(LANCASTER, Texas) — A Texas hospital is reportedly the first in the United States to be using a technology that allows doctors to visit patients via hologram.
Crescent Regional Hospital, located in Lancaster — about 13 miles south of Dallas — has installed “Holobox,” a 3D system that projects a life-sized hologram of a doctor so that they can perform real-time consults with patients at a clinic 30 miles away.
Designed by Dutch company Holoconnects, the display is 86 inches tall and only requires electricity and internet to connect, according to the company.
The box has anti-glare glass and a transparent LCD screen for a life-size and realistic holographic display as well as hi-fi speakers and a multi-touch operating system, according to Holoconnects’ website. The hologram features the image of people either in a pre-recorded video or in live real-time video.
“There’s so much artificial intelligence, robotic technology, so many things,” Crescent Regional Hospital CEO Raji Kumar told ABC affiliate WFAA in Dallas. “So, I’m super excited of being able to bring some of this technology to north Texas.”
Steve Stirling, managing director of Holoconnects for North America, said the company developed the “Dr-Patient Hologram Engagement System” to be used by medical facilities and health care practitioners to engage with patients remotely.
“It has the potential to revolutionize the access and sense of relationship between patients and their healthcare professionals,” Stirling told ABC News via email. “We can provide real-time, life-like access from distant locations which provide patients with access to levels of specialty care from anywhere in the world and also save doctors one of their most precious commodities — time!”
He believes Crescent Regional is the first hospital in the U.S. to be using Holobox.
Kumar said the technology is being used to help reduce doctors’ travel time between Crescent Regional and the hospital’s clinic in Farmers Branch, about 30 miles away.
Doctors can now speak to patients via hologram instead of driving between the hospital and clinic for pre-op, post-op or follow up appointments, according to WFAA.
“Our doctors on the north side of town don’t have to drive 30 miles to see one of their patients,” Kumar told WFAA. “They can just hop into the studio have the consult.”
She plans to install more studios throughout the hospital and in doctors’ offices so more physicians can do holographic visits. Kumar told WFAA she would also like to bring the technology to rural hospitals.
“I plan to give it as a service to rural hospitals,” Kumar said. “To say, ‘Hey, I’ve got all the specialists on board. I will give you the box, I’ll take care of the camera setups for my specialists.'”
“I’m actually trying to do a mini box in a mobile van, so I could take it to underserved areas, okay, where there’s no specialist help,” she added.
Stirling said he is hoping more hospitals will follow suit and roll out similar hologram programs. Holoconnects is working to deploy the Holobox Mini, which has a 22-inch interactive touch-screen display and can more easily be transported.
“Doctor shortage areas are everywhere, and health care facilities are closing so if we can do anything to help make access to care and engagement with healthcare professionals more productive and satisfying to both patients and doctors, this will be a very satisfying result for us,” he said.
Crescent Regional did not immediately reply to ABC News’ request for comment.
(NEW YORK) — A major ice cream producer has recalled products sold by multiple brands due to potential listeria contamination, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The manufacturer — Totally Cool, Inc. of Owings Mills, Maryland — has recalled products from more than a dozen brands, including Friendly’s, Hershey’s Ice Cream, Jeni’s and the Frozen Farmer, due to the “possible health risk,” the FDA said.
No illnesses have been reported to date, the FDA said in its alert on Monday.
“Totally Cool, Inc. has ceased the production and distribution of the affected products due to FDA sampling which discovered the presence of Listeria monocytogenes,” the FDA said. “The company continues its investigation and is taking preventive actions. No other products produced by Totally Cool, Inc. are impacted by this recall.”
ABC News has reached out to Totally Cool for comment.
The full list of recalled products can be found here. They were distributed nationwide, available in retail locations and for direct delivery.
Consumers who have purchased any of the products are asked to return them for a full refund or throw them away.
Taharka Brothers Ice Cream, one of the impacted brands, said it outsourced production of two of its more popular ice cream flavors — honey graham and key lime pie — to Totally Cool.
“While no listeria has been detected in our ice cream, or any of the ice cream produced at Totally Cool, the FDA is requiring a full recall out of an abundance of caution,” Taharka said in a statement.
The company said it will begin making pints of the two flavors at its own factory “immediately.”
Chipwich was also among the brands included in the recall. Crave Better Foods said in a statement Monday that it operates a separate production line at the same Totally Cool facility and has issued a voluntary recall of its vanilla chocolate chip Chipwich ice cream cookie sandwiches “out of an abundance of caution and care for the product and its loyal fans.”
Crave Better Foods said it received a report from the Totally Cool facility about a “possible health issue” on a production line used to make frozen ice cream cakes.
Listeria monocytogenes can cause “serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems,” the FDA said.
Symptoms of listeria infection include high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, the FDA said. Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, issued a new advisory on Tuesday declaring gun violence a public health crisis.
In his announcement, Murthy also called for an evidence-based approach to public health change and a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use.
“Firearm violence is an urgent public health crisis that has led to loss of life, unimaginable pain, and profound grief for far too many Americans,” Murthy said in a statement.
Ten national medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Surgeons, American Public Health Association and the YWCA, issued statements of support in a press release distributed by the Office of the Surgeon General.
“Across the country, physicians everywhere treat patients and families afflicted by firearm violence,” said American Medical Association President Bruce A. Scott, MD, in a statement.
Gun violence is now the leading cause of death in the U.S. among kids and teens. Gun-related suicides have risen among all age groups from 2012 to 2022; the greatest rise has been among 10–14-year-olds, according to the advisory.
Rates of gun-related deaths among kids 1-19 years old in the U.S. are astronomically high and significantly higher than in other high-income countries.
“Pediatricians have long understood that gun violence is a public health threat to children and that its impact on families and communities can be devastating and long-lasting,” said American Academy of Pediatrics President Ben Hoffman, MD, FAAP, in a statement.
Over 50% of Americans say they or their family have experienced a firearm-related incident in their lifetime, and about 60% of U.S. adults say that they worry “sometimes,” “almost every day,” or “every day” about a loved one being a victim of firearm violence, according to the advisory.
The advisory also shows how certain groups are disproportionately impacted by gun violence, including people who are Black, American Indian, Alaskan Natives and veterans.
The advisory says the impact of firearm violence goes beyond deaths and injuries; it leads to cascading harm and collective trauma across society and threatens the mental and physical health of young people’s wellbeing, which warrants heightened attention and action.
“We don’t have to continue down this path, and we don’t have to subject our children to the ongoing horror of firearm violence in America. All Americans deserve to live their lives free from firearm violence, as well as from the fear and devastation that it brings. It will take the collective commitment of our nation to turn the tide on firearm violence,” Murthy said.
The advisory outlines an evidence-informed public health approach with prevention strategies that public health leaders and policymakers can consider to reduce and prevent firearm-related death and injury, including by increasing research investments and data collection, implementing risk reduction strategies and engaging communities.
The report also calls for a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use and says firearms should be treated like other consumer products to enhance and standardize safety.
“Gun violence is a national tragedy. It’s a serious public health problem that is highly preventable,” said American Public Health Association Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin, MD in a statement.
(NEW YORK) — Middle-age and older adults with long-term loneliness are at higher risk of stroke than those who do not report being lonely, according to a new study published in the journal eClinicalMedicine on Monday.
Researchers found the risk of stroke among lonely adults was higher regardless of co-existing depressive symptoms or feelings of social isolation.
“Loneliness is increasingly considered a major public health issue. Our findings further highlight why that is,” lead author Yenee Soh, a research associate in the department of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a press release.
“Especially when experienced chronically, our study suggests loneliness may play an important role in stroke incidence, which is already one of the leading causes of long-term disability and mortality worldwide,” Soh continued.
Those who experienced situational loneliness — a temporary loneliness due to a change in circumstances — did not have an increased stroke risk, suggesting that the impact of loneliness on stroke risk occurs in the long term, according to the study.
The study used data from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study (HRS) survey that followed nearly 9,000 stroke-free adults who were aged 50 for 10 to 12 years.
Results showed those who experienced chronic loneliness had a 56% higher risk of stroke than those who consistently reported not being lonely, independent of social isolation, depressive symptoms, body mass index, physical activity and other health conditions.
Previous research has linked loneliness to an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, but the new study is one of the first large-scale, long-term studies to examine the association between loneliness changes and stroke risk over time.
“These study findings are consistent with other research that has shown that loneliness has been linked to [poorer] health,” Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University and eminent researcher on the health effects of loneliness — who was not involved with the study — told ABC News.
“It’s also consistent with other research that shows that the detrimental effects seem to be most associated when it is persistent or chronic over time,” she continued. “This study because it looked at loneliness at multiple times to determine whether there were changes, and whether it was consistent over time [and] found that persistent levels were associated with the worst outcomes.”
Participants who only had baseline measurements of loneliness saw an occurrence of 1,237 strokes during the follow-up period from 2006 to 2018. Participants who completed two loneliness assessments and reported loneliness both times saw an occurrence of 601 strokes during the same follow-up period.
Each group’s stroke risk was analyzed in the context of their loneliness while controlling for other health and behavioral risk factors, including social isolation and depressive symptoms, which are closely related to — but distinct from — loneliness.
“Repeat assessments of loneliness may help identify those who are chronically lonely and are therefore at a higher risk for stroke,” Soh said in the press release. “If we fail to address their feelings of loneliness, on a micro and macro scale, there could be profound health consequences.”
“Importantly, these interventions must specifically target loneliness, which is a subjective perception and should not be conflated with social isolation,” she added.
(NEW YORK) — An upcoming report by the American Heart Association estimates that closing gaps in women’s heart health could add 1.6 million years of quality of life and boost the economy by $28 billion dollars a year by 2040.
The report calls for earlier diagnosis and more treatment in addition to specific focus in pregnancy, menopause and among Black women to effectively close the gender gap in heart health for over 60 million women who are living with heart disease in the United States.
The report will be published later this month in the journal Circulation and builds on previous research done in partnership with the McKinsey Health Institute and World Economic Forum, the AHA said.
ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton, a board-certified physician in obstetrics and gynecology and obesity medicine, reported this dire call to action Monday in an exclusive first look on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“The American Heart Association is really calling loudly, yelling in fact, for closing that gender gap when you look at heart disease,” Ashton said.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women, but there are some key areas that disproportionately impact women compared to their male counterparts. Women are more likely to die from a heart attack than men, and women 45-65 years old have the greatest rise in high blood pressure, according to the report.
The AHA report calls for an approach across the life course to effectively close these gaps and highlights two important life stages for women: pregnancy and menopause, “two critically important hormonal times in a woman’s life,” Ashton said.
“It’s time to connect the dots on these hormonal times,” she added.
Pregnancy places added stress on a woman’s heart and can be associated with health conditions like high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, which increase a woman’s risk of heart disease in addition to poor pregnancy outcomes such as pre-eclampsia and premature birth.
Many preventable maternal deaths are due to heart disease. The AHA report calls for prevention of maternal deaths through better access to care, treatment and monitoring during the time surrounding pregnancy.
Women are also at increased risk of having heart disease during and after menopause. Research has shown that women with severe menopausal hot flashes have a higher risk of heart disease than similarly aged men. The AHA report calls for improved research to better understand this increased risk and to help find better treatments.
Disparities also exist among women. More Black women have heart disease than non-Black women and have greater rates of complications from heart disease. The report calls for an end to racial disparities in heart health by recognizing role of structural racism, addressing biases and health-related social needs, as well as tailoring the healthcare system to better care for these communities.
(HOUSTON) — Infant mortality increased by 12.9% from 2021 to 2022 in Texas after Texas’ near-total ban on abortion was enacted, according to a new study published today in JAMA Pediatrics. A total of 2243 Texas infants, or children under 1 year, died in 2022 compared to 1985 Texas infant deaths in 2021.
This study, “basically confirms what we’ve suspected for a long time,” said Dr. Richard Ivey, a practicing OB/GYN in Houston. “We knew that infant mortality would go up, particularly with congenital anomalies,” after the passage of the ban, he said.
The Texas Heartbeat Act, Texas’ near-total abortion ban, was implemented in September 2021. The infant mortality rate, or deaths per 1000 live births, increased by 8.3% from 2021 to 2022. The increase in death rates of infants in 2022 erase gains made in Texas since 2017. This data is from before Roe vs. Wade was overturned two years ago.
While deaths from birth defects decreased by 2.9% on average in 19 other states, researchers found a 22.9% increase in deaths from birth defects in Texas. According to the CDC, birth defects are one of the leading causes of infant deaths.
“This is really an atypical trend specifically in Texas,” said Dr. Suzanne Bell, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-lead on the study, about the increase in birth defects. She clarified that the 19 other states that Texas was compared to also experienced COVID, and COVID alone cannot account for the increase in birth defects or infant mortality. In 19 other states, infant mortality only increased by 1.8% — a much smaller increase than the jump in death rates in Texas.
The study showed an increase in the number of infants who died from a dangerous intestinal complication called necrotizing enterocolitis, which is often associated with prematurity. However, the individual-level data, such as prematurity and race/ethnicity, is not yet publicly available for 2022. Researchers used data from CDC Wonder, or Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research, to conduct their analysis.
Provisional data from the CDC showed infant mortality continued to increase in 2023. Provisional data can be adjusted up or down after the final numbers are analyzed by the CDC.
As more data becomes available from the CDC, Dr. Bell plans to continue this research. She and her team will look next at specific characteristics associated with infant death, including prematurity and low birth weight.
Studying the health consequences of restrictive abortion bans “is the first step for people to understand” the gravity of the situation, said Dr. Ivey.
“Women don’t talk about their miscarriages. Women don’t talk about chromosome abnormalities in their children. Women don’t talk about birth defects. So, the general public often doesn’t understand” the consequences of abortion bans, he said.
Dr. Bell concurred, saying, “I think drawing attention to perhaps the unintended consequences, although perhaps foreseeable consequences, of abortion bans, is really important public health work.”
When asked what brings him hope, Dr. Ivey said Texas House Bill 3058, which was passed in late 2023. This bill adds protections for pregnant people seeking abortions in cases of non-viable and potentially lethal pregnancies located outside of the womb or a pregnant person’s water breaks far too early.
(NEW YORK) — Health care groups and advocates have long warned that the overturn of Roe v. Wade could pose wider threats to reproductive healthcare and that anti-abortion groups’ attacks on reproductive freedoms would not stop at abortion care.
Those warnings materialized earlier this year when in vitro fertilization care was suspended at three of Alabama’s largest providers after a state Supreme Court decision put providers at risk of prosecution.
Now, physicians and experts warn the same could happen in other states with fetal personhood laws.
Further moves by conservative groups and lawmakers have also signaled what other reproductive freedoms could be at risk.
Fetal personhood and IVF
Fetal personhood laws, which classify fetuses, embryos or fertilized eggs as “people” could significantly undermine IVF patients’ ability to make decisions about their care, including what to do with frozen embryos, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.
“In the IVF context, embryo personhood would be extremely harmful to patients and providers, who could be criminalized, for example, for discarding an embryo or for transferring an embryo that then does not implant,” Karla Torres, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News in an interview.
Fertility specialists suspended care in Alabama after the state Supreme Court issued a decision saying embryos are children, raising concerns that IVF specialists could face wrongful death lawsuits over handling of embryos. One facility said they even suspended the transfer of embryos to facilities in other states amid the confusion caused by the decision.
The ruling from the court came as part of a lawsuit filed by couples whose embryos were destroyed after a patient wandered into a fertility clinic through an unsecured door, removing several embryos and dropping them to the floor. The couples whose embryos were destroyed filed a wrongful death suit that was thrown out by a lower court that ruled embryos are not people.
The Alabama Supreme Court then reversed the lower court decision and said frozen embryos are children. After facing intense backlash, lawmakers passed legislation that would protect IVF care in the state, allowing care to resume.
“The bill, though, did not address the central finding in the seat Supreme Court’s ruling, which is that cryopreserved embryos constitute ‘unborn children’ under the state’s Wrongful Death Act,” Torres said.
There are currently 11 states with broad fetal personhood laws on the books which could impact IVF treatments, according to Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit organization that advocates for pregnant people.
An additional five states define a person to include a fetus throughout their criminal code and two more states — Alaska and Wyoming — define an “unborn child” as a human “at any stage of development,” according to Pregnancy Justice.
“The legal question is: at what point should a citizen be protected? And where I take issue with the Alabama ruling, is that they utilize their religious beliefs that life begins at fertilization. And that crossed a line, which shouldn’t be crossed due to the alleged separation of church and state, that they now are saying that life gets protected,” Dr. Eve Feinberg, a physician and fertility specialist at Northwestern University in Illinois, told ABC News.
“It’s very dangerous for the provision of safe fertility care and I think it’s very dangerous from a litigation standpoint, in the numerous instances where pregnancies may end through no fault or embryos may stop growing through no fault,” Feinberg said.
Less than half of oocytes — cells from ovaries — retrieved in a single IVF cycle become an embryo that could become viable.
“[Most] of everything that you start with stops growing and developing in IVF and that’s just in the laboratory,” Feinberg said.
Between 20 to 50% of embryos implanted stop growing after they are implanted, Feinberg said.
After patients are done with IVF, some choose to donate unused embryos left over from IVF to science. A key part of how the fertility field has advanced is research on human embryos, according to Feinberg.
Surrogacy
Fertility patients who grow their families with the help of a gestational carrier, or surrogate, often do not live in the same state as the surrogate, but one fertility specialist told ABC News the overturn of Roe has changed how patients feel.
“We have had patients who have gestational carriers who live in Texas or other red states, and it really makes them question whether they feel comfortable having somebody in one of those states carry their child,” Feinberg said.
“I’ve had a number of patients who have turned down really otherwise good candidates to be a gestational carrier because the GC lives in an unfavorable state,” Feinberg said.
Intended parents who turned down surrogates in other states are concerned about not wanting to continue a pregnancy with a fatal fetal anomaly incompatible with life or the surrogate facing potential obstetric complications, like their water breaking before the fetus is viable, Feinberg said.
“Intended parents just don’t want to be in a situation where the medical care of the person carrying their pregnancy is compromised. Texas laws are putting women at risk of death period,” Feinberg said.
The usage of surrogates has increased in recent years due to several factors, including high cancer survivorship, which may leave survivors unable to carry a pregnancy; the number of cesarean section deliveries having “skyrocketed,” bringing an increased risk of postpartum hemorrhage and hysterectomies; and women surviving conditions, like congenital heart defects that were corrected as babies, that leave them unable to carry their own pregnancies, Feinberg said.
Patients, who are more commonly using surrogacy, never thought twice about what state a potential carrier lived in before Roe was overturned, Feinberg said.
“It’s driving up the cost of surrogacy, it is further diminishing the pool of available surrogates, and … women who sign up to be surrogates — they may be risking their lives in ways that they never thought about previously,” Feinberg said.
Contraception
Indiana lawmakers recently passed new legislation that would require hospitals to offer postpartum patients with long acting reversible contraceptives.
“The bill author ended up getting advice from [anti-abortion group] Right to Life that they should remove IUDs specifically from the bill because Right to Life considers IUDs to be abortifacients[, causing abortions]. So the bill was represented in its amended form to only specifically include subdermal implants,” Dr. Carrie Rouse, a maternal fetal medicine specialist in Indiana, told ABC News in an interview.
“It creates this two-tiered approach to contraception where implants are good and IUDs are bad IUDs cause abortion, which is absolutely not true, but it sets the precedent,” Rouse said.
An IUD is birth control placed in the uterus while a contraceptive implant is placed in the arm.
Lessons to learn from
Feinberg pointed to strict laws that used to regulate IVF care in Italy — mandating that only three eggs be fertilized in a single IVF cycle and that everything that is fertilized has to be transferred — as a cautionary tale for lawmakers in the U.S.
“IVF success rates were very low and the multiple pregnancy rate particularly that triplet rate was very high — unacceptably high,” Feinberg said.
This led to very high risk pregnancies and many children being born premature or with congenital anomalies, Feinberg said.
“Ultimately, the government said, Okay, we’re not going to interfere. And they, they lifted the bans on how IVF was mandated to be practiced. I think what’s very scary, is we are now potentially moving towards that,” Feinberg said.
(NEW YORK) — Francesca McGinn, a 16-year-old high school student from Chicago, struggled with her weight nearly her entire life.
It wasn’t until late last year, after seeing a family member have success taking a medication for weight loss, that Francesca said she thought there could be a different way for herself.
In her first appointment with a doctor who specializes in pediatric weight management, Francesca said she was told for the first time in her life that she was not to blame for her weight issues.
Following her appointment, Francesca began to take Wegovy, an injectable medication that is U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved for weight loss for patients with severe obesity, or who are overweight and have one or more weight-associated conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
In 2022, the FDA also approved Wegovy as a treatment for teenagers with obesity.
Since starting the medication, Francesca said she has both lost weight and changed the way she thinks about herself and her body.
“It lifted off a weight of just stress of constantly thinking of what I need to stop eating and what I need to start eating,” she told ABC News’ Good Morning America. “In fifth grade, I started worrying about what I was eating, and there were some points where I thought about not eating … This medicine really changed my thinking.”
Over the past several years, medications that can lead to weight loss, from Wegovy to Zepbound, Ozempic and Mounjaro, have changed the landscape of obesity medicine, from how weight loss is treated medically to how the public perceives thought about obesity.
As the drugs have become more widely available and skyrocketed in popularity, a rising number of teenagers, specifically teenage girls, like Francesca, have tapped into their use.
Among the young people being prescribed GLP-1 medications, an overwhelming majority, 60%, are female, according to data published in May in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Among all young people, the number of prescriptions for GLP-1 weight loss medications rose from 8,000 to more than 60,000 between 2020 and 2023.
Why more girls than boys are on weight loss medications than boys
Pediatric endocrinologists from across the country who spoke with GMA said the reasons why more girls are prescribed medications for weight loss are varied.
Sophia, a 17-year-old from Colorado, said she started taking weight loss medications last year to help treat polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, a reproductive hormone imbalance that can cause problems with the menstrual cycle and lead to the formation of multiple ovarian cysts and infertility, according to the U.S. Office on Women’s Health.
After going on a medication used for weight loss, Sophia, who asked that her last name not be used, said she has lost around 80 pounds in total.
“It was like a light at the end of the tunnel,” Sophia said. “It’s given me a new life. I have a lot more confidence. I feel a lot better. My mood is a lot better … I don’t feel the struggle.”
The fact that girls battle hormonal and insulin-related conditions like PCOS, which the medications are proving to be able to treat, is one reason they are being prescribed more, according to Dr. Melanie Cree, Sophia’s doctor and a pediatric endocrinologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
The exact cause of PCOS is unknown, but people with this condition have higher levels of androgens, such as testosterone, and insulin resistance, which is a risk factor for Type 2 diabetes.
Both 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.
Like Wegovy, Zepbound is FDA-approved as a weight loss management treatment for people with obesity, or those who are overweight with at least one related underlying condition, such as high blood pressure. Both Zepbound and Mounjaro contain the same active ingredient, tirzepatide, while Ozempic and Wegovy both contain a different active ingredient, semaglutide.
“When girls have PCOS and extra weight, they have a much higher risk for type 2 diabetes, they have insulin resistance, extra fat and inflammation in their liver, higher rates of depression and really seem to struggle,” said Cree, who is currently leading a research study on the impact of GLP-1 drugs on young women with PCOS. “We’ve really seen how, how much weight loss makes a difference in this patient population, and how badly these patients are struggling.”
Young girls are particularly at risk for complications from obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to experts including Dr. Caren Mangarelli, a pediatrician who works with the Lurie Children’s Hospital’s Pediatric Wellness & Weight Management Program, citing data showing among the growing number of young people with Type 2 diabetes, the majority are female.
“We’re seeing younger and younger kids with disease processes that we think of as adult diseases,” Mangarelli said. “And most young adults and adolescents who have type 2 diabetes also have obesity. They usually come together.”
Doctors say they are willing to put teenagers on medications for weight loss because they know the long-term damage that can come from having type 2 diabetes in childhood.
“We know that youth-onset, type 2 diabetes is more aggressive than adult-onset. It is more progressive, so it actually goes from being a mild disease to a moderate disease to a severe disease quicker,” said Dr. Alaina Vidmar, a pediatric endocrinologist and pediatric obesity medicine specialist and Medical Director of the Healthy Weight Clinic at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. “And we know that the long-term complications occur much earlier if you are diagnosed before the age of 18 than if you are diagnosed later in life.”
She continued, “So if we can do something early to prevent all of that from happening, we are ultimately setting up that young person for a much healthier life.”
Type 2 diabetes, caused by the body not using or making insulin well, increases a child’s risk of everything from eye disease and nerve problems to heart disease and stroke and kidney disease, according to the National Library of Medicine.
Mangarelli said while it may seem alarming to people that such a growing number of teenagers are using medications for weight loss, she believes the medications are only reaching a small percentage of teens in need.
Nearly 20%, or around 14.7 million children and adolescents ages 2 to 19 in the U.S. are considered obese, according to the CDC.
“I would argue that in real life, these numbers are so, so small in terms of the amount of patients who could potentially benefit from the drug, whether for type 2 diabetes and/or obesity,” Mangarelli said. “If you look at the actual numbers, it’s such a small number of patients on the drugs.”
One obstacle to young people accessing the medications is that not all private insurance plans or state Medicaid plans cover the medications, according to Mangarelli. Out of pocket costs for the drugs can run as high as over $1,000 per month.
Another obstacle is that some doctors remain hesitant to prescribe the medications for teens.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an influential medical group whose policies often guide insurance coverage, chose not to recommend weight loss medications for children in newly-released guidelines for treating obesity, saying there is not enough long-term data to recommend the medications. Instead, the Task Force recommended that children over the age of 6 with obesity should be referred to intensive lifestyle programs by their doctors for treatment.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, on the other hand, recommends the integration of prescription weight-loss medications for children 12 and older as part of a comprehensive treatment plan for children with obesity.
In its guidelines, the AAP says doctors need to weigh the medications’ “indications, risks, and benefits.”
Among all medications used for weight loss, the most commonly reported side effects are nausea and constipation, but irreversible gallbladder and pancreatic disease are also reported. Makers of these drugs recommend having a conversation about the side effect profile and personalized risks with a healthcare professional before starting.
Girls, body image and weight loss medications
An unsurprising factor also likely fueling the different number of girls than boys on weight loss medications, doctors say, is the reality that young girls tend to feel the pressure of society’s standards of beauty — i.e. thinness — more than boys, a sentiment echoed by both Sophia and Francesca.
“High school is hard, and being a girl is hard,” Sophia said, adding of the impact of losing weight, “Just feeling better in my own body has made a big difference.”
“Something I’ve done since middle school is compare myself to all the other girls that I see and wondering, why can’t I be like that,” Francesca said, adding of the data showing more girls than boys are on GLP-1 drugs, “I’m not very surprised.”
Mangarelli, who works at Lurie Children’s Hospital, where Francesca was treated, said she tries to strike a balance in her practice between body acceptance with young female patients and the reality that weight loss can improve a child’s health both in the short and long term.
“Unfortunately, I do believe that that females experience more stigma and discrimination of bias, specifically, than males do, according to body size,” Mangarelli said, adding, “So we need to both promote healthy at every size, self-love, self-acceptance, at the same time as we look for more effective treatments and use effective treatments to help our patients.”
Mangarelli and the other doctors GMA spoke with all said that a large part of their time with pediatric patients is spent educating both them and their parents that weight struggles are not the child’s fault, the same message that Francesca said was life-changing when she first heard it from her doctor.
“We start all of our visits by level-setting,” said Vidmar. “I start by saying that living in a larger body is not anyone’s fault, it is how they were made. And that it is probably very likely that they have been made to believe or told on multiple occasions, unfortunately, by multiple people that that is something that they are doing wrong, or a failure of their self-will or self-discipline, which is just not correct or accurate or scientifically-founded.”
Vidmar said another part of her message to kids and parents alike is that obesity is a chronic condition and should not be treated any differently when it comes to considering different treatment options, like medications.
“There’s a lot of chronic diseases in pediatrics and we do lots of different things to control them,” she said, citing asthma as an example of one. “Pediatric obesity is no different. It’s a complex, chronic disease that has multiple tools and each individual person is going to need to find what tool kit they need to control that for their whole life.”
(NEW YORK) — Facing high fines and potential jail time for providing abortions, Dr. Jennifer Smith, an OB-GYN in Missouri, has had to refer patients out of state.
“I’ve had a patient bleeding through her clothes in the second trimester who had to drive to Illinois for care, because in Missouri, we couldn’t prioritize her life over the life of her fetus,” Smith told reporters during a press conference last week.
The facility where Smith works once brought in patients from across state borders, but now has to do the opposite.
“I had a patient in the second trimester who did have ruptured membranes, but in Missouri, the law does not give us permission to deliver this patient as long as the baby has a heartbeat,” she said.
Another patient seen by a colleague suffered from preeclampsia at 22 weeks and had to “drive hours” to find a hospital that would provide her with care.
“As it relates to pregnancy and abortion care, patients are forced to drive across the border to smaller, less-equipped hospitals just to get the care that they need,” Smith said.
Obstetrics and gynecological care in much of the U.S. has transformed in the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, leaving physicians facing tough decisions as they try to provide patients with quality care and struggle to interpret unclear, confusing and strict state abortion laws.
Physicians interviewed by ABC News across several states said they are relying on each other to determine what emergency and lifesaving care they can legally provide patients.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal protections for abortion rights, at least 14 states have ceased nearly all abortion services and seven others have restricted care.
Chilling effect
Last year, Indiana was receiving patients from other states until its near-total ban went into effect in August. Since then, physicians have developed workflows to confer over which patients can receive an abortion under exceptions to the ban.
The new workflow is just one way the ban has transformed care in the state. At least six facilities in Indiana have closed their labor and delivery departments, further reducing access to care, according to Dr. Carrie Rouse, a maternal fetal medicine specialist in Indiana.
A public battle between the state attorney general and a complex family planning physician has also created a chilling effect among doctors across the state.
Dr. Caitlin Bernard, one of two complex family planning specialists in the state, came under the national spotlight after it was revealed she provided abortion care to a 10-year-old rape victim from out of state after Roe was overturned.
After she became outspoken about the consequences of abortion bans, the state attorney general tried to strip her of her medical license. Bernard was required to pay after a medical licensing board found that she violated HIPPA — which protects patient health information — “even though the representative from the American Medical Association who came and testified during that medical licensing board hearing said specifically that she did not,” Rouse said.
“The feeling — and I think the reality — is that she was being punished for being an abortion provider, and I think that is very scary for people,” Rouse said.
Rouse added, “Dr. Barnard was essentially punished for providing evidence-based health care and I think the thing that all of us can and should be thinking is: ‘Well, am I going to be next?'”
Care denied
Even in cases that could meet exceptions to bans, Florida hospitals are very hesitant to schedule abortions, according to one physician.
A patient whose fetus had a diagnosis of Trisomy 18, which is described as incompatible with life, and was diagnosed with cervical dilation that was impossible to close, did not qualify for the exception, according to Dr. Cecilia Grande, an OB-GYN in Miami.
The patient’s options were to wait for her water to break or develop a fever — a sign of an infection — otherwise she would have to leave the state to get care, Grande said.
“I know that if a patient has an emergency, they can get to the emergency room right away. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can get the care they need,” Grande told reporters at a press conference last week discussing the state of abortion care nationwide. “I want my colleagues in the emergency room to be able to act to help my patients in their moment of need.”
Will it come back to ‘haunt us’?
After the Tennessee trigger ban prohibiting nearly all abortions went into effect in September 2022, physicians struggled to interpret the law and reach a consensus over when they could provide care.
Dr. Sarah Osmundson, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News that physicians are still struggling to provide care in Tennessee nearly two years after the ban went into effect — with zero guidance on how they should interpret laws and worries about facing prosecution. But some physicians have begun to provide care more liberally.
“Some of us have really taken a stance that if there is a situation that can impact mom’s life — even if it’s not an immediate, life-threatening circumstance — we feel compelled to provide care for those patients,” Osmundson said.
“We have a responsibility as physicians, as clinicians, to take care of patients’ health first,” Osmundson said. “Whether that comes back to haunt us, I don’t know.”
Still, physicians are relying on having input from other doctors before providing abortion care due to state laws.
“We still see patients that come in to us later than was necessary from outside places because they are not getting the care that they should get and that’s largely based on these laws, which make physicians appropriately very scared for own personal safety,” Osmundson said.
Dr. Leilah Spung, a maternal fetal medicine specialist, was the only dilation and evacuation — a second trimester abortion procedure — provider in Chattanooga when Roe was overturned.
“I knew what I needed to do to take care of patients, but I also knew it could send me to jail,” Spung told ABC News. “So that changed my litmus test.”
“At some point, I was going to do something that was going to land me with a felony charge — I was sure of it — because I also wasn’t going to let anyone die,” Spung said.
Months later, Spung would leave the state to practice medicine in Colorado.
“I had a giant target on my back,” Spung said. “Everyone knew exactly what I was doing.”
“I was unwilling to stay and put myself and my family at risk like that. Especially when I was only a year out from 11 years of training,” Spung said.
The threat of prosecution is top of mind for physicians providing care under bans. After a Texas woman asked a state court for an emergency abortion last year and a lower court ruled she could get one, state Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to Houston hospitals threatening liability if they provided the woman, Kate Cox, with an abortion. The Texas Supreme Court later overturned the court ruling and denied Cox an abortion.
By that point, Cox had already decided to leave the state to get an abortion.
Left unsupported
Spung said she felt unsupported by medical facilities in Tennessee when it came to providing lifesaving abortion care.
“I tried really hard with the other abortion care doctors in the state to come up with a unified response to certain emergencies that might come up — the common things like PPROM, significant vaginal bleeding, ectopic pregnancy, cesarean-section scar ectopic pregnancies,” Spung said.
“We worked really hard to get all of the hospitals on board so that everybody was providing the same care … [and] it is seen as the standard of care instead of something outside the bounds of the law,” Spung said. “That just didn’t happen.”
Hospitals were unwilling to have a unified conversation and it was left up to physicians to make the tough decisions, Spung said.
“Anytime there was someone with a complicated pregnancy that may or may not need abortion care, I was the call. I was the person who answered those questions. I was the one who figured out where they could go, who could see them, whether or not they could legally be taken care of in the state or not,” Spung said.
At Vanderbilt, a committee of physicians review patient cases before determining whether they can provide emergency care in line with Tennessee’s abortion ban. But in Chattanooga, it was left up to Spung to make those decisions, she said.
Physicians in Tennessee have also lobbied to add an exception that would permit abortions in cases of fatal fetal anomalies, but lawmakers were not receptive to the push, according to Osmundson. Meanwhile, physicians are regularly seeing patients with fatal fetal anomalies.
“There are huge delays in care for women who are facing these very severe fetal anomalies that are not compatible with life and they are, you know, either forced to continue that pregnancy in the state of Tennessee to watch their child die, or they have to go out of state,” Osmundson said.
In Colorado, Spung’s practice has seen patients from across states with abortion bans, including Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota and Oklahoma.
“Our later abortion numbers increased eight times in the year after Dobbs and people are traveling at least 250 miles one way for care,” Spung said.
‘Strength in numbers’
Meanwhile, physicians in North Carolina and Ohio were able to do what Tennessee physicians attempted unsuccessfully.
In Ohio — where an abortion ban has been blocked by a court order — physicians brought together major hospital academic systems and came up with a unified approach to emergency conditions and how they would treat them, according to Spung.
In North Carolina, abortion providers came together and began meeting regularly to confer over care.
“We felt like we had strength in numbers, if we could be pretty unified with how care was being delivered across the state, then there was going to be less discrepancy, less confusion and less likelihood that any of those procedures would be flagged if everybody was doing things kind of the same,” Dr. Clayton Alfonso, an OB-GYN in the state, told ABC News.
“That being said, every institution has their own attorney group and so not everything is perfectly similar,” Alfonso said. “But we try to keep it as close as possible.”
Physicians in the state have resisted requests from legislators to compile a list of conditions that meet exceptions, saying a list could never include all the emergency conditions, diagnoses or complications that arise during pregnancy. But internally, specialists have established a list of conditions they believe meet the exceptions, according to Alfonso, which they are keeping close.
Hospitals and facilities respond to bans
Medical facilities’ responses to bans have varied around the country, in part due to differences between bans.
In North Carolina, Duke University Medical Center’s administration and its OB-GYN chair have been “very supportive” of physicians since the ban went into effect, Alfonso said.
“We were told to care for the patient, and we’ll figure it out on the back end afterwards. [The hospital] said, ‘Trust your medical opinion, your medical judgment — there is no board, there is no conferring,'” Alfonso said.
When it comes to determining what fetal anomalies are “life-limiting” — the term used in the state law — and meet the exception, physicians have relied on high-risk obstetric physicians.
“I believe they have an internal list of things that they’ve written down that they know that they do as ‘life-limiting,’ but that list has not been circulated. It’s been kept pretty close, in trying to make sure that it doesn’t get into the wrong hands of potential future legislation,” Alfonso said.
Compounding the access crisis
The risks and tough decisions physicians are having to make are already driving some away from states with bans, creating what Spung called a “brain drain,” especially of physicians trained to provide complex, lifesaving, medically necessary abortions.
And replacing them will be incredibly difficult.
“There are going to be times where patients come in and are miscarrying and are bleeding to death in front of you, and you don’t have time to give them medication to open their cervix to help them deliver. You need to take them to the operating room and remove the pregnancy and the safest way to do that is either with a dilation and curettage or dilation and evacuation,” Spung said.
An entire generation of OB-GYN providers in states with abortion bans will be unable to get that training.
“It’s going to become an entire vacuum,” Spung said. “Knowing how to safely provide that care can quite honestly save lives.”
(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — This is a KFF Health News story.
Abigail Arellano keeps her son Samuel’s medical bills in a blue folder in a cabinet above the microwave. Even now, four months after the 11-year-old was shot at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade, the bills keep coming.
There’s one for $1,040 for the ambulance ride to the hospital that February afternoon. Another for $2,841.17 from an emergency room visit they made three days after the shooting because his bullet wound looked infected. More follow-ups and counseling in March added another $1,500.
“I think I’m missing some,” Arellano said as she leafed through the pages.
The Arellanos are uninsured and counting on assistance from the fund that raised nearly $2 million in the aftermath of the shooting that left one dead and at least 24 other people with bullet wounds. She keeps that application in the blue folder as well.
The medical costs incurred by the survivors of the shooting are hitting hard, and they won’t end soon. The average medical spending for someone who is shot increases by nearly $30,000 in the first year, according to a Harvard Medical School study. Another study found that number goes up to $35,000 for children. Ten kids were shot at the parade.
Then there are life’s ordinary bills — rent, utilities, car repairs — that don’t stop just because someone survived a mass shooting, even if their injuries prevent them from working or sending kids to school.
The financial burden that comes with surviving is so common it has a name, according to Aswad Thomas of the nonprofit Alliance for Safety and Justice: victimization debt. Some pay it out-of-pocket. Some open a new credit card. Some find help from generous strangers. Others can’t make ends meet.
“We’re really broke right now,” said Jacob Gooch Sr., another survivor, who was shot through the foot and has not yet been able to return to work.
“We’re, like, exhausting our third credit card.”
As is common after mass shootings, a mosaic of new and established resources emerged in this Missouri city promising help. Those include the #KCStrong fund established by the United Way of Greater Kansas City, which is expected to begin paying victims at the end of June.
Survivors must navigate each opportunity to request help as best they can — and hope money comes through.
GoFundMes, generous strangers, and a new line of credit
Mostly, it’s the moms who keep the bills organized. Tucked above the microwave. Zipped inside a purse. Screenshots stored on a phone. And then there’s a maze of paperwork: The Missouri state victims’ compensation form is five pages, including instructions. It’s another six pages for help from the United Way.
Emily Tavis keeps stacks of paperwork with color-coded binder clips in her basement: Black for her partner, Gooch Sr.; blue for her stepson, Jacob Gooch Jr.; pink for herself. All three were shot at the parade.
Tavis was able to walk after a bullet ripped through her leg, and she considered declining the ambulance ride because she was worried about the cost — she lacked insurance at the time.
Gooch Sr. was unable to walk because he’d been shot in the foot. So they shared an ambulance to the hospital with two of their kids.
“I’m not paying for this s—. I didn’t ask for this life,” Tavis, laughing, recalled thinking at the time. They soon realized 14-year-old Gooch Jr. had a bullet in his foot as well.
Tavis and Gooch Sr. received separate $1,145 bills for the ambulance. Gooch Jr. did not, possibly because he has health coverage through Medicaid, Tavis said.
She sends the medical bills to victims’ compensation, a program to help with the economic losses from a crime, such as medical expenses and lost wages. Even though Tavis and Gooch live in Leavenworth, Kansas, their compensation comes from the program in Missouri, where the shooting occurred.
The program pays only for economic losses not covered by other sources like health insurance, donations, and crowdsourced fundraisers. Gooch Sr. and Jr. both had health insurance at the time of the parade, so the family has been sending only the uncovered portion to victims’ compensation.
The family initially received a lot of support. Friends and relatives made sure they had food to eat. The founder of an online group of Kansas City Chiefs fans sent $1,000 and gifts for the family. A GoFundMe page raised $9,500. And their tax refund helped.
They knew money might get tight with Gooch Sr. unable to work, so they paid three months’ rent in advance. They also paid to have his Ford Escape fixed so he could eventually return to work and bought Tavis a used Honda Accord so she could drive to the job she started 12 days after the parade.
And because the donations were intended for the whole family, they decided to buy summer passes to the Worlds of Fun amusement park for the kids.
But recently, they’ve felt stretched. Gooch Sr.’s short-term disability payments abruptly stopped in May when his health insurance prompted him to see an in-network doctor. He said the short-term disability plan initially didn’t approve the paperwork from his new doctor and started an investigation. The issue was resolved in June and he was expecting back pay soon. In the interim, though, the couple opened a new credit card to cover their bills.
In the interim, the couple opened a new credit card to cover their bills.
“We’ve definitely been robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Tavis said.
Ideally, the money that eventually comes from the United Way, victims’ compensation, and, they hope, back pay from short-term disability will be enough to pay off their debts.
But, Tavis said, “You gotta do what you gotta do. We’re not going to go without lights.”
United Way payout expected at end of June
With every mass shooting, donations for survivors inevitably flow in, “just like peanut butter goes with jelly, because people want to help,” said Jeff Dion, executive director of the Mass Violence Survivors Fund, a nonprofit that has helped many communities manage such funds.
Typically, he said, it takes about five months to disburse the money from these large community funds. Victims can potentially get money sooner if their community has a plan in place for these types of funds before a mass shooting. Funds may also advance money to people with urgent financial needs who are certain to qualify.
The United Way hung banners in the Chiefs colors on Kansas City’s Union Station with its #KCStrong campaign within days of the shootings. Driven by large donations from the team, the NFL, quarterback Patrick Mahomes, other individuals, and local companies, it ultimately raised more than $1.8 million.
The promise of a large payout has kept the injured hopeful, even as many felt confused by the process. Some people interviewed for this story did not wish to say anything negative, fearing it would hurt their allocation.
United Way officials announced in April that donations would be closed at the end of that month. On May 1, the organization posted a notice saying it would issue “claimant forms” and that the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office was helping verify shooting victims. The United Way affiliate’s board of trustees plans to meet June 26 to determine allocations, with payments arriving as early as June 27.
Kera Mashek, a spokesperson for United Way of Greater Kansas City, said payouts will be made to 20 of the 24 shooting survivors. The other four either couldn’t be verified as victims or turned down the funds, she said. Claimants do not include the 67 people prosecutors say were trampled in the melee, she said.
Pending board approval, money will also be disbursed to 14 community groups that support nonviolence initiatives, mental health concerns, and first responders, Mashek said.
To criticism that the United Way didn’t communicate well with the victims, Mashek said it tried to respond in a timely manner.
“We’ve tried to keep that line of communication open as fast as possible and most people have been very patient,” she said. “I think that they will be very grateful and very, I believe, pleasantly surprised with the amount of funding that they receive.”
Other resources available
Abigail Arellano hadn’t heard of victims’ compensation, which is common. A 2022 survey from the Alliance for Safety and Justice found that 96% of victims did not receive that support and many didn’t know it existed.
Arellano and her husband, Antonio, didn’t attend the parade but they’ve had medical expenses as well. Antonio has been going to therapy at a local health center to help with the stressful task of guiding his son through the trauma. It’s been helpful. But he’s been paying around $125 out-of-pocket for each session, he said, and the bills are mounting.
One of Samuel’s sisters set up a GoFundMe that raised $12,500, and Abigail said it helped that the family shared their story publicly and that Abigail reached out to help others in the Latino community affected by the shooting.
It was Abigail, for instance, who connected 71-year-old Sarai Holguin with the Mexican Consulate in Kansas City. The consulate, in turn, helped Holguin register as an official victim of the shooting, which will enable her to receive assistance from the United Way. Holguin’s bills now include a fourth surgery, to remove the bullet lodged near her knee that she had previously made peace with living with forever — until it began protruding through her skin.
‘Generous and quick’ relief to victims
Several survivors were relieved and grateful to receive funds from a less high-profile, nondenominational group called “The Church Loves Kansas City.”
The day after the shooting, Gary Kendall, who ran a Christian nonprofit called “Love KC,” started a text chain at 6 a.m. with city leaders and faith-based groups, and eventually received pledges of $184,500. (Love KC has now merged with another nonprofit, “Unite KC,” which is disbursing its funds.)
The first payout went to the family of Lisa Lopez-Galvan, the 43-year-old mother of two and popular DJ who was the sole fatality during the parade shootings. Unite KC spent $15,000 on her burial expenses.
Unite KC spent $2,800 so James and Brandie Lemons could get their health insurance restored because James couldn’t work. Unite KC also paid $2,200 for the out-of-pocket surgical costs when James decided to get the bullet removed from his leg.
“I appreciate it,” an emotional James Lemons said. “They don’t have to do that, to open their hearts for no reason.”
Erika Nelson was struggling to pay for household expenses and had to take time off from her home healthcare job to take her injured daughter, 15-year-old Mireya, to doctor appointments. Mireya was shot in the chin and shoulderYour text to link… and is recovering.
A GoFundMe page set up by Nelson’s best friend raised about $11,000, but it was frozen after Nelson tried to get into the account and GoFundMe thought it was being hacked. She feared the lights would be shut off in their apartment, because of unpaid electric bills, and was feeling desperate.
“I’m struggling with, like, you know, groceries,” Nelson said. “People were like, ‘Oh, go to food pantries.’ Well, the food pantries are not open the times I can get off. I can’t just take off work to go to a food pantry.”
After meeting with Gary Kendall, Nelson received three months of rent and utility payments, about $3,500.
“A weight off my shoulder. I mean, yeah. In a big way,” she whispered. “‘Cause you never know. You never know what can happen in two days, five days, two weeks, two months.”
Samuel Arellano’s family recently connected with Unite KC, which will pay for his ambulance bill, one of the hospital bills, and some therapy, worth about $6,000. The bill for the initial emergency room trip was about $20,000, his parents said, but the hospital had been reluctant to send it and ultimately covered the cost.
And Unite KC also intends to pay off a $1,300 credit card bill for Emily Tavis and Jacob Gooch Sr.
Unite KC has disbursed $40,000 so far and hopes to connect with more of the injured families, hoping to be as “generous and quick as we can,” Kendall said. United Way will be like a “lightning bolt” for victims’ relief, Kendall said, but his group is aiming for something different, more like a campfire that burns for the next year.
“We agree this is a horrific thing that happened. It’s a sad state of humanity but it’s a real part,” he said. “So we want to remind them that God has not forgotten you. And that although he allowed this, he has not abandoned them. We believe we can be like an extension of his love to these people.”
