Texas Updates Sex Ed Programs But Advocates Say Details Are Missing

NPR: Texas Got A Sex Ed Update, But Students And Educators Say There's Still A Lot Missing
Cali Byrd is a junior at Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas. She remembers when a group came to talk to her class about sexually transmitted infections in eighth grade. The talk involved a bunch of tennis balls with the names of STIs written on them. "They had a couple of kids come up, put on gloves, and said, 'If he throws the ball to her and she has a glove on, then she's protected. But if she doesn't have a glove on, then she'll get the disease or something,' " Byrd said. "It was really weird." (Rivera, 4/30)

Axios: Families Struggle To Find Baby Formula As Shortage Intensifies
Families nationwide are struggling with an increasingly dire baby formula shortage. The shortage, exacerbated by pandemic-induced supply chain issues and recent product recalls, has sent the price of formula skyrocketing in certain communities. The shortage started in 2021 largely from production problems or distribution issues, and by mid-March, 29% of formula inventory was out of stock nationally, Axios' Nathan Bomey reports. It increased to 31% in April, according to Datasembly, a consumer product data analytics firm. (Knutson, 4/29)

Axios: More People Of Color Gave Birth Outside Hospitals In 2020, Report Finds
More people are choosing to give birth at home or in birth centers, with the sharpest increases among Black and Native American communities, according to a new report released by the nonprofit advocacy organization National Partnership for Women and Families (NPWF). The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, and it disproportionately impacts Black and Native women, who are three times and two times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications respectively. The move to give birth outside the hospital could serve as a cost-effective solution that tears down barriers to safe and individualized care, the report says. (Chen, 4/29)

Meanwhile, in other public health news —

USA Today: Drug And Alcohol Abuse May Be Contributing To US Labor Shortage
The U.S. workforce has yet to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels, and researchers are shedding light on one factor that may be contributing to the labor shortage in the U.S.: substance abuse. A rise in drug abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic could account for between 9% to 26% of the decline in labor force participation among people aged 25 to 54 between February 2020 and June 2021, according to a new working paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research. (Pérez Pintado, 5/1)

Miami Herald: Salmonella Recall Of Elite Kosher Chocolates, Candies, Cakes 
Strauss Israel recalled over 80 kosher chocolates, cakes, candies, wafers, rice cakes and gum sold under the Elite brand after finding a salmonella problem, the company announced this week. “The products are being recalled as they were manufactured in a facility in which salmonella was detected in the production line and in the liquid chocolate that is used for the production of the finished products,” the Strauss-written, FDA-posted recall notice said. The recall notice includes a full list of products, some of which are pictured below. The products went mainly to stores in Florida, California, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut and were sold online by Amazon, Passover.com, Fresh Direct and other retailers. (Neal, 5/1)

In obituaries —

The New York Times: Philip J. Hilts, 74, Dies; Reporter Exposed A Big-Tobacco Cover-Up
Philip J. Hilts, who as a science reporter for The New York Times in 1994 exposed a tobacco company’s decades-long cover-up of its own research showing that tobacco was harmful and nicotine was addictive, died on April 23 in Lebanon, N.H. He was 74. The cause was complications of liver disease, his son Ben said. Mr. Hilts was a longtime journalist, writing for The Times, The Washington Post and other publications, and was the author of six nonfiction books on scientific, medical and social topics. (Seelye, 4/29)

The New York Times: Fuad El-Hibri, Who Led A Troubled Vaccine Maker, Dies At 64
Fuad El-Hibri, whose biotech company won billions of dollars in government contracts to manufacture a vaccine against anthrax but stumbled in 2021 when, having been hired to produce Covid vaccines, it had to throw out the equivalent of 75 million contaminated doses, died on April 23 at his home in Potomac, Md. He was 64. His death was announced in a statement by his family. A representative for the family said the cause was pancreatic cancer. Mr. El-Hibri’s Maryland-based company, Emergent BioSolutions, was an obscure player in the world of government contracting, but an influential one: It deployed extensive lobbying efforts and campaign contributions to secure a near-monopoly on the production of an anthrax vaccine in the early 2000s. The contract accounted for nearly half the budget for the Strategic National Stockpile, a medical reserve held in case of crises like a bioweapons attack or a pandemic. (Risen, 4/30)

AP: Mower, Co-Inventor Of Implantable Defibrillator, Dies At 89
Dr. Morton Mower, a former Maryland-based cardiologist who helped invent an automatic implantable defibrillator that has helped countless heart patients live longer and healthier, has died at age 89. Funeral services were held Wednesday for Mower, who died two days earlier of cancer at Porter Adventist Hospital in Denver, The Baltimore Sun reported. The Maryland native had moved to Colorado about a decade ago. Mower and Dr. Michel Mirowski, both colleagues at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, began working in 1969 on developing a miniature defibrillator that could be implanted into a patient. The device would correct a patient’s over-rapid or inefficient heartbeat with an electric shock to resume its regular rhythm. (5/1)

NBC News: Naomi Judd Struggled With Severe Depression. It Led Her To Advocate For Others With Mental Health Issues
In recent years, Naomi Judd had been candid about her battle with suicidal ideation, panic attacks and the ups and downs of her mental health struggles. The fight eventually led her to advocate for others, offering words of solace and solidarity to those who also struggled with suicidal thoughts. Judd died Saturday at 76. Daughters Wynonna and Ashley Judd said they had lost their mother to "the disease of mental illness." (Rosenblatt, 5/1)