories of breast cancer groups, only accounting for about 10-15% of all breast cancers, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Triple-negative disease is a unique class of breast cancer because it lacks receptors that drug therapies can target for treatment, making it harder to treat than other types of breast cancers. With a diagnosis of stage 3 breast cancer, that meant the disease had spread beyond Korson’s breast to nearby lymph nodes or muscles.
Facing such a serious diagnosis, Korson said she chose to return to her home state of Pennsylvania to undergo treatment at the Penn Medicine Abramson Cancer Center. It is the same center where Korson said her mother was treated for colon cancer 17 years ago.
And just like her mom did in her own cancer battle, Korson told her doctors she wanted to participate in a clinical trial to give her the best shot of beating the disease and to also help other breast cancer patients.
“I want to help people in the future who are faced with this. I want things to be easier for them,” she said. “The benefits of a clinical trial are that you get the most cutting-edge treatment. You get the treatment that will be available in a few years, and for me, that was overwhelmingly successful.”
At the Penn Medicine Abramson Cancer Center, Korson enrolled in the I-SPY2 clinical trial, during which she received four infusions of a new type of therapy.
The treatment is faster and less toxic than the current standard of care for her type of cancer, according to Dr. Hayley Knollman, an oncologist who treated Korson.
“The standard of care for treatment of triple negative breast cancer would involve six months of intense chemotherapy, along with immunotherapy,” Knollman told GMA. “And with her participating in this clinical trial, we were able to treat her very effectively for this breast cancer in half of the time and spare her a lot of toxicity.”
In just a few months, Korson’s tumor shrank so substantially that doctors where able to stop the treatment early and send her to surgery to remove the rest of the tumor.
“She had a great response on pathology,” Dr. Lola Faynaju, the breast surgeon who treated Korson, told GMA. “When we finally got the results of her surgery back and looked at under the microscope, we were really excited to see that basically all that tumor was gone.”
After undergoing a successful surgery, Korson began radiation therapy, which she will continue to undergo for several weeks.
Then, she’ll take a chemotherapy pill to help keep the cancer from returning.
Although not every patient who undergoes clinical trials will have the same outcome, Korson said she hopes her story helps to both destigmatize clinical trials and raise awareness of breast cancer treatment opportunities.
Her doctors, Faynaju and Knollman, said they hope that Korson sharing her story will also raise awareness of breast cancer and remind women to prioritize their health.
“You actually can’t be too young to get breast cancer,” Faynaju said. “Listen to your body if you’re a woman, and also know if you’re high or average risk.”
In the United States, mammogram screenings are recommended once every two years for women age 50 to 74 years who have an average risk of breast cancer, according to U.S. Preventive Services Task Force guidelines.
Women ages 40 to 49 may choose to begin screening once every two years if they “place a higher value on the potential benefit than the potential harms” of the mammogram, according to the guidelines.
Knollman noted the prevalence of breast cancer, which is diagnosed in around 240,000 women each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It’s very likely that most people have someone in their life that they know, a friend, a colleague, a family member impacted by breast cancer,” she said. “It’s important for women to get to know their bodies and to raise any concerns with their doctors.”
For more information about breast cancer clinical trials at Penn Medicine, visit Pennmedicine.org/cancer.
(WASHINGTON) — For one military family, the consequences of a partial government shutdown would be dire: It could mean not affording treatments and medications for their child who is fighting for her life.
Austin Carrigg and her husband, Master Sgt. Joshua Carrigg, are parents of three — their youngest, 11-year-old Melanie, has Down syndrome, a congenital heart defect and a metabolic disorder. Melanie recently had a catastrophic stroke.
Carrigg spoke with ABC News Senior Congressional Correspondent Rachel Scott and said her family pays around $300 out of pocket for medication each month. With the government on the brink of a shutdown as soon as Sunday, she said she’s had sleepless nights worrying about how they’ll be able to afford medications that Melanie needs.
“That’s been the conversation — how will we be able to pay for the medications? Because they’re not a choice,” she said.
The Alexandria, Virginia, residents are one of many military families whose household budgets could take a hit in a government shutdown. As many as 4 million workers could lose pay as a result of a shutdown — about half of whom are military troops and personnel.
Congress is just days away from triggering a shutdown. They have until the end of the day on Saturday to reach a deal on funding. If they don’t, parts of the government will shut down and members of the military will likely have to work without a paycheck.
While the military would see back pay, that may not lessen the blow to many families living paycheck to paycheck.
Melanie sees a litany of specialists including ones for brain injury and spinal rehabilitation, four eye doctors and three urologists, Carrigg said. Concern about how they can give Melanie the care she needs has her family “stuck in this loop of worry and anxiety,” Carrigg said.
“The question has really become, what can we get rid of? Who can we borrow money from in order to do what we need to do in order to keep her alive?”
Carrigg said her husband has been in active duty for 21 years, and this looming government shutdown feels like a slap in the face to the many military families who support the country yet live paycheck to paycheck.
“We’re a pawn in a game,” she said. “If they supported us, they would make sure we knew where our next meal was coming from.”
Now Carrigg is pleading with Congress to act.
“They are literally playing games with our lives. We mean nothing to them … but they expect my husband to go fight their wars. That’s not fair.”
Scott asked Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., what he would say to military families like the Carriggs.
“First of all, they do get a paycheck — it’s back pay,” he said.
Other lawmakers have dismissed the impact of a shutdown.
“Most of what people will see is not a shutdown. What they will experience is the slowdown,” Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., told Scott.
Carrigg said she wants Congress to know there are “human lives on the line” and that her daughter is one of them.
“She’s amazing. She’s the bravest, strongest child you will ever meet,” Carrigg said. “If she’s willing to fight to stay alive … then, as the people who pay my husband to do his job, you have a responsibility to make sure her life is the best that it can be.”
(NEW YORK) — Amid the high cost and rising popularity of drugs used for weight loss like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy, pharmacists and medical doctors are warning consumers about some websites that sell discounted versions of the drugs.
When a consumer orders a drug online, they have no way of knowing what is in the medication, among other things, according to Dr. Konstantinos Spaniolas, director of the metabolic weight loss center at Stony Brook Medicine.
“Even if you assume that the medication is the correct substance, if this is not processed correctly and it’s not sterile, there are infectious concerns,” Spaniolas told ABC News’ Becky Worley. “People really have to be careful because this leap of faith of ordering something that you are self-injecting at home is a big problem.”
He added, “I personally, would not expose myself to that risk.”
Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy each require a prescription, and are not sold over the counter.
Ozempic and Mounjaro are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat Type 2 diabetes, but some doctors prescribe the medication “off-label” for weight loss, as is permissible by the FDA. Wegovy, which contains the same main ingredient as Ozempic, is FDA-approved for weight loss.
Insurance coverage for Ozempic and Wegovy varies, depending on everything from a person’s medical diagnosis to where they live and their insurance plan.
Without health insurance coverage, the medications can cost over $1,000 per month.
Because of the high demand and high price for the drugs, some websites have started offering the drugs to consumers online.
“There’s a huge percent of the population who is looking for these medications with limited access, whether … it’s from insurance or availability,” Spaniolas said. “Patients are trying to get the medications ordered online, but people have to be very careful.”
Dr. Al Carter, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, told ABC News that many of the websites selling drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro appear to be doing so illegally by operating without a license and by not requiring a prescription for the medications.
“There are around 30 to 35,000 pharmacies that are acting illegally,” Carter said. “Our Digital Health team finds, on any given day, around 20 pharmacies, new pharmacies that are operating illegally.”
Other unlicensed websites may promise a compounded version of a drug like Ozempic, which the FDA has warned against. Compound versions of drugs are made for individual patients using raw ingredients.
In June, the FDA warned consumers it had received reports of adverse events after people took semaglutide — the active ingredient in both Ozempic and Wegovy — that came from a compounding pharmacy. It did not specify the number of reports or what the adverse events were.
The FDA also said in the same warning that some compounding pharmacies claiming to sell semaglutide might instead be selling other formulations of the chemical, like semaglutide sodium and semaglutide acetate. Those haven’t been shown to be safe or effective, according to the FDA.
Also in June, Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical company that makes Ozempic and Wegovy, filed multiple lawsuits against certain medical spas, weight loss and wellness clinics, and compounding pharmacies for “the unlawful marketing and sales of non-FDA approved counterfeit and compounded semaglutide products claiming to contain semaglutide,” including allegations of false advertising, trademark infringement and unlawful sales of non FDA-approved compounded products.
Red flags for consumers
Justin Macy, who leads the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy’s Digital Health team, said one red flag for consumers to look for is websites that show photos of the drugs with unique United States-drug identification numbers, but then claim to ship out of Canada, which is illegal.
In other instances, websites posing as pharmacies may promote brand name versions of the drugs.
“The reason … that this looks so legitimate is because this is the actual Wegovy website,” Macy said of one example. “They totally just ripped off the manufacturer’s website.”
More red flags, according to both Carter and Macy, are websites that do not require a prescription in order to obtain the drugs, and websites that offer the drugs for well below the market price.
The FDA has resources on its website for consumers to use to determine whether an online pharmacy is safe, as well as a tool to search for state-licensed online pharmacies.
The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy also has a website, Safe.Pharmacy/a>, where consumers can verify online websites.
(NEW YORK) — Over-the-counter agents to treat upper respiratory symptoms like nasal congestion make up a multi-billion-dollar business. But recently, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee ruled that oral phenylephrine, commonly found in some over-the-counter, or OTC, products like Dayquil, Mucinex, and Sudafed PE, does not work as a decongestant.
The decision has left many consumers confused when searching for relief among all the available products on store shelves.
“It really is stressful for a lot of consumers,” board-certified pulmonary critical care and sleep medicine physician Dr. Raj Dasgupta, MD, chief medical advisor at Sleep Advisor, told ABC News.
The Food and Drug Administration said in a public statement that the product will stay on the market while they review the available evidence.
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which represents manufacturers of over-the-counter-drugs, called the decision “disappointing” and offered to work with the FDA on the matter.
“We encourage FDA, before making any regulatory determination, to be mindful of the totality of the evidence supporting this long-standing OTC ingredient, as well as the significantly negative unintended consequences associated with any potential change in oral PE’s regulatory status,” CHPA president and CEO Scott Melville said in the statement.
Dasgupta says that taking oral phenylephrine isn’t dangerous and some people may believe it works for them, so those products don’t necessarily need to be thrown out due to a safety concern, but better options may be available.
For consumers buying new products, ABC News spoke to two experts to provide four tips to help find the right solution for sinus and cold symptoms this season:
Read the label, be intentional about purchase
Dasgupta explained that many people don’t actually know what products they are buying and that many products contain different medications that each treat different symptoms.
“If you are going to the store to pick up over the counter medications, you have to ask the question, ‘Why? Why are you going there,'” Dasgupta said.
Cold symptoms may include nasal congestion, but people may also have muscle and body aches or a cough they want to treat and there are specific medications that target these other symptoms like acetaminophen, ibuprofen, or dextromethorphan.
Greg Castelli, Pharm.D., director of academic and clinical pharmacy in the department of family medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, says that sometimes less is more and recommends that people buying new products should consider only buying the one indicated for their symptom.
“When you’re walking down those aisles, you’ll see that there are products that have three and four medications in combination with each other. And you just may not need to have all those individual medications,” Castelli said.
Castelli says that oral pseudoephedrine can be found behind the pharmacy counter without a prescription and nasal sprays that contain phenylephrine are both effective agents for nasal congestion.
Certain medications that can be used to treat common cold symptoms such as diphenhydramine or Benadryl, a type of antihistamine, may also provide an added benefit of helping people fall asleep in addition to treating nasal inflammation, but should not be abused or overused.
Experts warn that all of these medications do have risks and side effects so people who have underlying medical problems should talk to their doctor about which one is right for them, or which ones should be avoided.
Some remedies don’t require medication to help
Experts say that rest, relaxation and hydration are undervalued when combating colds, but they do help.
“I think that when you’re feeling sick, it’s always a good time to re-address some of those sleep hygiene things,” Dasgupta said.
Dasgupta recommends putting technology away before bed and making sure the room is cool and dark where you sleep at night, and if congestion is a problem, sleeping with the head of the bed elevated or on pillows can help.
Soup is good for the soul and sinuses
Experts say steam can help the sinuses, which can come from a hot shower or even from some comfort foods like chicken-noodle soup.
“If you’re gonna smell something, why not some nice noodles and some chicken? … The steam going up your nose is gonna be wonderful,” Dasgupta said. “That’s one you could do like just really briefly like maybe in the morning or when you get home from work.”
Antibiotics are almost never the answer for the common cold
“We know that a lot almost 90% of these infections are caused by a virus and so antibiotics just aren’t what’s going to help you here,” Castelli said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says most colds are self-limiting viruses that do not require treatment.
“I cannot emphasize enough that we don’t take antibiotics for viruses,” Dasgupta said.
Dasgupta says there are circumstances when a cold-like illness does need to be treated with antibiotics if it’s due to a bacterial infection, but antibiotics should only be taken if prescribed by a healthcare provider.
Bonus: A little bit of honey can help a cough
Honey is one household product that can relieve cough symptoms and is safe for anyone above age 1, so this is a good option for some kids when cough suppressants aren’t recommended for them.
“Anyone over the age of one honey can be a really helpful effective way to help treat that cough,” ABC News medical correspondent Dr. Darien Sutton told Good Morning America.
Tim Sheehan/The Fresno Bee/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration this week relaunched the website where Americans can once again order free at-home COVID tests.
The website had been shut down since June but came back online just as updated COVID vaccines rolled out across the country.
Here’s how to order the tests and why you should not throw out old ones.
How to order free COVID test kits through USPS
Visit COVID.gov/tests and you will see instructions directing you to a website run by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to order a kit that comes with four tests.
You don’t have to pay for shipping. Just provide your name and address to place the order.
The Federal Trade Commission sent out an alert that government employees will never call, text or email Americans for information on receiving the tests. Credit card information, bank account information and Social Security number are not required to place an order.
If you live in a building or a multi-unit residence or with roommates, consider putting your apartment number ahead of your street address to avoid receiving an error message that the address has already been used.
How long will it take for the free COVID test kits to arrive?
Tests kits will take about one week from when the order was placed, but could take longer due to shipping delays.
If you would like an email confirmation and USPS delivery updates, you can enter your email address when placing the order.
Why not to throw out if they are past their expiration date
Some of the test boxes may arrive with an expiration date that has passed but the Food and Drug Administration warns against throwing them away.
Earlier in the pandemic, COVID tests kits were rolled out typically with a shelf life of about four to six months due to unknowns about how long they would be effective, experts said.
However, the FDA extended expiration dates based on additional data from manufacturers.
To check for an extended expiration date, visit the FDA webpage for at-home tests, which indicates the brands that have an extended date and provides a PDF for each test with new expiration dates.
You can find the lot number on the package, near the expiration date, and then check the PDF to see if it’s among those dates.
Where else can I get free COVID tests?
Since the public health emergency ended on May 11 of this year, access to free testing has dwindled. There are, however, still some avenues to access no-cost testing.
For those who are uninsured — as long as they are symptomatic or have been exposed to COVID — they can visit the CDC website, which lists sites for free testing at Increasing Community Access to Testing (ICATT) locations.
Free testing may also differ by geographic location. In New York City, for example, free testing is available at NYC Health + Hospitals locations and community care clinics. Free rapid tests are also available at public libraries.
(NEW YORK) — Brittany Tichenor remembers her daughter Isabella, whom she called Izzy, as the “sweetest person” she has ever met, someone who was resilient and amazing, a 10-year-old child whose eyes were “big and brown.”
Those memories of her daughter as a vibrant fifth-grader make it harder, she says, to reconcile that her daughter died by suicide nearly two years ago, on Nov. 6, 2021.
“I just didn’t know how bad it was,” Tichenor told “Good Morning America” of Izzy’s mental health struggles, which she said were a result of bullying. “I think she made a temporary decision in a moment of hurt, and I’ll never forget that.”
Tichenor said it was only after her daughter’s death that she heard from other kids at her daughter’s local public elementary school in their home state of Utah the full extent of the bullying she says Izzy endured.
“I knew part of it, and I kept calling the school. I kept calling the district. But I didn’t know the severity of it,” she said. “I told her, ‘You can tell me anything,’ and she normally did, but I kind of feel like she was trying to protect me. I just wish she had told me.”
Tichenor said on some days, Izzy, who she said was autistic and was one of the few Black students in her school, would open up to her about the taunts she said she endured from her classmates and even some of her teachers.
“I know one thing, she was just tired of the kids at school,” Tichenor said. “That’s what she kept telling me. She said, ‘They keep me making fun of the dot on my head.'”
Bullying in schools has been on the rise in recent years, according to a survey of over 130,000 kids ages 9 to 18 released in August by the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.
According to the survey, 40% of youth say they were bullied on school property in the past year — up from 37% in 2022 — while 18% of youth say they have experienced cyberbullying.
At the same time, data is also showing a growing mental health crisis among young people in the United States.
Approximately 5.8 million children in the U.S. had diagnosed anxiety between 2016 and 2019, and approximately 2.7 million kids had diagnosed depression in that same time period, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with recent years showing rising numbers of diagnoses for both mental health conditions.
In 2021, a report from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy warned of a growing mental health crisis among young people. The report, issued during the coronavirus pandemic, cited statistics including a 51% increase in emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts among girls and a doubling of anxiety and depression symptoms reported across genders.
That same year, suicide was the second leading cause of death for adolescents ages 10-14 and young adults ages 20-34 in the U.S., according to the CDC.
Tichenor said she was in the process of moving Izzy to a new school when her daughter died.
“I didn’t want the next school she went to, to go and get bullied there,” Tichenor said. “By the time I thought I found the perfect school, she had already took her life. I can’t help but blame myself because I wish I would have gotten to it sooner.”
In August, Tichenor and the school district Izzy attended, Davis School District, announced a $2 million settlement amid allegations that Izzy was bullied and that teachers and administrators had not stopped the reported harassment.
“Nobody knows the trauma of a parent who loses a kid,” Tichenor said of what she’s endured the past two years.
Correlation between bullying and suicide
When it comes to the connection between bullying and suicide, data shows there is a correlation, but experts say more research remains to be done.
The CDC defines bullying as “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school-aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance.” Bullying, the agency notes, is also a behavior that is repeated or can be repeated over time.
Both young people who report bullying others and those who report being bullied are at increased risk for suicide-related behavior, according to the CDC.
In recent years, the correlation between bullying and suicide has increased in the public eye as several families, including Tichenor, have spoken out publicly after losing a child to suicide.
In July, the parents of a 12-year-old girl who died by suicide after experiencing bullying reached a $9.1 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit against their local New Jersey school district, their lawyer said at the time.
In May, an elite boarding school, also in New Jersey, released a statement publicly admitting its failure to protect a 17-year-old student who died by suicide in 2022 after experiencing bullying.
That student’s mother, Elizabeth Reid, told “Good Morning America” at the time, “What we’ve realized from our situation is that [bullying] can lead to death. This is a very serious issue. And the internet absolutely makes it even much worse for kids today.”
In the nearly two years since Izzy’s death, Tichenor, a mom of five, has made it her mission to make sure no other parent endures the loss of a child due to bullying or suicide.
She launched a nonprofit organization, Izzy’s Village, that she described as a place for young people, particularly young people of color, to find support for bullying and mental health struggles.
Though she said she feels like a piece of her died when Izzy died, Tichenor said she continues to share her family’s story also as a way to help educate other parents.
“I want people to know her story because I want other parents to check their kids on bullying,” she said. “It’s not OK.”
Can an app help stop bullying and improve mental health?
In Utah, where Tichenor still lives, health officials are putting their hope into meeting kids where they already are — on their phones — to help them cope with mental health struggles.
SafeUT is an app where young people have access 24/7 to chat with a mental health professional and can submit a tip about mental health or bullying concerns regarding their peers.
The app was created by legislators, educators and public health officials in response to data showing that suicide is the leading cause of death for youth and young adults in Utah, according to Rachel Kay Lucynski, director of community crisis services with the Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah.
Lucynski said the app now serves more than 885,000 elementary, middle and high school, and college students across the state.
The app saw record usage last year, with more than 1 million messages recorded with mental health professionals and over 9,000 confidential tips submitted, according to Lucynski, who said the tips are triaged and responded to by behavioral health specialists as well.
The most commonly reported tip pertains to suicide, typically a young person reporting hearing a friend talk about hurting themselves. The second most commonly reported tip is general mental health concerns, followed by bullying, according to Lucynski.
“We know that students who even witness bullying, not just experience bullying, can be traumatized by that, and it can increase their level of mental health and behavioral health issues,” Lucynski said, adding, “It obviously can have catastrophic impacts on someone’s feelings of self worth, feelings of safety at school, and in really, unfortunately, extremely tragic situations can result in a student taking their own life or attempting to take their own life because of the bullying that they’re experiencing.”
Lucynski noted that parents and educators may also use the SafeUT app to report mental health concerns based on changes in kids’ behaviors.
“We also want to remind parents that if they’re seeing changes in their student’s behavior, if they’re seeing that they’re withdrawn, that they’re not as interested or engaged in social activities, or friends or extracurriculars like they used to be, or they have an extreme aversion to going to school … there could be something else going on,” she said. “So, we want parents to know that it’s important that they talk to their students at home about what they’re experiencing.”
After losing her own daughter, Tichenor is now working with SafeUT to help launch an anti-bullying campaign and a parent advisory council.
“I just want parents to know this is serious,” Tichenor said. “If as parents, we don’t intervene or step in, this kind of stuff will keep happening, and I don’t want it to happen to anybody else.”
Tichenor said that looking back on her own experience, she wishes she had followed her parental instinct and sought help sooner.
“If [children] tell you something, that they’re getting bullied, do what you need to do to protect them,” she said. “And make sure you’re there as a support 24/7.”
Tichenor said parents should also make an effort to know who their kids’ friends are at school, and to talk to their kids at home.
“Talk to them. Talk to them until they’re blue in the face,” Tichenor said. “Because whether your kid is doing the bullying, or they’re the one getting bullied, it needs to be talked about.”
Mental health experts say that when it comes to talking about mental health and even suicide with kids, more is better, noting that instead of putting the idea of suicide in a child’s mind by talking about it, you’re letting your child know that they can open up to you about their feelings.
SafeUT offers resources for parents on its website about ways to talk about mental health, suicide and bullying with kids, including a document with ideas for “conversation starters” on those topics.
Tichenor said that in addition to parents talking with their kids, the willingness of a parent like Tichenor who has lost a child to suicide to speak out and share her story is just as impactful.
“I think it’s very easy to read news stories or watch things online and think, ‘Gosh, that’s horrible, but it won’t happen to me,'” Lucynski said. “But we really all need to stay alert and vigilant as a community for those of us who are suffering and how we can be that hope and that light for someone in a dark moment.”
She added, “Not everyone who has experienced suicide loss is at a point in their grieving process where they’re able to talk about it, so the fact that Brittany is able to share what the impact has been on her and make people more aware of this issue is extremely important … and definitely has the potential to save lives.”
If you or someone you know are experiencing suicidal, substance use or other mental health crises please call or text 988. You will reach a trained crisis counselor for free, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can also go to 988lifeline.org.
(NEW YORK) — Nearly half of all adults in the United States plan to get the newly recommended COVID-19 vaccine, according to results from a survey released Wednesday.
The latest poll conducted by the KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor found that 23% of U.S. adults say they will “definitely” get the updated booster, 23% say they will “probably” get it, while 19% say they will “probably not” get it and 33% say they will “definitely not” get it.
The new shots from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which are formulated to target newer variants of COVID-19, are recommend for everyone 6 months and older, but the survey found that the majority of U.S. parents say they aren’t planning to get it for their children.
Consistent with prior trends as earlier vaccines were being rolled out during the COVID-19 pandemic, the poll found that Democrats and people at least 65 years old are most likely to say they would “definitely” or “probably” get the updated booster.
The share of the American public who intend to get the new vaccine is higher than those who have received previous shots, but not as much as initial vaccine uptake back in 2020, according to the survey.
The poll results came as COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. surpassed 20,000 for the first time since mid-March. However, recent data has indicated that the updated boosters could offer additional protection against currently circulating variants and especially protect against severe disease and death, particularly for those who are elderly or immune compromised.
(NEW YORK) — While there is no specific test to determine if someone is experiencing long COVID, a new study published in Nature used blood tests to find new insight into what biological markers are associated with this collection of mysterious conditions reported by millions of Americans.
Researchers used machine learning to help analyze immune markers and hormone levels in 273 adult participants at Mount Sinai and Yale University and compared those with and without long COVID symptoms at least one year after having COVID-19.
Long COVID, defined in this study as persistent symptoms more than six weeks after infection, was associated with lower levels of a hormone called cortisol and had some distinct differences in certain immune cells and inflammatory markers circulating in the blood.
These levels are identified through blood tests, but this is not a blood test that specifically tests for long COVID.
“[These results] suggests some potential mechanisms leading to long COVID that might be amenable to treatment. It also may help in identifying patients with long COVID,” Dr. Alison Morris, division chief of pulmonary, allergy, critical care and sleep medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, told ABC News.
“I think one of the most important findings of the paper is that it validates the symptoms people have by finding biological differences between them and healthy controls,” Morris said.
“It is a truly remarkable study,” Dr. Shari Barnett Brosnahan, M.D., M.Sc., a COVID-19 researcher who was not involved in the study and assistant professor of the division of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at New York University Langone Health System, told ABC News.
Brosnahan does note that “it’s a limited analysis that they did, and I think that there’s still more work to be done.”
This study was done on relatively few people, so researchers say more studies are needed to better understand the significance of these results more broadly. Still, they say this study helps scientists get one step closer to knowing more about long COVID. If there are biological markers that are specific to long COVID, it could help confirm a diagnosis or help target treatments.
This research joins a large movement to gain more understanding of long COVID conditions and efforts to provide services to those affected, including efforts by the Biden administration which recently announced a new Office of Long Covid Research.
Long COVID is a term used to characterize signs, symptoms and conditions that persist for at least four weeks after getting infected with COVID-19 that may last months to years, according to the working definition developed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
These symptoms can range in severity and impact multiple organ systems in the body. Common complaints include fatigue, brain fog, sleep problems, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, dizziness upon standing, and stomach issues, according to the CDC.
In July 2021, long COVID was recognized as a condition that could qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act if it “substantially limits major life activities.” Research that may help doctors make a diagnosis could be crucial for those most severely impacted to receive these necessary services.
“I also hope that continuing to have these studies that show objective evidence help validate people and understanding [of] their long COVID,” Brosnahan said. “And help us as a medical community validate the disease of long COVID a little bit more.”
(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans say they’ve had long COVID, and some say they’re still battling it, according to new federal data.
Two new reports, published early Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, looked at data from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey.
They found that, in 2022, 6.9% of adults — equivalent to about 18 million Americans — reported ever having long COVID while 3.4% — about 8.8 million — said they currently had the condition, according to 2022 U.S. Census estimates.
Meanwhile, 1.5% of children — roughly one million Americans — ever had long COVID while 0.5% — about 360,000 — reported currently having long COVID.
Long COVID is a condition that occurs when patients still have symptoms at least four weeks after they have cleared the infection. In some cases, symptoms can be experienced for months or years.
Symptoms vary and can include fatigue, difficulty breathing, headaches, brain fog, joint and muscle pain and continued loss of taste and smell, according to the CDC.
It’s unclear what causes people to develop long COVID but research is ongoing.
In the first report, the NCHS team looked at adults and found women were more likely than men to have ever had or currently have long COVID.
Nearly twice as many women, 4.4%, said they currently had long COVID compared to 2.3% of men, the report found.
When it came to age, adults between ages 35 and 49 were the most likely to have had long COVID at some point or currently have it followed by those between ages 50 and 64. Senior citizens aged 65 and older were the least likely to have it in both categories.
Among racial and ethnic groups, Hispanic adults were the most likely to have had long COVID at 8.3% followed by 7.1% for white adults, 5.4% for Black adults and 2.6% for Asian adults.
However, among those currently experiencing long COVID, white adults slightly edged out Hispanic adults at 3.7% compared to 3.4%.
In the second report, looking at children aged 17 and younger, many of the findings were similar. For example, girls were more likely than boys to have ever had or still have long COVID.
Additionally, Hispanic children had the highest percentage of reporting previous long COVID and white children had the highest reporting of current long COVID.
By age group, children between ages 12 and 17 were the most likely to ever have or still have long COVID at 2.0% and 0.8%, respectively.
Meanwhile, 1.0% of children aged 8 and younger and 0.8% between ages 8 and 11 reported having long COVID at some point, while 0.2% of the youngest group and 0.3% of the middle group reported currently having long COVID.
“While the percentage of children who currently have long COVID was low, the differences observed by age persisted,” the authors wrote.
The report cited data from the Nationwide Commercial Laboratory Seroprevalence Survey that found about 92% of children currently have antibodies in blood samples, indicating a previous infection, but that long COVID among children is quite rare.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced it was forming a new Office of Long COVID Research and Practice to study the condition and help those who have been diagnosed with it.
The office, which will be under the Department of Health and Human Services, “is charged with on-going coordination of the whole-of-government response to the longer-term effects of COVID-19,” according to a news release.
Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The federal government program used for the last two winters to send free COVID tests to Americans’ homes started up again Monday.
The government’s move comes after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently completed its process to roll out the latest COVID shot, targeted to match the circulating variants, and pharmacies began offering it days later.
At the website, CovidTests.Gov, each household will be able to order four free rapid tests, according to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), a part of the Department of Health and Human Services that handles the federal stockpile of COVID tests.
The website for free at-home tests has had an on-and-off presence since the winter of 2022, when the Omicron variant was driving cases up across the country.
At the time, President Joe Biden pledged to give out one billion free rapid tests to ease soaring demand and an overwhelmed test manufacturing industry.
But the site was temporarily shut down that fall as a political fight dragged on over COVID funding. Administration officials said they had to conserve tests in case they didn’t get agreement from Republicans to allocate more money — which they didn’t.
Still, the site relaunched again in December as cases began to climb again, then shut down this past June.
The government is now relaunching CovidTests.Gov again in time for a surge in cases this winter.
“We want them to be able to use those tests during this viral season — fall, winter, respiratory viral season,” Becerra said.
The tests will come from a $600 million investment across 12 different domestic test manufacturers, which will yield around 200 million tests to boost the federal stockpile. Tests ordered from CovidTests.Gov will be pulled from that stockpile.
The funding for the free tests will come from money that was left over from a past supplemental COVID bill. Though the debt ceiling deal reached over the summer between President Joe Biden and Republicans did claw back about $30 billion in unspent COVID relief funds, officials said there was still enough left over to put toward replenishing the testing stockpile this fall.
Officials said they didn’t have an estimate yet for how many they expect Americans to order the free tests given the shrinking demand for COVID precautionary measures. Roughly 755 million tests have been distributed through the website over the last two years.
But if there is high demand in the future, the $600 million investment toward test manufacturers will also serve to warm up the supply lines and get the production process underway ahead of a crunch in resources, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) Dawn O’Connell said.
“Manufacturing COVID-19 tests in the United States strengthens our preparedness for the upcoming fall and winter seasons, reduces our reliance on other countries, and provides good jobs to hardworking Americans,” O’Connell said.
“ASPR’s investments in these domestic manufacturers will increase availability of tests in the future,” she said in a statement.
COVID-19 hospitalizations are continuing to climb in the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For the week ending Sept. 9, data showed that hospitalizations increased 7.7% from 19,068 to 20,538 weekly hospitalizations — an estimate that’s likely an undercount, due to less available data without the public health emergency still in place.
ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
