Week of March 27–31, 2023

Week of March 27–March 31, 2023

General Mental Health Articles

• Chronic depression, loneliness and grief are breaking our hearts – literally. New research reveals that poor mental and emotional health puts Americans at much greater risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death for men and women across almost all racial and ethnic groups. It's no exaggeration to say that when it comes to preventing heart disease, managing our emotional and mental health is just as important as managing our cholesterol and blood pressure. Yet most people – and even many doctors – don't fully understand the relationship between feelings and physical health. Read more here.
• Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) will return to the Senate during the week of April 17 after being hospitalized for clinical depression, according to a person familiar with the situation who asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the senator’s condition. Fetterman, 53, checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in February after he was evaluated by the attending physician of Congress, Brian P. Monahan, who suggested inpatient care for depression that had become “severe in recent weeks,” Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said in a statement at the time. Read more here. (Free registration is required to read this article.) 
• The number of adults using prescription stimulants spiked during the first year of the covid-19 pandemic, a new government study found, the latest evidence of dramatic shifts in the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. While stimulant prescriptions as a whole increased modestly from 2016 to 2021, they rose by more than 10 percent in the last year of that time frame for adults and teenage girls, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read more here. 

Youth Mental Health

• This month, a tragic wave of teen fentanyl deaths prompted Texas lawmakers to propose mandatory fentanyl prevention and drug poisoning education in grades 6-12. Other states around the country are also struggling to confront skyrocketing rates of teen overdoses. As a researcher who has studied drug use for more than 15 years, I urge lawmakers and educators to consider not only what is being taught, but who is teaching it. With community trust in police at record lows, schools must reconsider whether police should be implementing their drug prevention programs. Read more here. 

The Opioid Crisis

• The U.S. is preparing to announce a deal with Mexico to counter fentanyl coming across the southern border, with Mexico cracking down on labs and smuggling while the U.S. does more to stop the flow of U.S. guns into Mexico, two sources familiar with the strategy told NBC News. The tentative agreement is the result of months of tense discussions between top Biden administration officials and the Mexican government, the sources said. Read more here.
• Teen overdose deaths have doubled in three years, an alarming trend amid a historic decline in drug and alcohol use among high school students. The main reason is fentanyl. Teens consume the powerful opioid unwittingly, packaged in counterfeit pills tailored to resemble less potent prescription medications. Drug traffickers lace pills with fentanyl to boost the black-market high. Dangerously addictive, fentanyl can be lethal, especially to children experimenting with drugs. Read more here. 
• As drug overdoses and deaths increase in North Carolina, as they are in many parts of the country, a bill to strengthen penalties for illegal drug distribution is quickly moving through the state legislature North Carolina sheriffs and district attorneys say they need this bill to impose higher penalties and lengthier prison sentences on people who distribute fentanyl — the potent synthetic opioid that’s been added to many street drugs in recent years. Read more here. 
• Senate Democrats on Tuesday made their most forceful push yet against narratives linking immigration and the fentanyl crisis, slamming Republicans for their attempts to entangle the two issues. Data shows the vast majority of fentanyl enters the U.S. through the cars of American citizens, a fact highlighted repeatedly by Democrats as GOP lawmakers increasingly cast blame at Mexico in the fight against fentanyl. Read more here. 
• After someone lives through an opioid overdose, taking the medication buprenorphine lowers their risk of death if they OD again, a new study found. Buprenorphine is a medication used to treat opioid use disorder. Researchers with the American Journal of Preventative Medicine (AJPM) found that receiving the medicine after an overdose causes a 62% reduction in risk of death in a subsequent opioid overdose. Read more here. 
  

Gun Violence

• Senate Republicans on Monday cast doubt on the possibility of legislative action on firearms in response to the shooting at a school in Nashville, Tenn., earlier in the day.  Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters that he does not believe the Senate can go any further on firearm-related bills or on expanding background checks than the chamber did last year when it passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act following the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Read more here.
• The White House is blaming Republicans in Congress for the lack of action on guns, turning up the heat on the GOP to address rampant gun violence while appealing to voters fed up with America’s epidemic of mass shootings. President Biden is focusing his anger over the elementary school shooting in Nashville this week squarely on Republicans, calling for lawmakers to show courage and warning that Congress will have to answer to families that have lost loved ones through gun violence. Read more here. 
• America’s biggest companies rushed to strengthen their gun safety policies after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Dick’s Sporting Goods stopped selling semi-automatic, assault-style rifles at stores. Citigroup put new restrictions on gun sales by business customers. A year later, after mass shootings at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and a nightclub in Dayton, Ohio, Walmart ended handgun ammunition sales. But the groundswell of corporate action on guns has ended. Read more here.
• Gun control opponents have typically framed the gun violence epidemic in the US as a symptom of a broader mental health crisis. But every country has people with mental health issues and extremists; those problems aren’t unique. What is unique is the US’s expansive view of civilian gun ownership, ingrained in politics, in culture, and in the law since the nation’s founding, and a national political process that has so far proved incapable of changing that norm. Read more here.
• Following a deadly shooting at an elementary school in Tennessee, some prominent Republicans are highlighting evidence that the perpetrator was transgender — and suggesting that gender identity played a role in causing the violence. Details continue to emerge about the shooting, but there is no evidence to suggest that identifying as transgender leads to a propensity for inflicting violence. By contrast, several studies have found that transgender people face disproportionate levels of violence by virtue of their identity. Read more here.
• The shooter who killed three children and three adults Monday at Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, was armed with two assault-style rifles, which are designed to kill efficiently without having to reload frequently. Such weapons, which are usually used alongside high-capacity magazines, are common in mass shootings: They have been used in over half of the deadliest mass shootings since 1966 and account for 38 percent of the deaths in mass shootings in that period, according to the Violence Project. Read more here.
• Guns are the leading cause of death for US children and teens, since surpassing car accidents in 2020. Firearms accounted for nearly 19% of childhood deaths (ages 1-18) in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Wonder database. Nearly 3,600 children died in gun-related incidents that year. That’s about five children lost for every 100,000 children in the United States. In no other comparable country are firearms within the top four causes of mortality among children, according to a KFF analysis. Read more here.
• North Carolina’s state legislature has voted to override Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) veto and repeal the state’s requirement for a resident to obtain a permit from a local sheriff before legally purchasing a handgun.  Senate Bill 41 passed in the state’s House of Representatives in a 71 to 46 vote on Wednesday. Read more here. 
• Most US states get a failing grade on gun laws, according to a new scorecard published by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The group, which advocates for stricter gun laws as a way to save lives, gave What Matters a first look at the new analysis. The key point is that more permissive gun laws equal more gun deaths in US states: Of the 10 states with the highest proportion of gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, all got failing grades – an F – from Giffords, except New Mexico, which got a C+. Read more here. 
  

988 Hotline

• Almost everyone agrees that putting money behind the national suicide and crisis hotline is a good thing. But not everyone thinks a new phone tax is the best way to pay for it. Since the crisis line’s easy-to-remember 988 number launched last July, its use has increased significantly. But in the future, state and local governments still will be responsible for funding the local centers where calls are first routed, leaving many budget writers grappling with how to cover the costs as demand increases. Read more here. 
  

Transgender Care Issues

• As states across the U.S. introduce anti-trans legislation, transgender and nonbinary people face increasing restrictions in their ability to access gender-affirming care. Now experts say the government’s plans to end the Covid public health emergency on May 11 could further jeopardize the health and safety of trans people across the country. “These targeted political attacks … are another public health emergency,” Crystal Beal, a physician and founder and CEO of telemedicine provider QueerDoc, said at a media briefing on Thursday. Read more here.
• United States Catholic bishops have issued guidelines that seek to stop Catholic hospitals from providing gender transition care, a move LGBTQ advocates say could harm the physical and emotional health of transgender people within the church. The 14-page doctrinal note, titled “Moral Limits to the Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” sets forth guidelines for changing a person’s sex, specifically with youth. Read more here.
• Kentucky’s Democratic governor issued an election-year veto Friday of a sweeping Republican bill aimed at regulating the lives of transgender youths that includes banning access to gender-affirming health care and restricting the bathrooms they can use. The bill also bans discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools and allows teachers to refuse to refer to transgender students by the pronouns they use. It easily passed the GOP-dominated legislature with veto-proof margins, and lawmakers will reconvene next week for the final two days of this year’s session, when they could vote to override the veto. Read more here.
• Heavy fog blanketed Kentucky’s state Capitol on Wednesday morning as hundreds of LGBTQ+ youths and their allies, young and old, protested in a last-ditch attempt to persuade Kentucky’s Republican-dominated Legislature to let one of the nation's toughest anti-trans bills die. Their efforts were to no avail. Shortly after gaveling in Wednesday afternoon, the Kentucky Senate voted to override Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear's veto of Senate Bill 150, and little more than 30 minutes later, the House followed suit, making it law. Read more here.
• West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice on Wednesday signed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors, joining at least 10 other states that have enacted laws restricting or outlawing medically supported treatments for transgender youth. The bill outlaws those under 18 from being prescribed hormone therapy and fully reversible puberty blockers. It also bans minors from receiving gender-affirming surgery, something physicians say doesn’t even happen in West Virginia. Read more here.
• A Montana bill to deny gender-affirming medical care to young transgender residents passed a final vote in the state Senate on Wednesday, which sends the measure to Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte for his consideration. Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Montana have said they will take legal action if the bill becomes law. At least nine states have enacted similar bans, with those in Alabama and Arkansas blocked by the courts. Read more here.
• About five dozen advocates for transgender youth rallied outside the South Carolina State House as Republican senators joined their conservative counterparts nationwide in advancing a ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors. A South Carolina bill to ban gender-transition surgeries, hormone therapy and puberty blockers for people under the age of 18 passed a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday. The vote along party lines aligns South Carolina with a broader effort in Republican-dominated legislatures across the country. Read more here.
• The Idaho Senate on Monday voted 22-12 to pass a bill criminalizing gender-affirming healthcare for minors, one month after the state House passed similar legislation. The measure bars transgender and transitioning children, or children with gender dysphoria, from receiving hormones or puberty blockers to alleviate their symptoms or help them with transitioning, KTVB reported Monday. Doctors prescribing these hormones or blockers could be charged with a felony and face prison time. Read more here. 
  

Social Determinants

• Marshall’s story is part of a radical rethinking of the relationship between housing and health care in the U.S. For decades, Medicaid, the joint state and federal health insurance program for people with disabilities or low incomes, would only pay for medical expenses. But last year the Biden administration gave Arizona and Oregon permission to use Medicaid money for housing — a nod to reams of research showing people in stable housing are healthier. Read more here. 

Federal and State Policy

• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper on Monday signed a Medicaid expansion law that was a decade in the making and gives the Democrat a legacy-setting victory, although one significant hurdle remains before coverage can be implemented, thanks to a Republican-backed provision. At an Executive Mansion ceremony attended by hundreds, Cooper celebrated passage of expansion legislation, which he’s ardently sought since being first elected governor in 2016. Read more here. 
• A federal judge on Thursday struck down a key provision of the Affordable Care Act, jeopardizing free coverage of a wide range of preventive services including mammograms, colonoscopies and mental health screenings for nearly 168 million people on employer health insurance and on Obamacare’s individual market. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor, the author of several previous rulings against Obamacare, sided with conservative employers and individuals in Texas who argued that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that set those requirements has been acting unconstitutionally since 2010. The decision blocks enforcement of the rules nationwide. Read more here.