Kansas

U.S. Schools Will Now Carry Overdose Medication

Los Angeles public schools will stock campuses with the overdose reversal drug naloxone in the aftermath of a student’s death.

The nation’s second-largest school district will now start carrying a medication to reverse opioid overdoses.

It’s a terrifying sign of the times after seven teens overdosed, one of them dying on campus.

“Our system has been deeply impacted by the injury to some students and the death of at least one student as a result of an unacceptable level of availability of narcotics and opioids in our community,” said Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District.

The LA Unified School District isn’t alone. Hartford, Connecticut schools started carrying naloxone after a seventh-grader died in January.

Schools near Vail, Colorado have also been carrying the medication as of this school year. The same goes for schools in parts of Oregon and Texas.

All over the country, there’s a rush to stock schools with a life-saver as more young high schoolers die taking fentanyl-laced drugs.

“They’re even packaging it in colored pills, presumably to make it attractive to a younger and younger group,” said Chief Greg Dull, at Excelsior Springs, Miss. Police Department.

In Kansas City Sarah Manser put up a billboard trying to get parents’ attention after her son died from fentanyl poisoning.

“He was kind, he called me mama. I miss that, you know,” said Manser. “If I can even stop one person from overdosing, I will definitely.”

In nearby Clay County, Missouri, detectives are trying desperately to stop the flow of pills into teen groups and schools.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my 24 years. Ever. So that’s the hard part. You know, I hate to say it but it’s almost triage, that’s the way we’re dealing with it right now,” said Michael Nelson, a detective at Clay County, Miss. Sheriffs’ Office.

The DEA is trying to raise awareness among parents and kids about dealers hawking pills on social media.

What might just seem like illegal painkillers, are laced with fentanyl — a synthetic opioid 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.

“Your kid could be on social media or in their bedroom, where you think they’re safe, ordering an illicit pill that’s ultimately gonna lead to an overdose and to them being killed,” said Orville Greene, a special agent in charge at the Detroit Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

In schools the education is paying off.

Heather Guilkey is a Missouri school district administrator.

“We would have lost one of our students,” said Guilkey.

At a school near Kansas City, a nurse treated a students’ overdose only because a teacher knew what to look for.

“You hear about these things; you just don’t think it will happen in your school,” said Guilkey.

It’s proof that education works. It’s just a matter of stopping the drug’s flow.

That’s something that’s taxing law enforcement at the southern border.

“We’re finding packages floating in gas tanks and in drive shafts, we’re getting people carrying strapped to their body. Even inside human bodies,” said Michael Humphries, the Nogales Port director for U.S. Customs And Border Protection.

It’s frustrating law enforcement from California to Florida and everywhere in between. It’s coming down hard on the country’s kids and students who should be getting textbooks, not overdose treatments.

Source: newsy.com

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4.4M Americans Roll Up Sleeves For Omicron-Targeted Boosters

Some Americans who got the new shots said they are excited about the idea of targeting the vaccine to the variants circulating now.

U.S. health officials say 4.4 million Americans have rolled up their sleeves for the updated COVID-19 booster shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted the count Thursday as public health experts bemoaned President Joe Biden’s recent remark that “the pandemic is over.”

The White House said more than 5 million people received the new boosters by its own estimate that accounts for reporting lags in states.

Health experts said it is too early to predict whether demand would match up with the 171 million doses of the new boosters the U.S. ordered for the fall.

“No one would go looking at our flu shot uptake at this point and be like, ‘Oh, what a disaster,'” said Dr. David Dowdy, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “If we start to see a large uptick in cases, I think we’re going to see a lot of people getting the (new COVID) vaccine.”

A temporary shortage of Moderna vaccine caused some pharmacies to cancel appointments while encouraging people to reschedule for a Pfizer vaccine. The issue was expected to resolve as government regulators wrapped up an inspection and cleared batches of vaccine doses for distribution.

“I do expect this to pick up in the weeks ahead,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. “We’ve been thinking and talking about this as an annual vaccine like the flu vaccine. Flu vaccine season picks up in late September and early October. We’re just getting our education campaign going. So we expect to see, despite the fact that this was a strong start, we actually expect this to ramp up stronger.”

Some Americans who plan to get the shot, designed to target the most common Omicron strains, said they are waiting because they either had COVID-19 recently or another booster. They are following public health advice to wait several months to get the full benefit of their existing virus-fighting antibodies.

Others are scheduling shots closer to holiday gatherings and winter months when respiratory viruses spread more easily.

Retired hospital chaplain Jeanie Murphy, 69, of Shawnee, Kansas, plans to get the new booster in a couple of weeks after she has some minor knee surgery. Interest is high among her neighbors from what she sees on the Nextdoor app.

“There’s quite a bit of discussion happening among people who are ready to make appointments,” Murphy said. “I found that encouraging. For every one naysayer there will be 10 or 12 people who jump in and say, ‘You’re crazy. You just need to go get the shot.'”

President Biden later acknowledged criticism of his remark about the pandemic being over and clarified the pandemic is “not where it was.” The initial comment didn’t bother Murphy. She believes the disease has entered a steady state when “we’ll get COVID shots in the fall the same as we do flu shots.”

Experts hope she’s right, but are waiting to see what levels of infection winter brings. The summer ebb in case numbers, hospitalizations and deaths may be followed by another surge, Dowdy said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, asked Thursday by a panel of biodefense experts what still keeps him up at night, noted that half of vaccinated Americans never got an initial booster dose.

“We have a vulnerability in our population that will continue to have us in a mode of potential disruption of our social order,” Fauci said. “I think that we have to do better as a nation.”

Some Americans who got the new shots said they are excited about the idea of targeting the vaccine to the variants circulating now.

“Give me all the science you can,” said Jeff Westling, 30, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who got the new booster and a flu shot on Tuesday, one in each arm. He participates in the combat sport jujitsu, so wants to protect himself from infections that may come with close contact. “I have no issue trusting folks whose job it is to look at the evidence.”

Meanwhile, President Biden’s pronouncement in a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Sunday echoed through social media.

“We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over,” President Biden said while walking through the Detroit auto show. “If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing.”

By Wednesday on Facebook, when a Kansas health department posted where residents could find the new booster shots, the first commenter remarked snidely:

“But Biden says the pandemic is over.”

The president’s statement, despite his attempts to clarify it, adds to public confusion, said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy with the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington.

“People aren’t sure when is the right time to get boosted. ‘Am I eligible?’ People are often confused about what the right choice is for them, even where to search for that information,” Michaud said.

“Any time you have mixed messages, it’s detrimental to the public health effort,” Michaud said. “Having the mixed messages from the president’s remarks, makes that job that much harder.”

University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi said he’s worried the president’s pronouncement has taken on a life of its own and may stall prevention efforts.

“That soundbite is there for a while now, and it’s going to spread like wildfire. And it’s going to give the impression that ‘Oh, there’s nothing more we need to do,'” Salemi said.

“If we’re happy with 400 or 500 people dying every single day from COVID, there’s a problem with that,” Salemi said. “We can absolutely do better because most of those deaths, if not all of them, are absolutely preventable with the tools that we have.”

New York City photographer Vivienne Gucwa, 44, got the new booster Monday. She’s had COVID twice, once before vaccines were available and again in May. She was vaccinated with two Moderna shots, but never got the original boosters.

“When I saw the new booster was able to tackle Omicron variant I thought, ‘I’m doing that,'” Gucwa said.

“I don’t want to deal with Omicron again. I was kind of thrilled to see the boosters were updated.”

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Hospital ERs Struggle To Treat Surge Of Mental Health Patients

A Newsy investigation finds more Americans are going to the ER during a mental health crisis, and why they aren’t getting the help they need.

More Americans going through a mental health crisis are seeking care in hospital emergency rooms not always equipped to give the psychiatric care they need, a Newsy investigation has learned.

Breia Birch, 44, suffers from bipolar, post-traumatic stress and dissociative identity disorders.

She began thinking about suicide after her mother’s death in 2017.

“I remember sitting down at my table and getting my pills out,” Birch said. “I started to separate out the ones that would hurt or hurt me out of the pile of pills. I was trying to kill myself.”

She went to her local emergency room in Manhattan, Kansas, for help.

“Unfortunately, there aren’t many places in Kansas where you can go and get screened. You have to go to the ER,” Birch said.

Across the country, mental health-related ER visits shot up 66 percent from 2013-2018, according to a study published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine.

“Our rooms are full,” said Robyn Chadwick, president of Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph hospital in Wichita, Kansas.

“Every single day in this facility, we have patients who are suicidal or homicidal,” Chadwick said. “On a good day, there will be 10 behavioral health patients waiting in the emergency room. On a really bad day, there might be 30.”

Nationally, bed capacity for psychiatric patients has plummeted in recent decades.

Care outside the hospital can also be hard to find. An audit from the Government Accountability Office this spring found mental health patients with insurance “experience challenges finding in-network providers.”

Patients also face a shortage of psychiatrists willing to accept Medicaid. Emergency rooms are also coping with a surge in behavioral health visits related to substance abuse.

“Substance abuse and mental health have always gone hand-in-hand,” Chadwick said.

Patients with nowhere else to go are flooding emergency rooms.

“Whatever that mental illness is, if you can’t get help, the situation gets worse, it escalates,” Chadwick said. “The emergency room is the safety net for everything.”

The problem is, hospital emergency rooms are struggling with the influx of patients who, like Birch, are desperate for help.

The ER closest to her in Manhattan, Kansas, was like many nationwide that don’t have a behavioral health unit.

“They couldn’t find me anywhere to go for mental health,” Birch said.

She was so desperate for care, she steered herself in a wheelchair toward traffic outside the ER so she could get into a state hospital.

“I did what I had to do to get help,” Birch said.

A Newsy analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found of all psychiatric patients who go to the ER, about 11 percent leave without a follow-up plan for care.

Eleven percent may not sound like much, but it equals hundreds of thousands of patients in mental distress leaving the ER without a referral for future treatment.

Chadwick says too many hospitals are not able to meet the need.

The hospital she leads in Wichita built a new space to expand behavioral health treatment.

“There are special screws used that cannot be pried out because a screw could then be used to harm yourself,” Chadwick said.

To prevent suicide by hanging, doors have special handles. Televisions mounted to the wall don’t have exposed cords.

The build-out took money: about $60 million. It also took determination.

“It has become very personal,” Chadwick said. “My oldest daughter, who’s now 22, attempted suicide twice as a freshman in high school. And it really hit home. She’s what drives me to make sure that everyone who needs care gets it.”

Outside the hospital, leaders in Sedgwick County surrounding Wichita established a rapid response team to help with mental health related 911 calls when people may not need the ER.

They also set aside $15 million for a new mental health community crisis center.

County Commissioner Lacey Cruse envisions an area between the hospital and jail could be used to help psychiatric patients before they need emergency help.

“What we need really is like sort of a one-stop-shop,” Cruse said. “Let’s make sure they have transportation and get there. And then let’s follow up with them. You can’t teach someone to swim when they’re in the middle of the ocean drowning.”

The county has not settled on when or where to build the new center.

Medication and a caregiver are helping Birch’s mental health, four years after struggling for emergency room care.

“I have to keep reminding myself that I really don’t have too much to complain about right now,” Birch said. “I’m just doing a lot better now and I just hope I stay on this path.”

If you need to talk to someone, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or text “HOME” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Source: newsy.com

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Railroads’ Strategy Thrilled Wall Street, but Not Customers and Workers

America’s first commercial railroads were built almost two centuries ago. Freight rail has been a symbol of the nation’s economic might and ingenuity ever since.

In recent years, some of the biggest names on Wall Street have made significant investments in railroads, reaping big stock gains as railroads reported higher profits. But the underlying strategies that strengthened railroads’ bottom lines have caused friction with customers, regulators and particularly workers — giving rise to a contract dispute that threatened a nationwide shutdown of the railway system.

After losing ground to trucking in the mid-20th century, the rail industry managed to recover through decades of consolidation and a push for efficiency. Critics say those same dynamics created a system with thin staffing and minimal competition, making it particularly vulnerable to shocks like the coronavirus pandemic.

Those complaints were at the center of the contract impasse that left tens of thousands of workers prepared to walk off the job last week. A strike could have been economically devastating, paralyzing shipments of grain, chemicals and other cargo.

It was averted with less than a day to go when the Biden administration helped to broker a tentative agreement that addresses some of those issues and will be put to a vote of the rail unions’ members in the coming weeks.

The freight rail industry says it has worked hard to adapt to rapid changes — including the pandemic and, before that, a decline in demand for coal, a critical source of business.

“The industry has had to continually evolve to grow its other services,” said Ian Jefferies, the president of the Association of American Railroads, an industry group. To make up for the decline in coal, freight shippers have tried to transport more grain, truck trailers, shipping containers and other goods, he said.

according to the Surface Transportation Board, which monitors and regulates rates.

Prices started to increase in the early 2000s, driven by rising costs for labor, fuel, materials and supplies as well as a growing focus on profitability. From 2002 to 2019, long-distance trucking rates increased by 40 percent, according to a Transportation Department report published this year, while rail rates grew by 96 percent, though they are still well below historical levels, adjusted for inflation.

won a proxy battle for Canadian Pacific in 2012 and installed Mr. Harrison to lead the company.

Mr. Harrison brought his approach to Canadian Pacific, then to CSX in 2017, before his death that year. Other freight carriers and Wall Street increasingly took notice, and the practice has spread throughout the industry.

Many freight rail experts say P.S.R. brought necessary reforms to the industry, but they also say some practices, which can differ greatly among carriers, went too far or were poorly executed. Unions say the system has created miserable working conditions.

Dawson’s family announced his death in a statement through KMBC, the Kansas City-based TV station where he worked as a broadcaster.

Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson, whose unmistakable swagger in helping the Kansas City Chiefs to their first Super Bowl title earned him the nickname “Lenny the Cool,” died Wednesday. He was 87.

Dawson’s family announced his death in a statement through KMBC, the Kansas City-based television station where he starred in his second career as a broadcaster. No cause was given, though Dawson had been in declining health for years.

AP / File

“With wife Linda at his side, it is with much sadness that we inform you of the passing of our beloved Len Dawson,” the family’s statement read. “He was a wonderful husband, father, brother and friend. Len was always grateful and many times overwhelmed by the countless bonds he made during his football and broadcast careers.”

The MVP of the Chiefs’ victory over the Vikings in January 1970, Dawson had entered hospice care on Aug. 12.

“He loved Kansas City,” his family said, “and no matter where his travels took him he could not wait to return home.”

Dawson personified the Chiefs almost from the start, when the suave standout from Purdue lost out on starting jobs in Pittsburgh and Cleveland and landed with the nascent franchise, then located in Dallas. There, Dawson reunited with Hank Stram, who had been an assistant with the Boilermakers, and together they forever changed the franchise.

The coach and quarterback won the AFL championship together in 1962, their first year together, and became bona fide stars the following year, when club founder Lamar Hunt moved the team to Kansas City and rechristened it the Chiefs.

They proceeded to win two more AFL titles, one in 1966 when they lost to the Packers in the first Super Bowl, and the other in ’69, when Dawson came back from an injury to help beat the Vikings at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans.

“Looking back on my career, I’ve been blessed for what I had the opportunity to do,” Dawson told The Associated Press in 2017, shortly after he announced his retirement from his second career as a Hall of Fame broadcaster.

“I could not have accomplished so much without my teammates and colleagues, and I’m grateful for each of them.”

Dawson always remained a beloved figure in Kansas City, even though he cut back on public appearances several years ago when his health began to fail him. But he always had time for fans, whether it be a photograph or signature, the latter often on an iconic black-and-white photo from halftime of that first Super Bowl: the exhausted quarterback, white uniform caked with mud, sitting on a folding chair with a cigarette in his mouth and a bottle of Fresca at his feet.

It perfectly captured a time and place. And it perfectly captured a man who embodied poise and self-assurance.

“Next to my father, few people have had a more lasting impact on the Kansas City Chiefs than Len Dawson,” Chiefs owner Clark Hunt said a few years ago. “Over the course of a legendary career, first as a player and later as a broadcaster, Len has been a part of every major moment in franchise history.”

Dawson was born June 20, 1935, the ninth of 11 children who filled the house of James and Annie Dawson in the blue-collar manufacturing town of Alliance, Ohio. He was a three-sport athlete at Alliance High School, setting records in both football and basketball, and turned his success on the gridiron into a scholarship offer from Purdue.

There, Dawson led the NCAA in passing efficiency as a sophomore while also playing defense and kicking, and he helped lead a memorable upset of Notre Dame during that 1954 season. By the end of his college career, Dawson had thrown for more than 3,000 yards, despite playing in an era that favored ground-and-pound football.

Dawson was chosen by the Steelers in the first round of the 1957 draft, but he wound up riding the bench behind Earl Morrall as a rookie and then failed to beat out Bobby Layne for the starting job the following season. The Steelers ultimately traded him to the Browns, where Dawson was unable to beat out Milt Plum for the job and was released.

One of the great disappointments of Dawson’s career wound up being one of the best things to ever happen to him.

Robert Scott / AP

With newfound freedom to sign anywhere, Dawson jumped to the upstart AFL and the Texans, lured in part by the chance to play for one of his old coaches at Purdue. Stram was able to finally tap into his talent, helping Dawson to quickly become one of the league’s prolific passers as the Texans went 11-3 and won the first of three championships.

The second came in 1966, when Dawson led the Chiefs to an 11-2-1 record and a 31-7 blowout of the Bills in the AFL title game. That earned the Chiefs the chance to face the powerhouse Green Bay Packers — and coach Vince Lombardi — in the inaugural Super Bowl, where Dawson threw for 210 yards and a touchdown in a 35-10 defeat.

It was the 1969 season that proved to be the most memorable of Dawson’s career, though. He sustained a serious knee injury against the Patriots in Week 2, forcing him to miss the next five games, but went on a tear once he returned to the field. Dawson led the Chiefs to victories over the defending champion Jets and bitter rival Raiders to reach what would be the final Super Bowl before the AFL-NFL merger, where he threw for 142 yards and a score in a 23-7 triumph.

“It was overwhelming,” Dawson said afterward. “It’s just, you know how that relief comes with you know it’s over with, and we’ve been successful? That’s the feeling that I had when I came off the field.”

Dawson continued to play for six more seasons in Kansas City, setting many franchise records that stood until a youngster named Patrick Mahomes came along, before hanging up his helmet after the 1975 season.

Along the way, Dawson parlayed what began as a publicity stunt into a second career in broadcasting.

In 1966, then-Chiefs general manager Jack Steadman wanted to drum up support for the franchise in Kansas City and convinced Dawson to anchor a sports segment on the nightly news. His natural charisma and folksy style made Dawson a natural, he turned his attention to TV and radio on a full-time basis after his playing career had finished.

Dawson continued to work in local TV for several decades, adding game analysis for NBC from 1977-82 and hosting HBO’s iconic “Inside the NFL” from 1977-2001. He also served more than three decades on the Chiefs’ radio broadcast team.

After going into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1987, Dawson was inducted as a broadcaster in 2012.

“It’s been a true privilege and honor to have Len at the center of our broadcast team for the last 33 years,” said Dan Israel, the executive producer of the Chiefs’ radio network, upon his retirement a few years ago. “His contributions to not only this sport, but our industry, are incredibly profound.”

Dawson was married to his high school sweetheart, Jackie, from 1954 until her death in 1978, and together they had two children. His second wife, Linda, remained by his side even when Dawson was forced to enter hospice care.

Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

Source: newsy.com

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Kansas

Our Coverage of the Investment World

The decline of the stock and bond markets this year has been painful, and it remains difficult to predict what is in store for the future.