It was a complicated day for abortion rights advocates. We’ll look into the details. Plus: Why the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant decline in measles vaccination among children worldwide.
Welcome to Overnight Health CareFollow the latest developments in policy and news that affect your health. The Hill is Nathaniel Weisel and Joseph Choi. Can anyone forward this newsletter to me?
Programming Notes: I’m taking a break starting tomorrow. Overnight Health will be back in your inbox on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving!
Georgia Supreme Court Grants Six-Week Abortion Ban
The Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the state’s ban on abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy.
The court granted the state’s emergency petition, suspending a lower court ruling last week in which a judge called the ban “unconstitutional.”
The Reproductive Rights Group argued that the state’s abortion ban violated the state’s constitution.
They won a ruling from the Fulton County Superior Court earlier this month in which Judge Robert McBurney ruled that the ban was invalid.
According to the ACLU, a patient who had an appointment for an abortion last week was turned down.
- Georgia’s Living Infant Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act, passed in 2019, bans abortions in the state, usually around six weeks gestation, after a fetal heartbeat has been detected.
- After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling in June, a complex patchwork of state laws emerged, particularly in conservative states in the South and Midwest, leading to new abortion restrictions and even near-total bans. The movement to impose also progressed rapidly.
Many people do not yet know they are pregnant at 6 weeks, the earliest period when electrical activity in the fetal heart can be detected. This law is often called the “law of heartbeat”, but electrical activity is not the same as heartbeat.
Please check this out for details.
Kansas Court Allows Telemedicine for Abortion Pills
A Kansas court has suspended a 2011 law banning doctors from performing telemedicine medical abortions.
Shawnee County District Court Judge Teresa Watson granted a temporary injunction barring enforcement of a state law requiring doctors to administer abortion pills while in the same room as a patient.
Still, the Kansas Supreme Court may eventually step in before telemedicine abortions are allowed to resume.
- Since June’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, more women are using abortion pills when they need to terminate their pregnancies. Confirmed to be very safe.
- A medical abortion requires two pills. It is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for her first ten weeks of pregnancy.
Mifepristone, a drug that blocks hormones necessary for pregnancy, was approved in 2000. followed by misoprostol.
The FDA temporarily lifted the requirement to dispense mifepristone face-to-face in a clinic or hospital because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Biden administration made this change permanent in December, allowing doctors to dispense the drug. Prescription digitally and then mailed. Pills to patients.
In 2020, medical abortions accounted for 54% of all abortions in the United States.
However, 18 states have laws banning the use of telemedicine for drug abortions.
1 in 8 deaths in 2019 were linked to bacterial infections
In a study published Monday in The Lancet, a large group of collaborators report the first global estimates of mortality from bacterial pathogens.
The study found that 7.7 million deaths were associated with bacterial infections worldwide in 2019. That estimate put her accounted for 13.6% of all global deaths that year, or about 1 in 8.
This analysis highlights the importance of understanding the number of deaths attributed to bacterial infections and the problem of antimicrobial resistance, which has been steadily increasing in recent decades.
From a global perspective, we can see that more deaths could occur if the antibiotics currently in use become less effective.
The team used 343 million individual records and pathogen isolates to estimate the type of death and underlying infection.
Please check this out for details.
Shortage of mental health service providers may increase youth suicide rates: study
Rising suicide rates among young people ages 5 to 19 are consistent with a growing shortage of mental health care providers at the county level, according to new research results.
The survey results were published in JAMA Pediatrics and reflect data from 2015 and 2016.
But more than 157 million Americans now live in areas where mental health care professionals are in short supply, according to national data.
A total of 5,034 adolescents committed suicide within the study window, the majority of whom were male and Caucasian.
Before adjusting for confounders, counties with provider shortages had a 41% higher youth suicide rate, 5.09 per 100,000 youths compared to 3.62 per 100,000 in areas without shortages. It turns out that
Of the 3,133 counties included in the survey, more than two-thirds lacked mental health care providers. These counties had large numbers of uninsured children, low levels of education, high unemployment and poverty rates, and were often rural.
Please check this out for details.
Missed measles vaccination puts up to 40 million children at risk
Global childhood measles vaccination has declined significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a joint report released Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). , the disease has become an “imminent threat” worldwide. ).
Nearly 40 million children will miss the measles vaccine in 2021, a record high. Nearly 25 million children missed her first dose, an 11% increase from 2020. He also found in the report that 14.7 million children missed her second shot. This was the lowest level. Vaccination from 2008.
Delays increase the risk of measles epidemics, and officials said now is the time for public health officials to accelerate vaccination efforts and step up surveillance.
- Measles is highly contagious and is almost completely preventable through vaccination. To achieve herd immunity and eliminate the virus, a country must achieve at least 95% vaccination coverage.
- But the world is far behind, with only 81% of children receiving their first measles-containing vaccine and only 71% receiving their second dose.
“Highly contagious diseases like measles leave vast numbers of unvaccinated children at very high risk of outbreaks and cross-border disease. …everywhere. Measles is a threat everywhere,” said Cynthia Hatcher, one of the authors of the report overseeing the CDC’s African measles eradication effort.
Please check this out for details.
what we are reading
- COVID-19 relief fund trickle helps close gaps in mental health services for rural children (Kaiser Health News)
- One-third of U.S. laboratories have stopped using race-based formulas to diagnose kidney disease (Stat)
- Adderall and Amoxicillin Shortages Raise Questions About Big Pharma (NBC) Transparency and Accountability
by state
- Work-from-home culture takes root in California (Sacramento Bee)
- Nearing the end of his term, Baker was reappointed as Chief Coroner, the highest-paid official in his administration (Boston Globe)
- Oklahoma Health Department Talks Absence of Pandemic Center, Health Lab Issues (KRMG)
That’s all for today, thanks for reading. For the latest news and coverage, visit The Hill’s Health Care page. see you next week.
.
