Herewith the NBC blurb–‘Walking has helped Vietnam veteran Ric Ryan and he’s known around his California town for waving to everyone he passes by. Ric decided to donate a quarter for everyone who waves back to him on his walks to Operation Mend, which helps post-9/11 veterans injured in service. NBC News’ Harry Smith spoke with Ric about going the extra mile.’
Watch it all.
In California, Chloe Cole filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against her doctor and Kaiser Permanente, claiming doctors ignored her mental health issues, including the trauma of sexual assault. Instead, they prescribed her puberty blockers at 13, then began testosterone injections and performed a double mastectomy, all before she was 17. In less than a year, she began to regret the permanent loss of the ability to breastfeed. Cole’s lawsuit states that doctors hid the harms of these interventions and the lack of long-term studies. Instead of disclosing the strong possibility that gender dysphoria could resolve naturally, doctors told her parents that without this radical regimen, their daughter would be more likely to commit suicide. Cole recently testified before Congress, asking it to end “the largest medical scandal in history” to prevent other youth from becoming victims of pediatric gender transition.
Whistleblowers on both sides of the Atlantic are confirming medicine’s betrayal of young patients. In Missouri, Jamie Reed says Washington University’s gender clinic did not allow her to schedule patients for psychological care even though they had autism, ADHD, depression, and anxiety. Reed says the clinic lied to both patients and their parents. And at Tavistock, psychiatrist David Bell says leadership treated him with hostility when he raised concerns about the medical transition of children as young as eight. Bell says, “What matters is the truth. I hate the weaponisation of victimhood, the fact that the fear of being seen to be transphobic now overrides everything. . . It’s about free thinking, the kind that will result in better outcomes for all young people, whether transgender or not.”
As more stories like these surface, doctors who performed pediatric gender transition are now being held to account by former patients-turned-advocates. Since 2021, more than 20 legislatures have enacted laws to protect children from the irreversible harm these procedures can cause. Detransitioner Prisha Mosley, for example, recently filed a medical malpractice lawsuit for pediatric gender transition surgery that left her in constant pain and fearful that she is sterile. Yet the AAP and other medical organizations continue to turn a deaf ear toward stories like hers and the growing evidence against these procedures. Instead, they oppose legislative limits that protect children from irreversible harm. Some judges have sided with them and enjoined laws in Arkansas, Alabama, and Florida. But recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit issued a decision upholding Tennessee’s law protecting children from medical transition. The court rightly concluded that it is the role of the legislature—not the courts—to determine whether such procedures should be available to children.
The medical establishment’s complicity with the eugenics movement of the last century should have led to serious evidence-based inquiry before subjecting another vulnerable population to irreversible harm; however, the country’s leading doctors are embracing ideology and eminence over scientific evidence and sound ethical principles as much now as in the age of Buck v. Bell.
I will take comments on this submitted by email only to KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.
[Ruslana] Danilkina is one of between 20,000 and 50,000 Ukrainians who have lost one or more limbs since the start of the war, according to previously undisclosed estimates by prosthetics firms, doctors and charities.
The actual figure could be higher because it takes time to register patients after they undergo the procedure. Some are only amputated weeks or months after being wounded. And with Kyiv’s counteroffensive under way, the war may be entering a more brutal phase.
By comparison, some 67,000 Germans and 41,000 Britons had to have amputations during the course of World War I, when the procedure was often the only one available to prevent death. Fewer than 2,000 U.S. veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions had amputations.
Incredible courage: Tens of thousands of Ukrainians have lost limbs since the start of the war, according to new estimates https://t.co/Kpguey0rRN via @WSJ
— Nile Gardiner (@NileGardiner) August 1, 2023
Ultrasound, the decades-old technology known for giving early glimpses of unborn babies, could hold a key to a problem that has long challenged drug developers: getting medicines to hard-to-reach places to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancer.
A cutting-edge approach that combines ultrasound waves with tiny bubbles of inert gas injected into the bloodstream can get more chemotherapy to tumor cells and enable drugs to breach one of the most stubborn frontiers in the human body—the blood-brain barrier. It is also being explored as a new way to deliver gene therapy.
“There’s an extremely wide variety of where this sort of drug delivery or augmentation with ultrasound and bubbles can take us,” says Flemming Forsberg, professor of radiology and director of ultrasound physics at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. The effectiveness of drugs in treating diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is often limited by poor penetration into tissues, he says, whether in the brain or in tumors in other parts of the body.
Ultrasound waves are combined with tiny bubbles in the bloodstream in a cutting-edge approach to deliver medicines to hard-to-reach places to treat diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer https://t.co/mzjVCjUN02
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) July 31, 2023
Despite billions of federal dollars spent to help make up for pandemic-related learning loss, progress in reading and math stalled over the past school year for elementary and middle-school students, according to a new national study released on Tuesday.
The hope was that, by now, students would be learning at an accelerated clip, but that did not happen over the last academic year, according to NWEA, a research organization that analyzed the results of its widely used student assessment tests taken this spring by about 3.5 million public school students in third through eighth grade.
In fact, students in most grades showed slower than average growth in math and reading, when compared with students before the pandemic. That means learning gaps created during the pandemic are not closing — if anything, the gaps may be widening.
“We are actually seeing evidence of backsliding,” said Karyn Lewis, a lead researcher on the study.
Whoa: "Students in most grades showed slower than average growth in math and reading, when compared with students before the pandemic. That means learning gaps created during the pandemic are not closing — if anything, the gaps may be widening." @smervosh: https://t.co/0gnhZjqDuz
— Alec MacGillis (@AlecMacGillis) July 11, 2023
Zunera Hashmi, a Toronto resident, has been anxiously waiting in line for three years to be assigned a family doctor. When she gets stressed, the 28-year-old marketing professional calls the provincial help line but hears the same message: “Wait just a bit longer.” She emails them occasionally but gets no reply.
Over 2.2 million like Hashmi don’t have a regular family physician in the province of Ontario, according to data from health-care researcher Inspire Primary Health Care, up from 1.8 million two years ago. The shortages are dire in Toronto, Canada’s most populous city and its financial capital. One in five Ontarians, most of them Toronto dwellers, could be without a family doctor in the next three years, according to the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP), which represents 15,000 family doctors in the region.
“We have a full-blown health-care crisis on our hands,” said Dr. Mekalai Kumanan, president of the OCFP, which is raising an alarm. Canada’s population saw record growth in 2022, spurred in large part by an immigration-friendly policy. Older physicians are retiring but fewer medical students are choosing family medicine. And Toronto’s aging population faces ever-more medical issues.
“It’s a perfect storm,” Kumanan said.
Read it all (registration or subscription).
Years-long waits to find a primary care doctor are becoming a “full-blown health-care crisis” for Ontario https://t.co/ULpoRCXX9J via @citylab
— Bloomberg (@business) July 10, 2023
Several studies have shown that chronic cannabis use is linked to a higher incidence of schizophrenia among men in their early 20s, the age when the disease is usually diagnosed. The first paper on the topic, a Swedish study published in 1997, found that heavy cannabis use was associated with a sixfold increase in schizophrenia risk. In the decades since, social scientists have unearthed a strong link between heavy cannabis use and other severe psychological illnesses, including clinical depression and bipolar disorder.
Now a new longitudinal study has examined the medical records of all citizens of Denmark over the age of 16, some 6.5 million people in all, for patterns of diagnosis, hospitalization and treatment for substance use between 1995 and 2021. In the paper, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry in May, Dr. Oskar Hougaard Jefsen of Aarhus University and colleagues showed that people who had previously been diagnosed with cannabis use disorder were almost twice as likely to be diagnosed later with clinical depression. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cannabis use disorder is characterized by craving marijuana, using it more often than intended, spending a lot of time using it, and having it interfere with friends, family and work.
Even more dramatically, the paper also found that people with cannabis use disorder were up to four times as likely to be diagnosed later with bipolar disorder with psychotic symptoms.
Reefer madness, literally: A new study involving the entire adult population of Denmark found a clear link between cannabis abuse and mental illness, writes Susan Pinker. https://t.co/AdnvFvGN8Y via @WSJ
— Gary Rosen (@garyrosenWSJ) July 6, 2023
The mandate was an attempt by the Biden administration to define sex to include “gender identity” for the purposes of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations. Critics say the rule would have required doctors, clinics, and hospitals to perform procedures to which they object and insurance companies to pay for such procedures.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) president Brent Leatherwood welcomed the news.
“The Biden administration’s decision to back down from the transgender mandate marks a significant victory in safeguarding the rights of medical professionals to operate in a manner consistent with their deepest held beliefs,” Leatherwood said in written comments.
“This is an important development we should take note of because it not only represents a win for conscience rights but also furthers efforts to shield vulnerable individuals who should never become pawns in the sexual revolution.”
The mystery is this. Since the late 1930s, sperm counts around the world appear to have dropped significantly. While the decline was initially observed in western countries, there is evidence of the same phenomenon in the developing world, and it seems to be accelerating. Swan, a Berkeley-trained statistician-turned-epidemiologist, believes she knows why.
For more than two decades she has devoted her life to studying the effects of “endocrine disrupting” chemicals (EDCs), which can interfere with the body’s natural hormones. These include pesticides, bisphenols, which harden plastic so it can be used in food storage containers and baby bottles, and phthalates, which soften plastic for use in packaging and products such as garden hoses. In recent years, traces of EDCs have been found in breast milk, placental tissue, urine, blood and seminal fluid.
In the glare of orange spotlights, Swan led the Copenhagen audience to her conclusion: that the innocuous products in your kitchen cupboard, bathroom cabinet or garden shed may be lowering sperm counts. They could also affect the reproductive systems of your unborn children. The implications of EDCs for human health don’t stop there: they can disrupt thyroid function, trigger cancer and obesity.
Toxic chemicals found in plastics and pesticides may harm human fertility, according to scientist Shanna Swan.
She tells us why https://t.co/4FJng2nwQr
— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) June 22, 2023
It was the dead of winter in February 2022 when I first met Marwa, a 38-year-old opium addict, sitting huddled under a blanket in the women’s drug rehabilitation center in Kabul with two of her children. Mina, age 2, had just woken up and was writhing in pain, lifting her small head to see her new visitors.
Marwa’s other daughter, Zahra, age 15, was sitting by the edge of the bed. I first mistook her for a boy as she was dressed in boys’ clothing. Her mother said dressing as a boy made it easier for her to buy drugs. Zahra had been wearing the outfit when she was picked up by the hospital’s field team from under Pul-e-Sukhta, a bridge in western Kabul that has transformed into a gathering place for drug users and sellers.
Dr. Shaista Hakeem, director of the 150-bed National Center for the Treatment of Addiction for Women and Children in Kabul, introduced me to her patients that day, telling me the family had been at the hospital for more than a week. They were seeking treatment for opium addiction, which consisted of 15 days of medication and 15 days of counseling, awareness, and skill training. It was an ordeal, especially for the children, who suffered withdrawal symptoms despite regular doses of medication. The effectiveness of treatment varies from patient to patient, Hakeem added.
Marwa had been taking opium and heroin, a more refined opioid, for 10 years, and had passed on her addiction to her youngest child, Mina, through breast milk.
'The % of women reporting drug addiction rose to 9.5% in 2015 from 3% in 2009. Furthermore, 9.2% of children up to 14 years old tested positive for drugs and were likely to be engaged in active drug use' '#Afghanistan's #opium tragedy' https://t.co/fvRJYb7pAX via @NikkeiAsia
— Kenneth Maxwell (@Kenny_Maxwell) June 21, 2023
There is a lot of pressure to be positive these days. Some people even regard it as a form of wellness treatment in itself and warn of the potential dangers of “allowing negativity into their lives”. But such enforced optimism ignores the realities of our existence. Some patients seem to think negativity will shorten their lives. But researchers in different studies have tested the hypothesis that optimism can impact survival in cancer patients and have found that it does not have an impact. In one of these studies, there was a suggestion that encouraging patients to be positive perhaps even represents an additional burden.
Whether you have terminal cancer or not, believing everything must stay positive just isn’t sustainable. It needs to be balanced with realism. An expectation that outcomes will and must always conclude well can in itself create disappointment and anxiety – because, at some level, we know that we cannot guarantee those wishes will come true.
Being pessimistic or negative on occasion can help, and patients tell me that it is pragmatic and even reassuring to talk about the worst-case scenarios that may lie ahead. When my patients spend more time getting used to the very real possibility that things will work out not so well, it can reduce anxiety considerably over future weeks and month
“Whether you have terminal cancer or not, believing everything must stay positive just isn’t sustainable.”
A #PalliativeCare consultant on the cup not always being half full. Applies to all of life, not only healthcare. https://t.co/W3xfeXDVPW— Michael Sadgrove 🇪🇺 (@MichaelSadgrove) June 19, 2023
The Black maternal population struggles more than its white counterparts beyond birth, too. In 2020, 35.6% of birthing parents in Massachusetts experienced symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD). Black non-Hispanic birthing parents (16.3%) were more likely to experience PPD symptoms “often or always,” while only 7.2% of White non-Hispanic birthing parents reported the same.
Black maternal health is a public health emergency. In a state rich with medical talent, resources and enlightened leadership, it’s crucial to ask why we tolerate these disparities when we have the means to eradicate them. The answer is embedded in the systemic racism that shapes where we live and our access to green spaces, affordable and nutritious food, and high-quality educational opportunities. The continuum of discrimination in economic opportunity and education that manifests in health treatment and outcomes begins in deep-rooted generational inequity long before Black birthing individuals even become pregnant.
That said, we are beginning to see some progress. Health Equity Compact, a coalition of more than 71 leaders and experts from various racial and ethnic backgrounds representing Massachusetts’ leading health care, public health, business, academic, philanthropic and labor organizations. The Compact plans to promote health equity through statewide policy and institutional reform and introduced An Act to advance health equity on Beacon Hill earlier this year.
“Black maternal health is a public health emergency.” HMS’ Allison Bryant Mantha and Bisola Ojikutu discuss ongoing inequities in maternal health. (via @WBUR) https://t.co/MuRponZxcv
— Harvard Medical School (@harvardmed) June 19, 2023
Five years ago, Tiffany Gardner learned she had another father. She already had two.
One had colon cancer and died when Gardner was 4 years old. Her adoptive father taught her to drive and walked her down the aisle at her wedding. At 35 years old, when Gardner received news of a third, “I remember the room spinning,” she said.
Gardner had been in her mother’s kitchen. During the conversation, her mother let go of a long-held secret about the man Gardner had long believed to be her father. He was in an accident, her mother said. He had to relearn how to walk and talk. I couldn’t get pregnant. The doctors said the accident had likely left him infertile. We used a sperm donor.
“I felt I was falling backwards trying to process the moment,” recalled Gardner, a lawyer in the Atlanta area and the mother of three boys. Among her feelings was a desire to meet her newly uncovered biological father. It didn’t take long to find him online.
“There’s nothing comparable to your genetic parent breaking up with you." Amazing journey from @AmyDMarcus on how we're defining family in the age of assisted fertility technologies and DNA testing. https://t.co/bLm7bgMuzo via @WSJ
— Stefanie Ilgenfritz (@stefaniei) June 16, 2023
Their elbows, knees and ankles throb.
Their fatigue seems paralyzing at times.
Young and old, male and female, these Christians — like around one-fifth of U.S. adults — deal with chronic pain.
Often, debilitating prognoses make such patients feel all alone, as if no one understands.
But at a monthly meeting in this Oklahoma town, fellow sufferers — some gathered in person, others connecting from afar via Zoom — find support through a ministry called Broken & Mended.
Their elbows, knees and ankles throb.
Their fatigue seems paralyzing at times.
Young and old, male and female, these Christians — like around one-fifth of U.S. adults — deal with chronic pain.
My story with exceptional photos by @Travelers_Lane https://t.co/n1cqCvUSu4
— Bobby Ross Jr. (@bobbyross) June 13, 2023
Hannah Daniel, the ERLC’s policy manager, told Baptist Press, “We believe all people are made in the image of God and possess immeasurable worth and value. Life is precious from the earliest moment of conception to natural death. Those who are struggling physically, mentally or emotionally should be met with the highest quality of care and compassion, not given assistance to end their life.”
The legislation “would have established Nevada as a destination for assisted suicide, and we joined arms with Nevada Baptists in urging Governor Lombardo to veto it,” she said in written comments.
The legislation would have allowed a doctor or advanced practice registered nurse to prescribe a lethal dose of a drug for an adult patient. The proposal gained narrow passage in both houses, 23-19 in the Assembly and 11-10 in the Senate. The majorities were far short of the two-thirds vote required to overturn a veto.
In a written veto message, Lombardo, a Republican, said the bill was unnecessary because of “expansions in palliative care services and continued improvements in advanced pain management.”
"Life is precious from the earliest moment of conception to natural death. Those who are struggling physically, mentally or emotionally should be met with the highest quality of care and compassion, not given assistance to end their life." – @hannahedaniel https://t.co/9Ngp5C5Lcd
— ERLC (@ERLC) June 9, 2023
The only way to resolve the question is with more rigorous research. While RCTs aren’t possible, researchers can try to identify alternative explanations and control for them in analyzing the data. For instance, rigorously assessing people’s social networks can help make sure that religion isn’t just a proxy for companionship. And while it’s not possible to make people start or stop going to services, or even tell them how often to go, researchers can follow the patterns that people initiate to see what effects they have on health.
Several recent studies led by Harvard epidemiologist Tyler VanderWeele do exactly this. In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in 2016, using data from over 70,000 women who were part of the Nurses’ Health Study from 1992 to 2012, VanderWeele and colleagues found that those who attended religious services at least once a week had 33% lower mortality, from any cause, over a 16-year period. In particular, deaths due to cancer or cardiovascular disease were 75% the rate among non-attenders. While religion-associated reductions in smoking and increases in social support explained some of the benefit, the data suggested that religion worked through other, as yet unexplained, avenues too.
VanderWeele’s team found a similar benefit when it came to suicide risk. Among the nurses, attending services at least once a week or more cut the suicide rate by 80%, even when controlling for diagnoses of depression, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Researchers asked detailed questions to isolate the effect of social support from that of religious activity and found that while social connection did have a positive effect, it didn’t completely explain the benefits religion offered.
Andy Vermaut shares:Is Religion Good For Your Health?: Studying the health benefits of religious activity involves special challenges, and researchers are developing new methods to meet them. Thank you! https://t.co/v4RpNSZyNZ pic.twitter.com/CUuUSpGSXJ
— Andy Vermaut (@AndyVermaut) June 8, 2023
Aa the NHS faces mounting problems, from thousands of appointments lost through strikes to record-length waits for treatment, a church in Hampshire is attempting to boost the welfare of its community.
St Mary’s, Andover, is taking referrals from five GP surgeries in the town for places on social-improvement courses, which it organises. The Lighthouse project offers support, which includes: a well-being course at the town’s further education college; debt-management advice in a partnership with the charity Christians Against Poverty; and the Good Grub Club, a community cooking and food programme that seeks to prevent food waste.
The church also operates the Life Bus: a double-decker that visits housing estates for “Make and Munch” lunch and crafts sessions. The project has supported at least 800 people since it began, and has engaged more than 170 volunteers.
The Vicar of St Mary’s, the Revd Chris Bradish, said: “There are many people who visit their GP with non-clinical needs — some may need help with debt, loneliness, or they may be struggling with other issues in their lives, such as food poverty. The partnership has meant that their needs can be assessed, and they can be offered help and time through social prescribing.”
Read it all (registration or subscription).
GPs refer ‘non-clincial needs’ to parish church https://t.co/litoa60sJX
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) June 3, 2023
People who showed up to their restaurant jobs while sick were linked to 40 percent of food poisoning outbreaks with a known cause from 2017 to 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released on Tuesday.
Paid sick leave and other policies that support sick workers could improve food safety outcomes, according to the report, which was based on a review of 800 food poisoning outbreaks, using data provided by 25 state and local health departments.
Of the 500 outbreaks where investigators identified at least one cause, 205 involved workers showing up sick, the report said. Other common causes included contaminated raw food items, in 88 cases, and cross-contamination of ingredients, in 68 cases.
In 555 of the outbreaks, investigators were able to determine what virus, bacterium, toxin, chemical or parasite was to blame. Most outbreaks were caused by salmonella or norovirus, the report said.
Restaurant workers who showed up to their jobs while sick were linked to 40% of food poisoning outbreaks with a known cause, according to a CDC report released Tuesday. https://t.co/7momqxwjdt
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 31, 2023
Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. Now, with a combination of devices, scientists have given him control over his lower body again.
“For 12 years I’ve been trying to get back my feet,” Mr. Oskam said in a press briefing on Tuesday. “Now I have learned how to walk normal, natural.”
In a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers in Switzerland described implants that provided a “digital bridge” between Mr. Oskam’s brain and his spinal cord, bypassing injured sections. The discovery allowed Mr. Oskam, 40, to stand, walk and ascend a steep ramp with only the assistance of a walker. More than a year after the implant was inserted, he has retained these abilities and has actually showed signs of neurological recovery, walking with crutches even when the implant was switched off.
“We’ve captured the thoughts of Gert-Jan, and translated these thoughts into a stimulation of the spinal cord to re-establish voluntary movement,” Grégoire Courtine, a spinal cord specialist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, who helped lead the research, said at the press briefing.
“For 12 years I’ve been trying to get back my feet,” said Gert-Jan Oskam, who has been paralyzed from the waist down since 2011. “Now I have learned how to walk normal, natural.” https://t.co/l2Wbb4CttN
— NYT Science (@NYTScience) May 25, 2023
It took a lot out of us for 3-4 days and then we have battled fatigue and headaches for a couple of weeks. Just be reminded that the virus is still out there and thanks for your prayers and support–KSH.
Thank you–KSH.
As more families across the country flock to the growing Lowcountry counties north of Charleston, Summerville Medical Center is preparing to meet the needs of an expanded population with a multi-million dollar expansion on its original campus.
This month, officials at the Summerville hospital announced it would officially start its over $60 million inpatient bed project in August. The project will add 56 new inpatient beds, a 40-percent increase to its existing 124 beds.
“As we work to meet the health needs of our community, it is vital that we add capacity and clinical programs,” said Jeff Taylor, the hospital’s CEO, in a recent press release.
Dorchester County’s population has exploded in recent years, with more than 18,000 residents moving to the county in the last two decades. Currently, over 166,000 people reside in the county. Projections put the number of residents at more than 200,000 by 2030, The Post and Courier previously reported. Many of those moving in are settling in the Summerville area.
As more families across the country flock to the growing Lowcountry counties north of Charleston, Summerville Medical Center is preparing to meet the needs of an expanded population with a multi-million dollar expansion on its original campus. https://t.co/H85PHnjmlU
— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) April 26, 2023
Tests in medical school are trying for everyone but especially so for Melanie Wiley Gail as she struggles with sounds and smells her fellow students don’t seem to notice.
“Imagine taking the exam in a room full of skunks with rock music playing,” she likes to say.
It wasn’t until after her first year at the Medical University of South Carolina — where Gail is pursuing both her medical degree and a doctorate in neuroscience — that she was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. While she is open about it and serves as chair of the Autism Society of South Carolina, many in medicine have privately told her they are keeping their condition private because they fear the public exposure.
It is a stigma Gail would like to see changed.
Pursuing a medical degree and a doctorate at the same time is difficult enough. Then Melanie Wiley Gail was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and she decided to become an advocate as well: https://t.co/1S7MqQrn7I
— Thomas Corwin (@AUG_SciMed) April 5, 2023
The families of two young men who killed themselves in Norfolk said chaplains could be effective as part of a larger effort to facilitate access to mental health care without stigma or retaliation. But they also insist on accountability and a chain of command committed to eliminating bullying and engaging younger generations.
“A chaplain could help, but it wouldn’t matter if you don’t empower them,” said Patrick Caserta, a former Navy recruiter. His son Brandon was 21 when he killed himself in 2018, after struggling with depression and being “told to suck it up and go back to work.”
Mental health problems, especially among enlisted men under 29, mirror concerns in schools and colleges, which are also increasingly tapping campus ministry for counseling. The isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated depression and anxiety for many.
But chaplains, civilian counselors, families of suicide victims, and sailors from commodores to the newly enlisted say these struggles pose unique challenges and security implications in the military, where suicides have risen for most of the past decade and took the lives of 519 service members in 2021, per the latest Department of Defense data.
On her daughter’s sixth birthday party, Sarah Pieper did what she has grown accustomed to as a mom of four kids. She held it together, masking the devastation she felt after getting life-changing news just a few hours earlier.
Pieper, a 33-year-old stay-at-home mom living in Summerville, kept busy during the party. Navigating through the maze of rambunctious 5- and 6-year-olds, she wondered what her world would look like and how the child gestating in her womb would be affected by it all.
Earlier that morning, doctors at Trident Medical Center diagnosed Pieper with stage 3 squamous cell carcinoma, a rare form of head and neck cancer that affects the tongue.
She was 14 weeks pregnant with a baby boy.
“It was probably the hardest thing for me to do,” Pieper told The Post and Courier.
The portion of American hospital beds occupied by children with suicidal or self-harming behavior has soared over the course of a decade, a large study of admissions to acute care hospitals shows.
An analysis of 4,767,840 pediatric hospitalizations by researchers at Dartmouth, published on Tuesday in the medical journal JAMA, found that between 2009 and 2019, mental health hospitalizations increased by 25.8 percent and cost $1.37 billion.
The study did not include psychiatric hospitals, or reflect the years of the coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that it is a considerable undercount.
Especially striking was the rise in suicidal behavior as a cause: The portion of pediatric mental health hospitalizations involving suicidal or self-harming behavior rose to 64.2 percent in 2019, from 30.7 percent in 2009. As a proportion of overall pediatric hospitalizations, suicidal behavior rose to 12.7 percent in 2019 from 3.5 percent in 2009.
American hospitals are increasingly crowded with children brought in for self-harming behavior, an analysis of 4.7 million hospital stays found. “You have a whole system failure here that is registering itself in suicidal kids” one doctor said. https://t.co/waLeoQVMTl
— NYT Science (@NYTScience) March 28, 2023
A last bastion of privacy, our brains have remained inviolate, even as sensors now record our heartbeats, breaths, steps and sleep. All that is about to change. An avalanche of brain-tracking devices—earbuds, headphones, headbands, watches and even wearable tattoos—will soon enter the market, promising to transform our lives. And threatening to breach the refuge of our minds.
Tech titans Meta, Snap, Microsoft and Apple are already investing heavily in brain wearables. They aim to embed brain sensors into smart watches, earbuds, headsets and sleep aids. Integrating them into our everyday lives could revolutionize health care, enabling early diagnosis and personalized treatment of conditions such as depression, epilepsy and even cognitive decline. Brain sensors could improve our ability to meditate, focus and even communicate with a seamless technological telepathy—using the power of thoughts and emotion to drive our interaction with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) headsets, or even type on virtual keyboards with our minds.
But brain wearables also pose very real risks to mental privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. As these devices proliferate, they will generate vast amounts of neural data, creating an intimate window into our brain states, emotions and even memories. We need the individual power to shutter this new view into our inner selves.
Brain sensors could improve our ability to meditate, focus and even communicate, but they also pose very real risks to mental privacy, freedom of thought and self-determination. | Analysis https://t.co/BDeqplwldb
— Scientific American (@sciam) March 28, 2023
Social care is facing a “very, very distressing situation”, the Archbishop of York has told Parliament as he urged Government action to tackle the crisis.
Speaking at Westminster, the Most Rev Stephen Cottrell painted a bleak picture in the region he represents, with vulnerable people not receiving the support they need, while recruitment and retention of staff was “appalling”.
The senior church leader raised his concerns as ministers were also pressed over reports that a promised £500 million investment in the adult social care workforce could be at risk.
“In the cities of Hull and Middlesbrough, which I serve, I see so many people in need of care+not receiving it.
“I discover recruitment+retention R appalling. I find care workers having 2 use food banks so they can feed their families" https://t.co/A7GECquy24 #socialcarecrisis
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 27, 2023
A vicar undergoing treatment for stage four skin cancer has made a song from the sounds of an MRI scanning machine.
The Reverend Matthew Simpkins, of Lexden in Colchester, was first diagnosed with the disease in 2019.
In 2021, the cancer returned and the 44-year-old, who is the priest-in-charge of Lexden, has had months of treatment and various scans.
“I thought the way I am going to get through this is by writing a song during this scan,” he said.
An Essex vicar found the best way to cope with MRI scans – was to turn the noises into a pop song 🎸
Matt has stage 4 cancer & says making music is therapy to him
This weird and wonderful story is on Look East at 6:30pm! 🎥 #essex #colchetser #suffolk https://t.co/JgMdMh85v6— Zoie O'Brien (@ZoieOBrien_) March 22, 2023