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Committee members come together to discuss topic that affects all: Aging.
The Senate Special Committee on Aging discussed promoting wellness among older Americans.
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Trump’s Energy Secretary nominee says the solution to climate change is a more evolved energy system
Chris Wright said he believes in climate change and has followed its evolution for more than two decades.
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Pandemic telehealth rules expanded access to lifesaving addiction medication. Will the next DEA leader extend the flexibilities?
Patients and providers alike are unsure about the future of care for patients with opioid use disorder.
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Supreme Court appears to side with state’s ban on transgender youth treatments
During oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, conservative justices appeared skeptical toward a challenge to Tennessee’s bill which bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors.
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Lawmakers spar with NIH director over vaccine rhetoric, racial equity
NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli was pressed by the House Appropriations Committee on a variety of issues.
read moreWhy voters chose to protect abortion and vote for Donald Trump, according to experts
WASHINGTON– Experts say the successful protection of abortion rights in seven states Tuesday shows reproductive rights are popular among voters. However, an interesting scenario in four states is raising questions about the issue.
Voters in Nevada, Arizona, Montana and Missouri voted for both state amendments to protect reproductive rights and former President Donald Trump, helping him win the 2024 presidential election.
The former President has taken credit for the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, removing federal protections for abortion rights. Trump nominated three justices to the Supreme Court, all of whom voted to overturn the 1973 decision in the case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The two outcomes represented a stark “dissonance” among voters, according to Melissa Goodman, Executive Director of the UCLA Center on Reproductive Health, Law and Policy. She said that voters simultaneously voted to protect and harm those rights.
“We have these overwhelming wins in ballot measures to protect abortion rights around the nation and a majority of voters obviously elected Donald Trump, which will unquestionably have extremely devastating consequences for reproductive health care access and gender equality in our country for the next four years,” Goodman said.
Exit polling shows abortion was not the most important thing on voters minds in the voting booth. According to a Washington Post report, 66% of voters felt the economy and “the state of democracy” were the most important issues. On abortion, polling found just 14% of voters had reproductive rights as their top issue.
Goodman contends that a big reason for the lesser concern and disconnected results was that Donald Trump effectively “obfuscated” his own views and policies on the issue. She points to the former president’s repeated commitment to leave things to the states and at times murky view on signing a national abortion ban.
“In these states where they had the ability to kind of express their views about abortion in the way of a state ballot measure, that was the way they expressed their feelings on that subject, and then possibly felt free to express their opinion on other topics in their candidate votes,” Goodman says.
Long-time Democratic party pollster Celinda Lake agrees. She said the state amendments “almost gave [voters] permission” to vote on their other concerns by making it “impossible for [politicians] to act further on the abortion issue.”
Lake said that Vice President Kamala Harris did a “brilliant job on the abortion issue,” and that her loss was not a failure in her messaging on reproductive rights. She said the results of the election and abortion amendments shows Harris fell short in her messaging about the economy, something Lake says is a long-time issue in Democratic platforms. But the issue in Lake’s eyes isn’t the quality of the policy, but trouble with getting the word out about them.
According to Lake, she found through focus groups that 60% of people don’t really know what Democrats stand for economically, and that lack of clarity may have impacted voters when deciding who to give the economic reins to for the next four years.
“We don’t have an economic brand, and we start out every campaign 20 points behind on the economy,” Lake says. “We have to step back and have an economic brand that works for working people.”
Goodman and Lake both said that pollsters, strategists and academics will have to work to find out what happened this election, and understand how abortion was outshone by other concerns.
But they agree the takeaway here should not be that abortion does not matter to voters.
“There remains extremely strong support for abortion rights throughout this country, despite the actual presidential election result,” Goodman said.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Completes Final Venus Flyby
WASHINGTON – NASA’s Parker Solar Probe executed its final gravity-assist maneuver on Wednesday, flying past the surface of Venus and setting it on a path to come within 3.86 million miles of the solar surface, the closest any human-made object has ever come to the sun.
The probe used gravitational pull to alter its trajectory, coming within 233 miles of the surface of Venus, according to a NASA press release. Parker has now completed seven flybys of Venus in preparation for its approach to the sun, which will occur on Dec. 24, 2024.
“The physics of how the energy from the sun turns into space weather, which affects the earth, is not well understood,” said Dr. James Lattis, professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Director of the UW Space Place. The probe’s solar approach will be instrumental in understanding space weather, or conditions in the portion of space closest to Earth’s surface, which includes magnetic fields and particles that affect the earth.
“The main goal of this probe is to improve our understanding of that very important physics,” Lattis said.
NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe in 2018 in order to garner more data about the sun’s outermost layer, called its corona, and the magnetic processes that occur on the solar surface. Entering Venus’ gravity is critical to the mission in order to slow the probe’s trajectory prior to its solar approach, during which it will come within an unprecedented 3.86 million miles of the solar surface, according to NASA.
Additionally, images taken during the flyby will contribute to NASA’s knowledge of the conditions on Venus’ surface. The Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) is the imaging instrument on the Parker Probe, and during previous Venus assist maneuvers, WISPR captured images of Venus’ surface below its thick cloud cover.
“This is an unexpected bonus science,” said Dr. Adam Szabo, chief of the Heliospheric Physics Laboratory at NASA. “Parker Solar Probe was not designed to do planetary science, but since we are flying next to Venus, we started to assess ‘well, what can we do to look at the planet?’”
In 1989, NASA launched the Magellan spacecraft, which studied the topography of Venus. Szabo noted that the more current images taken by WISPR showed possible physical and chemical changes to Venus’s surface since the Magellan mission. Wednesday’s final gravity assist maneuver will provide additional information regarding these potential changes.
“We’re actually able to compare what changes have happened over time. We don’t really understand the geology of Venus that well, so it’s an opportunity to see how things have changed, and try to think about why it’s changed in the years since Magellan,” said Dr. Veronica Dike, a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Illinois.
Astronomists look forward to the probe’s findings following its Dec. 24 approach, especially since there is still so much to learn about how the sun functions.
“The big takeaway with this flyby of Venus is that we are going to get closer than humanity has ever gotten to a star before,” Dike said. “I think it’s a big engineering achievement that we built something that can get as close as the Parker Solar Probe will.”
What states will have abortion on the ballot this year?
WASHINGTON – Abortion will be on the ballot in 10 U.S. states this Tuesday as voters turn out for the first presidential election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Almost all of the ballot measures aim to enshrine the right to abortion, including the referendum in South Dakota, where reproductive rights advocates seek to end the state’s total abortion ban.
Abortion access has been a focal point of the 2024 presidential election and will play a key role in mobilizing voters. David Cohen, Professor of Law at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Klein School of Law and one of the leading national experts on abortion, said that this election year is hugely important in the history of abortion access in the U.S.
“It’s irrelevant what happens on these state ballot initiatives if Donald Trump wins,” Drexel said. “Even if a state protects abortion, if the federal government bans it, or makes it extremely difficult, that trumps state law, even if a state has passed a constitutional amendment protecting it.”
The citizen-initiated ballot measures required months of canvassing by abortion advocacy groups in order to reach the signature threshold, and both pro-life and pro-choice organizations have been busy encouraging voters to head to the polls.
Chris Melody Fields Figuerdo, executive director of Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a liberal advocacy organization, feels confident that voters will opt to protect reproductive rights regardless of political affiliation.
“Republicans, Democrats and Independents in states like Kansas and Kentucky, where the electorate may seem more conservative, voted against those abortion bans,” Figuerdo said. “We do know that the issue of abortion and reproductive rights is a highly motivating issue for voters.”
Since 2022, seven states thus far have had abortion on the ballot, with all seven choosing to vote in favor of abortion rights.
Arizona
Arizona’s Right to Abortion Initiative would establish the right to abortion until the point of fetal viability, usually considered around 24 weeks.
Colorado
The Right to Abortion Initiative in Colorado would enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution and allow public funds to be used for abortion.
Florida
Florida Amendment 4 seeks to expand abortion rights in the state by allowing for the procedure until fetal viability or when deemed necessary to protect the health of the patient.
Maryland
Maryland’s Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment would enshrine the right to an abortion in the state constitution, establishing a right to “reproductive freedom,” including decisions to prevent, continue or end one’s own pregnancy.”
Missouri
The Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment in Missouri would establish the right to reproductive freedom in the Missouri Constitution and only allow the state’s legislature to pass laws regulating abortion after the point of fetal viability.
Montana
Montana’s CI-128, Right to Abortion Initiative, seeks to amend the state constitution to allow for the right to an abortion, a right which is already held in the state.
Nebraska
Nebraska has two ballot measures. The Prohibit Abortions After the First Trimester Amendment would prohibit abortion in the second and third trimesters. The Right to Abortion Initiative would allow citizens to obtain an abortion until fetal viability, an expansion of rights from the currently-enforced 12-week
New York
The Equal Protection of Law Amendment would add language to the New York Bill of Rights that people cannot be denied rights based on "sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy."
Nevada
Nevada’s Right to Abortion Initiative seeks to allow for the right to an abortion until fetal viability in the state’s constitution.
South Dakota
South Dakota’s Constitutional Amendment G would provide a trimester framework for regulating abortion in the State Constitution, which would include the right to an abortion for all citizens during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Point by Point – Episode 3: Costs vs. Access – The Diverging Health Care Paths of Trump and Harris
In this third episode of Point by Point, we focus on health care by comparing former President Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act with Vice President Kamala Harris’s commitment to expanding health care access. Tune in as we explore how their policies on health care costs, insurance coverage, and prescription drug prices could shape the future of the U.S. health care system.
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Health care professionals call on Trump to release medical records
WASHINGTON – More than 200 doctors and nurses are calling on former President Donald Trump to release his medical records, citing concerns over his age and fitness for office as he campaigns for a potential second term that would make the 78-year-old the oldest president-elect in history.
So far, Trump has resisted their pressure.
Dr. Ezekiel Tayler, a critical-care physician from Pennsylvania, was among the 238 signatories of a letter from Doctors for Harris, an independent grassroots organization that is not affiliated with the Harris-Walz campaign. He said he signed the letter because he believes anyone running for America’s highest office has a responsibility to be upfront with voters.
“I think what Donald Trump has done is normalize a lack of transparency, saying: ‘I can do whatever I want, whenever I want to do it, and if you don’t like it, well, I am who I am’ and that’s not appropriate,” Tayler said.
The letter, which was dated Oct. 13, noted that without a disclosure of health data, doctors and voters are forced to draw conclusions from Trump’s behavior during public appearances. They said that in that regard, “Trump is falling concerningly short of any standard of fitness for office and displaying alarming characteristics of declining acuity.”
Trump’s history of health disclosure controversy
When Hillary Clinton’s campaign published her detailed medical report over a year before the 2016 election, Trump faced pressure to follow suit.
In a December 2015 tweet, he said he’d release a full medical report that would “show perfection.”
Ten days later, his personal doctor issued a four-paragraph letter that included no specific health statistics, but claimed that Trump “will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” It was later revealed that Trump had dictated this letter and his doctor simply signed it.
In 2020, Trump tested positive for COVID-19 after Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation on September 26 but waited until October 2—three days after a presidential debate with Joe Biden—to announce it. This detail came to light a year later after Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, published it in his 2021 book.
Health concerns grow ahead of the election
Now, in lieu of publishing an updated medical report, as Trump promised he would do in an August 2024 interview, his campaign issued a statement citing two July memos from former White House physician and current Texas congressman Dr. Ronny Jackson, who treated the former president after he was shot in an assassination attempt this summer, as proof that Trump is fit for office.
“I want to receive a solid health report, not from the doctor who examined him last time—who had his own issues—but from a respected physician, so I can comprehend what is happening with him,” said Pat Ford-Roegner, a nurse practitioner and member of Nurses for America, a group that started working with Doctors for Harris earlier this year.
Ford-Roegner said that she believed the “level of anger” Trump is displaying in his recent public appearances is the most alarming aspect of his behavior. The Doctors for Harris letter cited similar worries.
“As we age, we lose our sharpness and return to basic instincts. We are witnessing this with Trump, as he utilizes his rallies and appearances to ramble, meander, and crudely lash out at his numerous perceived grievances,” the doctors wrote. They pointed to his recent claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Ohio as a specific example.
In the week after the letter, Trump took the stage at a town hall in Pennsylvania, where he danced and swayed to his personal playlist for nearly 40 minutes after abruptly ending the Q&A portion of the event. Dr. Mark Lopatin, a retired rheumatologist who also signed the letter, highlighted this as another cause for concern.
“The public deserves to know what’s going on,” Lopatin said. “So I think anytime someone is not being transparent we should call that out.”
FDA and NIH discuss smoking cessation practices, reviving e-cigarette debate
WASHINGTON –The Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health analyzed practices for reducing tobacco consumption, including switching from traditional cigarette use to e-cigarettes, at a joint public meeting on smoking cessation on Monday.
“We’ve made real progress in reducing cigarette smoking in the U.S., which is a notable public health achievement,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf. “While this progress is encouraging, we still have much more work to do, including addressing disparities in the types of products being used and who is using them.”
The meeting’s topics ranged from medications like Bupropion and Varenicline, which help people quit by reducing nicotine withdrawal symptoms, to new apps designed to coach people through smoking cessation.
The nation’s top tobacco cessation doctors also acknowledged that e-cigarettes are considered less harmful than standard cigarettes and could be a key pathway toward smoking cessation. But experts warn that vaping is not a risk-free alternative.
Vaping disperses toxic chemicals and heavy metals throughout the lungs, causing inflammatory injury and increasing risk for EVALI, or e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury. Dr. Alejandra Ellison-Barnes, an assistant professor of general internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, works in a tobacco clinic, and says she encourages her clients to stop using tobacco products of any kind, including vapes.
“The important thing with e-cigarettes is that, because they’re relatively new, we don’t yet have a good body of evidence for the effects, both short term and long term,” Dr. Ellison-Barnes said. “It’s really a harm reduction and not a harm elimination strategy when you’re talking about e-cigarettes.”
Tobacco Industry and Campaigns
The smoking cessation meeting comes as e-cigarette use has been a recent campaign platform for presidential candidate Donald Trump, signaling what he may promote if elected. Trump vowed on Truth Social last month to “save vaping again” if elected, following a meeting with the Vaping Technology Association, a prominent vaping lobbyist.
Trump’s recent enthusiasm for vaping diverges from the stance of his previous administration, which raised the age requirement for purchasing e-cigarettes from 18 to 21 in 2019 and enacted a limited ban on fruit and mint flavored e-cigarettes in 2020. Both actions aimed to crack down on the widespread use of vapes among youth, since 1.63 million middle and high school students currently use e-cigarettes, according to CDC data.
The tobacco industry has backed Trump’s campaign, too. A subsidiary of the second leading tobacco company in the U.S. has donated $8.5 million to Make America Great Again Inc., the main super PAC for the Trump campaign, according to Open Secrets. The subsidiary, RAI Services Company, is the top corporate donor to the Trump-supporting super PAC. Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign and the super PACs supporting it do not appear to have received donations from RAI Services Company.
“Cigarette smoking among adults has been cut in half since 2009, when the FDA gained the authority to regulate these products,” said Dr. Califf.
Yet smoking still kills nearly half a million U.S. residents each year, and financial support from the tobacco industry threatens to undo the progress that has already been made.
“I think any time there is industry money in politics, it’s a concern from a public health perspective,” Dr. Ellison-Barnes said. “Regardless of the administration, I think anytime there’s tobacco money mixed in, it’s definitely a public health concern.”
Disproportionate Impact
Smoking rates are concentrated in vulnerable populations like minority communities and those experiencing mental illness, and setbacks in smoking cessation could mean further disproportionate effects for these populations.
Dr. Lonnie Nelson, an associate professor at the Washington State University College of Nursing and a descendant of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, spoke at Monday’s meeting. Dr. Nelson explained how the tobacco industry specifically targets Native Americans for consumption.
“American Indian and Alaska Native communities have the highest prevalence of commercial tobacco smoking of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S. We experience dramatic health disparities resulting from this fact,” Nelson said. “There is a need for efficacious and accessible interventions.”
An update on bird flu in the U.S.
WASHINGTON – A third case of bird flu was confirmed in California on Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, following two other cases confirmed in the state last week. Two additional presumed cases are awaiting verification.
Wild birds, which are considered reservoirs for the virus, shed avian influenza and infect both poultry and dairy cows. According to CDC data, 295 herds of dairy cows have been infected, and 14 states have seen outbreaks in cattle. 100,781,821 poultry have been infected as of Oct. 8.
Humans who come in contact with these animals, especially dairy workers, are at risk of infection. This most recent case is the 17th instance of bird flu, a strain of influenza A known as H5N1, in the United States since March 2024.
The three known infected Californianians are dairy workers who were exposed to infected dairy cattle. Each case stemmed from a different farm, and patients reported mild symptoms. Typically, patients infected with the virus will experience respiratory symptoms, similar to the seasonal flu, or eye redness and irritation. But illness can range in severity from mild symptoms to severe symptoms that are fatal, according to the CDC.
There has been no evidence that the virus can spread between humans, but a patient in Missouri without known contact with animals was diagnosed with avian flu last month. One member of the patient’s household and six health care workers who came in contact with the patient subsequently developed symptoms of bird flu, the CDC said. The patient’s household member did not test for avian influenza, and one of the symptomatic health care workers tested negative, though the test was done after the ten-day testing window had elapsed.
Currently, experts are not concerned about human-to-human transmission. “At the present time, the risk to humans is really almost entirely limited to dairy workers,” said Dr. Dean Blumberg, Professor and Chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at UC Davis Health.
Blumberg says the concern lies in the risk of the virus mutating.“If the strains mutate, then there can be a risk of it mutating so there’s more human-to-human transmission. And then, instead of the infection risk being confined to the dairy workers, it could enter into the general population.”
So far, mutations have been limited. The Food and Drug Administration discussed avian influenza at its Meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on Thursday.
Dr. Todd Davis, Acting Chief of the Virology, Surveillance, and Diagnosis Branch of the CDC, expressed optimism at the meeting. “These viruses thankfully have remained relatively genetically stable. We’re not seeing changes that impact increased infectivity or that would be predicted to yield increased transmissibility among people.”
Also discussed at the FDA Advisory Committee meeting was pandemic influenza preparedness and the progress that has been made on vaccine development.
Dr. Christine Oshansky spoke about the work of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and its advanced production of vaccines for avian influenza. “We work with CDC and other WHO collaborating centers and we are monitoring the surveillance very closely of the animal viruses that are circulating around the world,” she said.
“I think it’s important for the FDA to be reviewing the avian influenza vaccines,” Dr. Blumberg said. “That’s a forward-thinking step. But at the present time, I think the major focus needs to be on surveillance of the dairy herds. We still have very little data about the prevalence of avian influenza within dairy herds, and part of that is because in most states, it’s voluntary for ranchers to allow their herds to be tested.”
Dr. Maurice Pitesky, Associate Professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine-Cooperative Extension, expects that the virus is here to stay.
“It’s affecting so many different geographies and species that we’ve never detected it in before, and now we’re also finding it in human wastewater,” he said. “It’s the largest animal outbreak of disease we’ve ever had in the 5000 to 7000 years of domesticated agriculture. It’s significant, and it’ll probably continue to be that way.”
New Forever stamp honors health care workers
WASHINGTON — The United States Postal Service and the Department of Health and Human Services jointly launched a new Forever stamp honoring health care workers at a dedication ceremony on Thursday. The stamp became available for sale on Tuesday, October 1st and features the words “thank you” spelled out in various health-related icons. The words “healthcare community” run across the lower right corner of the stamp.
The health care community includes physicians, nurses, pharmacists, hospital custodians, lab technicians and epidemiologists, among others. USPS and HHS’s decision to honor health care workers comes in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, during which those in health care worked long hours taking care of those ill with the virus.
Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of HHS, spoke at Thursday’s ceremony. “Many of the first to die of Covid were in health care. And every day they do the job that we expect them to,” Becerra said.
Louis DeJoy, Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer of the USPS, spoke of his interactions with health care workers throughout his own life. He expressed gratitude for the staff at the neighborhood clinic he and his siblings would visit as children, and he discussed the efforts of his wife Aldona, a physician who worked with AIDS patients at the beginning of the epidemic. This is DeJoy’s first stamp dedication in his four and a half years as postmaster general.
In January 2021, DeJoy and the USPS began working with the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), an agency within HHS, to distribute free Covid-19 test kits to Americans. Roughly 900 million test kits have been distributed thus far. The two organizations then decided to begin working on a Forever stamp to honor those working on the front lines caring for those sick with COVID-19.
“The members of the health care community, sometimes at great personal risk, have dedicated their lives to improving our health, safety and well being, and we owe them an enormous debt of gratitude for their service to the nation,” DeJoy said. “Health care workers have adjusted and still demonstrate acute awareness and the empathy necessary to provide not just medical care but emotional comfort to those they care for in their moments of great vulnerability. This embedded culture of kindness makes the world a better place.”
Remarks were also provided by Dr. Andrea Anderson, a family physician, associate professor, and the Associate Chief of Family Medicine at George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences. “Health care workers provided emergency health care when people could be saved and when they could not,” Anderson said. “There were faces shrouded behind masks and face shields breaking the bad news of a positive diagnosis to the terrified. There were those holding electronic tablets to allow a family member one last moment to say goodbye to a loved one, or they themselves became the last human voice heard when time had expired for yet another casualty of the microscopic virus less than the size of a human hair.”
Many health care workers became infected with Covid-19 during its peak, and the World Health Organization estimates that roughly 115,500 people in the health care community died between January 2020 and May 2021.
Dr. Loretta Christensen, Chief Medical Officer for the Indian Health Service, spoke to the Medill News Service about what the stamp means for health care community members. “They’re a very unique and special bunch of people that dedicate their lives to caring for others. And so to actually be recognized for that has to be a great moment for them.”
Abortions in South Carolina are banned after six weeks of pregnancy. Local nonprofits are working to help patients anyway
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Between a real estate attorney’s office and a county magistrate building sits one of South Carolina’s three abortion clinics. Pink and white signs beckon patients, discreetly placed so as not to invite unwanted attention.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, women and advocates in the state of South Carolina have struggled to safeguard access to reproductive health care, including abortions. Existing policies tend to penalize, rather than uplift, patients seeking care and those who help them. But the people who work on the front lines don’t want to leave. Their work is a crucial part of who they are, they say.
South Carolina’s maternal mortality rate is the eighth-highest in the nation, according to the South Carolina Law Review. Vicki Ringer, the director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, said she is critical of lawmakers focusing on the wrong victims of an under-resourced health care system.
“Women have died and will continue to die,” she said. “This should require some action on behalf of our legislature – whether that’s in research, expanding Medicaid or providing more rural health care. All of those things would make sense, but the legislature does not do any of those things.”
In August 2023, the state Supreme Court upheld a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, a similar law that had been struck down just eight months before. After the court’s only female justice retired, it reversed this protection, forcing providers to turn away patients at a stage before many of them even know they are pregnant.
While abortion takes center stage as a national political talking point, so many other facets of reproductive care remain difficult to access throughout the country, including contraception, in vitro fertilization and sex education in elementary schools.
“Our reproductive health care restrictions are some of the most restrictive in the nation,” said Kelli Parker, the director of communications and marketing for the Women’s Rights and Empowerment Network (WREN). “Most South Carolinians support access to reproductive health care. But it’s continually being limited through our legislators that have very extreme ideas about what reproductive health care actually is.”
The Planned Parenthood Health Center in Columbia is one of only three abortion clinics in the state of South Carolina. (Simone Garber/MNS)
It never occurred to Parker that her 11-year-old daughter wouldn’t have the same right to bodily autonomy as she once did. Having grown up in New York, Parker’s access to health care in Charleston, S.C. over the past five years has been vastly different from the medical privacy she’s used to.
“I think people who live outside of the South really take for granted the amount of freedom you have,” she said.
Parker’s agency, based in Columbia, works to expand access to health care, education and economic opportunities for women, girls and gender-expansive people throughout the state. Since 2017, WREN has advised patients seeking reproductive services in a state that was one of the first to impose near-total abortion bans after Roe’s reversal.
Recent policing of gender-affirming care comes from male lawmakers’ need for “control,” Parker said.
“It’s important to remember that abortion bans and restrictions don’t do anything to protect anyone’s health or safety – they’re only punishment,” she said. “Why would you want to elect someone who’s out to punish you?”
Ina Seethaler is the director of college outreach at the Palmetto State Abortion Fund, a volunteer-run organization working to offset the financial barriers to reproductive justice in South Carolina. The fund subsidizes abortion procedures and logistical costs, including transportation and lodging for out-of-state appointments.
Seethaler called South Carolina a “reproductive health care desert,” as local physicians often weigh high-stakes decisions that could leave them incarcerated.
According to the S.C. Office for Healthcare Workforce, 14 out of the state’s 46 counties do not have a practicing OB-GYN. That translates to a ratio of 0.43 for every 1,000 women of reproductive age, according to a South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare research brief.
“Folks don’t want to move here,” Seethaler said. “They don’t want to practice here. It’s becoming, frankly, kind of dangerous for them to work here. But things are just going to get worse again at the expense of the people in South Carolina.”
And it’s not just a lack of trained professionals that’s driving the reproductive health care shortage. For patients in desperate situations facing few options and little reliable information, many turn to crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) for answers. These institutions, which reproductive justice advocates say impart misinformation to pregnant people rather than support, generated nearly $1.4 billion in revenue in the 2022 fiscal year and continue to increase in scope and size nationwide.
As a result of CPC expansion, Seethaler said, many reproductive justice organizations are finding it difficult to persuade patients of their legitimacy.
“That overlap is, unfortunately, really problematic,” she said.
The 35 CPCs in South Carolina well outnumber the abortion clinics in the state. In addition to Columbia, two other Planned Parenthood Health Centers are located in Charleston and Greenville, all at least 100 miles away from one another.
Ringer’s lobbying efforts at the Columbia State House are constantly challenged at the clinic sites, where protesters will “literally drag patients into vans” stockpiled with ultrasounds.
“All of these folks exist only to harass patients,” she said. “They don’t provide any real services. It’s just dogma they’re imposing on people that they’re trying to stop from having an abortion.”
These days, the stakes of health care suppression are extending to other reproductive issues. Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos would be considered “children” under state law, a mandate that could jeopardize the practice of IVF.
While Alabama has since passed a law to protect IVF treatments, legal experts note that language in other states related to so-called fetal personhood leave many open questions about liability.
“Alabama’s ruling is extremely alarming,” Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, wrote in a statement. “This is part of the chaos we knew would ensue if Roe v. Wade was overturned. With politicians at the helm instead of doctors, reproductive health care is in crisis.”
Navigating an increasingly polarized workplace and industry, Ringer underscored her personal motivation for continuing this line of work.
“I know that there are others still in this fight, but I can’t just throw up my hands,” she said. “Everybody deserves the right to decide if, when and how to become parents. Pregnant women, most of all, deserve their own freedom to make a decision.”
Published in conjunction with 
Memories of pandemic wane but long COVID-19 continues for many
ALBANY — When 15-year-old Oneida County resident Matilda Terrell caught COVID-19 for the first time in July 2022, Matilda’s symptoms were mild and they recovered quickly.
But, when they contracted the virus for the second time two months later, their life changed dramatically.
Matilda, who uses they/them pronouns, went from being a happy, well-balanced kid to having severe depression and suicidal ideation almost overnight, according to their mother, Katherine Terrell. When they contracted the virus for a third time in January 2023, they started experiencing crushing fatigue, body aches, a constant headache, brain fog that left them struggling to even read a page, post-exertional malaise, a spiking heart rate, and worsened irritable bowel syndrome symptoms, among others.
Matilda’s mother Katherine described Matilda as a “happy kid” before they developed long COVID. (Courtesy Katherine Terrell)
“It is heartbreaking to see their life reduced to this,” Terrell said. “This is a kid who had just boundless energy their entire life — they would do a full day of school, get all A’s, and then have three hours of dance class before coming home, doing their homework, and going to bed. Now, it’s an accomplishment if they can get out and walk a few blocks.”
Matilda is one of the estimated 18 million Americans who have suffered from residual side effects of COVID-19, known as long COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly one in five adults who had the virus now have long COVID-19.
According to the National Institutes of Health, there are more than 200 documented long COVID-19 symptoms, which include memory impediments, excessive fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive impairment.
However, there are no FDA-approved treatments approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat the condition. Matilda says their physician told them to “just wait and hope that the research gets done.”
Call for government action
Earlier this year, patients and experts urged the government to declare long COVID-19 a national emergency during a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing. If declared, the government will be able to fund long COVID-19 research and expedite clinical trials.
In the months following the hearing, the CDC cut its five-day isolation recommendation to one day, a move some public health experts say will lead to more people contracting the virus and developing long COVID-19.
A study conducted by a team of epidemiologists at Washington University in St. Louis found that the risk of getting long COVID-19 increases with each reinfection. Ziyad Al-Aly, one of the authors of the study, worries that public health officials are failing to inform the public about the risks.
“I think the CDC just wanted to change the guidelines because they got sick and tired of the pandemic,” Al-Aly said. “But the facts are that people are still getting COVID infections. Everyone is at risk of long COVID, and I don’t think many people realize that.
President Joe Biden addressed the coronavirus pandemic in his recent State of the Union address, declaring that “the pandemic no longer controls our lives.”
However, for many long COVID-19 patients, like 63-year-old Georgia resident Marjorie Roberts, the pandemic isn’t over. When Roberts contracted the virus in March 2020, she said she suffered from poor balance, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, among other issues.
She still has not fully recovered.
Roberts said she believes the government has overlooked long COVID-19. She traveled to Washington, D.C., to deliver a speech last Friday in hopes of bringing the issue to the forefront of public attention.
“I want somebody to hear us, somebody to feel our pain,” Roberts said. “Biden didn’t bring Washington to me, so I’m taking myself to Washington to him. We are a big part of the… union.”
Matilda does a split in the air at the Utica Zoo in Utica, NY. Matilda’s mother Katherine says that Matilda had “boundless energy” before getting long COVID. (Courtesy Katherine Terrell)
Mental health toll
Pam Bishop, a 48-year-old Knoxville, Tenn., resident grappling with long COVID-19, said the lack of public awareness about the condition has fueled loneliness in the community.
Before contracting long COVID-19, Bishop was the director of The National Institute for Stem Evaluation and Research at the University of Tennessee. However, Bishop said she only leaves her home now when it is absolutely necessary, which has made it difficult for her to keep in touch with friends.
“If we’re going to do something I have to know about it beforehand because I have to rest and make sure that my schedule is clear afterwards,” Bishop said. “It is very isolating to be sick like this because you’re exhausted all the time and it’s hard to make plans with people. So, I end up not making plans most of the time.”
Matilda said they went from being a happy kid to “being overwhelmed by suicidal thoughts and wanting to kill myself on a daily basis” after developing long COVID-19. Katherine says that it’s been hard for Matilda to keep up with their friendships because they are constantly missing school and out-of-school activities.
“These are the days where you’re supposed to be spending all your time with friends and going out to parties,” Matilda said. “And because of long COVID, I can’t do any of that. I feel isolated and alone and that’s really hard.”
Financial hardship
The Brookings Institution estimates that as many as 4 million Americans are out of work because of the lingering effects of COVID-19.
Among those sidelined by long COVID-19 is Meighan Stone, who said she can now barely leave her house because of debilitating symptoms from the virus.
Stone had a career in advocacy, working for organizations like the Malala Fund and the Council on Foreign Relations before long COVID-19 symptoms forced her to leave her field. Stone has recently started part-time remote consulting. However, she said it is still not financially sustainable.
She had to transition from Medicaid to private insurance because Medicaid wouldn’t cover the cost of low-dose Naltrexone, a drug that is not yet FDA-approved but has given Stone some relief, she said. The single mother said she wouldn’t be able to afford insurance if it weren’t for the generosity of friends.
Stone’s doctors have encouraged her to apply for Social Security Disability Insurance, but she says she knows she wouldn’t be able to complete the application on her own and doesn’t have the financial resources to hire an attorney.
“I need to spend those resources on taking care of me and my son today,” Stone said. “The disability system is so broken in the United States.”
Andrew Wylam is the co-founder and president of Pandemic Patients, a nonprofit organization that connects those affected by COVID-19 with a network of attorneys who can provide pro-bono legal assistance. Wylam said that applying for disability insurance is an “arduous” process that is particularly challenging for long COVID-19 patients who have cognitive impairments.
“I look at some of the paperwork that you have to go through and all the medical documentation that you have to provide, and I think that can be challenging for someone with average cognitive capacity,” Wylam said. “When you add on the cognitive disability to a person’s symptoms, the process of going through the application and appeals is just overwhelming.”
Wylam said that he’s worked with patients who have applied for Social Security disability insurance and had to wait more than two years for a response. During this time, they are without a steady flow of income, he said.
During the Senate HELP hearing, Rachel Beale, a long COVID-19 patient from Southampton County in Virginia, testified that she was denied Social Security Disability disability insurance twice without any explanation, despite the condition being recognized as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. As a result, she has to pay an estimated $4,000 annually out of pocket and cut back on services that help her manage her chronic pain.
Many of Wylam’s clients have been diagnosed with serious medical conditions and post-viral syndromes that have been brought on by long COVID-19. Wylam said that it can be difficult for patients living with these invisible illnesses to prove they are suffering from symptoms like brain fog, excessive fatigue and difficulty concentrating, which in turn makes it more challenging for them to obtain disability insurance.
When Olenka Sayko went to the emergency room with symptoms of a nervous system disorder a week after testing positive with COVID-19, Sayko said she was told her symptoms were all in her head. This experience of being “gaslit” and dismissed by medical professionals is all too common among long COVID-19 patients, according to Sayko.
In addition to funding for clinical research, the group LC/DC is calling on the government to promote educational campaigns and increase social services for long COVID-19 patients.
“We have a long way to go, and we need to do it quickly because people are suffering,” said Dara York, a founder of LC/DC. “How much longer will we have to stand up and fight?”
Published in conjunction with 
Sanders and stakeholders press lawmakers to reauthorize and increase funding for the Older Americans Act
WASHINGTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday called on fellow members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee to extend and increase funding for the Older American Act to meet the urgent needs of America’s senior citizens.
The Older Americans Act, signed into law in 1965, authorizes government funding for various critical services for the country’s elderly. The law also supports career opportunities, activities to combat loneliness and isolation, disease prevention, job training, protection from abuse, and access to food, water, and places like the doctor’s office or grocery store. However, the law is due to expire on Sept. 30, creating a new urgency to renew and re-fund it.
During Thursday’s hearing, there appeared to be bipartisan support for reauthorizing the measure, but it was unclear whether both sides of the aisle would agree on how much funding should increase. For instance, ranking member Bill Cassidy (R-La.) emphasized the importance of reauthorizing the Old American Act by improving the programs for seniors and leveraging public-private partnerships to expand service.
“We should take lessons learned during the pandemic and use that new knowledge as how we can better serve those who we intend to serve,” said Cassidy, but seemed hesitant about providing an increase in funding,
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), about 23 percent of Americans over 65 live in poverty.
“One out of every four seniors in America is trying to survive for a new continent less than $15,000 a year. And I’m not quite sure if anybody comes to live with $15,000 a year,” said Sanders, chairman of the HELP committee.
The committee heard from several stakeholders who emphasized the importance of getting additional money for seniors. Among those was Dorothy Hutchins, a 93-year-old Alexandria, Virginia, resident, who testified remotely. She shared her story of struggle after her husband’s death and later had hip surgeries. She highlighted the support she received through the Older Americans Act in maintaining her health.
“Everyone deserves the chance to live where they choose, and for most of us, we want to remain in our homes and communities,” Hutchins told lawmakers.
Since 2016, the number of seniors in America has massively increased despite increased demand. In 2020, almost one in every six adults in the United States is age 65 or older. In 1920, the proportion was less than one in 20.
Sanders argued that adjusting for inflation, funding for the law has decreased by nearly 20 percent. Sanders said that providing adequate nutrition meals to seniors is more cost-effective than treating preventable hospital costs.
“Malnutrition among seniors today costs our society over $50 billion each and every year,” said Sanders.
Ellie Hollander, President and CEO of the Meals on Wheels program, testified before the committee to address the growing gap in senior nutrition resources. She highlighted the struggles of severe hunger, with 2.5 million low-income food-insecure people not receiving meals they’re eligible for. Due to high demand, the Meals on Wheels program has to put them on the waitlist.
Hollander stated that to close the current gap for the nutrition program to be effective for seniors, we need to estimate a $774 million increase. The nutrition program alone must close the current services gap.
Ramsey Alwin, president and CEO of the National Council on Aging, pushed for an increase in the financing and modernization of senior centers to support healthy aging.
“We must address lessons learned from the pandemic, reinstate a separate title for senior senators, strengthen the authorization for modernizing them, and increase funding for senior nutrition programs to allow for parity between home-delivered and congregate meal sites,” Alwin said.
The HELP Committee has invited more comments from stakeholders until March 21 via its email oaa@help.senate.gov
A link to more information can be found here.
How Biden made health care access, affordability priorities in State of Union address
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden used his State of the Union address to contrast his health care record with former President Donald Trump’s, touting his efforts to lower drug prices and urging Congress to expand access to reproductive freedoms.
Biden addressed the nation just two days after Super Tuesday primaries in over a dozen states, which set the stage for a likely Biden-Trump rematch in November. Here’s a look at the key health care issues the president highlighted:
Support for abortion, reproductive rights
During his address, Biden criticized Trump for rolling back women’s access to reproductive rights but avoided referencing him by name.
“My predecessor came to office determined to see Roe v. Wade overturned,” Biden said. “He’s the reason it was overturned. In fact, he brags about it. Look at the chaos that has resulted.”
Biden called attention to the experience of Kate Cox, a Dallas woman who was forced to travel outside her home state of Texas to access lifesaving abortion care because of the Texas abortion ban. Cox attended the speech on Thursday as one of the guests of first lady Jill Biden.
In the months following the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision, which overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, 14 states have made abortion illegal, and several others have imposed restrictions.
Biden vowed to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again” if Congress passes a bill protecting reproductive rights — though it is highly unlikely that the Democrats could secure 60 votes in the politically divided Senate to overcome the filibuster that would stall the measure.
Biden warned that many Republicans including Trump are “promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom,” but underscored women’s voting power, highlighting that reproductive freedom “was on the ballot and won” in the 2022 midterm elections.
“With all due respect justices,” Biden said addressing the Supreme Court, “women are not without electoral or political power.” In an ad-libbed moment, Biden added, “you’re about to realize just how much,” in a reference to the hope that voters in support of reproductive rights would vote in strong numbers in the 2024 election.
Protecting IVF
After the Alabama Supreme Court recently ruled that frozen embryos should be considered children, Biden called on Congress to guarantee the right to in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatments nationwide. He highlighted the experience of Latorya Beasley, a social worker from Birmingham, Alabama, who had to put her “dream” of having a second child via IVF on hold as a result of the ruling. Beasley was also a guest of the first lady on Thursday.
The Alabama court decision triggered the temporary closure of three IVF facilities in the state. However, in the days after the court ruling, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law Wednesday shielding IVF providers in the state from potential criminal liability, but the issue of whether embryos should get legal protection remains an open question in many states that restrict abortion.
Earlier this year, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) introduced a bill protecting IVF at the federal level, but Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) blocked the measure, arguing that it was a “vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far — far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF.”
“What (Beasley’s) family has gone through should have never happened,” Biden said. “And unless Congress acts, it could happen again.”
Keeping drug prices under control
During his address, Biden also took aim at Trump’s previous unsuccessful efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. By contrast, Biden noted that he successfully passed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which allowed Medicare to directly negotiate prices of certain costly drugs lacking generic competition. His administration is for the first time negotiating directly with drug companies over the price of medications. The law also caps out-of-pocket yearly maximum prescription drug costs at $2,000 by 2025 and sets the maximum price of a vial of insulin at $35 a month for diabetic seniors on Medicare.
Biden called on Congress to extend the insulin price cap to private insurance and to expand on his legislation by giving Medicare the ability to negotiate the prices of 500 drugs over the next decade.
“With a law I proposed and signed and not one Republican voted for we finally beat Big Pharma,” Biden said. “For years people have talked about it but I finally got it done,” he later added.
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Medill Today | February 20, 2025