Tag Archives: iab-healthcare industry

Health

Complications during pregnancy linked to a higher risk of heart disease, study finds

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

Five major pregnancy complications are strong lifelong risk factors for ischemic heart disease, a new study finds, with the greatest risk coming in the decade after delivery.

Ischemic heart disease refers to heart problems, including heart attack, caused by narrowed or dysfunctional blood vessels that reduce blood and oxygen flow to the heart.

Gestational diabetes and preeclampsia increased the risk of ischemic heart disease in the study by 54% and 30%, respectively, while other high blood pressure disorders during pregnancy doubled the risk. Delivering a baby early – before 37 weeks – or delivering a baby with a low birth weight were associated with a 72% and 10% increased risk, respectively.

The study, published in Wednesday in the BMJ, followed a cohort of more than 2 million women in Sweden with no history of heart disease who gave birth to single live infants between 1973 and 2015.

Roughly 30% of the women had at least one adverse pregnancy outcome. Those who had multiple adverse outcomes – whether in the same or different pregnancies – showed further increased risk of ischemic heart disease.

“These pregnancy outcomes are early signals for future risk of heart disease and can help identify high-risk women earlier and enable earlier interventions to improve their long-term outcomes and help prevent the development of heart disease in these women,” said Dr. Casey Crump, an author of the study and professor of family medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death among women in the United States and accounts for 1 in 5 female deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This research adds to mounting evidence that pregnancy provides important information about a woman’s cardiovascular health.

“What happens to a woman during pregnancy is almost like a stress test or a marker for her future cardiovascular risk after pregnancy. And unfortunately, a lot of women don’t get told this by anybody,” said CNN Medical Correspondent Dr. Tara Narula, an associate professor of cardiology and the associate director of the Women’s Heart Program at Lenox Hill Hospital. She was not involved in the new study.

Although it’s not completely clear why, experts say the normal changes that occur during pregnancy may unmask underlying health issues in some women with certain risk factors.

Experiencing an adverse pregnancy outcome – even temporarily – could result in changes to blood vessels and the heart that may persist or progress after delivery, increasing a woman’s risk for cardiovascular disease.

This heightened risk is a particular concern for women in the US, experts say, where the maternal mortality rate is several times higher than in other high-income countries.

“There’s been a change in the birthing population. US women are getting pregnant at a later age, and they have already accrued maybe one or two cardiovascular risk factors. Perhaps there are other stressors in life – depression, stress, isolation, obesity – lots of different things that are impacting women in the US,” said Dr. Garima Sharma, associate professor of cardiology and director of the Cardio-Obstetrics Program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who also was not involved in the new study.

Pregnancy complications are carefully monitored during pregnancy, but there is little evaluation of and education about the effects on cardiovascular health after delivery for women, experts say.

“And so they have their delivery, they’ve had maybe preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, and nobody really follows up with them. They are not told that, in fact, they are at increased risk,” Narula said.

Gestational diabetes is a marker not only for increased risk of diabetes but also for general cardiovascular disease. Preeclampsia and eclampsia are markers for hypertension risk as well as general cardiovascular risks.

Narula, a cardiologist who specializes in caring for women, regularly considers adverse pregnancy outcomes when evaluating patients and emphasizes the continued need for this.

“The classic risk calculator that we use doesn’t have anything in there for pregnancy complications, but you know, it should for women, and hopefully someday, they will start to take that into account,” she said.

The American Heart Association recommends that all health care professionals take a detailed history of pregnancy complications when assessing a woman’s heart disease risk, but this is not consistently done in clinical practice, especially in primary care, where most women are seen, Crump says.

“Raising awareness of these findings among physicians as well as women hopefully will enable more of these women to be screened early and hopefully improve their long-term outcomes,” he said.

Roughly 1 in 3 women will have an adverse pregnancy outcome. Experts say that improving your health before getting pregnant can help avoid these issues.

“Reducing your risk should start preconception, and so getting your body and yourself into the healthiest state possible before you ever even get pregnant is really the first step,” Narula said.

This includes achieving and maintaining a healthy body weight with a good diet and regular exercise, controlling high blood pressure and diabetes, quitting smoking and managing stress.

Taking action after pregnancy is equally important, as research has estimated that only 30% to 80% of women have a postpartum checkup 6 to 8 weeks after delivery.

“Making sure that these women actually are appropriately followed after their delivery and that there is a warm handoff between [obstetrics] and [maternal-fetal medicine] to their primary care doctors or preventive cardiologists who can then talk about optimizing cardiovascular risks and reduction of these risk factors post-pregnancy in the postpartum time frame is crucial,” Sharma said.

Experts hope that increased patient and provider awareness of the connection between pregnancy and heart health will keep birth from being a cause of death.

“Cardiovascular disease is preventable. It’s a leading cause of maternal mortality, but it doesn’t have to be. If we do a better job at screening patients before they get pregnant, if we do a better job of treating them during pregnancy and postpartum, we can improve women’s outcomes,” Narula said. “It’s a tragedy to bring a new life into the world, and then the mother suffers some horrible complication and/or death that could have been prevented.”

Read original article here

Health

Surgeon General says 13 is ‘too early’ to join social media

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy says he believes 13 is too young for children to be on social media platforms, because although sites allow children of that age to join, kids are still “developing their identity.”

Meta, Twitter, and a host of other social media giants currently allow 13-year-olds to join their platforms.

“I, personally, based on the data I’ve seen, believe that 13 is too early … It’s a time where it’s really important for us to be thoughtful about what’s going into how they think about their own self-worth and their relationships and the skewed and often distorted environment of social media often does a disservice to many of those children,” Murthy said on “CNN Newsroom.”

The number of teenagers on social media has sparked alarm among medical professionals, who point to a growing body of research about the harm such platforms can cause adolescents.

Murthy acknowledged the difficulties of keeping children off these platforms given their popularity, but suggested parents can find success by presenting a united front.

“If parents can band together and say you know, as a group, we’re not going to allow our kids to use social media until 16 or 17 or 18 or whatever age they choose, that’s a much more effective strategy in making sure your kids don’t get exposed to harm early,” he told CNN.

Adobe Stock

New research suggests habitually checking social media can alter the brain chemistry of adolescents.

According to a study published this month in JAMA Pediatrics, students who checked social media more regularly displayed greater neural sensitivity in certain parts of their brains, making their brains more sensitive to social consequences over time.

Psychiatrists like Dr. Adriana Stacey have pointed to this phenomenon for years. Stacey, who works primarily with teenagers and college students, previously told CNN using social media releases a “dopamine dump” in the brain.

“When we do things that are addictive like use cocaine or use smartphones, our brains release a lot of dopamine at once. It tells our brains to keep using that,” she said. “For teenagers in particular, this part of their brain is actually hyperactive compared to adults. They can’t get motivated to do anything else.”

Recent studies demonstrate other ways excessive screen time can impact brain development. In young children, for example, excessive screen time was significantly associated with poorer emerging literacy skills and ability to use expressive language.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, who recently published an op-ed in the Bulwark about loneliness and mental health, echoed the surgeon general’s concerns about social media. “We have lost something as a society, as so much of our life has turned into screen-to-screen communication, it just doesn’t give you the same sense of value and the same sense of satisfaction as talking to somebody or seeing someone,” Murphy told CNN in an interview alongside Murthy.

For both Murphy and Murthy, the issue of social media addiction is personal. Both men are fathers – Murphy to teenagers and Murthy to young children. “It’s not coincidental that Dr. Murthy and I are probably talking more about this issue of loneliness more than others in public life,” Murphy told CNN. “I look at this through the prism of my 14-year-old and my 11-year-old.”

As a country, Murphy explained, the U.S. is not powerless in the face of Big Tech. Lawmakers could make different decisions about limiting young kids from social media and incentivizing companies to make algorithms less addictive.

The surgeon general similarly addressed addictive algorithms, explaining pitting adolescents against Big Tech is “just not a fair fight.” He told CNN, “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers.”

Despite the hurdles facing parents and kids, Murphy struck a note of optimism about the future of social media.

“None of this is out of our control. When we had dangerous vehicles on the road, we passed laws to make those vehicles less dangerous,” he told CNN. “We should make decisions to make [social media] a healthier experience that would make kids feel better about themselves and less alone.”

Read original article here

US

Memphis releases video showing Tyre Nichols calling for his mother, beaten by officers now charged in his death

Leave a comment

Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic videos and descriptions of violence.



CNN
 — 

Tyre Nichols screamed for his mother and Memphis police officers struck him multiple times – including in the face while his hands were restrained – toward the end of the Black man’s deadly encounter with the officers this month, video released by the city shows.

And although paramedics arrive minutes after officers disengage, Nichols appears to be left multiple times on the pavement without assistance before an ambulance comes.

The city on Friday night released body camera and surveillance video of the January 7 traffic stop and beating that led to the 29-year-old’s death in hospital from his injuries three days later. The release comes a day after five Memphis police officers, who also are Black and have been fired, were charged with murder.

The footage drew stunned reaction from law enforcement experts and outrage from officials including President Joe Biden, who said it was “yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day.”

Live updates: Memphis releases Tyre Nichols arrest videos

Protesters in Memphis took to Interstate 55 Friday night after the videos’ release, blocking both lanes of the highway’s bridge connecting the western Tennessee city to Arkansas.

The basics of Nichols’ encounter were this: Police pulled Nichols over in Memphis in what they initially said was on suspicion of reckless driving. After officers pulled him out of his car, a struggle ensued and he ran away; minutes later, officers would catch up with him and hit or kick him numerous times, video shows.

Moments from the videos include:

During the first encounter after the traffic stop, at around 8:24 p.m., Nichols sounded calm, body cam video from an officer arriving at the scene shows.

As the officer approaches the scene, an officer is yelling at Nichols to “Get the fuck out of the car.”

Officers pull Nichols out of the vehicle and someone is heard saying, “Get the fuck on the ground and turn his ass around.” Nichols responds by saying, “I didn’t do anything,” and, “Alright, I’m on the ground.”

Officers yell at him to lie down and threaten to tase him. One officer tells him, “Bitch put your (hands) behind your back before I break them.”

Nichols can be heard telling them, “You guys are doing a lot right now. … I’m just trying to go home. I am on the ground!”

At 8:25 p.m., one officer sprays Nichols in the face with pepper spray. Nichols then struggles to his feet and begins running from the officer as one another shoots a taser at him that apparently didn’t make contact.

A struggle ensues. Nichols gets up and runs, and the officers chase him.

A different body camera video shows some of what happens when officers catch Nichols on a neighborhood street minutes later, around 8:34 p.m.

Nichols screams for his mom as the video shows an officer arriving at this scene.

– Source:
CNN
” data-fave-thumbnails=”{“big”:{“uri”:”https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230127091414-tyre-nichols-rowvaughn-wells-split.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill”},”small”:{“uri”:”https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230127091414-tyre-nichols-rowvaughn-wells-split.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_540,w_960,c_fill”}}” data-vr-video=”” data-show-name=”” data-show-url=”” data-check-event-based-preview=”” data-network-id=”” data-details=””>

Video: Lawyer shares Nichols called out for his mom 3 times

Officers tell Nichols to “give them his hand,” as a struggle ensues on the ground. An officer asks Nichols, “Do you want to get sprayed again?”

Two officers hit and kick Nichols as he is on the ground.

Nichols screams: “Mooooom!” and continues to call for his mom for a while.

An officer is eventually heard yelling at Nichols: “I’m going to baton the fuck out of you. Give me your fucking hands.”

A remotely operated pole-mounted police surveillance video in the neighborhood gives the clearest view of the blows. This shows officers hitting Nichols at least nine times without visible provocation.

When the camera first turns toward the scene, an officer shoves Nichols hard to the pavement with a knee or leg. Nichols is pulled up by his shoulders and then kicked in the face twice.

After being pulled up into a sitting position, Nichols is hit in the back with what appears to be a nightstick. After being pulled to his knees, Nichols is hit again.

Once pulled to his feet, the video shows officers hitting Nichols in the face multiple times while his hands are restrained behind his body, after which he falls to his knees. Less than a minute later, an officer appears to kick Nichols. More than three minutes after the encounter is first seen on this camera, officers let go of Nichols, and he rolls on his back.

One minute later, Nichols is dragged along the pavement and propped up in a sitting position against the side of a car, where he is largely ignored by officers for the next three-and-a-half minutes.

In a body-camera video, officers can be heard talking about the encounter.

“He swung – pow – almost hit me,” one officer says. “Then he reached for (inaudible) gun,” a second officer says.

One officer says Nichols “had his hand on my gun,” and “motherfucker was holding it.”

An officer later describes the traffic stop involving Nichols: “We tried to get him stopped. He didn’t stop.”

An officer says: “He drove around, swerved, nearly hit my car.”

Van Jones, a former special adviser to President Barack Obama, put it this way to CNN after seeing the videos: “(Nichols) goes from a voice from calm (during the initial encounter) to panic … to agony.”

“It’s clearly excessive force,” former New York City police Lt. Darrin Porcher told CNN. “What’s even more troubling is, no officer was wiling to intervene and say, ‘Stop.’ “

Ten minutes into the pole-camera video – a few minutes after officers disengaged – a person who appears to be a paramedic engages Nichols for the first time, around 8:41 p.m. But responders would repeatedly walk away from Nichols before an ambulance arrives.

Two minutes after paramedics started attending to Nichols, he is seen falling over to the side and seeming to hit his head hard against a piece of equipment after a bright light was shone in his face. No one appears to help Nichols as he tries to sit up, only to fall over again.

About a minute later, officers are seen crowding around Nichols, only to step away as he again falls onto his side.

First responders then spend nearly five minutes standing over Nichols, and occasionally shining a light toward his face, before walking away.

Read stepfather’s description of video: ‘No one rendered aid to him’

Nichols twists on the ground, unhelped. Medical equipment is finally brought back to Nichols’ side about three minutes later, the pole-camera video shows.

Footage shows that 21 minutes pass from when paramedics first appeared to arrive to when an ambulance finally pulls into view of the camera at 9:02 p.m.

Two deputies with the Shelby County sheriff’s office have been put on leave pending an investigation after the sheriff viewed the videos Friday.

“I have concerns about two deputies who appeared on scene following the physical confrontation between police and Tyre Nichols,” Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. said.

“I have launched an internal investigation into the conduct of these deputies to determine what occurred and if any policies were violated. Both of these deputies have been relieved of duty pending the outcome of the administrative investigation.”

Earlier, two fire department employees who were part of Nichols’ “initial patient care” were put on leave “while an internal investigation is being conducted,” department spokesperson Qwanesha Ward told CNN’s Nadia Romero.

The US Department of Justice has said it is conducting a federal civil rights investigation of Nichols’ death.

Earlier Friday, Memphis’ police chief said the video would show “acts that defy humanity.”

Police have not been able to find anything to substantiate the probable cause for reckless driving by Nichols before his fatal encounter, Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis told CNN’s Don Lemon ahead of the videos’ release.

Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, told CNN on Friday before the videos were released: “It’s still like a nightmare right now.”

“I’m still trying to understand all of this and trying to wrap my head around all of this,” Wells said. “I don’t have my baby. I’ll never have my baby again.”

Police officials in a number of major cities nationwide have said they are monitoring for any possible public outcry this weekend over what will be seen in the video footage.

Police nationwide have been under scrutiny for how they treat Black people, particularly since the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and the mass protest movement known as Black Lives Matter.

Before the videos’ were made public, Wells asked for supporters to be peaceful during demonstrations, saying at a vigil in Memphis on Thursday she wants “each and every one of you to protest in peace.”

“I don’t want us burning up our cities, tearing up the streets, because that’s not what my son stood for,” Wells said. “And if you guys are here for me and Tyre, then you will protest peacefully.”

A Memphis church is scheduled to hold Nichols’ funeral Wednesday.

The five Memphis police officers identified – Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin and Desmond Mills Jr. – were fired January 20 for violating police policies including on use of excessive force, police said.

They were then charged this week. Each has been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, two charges of aggravated kidnapping, two charges of official misconduct and one charge of official oppression, Mulroy, the Shelby County district attorney, said.

Martin and Haley were released from jail on a $350,000 bond, according to Shelby County Jail records, while Smith, Bean and Mills Jr. have been released after each posting a $250,000 bond.

The five former officers are scheduled for arraignment on February 17.

Blake Ballin, an attorney for Mills Jr., one of the officers, said he doesn’t believe his client “is capable of” the accusations, and his client is “remorseful” to be “connected to the death” of Nichols.

Ballin told CNN he has not yet seen the video, but has spoken to people who have. He urged those who watch the video to “treat each of these officers as individuals.”

“The levels of culpability amongst these five officers are different, and I expect that you’re going to see in this video that my client Desmond Mills is not, in fact, guilty of the crimes he’s been charged with,” Ballin said.



Read original article here

Business

FDA vaccine advisers vote to harmonize Covid-19 vaccines in the United States

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

A panel of independent experts that advises the US Food and Drug Administration on its vaccine decisions voted unanimously Thursday to update all Covid-19 vaccines so they contain the same ingredients as the two-strain shots that are now used as booster doses.

The vote means young children and others who haven’t been vaccinated may soon be eligible to receive two-strain vaccines that more closely match the circulating viruses as their primary series.

The FDA must sign off on the committee’s recommendation, which it is likely to do, before it goes into effect.

Currently, the US offers two types of Covid-19 vaccines. The first shots people get – also called the primary series – contain a single set of instructions that teach the immune system to fight off the original version of the virus, which emerged in 2019.

This index strain is no longer circulating. It was overrun months ago by an ever-evolving parade of new variants.

Last year, in consultation with its advisers, the FDA decided that it was time to update the vaccines. These two-strain, or bivalent, shots contain two sets of instructions; one set reminds the immune system about the original version of the coronavirus, and the second set teaches the immune system to recognize and fight off Omicron’s BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, which emerged in the US last year.

People who have had their primary series – nearly 70% of all Americans – were advised to get the new two-strain booster late last year in an effort to upgrade their protection against the latest variants.

The advisory committee heard testimony and data suggesting that the complexity of having two types of Covid-19 vaccines and schedules for different age groups may be one of the reasons for low vaccine uptake in the US.

Currently, only about two-thirds of Americans have had the full primary series of shots. Only 15% of the population has gotten an updated bivalent booster.

Data presented to the committee shows that Covid-19 hospitalizations have been rising for children under the age of 2 over the past year, as Omicron and its many subvariants have circulated. Only 5% of this age group, which is eligible for Covid-19 vaccination at 6 months of age, has been fully vaccinated. Ninety percent of children under the age of 4 are still unvaccinated.

“The most concerning data point that I saw this whole day was that extremely low vaccination coverage in 6 months to 2 years of age and also 2 years to 4 years of age,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Birth Defects and Infant Disorders. “We have to do much, much better.”

Cohn says that having a single vaccine against Covid-19 in the US for both primary and booster doses would go a long way toward making the process less complicated and would help get more children vaccinated.

Others feel that convenience is important but also stressed that data supported the switch.

“This isn’t only a convenience thing, to increase the number of people who are vaccinated, which I agree with my colleagues is extremely important for all the evidence that was related, but I also think moving towards the strains that are circulating is very important, so I would also say the science supports this move,” said Dr. Hayley Gans, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Stanford University.

Many others on the committee were similarly satisfied after seeing new data on the vaccine effectiveness of the bivalent boosters, which are cutting the risk of getting sick, being hospitalized or dying from a Covid-19 infection.

“I’m totally convinced that the bivalent vaccine is beneficial as a primary series and as a booster series. Furthermore, the updated vaccine safety data are really encouraging so far,” said Dr. David Kim, director of the the US Department of Health and Human Services’ National Vaccine Program, in public discussion after the vote.

Thursday’s vote is part of a larger plan by the FDA to simplify and improve the way Covid-19 vaccines are given in the US.

The agency has proposed a plan to convene its vaccine advisers – called the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC – each year in May or June to assess whether the instructions in the Covid-19 vaccines should be changed to more closely match circulating strains of the virus.

The time frame was chosen to give manufacturers about three months to redesign their shots and get new doses to pharmacies in time for fall.

“The object, of course – before anyone says anything – is not to chase variants. None of us think that’s realistic,” said Jerry Weir, director of the Division of Viral Products in the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review.

“But I think our experience so far, with the bivalent vaccines that we have, does indicate that we can continue to make improvements to the vaccine, and that would be the goal of these meetings,” Weir said.

In discussions after the vote, committee members were supportive of this plan but pointed out many of the things we still don’t understand about Covid-19 and vaccination that are likely to complicate the task of updating the vaccines.

For example, we now seem to have Covid-19 surges in the summer as well as the winter, noted Dr. Michael Nelson, an allergist and immunologist at the University of Virginia. Are the surges related? And if so, is fall the best time to being a vaccination campaign?

The CDC’s Dr. Jefferson Jones said that with only three years of experience with the virus, it’s really too early to understand its seasonality.

Other important questions related to the durability of the mRNA vaccines and whether other platforms might offer longer protection.

“We can’t keep doing what we’re doing,” said Dr. Bruce Gellin, chief of global public health strategy at the Rockefeller Foundation. “It’s been articulated in every one of these meetings despite how good these vaccines are. We need better vaccines.”

The committee also encouraged both government and industry scientists to provide a fuller picture of how vaccination and infection affect immunity.

One of the main ways researchers measure the effectiveness of the vaccines is by looking at how much they increase front-line defenders called neutralizing antibodies.

Neutralizing antibodies are like firefighters that rush to the scene of an infection to contain it and put it out. They’re great in a crisis, but they tend to diminish in numbers over time if they’re not needed. Other components of the immune system like B-cells and T-cells hang on to the memory of a virus and stand ready to respond if the body encounters it again.

Scientists don’t understand much about how well Covid-19 vaccination boosts these responses and how long that protection lasts.

Another puzzle will be how to pick the strains that are in the vaccines.

The process of selecting strains for influenza vaccines is a global effort that relies on surveillance data from other countries. This works because influenza strains tend to become dominant and sweep around the world. But Covid-19 strains haven’t worked in quite the same way. Some that have driven large waves in other countries have barely made it into the US variant mix.

“Going forward, it is still challenging. Variants don’t sweep across the world quite as uniform, like they seem to with influenza,” the FDA’s Weir said. “But our primary responsibility is what’s best for the US market, and that’s where our focus will be.”

Eventually, the FDA hopes that Americans would be able to get an updated Covid-19 shot once a year, the same way they do for the flu. People who are unlikely to have an adequate response to a single dose of the vaccine – such as the elderly or those with a weakened immune system – may need more doses, as would people who are getting Covid-19 vaccines for the first time.

At Thursday’s meeting, the advisory committee also heard more about a safety signal flagged by a government surveillance system called the Vaccine Safety Datalink.

The CDC and the FDA reported January 13 that this system, which relies on health records from a network of large hospital systems in the US, had detected a potential safety issue with Pfizer’s bivalent boosters.

In this database, people 65 and older who got a Pfizer bivalent booster were slightly more likely to have a stroke caused by a blood clot within three weeks of their vaccination than people who had gotten a bivalent booster but were 22 to 42 days after their shot.

After a thorough review of other vaccine safety data in the US and in other countries that use Pfizer bivalent boosters, the agencies concluded that the stroke risk was probably a statistical fluke and said no changes to vaccination schedules were recommended.

At Thursday’s meeting, Dr. Nicola Klein, a senior research scientist with Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, explained how they found the signal.

The researchers compared people who’d gotten a vaccine within the past three weeks against people who were 22 to 42 days away from their shots because this helps eliminate bias in the data.

When they looked to see how many people had strokes around the time of their vaccination, they found an imbalance in the data.

Of 550,000 people over 65 who’d received a Pfizer bivalent booster, 130 had a stroke caused by a blood clot within three weeks of vaccination, compared with 92 people in the group farther out from their shots.

The researchers spotted the signal the week of November 27, and it continued for about seven weeks. The signal has diminished over time, falling from an almost two-fold risk in November to a 47% risk in early January, Klein said. In the past few days, it hasn’t been showing up at all.

Klein said they didn’t see the signal in any of the other age groups or with the group that got Moderna boosters. They also didn’t see a difference when they compared Pfizer-boosted seniors with those who were eligible for a bivalent booster but hadn’t gotten one.

Further analyses have suggested that the signal might be happening not because people who are within three weeks of a Pfizer booster are having more strokes, but because people who are within 22 to 42 days of their Pfizer boosters are actually having fewer strokes.

Overall, Klein said, they were seeing fewer strokes than expected in this population over that period of time, suggesting a statistical fluke.

Another interesting thing that popped out of this data, however, was a possible association between strokes and high-dose flu vaccination. Seniors who got both shots on the same day and were within three weeks of those shots had twice the rate of stroke compared with those who were 22 to 42 days away from their shots.

What’s more, Klein said, the researchers didn’t see the same association between stroke and time since vaccination in people who didn’t get their flu vaccine on the same day.

The total number of strokes in the population of people who got flu shots and Covid-19 boosters on the same day is small, however, which makes the association a shaky one.

“I don’t think that the evidence are sufficient to conclude that there’s an association there,” said Dr. Tom Shimabukuro, director of the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office.

Nonetheless, Richard Forshee, deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance, said the FDA is planning to look at these safety questions further using data collected by Medicare.

The FDA confirmed that the agency is taking a closer look.

“The purpose of the study is 1) to evaluate the preliminary ischemic stroke signal reported by CDC using an independent data set and more robust epidemiological methods; and 2) to evaluate whether there is an elevated risk of ischemic stroke with the COVID-19 bivalent vaccine if it is given on the same day as a high-dose or adjuvanted seasonal influenza vaccine,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

The FDA did not give a time frame for when these studies might have results.

Read original article here

World

FBI seizes website used by notorious ransomware gang

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

The FBI has seized the computer infrastructure used by a notorious ransomware gang which has extorted more than $100 million from hospitals, schools and other victims around the world, US officials announced Thursday.

FBI officials since July have had extraordinary access to the so-called Hive ransomware group’s computer networks, FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a news conference, allowing the bureau to pass computer “keys” to victims so that they could decrypt their systems and thwart $130 million in ransom payments.

As of November, Hive ransomware had been used to extort about $100 million from over 1,300 companies worldwide – many of them in health care, according to US officials.

The dark-web website on which Hive listed its victims displayed a message in Russian and English Thursday that it had been taken over “as part of a coordinated law enforcement action” against the group by the FBI, Secret Service and numerous European government agencies.

“Simply put, using lawful means, we hacked the hackers,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco told reporters.

The Hive ransomware has been particularly rampant in the health care sector. One ransomware attack using Hive malicious software, in August 2021, forced a hospital in the US Midwest to turn away patients as Covid-19 surged, Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

Other reported US victim organizations of Hive include a 314-bed hospital in Louisiana. The hospital said it thwarted a ransomware attack in October, but that the hackers still stole personal data on nearly 270,000 patients.

“Hive compromised the safety and health of patients in hospitals – who are among our most vulnerable population,” said Errol Weiss, chief security officer for the Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a cyber threat sharing group for big health care providers worldwide. “When hospitals are attacked and medical systems go down, people can die.”

Thursday’s announcement is the latest in a series of Justice Department efforts to crack down on overseas ransomware groups that lock up US companies’ computers, disrupt their operations and demand millions of dollars to unlock the systems. Justice officials have seized millions of dollars in ransomware payments and urged companies not to pay off the criminals.

The ransomware epidemic grew more urgent for US officials after Colonial Pipeline, the major pipeline operator for sending fuel to the East Coast, shut down for days in May 2021 due to a ransomware attack from a suspected Russian cybercriminal. The disruption led to long lines at gas stations in multiple states as people hoarded fuel.

While the ransomware economy remains lucrative, there are signs that the US and international law enforcement stings are making a dent in the hackers’ earnings. Ransomware revenue fell to about $457 million in 2022, down from $766 million in 2021, according to data from cryptocurrency-tracking firm Chainalysis.

Cybersecurity professionals welcomed the Hive takedown, but some worried that another group would soon fill the void left by Hive.

“The disruption of the Hive service won’t cause a serious drop in overall ransomware activity but it is a blow to a dangerous group that has endangered lives by attacking the healthcare system,” John Hultquist, a vice president at Google-owned cybersecurity firm Mandiant, told CNN.

“Unfortunately, the criminal marketplace at the heart of the ransomware problem ensures a Hive competitor will be standing by to offer a similar service in their absence, but they may think twice before allowing their ransomware to be used to target hospitals,” Hultquist said.

Wray said the FBI would continue to track the people behind Hive ransomware and try to arrest them. It was not immediately clear where those people were located. The Department of Health and Human Services has descried Hive as a “possibly Russian speaking” group.

This story has been updated with additional details.

Read original article here

Health

Many women underestimate breast density as a risk factor for breast cancer, study shows

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

Dense breast tissue has been associated with up to a four times higher risk of breast cancer. However, a new study suggests few women view breast density as a significant risk factor.

The study, published in JAMA Network Open, surveyed 1,858 women ages 40 to 76 years from 2019 to 2020 who reported having recently undergone mammography, had no history of breast cancer and had heard of breast density.

Women were asked to compare the risk of breast density to five other breast cancer risk factors: having a first-degree relative with breast cancer, being overweight or obese, drinking more than one alcoholic beverage per day, never having children and having a prior breast biopsy.

“When compared to other known and perhaps more well-known breast cancer risks, women did not perceive breast density as significant of a risk,” said Laura Beidler, an author of the study and researcher at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

For example, the authors report that dense breast tissue is associated with a 1.2 to four times higher risk of breast cancer compared with a two times higher risk associated with having a first-degree relative with breast cancer – but 93% of women said breast density was a lesser risk.

Dense breasts tissue refers to breasts that are composed of more glandular and fibrous tissue than fatty tissue. It is a normal and common finding present in about half of women undergoing mammograms.

The researchers also interviewed 61 participants who reported being notified of their breast density and asked what they thought contributes to breast cancer and how they could reduce their risk. While most women correctly noted that breast density could mask tumors on mammograms, few women felt that breast density could be a risk factor for breast cancer.

Roughly one-third of women thought there was nothing they could do to reduce their breast cancer risk, although there are several ways to reduce risk, including maintaining a healthy, active lifestyle and minimizing alcohol consumption.

Breast density changes over a woman’s lifetime, and is generally higher in women who are younger, have a lower body weight, are pregnant or breastfeeding, or are taking hormone replacement therapy.

The level of breast cancer risk increases with the degree of breast density; however, experts aren’t certain why this is true.

“One hypothesis has been that women who have more dense breast tissue also have higher, greater levels of estrogen, circulating estrogen, which contributes to both the breast density and to the risk of developing breast cancer,” said Dr. Harold Burstein, a breast oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who was not involved in the study. “Another hypothesis is that there’s something about the tissue itself, making it more dense, that somehow predisposes to the development of breast cancer. We don’t really know which one explains the observation.”

Thirty-eight states currently mandate that women receive written notification about their breast density and its potential breast cancer risk following mammography; however, studies have shown that many women find this information confusing.

“Even though women are notified usually in writing when they get a report after a mammogram that says, ‘You have increased breast density,’ it’s kind of just tucked in there at the bottom of the report. I’m not sure that anyone is explaining to them, certainly in person or verbally, what that means,” said Dr. Ruth Oratz, a breast oncologist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center who was not involved in the study.

“I think what we’ve learned from this study is that we have to do a better job of educating not only the general public of women, but the general public of health care providers who are doing the primary care, who are ordering those screening mammograms,” she added.

Current screening guidelines recommend women of average risk of breast cancer undergo breast cancer screening every one to two years between ages 50 to 74 with the option of beginning at age 40.

Because women with dense breast tissue are considered to have higher than average cancer risks, the authors of the study suggest women with high breast density may benefit from supplemental screening like breast MRI or breast ultrasound, which may detect cancers that are missed on mammograms. Currently, coverage of supplemental screening after the initial mammogram varies, depending on the state and insurance policy.

The authors warn that “supplemental screening not only can lead to increased rates of cancer detection but also may result in more false-positive results and recall appointments.” They say clinicians should use risk assessment tools when discussing tradeoffs associated with supplemental screening.

“Usually, it’s a discussion between the patient, the clinical team, and the radiologist. And it’ll be affected by prior history, by whether there’s anything else of concern on the mammogram, by the patient’s family history. So those are the kinds of things we discuss frequently with patients who are in such situations,” Burstein said.

Breast cancer screening recommendations differ between medical organizations, and experts say women at higher risk due to breast density should discuss with their doctor what screening method and frequency are most appropriate.

“I think it’s really, really important that everyone understands – and this is the doctors, the nurses, the women themselves – that screening is not a one size fits all recommendation. We cannot just make one general recommendation to the entire population because individual women have different levels of risks of developing breast cancer,” Oratz said.

For the nearly one-third of women with dense breast tissue that reported there was nothing they could do to prevent breast cancer, experts say there are some steps you can take to reduce your risk.

“Maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle and minimizing alcohol consumption address several modifiable factors. Breastfeeding can decrease the risk. On the other hand, use of hormone replacement therapy increases breast cancer risk,” said Dr. Puneet Singh, a breast surgical oncologist at the MD Anderson Cancer Center who was not involved in the study.

The researchers add that there are approved medications, such as tamoxifen, that can be given for those at significantly increased risk that may reduce the chances of breast cancer by about half.

Finally, breast cancer doctors say that in addition to appropriate screening, knowing your risk factors and advocating for yourself can be powerful tools in preventing and detecting breast cancer.

“At any age, if any woman feels uncomfortable about something that’s going on in her breast, if she has discomfort, notices a change in the breast, bring that to the attention of your doctor and make sure it gets evaluated and don’t let somebody just brush you off,” Oratz said.

Read original article here

US

A Florida woman is barricading herself inside a Daytona Beach hospital room after shooting her terminally ill husband

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

A woman has confined herself to a room inside a Daytona Beach, Florida, hospital after shooting her terminally ill husband on Saturday, police say.

Officers arrived at the Advent Health Hospital after receiving a report of about a person being shot, Daytona Beach police said in a release obtained by CNN affiliate WESH.

“Officers have evacuated staff and patients around the room, and at this time the female is not seen as a threat to staff or patients. No one else has been injured,” the release said. “We are currently negotiating with the female to get her to surrender and come out of the hospital.”

Dr. Joshua Horenstein, a cardiologist at Advent Health Hospital, was working in the emergency department when he learned of the shooting incident.

“Someone came in screaming in the emergency department that this was not a drill and to shelter in place,” Horenstein told CNN while hiding in a supply room with a nurse.

Horenstein said he was finally able to leave the supply room after roughly 90 minutes.

Daytona Beach Police are expected to hold a press conference Saturday afternoon, according to a tweet on the department’s verified Twitter account.

Police are asking people to stay away from the area.

CNN has reached out to hospital staff, some who are currently on lockdown inside the hospital.

The status of the woman’s husband is unclear at this time.

Read original article here

Health

Flu, Covid-19 and RSV are all trending down for the first time in months

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

A rough respiratory virus season in the US appears to be easing, as three major respiratory viruses that have battered the country for the past few months are finally all trending down at the same time.

A new dataset from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that the number of emergency department visits for the three viruses combined – flu, Covid-19 and RSV – have dropped to the lowest they’ve been in three months. The decline is apparent across all age groups.

Measuring virus transmission levels can be challenging; health officials agree that Covid-19 cases are vastly undercounted, and surveillance systems used for flu and RSV capture a substantial, but incomplete picture.

But experts say that tracking emergency department visits can be a good indicator of how widespread – and severe – the respiratory virus season is.

“There’s the chief complaint. When you show up to the emergency room, you complain about something,” said Janet Hamilton, executive director at Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. “Being able to look at the proportion of individuals that seek care at an emergency department for these respiratory illness concerns is a really good measure of the respiratory disease season.”

In the week following Thanksgiving, emergency department visits for respiratory viruses topped 235,000 – matching rates from last January, according to the CDC data.

While the surge in emergency department visits early in the year was due almost entirely to Omicron, the most recent spike was much more varied. In the week ending December 3, about two-thirds of visits were for flu, about a quarter were for Covid-19 and about 10% were for RSV.

Grouping the impact of all respiratory viruses together in this way offers an important perspective.

“There’s a strong interest in thinking about respiratory diseases in a more holistic way,” Hamilton said. “Transmission is the same. And there are certain types of measures that are good protection against all respiratory diseases. So that could really help people understand that when we are in high circulation for respiratory diseases, there are steps that you can take – just in general.”

Now, Covid-19 again accounts for most emergency department visits but flu and RSV are still the reason behind about a third of visits – and they’re all trending down for the first time since the respiratory virus season started picking up in September.

More new data from the CDC shows that overall respiratory virus activity continues to decline across the country. Only four states, along with New York City and Washington, DC, had “high” levels of influenza-like illness. Nearly all states were in this category less than a month ago.

Whether that pattern will hold is still up in the air, as vaccination rates for flu and Covid-19 are lagging and respiratory viruses can be quite fickle. Also, while the level of respiratory virus activity is lower than it’s been, it’s still above baseline in most places and hospitals nationwide are still about 80% full.

RSV activity started to pick up in September, reaching a peak in mid-November when 5 out of every 100,000 people – and 13 times as many children younger than five – were hospitalized in a single week.

RSV particularly affects children, and sales for over-the-counter children’s pain- and fever-reducing medication were 65% higher in November than they were a year before, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association. While “the worst may be over,” demand is still elevated, CHPA spokesperson Logan Ramsey Tucker told CNN in an email – sales were up 30% year-over-year in December.

But this RSV season has been significantly more severe than recent years, according to CDC data. The weekly RSV hospitalization rate has dropped to about a fifth of what it was two months ago, but it is still higher than it’s been in previous seasons.

Flu activity ramped up earlier than typical, but seems to have already reached a peak. Flu hospitalizations – about 6,000 new admissions last week – have dropped to a quarter of what they were at their peak a month and a half ago, and CDC estimates for total illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths from flu so far this season have stayed within the bounds of what can be expected. It appears the US has avoided the post-holiday spike that some experts cautioned against, but the flu is notoriously unpredictable and it’s not uncommon to see a second bump later in season.

The Covid-19 spike has not been as pronounced as flu, but hospitalizations did surpass levels from the summer. However, the rise in hospitalizations that started in November has started to tick down in recent weeks and CDC data shows that the share of the population living in a county with a “high” Covid-19 community level has dropped from 22% to about 6% over the past two weeks.

Still, the XBB.1.5 variant – which has key mutations that experts believe may be helping it to be more infectious – continues to gain ground in the US, causing about half of all infections last week. Vaccination rates continue to lag, with just 15% of the eligible population getting their updated booster and nearly one in five people remain completely unvaccinated.

Ensemble forecasts published by the CDC are hazy, predicting a “stable or uncertain trend” in Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths over the next month.

And three years after the first Covid-19 case was confirmed in the US, the virus has not settled into a predictable pattern, according to Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for the Covid-19 response.

“We didn’t need to have this level of death and devastation, but we’re dealing with it, and we are doing our best to minimize the impact going forward,” Van Kerkhove told the Conversations on Healthcare podcast this week.

Van Kerkhove says she does believe 2023 could be the year in which Covid-19 would no longer be deemed a public health emergency in the US and across the world, but more work needs to be done in order to make that happen and transitioning to longer-term respiratory disease management of the outbreak will take more time.

“We’re just not utilizing [vaccines] most effectively around the world. I mean 30% of the world still has not received a single vaccine,” she said. “In every country in the world, including in the US, we’re missing key demographics.”

Read original article here

Health

Decreasing rates of childhood immunization are a major concern. Our medical analyst explains why

Leave a comment



CNN
 — 

Vaccine rates for measles, polio, diphtheria and other diseases are decreasing among US children, according to a new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The rate of immunizations for required vaccines among kindergarten students declined from 95% to approximately 94% during the 2020-21 school year. It dropped further — to 93% — in the 2021-22 school year.

That’s still a high number, so why is this drop in immunization significant? What accounts for the decline? What might be the consequences if these numbers drop further? If parents are unsure about vaccinating their kids, what should they do? And what can be done on a policy level to increase immunization numbers?

To help us with these questions, I spoke with CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician, public health expert and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also author of “Lifelines: A Doctor’s Journey in the Fight for Public Health.”

CNN: Why is it a problem that childhood immunization rates are declining?

Dr. Leana Wen: The reduction of vaccine-preventable diseases is one of the greatest public health success stories in the last 100 years.

The polio vaccine was introduced in the United States in 1955, for example. In the four years prior, there were an average of over 16,000 cases of paralytic polio and nearly 2,000 deaths from polio each year across the US. Widespread use of the polio vaccine had led to the eradication of polio in the country by 1979, according to the CDC, sparing thousands of deaths and lifelong disability among children each year.

The measles vaccine was licensed in the US in 1963. In the four years before that, there were an average of over 500,000 cases and over 430 measles-associated deaths each year. By 1998, there were just 89 cases recorded — and no measles-associated deaths.

These vaccines are very safe and extremely effective. The polio vaccine, for example, is over 99% effective at preventing paralytic polio. The measles vaccine is 97% effective at preventing infection.

We can do this same analysis for other diseases for which there are routine childhood immunizations.

It’s very concerning that rates of immunization are declining for vaccines that have long been used to prevent disease and reduce death. That means more children are at risk for severe illness — illness that could be averted if they were immunized. Moreover, if the proportion of unvaccinated individuals increases in a community, this also puts others at risk. That includes babies too young to be vaccinated or people for whom the vaccines don’t protect as well — for example, patients on chemotherapy for cancer.

CNN: What accounts for the decline in vaccination numbers?

Wen: There are probably many factors. First, there has been substantial disruption to the US health care system during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many children missed routine visits to the pediatrician during which they would have received vaccines due to pandemic restrictions. In addition, some community health services offered also became disrupted as local health departments focused on Covid-19 services.

Second, disruption to schooling has also played a role. Vaccination requirements are often checked prior to the start of the school year. When schools stopped in-person instruction, that led to some families falling behind on their immunizations.

Third, misinformation and disinformation around Covid-19 vaccines may have seeded doubt in other vaccines. Vaccine hesitancy and misinformation were already major public health concerns before the coronavirus emerged, but the pandemic has exacerbated the issues.

According to a December survey published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than one in three American parents said vaccinating children against measles, mumps, and rubella shouldn’t be a requirement for them to attend public schools, even if that may create health risks for others. This was a substantial increase from 2019, when a similar poll from the Pew Research Center found only 23% of parents opposed school vaccine requirements.

CNN: What are some consequences if immunization rates drop further?

Wen: If immunization rates drop further, we could see more widespread outbreaks. Diseases that were virtually eliminated in the US could reemerge, and more people can become severely ill and suffer lasting consequences or even die.

We are already seeing some consequences: Last summer, there was a confirmed case of paralytic polio in an unvaccinated adult in New York. It’s devastating that a disease like polio has been identified again in the US, since we have an extremely effective vaccine to prevent it.

There is an active measles outbreak in Ohio. As of January 17, 85 cases have been reported. Most of the cases involved unvaccinated children, and at least 34 have been hospitalized.

CNN: If parents are unsure of vaccinating their kids, what should they do?

Wen: As parents, we generally trust pediatricians with our children’s health. We consult pediatricians if our kids are diagnosed with asthma and diabetes, or if they have new worrisome symptoms of another illness. We should also consult our pediatricians about childhood immunizations; parents and caregivers with specific questions or concerns should address them.

The national association of pediatricians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, “strongly recommends on-time routine immunization of all children and adolescents according to the Recommended Immunization Schedules for Children and Adolescents.”

CNN: What can be done to increase immunization numbers?

Wen: There needs to be a concerted educational campaign to address why vaccination against measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, polio and so forth is so crucial. One of the reasons for vaccine hesitancy, in my experience, is that these diseases have been rarely seen in recent years. Many people who are parents now didn’t experience the devastation of these diseases growing up, so may not realize how terrible it would be for them to return.

Specific interventions should be targeted at the community level. In some places, low immunization levels may be due to access. Vaccination drives at schools, parks, shopping centers, and other places where families gather can help increase numbers. In other places, the low uptake may be because of vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. There will need to be different strategies implemented in that situation.

Overall, increasing immunization rates for vaccine-preventable childhood diseases needs to be a national imperative. I can’t underscore how tragic it would be for kids to suffer the harms of diseases that could be entirely prevented with safe, effective and readily available vaccines that have been routinely given for decades.

Read original article here

US

Women living in states with abortion bans suffer greater economic insecurity

Leave a comment


New York
CNN
 — 

Women living in states that restrict or ban abortion face greater economic insecurity than those living in states where they have access, new research finds.

Since the nearly seven months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, half of all states – 26 in total – have implemented new abortion restrictions or all-out bans.

In nearly all 26 states, there are lower minimum wages, unionization levels, access to Medicaid and unemployment benefits, as well as higher rates of incarceration than states with more lenient abortion policies, according to new research by the Economic Policy Institute.

“These economic policies all compound on each other. And you add to that an abortion ban, it just compounds this financial stress, this economic insecurity,” said Asha Banerjee, an economic analyst with the institute and the author of the report.

Last year, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made a similar argument to the Financial Oversight Council.

“I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades,” Yellen told lawmakers in May.

The lack of abortion access has the greatest economic impact on women of color, especially those already in dire financial conditions, according to Banerjee.

“In many of these states, especially the states which have banned abortion, many of the women who are facing economic challenges already are also women of color,” she said.

Raising the minimum wage is a powerful tool that has been known to have significant impact on closing racial income gaps. But nearly two-thirds of abortion restrictive states have a $7.25 minimum wage, the lowest legal hourly wage for most workers in the United States.

The average minimum wage across the 26 states is $8.17, lower than the average $11.92 for states with no restrictions. (Many of those states also have a higher cost of living, however.)

“If the person denied an abortion is also working a minimum wage job, the negative economic effect is compounded,” the report states.

Many of those low-wage jobs also do not offer benefits like health care, which is why access to Medicaid is critical.

“Medicaid is a lifeline for low-income families and low-income women when jobs might not offer adequate healthcare. Medicaid in the immediate postpartum period is especially important,” said Banerjee.

Just 12 states have not expanded Medicaid benefits since the 2010 Obamacare law, and all of them have restrictive abortion policies.

However, some states with total abortion bans, with few exceptions, have expanded Medicaid, including Missouri. And in five other abortion restrictive states (Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota later this year) residents voted to expand the benefit.

Access to unemployment insurance is another key indicator of a state’s commitment to economic support for residents. Forty-two percent of residents have access to unemployment benefits in states that have abortion protections. Compare that to 30% in states with abortion restrictions.

Even if unemployment is accessible, the amount differs from state to state. For example, in Mississippi, a state with a total abortion ban with limited exceptions, weekly unemployment checks average $217. Meanwhile in Massachusetts, which has a more protective 24-week abortion ban – checks average $556 weekly.

“When you have unemployment insurance it helps create financial stability. These states which have abortion bans also have really terrible unemployment insurance systems with really low benefits which do not help one support oneself,” said Banerjee.

Although women make up a smaller percentage of those incarcerated than men, it is the economic category with the greatest difference between abortion protected and abortion-restricted states. The rate of incarceration in states with restrictive or total bans on abortion is more than one and a half times higher than the rate of incarceration for states with abortion protections.

“It’s very much a racial justice issue because Black and Hispanic women are very disproportionately incarcerated. And that has huge economic impacts on future earnings and the ability to get a job,” said Banerjee.

In some states with abortion restrictions and higher rates of incarceration – legislation has suggested also criminalizing women, doctors or anyone aiding a woman in seeking an abortion.

“The incarceration argument is especially important because in these states where abortion bans have come into play, there’s a huge criminalization aspect,” said Banerjee.

Read original article here