Safe Haven Baby Boxes and A Safe Haven for Newborns are two charities with similar names and the same goal: providing distressed mothers with a safe place to surrender their unwanted newborns instead of dumping them in trash cans or along roadsides.
But a fight between the two is brewing in the Florida Senate. An existing state law, supported and promoted by the Miami-based A Safe Haven, allows parents to surrender newborns to firefighters and hospital workers without giving their names. A new bill, supported by the Indiana-based Safe Haven Baby Boxes, would give fire stations and hospitals the option to install the group’s ventilated and climate-controlled boxes, where parents could drop off their babies without interacting with fire or hospital employees.
The bill recently passed the Florida House unanimously, but there is a long-shot effort to block it in the Senate, where it might be considered this week. Opponents call the boxes costly, unnecessary and potentially dangerous for the babies, mothers, firefighters and hospital workers. Each side accuses the other of being financially driven.
Similar baby-box bills have been approved recently by lawmakers in Kansas, Montana and Mississippi and sent to those states’ governors for approval. West Virginia’s legislature is also considering such a bill. The boxes are already allowed in nine states, mostly in the Midwest and South, with the largest numbers in Indiana, Arkansas, and Kentucky, respectively. About 145 boxes have been installed since the first in 2016, with 25 newborns surrendered through one, Safe Haven Baby Boxes says.
Just one baby has been left in Florida’s only box, installed two years ago at a Central Florida firehouse without state authorization. The boxes open from outside the building, allowing the parent to place the baby in a bassinet as a bag containing instructions and maternal medical advice drops out. The door locks when it is reclosed and the agency is notified electronically. Safe Haven Baby Boxes says the average response time is two minutes.
A newborn was surrendered to Florida’s first and only Safe Haven Baby Box, marking the first time it has been used.
“Giving women an option of (total) anonymity is just that, an option. Why would (opponents) want to take that away from women?” said the group’s founder, firefighter Monica Kelsey, who was abandoned as a newborn and is an outspoken abortion opponent. She accused A Safe Haven for Newborns of fearing a loss of grants if the boxes are installed, something the group denies.
Republican Rep. Jennifer Canady, the bill’s lead sponsor, declined an interview request. She said in a statement that her proposed law would be “an important next step to provide options to save lives and protect life at every stage.”
Joel Gordon, a spokesman for A Safe Haven for Newborns and deputy chief at a suburban Fort Lauderdale fire department, suggested that Kelsey possibly profits from the boxes. She denies that. Her group gets mixed reviews from organizations that monitor charities.
Gordon also contended that the bill’s proponents have opposed all amendments that he says would make the boxes safer and the program more workable. A Safe Haven trains fire departments and hospitals on how to implement the current law.
“It is not an objection to giving the mother as many potentials as possible to help rescue and save these babies. It’s the box itself, and the way the box is administered, that gives us concern,” Gordon said.
Senate Democratic leader Lauren Book, who heads the bill’s opposition, added, “We can do better than putting children in boxes. The safe haven law we have on the books currently is working.”
In 2000, Florida became one of the first states to allow babies to be anonymously surrendered for adoption at hospitals and firehouses. Under it, parents can hand over newborns up to 7 days old, no questions asked, assuming there is no evidence of neglect or abuse. Since its enactment, 370 newborns have been legally surrendered, Gordon said.
The new bill would allow but not require fire departments and hospitals to acquire the boxes, which would be leased from Kelsey’s group. They cost about $16,000 installed and there is a $300 annual maintenance and inspection fee, paid to Kelsey’s charity. Sometimes the installation and fees are paid by donors, she said.
“Was that baby (in Central Florida) not worth the fight we have put up to keep that box?” she said. ‘I think it was.”
Ocala’s Fire Rescue Headquarters will soon house Florida’s first Safe Haven Baby Box.
Gordon said only five Florida babies have been illegally abandoned since 2018, and in several recent years that number was zero. He argues that a surrendered baby’s mother benefits more from direct interaction with a firefighter or hospital worker, who can assess if she needs medical or psychological care. Such contact also provides her with certainty that her baby is safe, he said.
Gordon said Kelsey’s boxes also don’t meet Florida public building safety standards and would allow those who have abused their newborn or kidnapped or trafficked the child a way to escape detection. Gordon and Book also say the boxes give terrorists a spot to place a bomb or toxic substance, endangering firefighters and hospital workers — something Kelsey says has never happened.
“Until it does,” Book responded. “I want to make sure that the people who are there to protect and serve our community are kept safe.”
Book, who was recently arrested for trespassing during a protest against the state’s proposed abortion restrictions, said the box bill is part of broader effort by DeSantis and the legislative majority to impose conservative Christian morality on all Floridians, regardless of their personal beliefs.
“You can’t just look at this one piece of policy. You have to look at the whole of what is going on, and I’m just not going to stand for it,” Book said.
Kelsey accused opponents of “grasping at straws.” She said while abusers should be identified and tracked down, it is best for the babies if their parents give them up before the abuse leads to serious injury or death.
The U.S. national emergency to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic ended Monday as President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan congressional resolution to bring it to a close after three years — weeks before it was set to expire alongside a separate public health emergency.
The national emergency allowed the government to take sweeping steps to respond to the virus and support the country’s economic, health and welfare systems. Some of the emergency measures have already been successfully wound-down, while others are still being phased out. The public health emergency — it underpins tough immigration restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border — is set to expire on May 11.
The White House issued a one-line statement Monday saying Biden had signed the measure behind closed doors, after having publicly opposed the resolution though not to the point of issuing a veto. More than 197 Democrats in the House voted against it when the GOP-controlled chamber passed it in February. Last month, as the measure passed the Senate by a 68-23 vote, Biden let lawmakers know he would sign it.
The administration said once it became clear that Congress was moving to speed up the end of the national emergency it worked to expedite agency preparations for a return to normal procedures. Among the changes: The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s COVID-19 mortgage forbearance program is set to end at the end of May, and the Department of Veterans Affairs is now returning to a requirement for in-home visits to determine eligibility for caregiver assistance.
Legislators last year did extend for another two years telehealth flexibilities that were introduced as COVID-19 hit, leading health care systems around the country to regularly deliver care by smartphone or computer.
More than 1.13 million people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 over the last three years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 1,773 people in the week ending April 5.
Then-President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar first declared a public health emergency on Jan. 31, 2020, and Trump declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national emergency that March. The emergencies have been repeatedly extended by Biden since he took office in January 2021, and he broadened the use of emergency powers after entering the White House.
An analysis that was the basis of a highly criticized recommendation from Florida’s surgeon general cautioning young men against getting the COVID-19 vaccine omitted information that showed catching the virus could increase the risk of a cardiac-related death much more than getting the mRNA shot, according to drafts of the analysis obtained by the Tampa Bay Times.
The nonbinding recommendation made by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo last fall ran counter to the advice provided by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ladapo, a Harvard-trained medical doctor who was appointed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021 to head the Florida Department of Health, has drawn intense scrutiny over his shared resistance with the Republican governor to COVID-19 mandates for vaccines and masks and other health policies endorsed by the federal government.
The early drafts of the analysis obtained by the Times through a records request showed that catching COVID-19 could increase the chances of a cardiac-related death much more than getting the vaccine, but that information was missing from the final version put out by the Florida Department of Health last October.
Ladapo said that the risk of men ages 18 to 39 having cardiac complications outweighed the benefits of getting the mRNA vaccine.
Matt Hitchings, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, told the Times that it seems that sections of the analysis were omitted because they did not fit the narrative the surgeon general wanted to push.
“This is a grave violation of research integrity,” Hitchings said. “(The vaccine) has done a lot to advance the health of people of Florida and he’s encouraging people to mistrust it.”
In a statement on Twitter posted Saturday in response to the Times’ story, Ladapo said, “It’s not only unfortunate that COVID has corrupted scientists’ ability to think clearly about epidemiology but also sad that people rush to defend a vaccine that has shown increased cardiovascular risk in multiple studies.”
Last year, Ladapo released guidance recommending against vaccinations for healthy children, contradicting federal public health leaders whose advice says all kids should get the shots. In response, the American Academy of Pediatrics and its Florida chapter issued written statements reiterating support for vaccinating eligible children age 5 and older against COVID-19.
DeSantis, who is contemplating a run for the GOP presidential nomination, also has requested that a grand jury be convened to investigate any wrongdoing with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines. DeSantis’ request argues that pharmaceutical companies had a financial interest in creating a climate in which people believed that getting a coronavirus vaccine would ensure they couldn’t spread the virus to others.
The Florida Supreme Court agreed to the request last December.
Total Doses Distributed = 974,987,545. Total Doses Administered = 674,375,206. Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses = 270,045,602. Number of People Fully Vaccinated = 230,418,632.
South Korea this month will begin weekly tests of sewage produced by its major cities and towns to track the spread of COVID-19 and identify future waves.
Officials at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Wednesday that wastewater surveillance will potentially provide a cheaper and more sustainable tool in the country’s pandemic response. They say it could also improve the detection of other outbreaks, such as influenza, norovirus or drug-resistant bacteria.
According to the plans, health workers will conduct tests on sewage samples collected from 64 wastewater facilities nationwide at least once a week and regularly release analyses of the test results on its website.
KDCA said its recent trial runs with cities and provincial governments showed that the levels of pathogens found in sewage samples largely aligned with infection trends in those areas, confirming the value of testing water released from faucets, toilets and bathtubs. Similar tests have also been adopted in the United States.
South Korea had maintained a stringent COVID-19 response based on aggressive testing, contact tracing and quarantines during the earlier part of the pandemic, but has eased most of its virus controls since last year as the omicron variant’s surge rendered those containment strategies irrelevant.
Government officials are also eager to revive a devastated service sector economy and attract more tourists. Their plans for wastewater testing are also an extension of their bend-but-not-break approach with COVID-19 that tolerates the coronavirus’ spread among the broader population while concentrating medical resources to protect priority groups.
Lee Sang-won, KDCA’s director of epidemiologic research, said wastewater surveillance could help the country’s transition toward a more affordable virus monitoring regime.
South Korea’s current system is still aimed at tracking every COVID-19 case by requiring hospitals to report all positive tests, an approach Lee described as expensive and laborious. He said health officials are considering an eventual switch to “sample-based surveillance,” like they do with influenza monitoring, where only a certain number of designated hospitals register their cases.
“When that (transition) comes, we believe wastewater surveillance will function as a very effective tool” for providing complementary information on virus trends, Lee said during a briefing. “Another strength is that we can monitor various pathogens other than COVID-19.”
While coronaviruses causing COVID-19 don’t likely survive in water for long, Lee said the country’s genetic testing methods would also be able to detect fragments of dead viruses.
After gaining 30 pounds during the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Daniel Murillo is finally getting back into fighting shape.
Early pandemic lockdowns, endless hours on his laptop and heightened stress led Murillo, 27, to reach for cookies and chips in the barracks at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Gyms were closed, organized exercise was out and Murillo’s motivation to work out on his own was low.
“I could notice it,” said Murillo, who is 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed as much as 192 pounds. “The uniform was tighter.”
Murillo wasn’t the only service member dealing with extra weight. New research found that obesity in the U.S. military surged during the pandemic. In the Army alone, nearly 10,000 active duty soldiers developed obesity between February 2019 and June 2021, pushing the rate to nearly a quarter of the troops studied. Increases were seen in the U.S. Navy and the Marines, too.
“The Army and the other services need to focus on how to bring the forces back to fitness,” said Tracey Perez Koehlmoos, director of the Center for Health Services Research at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the research.
Overweight and obese troops are more likely to be injured and less likely to endure the physical demands of their profession. The military loses more than 650,000 workdays each year because of extra weight and obesity-related health costs exceed $1.5 billion annually for current and former service members and their families, federal research shows.
More recent data won’t be available until later this year, said Koehlmoos. But there’s no sign that the trend is ending, underscoring longstanding concerns about the readiness of America’s fighting forces.
Military leaders have been warning about the impact of obesity on the U.S. military for more than a decade, but the lingering pandemic effects highlight the need for urgent action, said retired Marine Corps Brigadier General Stephen Cheney, who co-authored a recent report on the problem.
“The numbers have not gotten better,” Cheney said in a November webinar held by the American Security Project, a nonprofit think tank. “They are just getting worse and worse and worse.”
In fiscal year 2022, the Army failed to make its recruiting goal for the first time, falling short by 15,000 recruits, or a quarter of the requirement. That’s largely because three-quarters of Americans aged 17 to 24 are not eligible for military service for several reasons, including extra weight. Being overweight is the biggest individual disqualifier, affecting more than 1 in 10 potential recruits, according to the report.
“It is devastating. We have a dramatic national security problem,” Cheney said.
Extra weight can make it difficult for service members to meet core fitness requirements, which differ depending on the military branch. In the Army, for instance, if soldiers can’t pass the Army Combat Fitness Test, a recently updated measure of ability, it could result in probation or end their military careers.
Koehlmoos and her team analyzed medical records for all active duty Army soldiers in the Military Health System Data Repository, a comprehensive archive. They looked at two periods: before the pandemic, from February 2019 to January 2020, and during the crisis, from September 2020 to June 2021. They excluded soldiers without complete records in both periods and those who were pregnant in the year before or during the study.
Of the cohort of nearly 200,000 soldiers who remained, the researchers found that nearly 27% who were healthy before the pandemic became overweight. And nearly 16% of those who were previously overweight became obese. Before the pandemic, about 18% of the soldiers were obese; by 2021, it grew to 23%.
The researchers relied on standard BMI, or body mass index, a calculation of weight and height used to categorize weight status. A person with a BMI of 18.5 to 25 is considered healthy, while a BMI of 25 to less than 30 is considered overweight. A BMI of 30 or higher is categorized as obese. Some experts claim that the BMI is a flawed measure that fails to account for muscle mass or underlying health status, though it remains a widely used tool.
In Murillo’s case, his BMI during the pandemic reached nearly 32. The North Carolina Army soldier knew he needed help, so he turned to a military dietician and started a strict exercise routine through the Army’s Holistic Health and Fitness, or H2F, program.
“We do two runs a week, 4 to 5 miles,” Murillo said. “Some mornings I wanted to quit, but I hung in there.”
Slowly, over months, Murillo has been able to reverse the trajectory. Now, his BMI is just over 27, which falls within the Defense Department’s standard, Koehlmoos said.
She found increases in other service branches, but focused first on the Army. The research squares with trends noted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which warned that in 2020, nearly 1 in 5 of all service members were obese.
The steady creep of obesity among service members is “alarming,” said Cheney. “The country has not approached obesity as the problem it really is,” he added.
Putting on extra pounds during the pandemic wasn’t just a military problem. A survey last year of American adults found that nearly half reported gaining weight after the first year of the COVID-19 emergency. Another study found a sharp rise in obesity among kids during the pandemic. The gains came in a country where more than 40% of American adults and nearly 20% of children struggle with obesity, according to the CDC.
“Why would we think the military is any different than a person who is not in the military?” said Dr. Amy Rothberg, an endocrinologist at the University of Michigan who directs a weight-loss program. “Under stress, we want to store calories.”
It will take broad measures to address the problem, including looking at the food offered in military cafeterias, understanding sleep patterns and treating service members with issues such as PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, Rothberg said. Regarding obesity as a chronic disease that requires comprehensive care, not just willpower, is key. “We need to meet military members where they are,” she said.
A new category of effective anti-obesity drugs, including semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, could be a powerful aid, Rothberg said. TRICARE, the Defense Department’s health plan, covers such drugs, but uptake remains low. Since June 2021, when Wegovy was approved, just 174 service members have received prescriptions, TRICARE officials said. Novo Nordisk, which makes Wegovy, funded the security group’s report, but didn’t influence the research, Rothberg said.
“People are working hard at their weight and we have to give them whatever tools we have,” Rothberg said.
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