(NEW YORK) — A Georgia resident has died after being infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba, according to the state’s Department of Public Health.
Health officials said in a release Friday the resident likely contracted Naegleria fowleri — an amoeba that destroys brain tissue — while swimming in a freshwater lake or pond.
Details about the patient including name, age, sex, race/ethnicity or town of residence were not provided.
It comes just a week after a 2-year-old in Nevada also died from the amoeba, according to a release from officials and a Facebook post from the boy’s mother.
Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba so small it can only be seen with a microscope. It lives in soil and warm freshwater including lakes, ponds, reservoirs, rivers and hot springs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The amoeba infects people when contaminated water enters the nose and the amoeba migrates to the brain. It rarely infects people at pools, splash pads or surf parks due to chlorine and cannot be found in treated drinking water, the CDC said.
It also cannot infect people if the contaminated water is swallowed and does not spread from person to person, the GDPH release said.
Naegleria fowleri causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a disease of the central nervous system that is almost always fatal, according to the CDC.
Symptoms begin one to 12 days after exposure to contaminated water and stage I includes headache, nausea, vomiting and fever. Meanwhile stage II includes stiff neck, seizures, hallucinations, altered mental state and coma.
Patients typically die between one and 18 days after being infected and the disease progresses quickly because a diagnosis is hard to confirm.
Between 1962 and 2022, there have been 157 PAM cases reported in the U.S., according to the CDC, with most cases occurring in the summer months. Of those 157 people, just four have survived the infection.
“Prior to this newly confirmed case of Naegleria fowleri infection, there have been five other cases reported in Georgia since 1962,” the GDPH release said.
If PAM is caught early enough, it is treated with a combination of drugs including the antifungal medications amphotericin B and fluconazole and the antibiotics azithromycin and rifampin, the CDC said.
Although the risk of being infected with Naegleria fowleri is low, “Recreational water users should always assume there is a risk when they enter warm fresh water. If you choose to swim, you can reduce your risk of infection by limiting the amount of water that goes up the nose,” the health department said.
The CDC also recommends not putting one’s head under water in hot springs and other similar types of water and to avoid digging in the sediment of warm fresh water.
(NEW YORK) — A Georgia resident has died after being infected with a rare brain-eating amoeba, according to the state’s Department of Public Health.
Health officials said in a release Friday the resident likely contracted Naegleria fowleri — an amoeba that destroys brain tissue — while swimming in a freshwater lake or pond.
Details about the patient including name, age, sex, race/ethnicity or town of residence were not provided.
It comes just a week after a 2-year-old in Nevada also died from the amoeba, according to a release from officials and a Facebook post from the boy’s mother.
Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba so small it can only be seen with a microscope. It lives in soil and warm freshwater including lakes, ponds, reservoirs, rivers and hot springs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The amoeba infects people when contaminated water enters the nose and the amoeba migrates to the brain. It rarely infects people at pools, splash pads or surf parks due to chlorine and cannot be found in treated drinking water, the CDC said.
It also cannot infect people if the contaminated water is swallowed and does not spread from person to person, the GDPH release said.
Naegleria fowleri causes primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a disease of the central nervous system that is almost always fatal, according to the CDC.
Symptoms begin one to 12 days after exposure to contaminated water and stage I includes headache, nausea, vomiting and fever. Meanwhile stage II includes stiff neck, seizures, hallucinations, altered mental state and coma.
Patients typically die between one and 18 days after being infected and the disease progresses quickly because a diagnosis is hard to confirm.
Between 1962 and 2022, there have been 157 PAM cases reported in the U.S., according to the CDC, with most cases occurring in the summer months. Of those 157 people, just four have survived the infection.
“Prior to this newly confirmed case of Naegleria fowleri infection, there have been five other cases reported in Georgia since 1962,” the GDPH release said.
If PAM is caught early enough, it is treated with a combination of drugs including the antifungal medications amphotericin B and fluconazole and the antibiotics azithromycin and rifampin, the CDC said.
Although the risk of being infected with Naegleria fowleri is low, “Recreational water users should always assume there is a risk when they enter warm fresh water. If you choose to swim, you can reduce your risk of infection by limiting the amount of water that goes up the nose,” the health department said.
The CDC also recommends not putting one’s head under water in hot springs and other similar types of water and to avoid digging in the sediment of warm fresh water.
(NEW YORK) — A new study is sounding the alarm about a rise in alcohol-related deaths, especially in women.
The investigation, published by JAMA’s Substance Use and Addiction on July 28, examined 605,948 alcohol-related deaths from 1999 to 2020, which didn’t include deaths from injuries, homicides or death indirectly linked to alcohol use. Researchers concluded men were 2.88 times more likely to die than women and that alcohol-related deaths were trending upward for both men and women.
However, the rate of death among women increased more rapidly over the same period, up to 14.7% between 2018 to 2020 versus 12.5% in men over the same two years.
ABC News Medical Contributor Dr. Darien Sutton told ABC News’ Good Morning America that there is a physiological difference between men and women when it comes to the effects of drinking, making women less able to metabolize alcohol as quickly as men.
“When we digest alcohol, it’s digested with an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase,” Sutton said. “Women typically have lower amounts of this enzyme, therefore exposing them to more toxic effects and negative long-term effects. I’m talking about liver disease, pancreatitis, heart failure and also beyond that, lower rates of fertility, earlier menopause and increased rates of colon cancer and breast cancer.”
What are the warning signs of excessive drinking?
There are several warning signs of binge or excessive drinking, which in women, means having more than four drinks in one sitting and in men, having more than five drinks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
They include:
• Being unable to limit drinking
• Continuing to drink despite personal or professional problems
• Needing to drink more to get the same effect or having a very high tolerance compared to others
• Craving or wanting to drink so badly you can’t think of anything else
• Irritability or anxiousness when not drinking
What resources are available?
If you suspect that you or someone you know may have a drinking problem, consult with a health care provider.
You can also call the National Drug and Alcohol Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP, a free and confidential service that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The helpline can offer information about treatment programs in local communities and connect you with a professional who can discuss how to handle alcohol problems.
(NEW YORK) — Doctors are increasingly discouraging people from using e-cigarettes given the mounting evidence about the significant negative health impact of vaping– even as a smoking cessation tool.
For current smokers, “there are other very powerful, safe and FDA approved interventions,” Dr. Petros Levounis, the President of the American Psychiatric Association and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, said.
In July, new medical guidelines from the American College of Cardiology strongly discouraged the use of e-cigarettes, particularly in those with chronic heart disease. Even in young people, e-cigarettes have been shown to “increase heart rate, blood pressure and affect the ability of the blood vessels to relax,” said Dr. Naomi Hamburg, Cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at Boston University. Using an alternative option that has been proven to be safe is ideal.
Though it was introduced to the U.S. markets in 2007, e-cigarette use has continued to soar. In the last two years alone, sales in the U.S. have increased by approximately 50%.
When compared to traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes have often been portrayed as lesser of two evils. According to Levounis, the flavoring options, perceived reduction in harm when compared to classic cigarettes, more manageable odor and targeted campaigns towards vulnerable populations including youth may be the reason for this.
But studies show that e-cigarettes cause harm by affecting the whole body. A medical condition called EVALI – E-cigarette or Vaping-use Associated Lung Injury – not only causes damage to the lungs but can also cause issues in other organs’ systems. Their long-term effects remain a mystery as they have not been on the market long enough to capture this information, experts say.
“We just cannot make a conclusion that it is safer than cigarettes,” said Dr. Jason Rose, a Pulmonary and Critical Care Physician who is also the Associate Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Innovation & Physician Science at The University of Maryland.
Quitting tobacco from conventional cigarettes can be very challenging for most people.
But doctors are now warning that people who are trying to quit may start to use e-cigarettes in addition to conventional cigarettes — a phenomenon Hamburg calls a “dual use pattern.” This mixture is especially discouraged as the combined effect can be particularly harmful to blood vessels which increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular issues.
Frances Daniels, a parent and volunteer at Parents Against Vaping, details the harrowing experience of watching her then 17-year-old who used e-cigarettes recreationally struggle in the Intensive Care Unit for 5 weeks after being diagnosed with EVALI.
“At some point they had 6 different chest tubes and was placed on a waitlist for transplants,” Daniels said.
Fortunately, Daniels’ child was able to make a full recovery without needing a lung transplant months after leaving the hospital, but the experience remains difficult to think and speak about.
“To watch your child struggle to do basic human functions like breathing, it’s pretty tough,” she said.
Doctors say anyone trying to quit smoking should stick to products approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Options include Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) with a patch, gum or inhaler and medications such as Bupropion or Varenicline. Oftentimes, combinations of these NRTs such as the patch and the gum are recommended. In some cases, psychosocial options such as cognitive behavioral therapy are needed, Levounis says.
Regardless of the tool utilized, adherence and appropriate use is important. For the gum, it is important to note that “It is not exactly double spear mint gum,” Levounis says. You need to chew and then park it between your gum and cheek till the tingling goes away.
E-cigarettes are not approved by the FDA as a smoking cessation tool, but companies continue to seek approval for this purpose. The FDA is insistent that further research is necessary to determine whether they can be safely utilized for those who wish to quit conventional tobacco cigarettes.
As smoking cessation tools, e-cigarettes “are not ideal and there are other options that are proven by science that are safe and effective,” Hamburg said.
Adesola Oje, MD is a Gastroenterology Fellow at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
(NEW YORK) — A red meat allergy caused by tick bites is an “emerging public health concern,” according to two new studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) is a serious, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction that arises after people eat red meat or consume products with alpha-gal, a type of sugar found in most mammals, the CDC says.
The syndrome is typically caused by a bite from the lone star tick, which transfers alpha-gal into the victim’s body which in turn triggers an immune system response.
The CDC says the number of AGS cases are underdiagnosed in the U.S. and — despite the spread of the condition — many clinicians aren’t even aware it exists, let alone how to diagnose it.
Between 2010 and 2022, there were more than 110,000 cases of AGS identified, according to the CDC.
The agency estimates the actual number of cases may be as high as 450,000 but notes the syndrome is underdiagnosed due to factors including that diagnosis requires a test, some providers are not familiar with AGS and some people with symptoms don’t get tested.
AGS symptoms can include hives or itchy rash, nausea or vomiting, heartburn or indigestion, diarrhea, shortness of breath, and severe stomach pain. Symptoms can range from mild to severe and typically occur two to six hours after consuming products with alpha-gal.
“Alpha-gal syndrome is an important emerging public health problem, with potentially severe health impacts that can last a lifetime for some patients,” Dr. Ann Carpenter, and epidemiologist and lead author of one of the CDC studies, said in a statement.
“It’s critical for clinicians to be aware of AGS so they can properly evaluate, diagnose, and manage their patients and also educate them on tick-bite prevention to protect patients from developing this allergic condition,” she added.
In one of the CDC studies, the team surveyed 1,500 health care professionals including general practitioners, pediatricians, internists, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.
The survey results showed 42% of the participants had never heard of AGS and 35% said they were “not too confident” in their ability to diagnose or manage AGS patients. Only 5% said they were “very confident” in their ability.
Two-thirds of the health care providers surveyed said clearly defined guidelines on how to diagnose and manage AGS would be helpful. The report’s authors described the limited knowledge among providers as “concerning,” especially due to the increasing number of AGS cases.
“Improved [health care provider] education might facilitate a rapid diagnosis of AGS, improve patient care, and support public health understanding of this emerging condition,” the authors wrote.
In another study, the CDC looked at tests between Jan. 1, 2017 and Dec. 31, 2022 to determine how quickly cases of AGS have increased since 2010.
From 2010 to 2018, more than 34,000 suspected cases were identified. However, over the 2017-2022 study period, some 357,000 tests were submitted, resulting in just over 90,000 positive results.
The number of new cases increased by about 15,000 each year during the five-year study period, with most cases occurring in the Southern, Midwestern, and Mid-Atlantic U.S., the CDC found.
“The burden of alpha-gal syndrome in the United States could be substantial given the large percentage of cases suspected to be going undiagnosed due to non-specific and inconsistent symptoms, challenges seeking healthcare, and lack of clinician awareness,” Dr. Johanna Salzer, senior author on both CDC studies, said in a statement. “It’s important that people who think they may suffer from AGS see their healthcare provider or an allergist, provide a detailed history of symptoms, get a physical examination, and a blood test that looks for specific antibodies (proteins made by your immune system) to alpha-gal.”
(NEW YORK) — Doctors in Ohio performed a groundbreaking surgery to separate conjoined twins, the first of its kind due to the twins’ age and the complexity of their condition.
When the doctors at Dayton Children’s Hospital in Ohio first heard about Guatemalan conjoined twins Pedro and Augusto in 2019, who were connected at the head, they worked quickly to bring the boys to Ohio to perform multiple surgeries.
The already complicated process was drawn out and made even more difficult after Guatemala implemented travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the separation surgery was finally made possible in April of 2022, when the boys were 3 years old.
Dr. Christopher Gordon, chief of craniofacial and reconstructive surgery at Dayton Children’s, and Dr. Robert Lober, a pediatric neurosurgeon at the hospital, knew they had their work cut out for them. No one had ever performed this operation on twins this old, or on twins that shared vascular structures, meaning one boy’s veins and arteries were feeding the other, and vice versa.
The doctors successfully completed the historic separation over six months, performing three surgeries over the first four months to first separate the twins’ veins and arteries before a fourth separation surgery. The hospital documented the entire process in the film Connected: The story of the seemingly impossible separation of Pedro and Augusto.
Gordon and Lober spoke exclusively with ABC News’ Kayna Whitworth about the experience.
“I mean, they were right at the edge of organ failure, just from the changes in load as we did each stage. So, I think if we’d tried to do more of this at once, they probably wouldn’t have made it,” said Gordon.
As pressure mounted surrounding the final operation, doctors discovered another large artery connecting the boys, with dangerous consequences to Augusto’s speech and motor skills if separated.
“It took a personal toll,” said Lober, speaking about the pressure the medical team faced in that moment.
Some nurses even had to leave the room, overcome by emotion, says Lober.
“Everybody was suffering,” Gordon added.
Eventually, after three long days in the operating room — the boys were separated.
Then, 14 months after the successful separation, the twins were able to return home.
“These were boys that we’d come to love over a long period of time,” said Lober. “Everybody’d come to love. They became our boys.”
These doctors have helped change the landscape of facial, cranial surgery and Gordon says there’s now a line of 60 kids with other complicated syndromes, who are hoping to come to Dayton Children’s Hospital for help.
(NEW YORK) — A pill for postpartum depression led to meaningful improvements in depression symptoms, according to a late-stage study published Wednesday in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
The pill, zuranolone, is not yet approved, but the Food and Drug Administration is expected to make its approval decision by Aug 5.
In the study, 196 mothers who experienced postpartum depression were split into two groups — half were given zuranolone, half given placebo pills for two weeks.
All of the mothers experienced an improvement in their depression symptoms, but those who were taking the real medication experienced significantly better improvements than those who got the placebo pills.
Those improvements were still reported four and six weeks later, according to the study, which was funded by pharmaceutical partners Sage Therapeutics and Biogen.
A small number of patients experienced sleepiness and dizziness.
If approved, zuranolone would be the first pill approved explicitly to treat postpartum depression. An existing treatment called Zulresso was approved in 2019 by the FDA, but that medication is given by intravenous injection.
“It wasn’t just that sadness resolved or that crying spells resolved or that sleep improved. But we saw that zuranolone alone was associated with improvement in all of the core symptoms of depression during the course of the study,” Dr. Kristina M. Deligiannidis, professor at the Institute of Behavioral Science at the Feinstein Institutes and lead author of the new study, told ABC News.
According to the study authors, the biggest unknown about this pills is the long-term effect — and it’s not clear what impact this drug would have on breastfeeding, if any.
Still, experts say one of the biggest barriers to treating postpartum depression isn’t medication, but stigma.
“The major issue in postpartum depression is screening and patient acceptance of the diagnosis,” said Dr. Jacques Moritz, medical director at Tia women’s health.
Meanwhile, existing antidepressant treatments may be helpful for some women, even if those antidepressants are not explicitly approved for post-partum depression.
“Individuals with the first episode of depression may benefit from a standard antidepressant or antidepressant and therapy. Individuals that are on an antidepressant and are not fully responding may depend upon a new option such as this,” said Dr. Kimberly A. Yonkers, the departmental chair and Katz Family chair, Department of Psychiatry, at UMass Chan Medical School/U Mass Memorial Medical Center.
The bottom line, experts said, is that anyone experiencing feelings of depression should seek medical care because treatment and help is available.
If approved, zuranolone would represent an “important incremental addition to currently available treatment options,” said Dr. Jessica Shepherd, the chief medical officer for Verywell Health. But, said Shepherd, “we also need to make sure that the support system is there.”
Andrea Sutherland recounted how her third time expecting was filled with constant struggle despite never dealing with depression in her first two pregnancies.
“I wasn’t doing any of the regular things that I would do. I wasn’t focusing at work, I wasn’t taking care of my home, my kids, myself,” Sutherland said.
“They wouldn’t tell me which [pill] I got. But the minute I got home and took the first pill, I felt like I got the real thing…because I got a sense of relief within the first minutes of me taking it,” she added.
Sutherland is among the roughly one in seven women, according to the National Institutes of Health, who develop postpartum depression.
“I would say to a lot of females that might be going through the same thing, that it’s real. You are not alone…don’t be ashamed,” Sutherland said.
“Speak up, try and build that support team around you, express yourself, let others know how you are feeling so they can keep an eye on you. It’s normal, it’s nothing to be afraid of and there’s nothing wrong with getting help,” she added.
(NEW YORK) — When many people think of autism and an initial diagnosis, they think of children. A growing number of adults are learning they have autism, and their condition has gone untreated for years.
“The Bachelor” star Demi Burnett, 28, sat down for an interview with “Nightline” co-anchor Juju Chang to reflect on how she said her diagnosis last year put her life into perspective.
“It’s not like there’s a specific social interaction,” Burnett said. “There’s just this feeling of, anxiety of ‘I need to put on the show.'”
Burnett first found stardom on ABC’s “The Bachelor,” and later “Bachelor in Paradise,” but behind the scenes she was grappling with a crippling social anxiety she could never understand. For years, she says she “performed” her way through the anxiety, doing her best to mask it from others.
“It’s a performance to save your life though, because, like, it’s necessary,” Burnett said.
An autism diagnosis at the age of 26 suddenly put things into perspective and helped Burnett understand why she’d struggled with social interactions for most of her life.
“I want to be able to provide, like, that space for people to…relate, and not feel alone in this, or not feel stupid about it,” Burnett said.
An estimated 5.4 million adults, or 2.2% of adults, have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and while it usually is diagnosed in childhood, there are a number of reasons why it may not be detected until later in life.
“One of the reasons we often see or delay a diagnosis in adulthood is that those who might have average or above average intellectual ability might kind of fly under the radar or be able to mask some of their symptoms,” Carla A. Mazefsky, who serves as the Nancy J. Minshew, M.D. Endowed chair in Autism Research and professor of psychiatry, psychology and clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh, told “Nightline.”
Mazefsky said that as awareness of Autism Spectrum Disorder has spread, the increasing diagnosis of children is also triggering some parents to begin to wonder about themselves, too.
Celebrities like singer Sia, actor Wentworth Miller, former NBA player Tony Snell, and former NFL player Joe Barksdale are helping shine a spotlight on being diagnosed with autism as adults.
In May, the “Chandelier” singer discussed her neurodivergence on “Rob Has a Podcast.”
“I felt like for 45 years, I was like, ‘I’ve got to go put my human suit on.’ And only in the last two years have I become fully, fully myself,” Sia said on the podcast.
Burnett says she has relied on masking, a coping mechanism sometimes used by individuals with autism to hide sensory sensitivities, social and communication challenges, and repetitive behaviors that may be hallmarks of autism.
“The mask is very protective…because you can’t be your true self in the real world sometimes…because we have been ourselves and there were negative reactions that traumatized us,” Burnett added.
Since her autism diagnosis, Burnett says she has begun her process of unmasking by making accommodations for her sensory challenges, no matter how they may look to the outside world.
She now prefers wearing big, baggy clothes, and often wears no make-up in her private life and in some of her social media posts. Headphones or earplugs give her a noise buffer she says she needs, and repetitive movements like painting eases her anxiety.
Burnett says her biggest source of support and comfort is her dog, Sandor.
“My dog regulates me. One of the biggest things that I need is another nervous system to regulate me, to let me know that I’m safe,” Burnett said.
Burnett has begun chronicling her journey on social media joining a growing community of people across the spectrum documenting how they’re living with autism.
Chelsia Potts said she uses her TikTok to provide tips that she’s found useful.
Having amassed close to 200,000 followers, Potts has shared what she’s found to be significant about discovering one’s autism as an adult.
“[A diagnosis] removes this idea that you’re weird or that you’re odd or that you’re just socially awkward, and it puts it in a spot where you can say, ‘Oh, I’m autistic and it’s okay for me to need these things,” Potts told “Nightline.”
Last December, at 33, Potts said she was diagnosed with ADHD and autism. Potts uses her platform to discuss her experience and draw attention to how scarce the availability of an autism diagnosis is for specific demographics.
“Multiple girls, especially girls of color, have been missed throughout the years because we were never included in what would be considered the criteria for autism,” she said.
Experts say that they are seeing late diagnoses of autism most often in women and people of color.
“I think there are several reasons if that’s the case. Women might be a little bit more prone to masking as one reason and also, historically, autism was really thought of as kind of a male disorder,” Mazefsky said. “And one additional really important factor is access to resources. So it’s still the case that many people are not trained in autism diagnoses. And so being in an under resourced neighborhood or rural neighborhood really limits opportunities to receive a professional diagnosis of autism.”
Potts’ 10-year-old twins share her diagnoses – both Kennedi and Braelyn have ADHD and her daughter Kennedi has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Potts says she’s learned through their journeys what she missed out on, and sees a younger version of herself when she looks at her daughters.
“I think getting diagnosed as a kid can help you advocate for your needs a lot early and practice that in a much safer environment,” she told “Nightline.” “Whereas when you’re diagnosed as an adult, and especially if you’ve never suspected it, then you’re really going back, and you’re rethinking your whole life.”
Potts wants to give her daughters the understanding and patience that she never knew she needed herself.
As an adult, Potts has thrived professionally. She is an academic with a doctorate in education, but says work is still a challenge, and communicating with others communication is a minefield. Potts has found ways to push past some of her anxiety around the workplace, for now. Small adjustments such as working from home, or dimming the lighting in her office, making her windows more private, and using stress balls and fidget toys to calm her restlessness, have helped. She considers herself lucky.
Studies in peer-reviewed journals suggest that up to 75% of adults with autism are underemployed.
Mazefsky said that adults with autism may fall off of what is known as the “services cliff.”
“As children phase out of school and transition into adulthood, they may experience less services and structured supports. There’s so many gaps, and what we have available for autistic adults, it’s nowhere near where it needs to be,” Mazefsky said.
However, there are a growing number of programs designed specifically to support adults with autism.
Heidi Stieglitz Ham, Ph.D. created Spectrum Fusion, a Houston-based nonprofit organization creating a space for community, programming that includes skills and job training and they also employ autistic adults in media production through their Spectrum Fusion Studios team.
“There’s a stereotype of individuals on the spectrum that excel in math and science. But we have the rest of the spectrum to consider,” Ham said.
One of the participants, John Karl Barth, recalled having a “terrible experience” in college before dropping out, but Spectrum Fusion offered a prospect where it appeared that he had none.
“Now, against all odds, I actually have a job in a field I want to work in,” Barth said. “This is a workplace that is very much made with adults on the spectrum in mind, which most jobs in any field aren’t.”
As Barth, Burnett, Potts, and others learn to live as adults with autism, each day brings a new sense of hope for what they want to achieve for themselves.
“Sometimes we don’t think about how we have been socialized to do certain things,” Potts said. “How do we get to a point where we can be okay with being ourselves?”
Potts doesn’t think it has to be an impossible dream.
“Am I really that different? Or am I just coming from a different perspective?” Potts said.
(NEW YORK) — Several routine childhood vaccines require multiple doses to be effective, but a new study finds children are not receiving all of them.
The study, published in the journal Pediatrics Wednesday, found one in six toddlers between ages 19 months and 35 months started the vaccine series but didn’t complete it, leaving them vulnerable to serious diseases.
Researchers from several institutions, including the University of Montana, the University of Colorado, Kaiser Permanente Colorado and the Yale School of Public Health, looked at data from the 2019 National Immunization Survey for more than 16,000 children.
They looked at vaccine series’ that protects children from 11 different diseases including diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, pneumococcal infections, Haemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis B, polio, measles, mumps, rubella and varicella.
The study found that only 72.9% of toddlers completed the combined 7-vaccine series and 17.2% — equivalent to one in every six toddlers — initiated, but did not complete, the one or multiple multidose vaccine series.
What’s more, approximately 1.1% of children were completely unvaccinated and 9.9% had not initiated one or more of the seven vaccinations.
“I think the study highlighted a trend that we had been seeing in pediatrics prior to the pandemic,” Dr. Nathaniel Beers, executive vice president of community and population health at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study, told ABC News.
“I think certainly during the pandemic, we’ve seen actually worsening of this trend and have been doing a lot of work in the last year in particular to across the field of pediatrics to ensure that we were addressing the worsening vaccination rates beyond the those that were highlighted in the study that was published,” he added.
Ninety-three percent of kindergarten-age children had received the recommended vaccines, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted during the 2021–22 school year.
This is lower than both the 94% coverage reported during the 2020–21 school year, and the 95% coverage reported during the 2019–20 school year, prior to the pandemic.
Researchers identified factors for why some children started, but did not complete, the vaccine series including families moving across state lines, number of children in household and lack of health insurance.
“Certainly, maintaining and sharing adequately of medical records creates barriers to ensuring adequate care,” when people move across state lines, Beers said.
He continued, “We know people have been more transient for work or other reasons, and that certainly creates gaps in care for kids, particularly young kids who have frequent immunization needs in the first three years of life.”
Beers said another contributing factor is vaccine hesitancy, which is defined as delaying or refusing vaccination despite their widespread availability.
In 2019, the World Health Organization called vaccine hesitancy one of the top 10 threats to public health because it “threatens to reverse progress made in tackling vaccine-preventable diseases.”
We’ve seen vaccine hesitancy play a role in measles outbreaks in the U.S. including a recent outbreak in Columbus, Ohio, where 85 children were infected.
“There’s two components that are why we encourage people to get vaccinated,” Beers said. “So, it’s preventing the disease in yourself, but also preventing the spread of disease in the community.”
This helps create herd immunity, in which enough people have been vaccinated or are immune to disease, which then becomes unable to spread.
To help increase rates, the team re-highlighted some methods including more widespread adoption of systems that remind parents their child is due for or is late receiving their next vaccine dose, expanding vaccines to more places outside of a primary care setting, as well as speaking to hesitant parents.
“We certainly [need to] continue to work on vaccine education, making sure that we are providing that for patients and families,” Beers said. “Even for those families who have previously rejected the opportunity to get vaccines, making sure that we continue to offer them the opportunity to start those, and to continue that dialogue, because people do change their minds and continue to get good high-quality information is an important piece of helping people make a decision to move forward with vaccinations.”
(NEW YORK) — Fetal mortality rates declined among Black women in 2020 but were much higher than other racial/ethnic groups in the U.S., new federal data shows.
A report, published early Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, looked at data from the National Vital Statistics System.
Fetal deaths are deaths that occur at 20 weeks’ gestation — about five months of pregnancy — or later and affect 1% of all pregnancies in the U.S.
Researchers found that, overall, there were 21,105 fetal deaths in 2021, an increase of 1% from the 20,854 fetal deaths reported in 2020.
The 2021 rate of fetal deaths was relatively unchanged at 5.73 per 1,000 live births compared to 5.74 per 1,000 in 2020.
“Although they note that the number of fetal deaths increased, what’s actually important is that the overall rate was unchanged, because the number of fetal deaths obviously depends on the number of pregnancies, which presumably increased if the rate was unchanged,” Dr. Simon Manning, director of fetal care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, told ABC News.
The report also found Black women were the only racial/ethnic group to see a significant change for mortality rates, declining 4% from 10.34 to 9.89.
No significant changes in fetal mortality rates were seen for other groups including American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander and white women.
However, Manning said it’s notable that the rate of 9.89 per 1,000 is nearly double the national rate of 5.74 per 1,000.
“Their rates are still almost double the average rate for all women,” he said. “So, it’s good to see that there is a small decrement in deaths for that group, but there’s still a fair way to go.”
“We can always be cautiously optimistic, but this is really early data and it will be important to document that this is a durable decrease, and not to rest on our laurels,” Manning added.
The report did not explore reasons behind the decline for Black women — or why other groups did not see a significant change — but Manning said there could be multiple reasons.
One reason could be that the racial reckoning that started in summer 2020 helped illuminate disparities experienced between Black women and other minorities compared to white women.
“So maybe there’s been more attention to improving access and care for Black women, one would hope hypothesize that,” Manning said.
He said another potential reason could be that unemployment among Black Americans has been falling, which could lead to them having more access to health care.
“You shouldn’t think that there’s something genetic or inherent about Black pregnant people that causes them to have worse outcomes,” Manning said.
The report also looked at fetal mortality rates by state and found, between 2019 and 2021, rates were highest in Mississippi at 6.38 per 1,000 and other states in the South and lowest in New Mexico and Connecticut at 2.60 per 1,000 and states in the West and Northeast.
Additionally, the fetal mortality rate for women who smoked during pregnancy was 9.62 per 1,000, almost double the rate for women who did not smoke during pregnancy at 5.08 per 1,000.
“We know that smoking causes blood vessels to constrict and we know that it causes babies to not grow as well and that occurs most likely because it affects placental blood flow,” Manning said. “So there is a direct biological correlation between smoking and poor fetal outcomes and this is yet another reminder, as if we needed more reminders, that stopping smoking is one of the most effective ways you can improve your health and the health of your baby.”
