Health

(LOS ANGELES) — A 10-month-old who was born at 26 weeks gestation has beaten the odds to return home from the hospital.

Ellyannah, the daughter of Cecia Juarez and Boris Lopez, was discharged from Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s in Los Angeles on March 15 after spending the first eight months of her life in the neonatal intensive care unit, two weeks in the pediatric intensive care unit and then another month on the pediatrics floor.

“There were doctors [and] nurses from three different units, and I just felt like Ellyannah’s exit couldn’t have been any other way, like, she deserved it,” Juarez told “Good Morning America” of her daughter’s homecoming. “This is what her life has been — a whole celebration of hope.”

For Juarez and Lopez, the journey to parenthood was a long and uncertain one. The couple, who live in Gardena, California, had been married for eight years and had been trying to conceive when Juarez said she learned she was pregnant at the end of 2022.

“I think our pregnancy was nothing short of, like, this miraculous event,” the 36-year-old mom said. “We scheduled an appointment for January of 2023 to seek help, but [on] Dec. 31, 2022, I took a pregnancy test, and I was pregnant without any help.”

At their 20-week appointment, however, Juarez and Lopez received concerning news.

“She was extremely small. She wasn’t getting the right nutrients, and her heart would stop beating at any moment … and because of that, the doctors thought that the best thing for me to do was to terminate my pregnancy,” Juarez recalled. “And at that moment, my husband and I … we just kind of looked at each other, we both agreed that that wasn’t an option.”

Juarez was admitted to the hospital in early May 2023 at 26 weeks gestation. She said doctors told her and Lopez that her blood pressure kept “spiking” and they were counseled to make the difficult decision to have their daughter delivered early.

Ellyannah, whom Juarez and Lopez affectionately call “Elly Belly,” was born May 19, 2023, weighing just 12 ounces, just a little bigger than an average soda can.

“Because her weight was so [low], the doctors believed that she weighed as much as a regular 22-weeker,” Juarez said.

What followed next was what Lopez described as “a roller coaster,” with Elly “extremely sick” and requiring intensive treatments for multiple health challenges, from needing a high-flow ventilator at 100% oxygen to doctors having to resuscitate her during one particularly harrowing period, as well as a collapsed lung.

“All I could think of is to have hope and to have faith and just believe that everything is in God’s hands,” Lopez said.

Despite the long odds, Ellyannah, her parents and her care team never gave up. After 10 months, Elly had recovered, grown and was soon healthy enough to go home.

“Things could have gone a different way and we’re just grateful,” Juarez said.

The mom of one added, “What she looks like now, I think everybody agrees that this isn’t anything short of a miracle.”

Juarez and Lopez said they want to share their daughter’s story to offer hope to other families who might also have a child in the NICU or hospital.

“If someone can look at her story and think … ‘Hey, if that little girl can make it, I think there’s hope,’ then I think it’s worth telling her story,” Juarez said. “There’s things that sound so crazy to the mind but we just have to hold on to our faith and believe that she’s here for a purpose.”

The first-time parents said they also want their “princess” to know she is stronger than she might realize and they’re always going to support her.

“There are no limits to what she’s capable of doing because if she can get through a NICU and she can graduate the NICU, then there is nothing that she can’t do in life,” Juarez said.

Speaking to his daughter, Lopez added, “The same way we were supporting [you] since day one, we’re going to support you every day of your life. We love you. We’re gonna be with you always.”

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(BOSTON) — A surgical team said Thursday it has conducted the world’s first genetically edited pig kidney transplant into a living human.

During a four-hour procedure earlier this month, surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital connected the pig kidney’s blood vessels and ureter — the duct that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder — with those of 62-year-old Richard Slayman, a man living with end-stage kidney disease. He continues to recover well, the hospital says.

Massachusetts General said the procedure marks a “major milestone” in the pursuit of having organs more readily available for patients in need.

“The success of this transplant is the culmination of efforts by thousands of scientists and physicians over several decades,” Dr Tatsuo Kawai, a member of the surgical team, said in a release. “We are privileged to have played a significant role in this milestone. Our hope is that this transplant approach will offer a lifeline to millions of patients worldwide who are suffering from kidney failure.”

The patient, a resident of Weymouth — 16 miles southeast of Boston — has been living with Type 2 diabetes and hypertension for many years, the hospital said. He was on dialysis for many years before receiving a kidney transplant from a human deceased donor in December 2018 at Massachusetts General Hospital.

However, the kidney began to fail about five years later and Slayman was forced to resume dialysis in May 2023, which the hospital said affecting his quality of life.

“I saw [the procedure] not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive,” Slayman said in a statement.

During a press conference on Thursday morning, staff at Massachusetts General praised Slayman’s bravery and declared him a “hero”.

“This surgery, once deemed unimaginable, would not have been possible without his courage and his willingness to embark on a journey into uncharted medical territory,” Dr. Joren Madsen, director of the Mass General Transplant Center. said during the press conference.

The kidney was provided by eGenesis, a pharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, from a pig donor genetically-edited using CRISPR-Cas9 technology. The harmful pig genes were removed and certain human genes were added to improve its compatibility with humans and hopefully reduce rejection, according to the hospital.

Additionally, scientists inactivated retroviruses that are found in pigs to reduce the risk of infection in humans.

This is not the first time that an animal organ has been transplanted into a human patient.

Last year, researchers at NYU Langone Health in New York City conducted a two-month study of a genetically engineered pig kidney that had been transplanted into a 58-year-old man who had been declared brain dead, with his family’s consent. The team observed only mild rejection that required intensifying immunosuppression medication to reverse it.

Experts have expressed hope that being able to transfer animal organs into human patients will help the future of the organ supply.

However, the edited animal organs bring up questions if they will work long term, if they are safe and if it is ethical raising animals for human organ transplantation.

Currently, more than 103,000 men, women and children on the national transplant waiting list, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Someone is added to the transplant waiting list every eight minutes and 17 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant. Additionally, a September 2022 study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology in October 2020 found many donor kidneys in the U.S. are unnecessarily discarded.

If these type of transplants for kidneys prove to work and be safe — this could one day make dialysis unnecessary for the more than 500,000 people in the U.S. who require it to live.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has launched a bipartisan investigation into the U.S. organ transplant system — the latest scrutiny of the system following reports from the Senate and whistleblowers alleging its failures and mismanagement.

The move by the committee aims to “ensure successful implementation” of a bipartisan bill that was signed into law by President Joe Biden last September. The law was aimed at breaking up the monopoly system that allowed a private nonprofit — the United Network for Organ Sharing — to be the sole contractor managing the country’s Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) for over 40 years.

As part of the investigation, the committee sent letters — obtained first by ABC News — seeking a wide range of documents from the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which is responsible for awarding the contract to manage the organ transplant system.

“The Committee writes to request information related to the United Network for Organ Sharing’s (UNOS) role as the sole contractor for the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network,” the letter to UNOS states.

The letter added, “According to HRSA statistics, approximately 17 Americans die everyday waiting for an organ transplant, and a disproportionate number of them are patients of color and/or rural Americans.”

The nation’s organ transplant system has received scrutiny in recent years amid government reports, congressional investigations and whistleblower accounts that revealed outdated and poor technological infrastructure, mismanagement from organ procurement organizations under UNOS, and errors that included allowing organs to go unused.

“Everybody knows the system has been broken for years, with heartbreaking consequences,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in September.

An investigation by the Senate Finance Committee launched in 2020 found that “serious errors in the procurement and transplant system are shockingly common.”

The committee found at the time that some of the errors included failure from organ procurement organizations to complete mandatory tests for things like blood types and errors in delivering organs.

“It’s reasonable to assume that many more errors are going unreported,” the Senate Finance Committee said in a report. “Why? Because filing official complaints with UNOS appears to accomplish zero productive oversight or reform.”

“Complaints went in, UNOS went quiet,” the Senate Finance Committee added.

The Senate Finance committee also found that “hundreds of people” developed diseases from transplanted organs, and that 70 people died between 2007 and 2015 from those illnesses.

The law that Biden signed is partially a result from that investigation as it pushed to break the monopoly that UNOS had as the sole contractor managing the OPTN.

The new investigation by the Committee on Energy and Commerce, according to the letters, aims to ensure “successful implementation” of the bill signed into law by Biden. The bill seeks to increase competition among contractors, gain additional funding and improve the OPTN.

In the letter to UNOS CEO Maureen McBride, the committee requested information on UNOS’ data and IT system, a breakdown of “an additional 35,000 deaths of waiting list candidates and transplant recipients,” and an explanation of their protocols and procedures to inform HRSA of “adverse events and potential patient safety concerns.”

The energy and commerce committee also requested a comprehensive account of all patient-safety complaints and allegations regarding the misuse of medical advice and “documentation of all compensation or other financial interests” from the UNOS executives and board of directors.

“UNOS has been the sole organization managing the OPTN, during which time concerning reports have emerged that the organ donation system has become unsafe, inequitable, self dealing, and retaliatory,” the letter states. “The Committee supports HRSA’s proposed reforms to make the contracting process truly competitive to help ensure patients are served by the best contractors for each function.”

A spokesperson for UNOS did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

In a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in 2022, then-CEO of UNOS, Brian Shepard, defended the organization and said UNOS “is dedicated to continuously improving, monitoring and adapting.”

“From transportation to technology, from equity to system-wide improvements, by building on the successes of our national system and our community’s ongoing efforts on all fronts, we can come together around these shared goals,” Shepard said.

Following his testimony, Shepard called many of the allegations against UNOS “misperceptions” in a letter and said the Senate committee “misunderstood the role UNOS has been assigned by the government within the nation’s organ donation and transplant system.”

HRSA, which said it has taken steps to resolve some of the issues playing the organ transplant industry, also received a letter Wednesday for information and documents related to its contract with UNOS and how the agency plans to support multiple contracts with other companies.

“Errors and inefficiencies in OPTN management can have deadly consequences,” the letter states. “As HRSA proceeds through the solicitation and review process for new OPTN contracts, the Committee wants to know how the agency plans to structure, award, and exercise ongoing oversight of the contracts, and about its past experience contracting with UNOS.”

In a press release last month, HRSA said that for the first time in four-decades, the agency is “issuing requests for proposals in advance of executing multiple different contract awards.”

“In 2023, new legislation reformed the decades-old statute, enabling HRSA to fundamentally transform the system and make multiple different contract awards to access best-in-class vendors,” HRSA said.

Greg Segal, the CEO of Organize, a watchdog organization focused on patient safety, health equity, and anti-corruption in organ donation, told ABC News that reform on the organ transplant system is overdue.

“UNOS and OPOs represent a multi-billion dollar industry which has been abusing patients and taxpayers for decades,” Segal said.

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(NEW YORK) — Life expectancy in the United States increased in 2022 after two years of decline, according to new final federal mortality data.

In a report published early Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), data showed life expectancy at birth was 77.5 years in 2022.

While life expectancy hasn’t reached pre-pandemic levels, it marked an increase of 1.1 years from 76.4 years in 2021.

In total, there were 3.27 million deaths recorded in the U.S. in 2022, about 184,374 fewer deaths than recorded in 2021.

The death rate in the U.S. decreased from 879.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2021 to 798.8 in 2022, a 9.2% drop.

The report found the top 10 leading causes of death stayed the same from 2021 to 2022 but some causes changed ranks. Heart disease and cancer remained the two leading causes of death, respectively.

COVID-19 fell to the fourth-leading cause of death in 2022 while unintentional injuries took the number three spot.

Additionally, the number of deaths for which the virus was the underlying cause of death dropped by 55.3% from 416,893 in 2021 to 186,552 in 2022.

All of the top 10 leading causes of death saw a drop in death rates except kidney disease — the ninth-leading cause — which increased by 1.5%, from 13.6 per 100,000 deaths in 2021 to 13.8 per 100,0000 deaths in 2022.

When broken down by sex, males and females saw roughly the same increase in life expectancy from 2021 to 2022 with males increasing by 1.3 years from 73.5 years to 74.8 years and females increasing by 0.9 years from 79.3 years to 80.2 years.

Every racial/ethnic group saw a decrease in death rates for both males and females. American Indian/Alaskan Native males had the highest death rates in 2022 but also saw the biggest drop in a year, decreasing 15.9% from 1,717.5 per 100,000 deaths to 1,444.1 per 100,000.

By age, death rates decreased for almost every age group except among children. The 1-4 age group saw death rates increase 12% from 25.0 deaths per 100,000 in 2021 to 28.0 per 100,000 deaths in 2022 and the 5-14 age group saw a 7% increase from 14.3 deaths per 100,000 in 2021 to 15.3 per 100,000 deaths in 2022.

A 2023 study found child and adolescent mortality rates had dropped due to decreases in childhood disease but have been increasing recently — primarily due to increases in homicides, accidental drug overdoses, car accidents and suicides between ages 10 and 19.

Meanwhile, infant mortality increased by 3.1% from 543.6 infant deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 to 560.4 in 2022.

Congenital malformations were the leading cause of infant death in 2022 followed by low birth weight; sudden infant death syndrome; unintentional injuries; maternal complications; cord and placental complications; bacterial sepsis of newborn; respiratory distress of newborn; intrauterine hypoxia and birth asphyxia; and diseases of the circulatory system, respectively. Additionally, the report said the top 10 leading causes of death accounted for 65.2% of all infant deaths in the U.S. in 2022.

It comes as a separate NCHS report, also released on Thursday, found rates of drug overdose deaths — despite quadrupling over the last two decades, becoming one of the leading causes of injury death in the U.S. — did not significantly change from 2021 to 2022.

Between 2021 and 2022, the death rate involving synthetic opioids other than methadone — such as fentanyl — increased by 4.1% from 21.8 per 100,000 to 22.7 per 100,000, while rates for deaths involving heroin, natural and semisynthetic opioids and methadone declined.

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(NEW YORK) — As the U.S. welcomes spring, it also means the arrival of allergy season, which affects millions of people.

High pollen levels can lead to a variety of symptoms including sneezing, runny nose, itchy and watery eyes, hives and coughing — and Americans may have to deal with them for much longer than in past years.

Typical allergy seasons are getting longer and more intense in North America because of climate change, research shows.

One 2020 study found that between 1990 and 2018, North American pollen seasons became 20 days longer on average with pollen concentrations increasing up to 21% during the same period.

Plants have more time to bloom and sprout leaves, releasing allergy-inducing pollen when there are longer periods of freeze-free days. With no mitigation, these trends will persist, further impacting respiratory health in the coming decades.

Parts of the Midwest, including the Ohio River Valley, are currently experiencing the earliest spring leaf out on record, two to three weeks earlier than average, according to the USA National Phenology Network.

Allergies occur when the immune system views food, medicine, things in the environment or something else as harmful and overreacts. The immune system then releases chemical compounds such as histamine, which causes those hallmark symptoms of allergies.

Reactions can range from mildly annoying symptoms to life-threatening reactions including anaphylactic shock, which occurs when blood pressure drops suddenly and the organs can’t get enough oxygen.

In 2021, approximately 81 million people in the U.S. were diagnosed with seasonal allergies, otherwise known as hay fever, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA).

However, the warming planet is likely making allergy seasons longer, as more carbon dioxide (CO2) is released into the air.

“We’ve known for a long time, several decades, that when you turn up the temperatures and increase the CO2 levels around plants, they tend to grow bigger and produce more pollen,” Dr. William Anderegg, an associate professor in the school of biological sciences at the University of Utah and the director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy, told ABC News.

Anderegg, a lead author on the 2020 study, explained that warmer temperatures drive more pollen from plants and higher pollen levels will mean more intense allergies and asthma.

Plants are incredibly sensitive to temperature and so warming really trigger plants to think, ‘Well, it’s time, it’s the growing season. Time to put out pollen.’ And that really kicks off our allergy seasons,” he said.

This has been seen in other events, including the bloom of the iconic cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.

Peak bloom occurs when 70% of the cherry blossoms open. This year, the National Park Service announced the trees reached a near-record early peak bloom on Sunday, March 17.

The peak bloom date for the trees at the Tidal Basin is occurring earlier than it did in the past, shifting about a week earlier since 1921.

Higher pollen counts don’t just mean earlier seasons or more severe allergies.

Dr. Rita Kachru, chief of clinical immunology and allergy and associate professor in the department of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said earlier and more intense pollen seasons due to global warming mean people are dealing with a more diverse and intense variety of allergens, which can trigger a more persistent and severe inflammatory response.

She added that increased pollen and mold due to climate change can exacerbate the effects air pollutants have on certain individuals. Exposure to these pollutants can also make new groups sensitive to seasonal allergies.

Anderegg said the results from his study and others like it show that climate change is already affecting people’s health. His warning for those who suffer from seasonal allergies? Be prepared.

“Earlier and longer pollen seasons are something we need to prepare for,” he said. “This is something that climate change is going to keep driving in the coming years. So preparing for that earlier start is a good way to try to minimize some of the health impacts.”

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(NEW YORK) — Millions of Americans are still experiencing long COVID more than four years since the global COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic.

According to the most recent federal Household Pulse Survey, between Jan. 9, and Feb. 5, 6.8% of U.S. adults currently have long COVID and 17.6% have had long COVID.

Using 2020 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, this means 17.5 million adults currently have long COVID and 45.4 million people have ever had long COVID.

Since the early days of the pandemic, scientists have learned a great deal about what puts someone at risk for long COVID, but researchers say we are still “scratching the surface” when it comes to our understanding of what causes the condition or how to treat it.

“We know much more today than we did four years ago; that’s a fact,” Dr. Alba Azola, an assistant professor of physical medicine and Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins Medicine, told ABC News. “But we do not have clarity on the exact pathophysiology or that mechanism that’s driving those symptoms.”

“We’re just scratching the surface, we’re just beginning to understand what makes those people that develop long COVID different than those people that have COVID and completely recover after,” she added.

What is long COVID?

Long COVID 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 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Azola said not all symptoms are visible in every single patient, but they can experience a wide range of them.

Long COVID most often occurs in people who had severe illness but anyone can develop the condition. People who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 are at higher risk of developing long COVID, according to the CDC.

Mystery around what causes long COVID

Scientists are not sure what causes long COVID but have identified risk factors including having underlying conditions or experiencing multi-system inflammatory syndrome due to COVID.

Research has also found that patients with long COVID tend to have lower cortisol levels and lower testosterone levels.

Another theory is that virus particles may become active again, causing people to suffer long-term symptoms.

“What we want, of course, it’s just to be able to diagnose, and to treat,” Dr. Fernando Carnavali, director of the Mount Sinai Center for Post-COVID Care in New York, told ABC News. “We have people that are really suffering with this, brain fog and other symptoms that are significantly impacting the quality of life. And it feels because of that some of [the research] is not enough. But I think that we are on the way.”

Research is also not clear about why some patients recover and others don’t.

New York City resident David Speal, 41, contracted COVID-19 in March 2020. He became seriously ill and was hospitalized at Lenox Hill Hospital. After he was discharged from the hospital, he said he experienced a consistently high heart rate.

It was several months later that he was diagnosed with long COVID. It’s been a long road to recovery, but Speal has regained most of his health since his initial infection.

However, he said his wife is suffering. Speal said she contracted COVID twice — the second time resulting in brain fog so severe that she no longer works, but it’s unclear whether or not she receives disability.

“I’m not 100%. Sometimes, you do a lot, you get really tired, and you can tell like, ‘Okay, you know, this is still, it’s still a part of me, but not to the point where I can’t function,'” he told ABC News. “My biggest question is, well, how did I recover? You know, like, what happened?” We don’t truly know what was the turning point for me when everything went normal.”

Trials still needed for treatments

Because those with long COVID can experience a variety of symptoms, there is no single treatment or cure for the condition.

Patients and health care providers often have to work together to create a personal care plan to manage symptoms.

“We need to remind ourselves that without really knowing the pathophysiology of the disease, without knowing biomarkers, it’s complex,” Carnavali said. “There are certain things that people been trying and some of these treatments do potentially have some benefit.”

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) RECOVER Initiative launched several clinical trials of potential treatments for long COVID.

Currently, the only medications or treatments that can be used aim to alleviate some long COVID symptoms, but aren’t specifically for long COVID. Speal said he was prescribed propranolol, a medication that slows down the heart rate and makes it easier for the heart to pump blood.

Speal said he took an extremely low dose of the medicine for about two years until he got to a point where he no longer needed to take the medication.

Azola said that while she expects that clinical trials will eventually result in effective treatments, she urges patients and the general public to be patient.

“The reality is that the science is moving forward, but it’s going to take a long time for that to translate into clinical improvement or treatment,” she said. “So, there’s a big canyon between science and clinical treatments that are available to us.”

‘You have to get comfortable with not knowing’

Doctors say that one of the most difficult things about treating long COVID patients is not having an answer about why they’re feeling the way they feel or how to best treat them.

“I would probably say that’s one of the hardest things about being a physician that takes care of this patient population,” Azola said. “Because as physicians, we want to help people, we want to get them better, we want to have those answers. But in the case of long COVID, it’s quite frustrating. We don’t have those answers.”

“You really need to kind of get comfortable with not knowing … but also being curious and partnering with my patients to try to find creative ways that can be beneficial to them or finding creative ways to make their quality of life better,” she added.

Azola said she currently helps patients better manage symptoms and pain so that, even if they are not free for long COVID symptoms, they can at least participate in their day-to-day activities.

Speal said it’s often hard to describe to other people who have not gone through COVID what he may be experiencing, even his own family and friends.

“People say, ‘No, it’ll be okay’ or ‘Try this, do that’ but it’s like the only way you can truly understand long COVID is if it happens to you, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody,” he said. “The reality is it’s so hard to explain to people, because every case is totally different.”

Azola also cautioned family members and caregivers of long COVID patients to not dismiss them or how they feel.

“At times, by pushing themselves too much, or trying to go beyond their energy envelope, they can actually end up harming themselves and losing function,” she said. “So, it is certainly important for families and people that have caregivers to continue to help them because that’s the only way they’re gonna be able to get better.”

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(NEW YORK) — COVID-19 vaccines were found to cut the risk of heart failure by up to 55% and blood clots by up to 78% following COVID infection, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal.

The positive health effects lasted for up to a year and were more pronounced right after getting vaccinated.

Researchers looked at over 20 million people in Europe; half of them were vaccinated against the virus, and half were not. Vaccines included in the research were Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson.

During the period of study, researchers looked at the original strain of the virus and the Delta variant.

COVID vaccines reduced the risk of blood clots in the veins by 78% within a month of obtaining the dose, according to the researchers’ findings. It also reduced the risk of blood clots in the arteries by 47% and heart failure by 55%, the study found.

Researchers said COVID vaccines reduced the risk of a blood clot in the vein by 47%, a blood clot in an artery by 28% and heart failure by 39% in the six-month period after vaccination.

Adults over the age of 65 are now able to get an additional updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect against severe hospitalization and death, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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(NEW YORK) — Medication abortion accounted for 63% of all the abortions performed in the U.S. in 2023, according to a new study from the Guttmacher Institute.

In the first full calendar year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in July 2022, approximately 642,700 medication abortions took place within the health care system, according to Guttmacher’s Monthly Provision Study. Since the court’s decision, 14 states have ceased nearly all abortions.

By comparison, medication abortions accounted for 53% of abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to the study.

One of the pills used in the medication abortion regimen, mifepristone, is at the center of a legal challenge before the Supreme Court which could restrict nationwide access to the pill.

The utilization of medication abortions has steadily increased over the last two decades.

The most common medication abortion regimen consists of two medications, mifepristone and misoprotol. Under current Food and Drug Administration guidelines, mifepristone is safe for use up to 10 weeks of pregnancy and can be sent to patients following a telehealth appointment.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that the total number of medication abortions is higher than the study’s count, because the study only includes abortions provided within the formal health care system.

The study does not take into account self-managed abortions which take place outside the formal health care system or abortion medication mailed to patients living in states with abortion bans in effect, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The study also found that, in 2023, there were an estimated 1,026,690 abortions in the formal U.S. health care system and a rate of 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age. This represents a 10% increase in the number of abortions from 2020 and is the highest number and rate of abortions measured in the country in more than a decade. It’s the first year since 2012 that there were more than one million abortions provided in the formal health care system.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to weigh in on abortion once again when it hears arguments in a lawsuit seeking to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. The court could restrict the ability to mail abortion medication to patients living in states with bans in effect and require that the drug be provided in-person.

Earlier this month, CVS and Walgreens announced that they would begin selling mifepristone in some states.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order Monday promoting women’s health research as the country continues to celebrate Women’s History Month.

The White House described it as the “most comprehensive set of actions” taken by a president to advance women’s health research, which will focus on diseases and conditions that disproportionately affect women.

Biden has previously hinted to the initiative during his State of the Union address earlier this month, describing women’s health as chronically underfunded and calling on Congress to approve $12 billion to support a women’s health fund for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Here are some of the women’s health issues Biden said he wants to tackle in his executive order:

Research focusing on women’s health after menopause

Biden’s executive order will support research into women’s midlife health and diseases that are prevalent after menopause, including heart disease and osteoporosis.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be directed to increase data collection about women’s midlife health and find ways to improve management of menopause-related issues.

After someone goes through menopause, their ovaries produce less estrogen, which increases the risk of developing certain health problems.

Heart disease is one of the most common health problems women face after menopause. Women have a lower risk of heart disease than men before age 55 because estrogen protects blood vessels and helps the body balance cholesterol levels.

Once a woman produces less estrogen, arteries can become thicker and stiffen, and “bad” cholesterol may build up on the walls of the arteries leading to heart disease.

By age 70, women have the same risk for heart disease as men of similar age, according to the HHS. They are also at increased risk of stroke.

Osteoporosis — a bone disease caused by a loss of bone density and bone mass as well as structural changes to the bone — is another risk facing postmenopausal women. Lower estrogen levels after menopause can speed up the loss of bone mass, increasing the risk of fractures.

It’s unknown how many older women have osteoporosis in the U.S. but, using criteria from the World Health Organization (WHO), it is estimated about 30% of caucasian postmenopausal women have osteoporosis, according to the Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center.

Under the executive order, Biden also stated the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs will evaluate the needs of women service members and veterans for midlife health issues, including menopausal symptoms.

More women in clinical trials

In the executive order, the president said members of the initiative would work to “improve the recruitment, enrollment, and retention of women in clinical trials, including, as appropriate, by reducing barriers through technological and data sciences advances.”

As recently as the 1970s, few women were enrolled in clinical trials, and it was believed women’s health needs were a low priority.

In 1986, the NIH establish a policy that encouraged the inclusion of women in studies, but the policy was poorly communicated and inconsistently applied. Eventually, Congress passed a law in 1993 that established guidelines for the inclusion of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups in clinical research.

However, women are still underrepresented, particularly in the early stages of clinical trials. One 2022 study found women account for between 29% and 34% of early-stage clinical trials due to concerns about fertility. This can often lead to a lack of understanding about how women may respond to a new drug compared to men.

Another 2022 study from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital found females make up 60% of all patients with psychiatric disorders, but just 42% of participants in clinical trials investigating drugs and devices to treat those disorders. Similar findings were seen with examined data from clinical trials for cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Conditions with different symptoms for men and women

During a press call on Sunday afternoon, Dr. Carolyn Mazure, chairperson of the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research, said the order will also focus on conditions that affect women disproportionately including Alzheimer’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Women have a greater lifetime risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than men, one reason being that women live longer than men, according to an article published in Harvard Health Publishing from Harvard Medical School.

However, it’s not understood if there are any biomarkers or other unknown factors that make women more susceptible.

In the case of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), women are up to three times more likely than men to be diagnosed with the condition. It is believed that several factors, including sex hormones, play a role, but researchers say more work needs to be done in understanding why women are more predisposed to developing RA and also why different joints are affected in women compared to men.

ABC News’ Frtiz Farrow and Selina Wang contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — Cases of MIS-C are still occurring in 2023 and children who are unvaccinated or have waning immunity from previous vaccination are at the highest risk of developing the condition, according to a new federal report published Thursday.

MIS-C, or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, is a rare but serious condition in which different body parts can become inflamed — such as the heart, lungs, brain and kidneys — and is often seen in children after they are diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It typically occurs between two to six weeks after infection and many children can be hospitalized with serious complications.

To better understand MIS-C, CDC investigators and partners from various health departments looked at cases of MIS-C in 2023 and compared them with cases that occurred earlier in the pandemic, from 2020 to 2022.

Although incidence of MIS-C dropped dramatically, particularly since the peak from late 2020 to early 2021, there continues to be cases and, specifically, an increase during fall 2023, when COVID-19 activity began peaking in the U.S.

In total, 117 cases were reported during 2023 with more than one-quarter — 26% — occurring between August and October 2023. The authors, however, said this is likely an undercount due to reporting lags.

“While numbers have gone down, it’s still a persistent risk in our pediatric population and it’s especially true following surges of COVID. We will see increases in this condition among our kids,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor.

The median age of MIS-C patients in 2023 was 7. This is younger than the median age of 5 from February 2020 to January 2022.

Of the 117 patients, 58% had no previous underlying conditions. This is consistent with previous data from the CDC, which has shown that majority of children with MIS-C don’t have pre-existing conditions.

When children did have pre-existing conditions, obesity was the most common condition at 27.4%. Other pre-existing conditions included chronic lung disease, neurological conditions and cardiac conditions.

Many children required intensive medical care. The report found 50% were admitted to intensive care units; 34% experienced shock, meaning the organs weren’t getting enough blood or oxygen; and 27% experienced cardiac dysfunction. The team found the percentages were similar to those reported earlier in the pandemic.

The overwhelming majority, 112 of the 117 patients, were eligible for COVID-19 vaccines at the time of their illness.

However, 82.1% of the children with MIS-C were unvaccinated. Additionally, among the 20 patients who were vaccinated, 60% were more than 12 months out from their last dose of the vaccine. Only five children with MIS-C had received three or more doses. `

This means that unvaccinated children and those with waning immunity were more likely to develop MIS-C than those who were vaccinated or whose immunity hadn’t waned.

“It highlights the fact that vaccination still represents our critical tool to reducing any significant risk of complications from COVID in our pediatric population,” Brownstein said. “The issue, of course, is that as we get further out from the sort of height of the pandemic, vaccination becomes less of a priority for families.”

Brownstein said this may be highlighted by the age shift in younger kids contracting MIS-C in 2023 compared to previous points in the pandemic.

“Likely because those kids have become vaccine-eligible, but parents are electing not to vaccinate their kids, because of the sort of overall perception that COVID risk is low,” he said. “But MIS-C is one of those critical features of COVID that should represent an important reason why parents should get their kids vaccinated.”

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