Twice-weekly COVID-19 testing of residential students = effective infection mitigation strategy at colleges and universities

 Question  What is the association between COVID-19 testing and case rates on residential college campuses?

Findings  In this cohort study of 18 Connecticut colleges and universities, infrequent COVID-19 testing of residential students was not associated with decreased transmission, whereas testing of residential students twice per week was associated with decreased transmission during the 2020-2021 academic year.

Meaning  Findings suggest that twice-weekly COVID-19 testing of residential students may serve as an effective infection mitigation strategy at colleges and universities.

One year on, Republicans still don’t consider Biden the rightful winner

 

IMAGE: A YEAR ON, MORE THAN TWO THIRDS OF REPUBLICAN VOTERS STILL DO NOT CONSIDER PRESIDENT BIDEN THE RIGHTFUL ELECTION WINNER. view more 

CREDIT: BRIGHT LINE WATCH

A year later, a large majority of Republican voters still refuses to acknowledge President Biden's 2020 election victory, which doesn’t bode well for US democracy. The most recent Bright Line Watch survey finds that just 27 percent of Republicans believe Biden is the rightful presidential winner, compared to 94 percent of Democrats.

Bright Line Watch, a nonpartisan watchdog group of leading political scientists who has been monitoring US democratic practices since 2017, was cofounded by Gretchen Helmke, a professor of political science at the University of Rochester, and her colleagues at the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College. Bright Line Watch conducts regular surveys designed to gauge the overall stability and performance of American democracy.

“For a democracy to survive, parties must be willing to lose elections and politicians must be willing to acknowledge when they have lost,” warns Helmke. “The fact that the Republican Party is unwilling to acknowledge the 2020 loss fundamentally undermines the most basic principle of our democracy.”

The group’s latest survey finds that voters’ confidence in next year’s midterm elections has already been affected: only 62 percent of Americans said they were “very” or “somewhat confident” that votes nationwide would be counted correctly. Divisions along partisan lines have notably deepened. While 80 percent of Democrats generally expressed confidence in fair elections, only 42 percent of Republicans felt that way.

Among the key findings

• Partisan divisions over the legitimacy of the 2020 election remain profound.
• Democrats underestimate the commitment of Republican supporters to democratic norms and principles, and Republicans underestimate the commitment of Democrats.
• While support for political violence had been overstated in prior surveys, millions of Americans still explicitly endorse political violence directed against the other party.
• Experts and the public believe that fundamental changes are needed to make the American government work for current times. Most needed are policy and rule changes that don’t require constitutional amendments.
• Experts strongly prefer Senate seats to be apportioned to states by population numbers rather than equally. This preference is shared by Democrats, but opposed by Republicans and Independents. Overall, the public prefers the status quo.
• Experts are relatively evenly divided about which of numerous problems facing American democracy is most severe, though they rank economic inequality, unrepresentative political institutions, and racial inequality generally highest.
• Experts see a number of reforms to campaign and legislative rules and practices as beneficial to democracy. With few exceptions, however, they think these reforms are quite unlikely to be enacted.
• Expert and public perceptions of the performance of US democracy have changed little since June 2021.

 

Nearly one-third (30%) of Americans skipped needed medical care in the past three months due to cost

 Nearly one-third (30%) of Americans skipped needed medical care in the past three months due to cost, the highest reported number since the COVID-19 pandemic began and a threefold increase from March to October, according to the latest survey from the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization West Health and Gallup, the global analytics and advice firm. Even about 20% of the nation’s highest-income households — those earning more than $120,000 per year — blame cost as the reason for not seeking care, up from 3% over the same timeframe.

The survey, the largest conducted on healthcare since the pandemic began, also found that the COVID-19 experience has significantly shaped public opinion of the U.S. healthcare system, which an estimated 100 million Americans would self-describe as either “expensive” or “broken.” Nearly half (48%) of Americans say their view of healthcare in America has decidedly worsened due to the pandemic. An estimated 150 million Americans (59%) say they are now more worried about the cost of healthcare services and 45% are more worried about the cost of prescription drugs. It is no wonder more than half the country reports that the high cost of healthcare contributes some (36%) or a lot (15%) of stress to their daily lives.

Another 60% report higher concern over growing healthcare inequities, a concern that rises to nearly 75% of Black Americans and more than two-thirds of Hispanic Americans. An estimated 12.7 million people, or one in 20 American adults, report that a friend or family member died this year after not receiving treatment because they could not afford it, with Black Americans twice as likely to know someone who died as White Americans.

“Americans have reached their breaking point,” said Shelley Lyford, president and CEO of West Health, a family of nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations dedicated to lowering healthcare costs to enable successful aging. “Between March and October, the percentage of people reporting trouble paying for healthcare, skipping treatments and not filling their prescriptions spiked to their highest levels since the pandemic began, exacerbating another public health threat borne out of cost rather than illness.”

This nationally representative survey of more than 6,600 American adults (18+) comes as a new COVID-19 variant emerges and the death toll from COVID-19 nears 800,000. The full findings of this latest survey and comparative findings from a series of previous surveys conducted over the last year were published today in the West Health-Gallup 2021 Healthcare in America Report.

Despite attempts in Washington to address high healthcare prices through Build Back Better legislation, more than two-thirds of Americans, regardless of party affiliation, are pessimistic that policies that reduce costs will emerge. In fact, nine in 10 expect their costs to continue to rise and 42% are concerned they will be unable to pay for healthcare services in the coming year.

“This negative public sentiment did not form overnight or begin with COVID-19. It’s been decades in the making after failed promises by elected officials to do something to help Americans suffering at the hand of high prices for healthcare and prescription drugs,” said Tim Lash, chief strategy officer for West Health. “However, public opinion plays an important role in the policy process, and if policymakers are listening, they have no choice but to act.”

National health spending is nearly $4 trillion in this country — approximately 20% of GDP— making it the most expensive healthcare system in the world.

“The sharp worsening in public opinion regarding the affordability of care and medicine is startling, and likely a result of myriad factors related directly and indirectly to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dan Witters, a senior researcher for Gallup. “From rapidly rising inflation, to deferred care pushed into 2021, to more people having to pay for COVID-19 care itself, the U.S. healthcare cost crisis is now coming to a head.”

Methodology

The results are based on a nationally representative survey conducted by web over successive field periods of Sept. 27-30 and Oct. 18-21 of 6,663 American adults aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, as a part of the Gallup Panel. For results based on these monthly samples of national adults, the margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is +1.5 percentage points. For reported subgroups, such as by age, political identity, household income or race/ethnicity, the margin of error is larger, typically ranging from ±3 to ±5 percentage points.

We need to reduce use of road salt in winter

 Across the U.S. road crews dump around 25 million metric tons of sodium chloride -- much like table salt -- to unfreeze roads each year and make them safe for travel.

Usage varies by state, but the amount of salt applied to icy roads annually in some regions can vary between approximately 3 and 18 pounds of salt per square meter, which is only about the size of a small kitchen table.

As the use of deicing salts has tripled over the past 45 years, salt concentrations are increasing dramatically in streams, rivers, lakes and other sources of freshwater.

Overuse of road salts to melt away snow and ice is threatening human health and the environment as they wash into drinking water sources, and new research from The University of Toledo spotlights the urgent need for policy makers and environmental managers to adopt a variety of solutions.

The study titled "Road Salts, Human Safety and the Rising Salinity of Our Fresh Waters" is published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment and presents how road salts hurt ecology, contaminate drinking water supplies and mobilize harmful chemicals, such as radon, mercury and lead, and then lays out suggested best management practices.

"The magnitude of the road salt contamination issue is substantial and requires immediate attention," said Dr. Bill Hintz, assistant professor of ecology at UToledo and lead author of the research based out of the UToledo Lake Erie Center. "Given that road deicers reduce car accidents by more than 78%, we worked to strike a careful balance between human safety and mitigating the negative environmental and health impacts triggered by dumping salt on our streets and highways to keep people safe and traffic moving."

In one major example, the researchers say overuse of road salts likely contributed to higher levels of corrosive chloride in the water supply in Flint, Mich., in 2014, leading to the release of lead from water distribution pipes.

Another example shows that high concentrations of deicing salt typically occur in private wells located near roads in lower elevations or downhill from highways.

The most common deicers are the inorganic salts sodium chloride, calcium chloride and magnesium chloride, all used both in solid and liquid or brine form.

The study examines how current federal safety limits for salt concentrations established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1988 to protect fish, plants and other aquatic life in freshwater ecosystems are commonly surpassed.

Particularly alarming is the number of salinized streams. The research highlights recent studies that show urban streams with salt concentrations that are more than 20 to 30 times higher than the EPA chronic chloride threshold of 230 milligrams per liter.

"Current EPA thresholds are clearly not enough," Hintz said. "The impacts of deicing salts can be sublethal or lethal at current thresholds and recent research suggests that negative effects can occur at levels far below these thresholds."

The research suggests several solutions, including:

• Proper storage facilities -- covered structures with a concrete base;
• Anti-icing, the application of liquids such as salt brines to road surfaces prior to winter storm events, which prevents ice from bonding to surfaces and aids removal operations;
• Live-edge snowplows composed of multiple smaller plows on springs, which better conform to road surfaces compared to conventional plows with a single fixed edge, to increase the efficiency of snow and ice removal and reduce the need for deicing salt; and
• Post-storm performance assessments to determine whether the treatment used was appropriate for the weather system and if it should be modified in the future.

"Given the lack of ecologically friendly and cost-effective alternatives, broad-scale adoption of best management practices is necessary to curb the increasing salinization of freshwater ecosystems resulting from the use of deicing salts," Hintz said.

It’s time to clean up the US Clean Water Act

 In 1969, the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire, helping to launch the modern environmental movement and prompting Congress to pass the Clean Water Act three years later. It was one of the first laws to safeguard waterways and set national water quality standards.

While the Clean Water Act successfully regulated many obvious causes of pollution, such as the dumping of wastewater, it's done less to limit more diffuse types of pollution, such as "nonpoint source pollution" that includes agricultural runoff from fields and urban stormwater from buildings, paved surfaces and yards -- says a new study from University of Missouri researchers.

Though hard to see, nonpoint source pollution has become one of the main environmental threats to drinking water across the country, said MU researchers who are offering strategies to address the problem.

"Large amounts of nitrates and nitrites, such as those found in fertilizer, can cause negative health effects such as blue baby syndrome," said Robin Rotman, assistant professor in the MU School of Natural Resources, who led the study. Rotman also holds courtesy appointments in the MU School of Law and the MU College of Engineering. "Nonpoint source pollution can lead to toxic algae blooms; pesticides and herbicides also contain carcinogens that can threaten human health," she said.

To mark the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, researchers studied the existing legislation and regulation and identified critical gaps. As a result of their findings, they are urging expanded or new policies to limit nonpoint source pollution. Without quick action, they said many municipalities will need to invest in sophisticated drinking water treatment systems to remove contaminants. Those systems can come with price tags in the millions of dollars, and the cost would likely be passed on to ratepayers in the form of higher drinking water bills.

Researchers propose three ways to tackle nonpoint source pollution:

• Amend the Clean Water Act to require states to control nonpoint source pollution, and offer federal funding for state and local initiatives to address it, including engineered solutions (such as filtration systems) and environmental solutions (such as planting vegetation next to bodies of water).
• Extend the Safe Drinking Water Act (which established contaminant limits for public water systems) to protect more rural water sources from nonpoint source pollution.
• Encourage citizens to understand nonpoint source pollution and better care for their local water sources.

Kathleen Trauth, associate professor in the College of Engineering and a co-author of the study, said it is important to control pollution even before it reaches public water treatment facilities. She said one way to accomplish this would be to apply standards from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which places maximum contaminant levels for 87 potentially dangerous substances, to rivers, lakes and other bodies of water regulated by the Clean Water Act. Trauth said regulators also need the authority to place limits on nonpoint source pollution.

"As the sources are many and they involve so many contributors, it can be hard to say how we should work on these problems," said Trauth. "But the difficulty cannot deter us from addressing them. To reorient our thinking, let's focus on where we want to go. Because if we really want to ensure clean water, we need to think about nonpoint source pollution."

There have been attempts to litigate the Clean Water Act into addressing nonpoint source pollution, but researchers said their proposals offer direct ways of facing the issue and ensuring the nation's drinking water is safe for years to come.

"Since the Clean Water Act was written, there was always a recognition that nonpoint pollution is a problem," said Rotman. "This issue is particularly important in the Great Plains states where agriculture is a leading industry. We want to see that industry continue to thrive, and at the same time ensure that people have access to safe drinking water."

Closing indoor dining = 61% decline in new COVID-19 cases

 Closing indoor dining during the first two waves of the pandemic was associated with a 61% decline in new COVID-19 cases over a six-week span, preventing an estimated 142 daily cases per city, compared with cities that reopened indoor dining during that period, according to recently published data from experts at the Dornsife School of Public Health. The team looked at data from March to October 2020 in 11 U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, Atlanta and Dallas. The results were published last month in the journal Epidemiology.

The authors are not suggesting that any specific U.S. cities should close indoor dining at this time but suggest it could be a tool worth employing down the road – in addition to social distancing, improved ventilation, vaccination and other measures – to curb the spread of new variants around the globe.  

“This clear association between indoor dining and COVID infections can help inform policies that limit indoor dining to slow the transmission of this disease,” said study lead author Alina S. Schnake-Mahl, ScD, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Dornsife School of Public Health’s Urban Health Collaborative. “We must learn from what worked in the early months of the pandemic, especially with the Omicron variant now in the United States and Delta rapidly causing more COVID-19 cases in countries around the globe.”

The Drexel study is among the first to isolate the role of indoor dining in transmission of this coronavirus. This contrasts with previous studies on “on-premises” dining (that included both indoor and outdoor dining together and COVID).

“Reducing transmission is key to saving lives and preventing serious illness, and of course helps prevent long -term financial and social costs,” said Schnake-Mahl. “Effective policy must be met with a public willing to work together and help us all get through this time and build stronger, more innovative cities for this and the next public health crisis.”

Philadelphia’s City Council passed a bill this month that aims to help those in Philadelphia dine out at less risk – by making outdoor dining structures indefinite fixtures in some areas of the city. 

The street-based three-walled boxes that hug the sidewalk in front of many of center city’s popular restaurants, often replete with hanging flowers, strong lights and heat lamps or fans – are one of the more publicly noticeable innovations by the restaurant industry to help keep businesses open during the pandemic and allow diners to feel more comfortable dining out during more months of the year.

Indoor dining may also contribute to racial disparities in coronavirus cases, as higher rates of occupational exposure are experienced disproportionately by Black and Hispanic populations working in those settings, researchers say.

“Our data suggests that closing indoor dining can help prevent transmission and may also send a message to the broader public about the severity of the pandemic,” said senior author Usama Bilal, PhD, MD, an assistant professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health. “It might also encourage other policies and regulations aimed at ensuring social distancing and improving indoor air ventilation and filtration that we know can help reduce transmission.”

The authors add that the challenge of protecting public health while preventing layoffs and restaurant closures is especially difficult considering this data, and the inherent limitations of the data available.

For example, the current study measures associations between cases and indoor dining policies, but it’s possible that opening indoor dining sent a message of reduced risk to city residents, thus leading to additional higher-risk behavior overall (such as not social distancing, not wearing masks in large indoor gatherings, etc.) in those cities. If future studies look at data pertaining to closing indoor dining from December-February, that might yield additional context as well.

Overall, the researchers report that closing indoor dining is not a substitute for other public health measures, such as masking and vaccination, but may be another way to help stem the spread of COVID-19 and prevent more widespread closures and lockdowns.

A third of US kids lack good and consistent health insurance

 In a concerning trend for the health of U.S. children, the rate of underinsured youngsters rose from 30.6% to 34%—an additional 2.4 million kids—from 2016 to 2019, according to an analysis led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers.  

In the study, published today in Pediatrics, the researchers found that underinsurance of children was mainly driven by increased rates of inadequate insurance rather than a rise in absent or inconsistent insurance. Notably, they found families who have children with special health care needs and private insurance were hit particularly hard.  

“The main takeaway is that the insurance landscape is getting bleaker, and it’s hurting millions of families, specifically those who are the most vulnerable,” said Justin Yu, M.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor of pediatrics in Pitt’s School of Medicine. “We need pediatric organizations and politicians to bring child health insurance to the forefront and make it a priority issue.” 

To understand pediatric insurance trends, Yu and his team analyzed data from the National Survey of Children’s Health, an annual survey about the physical and mental health of newborns through 17-year-olds. They defined underinsured children as those who lack continuous and adequate health insurance, with “adequate” meaning that insurance usually or always met a child’s needs, allowed children to see needed providers and protected against what parents felt were unreasonable out-of-pocket expenses. 

The increase in underinsured children was driven by rising insurance inadequacy, mainly experienced as high out-of-pocket expenses for health services. According to the researchers, this is concerning because high fees may force families to delay or forgo care for their child. 

“Access to health care helps children be as healthy as possible so they can live full and complete lives,” said senior author Amy Houtrow, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., professor and vice chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation and pediatrics in Pitt’s School of Medicine, and chief of pediatric rehabilitation medicine services at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. “I don’t believe that any family should have to choose between paying for medical care for their child or putting food on the table or paying their electric bills.” 

The researchers suspect that the rise in unreasonable out-of-pocket expenses reflect broad trends in the insurance landscape: Insurers are increasingly transferring costs to individuals and families through higher copays and premiums and, increasingly, through high-deductible plans. These trends may help explain the finding that children with private health insurance were more likely to be underinsured than those on public plans, such as Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).  

Another notable finding was an increase in the rate of underinsurance in kids considered to be more socioeconomically advantaged: white children from middle-income, highly educated families.  

“We have this idea that if you have a full-time job with health insurance from your employer that your health care needs will be met,” said Houtrow. “But our data show that, increasingly, that’s not the case, especially for families who may be enrolled in lower premium, high-deductible plans.”  

The researchers also examined underinsurance rates in children with chronic health conditions. They found that kids with more complex special health care needs were more likely to be underinsured than those with less complex or no special health needs. 

“This is worrisome because, by definition, these children need the most health care,” said Yu.  

According to the researchers, tackling the problem of child underinsurance may require large-scale policy reforms such as broadening eligibility for Medicaid or creating a universal health insurance program for all U.S. kids. But smaller policy changes—such as making it easier to apply for and stay on Medicaid or cash assistance programs to help cover out-of-pocket expenses—also could help.  

“Rather than providing a clear policy prescription, the goal of this study is to bring the issue of child underinsurance to the forefront of national conversation,” said Yu. “Once people are talking about this issue, we can start thinking about policies to address it.”  

“We know there are many possible paths to improving the adequacy of health insurance coverage for children, and this study tells us that the time is now to move forward on that journey,” added Houtrow. 

The expanded monthly Child Tax Credit must be extended before the end of the year

 

Color Of Change Community 

Change Action Economic Security Project Action 

The Leadership Conference 

NAACP National Urban League 

UnidosUS

Senator Charles E. Schumer Majority Leader of the United States Senate Washington, D.C. 

Monday, December 6, 2021 

Dear Senator Schumer, 

Now that the House has passed the Build Back Better Act, including a robust Child Tax Credit, it is time for the Senate to take this up. The Senate should pass this legislation as-is, without amendments that would weaken provisions key to the racial equity impact of the Child Tax Credit. The expanded monthly Child Tax Credit must be extended before the end of the year to give families the certainty that the payments will keep coming. If the bill does not pass by the end of the year, we risk throwing millions of children back into poverty in 2022. Passing the Build Back Better Act provides a historic opportunity to reduce childhood poverty and continued support to the most vulnerable children, particularly in Black and Latino families. 

Higher Minimum Wages Support Job Growth

Center for American Progress: States that guarantee better pay for their workers have added more jobs in 2021 than states with lower minimum and subminimum wages.

A new analysis presented in this brief shows that having higher minimum wages and eliminating subminimum wages has not hindered job growth. Indeed, employment in the predominantly low-wage leisure and hospitality industry has recovered faster in states that guarantee better pay for low-wage workers. The fact of the matter is that successful businesses in the United States can easily afford to pay a living wage to all of their workers without being significantly harmed financially.

A former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic

 Rep. LIZ CHENEY (R-Wyo.), speaking in New Hampshire, issued this warning about DONALD TRUMP:

“At this moment, when it matters most, we are also confronting a domestic threat that we’ve never faced before: a former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.

“Just last night, former President Trump was invited by House Republican leaders to be the keynote speaker at our annual large fundraising dinner. At the dinner, he reportedly said once again that the ‘insurrection was on Nov. 3,’ and that the events of Jan. 6, when a violent mob invaded the Capitol in an effort to overturn the will of the American people and stop the constitutional process of accounting of electoral votes — that those events were a ‘protest,’ that they were justified.

“Political leaders who sit silent in the face of these false and dangerous claims are aiding a former president who is at war with the rule of law and the Constitution.”

Unreliability of eyewitness testimony

We all know the scene from countless courtroom dramas: A witness points at the defendant and confidently declares to judge and jury: “That’s the one, that’s who did it!” But is it? Perhaps. If that same witness was also confident the very first time their memory was tested – write a team of psychological scientists and criminologists led by memory expert John Wixted of the University of California San Diego. Otherwise, there’s too high a chance that a contaminated memory will convict an innocent person.

As most of us also know, people have been convicted of crimes they didn’t commit on the basis of eyewitness memory. Some of these wrongful convictions have later been overturned by DNA or other physical evidence. But that type of evidence doesn’t always exist. To reduce the likelihood of injustice, the researchers suggest a simple, no-cost reform to our system of jurisprudence. “Test a witness’s memory of a suspect only once,” the researchers urge in a paper published by Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

“The first test is the most reliable test,” says Wixted, a professor of psychology at UC San Diego, who has been working on memory for more than 30 years and eyewitness memory specifically for the past decade. “The first test probes the witness’s memory but also unavoidably contaminates the witness’s memory. All tests beyond that very first one only serve to test contaminated memory and to contaminate it further. And once a memory is contaminated, there is no way to decontaminate it.”

In their paper, Wixted and his co-authors – Gary Wells of Iowa State University, Elizabeth Loftus of UC Irvine and Brandon Garrett of the Duke University School of Law – explain how many wrongful convictions of innocent prisoners in which a witness conclusively identified the defendant in court began with something other than a conclusive initial eyewitness identification.

It’s not that witnesses are vindictive or malicious, or that anyone else in the process is either. Nor is it the case that eyewitness memory is so hopelessly faulty that it shouldn’t be admitted as evidence at all. But our system of jurisprudence ignores the confidence with which first identifications are made and relies too often on subsequent identifications, usually the very last one made in the courtroom. At that point, at trial, perhaps a year or more after the crime has been committed, witnesses have usually become so familiar with a suspect’s face that they are certain they’re remembering the face. And in fact, they are remembering – but very possibly not from the time the crime was committed. Rather, they’re remembering having seen the person in a line-up (sometimes multiple times) or even on news or social media.

“Memory is malleable,” Wixted says. “And because it’s malleable, we must avoid repeated identification procedures with the same witness and suspect. This recommendation applies not only to additional tests conducted by police investigators but also to the final test conducted in the courtroom.”

In their paper, the researchers describe the latest science on eyewitness memory, including findings based on signal detection theory, elaborative processing and source misattribution. To make a decision about a face in a lineup (signal detection theory), the witness has to compare that face to their memory of the perpetrator (elaborative processing). Doing so automatically creates a memory of that face. Even if the initial decision is “no, that is not him,” the face will seem more familiar on any later test. Often, the witness loses sight of the fact that the face is familiar because of the previous lineup test and comes to believe that the face is familiar because it is in fact the face of the perpetrator (source misattribution).

The researchers also detail three real-life cases to underscore the theoretical and experimental points: The cases of John Jerome White and Steven Gary Titus, both of whom were convicted of rape on the basis of witness memories and whose convictions were later overturned, and the case of Charles Don Flores.

The Flores case is especially instructive, Wixted says. It inspired him to assemble the research team for this paper – outlining the latest scientific understanding of eyewitness memory and calling for reform.

On January 29, 1998, in a suburb of Dallas, two men entered the home of Elizabeth Black, who was later found shot dead. A neighbor saw the men enter Black’s home shortly before the murder, and she became a key witness. When the police captured suspected triggerman Richard Childs, the witness immediately identified Childs from a photo lineup as one of the two men she saw that morning. Childs also confessed to the murder and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. The police suspected Flores as the accomplice because he was engaged in a drug deal with Childs only hours before the murder, and at his 1999 trial, the same witness confidently identified Flores as the other man she saw enter her neighbor’s house. However, on the day of the crime in January of 1998, the witness told police that the accomplice was a white male with shoulder-length hair. After being hypnotized to calm her nerves, she helped to make a composite sketch of the perpetrator with a police artist. Consistent with her initial description, the sketch was that of a white male with shoulder-length hair. The police then showed her a photo lineup containing Flores – a Hispanic male with a crew cut – along with five similar-looking Hispanic males. She rejected the lineup, presumably because none of the faces even remotely matched her memory of the accomplice. Yet, Wixted says, while examining the faces on that first and only uncontaminated test of her memory for Flores, she became unavoidably familiarized with his face. By the time of the trial, she no longer had any doubt that he was the man she saw that morning.

The witness’s initial description of the accomplice and her rejection of the lineup mean that the eyewitness evidence in this case, properly understood, Wixted says, points in the direction of innocence. Instead, her confident courtroom testimony was interpreted as evidence of guilt and helped persuade the jury to convict Flores. He has been on death row ever since, and a governor’s clemency now seems to be his last hope.

Potentially harmful industrial chemicals detected in US fast foods

 Chicken nuggets, burritos and other popular items consumers buy from fast food outlets in the United States contain chemicals that are linked to a long list of serious health problems, according to a first-of-its-kind study published today.

Researchers at the George Washington University and their colleagues bought fast foods from popular outlets and found 10 of 11 potentially harmful chemicals in the samples, including phthalates, a group of chemicals that are used to make plastics soft and are known to disrupt the endocrine system. The research team also found other plasticizers, chemicals that are emerging as replacements to phthalates.

“We found phthalates and other plasticizers are widespread in prepared foods available at U.S. fast food chains, a finding that means many consumers are getting a side of potentially unhealthy chemicals along with their meal,” Lariah Edwards, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral scientist at GW, said. “Stronger regulations are needed to help keep these harmful chemicals out of the food supply.”

Previously, a GW research team led by Ami Zota, a professor of environmental and occupational health, looked at fast food consumption in a national survey and found people who reported eating more fast foods had higher levels of phthalates. No one has looked at the link between fast food and non-phthalate plasticizers, which are used in place of banned or restricted phthalates in food packaging and processing equipment.

In this study, Edwards, Zota and their colleagues purchased 64 fast food items from different restaurants and asked for three pairs of unused food handling gloves. The team tested food items and the gloves for 11 kinds of phthalates and plasticizers, finding that:

• 81% of the food samples studied contained a phthalate called DnBP and 70% contained DEHP. Both these chemicals have been linked in numerous studies to fertility and reproductive problems in humans. These phthalates can also increase risk for learning, attention, and behavioral disorders in childhood.
• 86% of the foods contained the replacement plasticizer known as DEHT, a chemical that needs further study to determine its impact on human health.
• Foods containing meats, such as cheeseburgers and chicken burritos, had higher levels of the chemicals studied.
• Chicken burritos and cheeseburgers had the highest levels of DEHT. The researchers noted that food handling gloves collected from the same restaurants also contained this chemical.
• Cheese pizzas had the lowest levels of most chemicals tested.

Phthalates and replacement plasticizers are chemicals used to make plastics soft and can migrate out of plastics into the food, which is ingested. Some sources of plastics include food handling gloves, industrial tubing, food conveyor belts and the outer packaging used to wrap fast food meals available in restaurants.

Previous research by Zota’s team suggests that people who eat food cooked at home have lower levels of these chemicals in their bodies, probably because home cooks do not use food handling gloves or plastic packaging. To avoid these industrial chemicals, consumers can switch to mostly home cooked meals, which are often healthier than fast food, Edwards said.

Both Edwards and Zota say their study suggests the need for greater scrutiny and regulation of chemicals used to make food. They point out that replacement plasticizers are increasingly used to replace banned or restricted phthalates yet the studies needed to show that they are safe have yet to be done.

The study also raises the concern that certain racial/minority groups may be disproportionately affected by these chemicals.

“Disadvantaged neighborhoods often have plenty of fast food outlets, but limited access to healthier foods like fruits and vegetables,” Zota said. “Additional research needs to be done to find out whether people living in such food deserts are at higher risk of exposure to these harmful chemicals.”

The study, “Phthalate and Novel Plasticizer Concentrations in Food Items from U.S. Fast Food Chains: A Preliminary Analysis,” was published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. This research was supported by the Passport Foundation, Forsythia Foundation and Marisla Foundation.

New K-12 “standards” are woefully incomplete, inaccurate, and wrongly focus on marriage and abstinence as solutions to adolescent sexual health

Experts at the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM) are calling attention to a crisis in sex education, specifically the continued creation and endorsement of abstinence-only curricula being taught across the U.S. The commentary in the Journal of Adolescent Health is a response to the Medical Institute for Sexual Health’s recently released K-12 Standards for Optimal Sexual Health, which the authors find deeply flawed for its scientific inaccuracies, omitted topics, and misdirected focus on marriage and abstinence as solutions to adolescent sexual health. 

The authors sound the alarm on the decline in sex education across the country. Despite substantial evidence that comprehensive sex education works to promote sexual health among adolescents, as well as strong support for its implementation from health professionals and parents alike, delivery of sex education in the U.S. has declined over the last 25 years.

“The trend of decreasing or stagnate sex education delivery over the past two decades in the U.S. is unsettling,” said Laura Lindberg, Principal Research Scientist at the Guttmacher Institute. “We are missing crucial opportunities to positively influence the sexual and reproductive health outcomes for adolescents both in their adolescence and throughout their lives.”

When taught, comprehensive curricula provide adolescents with accurate information on essential sexuality topics, opportunities to explore their identities and values, and skillsets in communication and decision-making. The National Sex Education Standards (NSES) are referenced in the paper as a prime example of standards that provide clear, age-appropriate instruction to reduce risk behaviors among adolescents and improve their overall health and wellbeing.

The authors express their dismay at M-SOSH, as it ignores the science and instead promotes an ideological agenda of abstinence until marriage. Abstinence-only-until-marriage approaches to sex education have been proven time and again to be not only ineffective but also harmful as they often withhold important health information from young people.

“It is our duty as adolescent health professionals to implement the tools we have to do better in providing comprehensive sex education to young people,” said lead author John Santelli, MD, MPH, and professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. “Promoting abstinence-only curriculum goes against the evidence and is unequivocally a step in the wrong direction.”

The commentary includes a side-by-side comparison of NSES and M-SOSH’s glossaries, highlighting critical topics missing from M-SOSH such as sexual orientation and gender identity, social determinants of health; disabilities; reproductive justice; PrEP therapy for HIV infection; and adolescent rights and minor consent laws.

“Sexual orientation and gender identity are foundational to any sex education program,” said David Bell, MD MPH, president of SAHM, and professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia Mailman School and professor of Pediatrics at the Columbia University Medical Center. “We cannot simply pay lip service by mentioning the terms. Adolescents need clear guidance to explore these topics both in the exploration of their own identities and to be able to navigate the world around them.”

“Young people have the right to the information and skills that can help them protect their health and plan their futures,” said Debra Hauser, president of Advocates for Youth, an organization that works with young people in the fight for sexual health, rights, and justice. “It is misguided and harmful to exclude information about sexual orientation and gender identity or to fail to help young people think critically about the economic, social, political and environmental factors that impact sexual health when teaching sex education. Schools have the responsibility to provide honest sex education that includes, affirms, and educates all of our students."

The authors also provide detailed examples of M-SOSH’s medical inaccuracies, including misinformation about adolescents’ cognitive development and how it affects their decision-making abilities. The risks of sex outside of marriage to an adolescents’ physical and mental health are also grossly exaggerated.

“The emphasis on marriage throughout M-SOSH is cause for concern,” said Dr. Santelli. “The vast majority of Americans have sex before they are married. The notion that marriage is the ideal setting for sexual activity is unrealistic, lacks scientific backing, and is frankly outdated.”   

The authors call upon health professionals to recognize M-SOSH as a flawed and harmful obstacle in the fight for improved adolescent sex education. The authors urge decision makers to use NSES, which provides a comprehensive blueprint for states and local school districts to build their sex education programs.

“School-based Sex Education in the U.S. at a Crossroads: Taking the Right Path” by John Santelli et al. is currently available online via this link..

The Child Tax Credit is effective, popular, and should be made permanent

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Full report

Some 91 percent of families with low incomes (less than $35,000) are using their monthly Child Tax Credit payments for the most basic household expenses — food, clothing, shelter, and utilities — or education. Families are making these investments nationwide: in every state and the District of Columbia, large majorities of low-income families are making such use of the credit, according to our new analysis of Census Bureau data covering the first three months of payments.

Many of these households are receiving the full Child Tax Credit for the first time thanks to the American Rescue Plan’s credit expansion. The Rescue Plan temporarily increased the credit amount, provided for the credit to be paid monthly rather than once a year at tax time, and halted a policy that prevented 27 million children from receiving the full credit because their parents earned too little or lacked earnings in a given year. Congress should make it a top priority to ensure that the full credit remains permanently available to children in families with the lowest incomes, a measure that in percentage terms drives 87 percent of the expansion’s anti-poverty impact.

The vast majority of low-income households with children spent some or all of their new monthly payments on necessities, according to our analysis of detailed data from Census’s Household Pulse Survey collected from late July through late September. Among households with incomes below $35,000 who received the Child Tax Credit, 88 percent spent their payments on the most basic needs: food, clothing, rent, a mortgage, or utility bills.

The Child Tax Credit payments also helped many parents and other caregivers invest in their children’s education, Pulse data suggest. Some 40 percent of families with low incomes used their Child Tax Credit payments to cover education costs such as school books and supplies, tuition, after-school programs, and transportation to and from school. (In some cases, these expenses may be for adults’ own education. About 5 percent of adults in low-income households with children are enrolled in school, other Census data show.)

A sizeable share of U.S. households with incomes above $35,000 also spent the credit on necessities, but a smaller share did so than lower-income families, who face more difficulties affording the basics

Low-income families also commonly used the credits for other needs like monthly car payments, child care (for families with children under age 5), and paying down debt.

DISCRIMINATORY ACTIONS BY TOWN OFFICIALS WILL COST CROMWELL $5 MILLON

Connecticut Fair Housing Center

In 2017, the Connecticut Fair Housing Center and Gilead Community Services, represented by Washington, D.C. firm Relman Colfax, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Town of Cromwell. The case claimed that the intentional discriminatory actions of town officials in Cromwell violated the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

On Friday, October 15, 2021, a federal jury found the town of Cromwell liable for the discriminatory behavior that forced the closure of a home for adults with disabilities in 2015. The jury awarded the group home provider, Gilead Community Services, $5 million in punitive damages and $181,000 in compensatory damages, sending a clear message to town officials that their actions violated federal civil rights laws.

In 2015, Gilead Community Services purchased a single-family home on Reiman Drive in Cromwell to serve as a community-based residence for six men with mental health disabilities. In response to the purchase, city officials in Cromwell staged a battle against Gilead and their clients through a series of overtly discriminatory actions making it clear that individuals with disabilities were not welcome.

Cromwell officials began their public attack during a forum about Gilead’s planned operations for 5 Reiman Drive, which gave town residents the opportunity to spew hatred and discrimination. The next day, Cromwell issued a press release asking Gilead to relocate the home. Then Cromwell petitioned the Department of Public Health to deny Gilead the ability to operate. When these strategies were unsuccessful, Cromwell wrongly issued a cease-and-desist order and refused to grant Gilead tax-exempt status as it had in the past. The actions of the Town of Cromwell caused Gilead to close the home.

“However, the true victims, the six men who only wanted housing free from discrimination, will likely never return to Cromwell, and now live with the understanding that because of their disabilities they are not welcome in all communities.”

Erin kemple, Executive Director for the Connecticut Fair Housing Center

“By making such a large punitive damages award, the jury recognized and rejected the intentional, illegal acts of town officials. I hope this serves as a message to other municipalities that they cannot refuse to allow people with disabilities to move into their communities,” said Erin Kemple, Executive Director of the Connecticut Fair Housing Center, one of the co-plaintiffs in the case. “However, the true victims, the six men who only wanted housing free from discrimination, will likely never return to Cromwell, and now live with the understanding that because of their disabilities they are not welcome in all communities.”

Testimony in Opposition to Permit Applications by Wheelabrator Putnam, Inc.

CT Zero Waste Testimony

We are writing as a group of concerned experts, residents, and environmental advocates in opposition to the proposed permits and modification of permits to enable expansion of the Wheelabrator ash landfill in Putnam with capacity to handle 7-10 times the volume needed to serve Connecticut. 2 / CT Zero Waste Testimony, 10/15/2021 We respectfully request that you deny Application Nos. 201903454, 201500823, 201903451, and 201903452 to expand the landfill and discharge (via the water pollution control facility) into the sewer and the groundwater, and then inevitably into the Quinebaug River. Ash can blow off of the landfill into the nearby community and environment. If airborne ash and leachate is allowed to be discharged in this way it will be detrimental to human health, wildlife habitats, and the environment. Incinerator ash and its leachate are known to contain toxics that are harmful to human health and persist in the environment. Most notably, these include chemicals and metals such as dioxins and furans, mercury, lead, and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS, known as forever chemicals, are highly persistent and can last in the environment for thousands of years. PFAS are also highly toxic to humans in very low doses. Epidemiological research shows that PFAS can cause high cholesterol, low birth weights, certain cancers, and immune system and thyroid disruption. CT DEEP has identified the Quinebaug River ecosystem as an area of natural diversity in its Natural Diversity Database. The DEEP website indicates the importance of natural diversity regions: The Natural Diversity Database maps represent approximate locations of endangered, threatened, and special concern species and significant natural communities in Connecticut. The locations of species and natural communities depicted on the maps are based on data collected over the years by DEEP staff, scientists, conservation groups, and landowners. From a federal perspective, these permits, and this modification also contradict the purpose and intent of the Clean Water Act. Downgrading water to facilitate its pollution undermines federal safeguards and would serve no purpose other than to signal to industry that these protections are unimportant and optional. Progress to protect human health and the environment happens only when government agencies adopt policies that show polluting industries that we will not accept outdated, unsafe, and wasteful practices. 

Adding SNAP benefits for older adults in Medicare, Medicaid can reduce hospital visits, healthcare costs

A study published in Annals of Internal Medicine shows that participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by older adults dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid is associated with fewer hospital visits and lower healthcare costs.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA HEALTH CARE

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IMAGE: SETH BERKOWITZ, MD, MPH view more 

CREDIT: UNC SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

CHAPEL HILL, NC – Food insecurity among older adults takes a toll on the nutrition and health of those affected. According to datafrom 2019, 5.2 million people age 60 and above in the U.S. were food insecure – equaling 7.1% of that population – and that number has likely grown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Older adults facing food insecurity are more likely to have chronic health conditions like depression, asthma, diabetes, congestive heart failure and heart attack. Only 48% of older adults who qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides benefits to supplement budgets to purchase healthy and nutritious foods, are enrolled in the program.

A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows the importance of older adults taking advantage of this nutrition benefit, as it is associated with fewer hospital visits and lower healthcare costs.

“Providing income support for older adults is incredibly important for health,” said study lead author Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, MPH, assistant professor of general medicine and epidemiology at the UNC School of Medicine. “Along with affecting the foods they have access to, food insecurity can force people to choose between food and medications or other basic needs, and worsen mental health. All of this takes a toll on what is already a group at high risk for poor health outcomes.”

The study used a unique circumstance to better evaluate the association between SNAP participation and healthcare use and cost. In 2017, Benefits Data Trust – a national nonprofit dedicated to helping people access essential public benefits and services – was contracted by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to help people age 65 and over who were dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid enroll in SNAP. BDT provided outreach to these individuals by mail, a telephone-based screening, and – if the person chose to enroll in SNAP – the nonprofit would aid in filing an application. This circumstance allowed for previously unavailable linkages among data sets related to SNAP outreach, SNAP participation, and health care use and cost.

Researchers used data from BDT’s outreach to more than 115,000 people age 65 and older in North Carolina between 2016 and 2020 who were dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, and were eligible for SNAP but not enrolled. Almost 5,100 of those who received outreach about SNAP benefits enrolled in the program. SNAP enrollment was associated with a decrease in inpatient hospitalizations, emergency department visits, long-term care admissions, as well as fewer dollars in Medicaid payments per person per year.

“Billions of dollars in food and healthcare assistance go untapped every year, often because people aren’t aware they are eligible or they are not sure how to access them,” said Pauline Abernathy, chief strategy officer at BDT. “These research findings show that data-driven outreach and application assistance significantly increase SNAP participation, which in turn markedly improves health and lowers Medicaid costs. With millions of people 65 and older eligible but not participating in SNAP, this research underscores the urgent need to increase outreach and streamline enrollment.”

Study co-authors include Deepak Palakshappa, MD, MSHP, and Joseph Rigdon, PhD, of Wake Forest School of Medicine; Hilary K. Seligman, MD, MAS, of University of California San Francisco; and Sanjay Basu, MD, PhD, of the Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School.

This study was primarily funded by the National Institutes of Health.