(ATLANTA) — While respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, has been surging among children in the United States, older adults are being affected as well.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that senior citizens are being hospitalized with the virus at this point in the season at a rate much higher than seen in seasons past.
As of the week ending Nov. 5, the latest date for which data is available, adults aged 65 and older are being hospitalized at a weekly rate of 1.6 per 100,000.
Although the raw number might seem small, it is much higher than usually seen at this time of year. CDC data going back to the 2014-15 season shows the rate has never been higher than 1.0 per 100,000 in early November.
“Overall, it’s very striking that we’re seeing this level of RSV than we normally see across age groups,” said Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital and an ABC News contributor. “While there’s a lot of focus on the pediatric impact, we know RSV affects all vulnerable groups, including the elderly population.”
“The hospitalizations numbers are greater than anything we’ve seen in the past nine seasons,” he added.
An increase in respiratory viruses, including RSV, has been flooding pediatric hospitals and causing schools to shut down to stem the spread.
Public health experts told ABC News the early rise in cases is due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last two years, children have been staying home from school, wearing masks and practicing social distancing, which has led to low RSV activity.
Now, with most pandemic measures relaxed, RSV is infecting both children who were born during the pandemic or primarily stayed home during the pandemic.
However, as more kids get exposed, so do more adults.
“Now all the children are back in school, they’re going to birthday parties, they’re playing with each other and we’re having a very early surge in RSV all over the country,” Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told ABC News. “They’re bringing it home and they’re giving it to grandparents, Aunt Susie, Uncle Frank and other adults who have underlying illnesses and it’s those adults who sometimes get illness severe enough to require hospitalization.”
He continued, “So the adults are part of this surge that has been described mostly in terms of its impact on children in pediatric hospitals.”
Adults with RSV typically experience the same symptoms as children including coughing, wheezing, fever, running nose, sneezing and decrease in appetite, according to the CDC.
While most cases can resolve with resting at home, drinking fluids and managing pain and fever, some adults are at higher risk of severe illness.
“First of all, advanced age, anybody over age 65, and of course, the older you are, the more likely you are to get severe illness,” Schaffner said. “Second, underlying illness, particularly of the lung, and heart. So, if you have underlying lung disease or heart disease, those are the circumstances that put you at increased risk of getting more severe RSV infection that will impair your capacity to breathe and will require hospitalization.”
There are currently no vaccines available that protect against RSV, although several are undergoing clinical trials, and some may undergo review from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the meantime, the experts recommend following similar mitigation measures followed during the pandemic.
“It’s vaccinating against flu and COVID, it’s masking, it’s social distancing, it’s staying home when sick,” Brownstein said. “It’s the same non-pharmaceutical interventions we’ve been promoting during COVID.”
(WASHINGTON) — China has stolen more of Americans business and personal data than all other countries put together, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a House committee Tuesday.
“China’s vast hacking program is the world’s largest and they have stolen more Americans personal and business data than every other nation combined,” Wray told the House Homeland Security Committee.
Wray testified along with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Christine Abizaid, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, at the annual “Worldwide Threats” hearing.
The FBI director said the U.S. has concerns with China based app TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, which has been under scrutiny of U.S. regulators. The head of the Federal Trade Commission has said the app should be banned.
“I would say we do have national security concern,” Wray told Rep. Diana Harshberger, R-Tenn. “They include the possibility that the Chinese government could use to control data collection on millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which could be used for influence operations if they so chose or to control software on millions of devices, which gives the opportunity to potentially tactically compromised personal devices,” he said.
“So, there’s a number of concerns there as to what is actually happening and actually being done,” Wray said, adding there are questions about how data sharing works in China with companies required by Chinese law to share data with the government.
Mayorkas also cited concerns about China.
“China’s using its technology to tilt the global playing field to its benefit,” he said.
Bomb threats to HBCUs
The hearing also touched on bomb threats to HBCUs around the country, domestic violent extremists, and the southern border.
Wray said the bomb threats against HBCU’s are “unacceptable” and said a single actor is responsible for the bomb threats that were called in.
“With respect for the first big tranche, investigation has identified an underage, a juvenile subject and because of the federal limitations on charging juveniles with federal crimes, we have worked with state prosecutors to ensure that that Indvidual is charged under other various state offenses which will ensure some sort of restrictions and monitoring and disruption of his criminal behavior. “
Throughout the spring, Historically Black Colleges and Universities saw bomb threats almost daily.
Political violence, threats against law enforcement
The law enforcement leaders were asked about the attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, and the leaders said there is a disturbing trend in targeting government officials and law enforcement.
“We have seen a trend over the last several years of people more and more in this country when they’re upset or angry about something turning to violence as the way to manifest it. And that is a very, very dangerous trend,” Wray said.
“There is a right way under the First Amendment to express how angry and upset you are about something or with somebody but violence, violence against government officials is not it but that is something that we’ve been seeing across the political spectrum now for quite a number of years,” he said.
The two leaders said increasing violence against law enforcement is also dangerous with Mayorkas noting more law enforcement have been ambushed than ever.
Both leaders agreed that domestic violent extremists pose the most significant threat to the United States.
Along the southern border, which has been a focus of GOP attacks against the Biden administration, the FBI director said the border has a lot of “complex threats” that it is facing. He said there has been an “increase” in the known or suspected terrorists apprehended along the border. Rep. Mike McCaul said there were 98 known or suspected terrorists apprehended along the southern border in the past fiscal year.
According to a senior DHS official, encounters of known and suspected terrorists attempting to cross the Southern Border are very uncommon. These encounters represent significantly less than 0.01 percent of total encounters per fiscal year in recent years.
Mayorkas said they are “taking it to” the human smugglers and cartel organizations along the southern border, touting the Department’s work in a new program they rolled out earlier this year.
(CARMEL, Ind.) — In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir, former Vice President Mike Pence was pressed on his rhetoric in the days leading up to the riot at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“When I first heard about it in early December, that there might be a rally in Washington,” Pence told Muir, “I thought it might be useful to just call attention to the legal process that would take place on the floor of the House and Senate, where members, under the Electoral Count Act, would have the opportunity to evaluate allegations of voting irregularities, evaluate any evidence that would be presented, and ultimately resolve those issues in the peaceful transfer of power.”
Muir asked Pence about some of his words to supporters leading up to the rally: “But you knew the temperature was rising in the country. You knew what the former president was saying about widespread fraud and these theories being put forth by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and the president himself. And you actually thought a rally on the morning of Jan. 6 was a good idea?”
Pence, who is releasing the memoir So Help Me God on Tuesday, responded: “Well, when I first heard about it in December, as I wrote in my book, it occurred to me that it might be useful, to simply have supporters in town to call attention to the legal process.”
“In hindsight,” Muir asked, “do you think that that was a good idea?”
“In hindsight, it was not a good idea,” Pence replied.
“There was an expectation created that I could do something to change the outcome of the election,” he continued. “In fact, as we drove up to the Capitol, I was sitting next to my daughter in the motorcade, and I looked out across the east front of the Capitol and people were cheering our motorcade, David, and in a peaceful gathering.”
“And my heart sank,” he added. “I just looked at my daughter and said that my heart went out to those people because they’d been told that I could do something to change the outcome of an election that we’d lost. And I looked at my daughter and just said: ‘God bless them all.'”
Muir asked Pence on whether his own words at a Georgia rally two days before the Capitol riot could have given incentives to the crowd: “In looking back to that moment, do you have any regrets about your own rhetoric? Just two days before Jan. 6, you were in Georgia and you said: ‘We all have our doubts about the election. Come this Wednesday, we’ll have our day in Congress. We’ll hear the evidence.’ Were you feeding the false hope?”
“No,” Pence responded, “not in the least.”
Muir pressed: “But do you regret the rhetoric when you look out the window and you see people? And you wrote in your book: ‘These people had been told that the outcome of the election could be changed.’ You knew the rhetoric that was out there. Were you feeding into it by saying this just two days before the election: ‘We’ll see the evidence. Wednesday will be our day.’?”
“No, David,” Pence replied, “not in the least.”
Muir pressed Pence on what was “the evidence” he was referring to at that rally.
“You write in the book about the attorney general, Bill Barr, Dec. 1, saying: ‘There was no widespread fraud that would’ve overturned this election.’ You write it in the book that you are aware that he said that. You agreed with him. You write about the 60 cases that did not go your way. Why are we still saying two days before Jan. 6 to America and to your supporters: ‘We’ll have our day’? In looking back, was there an opportunity there for you to take down the temperature?”
“Well, David, hindsight is always 20-20,” Pence responded. “But I never imagined the violence that would ensue on Jan. 6.”
Pence was overseeing Congress’ certification of the 2020 Electoral College results on Jan. 6, 2021, when a large crowd urged on by then-President Donald Trump marched to the United States Capitol, overran security and vandalized the building, sending Pence and congressional lawmakers into lockdown.
Trump, who has insisted he did nothing wrong, ultimately told the rioters to leave but only after berating Pence for not blocking the certification — which Pence noted he couldn’t legally do — and repeating baseless conspiracy theories about widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
During the exclusive interview at the former vice president’s home in Indiana, Muir pressed Pence further on the Capitol riot, whether Trump should ever be in the White House again, if Pence will run for president, whether Trump hurt Republicans in the midterms and what Pence makes of authorities saying classified documents were taken from the White House.
ABC News’ Tal Axelrod, Adam Carlson and Esther Castillejo contributed to this report.
Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Balenciaga is saying “bye-bye” to Twitter.
Several users recently noticed that the luxury fashion label no longer had an account on the platform. Good Morning America has confirmed that the brand will no longer maintain a Twitter account moving forward.
While the brand has chosen not to make any further statements on its decision to leave Twitter, the news comes shortly after investor Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout of the company last month.
Prior to leaving Twitter, Balenciaga’s account had millions of followers.
Several other notable public figures, such as Gigi Hadid and Shonda Rhimes, have also left their Twitter accounts behind in the wake of Musk’s takeover. Some have expressed disapproval of Musk’s leadership, claiming his buyout was detrimental to the platform.
“I deactivated my Twitter account today,” Hadid said in an Instagram story alongside a screenshot claiming Twitter’s entire human rights department had been laid off. “For a long time, but especially with its new leadership, it’s becoming more and more of a cesspool of hate & bigotry, and it’s not a place I want to be a part of.”
The screenshot featured a tweet from Twitter’s former human rights counsel Shannon Raj Singh, who claimed on Nov. 4 that the company’s full Human Rights team had been “cut from the company.”
“I am enormously proud of the work we did to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights, to protect those at-risk in global conflicts & crises including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine, and to defend the needs of those, particularly at risk of human rights abuse by virtue of their social media presence, such as journalists & human rights defenders,” Singh wrote at the time.
Musk’s Twitter takeover has been plagued with issues since day one. In addition to backlash over Musk’s decision to charge $8 for Twitter Blue subscriptions, which provide subscribers with a blue “verified” checkmark, the company has also faced internal upheaval, issuing mass layoffs, losing advertisers, and dealing with product issues that have caused some users to be locked out of their accounts, among other things. Additionally, Musk was forced to freeze new Twitter Blue subscription sign-ups after newly verified paid accounts began impersonating public figures, companies and legitimate media outlets.
The Federal Trade Commission stated last Thursday that it was “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern.”
Meanwhile, a study from Montclair State University earlier in November showed a spike in hate speech on Twitter immediately following Musk’s takeover of the platform.
Balenciaga’s departure comes as other advertisers face increased pressure to consider their futures on the platform, with companies such as General Motors, GM, United Airlines, General Mills, and Mondelez International Inc. pulling ads from Twitter already.
Previously, Musk had threatened “a thermonuclear name & shame” of companies leaving Twitter, however he took a markedly different stance in a conversation with advertisers last week that was broadcast on the platform using the Twitter Spaces function. According to Reuters, over 100,000 listeners tuned into the conversation.
“I understand if people want to give it a minute … [but] the best way to see how things are evolving is just use Twitter,” he said, according to the outlet.
Musk has also attempted to smooth things over on his own official Twitter account. “Please note that Twitter will do lots of dumb things in coming months,” he tweeted on Nov. 9. “We will keep what works & change what doesn’t.”
Representatives for Twitter did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment for this story.
ABC News’ Melanie Schmitz contributed to this story.
(ATLANTA) — A judge on Tuesday overturned Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, ruling that it is not constitutional.
The so-called “heartbeat bill” was signed into law in 2019 by Gov. Brian Kemp but was prevented from going into effect following legal challenges.
In July, three weeks after the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, a federal appeals court ruled the ban could go into effect.
The law prevents abortions from performed once fetal cardiac activity can be defected, which typically occurs at about six weeks’ gestation — before many women know they’re pregnant — and redefines the word “person” in Georgia to include an embryo or fetus at any stage of development.
Several groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Georgia, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective — filed a lawsuit arguing the ban violates the right to privacy without political inference protected under the Georgia Constitution.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney agreed and said it went against the law because the ban was signed before Roe was overturned.
“At that time — the spring of 2019 — everywhere in America, including Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional for governments — federal, state, or local — to ban abortions before viability,” McBurney wrote, referring to the original passage of the 6-week ban.
ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Ben Stein contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Higher ocean temperatures are expected to be detected in the Pacific Ocean by 2030, several decades earlier than previously predicted, new research suggests.
Natural climate variability in the Pacific is largely governed by El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which involves the warm phase, El Nino, when surface water becomes warmer than average and east winds blow weaker than normal, and La Nina, when the water is cooler than normal and the east winds are stronger.
Some of the most extreme weather events around the world in recent years, such as the droughts in the U.S. and Australia and heat waves around the world, have been spurred by ENSO events, Wenju Cai, one of the study’s authors and director of the Center for Southern Hemisphere Oceans Research at Australia’s Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, told ABC News.
Previously, research suggested climate change was increasing the variability of ENSO events, but it was predicted that the change wouldn’t be detectable until the at least 2070, Cai said.
For this study, the researchers gathered 70 years of ENSO data — from 1950 onwards — and used some of the newest climate models to estimate when increased ENSO variability will be detectable in the eastern or central Pacific.
They found that climate change-associated temperature increases will likely be detectable around 2030 in the eastern Pacific, four decades earlier than previously expected. The warming is also expected to occur earlier in the eastern than in the central Pacific, driven by the faster warming of this region and therefore a larger increase in rainfall.
“In about 10 years time, we will be able to tell that global warming has changed El Nino,” Cai said.
The increased variability in ENSO events will also make extreme weather events, such as droughts, fires and floods, around the world more severe, Cai said, adding that even if the planet were able to stay below 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, it would not stop the change in El Nino events predicted in the next several years.
It would take at least a century to make any significant reductions in changes of variability in ENSO events, Cai said.
“In the next 100 years, if we take action, we can reduce the increase by about 10% from the business-as-usual scenario,” he said. “But we cannot stop it completely.”
(WAUKESHA, Wis.) — A sentencing hearing for Darrell Brooks, the man convicted of murdering six people after driving his SUV through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin, was briefly suspended Tuesday due to a threat made on the Waukesha courthouse, the judge said.
Dozens of survivors of last year’s attack in Waukesha are planning to address Brooks during the two-day sentencing hearing, which started Tuesday morning.
About 90 minutes into the hearing, the court went into recess shortly before 10 a.m. local time after Judge Jennifer Dorow said she was advised by the sheriff “that their communication center had received a threat to the courthouse,” she told the court.
Court proceedings resumed over an hour later, around 11:15 a.m.
“The sheriff has assured me that this building is quite safe — ‘very secure,’ were his words — and that he has taken all reasonable measures to secure the courthouse this time,” she said.
Dorow apologized for the “abrupt disruption” to the victims’ statements.
“I am confident that we can go forward at this time,” she said.
Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow said the sheriff’s office is investigating the credibility of “an anonymous threat” to the Waukesha County Courthouse.
“County offices are conducting business as usual,” he said on Twitter. “If you are in the Courthouse, you may notice an increased presence of law enforcement personnel.”
Brooks, 40, was found guilty last month on all 76 counts, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide, for barreling his SUV into a Christmas parade on Nov. 21, 2021. He dismissed his public defenders during the trial and went on to represent himself.
Prosecutors expect 45 people, including nine children, to make victim impact statements during the two-day sentencing hearing, ABC Milwaukee affiliate WISN reported.
Brooks’ sentencing has been scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
(MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.) — The Artemis I rocket is set for launch early Wednesday morning, the latest attempt to send an unmanned capsule near the moon after a series of postponements due to weather and mechanical issues.
NASA pushed back a takeoff scheduled for Monday after Hurricane Nicole made landfall about 85 miles south of Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The rocket, which remained on the launchpad at the Kennedy Space Center during the storm, sustained “minor” damage that would be easy to repair, Jim Free, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in a press conference Friday.
The launch marks the first step in an ambitious plan to establish a long-term presence on the moon for scientific discovery and economic development. Eventually, the Artemis expedition could lead to the first crewed space trip to Mars, according to NASA.
The space capsule will travel for roughly 25 days — reaching as close as 60 miles from the moon, and then 40,000 miles above the moon when orbiting over its dark side — before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego on Dec. 11.
If Artemis is declared ready, a two-hour window will open at 1:04 a.m. ET. If needed, the back-up windows are Saturday, Nov. 19, and Friday, Nov. 25. NASA will broadcast the launch on NASA TV.
The mission has suffered a series of setbacks since an original launch date that was expected to feature Vice President Kamala Harris in attendance among about 100,000 spectators.
NASA called off that initial takeoff, set for Aug. 29, after a defective sensor prevented one of the rocket’s engines from cooling down to a temperature required before ignition.
Days later, a second launch attempt on Sept. 3 was scrubbed after the space agency identified a liquid hydrogen leak.
A third planned launch attempt, on Sept. 27, faced postponement due to Hurricane Ian. The rocket was moved off the launchpad to protect it, as Ian wrought destruction along its path northward from Florida to the Carolinas.
On the whole, the Artemis expedition includes four missions, each of which will cost roughly $4.1 billion. In all, the project will cost up to $93 billion by 2025, according to an audit from the NASA Office of the Inspector General.
If Artemis I is successful, Artemis II will take four astronauts near the moon in 2024. After that, Artemis III will take a crewed spacecraft for a moon landing. Finally, Artemis IV will fly to a space station near the moon.
Over the course of the Artemis missions, NASA plans to eventually send the first female astronaut and the first astronaut of color to the moon.
NASA hopes the Artemis expedition will enable a crewed trip to Mars in the ensuing years.
(NEW YORK) — Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter late last month as CEO has ignited a public conversation about whether the billionaire will obstruct or encourage free speech on the social media platform, which has about 240 million active users worldwide.
An early sign of Musk’s direction may be evident by his inner circle, the center of which stands Alex Spiro, his personal attorney. Known as a powerhouse attorney representing world-renowned celebrities and athletes, Spiro is also a staunch free speech advocate, particularly in cases that intersect hip-hop music and criminal justice reform.
Concerns over the future of free speech on Twitter have come largely from Musk’s own posts since he took control of the company. Although he has said that existing laws protect Twitter from hate speech, he has said Twitter cannot be “considered inclusive or fair if it is biased against half the country,” which has made some worry that leniency toward extreme voices may be in the platform’s future.
A flood of fake accounts impersonating public figures and brands overtook the platform last week after the launch of paid verification badges, raising fears about the supercharged spread of misinformation. Musk himself posted a link to a story about a baseless conspiracy theory about the recent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Musk later took the tweet down. Musk has also said that accounts impersonating others will not be tolerated unless they clearly state they are parody accounts.
Spiro declined to discuss Musk or Twitter for this story, but he did tell ABC News that free speech “is a core, fundamental belief” of Spiro’s that has guided his career, which started when he was a prosecutor in Manhattan with the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
“I’m hoping that free speech in music is something we could all get behind,” he told ABC News.
A “mirror” of Musk
Spiro met Musk in 2019 when representing him in a defamation lawsuit by British cave diver Vernon Unsworth, in which the Tesla CEO had called Unsworth a “pedo guy.” Spiro won that case on Musk’s behalf, arguing that Musk was ultimately trying to fund efforts to save a group of Thai teenagers who were trapped in a cave and saying the comment was a “throwaway insult” after Unsworth tried unsuccessfully to characterize him as a “billionaire bully.”
“The First Amendment does not [just] protect compliments and happy speak, it protects unfavorable speech. It protects all speech,” Spiro said in a recent Original Jurisdiction podcast interview. “If we start policing speech, where are we? We’re in a bad place in our society and in our world.”
After that, Spiro continued to represent Musk in various legal battles, including continuous investigations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, one involving Musk’s appeal to a $40 million SEC settlement for alleged securities fraud. Bill Burck, a co-managing partner of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, who helped recruit Spiro to the firm in 2016, said Musk required an attorney who was also a personal confidante.
Musk “clearly thinks outside of the box and he follows the beat of his own drum, and he looks for intellectual courage and extreme dedication,” Burck told ABC News. “Alex mirrors that. He is probably one of the very few people who can keep up with the ideas and not be hamstrung or straightjacketed by the perceived wisdom. That’s probably the larger reason why he has clearly gotten Musk’s trust in a way that very few other lawyers have.”
Even in his early days, fresh out of Harvard Law School and working as a prosecutor in New York, Spiro demonstrated the strength required “to tell clients the truth,” said attorney Elliot Felig, who worked with Spiro in 2009 when both were prosecutors at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
“Alex is the most confident courtroom attorney I’ve ever seen. Beyond that, he had a thirst for trying cases that was unparalleled,” he told ABC News. “I think Elon Musk has a fearlessness and I suspect Alex is a good match.”
Spiro, 39, was born in New York City but grew up in Boston. Early in his career, he worked at Harvard’s McLean Hospital where he helped run a program for children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome until he realized he could do more for their plight through the justice system. “I went to law school sort of by accident,” he told the Original Jurisdiction podcast audience.
His interest in psychology served him well early in his life when it became clear he could relate to not just clients, but jurors from all walks of life, Felig said.
“The best prosecutors love being on trial and Alex loved being on trial. He wanted trials. He would go door to door looking for trials,” he said. “The desire he had was innate. You can’t teach it. It’s a competitive spirit that some professional athletes have. They love the competition.”
Working to decriminalize rap lyrics
Along the way, Spiro became a serious advocate for hip-hop artists who he believed were unfairly having their music and lyrics weaponized against them in court by criminal prosecutors. He told ABC News his interest in overturning wrongful convictions originated from observing prosecutors using the YouTube rap videos of defendants to characterize them as dangerous in order to have a judge deny their bail. The trend, he said, struck him as “particularly problematic and a hill to die on.”
He ended up representing prominent hip-hop artists, including Jay-Z, 21 Savage, Meek Mill, Chance the Rapper and others, earning the title of “hip-hop’s most sought-after criminal justice attorney” by Billboard. He defended Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, then on trial for gang conspiracy charges, in 2016, and remains the lead attorney for Jay-Z and his Roc Nation roster of artists — a designation that required defending 21 Savage, who was arrested in 2019 for alleged immigration violations. (The case is still pending).
Along the way, Jay-Z enlisted Spiro to lead several criminal justice reform cases that had nothing to do with the music industry, such as filing a complaint in 2020 with the U.S. District Court in Greenville, Mississippi, on behalf of 29 inmates who authorities said were involved in a spate of violence that left five prisoners dead. Spiro argued that the deaths instead resulted from years of staff shortages and neglect in the state prison system.
Spiro also frequently partners with Erik Nielson, a liberal arts professor at the University of Richmond who has written extensively about hip-hop, to advocate for legislation to limit the use of rap lyrics used against defendants in criminal trials. Their work helped a law pass in California, and a similar bill is pending in both New York and New Jersey. Spiro co-wrote the bill and helped get stars such as Jay-Z, Killer Mike, Big Sean, and others to sign letters of support. A similar bill, the Restoring Artistic Protection Act, is working its way through the U.S. House of Representatives.
His advocacy originated in the case of Pittsburgh rapper Jamal Knox, who was found guilty in 2013 of threatening two police officers in his song, “F— the Police.” Nielson said there are hundreds of cases like Knox’s, and he and Spiro — who works pro bono on cases involving the legislation — talk regularly about which potential cases could use their support.
“One thing about Alex is he really does walk the walk. He can achieve a lot in a very short period of time,” Nielson told ABC News. “He’s been an invaluable advocate of serious issues involving rap artists. He is driven and he is very effective, and so I can understand why someone like Elon Musk would rely on him.”
(NEW YORK) — People who smoke marijuana were more likely to have certain types of lung damage than people who smoked cigarettes, according to a new study that reviewed lung scans of smokers. The researchers who led the study say their findings suggest smoking marijuana may be more harmful than people realize.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least one-fifth of Americans have tried marijuana at least once. With more states legalizing the drug, it has become the most commonly used drug that is still illegal at a federal level.
Some health effects, such as brain development issues, high blood pressure, and increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, have been studied. However, according to Dr. Albert Rizzo, lung doctor and chief medical officer of the American Lung Association, “We don’t know the long-term effects of marijuana as we do for the long-term effects of tobacco.”
Researchers from Ottawa Hospital General in Canada compared approximately 150 lung scans from marijuana smokers, tobacco-only smokers and nonsmokers. The study found that rates of emphysema, airway inflammation and enlarged breast tissue were higher in marijuana than in tobacco smokers.
The scans showed that 75% of the marijuana smokers had emphysema. Slightly less than 70% of tobacco-only smokers had emphysema, while only 5% of nonsmokers had it.
Emphysema, a form of chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), is the third leading cause of death in the U.S.
“There are air sacs in your lungs that are getting bigger than they should. As they get bigger, they are less efficient than they should be for gas exchange,” Rizzo said. The condition is caused by long-term exposure to irritants such as smoke, leading to irreversible lung damage.
“Marijuana smokers had more emphysema, a disease that causes difficulty breathing, than heavy tobacco smokers and nonsmokers,” said Dr. Giselle Revah, study co-author and cardiothoracic radiologist.
Doctors say there are several reasons marijuana might cause more lung damage than tobacco.
“Marijuana smokers breathe in more deeply, and they hold their breath longer, before they exhale. You combine the irritating effect of longer exposure and deeper inhalation of these toxins,” Rizzo said.
Tobacco smoke is also filtered, but marijuana smoke is not. All of these factors contribute to inflammation and irreversible damage, doctors say.
“Anything you inhale that could irritate the lungs would not be advisable, so I would recommend they stop,” Rizzo said. However, he recognizes that some users have medical necessity — for those individuals, he recommends a discussion with your doctor, who may be able to convert you to another, safer form of the drug, such as an ingestible form.
“There is a public perception that marijuana is safe. This study signals that marijuana could be more harmful than people realize,” Revah said.
Alicia Zellmer, M.D., and Joy Liu, M.D., are resident physicians in Internal Medicine and members of the ABC News Medical Unit.
