(NEW YORK) — Most people suffering from long COVID are experiencing some trouble performing day-to-day activities, new federal data shows.
As of Sept. 26, 81% of adults with ongoing symptoms of COVID lasting three months or longer — or four out of five adults — are experiencing limitations in their daily activities compared to before they had the virus.
Additionally, 25% said they were experiencing significant limitations.
The data was published Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The NCHS has been issuing the experimental Household Pulse Survey to ask about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic since April 2020 but included a question last month, in the survey sent to more than 50,000 people, on how long COVID has reduced people’s ability to carry out day-to-day activities.
Young adults between ages 18 and 29 had the highest share of people currently with long COVID who have trouble performing daily tasks, at 86.3%. Meanwhile, those between ages 40 and 49 had the lowest share, at 76.1%.
When current long COVID patients were broken down by race/ethnicity, Black Americans were the most likely to report problems performing day-to-day activities, at 84.1%. This was also the racial group most likely to report significant limitations, along with white Americans.
The data showed that Asian Americans have the smallest share of long COVID patients with trouble performing daily tasks, at 76.7%.
The survey did not report data for most states. However, of the 14 states with data, Texas had the highest percentage of long COVID patients with activity limitations at 87.6% and Kentucky had the lowest percentage at 69%.
Long COVID occurs when patients who have cleared the infection still have symptoms lasting more than four weeks after recovering. In some cases, these symptoms can persist for months or even years.
Patients can experience a variety of lingering symptoms including fatigue, difficulty breathing, headaches, brain fog, joint and muscle pain, and continued loss of taste and smell, according to the CDC.
It’s unclear what causes people to develop long COVID but research is ongoing.
The data showed that 14.2% of survey participants said they had experienced long COVID at some point during the pandemic.
Adults under age 60 were more likely to say they had the condition than older adults, and females were more likely to report long COVID than males.
A review from Johnson & Johnson’s Office of the Chief Medical Officer for Women’s Health published in June 2022 analyzed data from studies involving 1.3 million patients and found women are 22% more likely to develop long COVID than men.
(ATLANTA) — Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams said she has continuing doubts about voting equity in her upcoming rematch with incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, telling ABC News in a new interview that she would “not question the outcome of the election” but would continue to “question the process.”
Abrams, a former state lawmaker-turned-prominent voting rights advocate, repeatedly attacked Kemp in 2018 given that he was her rival and the sitting secretary of state who was overseeing their race. Abrams also challenged what she said were Georgia’s excessively strict regulations around voter registration and more, calling them tantamount to suppression. Kemp said he wanted to ensure election integrity.
Abrams waited more than a week to acknowledge Kemp’s victory after the 2018 election. Pressed twice by ABC News congressional correspondent Rachel Scott in an interview on Sunday about whether she would concede the 2022 gubernatorial election if she lost, Abrams repeatedly drew a distinction between conceding the outcome — which she said she would do — and criticizing the process, including regulations restricting voter access to polling places and absentee voting.
“I have always acknowledged the outcome of elections,” she said in a clip from the interview, set to air Oct. 9 on Hulu’s “Power Trip.” “What is deeply concerning to me is the conflation of access to the right to vote and the outcome of elections.”
“Voter access is not the same as election outcomes,” Abrams continued, “and when those become conflated and we buy into the conflation, when we buy into the false equivalency, we erode access to democracy.”
Conservatives have tried to draw comparisons between Abrams’ handling of the 2018 race and former President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, who won the popular vote by a margin of more than 7 million. (Abrams lost to Kemp in 2018 by some 54,000 votes.)
When Abrams finally acknowledged on Nov. 16, 2018, that Kemp had won, she pointedly stated that it was “not a concession speech.” But as she later stressed, she doesn’t deny Kemp’s victory — unlike Trump.
She echoed that position to ABC News.
“What I said in that speech is that I would not concede [to] a system that would not permit voters to be heard,” she said. “I will always acknowledge the victor, but I will never say that there is a system in place that denies access that should be validated.”
She added, “For those who do not appreciate nuance, my response is always going to be: Yes, I will acknowledge the victor. I did so in ’18. I will do so in 2022. But in 2022, I intend to be the victor myself.”
On Friday, shortly before her interview with ABC News, a federal judge knocked down a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s election practices, ruling in favor of the state. Fair Fight Action, a group founded by Abrams, filed the suit shortly after the 2018 election and as part of the suit called for an overhaul of Georgia’s voting system.
U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, an Obama-era appointee, wrote in his order that “although Georgia’s election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the [Voting Rights Act of 1965].”
Kemp and other Republicans seized on the ruling and accused Abrams of using her group’s challenge to advance her own political interests — a claim Abrams dismissed to ABC News.
“This was not a lawsuit about my election,” she said. “This is a lawsuit about voting issues that were exposed by my election but were endemic to the state of Georgia.”
If elected governor, Abrams said she would continue to fight to expand voting access and propose changes to the state’s voting laws.
Hulu’s “Power Trip,” with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, releases new episodes on Sundays.
(TUCSON, Az.) — A professor was shot and killed on the University of Arizona campus in Tucson on Wednesday, campus police said.
The campus police chief said a male professor in the Department of Hydrology was shot and killed by a former student. The suspect was identified by police as Murad Dervish.
Police responded to the campus’ John W. Harshbarger building “for a shooting,” University of Arizona Police said on Twitter shortly after 2 p.m. local time Wednesday.
Police did not issue a lockdown but warned people to stay away from the building and surrounding area.
“Male suspect was ID’d but no longer on scene. Police currently looking for him,” University of Arizona Police said, describing the suspect as being in his mid-30s with short brown hair and wearing a blue baseball cap and carrying a dark backpack.
All remaining classes being held at the school’s main campus have been canceled Wednesday, police said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(KYIV, Ukraine) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Ukrainian regions and his mass mobilization of reservists won’t stop Ukrainian forces from continuing their counteroffensive against Russian forces, senior Ukrainian officials told ABC News.
Putin on Oct. 4 signed into law the annexation of four Ukrainian territories after illegal referendums, conducted last week in the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, which were formed in 2014, and parts of the southern Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts, which have been occupied by Russia since Feb. 24.
The referendum “results” announced by the Russian-installed authorities alleged that more than 90% of the voters in each region supported separation from Ukraine and joining Russia.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the referendums “yet another Russian crime” and “null and worthiness.” The U.S., as well as the EU, have condemned the orchestrated “voting.” President Joe Biden vowed to “never, never, never” recognize the results of the Russian-led referendums.
By annexing Russian-occupied territory and threatening to use nuclear weapons, Putin is attempting to force Kyiv to the negotiating table, an Institute for the Study of War report said.
Attacks against any part of the swathe of Ukraine that Russia annexed would be considered aggression against Russia itself, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin said previously that he was willing to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia’s “territorial integrity.”
An official in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine told ABC News that the probability of the Russian nuclear attack was considered low. He, as well as an official close to the minister of defense, also said the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions will not affect the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian army “in any way for now.”
In response to the annexation President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine signed a decree Tuesday ruling out any negotiations with Putin.
“It was our state that always offered Russia to agree on coexistence on equal, honest, dignified and fair terms,” Zelenskyy said. “It is obvious that this is impossible with this Russian president. He does not know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but already with another president of Russia.”
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the head of the president’s office, told ABC: “In order for the dialogue to become possible, Russia must abandon the basic demand — the claim to Ukrainian territory. And the ball is on the Russian side. One call is all it takes to give the order to cease fire and withdraw troops. Obviously, Putin will never go for it.”
Russia doesn’t fully control the four regions of Ukraine where the illegal referendums were held, adding further complications to the process of declaring them part of Russia.
“The territories of the DPR, the LPR, and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya regions lie within the borders that existed on the day of their establishment and the day of their entry into Russia,” the Russian law signed by Putin says. The “day of entry” is when the Russian parliament makes the respective amendments to the Constitution.
But during a week between the referendums and the day when Putin signed the law, the Armed Forces of Ukraine pushed more than 30 km forward in the Kherson region and liberated, in particular, a town of Lyman in the Lugansk region.
Neither will the military draft announced by Putin on Sept. 21 change the course of the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian General Staff and the ministry of defense representatives told ABC News.
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday 200,000 men have now been mobilized, but the actual number is still unclear. The U.K. Ministry of Defense said Russia is struggling to recruit troop leaders and train the newly called up.
Mykola Belieskov, a research fellow at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, said the draft “should be viewed primarily as an effort to keep the current front line intact.”
“As you see, no Russian strikes so far, although the Ukrainian forces are advancing,” he told ABC.
The Institute of the Study of War also said in one of its daily reports that the Kremlin’s decision to mobilize more manpower will not improve the performance of the Russian army in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy called upon the Russian conscripts to surrender to Ukraine.
“We see that people, in particular, in Dagestan, began to fight for their lives. We see that they are beginning to understand that this is a matter of their lives,” he said, switching in his speech between the Ukrainian and Russian languages. “Why should their husbands, brothers, sons die in this war?”
(NEW YORK) — Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry Wednesday for their work in making molecules “click.”
Two Americans, K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, and Carolyn Bertozzi of Stanford University in California, and one Dane — Morten Meldal at the University of Copenhagen — received the prize.
Sharpless and Meldal — independent of each other — “laid the foundations of click chemistry,” a field in which molecular building blocks are snapped together “quickly and efficiently.”
Bertozzi then used this field to develop bioorthogonal chemistry, in which scientists modify molecules in cells of living organisms “without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell.”
“This year’s Prize in Chemistry deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple. Functional molecules can be built even by taking a straightforward route,” Johan Åqvist, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a statement.
Sharpless previously won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001, making him only the fifth person to win two Nobel prizes and the second person ever to win the award twice, according to the committee. His first award was for developing three types of chemical reactions.
Last year, scientists Benjamin List and David MacMillan won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a new tool in molecular construction.
Each Nobel prize is worth 10 million kronor — the equivalent of about $900,000 — and is given to laureates with a diploma and a gold medal on Dec. 10, the date the creator of the Nobel prizes, Alfred Nobel, died in 1896.
(FORT MYERS, Fla.) — The Florida barrier islands were hit the worst by Hurricane Ian as teams are still working to survey the damage and conduct search and rescues.
Fort Myers Beach Mayor Ray Murphy spoke with ABC News Live’s Linsey Davis Tuesday night to discuss the latest updates.
ABC NEWS LIVE: What is going on the ground right now? What’s the first step in recovery at this point?
RAY MURPHY: Well, the first step, of course, is finishing this search and rescue. As soon as they get done with that, we can go in and start hauling off the debris and getting our utilities back up and so forth. So, there’s a lot else going on simultaneously with the search and rescue.
ABC NEWS LIVE: [I’m] curious to know what the short-term plan is with regard to two children who need to go back to school and stay local in order to do that, potentially?
MURPHY: Our local school on the beach was destroyed as the other schools on the barrier islands were. So, I imagine the school district of Lee County will be determining where these children will be taken off the island and put into schools. I imagine that’ll be close to where they’ve been evacuated, too, because they certainly won’t be able to go to the schools that are here.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And what’s the long-term plan at this point?
MURPHY: Well, the long-term plan is to this is to rebuild our facilities. But as you say that that is long term, it’s going to take some time. But step by step, we have to clear the island first, get all the debris off the island, and then whoever can repair, make remedial repairs to their places and get back in can do that. Although there won’t be too many of them. There will be there’s going to be a lot of major repairs going on. Nobody was spared this storm. Every structure on the island. So, there’s going to be a big, big job ahead of us. But we’re up to the task. And I look forward to the challenge of it.
ABC NEWS LIVE: When you say there is a big job ahead, where does the money come from to rebuild, to tear down, to restore what the town is lost?
MURPHY: I’m sure in the short term, they’ll be there’ll be FEMA funds available and hopefully everybody had insurance on their properties that they’ll be able to make claims on to rebuild or they won’t. Or people may decide that’s one hurricane too much for me.
ABC NEWS LIVE: President Joe Biden is expected to visit Florida tomorrow. If you get a chance to talk to the president, what do you think your message will be to him?
MURPHY: Well, I’ll first of all, express my gratitude for coming down. And my message will be, so, President Biden, we can use all the help from the federal government.
We’re going to need assistance from our partners on the federal level. And I think I can count on the president to help us out down here.
ABC NEWS LIVE: And lastly mayor, when you envision the future, how do you see Fort Myers Beach now?
MURPHY: Well, I envision it with the rebuilds. People building up to today’s codes and the building stock being so much better. You can still have the same type of architecture and beachy cottages and all that sort of thing, but you just have to build them strong. All of the newer houses that have been built on the beach over the years, all the concrete homes, they did exactly what they were supposed to do. The water rushed through the bottom, blew it out, and the houses remain standing.
So that’s how the beach, any barrier islands for that matter, has to rebuild. If you’re going to live on the coastal barrier island, you have to build. You have to build so the buildings will stand. And so, I foresee a great future for the beach. Know people will always want to come to beachfront property and there’s a certain amount of the population, no matter what happens, they’ll come back to barrier islands. And so, I see a bright future, actually, and I look forward to seeing it happen.
(NEW YORK) — Women are more likely to spend double the amount of time than men caregiving, tackling chores and doing housework — all tasks that can lead to a greater impact on mental health and even burnout, according to a new study in the medical journal The Lancet Public Health.
Researchers analyzed data from 19 studies which included data from over 70,000 individuals around the world for study. They found women in the U.S. spend about four-and-a-half hours per day caring for their families and homes while men spend about 2.8 hours a day on the same or similar tasks.
All the household work and caregiving — typically unpaid and “invisible” labor — can in turn take a major toll on women’s mental health.
For Tessa Kerley, a mom of two, the caregiving and housework work begins first thing in the mornings, before she leaves home for work as a full-time teacher.
“My husband has already left for work, so it is me getting two kids out the door,” Kerley told “Good Morning America” in a video message.
“I’m leaving my house a mess. But it’s one of those things that it will just stay that way until I get home,” she said.
Katie Clark, also a mom to two kids, says getting her family out the door in the mornings can be a challenge.
“Me and my husband have a really good routine down. We both wake up with the kids,” Clark told “GMA.” “Today, I’m going to be dropping the boys off at school because my husband has to go into the office, so I’ll drop them off at day care and then I have to get on my way and get to work.”
Jennifer Esguerra is also a working mom and has three children. Sometimes, Esguerra has to travel for work and she told “GMA” juggling it all can be stressful.
“I was up at 4 a.m. yesterday morning to be on a 5:55 a.m. flight and now I’m back at the airport trying to get home to my 6-month-old, 3-year-old and 5-year-old, and my flight was canceled,” Esguerra explained in a recent video message. “Being a working mom isn’t easy.”
Eve Rodsky, the bestselling author of “Fair Play” and a mom herself, says the type of unpaid labor women take on can be a factor in women’s mental health as much as the amount of time is spent doing it.
“Men hold cards that they can do at their own timetable, like mowing the lawn, whereas women are the ones still, to this day, responsible for tasks like meal planning, responsible for grocery shopping and responsible for things like going to get their children when they’re sick, if a school calls,” Rodsky said.
After speaking with moms during the pandemic, Rodsky came up with a list of the top chores she said negatively affect mothers’ mental health the most.
Author Eve Rodsky identified twelve chores that working mothers told her they do often and which she says can negatively impact mothers’ mental health.
The Dirty Dozen Tasks Affecting Moms’ Mental Health
Laundry
Groceries
Meals
Home Supplies
Tidying Up
Cleaning Dishes
Garbage
Discipline
Screen Time
Homework
Watching the Kids
Managing Social Interactions
There are many reasons why women may tend to assume more responsibilities at home or when it comes to raising children. Many say the patterns often start before kids are born, with fathers given less or no paid paternity leave. The shift in household chores then don’t likely change after mothers return to work.
In her 2019 book, Rodsky provided tips for working parents to improve their household and time management situations. Among her tips are four key rules that parents can consider when dividing chores and determining who does what type of work:
All time is created equal.
Reclaim your right to be interesting.
Start where you are now.
Establish your values and standards.
Parents can list out all chores and split them into four categories, as Rodsky recommends in her book and in the book’s accompanying card game, which is available as a free download after a book purchase — Home (handling dishes, groceries), Out (transporting kids), Caregiving (medical, dental appointments) and Magic (because it takes time to play Santa or the Tooth Fairy).
The Lancet Public Health study is the latest report illustrating the broad gap and labor divide between women and men. A 2021 analysis from the Center for Global Development also found that women on average provide three times more child care during the pandemic than men. Another 2021 report from the Kaiser Family Foundation also found that women were likely to experience more stress from the pandemic’s impact than men.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared side-by-side in hard-hit Fort Myers on Wednesday as the president surveyed damage from Hurricane Ian.
The two leaders, often political opponents, have momentarily put politics aside to respond to the historic storm, which is shaping up to be one of Florida’s deadliest and costliest in decades. Making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane, Ian leveled the coast, knocking out power to millions. At least 100 people died.
DeSantis and his wife, Casey DeSantis, greeted Biden and first lady Jill Biden upon their arrival at Fisherman’s Wharf for an operational briefing. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, Republican Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, and other local officials were also at the site.
“Mr. President, welcome to Florida,” DeSantis said, making remarks first. “We appreciate working together across various levels of government.”
Biden spoke with local residents affected by the storm, offering handshakes and hugs as he toured damage at the marina’s. The area was filled with debris, fallen trees, downed electric lines and boats and yachts tossed into piles.
Earlier in the day, the Bidens took an aerial tour to get a wider look at the storm’s devastation before meeting with the governor.
“I’m sure it’s much worse from the ground,” Biden said. “But you can see a whole hell of a lot of damage from the air.”
Biden touted his administration’s response so far and emphasized the federal government’s ongoing commitment to the people of Florida as they recover and rebuild, which he said will take years.
“We’re not leaving till this gets done. I promise you that,” Biden said.
Ahead of the visit, the White House said Biden would announce he is doubling the length of time the federal government will cover all the costs associated with search and rescue, debris removal, sheltering and other emergency measures from 30 days to 60 days.
Desantis had requested the aid extension last week. In response to the announcement, he told reporters, “It’s important, but we may need more.”
Biden said 4,000 federal personnel are on the ground in Florida and the Southeast. Search and rescue teams have knocked on over 70,000 doors, he said, with 3,800 people. He also discussed more ways the federal government can help with other actions FEMA, the Small Business Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Wednesday’s visit was the first face-to-face meeting between Biden and DeSantis since the governor ordered migrants flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, which the White House this week continued to slam as a “political stunt.”
Biden and DeSantis have put politics aside to respond to Hurricane Ian, as they spoke several times before and after the storm hit as Biden issued emergency declarations.
“I want to thank President Biden and Jill Biden as well as Administrator Deanne Criswell for coming down here looking at a really really significant damage here in Lee County and there’s other places where you have really significant damage as well outside of this general area,” DeSantis said Wednesday.”We were very fortunate to have good coordination with the White House and with FEMA from the very beginning of this.”
The Florida trip came just days after Biden traveled to Puerto Rico, which was hit by Hurricane Fiona last month.
The Category 1 storm hit the island on Sept. 18, knocking out power for most of the U.S. territory’s residents and killing at least 13 people. As of Biden’s visit, more than two weeks after the storm, more than 100,000 people were still without power.
During his visit to Port of Ponce, on the south side of Puerto Rico, Biden announced more than $60 million in federal funding to help the island better prepare for extreme weather events in the wake of Hurricane Fiona.
“Puerto Rico is a strong place, and Puerto Ricans are strong people,” Biden said as he spoke at the Port of Ponce. “But even so, you have had to bear so much and more than need be, and you haven’t gotten the help in a timely way.”
(NEW YORK) — Just weeks before Halloween, law enforcement officials are warning about a deadly drug packaged in pills that “look like candy.”
So-called rainbow fentanyl began showing up on the streets on the West Coast in February and has gradually made its way across the country.
This week, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and law enforcement partners announced the first significant seizure of rainbow fentanyl. It happened on Sept. 28 when agents and officers stopped a vehicle on the Manhattan side of the Lincoln Tunnel that contained 15,000 multicolored pill with an estimated street value of $300,000.
The multicolored pills are similar in look to party drugs and meant to be more appealing to young people, according to the DEA’s Frank Tarrentino, who called it “newly packaged poison.”
“Fentanyl is everywhere and it is on everything,” Tarrentino said, noting some of the pills seized in the car were discovered in a yellow Lego box.
“The pills look like candy,” said New York City’s special narcotics prosecutor Bridgette Brennan. “We believe it is critically important to educate the public about this new form fentanyl is taking.”
Illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, is one of the primary drivers of the significant increases in drug overdose deaths in recent years. More than 56,000 people died of from overdoses involving synthetic opioids in 2020, an increase of 56% from the previous year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The pills are often made to resemble real prescription opioid medication like Oxycontin, Vicodin and Xanax, or stimulants like Adderall, according to the DEA. Most are made in Mexico, with China supplying the chemicals.
In a warning issued in August, the DEA said that brightly colored fentanyl is being distributed not just in pill form but also “powder, and blocks that resembles sidewalk chalk.”
According to the agency, 2 milligrams of fentanyl, the equivalent of 10 to 15 grains of table salt, is “considered a lethal dose.”
“Without laboratory testing, there is no way to know how much fentanyl is concentrated in a pill or powder,” the DEA said. “Fentanyl remains the deadliest drug threat facing this country.”
Amid all the recent warnings, statistics about rates of overdoses by so-called rainbow fentanyl are not available yet.
In response to the growing threat and the recent rise in deaths due to fentanyl, school districts in Florida, Texas and California have announced new plans to fight the crisis.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school district, announced last month that naloxone, a medicine used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, would be available at all K-12 schools in the district in the coming weeks, provided for free by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
The announcement comes after several suspected overdoses in the last month, with one juvenile dying at Bernstein High School in Hollywood, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Here are questions about fentanyl and the growing crisis, answered:
Why does fentanyl exist?
Pharmaceutical fentanyl is used frequently in medical settings. Developed for the pain management treatment of cancer patients, it is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and 30 to 50 times more potent than heroin, according to the DEA.
“It is a very good and effective medicine at relieving pain in appropriate quantities managed by anesthesia,” Dr. Kimberly Sue, medical director of the National Harm Reduction Coalition and an addiction specialist at Yale University, told ABC News last year. “What we’re seeing in the opioid overdose deaths in this country is related to fentanyl that is obtained outside of the context of medical prescriptions, usually on the street.”
Why is fentanyl so deadly?
Fentanyl is dangerous because it “depresses” a person’s respiratory function and central nervous system, and can cause a person to stop breathing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
If fentanyl is inhaled, consumed or injected it can be deadly, but a person cannot overdose by touching it.
How does a person know if they’ve taken fentanyl?
There is no way to know whether a pill or powder contains fentanyl by simply looking at it, and fentanyl has no distinctive taste or smell.
“In the case of a pill that you buy off the street, people should assume there is fentanyl present even if it is labeled as some other medication,” said Sue. “I’ve taken care of many patients who think they’re buying oxycodone or heroin and there’s nothing in it. It’s just fentanyl.”
Fentanyl test strips are one tool people can use to test for the drug before consuming something that could be laced with fentanyl, like a pill, powder, nasal sprays or eye drops.
To use the strips, a person dissolves a small amount of the substance in water, and then dips the test strip into the water. The strips can give results in as little as five minutes, according to the CDC.
Is there a way to reverse a fentanyl overdose?
Naloxone, the medication being made available at all Los Angeles public schools, is the main tool used to reverse an overdose.
The medication, also known under the brand name Narcan, can restore normal breathing within two to three minutes in someone who has overdosed, according to the CDC.
Naloxone is available in all 50 states, can be used without medical training and can be delivered by either nasal spray or injection.
In most states, naloxone can be purchased from a pharmacy without a prescription, according to the CDC.
Where does illicitly manufactured fentanyl come from?
Police and other experts say fentanyl and fentanyl-laced pills have been illegally imported from as far out as China and even smuggled through the U.S.-Mexico border.
Of the more than 11,000 pounds of fentanyl that made its way into the U.S. last year, more than half of it came through the border between Mexico and San Diego, according to investigators.
In some instances, Chinese drug suppliers send the ingredients to make fentanyl to cartels in Mexico. After creating the fentanyl, either in raw powder or pill form, the cartels would ship them across the border in trucks, according to investigators.
Border patrol agents have stepped up their searches for the pills and other related fentanyl contraband, officials told ABC News in May.
What do I do to help a person who is overdosing?
If you think a person is overdosing but are not sure, the CDC says to treat it like an overdose.
Signs that a person is overdosing may include small and constricted pupils, slow and shallow breathing, choking sounds, falling asleep or losing consciousness and pale, blue or cold skin, according to the CDC.
The first thing to do is call 911 immediately.
Next, the CDC says to administer naloxone to the person if it is available.
While administering help, try to keep the person awake and breathing and lay them on their side to help prevent choking.
If you or someone you love is in need of help, call 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or visit http://www.samhsa.gov/find-help to reach SAMHSA’s 24-hour helpline that offers free, confidential treatment referral and information about mental and/or substance use disorders, prevention and recovery.
(STOCKHOLM) — Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry Wednesday for their work in making molecules “click.”
Two Americans, K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, and Carolyn Bertozzi of Stanford University in California, and one Dane — Morten Meldal at the University of Copenhagen — received the prize.
Sharpless and Medal — independent of each other — “laid the foundations of click chemistry,” a field in which molecular building blocks are snapped together “quickly and efficiently.”
Bertozzi then used this field to develop bioorthogonal chemistry, in which scientists modify molecules in cells of living organisms “without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell.”
“This year’s Prize in Chemistry deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple. Functional molecules can be built even by taking a straightforward route,” Johan Åqvist, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said in a statement.
Sharpless previously won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001, making him only the fifth person to win two Nobel prizes and the second person ever to win the award twice, according to the committee. His first award was for developing three types of chemical reactions.
Last year, scientists Benjamin List and David MacMillan won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a new tool in molecular construction.
Each Nobel prize is worth 10 million kronor — the equivalent of about $900,000 — and is given to laureates with a diploma and a gold medal on Dec. 10, the date the creator of the Nobel prizes, Alfred Nobel, died in 1896.
