By The Defender Staff
Meta Settles Major Social Media Addiction Lawsuit With School District
Meta agreed to settle a major lawsuit on Thursday with a school district in Kentucky over claims that its social networks are designed to be addictive, leading to harm in children. The settlement comes less than three weeks before the case was scheduled to go to trial in federal court in California. About 1,200 school districts from across the US came together to each sue Meta, TikTok, Snap, and YouTube for allegedly fueling a mental health crisis in children. TikTok, Snap and YouTube settled their suits with Kentucky over the past couple of weeks.
“We’ve resolved this case amicably and remain focused on our longstanding work to build protections like Teen Accounts that help teens stay safe online, while giving parents simple controls to support their families,” said a Meta spokesperson. The company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, did not disclose the terms of the settlement.
A YouTube spokesperson also said the matter was resolved amicably and confidentially and that “for more than a decade, we’ve built YouTube responsibly — working with teachers, administrators, and parents’ groups to give students safer, more helpful experiences online.”
Hidden GI Struggles in Children With Autism Spark $12.9m Duke-UNC Health Study
How many digits of Pi do you know? Many people stop after a few. A former chief engineer at NASA revealed that advanced calculations used for space exploration use 16. 9-year-old Nova Horton from Raleigh knows even more. Standing in a Wake Forest playground, Horton proudly recited 51 digits: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510. It makes sense why the fourth grader responded, “Math,” when asked what her favorite subject was.
“I like numbers. Addition, subtraction, multiplying and dividing, just the standard multiplication algorithm and stuff,” she said. “Solving problems; it’s easy for me.”
As Nova Horton shared more about learning geometry in her advanced math class, her mother, Amber Horton, said her daughter faces challenges that people can’t see.
Nova Horton was diagnosed with autism in 2024. Amber Horton said there were signs earlier in childhood, but they were not initially connected to autism. When Nova Horton was 3, she began experiencing serious gastrointestinal issues that led to repeated emergency room and doctor visits, as her family searched for answers.
The FDA’s About-Face on Flavored Vapes Will Prove Deadly for Kids
The decline in youth smoking is one of the great public-health achievements of the 21st century, celebrated by conservatives and liberals alike, yet the White House is now in the process of endangering it. Unless it reverses course, millions of American children will suffer the consequences.
Tobacco-related death and disease do not discriminate by party. Everyone knows someone who has been affected by the ravages of tobacco use, but thanks to smart policies that have dramatically cut smoking rates, those stories have become less common. Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of US high school students smoked cigarettes. By 2024, that number had fallen to 1.7% — an astoundingly large decline. Unfortunately, there’s more to the story.
Hiding in that progress is the rise of e-cigarettes, or vapes. About 8% of high school students use them regularly. Of those who do, 9 in 10 are using flavored e-cigarettes. Most have already tried and failed to quit.
Those statistics are deeply troubling, since the list of potential harms from e-cigarettes is long: lung damage and respiratory illnesses, heart disease, impairment to young people’s brain development, and other health problems, given the toxic mix of chemicals they contain. But the dangers don’t stop there.
Boy’s Brain Tumor Tied to Gene Therapy
A gene therapy given to a 13-month-old boy has, years later, led to a tumor in his brain after the virus carrying the gene inserted part of it directly into his DNA, researchers reported May 13 at a meeting and in a paper. The mass was safely removed, but his case appears to be the first time a gene therapy delivered directly into the body has been linked to cancer.
Researchers involved with the case and others stress that the rare case does not mean the adeno-associated virus (AAV) the boy received, which has been given to thousands of people as part of gene therapies, should not be used. “We have to be really cautious in extrapolating this” to other AAV trials, says Lindsey George, who co-led the trial and presented the work at the annual meeting of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy.
The boy was born with Hurler syndrome, also known as MPS I, a condition in which certain sugars build up in the brain and damage it. It stems from a mutation in the gene encoding an enzyme called IDUA, which cells need to break down the sugars.
Over Half of Teens Are Losing Critical Sleep to Phone Use After Midnight
There’s an increasingly common refrain that Connecticut child and family therapist Kerri Anderson hears from concerned parents of tweens and teens: They’re on their phone at night, the parents tell her. We don’t want to fight about it, but this isn’t working. The kids struggle to wake up on time in the morning, the parents say. Their grades are suffering. They’re grumpy and moody.
Over her 15 years as a therapist, Anderson has anecdotally noticed the worry mount. Now, a new study from the University of California at San Francisco shows the extent to which school-night phone use could be disrupting vital sleep for adolescents.
Teens averaged over 50 minutes of smartphone use between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. on school nights, researchers found, and more than half of the teens used their phones between midnight and 4 a.m. The majority of that phone use was spent on social media apps like YouTube, Instagram or TikTok, the study found. Others were looking at streaming apps or playing games like Roblox or Clash Royale.
Squeeze Toys Sold at Walmart, Ollie’s Recalled Over Asbestos Concern
A popular squeeze toy sold at Walmart and Ollie’s Bargain Outlet stores is being recalled over concerns of “serious injury or death” because of the potential presence of asbestos. A recall notice shared by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday warns that certain Orb Funkee Squeeze Toys — specifically, two models of Funkee Monkees — may have asbestos in the sand they are filled with.
While there have been no injuries or incidents reported in connection with the recalled toys, the CPSC says asbestos “can cause adverse health issues if inhaled.” Asbestos is naturally occurring and can appear when old asbestos products break down or are disposed of, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains.
Asbestos fibers, which are too small to see, can become caught in your lungs during exposure. According to the CDC, asbestos exposure can lead to lung cancer and mesothelioma, as well as asbestosis, scarring in the lungs, and pleural disease, which can impact the membrane around the lungs and chest cavity.
Children’s Hospital Ordered to Resume Gender-Affirming Care for Minors
The Colorado Supreme Court has ordered Colorado’s largest provider of gender-affirming care for young people to resume medical treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapy despite threats that providing the care could lead to losing federal funding.
Children’s Hospital Colorado suspended medical treatments for transgender patients under 18 in January after it said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) opened an investigation into its treatments following a series of clashes between President Donald Trump’s administration and advocates over transgender healthcare for children.
The hospital said in a statement that it is reviewing Monday’s court ruling and considering its next steps. It previously said it would continue to provide mental health treatment for minors and also medical treatment for patients ages 18 to 21.
The post Meta Settles Major Social Media Addiction Lawsuit With School District + More appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More
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