By The Defender Staff
Woman Whose Son Died From Drugs Bought on Social Media Celebrates Verdicts Against Meta, YouTube
A Colorado woman whose son died from a fentanyl-laced pill he bought through social media celebrated a pair of verdicts this week against Meta and YouTube that she said opened the door for companies to be held responsible for harms to children using their platforms. “The truth is out, and it’s time that they are held accountable for the design of the platforms,” said Kimberly Osterman, whose son Max died in 2021 at age 18. “They put profits over safety.”
Flipping through photo albums Thursday at her home in Colorado, Osterman reflected on “the days before social media. The days before the infinite scrolling lured him in.” Photos of him in frames with hearts and angels wings dotted the shelves.
Osterman said Max arranged to meet a drug dealer he connected with on Snapchat and purchased what he thought was Percocet. The pill was laced with a deadly dose of fentanyl, and he was dead the next morning. Osterman is pursuing a wrongful death lawsuit that is separate from cases decided this week.
AAP Faces Pressure Over Trans Youth Care, Guiding Docs to Keep Parents in the Dark About Child’s Sexual Health
A parental rights advocacy organization is sounding the alarm over the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) support for transgender medical procedures for minors and encouragement of healthcare providers to withhold the sexual health and history of underage patients from parents. The American Parents’ Coalition compiled a “lookout” showcasing videos and public statements by AAP asserting that “science” supports “gender-affirming care,” which can range from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones to surgeries for minors.
The launch of the online parental notification system comes weeks before AAP is scheduled to hold its advocacy conference in Virginia from April 12 to April 14.
American Parents Coalition Executive Director Alleigh Marré accused AAP of acting like “a political advocacy group, putting ideology ahead of evidence and children’s wellbeing.” The “lookout” states that during AAP’s 2025 Leadership Conference, 98% of its members voted to make protecting sex change treatments its top resolution.
“Even as health systems abroad rethink experimental gender interventions, the AAP has doubled down on aggressive and irreversible procedures rather than exercise basic caution,” Marre said. “By prioritizing resolutions that elevate transgender interventions and partnering with activist groups, the AAP is acting to protect a political project.”
Is This the Beginning of the End of Big Social Media?
Gen Z gets to have its Lucky Strike moment, living amidst a social behavior so widely accepted that we hardly notice its near-complete ubiquitousness and carry on a seemingly innocuous yet encompassing habit without a second thought. Today’s addictive product isn’t rolled in paper and sold at gas stations. It lives in our back pockets. And this week, for the first time, a jury suggested it might be just as dangerous — and just as liable.
Cigarettes were everywhere in America in the 1950s through the 1980s, and they were cool. You saw them in every movie and TV show and on every billboard. More than 40 percent of adults smoked. It was normalized, glamorous, and quietly killing people.
Then came the lawsuits. States sued Big Tobacco for hiding what they knew about addiction. Internal documents proved companies had engineered dependence and targeted children.
The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement forced the four biggest tobacco companies to pay states more than $206 billion, ban cartoon ads, and fund anti-smoking campaigns. The once romanticized and ubiquitous habit fell out of favor: Between 1998 and 2018, overall cigarette consumption fell more than 50 percent, and youth smoking dropped from 36 to 6 percent.
Children’s Health: How Anxiety Can Affect Your Child’s Stomach
If your child often complains of a stomachache before school, a big game or a test, it may not just be “nerves.” Experts say there is a strong connection between a child’s gut and their brain — and it can play a big role in both physical and emotional health.
“The gut and the brain are constantly communicating,” said Lauren Potthoff, PhD, a pediatric psychologist at Lurie Children’s. “When a child feels anxious, that stress can show up in the body, especially in the digestive system.”
This connection, known as the gut-brain axis, helps explain why anxiety and stomach issues often go hand in hand. A two-way street between brain and body
The digestive system has its own network of nerves, sometimes called the “second brain.” Because of this, emotional stress can directly affect how the gut works.
When a child feels anxious, the body goes into “fight or flight” mode. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released, which can speed up digestion. This may lead to symptoms such as stomach pain, cramping, nausea or even diarrhea.
“It’s a very real physical response,” Dr. Potthoff said. “Kids aren’t making it up. Their bodies are reacting to stress in a way that affects how their gut functions.”
Kids’ Cognitive Skills Declined During COVID-19 Pandemic, Studies Show
A growing body of research suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the development of key cognitive skills that help children make plans, control their impulses, and adapt to new situations. Several long-term studies conducted before, during, and after the pandemic have found significant declines in children’s executive functioning, a set of mental skills that help people set goals, focus, and get things done.
Executive function skills include flexible thinking, inhibition control, and working memory, which allows people to remember information without losing track of what they’re doing — such as when working on math problems. Children typically experience big gains in executive function when they begin school, according to Caitlin Dermody, MSc, a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
For example, kids need to remember to bring their lunch and snacks to school, to put them away during the day, and bring their lunch boxes home again in the afternoon, said first author Stephanie Jones, PhD, a professor of early childhood development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Children also practice self-inhibition by learning to raise their hands to speak, rather than shouting out answers.
Italy Investigates Beauty Brands Over Concerns About Young Girls’ Mental Health
Italian regulators are investigating Sephora and Benefit Cosmetics over the apparent use of “covert marketing strategies” to sell beauty products to young girls that might be fuelling an unhealthy skincare obsession known as “cosmeticorexia”.
The Italian Competition Authority said it was looking into promotions for skincare products such as face masks, serums and anti-ageing creams that in some cases appeared to target girls under 10. “These practices are linked to the broader issue of ‘cosmeticorexia’ — an obsession with skincare among minors,” the authority said.
The cosmetics brands, which are both owned by the French luxury group LVMH, appeared to have adopted a “particularly insidious marketing strategy”, it said. This involved using “very young micro-influencers who encourage the compulsive purchase of cosmetics among young people, a particularly vulnerable group”. The watchdog said that its officials, with the help of the Italian financial police, had carried out inspections at the premises of Sephora Italia and other LVMH offices on Thursday.
The post Woman Whose Son Died From Drugs Bought on Social Media Celebrates Verdicts Against Meta, YouTube + 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
Leave a Reply