(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it will not review or allow the marketing of cannabidiol, or CBD, products as food items or dietary supplements.
Up until recently, the health agency has not allowed any company to make claims about health benefits from wellness CBD products.
The FDA said after “careful review” it has determined that its current framework for evaluating food and supplements is not set up well for CBD because of safety risks and that substances, including CBD, have to meet specific safety standards to be lawfully marketed as a dietary supplement or a food additive.
“The use of CBD raises various safety concerns, especially with long-term use,” FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement. “Studies have shown the potential for harm to the liver, interactions with certain medications and possible harm to the male reproductive system.”
The statement continued, “CBD exposure is also concerning when it comes to certain vulnerable populations such as children and those who are pregnant.”
Woodcock said animals are also at risk of side effects from CBD. People might not know they’ve been exposed to the ingredient if they consume meat, milk and eggs from animals fed CBD, she said.
“Because it is not apparent how CBD products could meet the safety standard for substances in animal food, we also do not intend to pursue rulemaking allowing the use of CBD in animal food,” she said.
The FDA said it plans to “work with Congress” to create new rules for regulating these products, which could include requiring clear labels, preventing contamination, content limits and even a minimum purchase age.
CBD and tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, both come from the cannabis plant. While THC is the main psychoactive ingredient that gives users the “high,” CBD is believed to behind therapeutic effects associated with marijuana such as relief from nausea and pain relief.
The agency also announced it is denying three petitions submitted by citizens asking CBD products to be marketed as dietary supplements.
“Given the available evidence, it is not apparent how CBD products could meet safety standards for dietary supplements or food additives,” Woodcock said. “For example, we have not found adequate evidence to determine how much CBD can be consumed, and for how long, before causing harm. Therefore, we do not intend to pursue rulemaking allowing the use of CBD in dietary supplements or conventional foods.”
ABC News’ Eric Strauss contributed to this report.
Did Selena Gomez confirm a new album? Fans are freaking out over how she captioned an Instagram post, which reads, “3.” They’re taking it as the official word that Selena’s next studio album is on the way. Selena has three albums so far: Stars Dance, Revival and Rare. Selena has yet to announce a title or release date.
Charlie Puth is working on a new song and we might have a doorbell to thank for it. The singer, who’s notorious for incorporating real-life sounds into his music, posted a video of him hitting a wall with the demo — until the doorbell rings and gives him an idea for a new note. No word on the song’s title or when he’ll release it.
A TikTok pastor who claims he died and went to hell also claims Rihanna‘s music is a hit with the demons there. Gerald Johnson said his soul left his body and entered hell in 2016, and he saw demons singing Rihanna’s songs. Rihanna has not responded to the now-viral video, which has over 4 million views.
Pink‘s new song “Trustfall” comes out at midnight and the song’s official music video comes out Friday at 9 a.m. ET. Also, The Scriptannounced she added them and GAYLE to her Summer Carnival tour later this year. Tickets are on sale now.
Coldplay is heading to Saturday Night Live and will be the musical guest on the show airing February 4. This marks the seventh time they’ve taken over studio 8H. The Last of Us star Pedro Pascal will serve as the night’s host.
Zara Larsson released her new song “Can’t Tame Her,” the title track of her upcoming third album, and also premiered its music video on MTV Live. This single, which is bursting with retro ’80s synths, celebrates independence.
(NEW YORK) — Continued recession fears and a cascade of tech industry layoffs have drawn renewed attention to severance packages, the compensation offered to some departing employees.
Severance packages, which range widely in size and duration, offer newly unemployed workers a financial buffer as they face an uncertain job market.
But laid-off workers may not fully understand the terms of a severance package, or could feel pressure to accept the terms without looking them over closely, legal and career experts told ABC News.
As employees depart a company, they should be fully informed of the details of a separation and negotiate for the best outcome they can get, the experts added.
“If employers give money, there’s a carrot in front of employees,” Matt Blit, an attorney at employment law firm Levine and Blit, which handles severance cases, told ABC News. “Employees typically sign without even reading them.”
Here’s what you need to know about severance packages:
Why do companies offer severance?
Companies are not required by law to offer severance.
They provide ex-employees with financial and other benefits to blunt the damage caused by a termination that may be unrelated to a worker’s performance, experts told ABC News.
The move also helps companies minimize the public relations backlash that can result from layoffs, they said.
“It sends a message about how you take care of your people,” Alexandra Levitt, a career expert and author of the forthcoming book “Deep Talent,” told ABC News. “Severance is a very important part of that.”
In exchange, workers who accept severance agreements are often required to forgo publicly criticizing the company or bringing legal action against it, the experts said. In some instances, the agreements also stipulate that ex-employees cannot work at rival companies or seek business from the same clients, they added.
“Companies pay severance so that they never have to worry about an employee ever again,” Blit said. “Companies are not in the business of giving away money.”
What’s in a typical severance package?
Experts on severance cautioned there is no common template used for the agreements, leaving the onus on departing employees to ensure they understand a package before accepting it.
“There’s no such thing as a standard severance agreement,” Blit said.
Still, severance packages usually include some or all of a common set of offerings: financial payment, continued access to health care and other benefits, job-search assistance and mental health support.
A company may offer some benefits in lieu of others, the experts said. The wide variation between severance agreements highlights the importance of reading the terms or asking a lawyer to examine them.
“There are so many different angles that employers take,” Blit said.
How severance pay is calculated
The calculation behind the financial compensation offered in severance agreements varies from stingy to generous.
Favorable severance agreements offer one month’s worth of salary for every year of tenure with the company; while more frugal packages provide just one week’s worth of salary for each year, experts said.
If a laid-off employee worked for a company for five years, for instance, his or her compensation at the upper end of the range would amount to nearly a half year’s worth of pay.
In some cases, companies offer a base amount of compensation and an additional sum tied to one’s tenure. Google, which laid off 12,000 workers earlier this month, provided each employee with 16 weeks of severance pay, plus an additional two weeks for each year of tenure.
A federal law, called the WARN Act, mandates that large businesses give 60-day notice when undertaking a mass layoff. Some states, like Illinois and California, impose stronger versions of the nationwide law.
When layoffs must comply with such laws, companies either tell employees about the layoffs before they go into effect or keep workers on the payroll for two months afterward. If laid-off workers remain on the payroll, that compensation can be received separately from the pay offered in a severance package.
If a worker is set to receive a bonus, some employers pay a portion of that payout in the severance package, Blit said. Conversely, some employers demand repayment of a worker’s signing bonus if he or she is terminated before reaching a given tenure threshold, he said.
“If an employee signs on to get a $5,000 bonus and gets terminated within the first year, he may have to give that money back,” Blit said. “You can owe the employer money back.”
When do companies pay severance?
Companies typically pay severance in a single lump sum or over a series of payments that mimic how an employee received his or her salary, experts said.
Under some severance agreements, ex-employees must stop receiving financial compensation if they find a new job, giving reason for some employees to opt for a lump payment.
But the size and timeline of a severance payment carries different tax implications, which can significantly affect the take-home pay enjoyed by a departing worker, experts said.
How is severance taxed?
Severance is taxed in the same manner as wage or salary income.
If payment is received in a large sum, therefore, the recipient faces the higher taxes associated with the elevated tax bracket in which that payment falls.
“You have to be careful looking at a huge sum, keeping in mind that it’s going to be taxed at the same rate as income,” Levitt said. “It’s not a windfall — it’s taxed like any other income.”
Ex-employees who take the income as a continuation of their salary payment will end up paying less in taxes, Blit said.
By comparison, the tax payment required for a lump sum is “astronomical,” he said.
Can employees negotiate severance?
Severance experts encouraged departing employees to negotiate over their severance agreement since they have little to lose and potentially much to gain.
Laid-off workers can push for more compensation or a longer payment timeline, or they can try to exchange non-monetary benefits for monetary ones, Levitt said, adding that newly terminated employees should be sure to remain on good terms with their former employer.
“You don’t have to be rude about it, but you can see if there’s room for negotiation and just do your best,” she said.
When asked whether laid-off workers should negotiate over the terms, Blit said, “Always.”
When employers offer outplacement services, or job-search assistance, laid-off workers should try to exchange that benefit for its equivalent monetary value, he added.
“A lot of employers do provide some outplacement services – I find what employers typically provide to be kind of worthless,” he said. “I usually tell clients to get the money value of it.”
The negotiation over severance should resemble the initial push and pull over a newly hired worker’s salary and benefits, Levitt said.
“There’s negotiation at the start of engagement with an employer and negotiation at the end,” Levitt said.
With January nearly over, Nielsen is looking back to 2022 and noted Stranger Things was the most-watched show of the year in the U.S.
According to numbers quoted byVariety, Americans took in some 52 billion minutes’ worth of adventures in the Upside Down in 2022, which the trade said was the most of any show since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, when audiences in lockdown binged 57.1 billion minutes of NBC’s The Office.
CBS’ NCIS was the second-most-watched show in the U.S. last year, with 38.1 billion minutes viewed on Netflix in 2022.
Netflix’s cartoon kid show CoComelon pulled in 37.8 billion minutes viewed, strong enough for third place.
Disney+’s Encanto had the honor of being the most-watched streaming movie of last year.
And if you needed convincing that we’re a country of couch potatoes, Nielsen said we watched 19.4 MILLION YEARS’ worth of content last year.
That’s up from the 15 million years’ worth of stuff we watched in 2021.
Fox has given the green light to more seasons of three of its beloved animated shows: The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers, which will see the shows running through 2025.
The decision cements Simpsons as the longest-running scripted series in TV history: The announcement locks in the show for its 35th and 36th seasons; Family Guy for its 22nd and 23rd; and Bob‘s for its 14th and 15th.
In a statement, Michael Thorn, president of scripted programming for Fox Entertainment, celebrated the network’s “excellence in animation” and hailed “the brilliant creators and incredible voices behind these forever favorites.”
He continued, “Three-plus decades of The Simpsons, more than two decades of Family Guy and over a decade of Bob’s Burgers proves the enduring power of the animation genre on our network and the infinite fan affinity for these outrageously funny comedy classics.”
You can check out Hailey Whitters making her late-night TV debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as she performs her hit “Everything She Ain’t.” You can also count Kelly Clarkson as a fan, since she recently covered the song on Kellyoke.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will unveil the latest edition of its American Currents: State of the Music exhibit March 8, featuring memorabilia from HARDY, Cody Johnson, Wynonna, Parker McCollum, Lainey Wilson and more.
Newcomer Conner Smith‘s romantic new music video for his hit “Take It Slow” is out now.
Ari Lennox has dropped the music video for her song “Waste My Time.”
In the clip, Lennox is seen sitting across from a therapist, who asks her why she keeps falling for the same type of men. The video then begins, giving a visual display of the thoughts going through her mind as she ponders the question.
“Waste My Time” appears on Ari’s latest album, age/sex/location, which she’s supporting with a tour of the same name. The trek kicks off Thursday, January 26, in Las Vegas.
Britney Spears is asking fans to respect her privacy — and also addressed the situation in which police went to her home after concerned fans requested a wellness check.
The singer shared a statement to Twitter regarding what happened: “As everyone knows the police were called to my home based on some prank phone calls. I love and adore my fans but this time things went a little too far and my privacy was invaded.”
Britney continued, “The police never entered my home and when they came to my gate they quickly realized there was no issue and left immediately.”
“This felt like I was being gaslit and bullied once the incident made it to the news and being portrayed once again in a poor and unfair light by the media,” she wrote. “During this time in my life, I truly hope the public and my fans who I care so much about can respect my privacy moving forward.”
Sources from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department previously told ABC News that deputies responded to the singer’s home Tuesday, January 24, for a “check the wellbeing” call.
This incident came shortly after Britney had deactivated her Instagram, which she has done many times before. Fans may have been concerned by the timing since it happened after TMZ reported on a “meltdown” she had at an upscale California restaurant.
Both Britney and her husband, Sam Asghari, in addition to restaurant workers who claimed to have been there, dismissed the report.
Rod Stewart is so fed up with the British health system that he’s opening up his own wallet to help people in need. The rocker made a surprise call into Sky News Thursday following a report about people stuck on National Health Service waiting lists to get their yearly health scans.
Rod said that he recently went for his yearly scans; he was late to the appointment, but because he was going to a private health clinic, it was no big deal because the clinic was “empty.” Calling the whole waiting list ridiculous, he offered to “pay for 10 or 20 scans, or however much it takes.”
“I don’t know how we’re (going to) work this out and, hopefully, some other people will follow, because it seems ridiculous that this particular scanning clinic was empty,” he said. “There are people dying because they cannot get scans.”
Rod said he was not doing this for the publicity, offering, “I just want to do some good things and this, I think, it’s a good thing, because if other people follow me, I’d love it.”
(NEW YORK) — New data from the American Heart Association highlights the major impact COVID-19 had on cardiovascular health and death rates during the first year of the pandemic.
At least 928,741 Americans died from cardiovascular disease-related causes in 2020, the annual statistical report revealed. That represents the largest one-year increase since 2015 and tops the previous high of 910,000 deaths recorded in 2003, according to the American Heart Association.
“This is our first real evidence based on the impact of the early years of the pandemic,” Dr. Connie Tsao, chair of the Statistical Update writing group and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said.
It’s something experts had predicted.
“This was not surprising,” Dr. Michelle Albert, volunteer president of the American Heart Association and chair in cardiology and professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, told ABC News.
COVID-19 had both direct and indirect impacts on the increased rates of cardiovascular disease-related deaths, experts said.
Cardiovascular disease and risk factors may be linked to COVID-19 severity and mortality, and the virus itself may have exacerbated certain symptoms in people with cardiovascular disease. The precise relationship between the two still requires more research, experts said.
COVID-19 indirectly impacted cardiac health too – early on people avoided doctor’s offices and hospitals.
“We went into isolation. People were afraid to come into the hospital for care and when people showed up for care they showed up with more advanced disease,” Albert said.
Asian, Black, and Hispanic communities were disproportionately impacted by the deaths seen in 2020, which also reflects the toll of the pandemic, she said. Those groups already had worse cardiac health outcomes because of socioeconomic issues, bias and lack of access to quality health care.
“As we look at groups that are traditionally disadvantaged and carry a disproportionate share of health disparities, the pandemic further amplified their disadvantages,” Albert said.
The report also pointed to other factors beyond COVID-19 that contributed to deaths from cardiovascular disease in 2020.
Low rates of exercise in adults and teenagers continue to be a concern. Only about 1 in 4 Americans meet both the muscle-strengthening and aerobic exercise guidelines, and less than half of high school students exercise for at least an hour a day, five days a week, according to the report.
Data also showed that women were more at risk of heart disease complications or death than men. They were less likely to undergo procedures to treat conditions like heart attacks and less likely to be prescribed medication to lower cholesterol.
Experts pointed to a few ways people can take more control of their cardiac health in light of those findings.
In terms of physical activity, even if they’re not quite meeting the recommended amount of exercise, something is better than nothing.
“The real message, especially in people who may be older adults and come from a habit of being sedentary, is that it’s good to get some physical activity even if you don’t meet the goals laid out,” Tsao said.
For women, according to Albert, it’s imperative to be educated about heart disease. Women mistakenly think of cancer as a bigger risk for them than heart disease, when the converse is actually true.
The presentation of a heart attack may slightly differ in women relative to men, and it is important that women be aware of the totality of possible symptoms, said Albert.
“Traditionally speaking, when we think about the symptoms of heart attack, for example, patients think about chest pain, chest pressure, pain moving down to left arm and those are symptoms that have been classically learned from research in men,” Albert said. “But women are more likely to have symptoms related to gastrointestinal tract, like indigestion, or shortness of breath and ignore it.”
Pregnancy can also, uniquely, serve as a window into women’s cardiovascular health, according to Albert, as well as an opportunity to get screened for cardiovascular risk factors before and during the pregnancy.
Diet can also promote heart health, experts said. The Mediterranean diet — which emphasizes plant-based food, healthy fats, moderate amounts of fish and lean meats — is linked with lower rates of and risk from cardiovascular diseases.
Sleep is also an important “life essential,” the heart association said. People’s quantity and quality of sleep may impact their cardiovascular health.
While individual lifestyle choices are important contributors toward the risk of cardiovascular disease, the report highlights larger inequities that have propagated worsened health outcomes in certain groups.
Individuals living in lower income communities experienced greater obstacles in receiving life-saving care if they have cardiovascular health problems, as well as having access to resources that may help in preventing these conditions. Experts said they are working to understand why these risks exist in more vulnerable populations and to advocate for more funding for research and structural and policy changes.
Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer globally, and it’ll take targeting both individual and societal factors to bring numbers down, Albert said.
“Despite the statistics people should not feel helpless,” she said. “I think there is hope, but I don’t see the numbers changing without societal changes as well.”
Eden David studied neuroscience at Columbia University and is currently a third-year medical student and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
Jennifer Miao, MD, is a fellow physician in cardiology at Yale School of Medicine/Yale New Haven Hospital and a member of the ABC News Medical Unit.
