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Tag: medical fields and specialties

  • Klobuchar says she supports allowing abortion restrictions in late pregnancy | CNN Politics

    Klobuchar says she supports allowing abortion restrictions in late pregnancy | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sunday she would support allowing limitations on abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy, breaking with many Democrats in Congress who have been hesitant to offer specifics on abortion limitations.

    “I support allowing for limitations in the third trimester that do not interfere with the life or health of the women,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.

    The third trimester in a pregnancy begins at 27 weeks. Less than 1% of abortions are performed at 21 weeks or later, according to a 2020 report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Abortion has become an especially potent political topic in the year since the monumental US Supreme Court decision one year ago to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the federal constitutional right to abortion nationwide. More than a dozen US states have banned or severely restricted access to the procedure since the ruling.

    “What I support – and I will be very clear about this – is Roe v. Wade, which does allow for limitations, but it also protects the life of the woman and the health of the woman,” Klobuchar said Sunday.

    “I think that is the best way to go. But you look at what they are doing, their leading Republican candidates, Dana, are asking for abortion bans. Trump was on just last night gloating about how he had put these Supreme Court justices in place that had reversed Roe v. Wade.”

    Klobuchar has long articulated the need for some restrictions on late-term abortions, telling Bloomberg in 2019 “there are limits there in the third trimester that are very important – about – except for the health of the woman.”

    In the 2022 midterms, abortion was a crucial motivator for many voters, as CNN exit polls showed that 46% of people said that abortion was the most important issue to their vote. Abortion is also likely to be a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, as administration officials highlight what Democrats have done to protect access to abortion.

    “MAGA Republicans made clear that they don’t intend to stop with the Dobbs decision. No, they won’t, until they get a national ban on abortion,” Biden said this week, promising to issue a veto if a national ban is ever passed by Congress.

    This headline and story have been updated.

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  • Kourtney Kardashian says she’s ‘overwhelmed with gratitude’ following epic pregnancy announcement | CNN

    Kourtney Kardashian says she’s ‘overwhelmed with gratitude’ following epic pregnancy announcement | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Kourtney Kardashian and Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker have a lot to be grateful for.

    The reality star and Poosh founder revealed she was pregnant in a video on Instagram Saturday in which she’s seen in the audience at a Blink 182 concert holding a sign that read, “Travis I’m pregnant.”

    Kardashian posted more behind-the-scenes photos from the concert on Sunday, showcasing her growing baby bump.

    “Overwhelmed with gratitude and joy for God’s blessing and plan,” she captioned the post, which features a photo of Barker playfully holding his drumsticks over Kardashian’s belly.

    Kardashian and Barker got engaged in October 2021 and wed last year in multiple ceremonies.

    Following a not-technically-legal walk down the aisle in Las Vegas after the Grammy Awards in April 2022, the pair exchanged vows at the Santa Barbara Courthouse in May and wrapped up the wedding festivities with a lavish Italian ceremony at Dolce & Gabbana designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s private villa.

    This will be Kardashian and Barker’s first child together, but they each have children from previous relationships.

    Kardashian shares three children – Mason, Penelope and Reign – with her former longtime partner Scott Disick. Barker is father to Landon, daughter Alabama and stepdaughter Atiana, whom he shares with ex-wife Shanna Moakler.

    The two have shared a bit about their fertility journey on Hulu’s reality series, “The Kardashians.”

    Kardashian told The Wall Street Journal in September 2022 she had paused in vitro fertilization treatments leading up to getting married because it was “a lot” and she wanted to focus on planning her wedding ceremony.

    On Sunday, Barker added to the chorus in the joyous comment section of Kardashian’s post with his own message of gratitude, saying, “God is great.”

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  • What is a species? | CNN

    What is a species? | CNN

    Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.



    CNN
     — 

    A frog that looks like it’s made of tempered chocolate. A rainbow-colored fish that dwells in the ocean’s “twilight zone.” A hairy sloth with a coconut-shaped head.

    These are just a few of the hundreds of newfound species that scientists described in 2022. The animals join a growing list of more than 1.25 million species that have been scientifically described and cataloged since the 18th century.

    But what defines an organism as a species that’s new to science? And what exactly is a species, for that matter?

    Biologists have wrestled with the concept for about as long as the field of biology has existed. Renowned naturalist Charles Darwin wrote in 1859: “No one definition has as yet satisfied all naturalists; yet every naturalist knows vaguely what he means when he speaks of a species.”

    Fast-forward to the present, and the debate hasn’t changed much. “There are many definitions, and none of them applies broadly to all life on the planet,” said Bruno de Medeiros, assistant curator of insects at the Field Museum in Chicago.

    And yet, recognizing and distinguishing between species is vital — and not only for biologists. It’s also necessary for cultivating the food we eat, treating diseases caused by different pathogens, and conserving endangered animals, plants and habitats.

    The concept is also a critical part of understanding our own evolutionary history and defining our relationship to all life on the planet.

    Teeming with life, Earth is covered with organisms of all shapes and sizes. Some are too small to see without a microscope. Others may tower hundreds of feet tall. Myriad life forms may gestate in a womb or sprout in soil, hatch from an egg or germinate in a corpse. They could be scaly, chitinous, furry or feathered; perhaps they are leafy, dotted with cilia or slick with slime. They might roam for thousands of miles or spend their lifetimes rooted in one spot.

    Scientists make sense of all this biological diversity by classifying organisms based on shared ancestry and features such as physical appearance, internal structures and reproduction. A universal, hierarchical classification system was proposed in 1753 by Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus, and it’s still generally followed today. This branch of science is known as taxonomy.

    The broadest categories for all life on Earth are the domains. There are three domains — Bacteria, Archaea and Eukaryota — and they organize life based on cellular structure. Eukaryotes have cells that typically contain a single nucleus housing DNA: All multicellular life — animals, plants and fungi — as well as some types of unicellular life, are eukaryotes. Bacteria and Archaea are single-celled microorganisms that don’t have a nucleus, and they are evolutionarily distinct from one another.

    The next category is kingdoms. In each kingdom, there are subcategories: phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. With each subcategory, the criteria for grouping organisms become progressively more specific and selective.

    For example, humans are animals. That means we’re eukaryotes in the Animalia kingdom. Our phylum is Chordata, which includes any animal with a spinal cord. We are part of the class Mammalia. Within mammals, we are primates, sharing ancestry with apes, monkeys and lemurs. Our branch of the primate family tree is Hominidae, which includes our closest relatives: the great apes, such as gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.

    Finally, we arrive at our genus and species — and our scientific name — Homo sapiens. We are the only surviving lineage in the Homo genus. Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), our last remaining relatives in the Homo group, went extinct about 40,000 years ago.

    Theoretically, “a species is a set of populations or one population of organisms that shares a common evolutionary history and reproduces with one another but not outside that group,” according to Nancy Simmons, curator-in-charge of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

    Myotis nimbaensis is a species of bat discovered in 2021 that's named for West Africa's Nimba Range, the mountain chain where it is found.

    If an animal population in a certain locale looks more or less the same, behaves the same, and mates and generates fertile offspring only with each other, “usually, we call this a species,” de Madeiros added.

    But color, markings and even size can vary widely within a species; this is true for many species of spiders. Not all life reproduces sexually, so that criteria isn’t universal for defining a species, either. And in some organisms that sexually reproduce, closely related species may interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Coydogs, for example, are fertile hybrids of coyotes (Canis latrans) and dogs (Canis familiaris). Humans and Neanderthals interbred, and portions of Neanderthal DNA linger in the human genome, in people of non-African descent.

    It can take millions of years for new species to evolve; often, what biologists are observing is evolution in progress. Closely related species can differ from each other a lot or a little — anatomically and genetically — depending on environmental circumstances and when they diverged from a shared ancestor.

    In the best-case scenarios for describing new species, there are many data sources, Simmons explained. A candidate typically differs physically from its close relatives, with different measurements, different morphology (anatomical structures), or different colors or patterns.

    “But then ideally we’d have other lines of evidence too — different genetic code or some sort of DNA variation,” Simmons told CNN. Behavior can also distinguish between species. In bats, for example, echolocation calls are often species-specific.

    All these criteria — anatomy, genetics, behavior and location — enabled Simmons and her colleagues to describe a newfound orange-and-black bat species, Myotis nimbaensis, in 2021.

    In recent decades, genetic data has transformed classification. Genomic analysis can reveal species-defining differences in near-identical organisms, as de Madeiros discovered while analyzing DNA sequences for palm flower weevils — a type of beetle with an elongated snout — that he had collected in Brazil in 2013 and 2014.

    Weevils of the genus Anchylorhynchus mate on flowers in palm trees in Brazil. Genomic analysis showed two nearly identical weevil species belonging to this genus living alongside one another.

    Initially, he thought there was a mistake in the data. “I had identical beetles that were clearly very distantly related species,” he said. But when he reexamined the insects, which belonged to the genus Anchylorhynchus, he noticed subtle differences in concave depressions in the males’ undersides. These indentations help the males fit snugly on top of females while mating, and likely are important for helping beetles identify and mate with females from the correct species, de Madeiros said.

    In many ways, genetic data has made it easier for scientists to tell species apart — but it has also raised its own set of issues, particularly when closely related organisms that look alike and exhibit similar behavior are also very similar genetically.

    “We get into questions of how much of a percentage of a difference in the genetic code do you have to have to be a distinct species — and people disagree on that, too,” Simmons said. “So, even when we have genetic data, you don’t find complete agreement about how to interpret it.”

    However difficult it might be to define a species, scientists won’t be running out of new discoveries anytime soon. By some estimates, Earth is home to approximately 8.7 million species — about 6.5 million living on land and 2.2 million in the oceans, which means that roughly 86% of land species and 91% of marine species are yet to be found and described.

    “We have a great challenge ahead to keep describing this diversity — how it evolves and how it will continue existing on our planet,” de Madeiros said.

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  • Breast density changes over time could be linked to breast cancer risk, study finds | CNN

    Breast density changes over time could be linked to breast cancer risk, study finds | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Breast density is known to naturally decrease as a woman ages, and now a study suggests that the more time it takes for breast density to decline, the more likely it is that the woman could develop breast cancer.

    Researchers have long known that women with dense breasts have a higher risk of breast cancer. But according to the study, published last week in the journal JAMA Oncology, the rate of breast density changes over time also appears to be associated with the risk of cancer being diagnosed in that breast.

    “We know that invasive breast cancer is rarely diagnosed simultaneously in both breasts, thus it is not a surprise that we have observed a much slower decline in the breast that eventually developed breast cancer compared to the natural decline in density with age,” Shu Jiang, an associate professor of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and first author of the new study, wrote in an email.

    Breast density refers to the amount of fibrous and glandular tissue in a person’s breasts compared with the amount of fatty tissue in the breasts – and breast density can be seen on a mammogram.

    “Because women have their mammograms taken annually or biennially, the change of breast density over time is naturally available,” Jiang said in the email. “We should make full use of this dynamic information to better inform risk stratification and guide more individualized screening and prevention approaches.”

    The researchers, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, analyzed health data over the course of 10 years among 947 women in the St. Louis region who completed routine mammograms. A mammogram is an X-ray picture of the breast that doctors use to look for early signs of breast cancer.

    The women in the study were recruited from November 2008 to April 2012, and they had gotten mammograms through October 2020. The average age of the participants was around 57.

    Among the women, there were 289 cases of breast cancer diagnosed, and the researchers found that breast density was higher at the start of the study for the women who later developed breast cancer compared with those who remained cancer-free.

    The researchers also found that there was a significant decrease in breast density among all the women over the course of 10 years, regardless of whether they later developed breast cancer, but the rate of density decreasing over time was significantly slower among breasts in which cancer was later diagnosed.

    “This study found that evaluating longitudinal changes in breast density from digital mammograms may offer an additional tool for assessing risk of breast cancer and subsequent risk reduction strategies,” the researchers wrote.

    Not only is breast density a known risk factor for breast cancer, dense breast tissue can make mammograms more difficult to read.

    “There are two issues here. First, breast density can make it more difficult to fully ‘see through’ the breast on a mammogram, like looking through a frosted glass. Thus, it can be harder to detect a breast cancer,” Dr. Hal Burstein, clinical investigator in the Breast Oncology Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who was not involved in the new study, said in an email. “Secondly, breast density is often thought to reflect the estrogen exposure or estrogen levels in women, and the greater the estrogen exposure, the greater the risk of developing breast cancer.”

    In March, the US Food and Drug Administration published updates to its mammography regulations, requiring mammography facilities to notify patients about the density of their breasts.

    “Breast density can have a masking effect on mammography, where it can be more difficult to find a breast cancer within an area of dense breast tissue,” Jiang wrote in her email.

    “Even when you take away the issue of finding it, breast density is an independent risk factor for developing breast cancer. Although there is lots of data that tell us dense breast tissue is a risk factor, the reason for this is not clear,” she said. “It may be that development of dense tissue and cancer are related to the same biological processes or hormonal influences.”

    The findings of the new study demonstrate that breast density serves as a risk factor for breast cancer – but women should be aware of their other risk factors too, said Dr. Maxine Jochelson, chief of the breast imaging service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who was not involved in the study.

    “It makes sense to some extent that the longer your breast stays dense, theoretically, the more likely it is to develop cancer. And so basically, it expands on the data that dense breasts are a risk,” Jochelson said, adding that women with dense breasts should ask for supplemental imaging when they get mammograms.

    But other factors that can raise the risk of breast cancer include having a family history of cancer, drinking too much alcohol, having a high-risk lesion biopsied from the breast or having a certain genetic mutation.

    For instance, women should know that “density may not affect their risk so much if they have the breast cancer BRCA 1 or 2 mutation because their risk is so high that it may not make it much higher,” Jochelson said.

    Some ways to reduce the risk of breast cancer include keeping a healthy weight, being physically active, drinking alcohol in moderation or not at all and, for some people, taking medications such as tamoxifen and breastfeeding your children, if possible.

    “Breast density is a modest risk factor. The ‘average’ woman in the US has a 1 in 8 lifetime chance of developing breast cancer. Women with dense breasts have a slightly greater risk, about 1 in 6, or 1 in 7. So the lifetime risk goes up from 12% to 15%. That still means that most women with dense breasts will not develop breast cancer,” Burstein said in his email.

    “Sometimes radiologists will recommend additional breast imaging to women with dense breast tissue on mammograms,” he added.

    The US Preventive Services Task Force – a group of independent medical experts whose recommendations help guide doctors’ decisions – recommends biennial screening for women starting at age 50. The task force says that a decision to start screening earlier “should be an individual one.” Many medical groups, including the American Cancer Society and Mayo Clinic, emphasize that women have the option to start screening with a mammogram every year starting at age 40.

    “It’s also very clear that breast density tends to be highest in younger women, premenopausal women, and for almost all women, it tends to go down with age. However, the risk of breast cancer goes up with age. So these two things are a little bit at odds with each other,” said Dr. Freya Schnabel, director of breast surgery at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and professor of surgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York, who was not involved in the new study.

    “So if you’re a 40-year-old woman and your breasts are dense, you could think about that as just being really kind of age-appropriate,” she said. “The take-home message that’s very, very practical and pragmatic right now is that if you have dense breasts, whatever your age is, even if you’re postmenopausal – maybe even specifically, if you are postmenopausal – and your breasts are not getting less dense the way the average woman’s does, that it really is a reason to seek out adjunctive imaging in addition to just mammography, to use additional diagnostic tools, like ultrasound or maybe even MRI, if there are other risk factors.”

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  • Two hospitals under federal investigation over care of pregnant woman who was refused abortion | CNN

    Two hospitals under federal investigation over care of pregnant woman who was refused abortion | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is investigating two hospitals that “did not offer necessary stabilizing care to an individual experiencing an emergency medical condition, in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA),” according to a letter from US Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

    Under EMTALA, health care professionals are required to “offer treatment, including abortion care, that the provider reasonably determines is necessary to stabilize the patient’s emergency medical condition,” Becerra said Monday in his letter to national hospital and provider associations.

    The National Women’s Law Center, which said in a statement that it filed the initial EMTALA complaint on behalf of Mylissa Farmer, identified the hospitals as Freeman Hospital West of Joplin, Missouri, and the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas.

    The patient was nearly 18 weeks pregnant when she had a preterm premature rupture of membranes, Becerra wrote, but she was told that her pregnancy wasn’t viable.

    “Although her doctors advised her that her condition could rapidly deteriorate, they also advised that they could not provide her with the care that would prevent infection, hemorrhage, and potentially death because, they said, the hospital policies prohibited treatment that could be considered an abortion,” Becerra wrote.

    Becerra added in a statement Monday, “fortunately, this patient survived. But she never should have gone through the terrifying ordeal she experienced in the first place. We want her, and every patient out there like her, to know that we will do everything we can to protect their lives and health, and to investigate and enforce the law to the fullest extent of our legal authority.”

    Abortion is banned in Missouri, with limited exceptions, such as to save the mother’s life. State law requires counseling and a 72-hour waiting period. In Kansas, abortion is generally banned at or after 22 weeks of pregnancy, with a 24-hour waiting period and counseling required.

    Passed in 1986, EMTALA requires that hospitals provide stabilizing treatment to patients who have emergency medical conditions, or transfer them to facilities where such care will be provided, regardless of any conflicting state laws or mandates.

    Changes to state laws in the wake of the US Supreme Court decision that overturned the right to an abortion have left many hospitals and providers uncertain or confused about the steps they can legally take in such cases. HHS issued guidance last year reaffirming that EMTALA requires providers to offer stabilizing care in emergency cases, which might include abortion.

    Hospitals found to be in violation of EMTALA could lose their Medicare and Medicaid provider agreements and could face civil penalties. An individual physician could also face civil penalties if they are found to be in violation.

    HHS may impose a $119,942 fine per violation for hospitals with more than 100 beds and $59,973 for hospitals with fewer than 100 beds. A physician could face a $119,942 fine per violation.

    The National Women’s Law Center says the new actions are the first time since Roe v. Wade was overturned that EMTALA has been enforced against a hospital that denied emergency abortion care.

    “The care provided to the patient was reviewed by the hospital and found to be in accordance with hospital policy,” the University of Kansas Health System said in a statement to CNN. “It met the standard of care based upon the facts known at the time, and complied with all applicable law. There is a process with CMS for this complaint and we respect that process. The University of Kansas Health System follows federal and Kansas law in providing appropriate, stabilizing, and quality care to all of its patients, including obstetric patients.”

    Freeman Hospital did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

    An HHS spokesperson told CNN that both hospitals are working toward coming into compliance with the law.

    In the law center’s statement, Farmer said she was pleased with the investigations, “but pregnant people across the country continue to be denied care and face increased risk of complications or death, and it must stop. I was already dealing with unimaginable loss and the hospitals made things so much harder. I’m still struggling emotionally with what happened to me, but I am determined to keep fighting because no one should have to go through this.”

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  • A Texas family fought for weeks to regain custody of their newborn. Experts say the case shows how Black parents are criminalized. | CNN

    A Texas family fought for weeks to regain custody of their newborn. Experts say the case shows how Black parents are criminalized. | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Black Texas couple has been reunited with their newborn daughter after authorities removed the baby and placed her in foster care last month citing a doctor’s concerns about how they were treating a jaundice diagnosis.

    Rodney and Temecia Jackson of DeSoto, Texas, regained custody of their daughter, Mila, on April 20 following a nearly month-long battle with the state’s Child Protective Services, according to The Afiya Center, a reproductive justice advocacy group.

    A spokesperson for the Texas Department of Family Protective Services, which includes CPS, confirmed to CNN that the office had recommended a dismissal of the case to an assistant district attorney. Mila’s release was granted on Thursday, according to a court filing.

    The Jacksons had been pleading for Mila’s return in videos posted to social media, and news conferences as reproductive justice activists protested and rallied behind the family.

    The removal, the Jacksons say, was sparked by their decision to let their midwife treat Mila’s jaundice instead of taking her to the hospital for care as their doctor had recommended. Temecia Jackson said during a news conference earlier this month that she gave birth to Mila at home on March 21 with the help of a midwife and wanted that same trusted midwife to provide medical care for her baby. But Mila’s pediatrician disagreed with this decision and ultimately contacted CPS, Temecia Jackson said.

    “We’ve been treated like criminals,” Rodney Jackson said during the news conference. “This is a nightmare that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

    Reproductive justice advocates say Mila’s removal is just the latest example of the criminalization of Black parents, who lose their children to the child welfare system at disproportionate rates. In the US in 2018, Black children made up 23% of youth in foster care, but only 14% of the nation’s child population, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Additionally, one study found that between 2003-2014, 53% of Black children were the subjects of child welfare investigations by the time they reached age 18.

    Marsha Jones, executive director of The Afiya Center – a Dallas, Texas, based non-profit that advocates for Black women and girls – said there is a systemic problem with the child welfare system that unfairly targets Black parents. In many cases, Black families have their first experiences with the criminal justice system in family court, Jones said.

    “It’s almost unspoken and unseen because there is just this thought that Black women are not good parents and that we are criminalized because of poverty,” Jones told CNN. “This is not new.”

    Jones said the center stepped in last month to support the Jackson family and put pressure on public officials to return Mila home. She believes this played a role in reuniting the family last week.

    “There’s no reason this baby should have been removed from her home,” Jones told CNN. “This family was not being heard. The Black midwife wasn’t being heard.”

    Rodney and Temecia Jackson could not be reached for comment.

    In a letter to CPS obtained by CNN affiliate WFAA, the family’s pediatrician, Dr. Anand Bhatt, who is with the Baylor Scott & White healthcare system, wrote that while the Jacksons “are very loving and they care dearly” about Mila, “their distrust for medical care and guidance has led them to make a decision for the baby to refuse a simple treatment that can prevent brain damage.”

    “I authorized the support of CPS to help get this baby the care that was medically necessary and needed,” the letter continued.

    CBS News, which obtained a copy of the affidavit filed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, reported that Bhatt reached out to a DFPS investigator on March 25 and indicated that Mila’s bililrubin test showed levels of 21.7 milligrams.

    A bilirubin test can screen for jaundice and other conditions. That level was “cause for a lot of concern,” Bhatt told the investigator, according to CBS News, and could lead to brain damage, he said, “because the bilirubin can cross the blood brain barrier.”

    Bhatt said he reserved a bed for Mila at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas and asked the Jacksons to take her there or he would call police for a welfare check, according to court documents obtained by CBS News. WFAA reported that Bhatt wanted Mila to receive phototherapy – a common treatment for jaundice.

    But court documents, according to CBS News, say Rodney Jackson told Bhatt he and Temecia Jackson planned to treat their baby “naturally” and didn’t believe in “modern medicine.”

    The midwife, Cheryl Edinbyrd, told CBS News the family had ordered a blanket and goggles to provide light therapy to treat Mila’s jaundice.

    When the Jacksons didn’t show up at the hospital, a CPS investigator and police went to the Jackson’s home at 4 a.m. on March 25 but Rodney Jackson declined to speak with them, according to court documents obtained by CBS News. An hour later, authorities returned with an ambulance and fire truck and Rodney Jackson still denied them entry.

    Authorities returned to the home on March 30 with a warrant and arrested Rodney Jackson on charges of preventing the execution of a civil process, according to CBS News. Police entered the home and took Mila from Temecia Jackson. According to CBS News, the Jacksons’ other two children were not removed.

    Temecia Jackson said in a press conference that when she asked to see the affidavit, she noticed it had the name of a different mother on it.

    “Instantly I felt like they had stolen my baby as I had had a home birth and they were trying to say that my baby belonged to this other woman,” Temecia Jackson.

    Marissa Gonzales, a spokesperson from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said in an email to CNN that her department was given an incorrect name for the initial affidavit. The mistake, she said, was corrected in the case filings.

    Gonzales declined an interview with CNN to discuss the case further, citing “state confidentiality restrictions.”

    “It is always the goal of DFPS to safely reunite children with their parents,” Gonzales also said. “The decision about when that happens rests with the judge who ordered the removal.”

    CNN’s request to interview Bhatt was also denied by Baylor Scott & White.

    “In respect of patient privacy, it is inappropriate to provide comment on this matter,” the health system said in an emailed statement. “We do abide by reporting requirements set forth in the Texas Family Code and any other applicable laws.”

    Advocates say the racial bias of professionals such as teachers, doctors and social workers has created inequity in the child welfare system.

    Dorothy Roberts, a law professor and sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, said decisions to report neglect and abuse are largely shaped by racist stereotypes of Black families.

    The child welfare system, she said, needs to consider the trauma inflicted on children when they are separated from their families.

    “We have to ask whether there is a better way of addressing children’s medical needs instead of the system we have now where doctors are reporting suspicions, which we know is highly biased, and investigating families, which we know is very traumatic,” said Roberts, author of “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families – and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World.” “Hospitals should not be places of fear for parents.”

    Roberts said there is also a longstanding cultural conflict between the healthcare system and midwives who are often devalued. Black midwives provided care for mothers for hundreds of years, delivering the babies of enslaved women and even slave owners’ wives. But as medicine became more professionalized in the late 1800s, male doctors wanted to take control of childbirth, with some suggesting midwives were unfit, according to a report by Vox.

    Monica Simpson, executive director of Sistersong, a reproductive justice organization advocating for women of color, said many Black women are choosing midwives because they have lost trust in doctors and hospitals.

    Much of that is driven by the harrowing statistics: Black women are 2.6 times likelier to die of pregnancy-related complications than White women, according to the most recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics.

    Black infants also die at more than twice the rate of White infants, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Simpson said the child welfare system is broken. She said racism has played a part in the continued criminalization and separation of Black families.

    “There’s been this narrative that Black women can’t parent their children properly,” Simpson said. “We have been battling these narratives for decades. The way that Black women are criminalized around their motherhood, it’s horrible.”

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  • Supreme Court clears way for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed to try to use DNA to prove innocence | CNN Politics

    Supreme Court clears way for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed to try to use DNA to prove innocence | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    The Supreme Court cleared the way on Wednesday for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed to seek post-conviction DNA evidence to try to prove his innocence.

    Reed claims an all-White jury wrongly convicted him of killing of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old White woman, in Texas in 1998.

    Texas had argued that he had waited too long to bring his challenge to the state’s DNA procedures in federal court, but the Supreme Court disagreed. Now, he can go to a federal court to make his claim.

    The ruling was 6-3. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

    Since Reed’s conviction, Texas courts had rejected his various appeals. Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Rihanna have expressed support, signing a petition asking the state to halt his eventual execution.

    The case puts a new focus on the testing of DNA crime-scene evidence and when an inmate can make a claim to access the technology in a plea of innocence. To date, 375 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 21 who served time on death row, according to the Innocence Project, a group that represents Reed and other clients seeking post-conviction DNA testing to prove their innocence.

    Kavanaugh, in his opinion Wednesday, said that the court agreed to hear the case because federal appeals courts have disagreed about when inmates can make such claims without running afoul of the statute of limitations. Kavanaugh said Reed could make the claim after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately denied his request for rehearing, rejecting an earlier date set out by the appeals court.

    “Significant systemic benefits ensue from starting the statute of limitations clock when the state litigation in DNA testing cases like Reed’s has concluded,” Kavanaugh said.

    He noted that if any problems with a defendant’s right to due process “lurk in the DNA testing law” the case can proceed through the appellate process, which could ultimately render a federal lawsuit unnecessary.

    Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

    Alito, joined by Gorsuch in his dissent, said Reed should have acted more quickly to bring his appeal. “Instead,” Alito wrote, “he waited until an execution date was set.”

    Alito charged Reed with making the “basic mistake of missing a statute of limitations.”

    Reed has been on death row for the murder of Stites.

    A passerby found Stites’ body near a shirt and a torn piece of belt. Investigators targeted Reed because his sperm was found inside her. Reed acknowledged the two were having an affair, but says that her fiancé, a local police officer named Jimmy Fennell, was the last to see her alive.

    Reed claims that over the last two decades he has discovered a “considerable body of evidence” demonstrating his innocence. Reed claims that the DNA testing would point to Fennell as the murder suspect. Fennell was later jailed for sexually assaulting a woman in his custody and Reed claims that numerous witnesses said he had threatened to strangle Stites with a belt if he ever caught her cheating on him. Reed seeks to test the belt found at the scene that was used to strangle Stites.

    The Texas law at issue allows a convicted person to obtain post-conviction DNA testing of biological material if the court finds that certain conditions are met. Reed was denied. He came to the Supreme Court in 2018 and was denied again. Now he is challenging the constitutionality of the Texas law arguing that the denial of the DNA testing violates his due process rights. 

    But the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals held that he waited too long to bring the claim. “An injury accrues when a plaintiff first becomes aware, or should have become aware, that his right had been violated.” The court said that he became aware of that in 2014 and that his current claim is “time barred.” 

    Reed’s lawyers argued that he could only bring the claim once the state appeals court had ruled, at the end of state court litigation. In court, Parker Rider-Longmaid said that the “clock doesn’t start ticking” until state court proceedings come to an end. He said Texas’ reading of the law would mean that other procedures in the appellate process are “irrelevant.”

    This story has been updated with additional developments.

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  • Opinion: Mifepristone saved my life | CNN

    Opinion: Mifepristone saved my life | CNN

    Editor’s Note: Roxanne Jones, a founding editor of ESPN The Magazine and former vice president at ESPN, has been a producer, reporter and editor at the New York Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jones is co-author of “Say it Loud: An Illustrated History of the Black Athlete.” She talks politics, sports and culture weekly on Philadelphia’s 900AM WURD. The views expressed here are solely hers. Read more opinion on CNN.



    CNN
     — 

    The ruling earlier this month by a Texas federal judge to suspend the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a drug that is used frequently for medication abortions, is very personal for me.

    That’s because I took mifepristone years ago during a miscarriage, and it saved my life.

    When I was prescribed mifepristone, it had not yet taken center stage in America’s abortion wars. I did not have to make a rushed road trip across state lines to get my medicine, unlike many women who need the drug but live in one of the many states that have restricted access to medication abortion or passed near-total bans on abortion.

    I was not forced to set up a secret meet-up with a stranger in order to buy my medicine on the black market, as several women I spoke to recently said they planned to do. Nor did I have to order mifepristone online and find myself navigating the many scammers taking advantage of the current patchwork of state abortion laws in the US.

    Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in a medication abortion and the other, misoprostol, was not subject to the ruling by the Texas judge. The two drugs can be administered to someone having a miscarriage, allowing them to terminate the pregnancy when the fetus is not viable.

    It happened some years ago: After experiencing more than a day of hemorrhaging during the first trimester of my pregnancy, I visited my ob-gyn, who explained after examining me that my blood pressure was dropping rapidly and the heavy bleeding I was experiencing was an unmistakable sign of a miscarriage.

    For many women, being prescribed mifepristone is part of their routine medical care. Not so in my case: As my doctor explained, I was facing a dire medical emergency. I was grateful for the medication that saved my life.

    My miscarriage took me by surprise. I had loved being pregnant the first time around, about a decade earlier. And as a healthy woman, I had no reason for fear when I became pregnant again. By the time I was administered mifepristone, I was losing a life that I had already begun to love. And like many other women, despite my level of education or economic status, I could not outrun the statistics that put Black women at higher risk.

    Up to one in four known pregnancies will end in a miscarriage. And for Black women, the numbers are alarmingly higher. According to an analysis of 4.6 million pregnancies in seven countries, the risk of a miscarriage for Black women is 43% higher than for White women.

    In the Black community, women have traditionally been taught to bear their burdens silently — keep your business to yourself — even after something as devastating as pregnancy loss. We are conditioned to do as I did back then, and keep it moving as we try to outrun the long list of statistics that tell us our lives are in danger from every direction, whether it be from health care risks to societal injustices or other stressors.

    During my miscarriage, I was a woman who was afraid, hemorrhaging and in excruciating pain, in desperate need of safe, emergency medical care. Thanks to the administration of mifepristone, I was allowed dignity during my miscarriage. It’s what every woman deserves — whether it be facing a potentially life-threatening miscarriage or seeking an abortion.

    I learned from my experience that every miscarriage matters. Women must have access to whatever medicines and counseling we need to help us heal and that includes mifepristone. What we don’t need is to be criminalized by politicians and punitive reproductive laws that have long been out of step with public opinion. Despite the continuing political attacks on women’s reproductive rights, more than 61% of US adults say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, according to Pew Research Center.

    After the US Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to intervene, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary order to preserve the status quo, ensuring access to the drug while giving the justices more time to study the issue.

    I am hoping the justices can put politics aside and focus on the science surrounding the safety of mifepristone, a drug that, thankfully, I had access to when my life was in danger. Mifepristone, a synthetic steroid, is even safer than common prescription drugs including penicillin and Viagra.

    Following the science demands that, regardless of where you stand on the issue of abortion, consideration must be made for cases like mine and the millions of other women who for years have safely used this medication for complications surrounding miscarriages.

    We do not know how the legal fight over medication abortion will unfold. But women across the nation – in blue and red states alike – are watching. Punitive laws like the one signed last week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis seek to criminalize reproductive care providers. And worse, they are stripping us of rights that men take for granted – it’s unlikely they will be prohibited by the law from making health care decisions about their own bodies.

    It must end. And I’m betting that whether it be with our voice or our votes, women will have the last word.

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  • A Florida woman spent her life savings on her daughter’s cancer treatment — then she won millions in the lottery | CNN

    A Florida woman spent her life savings on her daughter’s cancer treatment — then she won millions in the lottery | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Florida mother won $2 million in the lottery, just days after she finished paying off her daughter’s cancer treatment.

    Geraldine Gimblet, a resident of Lakeland, Florida, won $2 million from a $10 scratch-off lottery ticket, according to a news release from the Florida Lottery. She claimed her winnings as a one-time lump-sum payment of $1,645,000 last Friday, the April 7th news release says.

    Gimblet told the Florida Lottery she bought the last lottery ticket at her local gas station.

    “At first, the gas station clerk thought there were no tickets left,” she recalled, according to the news release. “But I asked him to double check because I like the crossword games the best. He found the last one!”

    Her daughter, who isn’t identified in the news release, spoke about the significance of her mother’s win through tears, the lottery said. Her mother paid for her treatment for breast cancer, she said.

    “The day before my mom bought this ticket, I rang the bell and walked out of the hospital after completing my last treatment for breast cancer,” said Gimblet’s daughter in the release. “My mom had taken out her life savings to take care of me when I was sick. I’m just so happy for her!”

    Gimblet purchased her lucky ticket at Pipkin Road Beverage Castle in Lakeland, according to the release. The retailer will also receive a $2,000 commission for selling the ticket.

    The chances of winning the $2 million prize in the “Bonus Cashword” game are just 1 in 3,921,270, according to the Florida Lottery’s website.

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  • Louisville gunman’s brain to be studied for CTE, father says | CNN

    Louisville gunman’s brain to be studied for CTE, father says | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The family of Connor Sturgeon – who was killed after he fatally shot five people Monday morning at the Old National Bank in Louisville, Kentucky – plans to have his brain tested for chronic traumatic encephalopathy, commonly known as CTE, his father and a spokesperson for the family told CNN on Thursday.

    “Yes, Connor is being tested for CTE. Probably will take a while to get results,” Todd Sturgeon, Connor Sturgeon’s father, texted to CNN.

    Pete Palmer, a family friend who is speaking for the Sturgeons, said the family and the state medical examiner are looking to have Connor Sturgeon’s brain tested.

    The medical examiner’s office has completed most of its tests, and the process of testing for CTE will now begin, Palmer said.

    CNN has reached out to the Kentucky state medical examiner for further information.

    CTE, a neurodegenerative brain disease, can be found in people who have been exposed to repeated head trauma. Studies have found that repetitive hits to the head – even without concussion – can result in CTE.

    According to Palmer, the family thinks Sturgeon had three significant concussions – two as an eighth-grade football player and one in basketball as a high school freshman.

    The disease, which can only be diagnosed with an autopsy and neuropathological exam, is pathologically marked by a buildup of tau protein in the brain that can disable neuropathways and lead to a variety of symptoms including memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, aggression, depression, anxiety, impulse control issues and sometimes suicidal behavior.

    Police have not released information about a motive in the shooting.

    The testing disclosure comes as more families are talking about their loved ones who were killed.

    The daughter of Juliana Farmer, one of the five who were killed, said Wednesday night her mother had just moved to Louisville two weeks prior for a new job at the bank.

    “This monster took away my mother, and I’m hurt because my mother moved here to help me, a single mom with four kids. I only got two weeks with her here in Louisville … a city she knew nothing about,” Alia Chambers told CNN. “I’m heartbroken. I hated him. I hated him but I forgive him because my mama is in a better place.”

    Farmer moved to Louisville from Henderson, Kentucky, and was thrilled to begin her role with Old National Bank as a loan officer.

    “My mom went from working at 19 years old at Kmart to sitting with executives at a bank. I’m gonna fulfill my mama’s dream. Either I’m going back to nursing school or I’m gonna ask them, can I take over her position at that bank,” she said. “She was so excited about that job. She was happy.”

    Farmer had three adult children and four grandsons, Chambers said.

    The day before she was killed, she found out her son, J’Yeon Chambers, was expecting a baby girl, he told CNN. The baby is due in September, the same month his mother was born.

    “And so it’s just crazy how she gets taken the day after we reveal that we’re having the baby. So my child is going to be her basically all over again,” her son said. “She gave us the name that she always wanted a girl to be named and we’re going to stick with it.”

    The new details come as CNN has learned more about the victims and wounded in Monday’s workplace mass shooting, including the survival of a woman who was seated between two people who were killed.

    Sturgeon, a 25-year-old Old National Bank employee, opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle in the bank about a half-hour before it was to open to the public, killing five colleagues before he was fatally shot by a responding officer. Farmer, Joshua Barrick, Tommy Elliott, Deana Eckert and James Tutt were shot and killed, police said.

    Of the eight people who were wounded, a 26-year-old police officer remains in critical condition after being shot in the head, requiring brain surgery.

    One woman who was shot but survived was seated in a conference room between Farmer and Elliott when the attack began, according to the father of her children, Rex Minrath.

    Dana Mitchell, an employee at the bank, has returned home from the hospital and is recovering, Minrath told CNN in a phone interview Thursday. She is expected to have surgery in the coming weeks to remove “the rest of the bullet,” he said.

    “Dana was in the conference room between Tommy and Juliana. She sat between those two,” Minrath told CNN. “And then when they hit the ground, they were all on the ground together. She is fortunate because both of them weren’t so lucky.”

    Mitchell’s son, Ross Minrath, posted a series of images and updates about his mother’s condition on his Facebook page this week.

    “After positive results from blood work and her being an all around badass, my Mom was released from the hospital today,” he wrote on Tuesday night. “She is very sore but doing well. Her phone has been at the bank and hopes to start reaching out herself tomorrow.”

    In one Facebook post, he said the gunshot bruised her lung and that doctors were able to clean the wound on her back. His mother, he added, “is the toughest I’ve ever known.”

    He thanked those who had reached out to the family with well wishes and asked for people to continue to send prayers for his mother.

    In addition, the first person who was shot inside the bank survived, a city official told CNN. In the shooter’s Instagram livestream of the attack, which has since been taken down, the female bank worker said “good morning” before the gunman warned her, “You need to get out of here,” according to an official familiar with the video.

    The woman had her back to the gunman as he struggled to get the safety off and load his AR-15-style weapon properly. He then shot her in the back, an official previously told CNN.

    beshear

    Gov. Beshear shares emotional memories of his friend killed in Louisville shooting

    At a vigil Wednesday evening, scores of residents and officials gathered to mourn publicly the employees gunned down at their workplace by a coworker.

    “It’s important that we take time to acknowledge those losses and what they mean for us as people and as a community,” Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said during the vigil at the Muhammad Ali Center Plaza. “So, that later we can gather our energies and focus on preventing these tragedies.”

    Greenberg noted the heartbreaking impacts of gun violence in his city beyond Monday’s carnage, which unfolded less than a mile from where the vigil was held Wednesday.

    “There will be a time to act. To take steps in honor of those we’ve lost and to channel our grief and pain into meaningful action. That day is coming,” the mayor continued. “Today is to mourn, to lean on each other and support each other.”

    Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said at the vigil that Elliott, a senior vice president at the bank, was one of his closest friends.

    “I’ll admit that while I am not angry, I am empty. And I’m sad. And I just keep thinking that maybe we’ll wake up,” Beshear said, his voice breaking.

    “What I know is, I just wish I’d taken an extra moment, made an extra call, tell him how much I care about him. And I know we are all feeling the same. But I also know they hear us now. And that they feel our love,” Beshear said.

    Louisville Body Cam

    Video shows officers walking head-on into gunfire to stop Louisville shooter

    Louisville police on Wednesday released a series of 911 calls showing the fear and panic both inside and outside the bank during the shooting early Monday morning.

    In one emergency call, a woman who identified herself as an employee of a different Old National Bank branch told the dispatcher she saw the massacre happen in real time while she was on a video call with colleagues at the scene.

    “How do you know you have an active shooter on site?” the operator asked.

    “I just watched it. I just watched it on a Teams meeting. We were having a board meeting,” she said. “I saw somebody on the floor. We heard multiple shots and people started saying ‘Oh my God,’ and then he came into the board room.”

    Another 911 call came from the gunman’s mother, who said her son was headed to the bank with a gun and expressed her shock and confusion.

    “My son might be (redacted) has a gun and heading to the Old National on Main Street here in Louisville,” she said. “This is his mother. I’m so sorry, I’m getting details secondhand. I’m learning about it now. Oh my Lord.”

    The woman said her son “apparently left a note” about the incident. “We don’t even own guns. I don’t know where he would have gotten a gun.”

    Other calls came from a bank employee speaking in a whisper who was hiding in a closet, a man who fled the building and took shelter at a nearby dental office, and another caller who hid under a desk inside the building.

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  • Rival rulings on medication abortion hypercharge the post-Roe legal war | CNN Politics

    Rival rulings on medication abortion hypercharge the post-Roe legal war | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A pair of conflicting federal court rulings on Friday created arguably the most contentious and chaotic legal flashpoint over abortion access since the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer that overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the right to an abortion nationwide.

    Within less than an hour, two major rulings came down in separate, closely watched cases concerning medication abortion – in lawsuits that are completely at odds with each other.

    In one case, filed by anti-abortion activists in Texas, a judge said the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone – one of the drugs used to terminate a pregnancy – should be halted. But the court paused its ruling for a week so that it can be appealed, and that appeal is already under way.

    In the second case, where Democratic-led states had sued in Washington to expand access to abortion pills, a judge ordered the federal government to keep the drug available in the 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that brought the lawsuit.

    On their face, both cases deal with the administrative law that controls how the US Food and Drug Administration goes about regulating mifepristone. The disputes did not rely directly on the question of whether there is a right to an abortion – the question that was at the center of the Supreme Court’s ruling last June. But tucked in the Texas ruling, by US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, was the idea that embryos could have individual rights that courts can consider in their rulings.

    Both cases emerge from a political environment that was unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade reversal and a willingness to push the legal envelope that the Supreme Court ruling created. The abortion issue is now on a path back to the Supreme Court, as higher courts are asked to sort out the contradictory commands of Friday night’s decisions.

    Because the Texas judge has paused his ruling, it has no immediate impact on the availability of medication abortion drugs. But the next several days stand to be a dramatic and combustible legal fight over the order – a fight ratcheted up by the rival ruling in Washington.

    Besides pausing his ruling for one week, Kacsmaryk – an appointee of former President Donald Trump who sits in Amarillo, Texas – seemed to hold nothing back as he ripped apart the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and embraced wholeheartedly the challengers’ arguments the drug’s risks weren’t adequately considered.

    Kacsmaryk, whose anti-abortion advocacy before joining the federal bench was documented by a recent Washington Post profile, showed a striking hostility to medication abortion, which is the method used in a majority of the abortions in the United States.

    Leading medical organizations have already condemned his opinion and pushed back at the judge’s analysis of the safety of medication abortion.

    The judge said that the FDA failed to consider “the intense psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress women often experience from chemical abortion,” in what was a repeated invocation of “chemical abortion,” the term preferred by abortion opponents. Kacsmaryk suggested that the FDA’s data was downplaying the frequency with which the drug being mistakenly administered to someone who had an ectopic pregnancy, i.e. a pregnancy outside the cavity of the uterus. He repeated the challengers’ accusations that the FDA’s approval process had been the subject of improper political pressure.

    He said the FDA’s refusal to impose certain restrictions on the drug’s use “resulted in many deaths and many more severe or life-threatening adverse reactions.”

    “Whatever the numbers are, they likely would be considerably lower had FDA not acquiesced to the pressure to increase access to chemical abortion at the expense of women’s safety,” he said.

    Jack Resneck Jr., the president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement that Kacsmaryk’s ruling “flies in the face of science and evidence and threatens to upend access to a safe and effective drug.”

    “The court’s disregard for well-established scientific facts in favor of speculative allegations and ideological assertions will cause harm to our patients and undermines the health of the nation,” the AMA president said.

    Kacsmaryk’s opinion paid no heed to the argument made by the FDA’s defenders that cutting off access to medication abortion would put the health of pregnant people at risk and that it would force abortion seekers to terminate their pregnancies through a surgical procedure instead.

    Instead, the judge wrote that a ruling in the challengers’ favor would ensure “that women and girls are protected from unnecessary harm and that Defendants do not disregard federal law.”

    As he explained why the preliminary injunction – which was being handed down before the case could proceed to a trial – was justified, he said that embryos had their own rights that could be part of the analysis. That assertion goes farther than what the Supreme Court said in its June ruling, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.

    “Parenthetically, said ‘individual justice’ and ‘irreparable injury’ analysis also arguably applies to the unborn humans extinguished by mifepristone — especially in the post-Dobbs era,” Kacsmaryk said Friday.

    Whereas Kacsmaryk had been asked by the challengers in Texas to block medication abortion, US District Judge Thomas Owen Rice, who sits in Spokane, Washington, was considering whether abortion pills should be easier to obtain.

    Rice, an Obama appointee, granted the Democratic attorneys general who brought the lawsuit a partial win.

    They had asked Rice to remove certain restrictions – known as REMS or Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy – the FDA has imposed on mifepristone, with the blue states arguing the drug was safe and effective enough to make those restrictions unnecessary.

    While Rice is rejecting that bid for now, he granted a request the states also made that the FDA be ordered to keep the drugs on the market. But Rice’s ruling only applies in the 17 plaintiff states and the District of Columbia.

    His decision maintains the status quo for the availability of abortion pills in those places and he specifically is blocking the agency from “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone under the current operative January 2023 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy.”

    Rice’s opinion was a striking split screen to Kacmsaryk’s. While the Texas judge said the FDA did not adequately take into account the drug risks, Rice showed sympathy to the arguments that the rules for mifepristone’s use were too strict and that the agency should be taking a more lenient approach to how the abortion pill is regulated.

    Ultimately, he said he would not grant the Democratic states’ request that he remove some of the drug restrictions at this preliminary stage in the proceedings, because that would go well beyond maintaining the status quo while the case advances. He noted that if he had granted that request, it would also undo a new FDA rule that allows pharmacies to dispense abortion pills. That would reduce its availability and would run “directly counter to Plaintiffs’ request.”

    If Kacsmaryk’s ruling halting mifepristone’s approval is allowed to go into effect, it will run headlong into Rice’s order that mifepristone remain available in several states. Kacsmaryk’s ruling is a nationwide injunction.

    The Justice Department and Danco, a mifepristone manufacturer that intervened in the case to defend the approval, both filed notices of appeal. Both Attorney General Merrick Garland and Danco said in statements that in addition to the appeals, they will seek “stays” of the ruling, meaning emergency requests that the decision is frozen while the appeal moves forward.

    They’re appealing to the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is sometimes said to be the country’s most conservative appeals court. Yet some legal scholars were skeptical that the 5th Circuit, as conservative as it is, would let Kacmsaryk’s order take effect.

    Washington, where the blue states’ lawsuit was filed, is covered under the 9th Circuit, a liberal appellate court. But it’s unclear if the ruling from Rice will be appealed. Garland said the Justice Department was still reviewing the decision out of Washington. A so-called circuit split would increase the odds that the Supreme Court would intervene. But given how the practical impact of the two district court rulings contradict each other, the Supreme Court may have no choice but to get involved.

    The lawyer for the challengers in the Texas case, anti-abortion medication associations and doctors, said Friday evening that he had not reviewed the Washington decision, so he could not weigh in on how it impacted Kacsmaryk’s order that the drug’s approval be halted.

    “I’m not sure whether there’s a direct conflict yet and with the Washington state decision just because I haven’t read it yet, but there may not be a direct conflict,” Erik Baptist, who is an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom, said. “But if there is a direct conflict then there may be – it may be inevitably going to the Supreme Court, but I’m not convinced that it’s necessary at this point to make that conclusion.”

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  • Florida Senate passes 6-week abortion ban | CNN Politics

    Florida Senate passes 6-week abortion ban | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Florida’s state Senate on Monday passed a bill that would ban most abortions in the state after the gestational age of six weeks, or about four weeks of pregnancy.

    The bill’s advance, which still needs to pass the state’s GOP-led House, comes one year after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 15-week ban into law. The new legislation likely further burnishes the conservative credentials of DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, and it was met with outrage by state Democrats, two of whom were arrested during a protest near the state Capitol Monday night.

    The current bill would impose restrictions on telehealth abortions and medication. It would include exemptions for women facing life-threatening harm while pregnant and victims of rape, incest and human trafficking.

    The bill targets both physicians who perform abortions and those who “actively participate in” them, and should the bill become law, any person who violates it could be charged with a third-degree felony.

    The “Heartbeat Protection Act” passed the Florida Senate in a 26-13 vote.

    A protest over the bill near the state Capitol resulted in the arrests of 11 people who were charged with trespassing after a warning, Tallahassee police said. Florida Democrats said state party Chairwoman Nikki Fried and Florida Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book were among them.

    “As the Democratic leader in the Florida Senate, it’s my job to a lead this incredible group of 11 Democrats, other than myself, to fight against these extreme policies,” Book told CNN on Wednesday. ‘Women will die as a consequence of this piece of policy.”

    Other abortion rights advocates say the Florida bill unfairly seeks to ban abortions before many even know they are pregnant.

    “This bill will unfairly and disproportionately impact people who live in rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, and people of color,” Kara Gross, the legislative director and senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, said in a statement.

    “Hundreds of thousands of pregnant people will be forced to travel out of state to seek the care they need. Many people will not even know they are pregnant by six weeks, and for those who do, it is unlikely they will be able to schedule the legally required two in-person doctor’s appointments before six weeks of pregnancy,” Gross said.

    The White House has also criticized the pending bill.

    “The President and Vice President believe women should be able to make health care decisions with their doctors and families – free from political interference. They are committed to protecting access to reproductive care, and continue to call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement when the bill was first introduced.

    State Sen. Clay Yarborough, one of the bill’s Republican sponsors, said “unborn children deserve the strongest protections possible under our laws.”

    The legislation underscores the ongoing efforts across the country to restrict access to abortion in a post-Roe world. Other Republican-led states have also pursued six-week abortion bans that have been met with legal challenges.

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  • US health officials aim to ‘transform’ Alzheimer’s disease research with $300 million data platform | CNN

    US health officials aim to ‘transform’ Alzheimer’s disease research with $300 million data platform | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The US National Institute on Aging is moving forward with efforts to build a real-world Alzheimer’s disease database as part of its aim to improve, support and conduct more dementia research.

    Last month, the agency, part of the National Institutes of Health, posted a notice of the grant for the six-year database project, setting its earliest start date as April 2024.

    The NIH confirmed Tuesday that plans are underway to fund the Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease-related dementias’ real-world data platform.

    The National Institute on Aging intends to commit $50 million per year, starting in fiscal year 2024, to fund one award.

    The nonprofit Alzheimer’s Association is among those planning to apply for the grant.

    “The newly-announced NIA funding for a large-scale Alzheimer’s disease research database is truly exciting and a very important step forward for our field, and the Alzheimer’s Association will apply for that grant,” Maria C. Carrillo, Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer, said in an email Tuesday.

    “The Association is already leading ALZ-NET, which is a national network of physicians that is collecting data – including measures of cognition, function and safety – for patients treated with new FDA-approved Alzheimer’s treatments,” Carrillo said. “The NIA funding could expand ALZ-NET’s scope to the benefit of all stakeholders.”

    She added that the Alzheimer’s Association believes everyone should have access to treatments, regardless of their registration status.

    The real-world database “aims to transform” the Alzheimer’s disease research enterprise “by serving as a central hub of research access,” the National Institute on Aging said last week in its announcement of a webinar about the project that’s scheduled for April 19.

    According to the announcement, the aim of the data registry is to provide a comprehensive and diverse database that can “improve applicability and generalizability of findings,” be used as a tool for researchers and allow scientific questions to be answered more quickly.

    Last year, the National Institute on Aging convened an exploratory workshop to discuss gaps in real-world data and opportunities to expand real-world data sources for dementia research.

    Alzheimer’s disease, a brain disorder that affect memory and thinking skills, is the most common type of dementia, the NIH says.

    More than 6 million Americans are living with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, and the number of people affected is projected to double in the next two decades, rising to 13 million in 2050.

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  • FDA inspection finds sterilization issues at recalled eye drop manufacturer’s facility | CNN

    FDA inspection finds sterilization issues at recalled eye drop manufacturer’s facility | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The manufacturer of eye drops that have been linked to an outbreak of serious bacterial infections in the US, including at least three deaths, did not follow proper protocol to prevent contamination of its products, according to an inspection report published Friday by the US Food and Drug Administration.

    The FDA visited a Global Pharma Healthcare facility in India for an inspection that started in mid-February, 2½ weeks after the company recalled EzriCare Artificial Tears due to possible contamination.

    At the time of the recall, there were 55 reports of adverse events including eye infections, permanent loss of vision and at least one death with a bloodstream infection. As of late last month, 68 infections had been identified in 16 states, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There have been three deaths, eight cases of vision loss and four surgical eye removals reported.

    An 11-day inspection of the Global Pharma facility resulted in 11 observations by the FDA, including a “manufacturing process that lacked assurance of product sterility,” specifically for batches of product that were manufactured between December 2020 and April 2022 and shipped to the US.

    The EzriCare Artificial Tears product, which is manufactured by Global Pharma, is part of an outbreak of infections from bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

    This rare drug-resistant bacteria can spread among people who don’t have symptoms – and to people who haven’t used the eye drops, according to the CDC. This type of spread is particularly common in health care settings.

    “The bacteria can spread when one patient carrying the bacteria exposes another patient, or when patients touch common items or when healthcare workers transmit the germs which is why infection control, like hand hygiene, is so important,” the agency told CNN in an email Monday.

    Several cases in the current outbreak have been identified in people who were carrying the bacteria without signs or symptoms of clinical infections, the CDC said. These cases were discovered through screenings at inpatient health care facilities that had clusters of infections.

    The particular strain of the bacteria associated with this outbreak had never before been reported in the US, and related infections have been identified at acute care hospitals, long-term care facilities, emergency departments, urgent care clinics and other outpatient facilities.

    People affected by the outbreak reported using different brands of artificial tears, but EzriCare Artificial Tears was most commonly reported.

    The FDA inspection of the Global Pharma facility is part of an ongoing compliance matter.

    “The FDA’s highest priority is protecting public health – this includes working with manufacturers to quickly remove unsafe drugs from shelves when they are identified,” the agency said in an email Monday. “The FDA continues to monitor this issue and is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the companies recalling these affected products. We urge consumers to stop using these products which may be harmful to their health.”

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  • CDC to warn some travelers to watch for Marburg virus symptoms as it investigates outbreaks in Africa | CNN

    CDC to warn some travelers to watch for Marburg virus symptoms as it investigates outbreaks in Africa | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is sending personnel to Africa to help stop outbreaks of Marburg virus disease and is urging travelers to certain countries to take precautions. The CDC is also taking steps to keep infections from spreading to the United States.

    Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania are facing their first known outbreaks of Marburg virus, a viral fever with uncontrolled bleeding that’s a close cousin to Ebola. This week, the CDC urged travelers to both countries to avoid contact with sick people and to watch for symptoms for three weeks after leaving the area. Travelers to Equatorial Guinea should take enhanced precautions and avoid nonessential travel to the provinces where the outbreak is ongoing, the agency said.

    In the United States, the agency will post notices in international airports where most travelers arrive, warning them to watch for symptoms of the virus for 21 days and to seek care immediately if they become ill. They will also get a text reminder to watch for symptoms.

    The CDC is standing up a “center-led” emergency response; it’s not as all-encompassing as when the CDC stands up its Emergency Operations Center, such as for Covid-19 and mpox. But it will refocus the efforts and attention of the staff of its National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases to respond to the outbreaks, which are in two countries on opposite sides of Africa, indicating that the deadly hemorrhagic fever is spreading.

    Equatorial Guinea, on the coast in West Africa, declared an outbreak of Marburg virus disease in mid-February with cases spread across multiple provinces. As of March 22, Equatorial Guinea had 13 confirmed cases, including nine people who have died and one who has recovered, according to the World Health Organization. Nine CDC staffers are on the ground there. They have established a field laboratory and are assisting with testing, case identification and contact tracing.

    Tanzania, on the coast in East Africa, declared an outbreak of Marburg virus disease on March 21, with cases reported in two villages in the Kagera region, according to the CDC. As of March 22, Tanzania has had eight confirmed cases, including five deaths. The CDC has a permanent office in Tanzania that is assisting with the outbreak. It is sending additional staff to support those efforts.

    Marburg virus is a rare and deadly virus that causes fever, chills, muscle pain, rash, sore throat, diarrhea, weakness or unexplained bleeding or bruising. It is spread through contact with body fluids and contaminated surfaces. People can also catch it from infected animals. It is fatal in about half of cases who get it. Other countries in Africa have had to quell outbreaks before.

    In its early stages, the infection is difficult to distinguish from other illnesses, so a history of travel to either of those countries will be essential to helping clinicians spot it.

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  • How these mice navigating a virtual reality game may help Alzheimer’s patients | CNN

    How these mice navigating a virtual reality game may help Alzheimer’s patients | CNN

    Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.



    CNN
     — 

    Researchers in New York developed a virtual reality maze for mice in an attempt to demystify a question that’s been plaguing neuroscientists for decades: How are long-term memories stored?

    What they found surprised them. After forming in the hippocampus, a curved structure that lies deep within the brain, the mice’s memories were actually rooted through what’s called the anterior thalamus, an area of the brain that scientists haven’t typically associated with memory processing at all.

    “The thalamus being a clear winner here was very interesting for us, and unexpected,” said Priya Rajasethupathy, an associate professor at Rockefeller University and one of the coauthors of a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Cell this week. The thalamus “has often been thought of as a sensory relay, not very cognitive, not very important in memory.”

    This new research, however, indicates that it could play a vital role in converting short-term memories to long-term memories. And Rajasethupathy said that should make the thalamus a key area of study for researchers attempting to help patients who suffer from conditions such as Alzheimer’s, who are able to recall old memories but may have trouble remembering new information.

    “it implicates a part of the brain — the thalamus — in the long-term storage of memories in a way that wasn’t even hypothesized by anyone else,” said Loren Frank, a professor of physiology at the University of California San Francisco, who was not involved in the study.

    Rajasethupathy noted that neuroscientists have long known that memories take shape in the hippocampus, and is the focus of the vast majority of research around conditions like amnesia and Alzheimer’s.

    Past research has “led to this model where memories are formed in the hippocampus but then become independent over time and slowly stabilized in the cortex,” the wrinkled, outermost portion of the brain. The question has been exactly how memories travel from one area to another, Rajasethupathy said.

    “That process has been mysterious, I would say, for more than 50 years,” Rajasethupathy said.

    It was the right time for her lab to attempt to pinpoint an answer, she added, thanks to new technology that allowed the researchers to track activity in multiple parts of each subject’s brain. The innovations enabled the team to trace how memories are traveling as the mice learned to navigate a maze.

    “I think what they did was technically very challenging,” Frank said. “Particularly where they were trying to (observe) activity from multiple neurons in three different areas at once, using this sort of fiber microscopes. That’s a pretty state of the art thing.”

    The study — led by Rockefeller graduate students Andrew Toader and Josue Regalado, working inside Rajasethupathy’s lab — involved strapping the mice into a headpiece designed to hold them steady while a machine used optical fibers to record their brain activity.

    The maze took them into various “rooms” that offered either incentives, such as sugar water, or deterrents, like a puff of air to the face.

    The mice returned to the maze for days, enough time for them to create long-term memories.

    “The analogy would be your birthday dinner versus the dinner you had three Tuesdays ago,” Toader said in a statement. “You’re more likely to remember what you had on your birthday because it’s more rewarding for you—all your friends are there, it’s exciting—versus just a typical dinner, which you might remember the next day but probably not a month later.”

    Meanwhile, the researchers used chemicals to inhibit parts of the mice’s brains to determine how it affected their ability to create and store memories.

    Not only did they find that the anterior thalamus was a crucial waypoint for these memories — they also found that by stimulating that area in the rodents’ brains, the researchers were “able to help mice retain memories that they would usually forget,” according to a news release about the study.

    Rajasethupathy added, “Some memories are more important to us than others. We found that, not only do mice need the anterior thalamus to consolidate memories, but that by activating it, we could enhance consolidation of a memory that mice would usually forget.”

    Rajasethupathy noted that there were some limitations to the study. It does not, for example, indicate that traveling through the anterior thalamus is the only route memories can take on their way to long-term storage.

    “I want to be clear that this is not the end all be all,” she said. “Maybe everything isn’t consolidated through this pathway. But I’m very confident this is one very important circuit.”

    This study also relied on mice, who don’t have identical brains to humans but have proven to be extremely useful models for discovering how our own brains function. The long-term memory storage process takes weeks in rodents, whereas it can take months for humans, Rajasethupathy added.

    It’s also possible that different types of memory take different highways, she noted. There are explicit memories, which focus on facts, figures and specific data points, and implicit memories are typically tied to emotion and can form without a person realizing it. The thalamus may not be involved in the same manner for both types of information.

    But Frank, the UCSF professor, said the study will have broad implications for future research, spurring more investigations into the thalamus’ role in memory storage.

    “It’s nice for the field to getting to the point where we can think about the long-term evolution of memories and really try to understand how that works,” he said. “And the study is definitely a step in that direction.”

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  • Federal judge says insurers no longer have to provide some preventive care services, including cancer and heart screenings, at no cost | CNN Politics

    Federal judge says insurers no longer have to provide some preventive care services, including cancer and heart screenings, at no cost | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    A federal judge in Texas said Thursday that some Affordable Care Act mandates cannot be enforced nationwide, including those that require insurers to cover a wide array of preventive care services at no cost to the patient, including some cancer, heart and STD screenings, and tobacco programs.

    In the new ruling, US District Judge Reed O’Connor struck down the recommendations that have been issued by the US Preventive Services Task Force, which is tasked with determining some of the preventive care treatments that Obamacare requires to be covered.

    The decision applies to task force recommendations issued on or after March 23, 2010 – the day the Affordable Care Act was signed into law. While the group had recommended various preventive services prior to that date, nearly all have since been updated or expanded.

    O’Connor’s ruling comes after the judge had already said that the task force’s recommendations violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The judge also deemed unlawful the ACA requirement that insurers and employers offer plans that cover HIV-prevention measures such as PrEP for free.

    Other preventive care mandates under the ACA remain in effect.

    The full extent of the ruling’s impact and when its effects could be felt are unclear.

    It is likely the case will be appealed, and the Justice Department has the option to ask that O’Connor’s ruling be put on pause while the appeal is litigated.

    The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment, nor did the US Department of Health and Human Services.

    White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre called the case “yet another attack on the Affordable Care Act” and said that DOJ and HHS were reviewing Thursday’s ruling.

    The decision, in a case brought by employers and individuals in Texas, represents the latest legal affront to the landmark 2010 health care law. It is unclear what immediate practical effect O’Connor’s new ruling will have for those with job-based and Affordable Care Act policies because insurance companies will likely continue no-cost coverage for the remainder of the contracts even though the Obamacare requirements in question have been blocked. Contracts often last one calendar year.

    O’Connor’s Thursday ruling is expected to kick off a new phase of the legal battle over Obamacare’s preventive care measures. The judge rejected other claims that the ACA’s foes brought against the law – including challenges to the entities that determine no-cost coverage mandates for vaccines, an assortment of women’s health preventive care treatments, and services for infants and children. It’s possible that the plaintiffs appeal those aspects of O’Connor’s handling of the case, which could put at risk coverage requirements for additional preventive services at no cost.

    A lawyer for the challengers did not respond to CNN’s inquiry about Thursday’s decision.

    O’Connor is a George W. Bush-appointee who sits in the Northern District of Texas and who has issued anti-Obamacare rulings in major challenges to the law in the past. An appeal of the current case would head to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, perhaps the most conservative federal appeals court in the country.

    While the case does not pose the existential threat to the Affordable Care Act that previous legal challenges did, legal experts say that O’Connor’s ruling nonetheless puts in jeopardy the access some Americans will have to a whole host of preventive treatments.

    “We lose a huge chunk of preventive services because health plans can now impose costs,” said Andrew Twinamatsiko, associate director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. “People who are sensitive to cost will go without, mostly poor people and marginalized communities.”

    Thursday’s ruling, if left standing, could have significant consequences for Americans nationwide by limiting access to key preventive services aimed at early detection of diseases, including lung and colorectal cancer, depression and hypertension.

    Some of the US Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendations – including lung and skin cancer screenings, the use of statins to prevent cardiovascular disease and the offer of PrEP for those at high risk of HIV – were issued after the ACA’s enactment.

    Certain older recommendations have been updated with new provisions, such as screening adults ages 45 to 49 for colorectal cancer.

    “It would effectively lock in place coverage of evidence-based prevention with no cost sharing from 13 years ago,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

    Some of the cost-sharing for these preventive services can be substantial. PrEP, for instance, can cost up to $20,000 a year, plus lab and provider charges, according to Kaiser.

    In an earlier ruling, the judge upheld certain free preventive services for children, such as autism and vision screenings and well-baby visits, and for women, such as mammograms, well-woman visits and breastfeeding support programs.

    O’Connor also upheld the mandate that provides immunizations at no charge for the flu, hepatitis, measles, shingles and chickenpox.

    These services are recommended by the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

    Insurers will have to continue to cover preventive and wellness services since they are one of the Affordable Care Act’s required essential health benefits. But under O’Connor’s ruling, they could require patients to pick up part of the tab.

    Insurers’ trade associations stressed there would be no immediate disruption to coverage.

    “It is vitally important for patients to know that their care and coverage will not change because of today’s court decision,” said David Merritt, senior vice president of policy and advocacy for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. “Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies strongly encourage their members to continue to access these services to promote their continued well-being. We will continue to monitor further developments in the courts.”

    More than 150 million people with private insurance can receive preventive services without cost-sharing under the Affordable Care Act, according to a 2022 report published by HHS.

    Overall, about 60% of the 173 million people enrolled in private health coverage used at least one of the ACA’s no-cost preventive services in 2018 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a recent Kaiser analysis. These include some services that will continue to be available at no charge under the judge’s ruling.

    The most commonly received preventive care includes vaccinations, not including Covid-19 vaccines, well-woman and well-child visits, and screenings for heart disease, cervical cancer, diabetes and breast cancer, according to Kaiser. The most commonly used preventive services will continue to be covered at no cost.

    Studies have shown the Obamacare mandate prompted an uptake in preventive services and narrowed care disparities in communities of color.

    “There’s plenty of evidence that people responded to this incentive and started using preventive care more often,” said Paul Shafer, assistant professor of health policy at Boston University.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Grime, dirt, stink and funk: Tween boys are skincare’s hottest market | CNN Business

    Grime, dirt, stink and funk: Tween boys are skincare’s hottest market | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Check the aisles at Walmart, Target or your neighborhood drug store and you’ll find them chock full of scented, lathering, moisturizing, bubbling – even glittering – face and body cleansers for kids and adults.

    But, until recently, there’s been a glaring shortage of products targeting the skincare needs of one key demographic – tween boys.

    “It’s a huge white space in the market,” said Carson Kitzmiller, senior beauty and personal care analyst with market research firm Mintel. It’s a missed opportunity, she said, because “we’re seeing teen boys becoming more interested in their own skincare needs than in the past and they’re really leaning into it,” she said.

    A handful of boutique companies and entrepreneurs have spotted the gap and, in the absence of big brands, are trying to fill it. Some of them happen to be moms.

    Dr. Sheilagh Maguiness said the lack of products for the evolving cleansing and hygiene needs of her two sons, ages nine and 11, inspired her to develop Stryke Club.

    Maguiness, a board-certified pediatric dermatologist, and three other co-founders launched the boys skincare brand in 2020, at the height of the pandemic. The affordable line, which includes a face wash, body wash, moisturizer and topical acne treatment priced under $25, rolled into Target stores and online the following year.

    “Walmart then came to us recognizing there was this gap in the market and picked us up,” she said. “Our sales have increased by 45% year-over-year since 2020, and our ballpark sales for 2023 are projected to be around $3 million.”

    Still, Stryke Club, which Maguiness said uses gentle ingredients that won’t irritate young skin, remains one of the few brands for male consumers ages 7 to young adulthood, while store shelves continue to overflow with options for girls’ needs.

    “Whether it’s young sensitive skin, or acne, eczema or their first shave, boys have specific skin needs,” said Maguiness. “We also have to help them overcome this stigma about being a boy and engaging in self care.”

    The personal care products market overall in the US amounts to more than $25 billion annually (according to market research firm NPD), but very little of it caters to boys.

    The void is there because body care brands largely prioritize female shoppers even as several indie or boutique brands championing adult male grooming – Harry’s, Dollar Shave Club, Bevel – have proven to be big successes.

    According to Dr. Rhonda Klein, a board certified dermatologist, “Brands follow spending power, and until rather recently boys weren’t very interested in skincare,” said Klein. “It’s easier to invest in products and marketing toward an audience that is seeking it.”

    But older boys are becoming more aware and invested in their personal care needs thanks in large part to social media influencers.

    “Social media has its pitfalls [but] it has also brought skincare to the mainstream conversation across gender and age,” said Dr. Deanne Mraz Robinson, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Yale New Haven Hospital.

    “For better or worse it’s also brought our outward appearance to larger audiences than ever before, something that in my opinion has everyone, including teen and tween boys, becoming more aware and caring more how their skin looks,” she said.

    Julie Bowen and Jill Biren were friends first before they became business partners through a shared quest to provide their sons with skin care products they would actually be excited to use.

    In January, Bowen and Biren launched direct-to-consumer brand JB SKRUB, a collection of five products (priced at $16 to $20) – face wash, face lotion, body wash, body spray and oil-control face wipe pads – formulated and packaged for boys 10 to 16 years old.

    “We met when our sons were in elementary school together. Jill and I were at a birthday party together and started talking about why there isn’t a body product for our boys that’s not overly scented,” said Bowen, a mom to three teenage sons. Jill said let’s do something.”

    If Bowen’s name seems familiar, it’s because she is an actress, producer and director, perhaps most famous for starring as Claire Dunphy in the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.”

    Biren, a mom to both a tween and teen son, is a former long-time Conde Nast executive, who led marketing campaigns for beauty and fashion companies.

    JB SKRUB cofounders Julie Bowen, left, and Jill Biren, right.

    Bowen and Biren said they wanted their products to help change the approach that tween and teen boys adopt when it comes to personal hygiene.

    “Typically in most households, boys are either using whatever products their parents or sisters have bought,” said Bowen. “So either it smells like strawberries or is too babyish, or isn’t meeting them where they are in terms of how their skin and body are developing as puberty hits.”

    “Our goal with JB SKRUB was to simplify. Simple and frank language, clean and sustainable ingredients and easy-to-use packaging,” she said.

    The women bootstrapped the business and took three years to develop the products, working in consultation with skincare experts. The products are made with clean ingredients. The body wash, for example, contains prebiotic chia eed extract, which acts as an anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial ingredient, said Biren.

    Bowen said the packaging was also developed with the end-user, and sustainability in mind. “We put the face lotion in a pump tube instead of a jar to make it easier for boys to use,” she said. The brand also expected to launch product refills later this year.

    The women hope to eventually get JB SKRUB into retail stores.

    “We have proof of concept and we know we are addressing a need in the market,” said Bowen, who projects sales to hit seven figures by the end of the first year.

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  • Georgia’s governor signs ban on certain gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics

    Georgia’s governor signs ban on certain gender-affirming care for minors | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill Thursday to ban certain gender-affirming care for minors, joining a growing number of GOP-led states looking to restrict the treatments across the country.

    Senate Bill 140 will bar licensed medical professionals in Georgia from providing patients under the age of 18 with hormone therapy or surgery related to gender transition. Violations of the legislation could lead to the revocation of a health practitioner’s license.

    Kemp announced the signing in a tweet, saying that the law would “ensure we protect the health and wellbeing of Georgia’s children.”

    “As Georgians, parents, and elected leaders, it is our highest responsibility to safeguard the bright, promising futures of our kids – and SB 140 takes an important step in fulfilling that mission,” he said.

    LGBTQ advocates, however, have expressed concern over restricting access to such treatment, which is medically necessary, evidence-based care that uses a multidisciplinary approach to help a person from their assigned gender – the one the person was designated at birth – to their affirmed gender, the gender by which one wants to be known.

    “SB 140 will outlaw the care necessary to save children’s lives,” Rep. Nikema Williams, who chairs the Democratic Party of Georgia, said in a statement after the signing. “It is not only cruel, but it flies in the face of medical science, standards of patient care, and the lived experiences of those whom it impacts.”

    Democratic state Sen. Josh McLaurin shared similar concerns about the bill’s consequences for Georgia’s youth, after it passed in Georgia’s Senate Tuesday with a 31-21 vote.

    “Kids will commit suicide. Kids will feel like they’re not being heard, that their basic existence is being invalidated and erased,” McLaurin said.

    The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth, noted in a 2022 report that 55% of transgender and nonbinary youth in Georgia “seriously considered suicide in the past year” and 16% attempted suicide in the same timeframe.

    While the bill grants exemptions to the law “for individuals born with a medically verifiable disorder of sex development” and other medical conditions, it does not count gender dysphoria – a psychological distress that may result when a person’s gender identity and sex assigned at birth do not align, according to the American Psychiatric Association – among them.

    Minors who started hormone replacement therapy before July 1, 2023, will be allowed to continue the treatment under the new legislation.

    Cory Isaacson, a legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, warned ahead of the signing that the legal organization would sue the state over the law, claiming that Georgia’s politicians are “interfering with the rights of Georgia parents to get life-saving medical treatment for their children and preventing physicians from properly caring for their patients.”

    “The ACLU of Georgia and our partners will now consider all available legal options in order to protect the rights of parents, young people, and medical providers in our state,” she said

    Major medical associations agree that gender-affirming care is clinically appropriate for children and adults with gender dysphoria.

    Though the care is highly individualized, some children may decide to use reversible puberty suppression therapy. This part of the process may also include hormone therapy that can lead to gender-affirming physical change. Surgical interventions, however, are not typically done on children and many health care providers do not offer them to minors.

    The Georgia bill does not explicitly prohibit puberty blockers, breaking with similar bans across the country. Instead, the bill takes aim at hormone therapy that comes with more permanent effects than puberty blockers, according to The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which notes the treatment is shown to help transgender people with depression and boost self-esteem.

    Georgia’s legislation is similar in its goal to dozens of bills seeking to restrict access to gender-affirming care across the country, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union and shared with CNN.

    Some GOP-led states have already made restrictions on transgender youth’s access to health care in their states. On Wednesday, Iowa enacted its own ban on all forms of gender affirming care for minors, joining Tennessee, Mississippi, Utah and South Dakota, which passed their own bans earlier this year. Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas also enacted bans on gender-affirming care in recent years, though the laws in Alabama and Arkansas have been temporarily blocked by federal courts.

    Other potential bans are waiting in the wings, with Missouri’s Republican attorney general Monday announcing he would seek to implement an emergency regulation restricting gender-affirming care. Kentucky’s Republican-led legislature passed its own ban earlier this month while boasting a majority that could overturn the likely veto of its Democratic governor. That bill would also allow educators to refuse to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns and would not allow schools to discuss sexual orientation or gender identity with students of any age.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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  • Jason Sudeikis and ‘Ted Lasso’ cast will meet with Biden for mental health discussion | CNN Politics

    Jason Sudeikis and ‘Ted Lasso’ cast will meet with Biden for mental health discussion | CNN Politics


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Ted Lasso and President Joe Biden are teaming up to – as the television football coach would say – “believe” in the importance of mental health.

    Biden and first lady Dr. Jill Biden will host actor Jason Sudeikis and other members of the cast of “Ted Lasso” at the White House on Monday for a conversation on mental health, AppleTV+ announced Sunday.

    Cast members joining the discussion include Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift, Phil Dunster, Brett Goldstein, Brendan Hunt, Toheeb Jimoh, Cristo Fernandez, Kola Bokinni, Billy Harris and James Lance.

    A White House official said the meeting will focus on discussing “the importance of addressing your mental health to promote overall wellbeing.”

    The president on Sunday tweeted a photo of a yellow poster bearing the word “BELIEVE” above a door leading to the Oval Office. The sign is reminiscent of one affixed above Lasso’s office door in the AFC Richmond locker room on the show.

    The Emmy Award-winning show, which is now streaming its third season on AppleTV+, has tackled mental health issues in its storyline, chiefly through its title character played by Sudeikis, an affable coach who seeks therapy after grappling with panic attacks.

    “In regard to the mental health stuff, it was just there. It’s been there forever, but it’s really come up a lot in just knowing where the characters were headed and how important it is to work on yourself to help your team,” Sudeikis told Us Weekly in 2021. “And I think that we were trying to explore that and personify it in a way and kind of trojan horse that there’s bigger issues in this fun, silly little comedy show.”

    “People have really responded to that,” Sudeikis continued “And myself and other people in the cast and the writing staff get messages daily from people thanking them for really opening their eyes to what it means to go to therapy and what it means for someone in their own life to go to therapy and just speaking about these things and taking the stigma off of any form of health whether it be nutrition or mental, emotional health.”

    “Ted Lasso” is produced by Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company.

    Biden has made improving mental health a key portion of the “unity agenda” he debuted in his 2022 State of the Union address when he urged the country to “take on mental health.”

    “Let’s do more on mental health, especially for our children,” Biden also said in this year’s State of the Union address. “When millions of young people are struggling with bullying, violence, trauma, we owe them greater access to mental health care in their schools.”

    The Biden administration has focused on “training more providers, making care more affordable and accessible, and creating healthier and safer communities, including online,” the White House official said.

    A 2022 survey by CNN and the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 9 in ten adults believe a mental health crisis exists in the United States.

    The White House has enlisted celebrities on several occasions to raise awareness about key issues, including mental health. Actress and singer Selena Gomez, who has shared her own struggles with bipolar disorder, appeared with the first lady at a Mental Health Youth Action Forum hosted by MTV at the White House last year. Gomez also talked about using her platform to promote mental health awareness in a video with the president, first lady and Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

    Content from the Bidens’ meeting with the cast of “Ted Lasso” will appear on the White House’s social medial channels, according to Apple TV+.

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