Health

(NEW YORK) — Teenage girls in the United States are experiencing record-high levels of feelings of sadness and acts of violence, according to new federal data.

A report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that nearly 3 in 5 — or 57% — of girls reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, up from 36% in 2011 and the highest levels seen in the past decade.

By comparison, teen boys also saw an increase, but from 21% in 2011 to 29% in 2021.

“Young people are experiencing a level of distress that calls on us to act with urgency and compassion,” Kathleen Ethier, CDC division of adolescent and school health director, said in a statement. “With the right programs and services in place, schools have the unique ability to help our youth flourish.”

The report includes an analysis of data and trends from the annual Youth Risk Behavior Survey, which looks at the health and behaviors of U.S. high school students.

While several areas of adolescent health improved, including a decrease of risky sexual behavior, misuse of prescription opioids and current alcohol use, it found the state of youth mental health has worsened.

In particular, the crisis is affecting teen girls who report a rise in harmful experiences.

According to the report, 41% of teenage girls surveyed said they had experienced poor mental health over the last 30 days compared to 18% of teenage boys.

What’s more, about one-third of teen girls, or 30%, said they had seriously considered attempting suicide.

Not only is this figure higher than the 14% of teen boys who reported the same thoughts in 2021, but it’s a dramatic increase from the 19% of teen girls who reported considering suicide in 2011.

The percentage of female youth who made a suicide plan also rose from 15% to 24% over the course of a decade.

The report also found that nearly one in five — or 18% — of teen girls said they had experienced sexual violence in the past year. This is an increase of 20% since 2017, the first year the CDC started monitoring this measure.

In addition, more than one in 10 female students, about 14%, said they had been forced to have sex, up 27% from 2019, marking an increase for the first time since the CDC has been tracking this statistic.

The report also found that LGBTQ youth are also facing mental health challenges and reporting high levels of violence.

Nearly 70% of LGBTQ students reported either persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year in 2021 and more than half said they had poor mental health during the past 30 days.

LGBTQ students and students who had any same-sex partners were more likely to seriously consider attempting suicide at 45% and 58%, respectively.

Trend data from 2011 to 2021 was not available for LGBTQ youth because of changes in survey methods, the authors said.

When it came to breakdowns by race and ethnicity, students of all groups saw an increase in feelings of persistent sadness and loneliness over the last decade and white, Black and Hispanic saw increased poor mental health over the last 30 days.

Additionally, despite Black students being less likely to report poor mental health and persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness than some other groups, they were much more likely than Asian, Hispanic, and White students to have attempted suicide.

The report did not go into reasons for the increase in poor mental health, but it did note this data is the first collected since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Although most schools had returned to in-person instruction by that time, the time spent out of school for many students may have impacted the school-related [survey] variables,” the report read. “Disruptions in daily life also remained common during the time of collection.”

The authors said the report shows the importance of offering health-quality education in school as well as school-based activities to teens to help improve their mental health and reduce the negative impacts of violence and other types of trauma.

“High school should be a time for trailblazing, not trauma. These data show our kids need far more support to cope, hope, and thrive,” Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer and deputy director for program and science, said in a statement. “Proven school prevention programs can offer teens a vital lifeline in these growing waves of trauma.”

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

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(NEW YORK) — During the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting social interactions and wearing masks kept pesky viruses away. But now, stuffed sinuses and miserable post nasal drip are back — and for some people, feel worse than ever before.

Cold viruses aren’t any more virulent than they were before the pandemic, experts say. But that doesn’t make the experience of having one any better. ABC News spoke to experts about why they might seem harder to bear.

Why do cold symptoms feel worse?

Experts say there is currently no evidence to suggest the viruses that cause cold symptoms are any more severe than they were pre-COVID. However, there are some reasons they may feel more severe.

One reason is because people may have forgotten how miserable cold symptoms can feel after a few years without them.

Cold symptoms can include things like sneezing, coughing and runny nose, but in more severe cases can cause body aches, chest discomfort or even fever, according to the CDC. They also usually last up to 10 days.

“All of us have forgotten about what common colds used to be like, and we’re getting them now again,” said Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.

Lack of exposure to viruses that cause cold symptoms may also be playing a role. People who haven’t had a cold in a while won’t have as much immunity to viruses, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist at UCSF.

“Lack of exposure to viruses over time might make a cold seem much worse than before, because you haven’t been exposed a little bit along the way,” he said.

However, having some immunity isn’t always protective when it comes to colds, as there are over 200 known viruses that can cause symptoms of the common cold, according to the National Institute of Health.

“Being exposed to one doesn’t mean that you’re going to be protected by another one that comes along,” said Chin-Hong.

Are you more likely to catch a cold now than during the height of COVID?

People are socializing more than they did during the height of the pandemic and are in more public spaces without masks. That might make catching a cold more likely, experts said.

“We may have been a little spoiled over the last few seasons, because we’ve been spared this experience of getting one or two or even three common colds during the winter,” said Schaffner.

Socializing also means interacting with other people who also didn’t have much exposure to cold viruses in the past few years.

“There’s less of a forcefield in the population, so the chances of you encountering a cold is higher,” Chin-Hong said.

He added, “When more people are ill, and more people don’t have immunity, they’re more likely to get ill and that leads to a cycle of encounters.”

There were similar trends with RSV and the flu this year.

“We saw a lot more RSV in the beginning of this year, because a lot of kids were not born when there was RSV circulating so of course, they’re going to get it and probably feel it a little bit more,” said Chin-Hong.

What are the best ways to fight the common cold?

Washing your hands.

“We haven’t emphasized washing hands and surfaces for COVID because there’s less evidence for that. But for colds, there’s tons of evidence.” said Chin-Hong.

If you do find yourself getting sick, there are things you can do to help relieve symptoms.

It is important to keep your fluid intake up, according to Schaffner, and taking a steamy shower can help with a runny or stuffy nose.

For a sore throat, Schaffner said, “a little bit of gargling with warm salt water will help. And if you have any pains or perhaps a degree of fever as people do with the cold, then take some acetaminophen, and that’ll help you get through the day and get a little more sleep.”

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(ATLANTA) — The number of suicides increased in 2021 to the highest levels seen in four years, according to new federal data.

The report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday, looked at how many people died by suicide between 2018 and 2021 as well as breaking down the chart by race and ethnicity.

Results showed that 48,183 Americans died by suicide in 2021 with a rate of 14.1 suicides per 100,000 people.

These are the highest numbers recorded since 2018 when 48,344 Americans died by suicide with a rate of 14.2 per 100,000, and comes after two consecutive years of decreases in 2019 and 2020.

When researchers looked at 2021 suicide rates by race/ethnicity, they found American Indians/Alaska Natives had the highest rate at 28.1 per 100,000. In addition, this group had the highest percent change from 2018, with the rate increasing 26% from 22.3 per 100,000.

Rates also increased among Black Americans at 19.2% from 2018 to 2021 and among Hispanic Americans at 6.8% over the same four-year period.

White Americans were the only group to see a decrease in suicides rates between 2018 and 2021 at 3.9%.

The report also found that suicide rates significantly increased among Black Americans between ages 10 and 24 over the four-year period from 8.2 per 100,000 to 11.2 per 100,000 — a 36.6% increase.

Rates also increased for people between ages 25 and 44 for American Indian/Alaskan Native, Black, Hispanic and multiracial populations.

Meanwhile decreases were reported for those between ages 45 and 64 overall as well as for Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and white Americans in this age range.

No significant increases or decreases were seen for Americans aged 65 and older.

“These analyses demonstrate disparities in suicide rates among populations based on race and ethnicity and age group in the context of overall suicide rates nearly returning to their 2018 peak after [two] years of declines,” the team wrote.

“Suicide is a complex problem related to multiple risk factors such as relationship, job or school, and financial problems, as well as mental illness, substance use, social isolation, historical trauma, barriers to health care, and easy access to lethal means of suicide among persons at risk,” they continued.

The authors added that suicide rates might initially decrease during a disaster — in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic — only to rise as people begin experiencing the long-term aftereffects.

The report did not investigate why the number of suicides rose, but research has suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on mental health.

According to the KFF, four in 10 adults in the U.S. reported having symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder during the pandemic, an increase from one in 10 adults who reported the same thing from January 2019 to June 2019.

The impact on young adults was particularly severe. According to a 2021 study from Boston College, rates of depression and anxiety rose 61% and 65%, respectively, among those aged 18 to 29 during the first year of the pandemic. Both disorders increase suicide risk.

What’s more, despite the need for help regarding mental, behavioral or emotional disorders, there was a lack of services due to the lockdowns and business closures, as well as staffing shortages, according to the American Hospital Association.

Researchers are also studying if there is a link between people with long COVID and higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts.

“As the nation continues to respond to the short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, remaining vigilant in prevention efforts is critical, especially among disproportionately affected populations where longer-term impacts might compound preexisting inequities in suicide risk,” the authors wrote.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — A dangerous and contagious bird flu continues to spread through poultry farms, wild birds, and now mammal populations.There’s still no sign the virus is capable of spreading between humans, but experts are watching the outbreak closely.

“The recent spillover to mammals needs to be monitored closely,” World Health Organization director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing. “For the moment, WHO assesses the risk to humans as low.”

What is causing this bird flu outbreak?

This particular outbreak is caused by the H5N1 bird flu virus, which was first discovered in China in 1996. In 2021, a new variant of that virus emerged and started spreading around the world. The virus started infecting chickens on poultry farms in the United States in February 2022.

What is different about this outbreak?

The size, range, and number of species affected by this outbreak is unprecedented, says Nichola Hill, a virologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

This is the deadliest bird flu outbreak in U.S. history — nearly 60 million poultry have been affected. Wild birds in all 50 states have the virus. “It’s never really been seen in this number of different wild species before,” Hill says. It’s also infecting mammals: skunks, bears, seals, foxes, dolphins, and animals of other species are showing up with the virus. “That’s not really how bird flu should behave,” she says.

Most troubling is that the virus appeared on a mink farm where it seems to have spread between minks — not just from birds to individual minks. That type of mammal-to-mammal spread is new. “We hadn’t seen that before,” Hill says.

Is there a risk to people?

Mammal-to-mammal spread is concerning, but it doesn’t automatically mean that the virus is going to significantly affect human populations.

People can get sick from bird flu, but cases are still rare. They’re usually seen in people who work closely with birds. One person in the United States has been infected with the virus during this current outbreak, and that person was responsible for culling sick poultry.

Right now, even though the virus may be evolving to infect more mammals, it hasn’t mutated in a way that would help it infect humans easier.

“It still isn’t hitting on that magic combination of mutations that are necessary to unlock efficient human transmission,” Hill says.

But it’s still important to watch and try to contain H5N1 spread in other animal species, because every time it adapts to a new host, there’s a chance those mutations could happen. “We’re rolling the dice every time,” she says.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says people should avoid contact with wild birds, and that people who work with poultry should take precautions like wearing gloves and masks.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(ATLANTA) — The number of suicides increased in 2021 to the highest levels seen in four years, according to new federal data.

The report, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday, looked at how many people died by suicide between 2018 and 2021 as well as breaking down the chart by race and ethnicity.

Results showed that 48,183 Americans died by suicide in 2021 with a rate of 14.1 suicides per 100,000 people.

These are the highest numbers recorded since 2018 when 48,344 Americans died by suicide with a rate of 14.2 per 100,000, and comes after two consecutive years of decreases in 2019 and 2020.

When researchers looked at 2021 suicide rates by race/ethnicity, they found American Indians/Alaska Natives had the highest rate at 28.1 per 100,000. In addition, this group had the highest percent change from 2018, with the rate increasing 26% from 22.3 per 100,000.

Rates also increased among Black Americans at 19.2% from 2018 to 2021 and among Hispanic Americans at 6.8% over the same four-year period.

White Americans were the only group to see a decrease in suicides rates between 2018 and 2021 at 3.9%.

The report also found that suicide rates significantly increased among Black Americans between ages 10 and 24 over the four-year period from 8.2 per 100,000 to 11.2 per 100,000 — a 36.6% increase.

Rates also increased for people between ages 25 and 44 for American Indian/Alaskan Native, Black, Hispanic and multiracial populations.

Meanwhile decreases were reported for those between ages 45 and 64 overall as well as for Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and white Americans in this age range.

No significant increases or decreases were seen for Americans aged 65 and older.

“These analyses demonstrate disparities in suicide rates among populations based on race and ethnicity and age group in the context of overall suicide rates nearly returning to their 2018 peak after [two] years of declines,” the team wrote.

“Suicide is a complex problem related to multiple risk factors such as relationship, job or school, and financial problems, as well as mental illness, substance use, social isolation, historical trauma, barriers to health care, and easy access to lethal means of suicide among persons at risk,” they continued.

The authors added that suicide rates might initially decrease during a disaster — in this case, the COVID-19 pandemic — only to rise as people begin experiencing the long-term aftereffects.

The report did not investigate why the number of suicides rose, but research has suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on mental health.

According to the KFF, four in 10 adults in the U.S. reported having symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder during the pandemic, an increase from one in 10 adults who reported the same thing from January 2019 to June 2019.

The impact on young adults was particularly severe. According to a 2021 study from Boston College, rates of depression and anxiety rose 61% and 65%, respectively, among those aged 18 to 29 during the first year of the pandemic. Both disorders increase suicide risk.

What’s more, despite the need for help regarding mental, behavioral or emotional disorders, there was a lack of services due to the lockdowns and business closures, as well as staffing shortages, according to the American Hospital Association.

Researchers are also studying if there is a link between people with long COVID and higher rates of depression and suicidal thoughts.

“As the nation continues to respond to the short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, remaining vigilant in prevention efforts is critical, especially among disproportionately affected populations where longer-term impacts might compound preexisting inequities in suicide risk,” the authors wrote.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 [TALK] for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(NEW YORK) — The toxins that burned in the wreckage of the train derailment in Ohio had the potential to be deadly if officials did not order evacuations in the region, experts told ABC News.

An air quality disaster resulted on Friday night after about 50 cars on a Norfolk Southern Railroad train traveling from Illinois to Pennsylvania derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Ten of those cars contained hazardous materials, five of which contained vinyl chloride, a highly volatile colorless gas produced for commercial uses.

For days, large plumes of smoke containing vinyl chloride, phosgene, hydrogen chloride and other gases were emitted during a controlled release and burn, prompting officials to issue mandatory evacuation orders in a one-mile radius of the crash site.

Although the controlled releases were considered “low-level,” the inhalation of fumes of vinyl chloride could cause dizziness, nausea, headache, visual disturbances, respiratory problems and other health-related issues, Ashok Kumar, a professor in the University of Toledo’s department of civil and environmental engineering, told ABC News.

In addition, hydrogen chloride fumes could irritate the throat and cause skin problems, while phosgene fumes may lead to chest constriction and chocking, Kumar said.

Long-term carcinogens like vinyl chloride can also cause cancer in organs like the liver, Kevin Crist, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio University’s Air Quality Center, told ABC News.

“Breathe those in under heavy concentrations, and it’s really bad for you,” Crist said. “It’s like an acid mist. It’s not something that you want to be around in high concentrations.”

Crist, who worked with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency while serving on the Ohio State Emergency Response Commission under former Gov. John Kasich, said the state prepares tremendously for these types of accidents, even training local fire departments to handle issues like chemical spills.

Health officials were able to use dispersion modeling to see which way the winds are blowing and estimate what he concentrations will be downwind, Crist said, adding that the biggest risk is inhalation.

However, there is also risk of coming in contact with the toxins that get embedded in the soil. Health officials will then take soil samples and dig out any of the affected soil, a feat complicated by the fact that much of the toxins were spilled into a ditch, Crist said.

Some of the toxins spilled into the Ohio River near the northern panhandle of West Virginia, prompting officials to shut down water production in the area and transfer to an alternate source of water supply, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday.

Justice emphasized that “everything is fine here” due to the immediate action from agencies like the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and the National Guard.

The controlled release and burn went “as planned,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced on Monday, advising those who live within two miles of East Palestine to shelter in place and keep windows and doors closed.

But as of Tuesday, the residents were not permitted to return home.

It is “absolutely critical” for people to follow evacuation orders of any kind, but especially when having to do with “highly toxic” chemicals that could be deadly with high elevations of exposure, Karen Dannemiller, professor in the college of engineering and college of public health at the Ohio State University, told ABC News.

“It is a matter of life and death,” Dannemiller said, “People have to evacuate as ordered by authorities.

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(NEW YORK) — In the early months of 2020, doctors were left responsible to treat a little-known virus that prompted the worst pandemic the world had seen in a century – risking their lives in the process. During the study timeframe, from March 2020 to December 2021, 622 more physicians died than expected, according to a recently released study.

Physicians had much lower excess mortality than the general population, perhaps indicative that protective equipment and workplace measures were effective, the researchers wrote.

Despite a potentially higher risk of being exposed to COVID-19, active physicians had a lower risk of being infected than non-active physicians.

“Non-active physicians are those that are retired, semi-retired, or just not actively practicing medicine. Further research is necessary, but that active physicians had lower excess deaths suggests workplace interventions could have protected them,” Mathew Kiang, ScD, assistant professor of epidemiology and population health at Stanford University and author of the study, told ABC News.

Yet, health care workers were left with limited protective equipment in the very early days of the pandemic.

“We felt powerless because there were a lot of unknowns … that powerlessness was felt in the fact that we couldn’t adequately protect ourselves,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told ABC News. He then recounted discussions on disinfecting previously used masks with UV light and how mask drives were organized to obtain more supplies.

At the time, the hospital environment was filled with uncertainty and fear.

“In the beginning, as I like to say, we all opened up our textbooks to COVID and we only had blank pages, because there had not been any experience with COVID,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News.

“It was a very scary time. I remember seeing the first patient who had COVID and even though I’m not in the highest risk category I was really scared,” Chin-Hong said.

He said many of his colleagues left their hospital scrubs in the trunk of the car, showered before entering their homes, or even lived away from their families during that period.

There were no excess deaths in the physician population after April 2021, the same time vaccines became widely available, according to the study. The study doesn’t prove cause-and-effect between the two, but the vaccine’s presence was undoubtedly appreciated.

“Vaccines certainly added a lot of comfort with health care in general and delivering it. They provided that bonus of protection. We obviously saw immediate benefit in our patient populations when vaccines were rolled out, it was like night and day,” said Dr. Darien Sutton, an emergency medicine physician, and ABC News contributor.

Throughout the pandemic, nearly half of U.S. health care workers say they had suffered from burnout – with women being disproportionately affected than men.

“The pandemic has exacerbated all parameters that define burnout. When you look at providers from physicians to nurses at the bedside, many feel overworked, underpaid, and under-appreciated in these positions,” Sutton said.

The U.S. continues to average around 500 COVID deaths per day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“If you’re admitted with COVID, [physicians] are very assertive in treating you and have every expectation that even the most fragile patients will be able to get out of the intensive care unit and will be able to be discharged,” Schaffner said.

“The main takeaway is that frontline health care providers like physicians are crucial in our response to the pandemic and we need to do a better job protecting them in future epidemics,” Kiang said.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden delivered his second State of the Union address Tuesday night, during which he addressed the administration’s accomplishments and set his agenda heading into the new year.

In front of Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, Biden spoke about issues he wished to take on including gun reform, a billionaire minimum tax and restoring abortion rights across the United States.

Included in his agenda were several key health proposals such as funding for new COVID vaccines and variant-tracking; addressing the fentanyl crisis; lowering insulin costs for Americans; and tackling mental health among youth.

Here’s are some of the health plans Biden said he wants to undertake in 2023:

Capping insulin costs

During his speech, Biden addressed his desire to lower the costs of medication, specifically insulin, for all Americans.

Currently, insulin is capped at $35 per month for seniors on Medicare, but the president wants that extended to those under age 65 who either pay for their own health insurance or receive it through their employer.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37.3 million people are living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes in the U.S. Recently, a study found more than 1 million diabetics in the U.S. are rationing their insulin doses to save money.

“Every day, millions need insulin to control their diabetes so they can stay alive. Insulin has been around for 100 years. It costs drug companies just $10 a vial to make,” Biden said. “But Big Pharma has been unfairly charging people hundreds of dollars — and making record profits.”

A report from the RAND Corporation found that the average American spent more than $98 per unit of insulin in 2018, almost more than any other nation.

“There are millions of other Americans who are not on Medicare, including 200,000 young people with type 1 diabetes who need insulin to save their lives,” Biden said. “Let’s finish the job this time. Let’s cap the cost of insulin at $35 a month for every American who needs it.”

Funding for COVID vaccines and tracking new variants

Biden acknowledged during his speech that the COVID-19 pandemic is not over yet, although he intends to let the public health emergency declaration expire in May.

More than 400 Americans are still dying from the virus every day, according to CDC data, although this is down from more than 2,400 per day during the height of the omicron wave in winter 2021-22.

The president said it’s important to remember the more than 1 million Americans who’ve died already and “remain vigilant.”

Since passing the American Rescue Plan in March 2021, Congress has refused to provide additional funding for the development of new vaccines and therapeutics, free testing programs and replenishing the national stockpile.

“We still need to monitor dozens of variants and support new vaccines and treatments,” Biden said. “So, Congress needs to fund these efforts and keep America safe.”

Addressing the fentanyl crisis

The U.S. is in the throes of a devastating opioid epidemic, driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and Biden did not shy away from talking about it during his State of the Union address.

Fentanyl is between 50 times and 100 times stronger than morphine, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In 2021, a record 107,622 Americans died from drug poisoning or overdose, with 66% linked to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the Department of Justice said in a press release last year.

Biden addressed a series of steps to squash the smuggling of fentanyl into the U.S., particularly along the southern border.

“Let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, sale, and trafficking, with more drug detection machines to inspect cargo and stop pills and powder at the border,” Biden said. “Working with couriers like Fed Ex to inspect more packages for drugs. Strong penalties to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.”

Helping youth tackle mental health

Biden also said he will take steps to address mental health among the nation’s youth.

According to an advisory from the U.S. Surgeon General, rates of mental health disorders including anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation are increasing, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Not addressing mental health can lead to disability and poor outcomes among youth.

Biden said this includes increasing mental health services at school and protecting children on social media.

“When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care at school,” he said. “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit.”

“And it’s time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us,” Biden continued.

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(NEW YORK) — A ruling from a federal judge in Texas — that may come as soon as Friday — could potentially block use of an abortion medication across the United States.

A lawsuit is asking that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone be revoked and that the drug be pulled from the market.

If the judge rules in favor of the plaintiffs, there would be a nationwide injunction on mifepristone, affecting even states where the procedure is legal. Another drug used in combination with mifepristone for abortions, called misoprostol, would still be available, but it’s not approved by the FDA to be used for abortions on its own.

Abortion rights groups fear the decision will restrict abortion even more so than the Supreme Court did when it overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

“This would be devastating,” Kirsten Moore, director of the EMAA Project, which works to expand access to medication abortion, told ABC News of the ruling’s impact. “This would be taking an FDA approved drug off the market for no public health reason.”

What is mifepristone?

Mifepristone is a drug typically used in combination with another drug to induce an abortion or to help manage an early miscarriage.

The medication works by blocking the hormone progesterone, which the body needs to continue a pregnancy.

This causes the uterine lining to stop thickening and to break down, detaching the embryo. The second drug, misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, causes the uterus to contract and dilates the cervix, which will expel the embryo.

Mifepristone was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2000. In the U.S., the drugs are approved up to 10 weeks’ gestation, although the World Health Organization says they can be taken up until the 12-week mark.

Medication abortion now accounts for more than half of all abortion in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute.

In December 2021, the FDA announced it permanently lifted its restriction that abortion pills had to be dispensed in-person. Last month, it went further by allowing retail pharmacies to provide the drug too, either by mail or in person, so long as they meet certain requirements.

What is the lawsuit?

In November 2022, a lawsuit was filed by Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian conservative legal advocacy group working to outlaw abortion, on behalf of four anti-abortion medical groups and four physicians, who claim they have used the drug to treat patients.

The FDA says mifepristone is safe and effective when used as directed and no new safety concerns have arisen in the more than two decades since it was approved.

ADF claims the federal health agency “chose politics over science and approved chemical abortion drugs for use in the United States,” according to the lawsuit.

The 113-page lawsuit also argues the FDA exceeded its authority and ignored “intense side effects” because it was under pressure to approve the drug under then-U.S. President Bill Clinton.

“This case is unusual, because it’s challenging a drug that’s been on the market for over 20 years and extremely safe,” Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News. “The evidence that they suggest shows medication abortion is unsafe, has been repeatedly rejected by the FDA. And despite the claims having very little legal merit, and the plaintiffs not really having any injury, this case, has the potential to really undermine the remaining access to abortion that exists.”

What would the case decide?

The case was filed in Amarillo, Texas — a state where abortion is already severely limited — and assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated by former President Donald Trump.

Kacsmaryk is known for his conservative stance on issues and, last year, he issued a decision on Title X, a federal grant program that provides confidential family planning and preventive health services.

He ruled that teenagers can’t access birth control without their parents’ permission under the program because it “violates the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.”

If Kacsmaryk rules in favor of ADF, mifepristone would, at least temporarily, be taken off the market and all states where abortion is legal would only be able to offer in-clinic procedures.

This means patients will not be able to access telehealth services to get abortion pills and clinics already experience a surge of patients from states where abortion is illegal could be even more inundated.

“It’s going to impose a really significant burden and cause significant congestion at the clinics that still remain,” Muqaddam said. “We’re seeing long wait times, so many patients trying to travel to access state to seek care. It’s been a huge challenge. It’s going to cause a pretty immediate and extreme constriction and the accessibility of abortion.”

The decision could come as early as Feb. 10, which is the deadline both sides in the case have to file briefs.

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(NEW YORK) — Doctors and healthcare providers should monitor pregnant patients’ blood pressure regularly during and after pregnancy, according to a new draft recommendation.

The recommendation was published Tuesday by the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, a volunteer panel of experts that is highly influential in setting medical guidance.

The new draft guidance expands on existing recommendations to include screening for all types of blood pressure disorders during pregnancy. It recommends monitoring blood pressure at each doctors’ visit, starting early in pregnancy and ending six weeks after birth.

Left untreated, high blood pressure during pregnancy can lead to a range of health problems, including stroke, organ damage, seizures and low birth weight for newborns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One of the most common conditions associated with high blood pressure during pregnancy, preeclampsia, happens in around 1 in 25 pregnancies in the United States, according to the CDC.

Other conditions that can result from high blood pressure include gestational hypertension, eclampsia, and chronic hypertension with and without superimposed preeclampsia, the task force says, noting that risk factors for high blood pressure in pregnancy include a previous adverse pregnancy outcome, having gestational diabetes or chronic hypertension, having a high BMI prior to pregnancy and being 35 years or older.

Regular screening for blood pressure during and after pregnancy can help because it will give health care providers more opportunities to intervene with treatments that can can help reduce health risks, according to the task force. It emphasized the need for expanded blood pressure screenings because of racial disparities that put pregnant Black and Native American women at greater risk.

In the U.S., Black women and Native American women are two to three times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women, according to the CDC. Across all races, the U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, with around 700 women dying each year as a result of complications due to pregnancy.

The task force’s new guidance follows a trend of increasing rates of high blood pressure among pregnant women, particularly among women of color.

Blood pressure-related disorders during pregnancy are a leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths in the United States.

Black and Native American women experience a disproportionately high rate of blood pressure conditions, according to the CDC
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“Importantly, we are using this draft recommendation statement to call attention to the inequities related to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy,” Task Force vice chair Dr. Wanda Nicholson, senior associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion and professor of prevention and community health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, said in a statement. “While taking blood pressure throughout pregnancy is an important first step, screening alone cannot fully address these inequities. We have highlighted additional promising ways to improve health outcomes for those at increased risk and are calling for more research to address this important issue.”

The task force is now seeking comments on the draft guidance, and says more research is needed before it is finalized.

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