By The Defender Staff
California Schools With Low Vaccination Rates Lose Millions of Dollars
California schools lost more than $2.2 million in state funding over two years because some students did not have all the vaccinations required by state law, according to data obtained by EdSource from the California State Controller’s Office.
The loss of average daily attendance funding was the result of state audits of more than 1,000 public schools, where more than 10% of kindergartners or seventh grade students were not fully vaccinated in 2023 and 2024. After the state investigated, schools in 72 of those districts lost some funding.
Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest school district, with over 400,000 students, lost $324,055 in average daily attendance funding in 2023 and 2024, the two years reviewed by EdSource. The district had a budget of about $19 billion in both years.
ByHeart Infant Botulism Outbreak Ends With 48 Babies Sickened
U.S. News & World Report reported:
A rare outbreak of infant botulism that sickened dozens of babies who drank recalled ByHeart formula is over, with no new cases reported since mid-December, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. In all, 48 babies were sickened since 2023. That’s actually down from the previous case count, because three infants were ultimately diagnosed with other illnesses not tied to botulism, health officials said. All of the children who got sick were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.
It’s still unclear exactly how, when or where the organic, whole-milk powdered baby formula became contaminated with the type of bacteria that can cause serious illness, paralysis and death in children younger than 1, health officials added. Most of the cases had occurred since August, when officials at California’s Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention program detected an alarming rise in reports of the illness in babies who consumed ByHeart formula.
ByHeart, based in New York, initially recalled two lots of formula in early November, but the company expanded the recall to all products days later. Federal health officials later said they could not rule out contamination of products made since the company first launched in March 2022. Stores nationwide pulled the product, which was advertised as having “next-to-breast milk benefits.” Investigators with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have yet to identify the root cause.
Nearly a Third of US Youth Have Prediabetes or Diabetes
Among US adolescents aged 10-19 years, roughly 30% have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes (T2D), with boys accounting for 62% of cases. Abdominal adiposity, measured by waist-to-height ratio, emerged as the strongest independent predictor of prediabetes or T2D rather than BMI.
Over the past two decades, the prevalence of prediabetes and T2D has risen sharply among adolescents in the US, driven by higher rates of obesity, sedentary behavior, and unhealthy dietary patterns. Despite this burden, most epidemiologic research has focused on older adults, leaving important gaps in knowledge about adolescents.
Overall, the weighted prevalence of prediabetes or T2D was 30.8%, corresponding to nearly 1 in 3 adolescents; boys had a higher prevalence than girls (62.0% vs 38.0%), and non-Hispanic White adolescents had the highest prevalence across racial and ethnic groups (37.2%).
Abdominal obesity emerged as the strongest independent predictor of prediabetes or T2D after adjustment for confounders (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 146.19; 95% CI, 5.39-3976), whereas BMI status lost significance in multivariate analysis.
Instagram Will Alert Parents to Teens’ Repeated Suicidal or Self-Harm Searches
Instagram will begin notifying parents when their teenagers repeatedly attempt to search for suicide or self-harm content, the company said Thursday. The new feature will alert parents enrolled in the parental supervision tool to repeated searches in a short time period and offer expert resources about how to talk to their teens about the issue.
The function will start to roll out in the coming weeks in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, with more countries to come later this year. “The vast majority of teens do not try to search for suicide and self-harm content on Instagram, and when they do, our policy is to block these searches, instead directing them to resources and helplines that can offer support,” the company said in its announcement.
“These alerts are designed to make sure parents are aware if their teen is repeatedly trying to search for this content, and to give them the resources they need to support their teen.”
Only 33 Percent of Schools Have Recovered in Either Math or Reading 6 Years After Pandemic
New research found only one in three schools have recovered in either reading or math since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down schools nearly six years ago. The number of schools that recovered in both subjects sits at around 14 percent, according to NWEA, an education research group.
Schools that serve historically marginalized students are more likely to still be behind but have some of the biggest gains in recovery since the pandemic. Schools that have seen a full recovery likely had smaller initial setbacks from the pandemic, the researchers found.
“Our findings show there was not a single path to recovery,” said Emily Morton, lead research scientist at NWEA. “While some schools recovered by avoiding initial declines, others rebounded with remarkable growth. These ‘Rebounder’ schools offer critical lessons about the practices and investments that can help students regain lost ground and continue moving forward.”
How A.I.-Generated Videos Are Distorting Your Child’s YouTube Feed
Experts caution that low-quality, A.I.-generated videos on YouTube geared toward children often feature conflicting information, lack plot structure and can be cognitively overwhelming — all of which could affect young children’s development. Four seconds into this version of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” an animated horse with two arms and four legs hatches from an egg.
In this video, a pink elephant, an orange flamingo and other animals appear next to letters of the alphabet, performing complicated gymnastic maneuvers on tightropes. And in this video, animals form from paint being squirted into a glass of water and inexplicably grow mermaid tails.
The New York Times reviewed these clips, along with more than 1,000 other videos recommended to young children on YouTube, and found that the algorithm pushes bizarre, often nonsensical, A.I.-generated videos from channels claiming to teach “toddlers” and “preschoolers” about the alphabet and animals.
In some videos, animals and people have warped faces or extra body parts. Often, the videos contain garbled text. Most clips have incoherent narratives, some riddled with misinformation. And none are longer than about 30 seconds, allowing little time to develop ideas, plots or any sense of repetition that is often necessary for learning.
Now produced with the help of readily available artificial intelligence tools and online tutorials, many of these videos have millions of views and counting, with channels churning out these videos at a rapid rate, sometimes even multiple times a day.
The post Not so Fast — Lawyers for Cancer Victims See ‘Red Flags’ in Bayer’s Roundup Settlement Deal + 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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