Albany looks to crack down on ‘forever chemicals’ contamination

Superior early morning and welcome to Monday’s New York Health and fitness Care newsletter, the place we maintain you posted on what is coming up this 7 days in overall health care news, and provide a look back at the critical information from previous week.

New York lawmakers and climate advocates currently will kick off New York City Weather Week by contacting for new statewide action to greater observe and exam for for every- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, identified as PFAS and “for good substances,” which have been linked to a myriad of health circumstances, like hormonal variations, developmental delays in little ones and amplified hazard of most cancers.

Sen. Rachel May possibly (D-Syracuse) and Assemblymember Carrie Woerner (D-Saratoga County) will unveil their “PFAS Surface H2o Discharge Disclosure Act,” at a late-early morning news convention featuring officials from Earthjustice and Seneca Lake Guardian and other lawmakers. The legislation (NY S9525)/(NY A10689), which was formally introduced previous thirty day period, would develop an annual PFAS floor water discharge disclosure prerequisite for all publicly owned treatment method performs and new point out pollutant discharge elimination system allow programs.

Could advised POLITICO that the laws stems from her latest perform as element of an Environmental Protection Agency community federal government advisory council on federal PFAS rulemaking.

“What we realized in New York point out, as properly as [in] a lot of elements of the country, is no one has any details about wherever these chemicals are, where by they are coming from, how significant a problem it is in area regions,”she stated in an interview. “This invoice is built to make certain that regional governments have details that they can use when they are striving to determine out if there’s a trouble, And, if so, how to address it.”

The senator included that this invoice seeks to “catch up” on addressing an issue that has been out there for a whilst — most notably in Hoosick Falls, in which drinking water contaminated with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOAs) sparked a statewide h2o protection crisis.

Jill Witkowski Heaps, a senior lawyer at Earthjustice’s Northeast office, reported substantially of the reaction to PFAS has concentrated on cleaning ingesting drinking water at the utility-stage, not addressing the resource of people contaminants. This bill, she claimed, should respond to critical questions about the scope of PFAS contamination in water that have stalled federal action on the problem.

“The incredibly initially step to really halting this cycle of PFAS contamination is requiring absolutely everyone who is using it or could possibly be utilizing it, or could have it in its discharge, to disclose that so we now know what the sources are, where this stuff is coming from and how it is receiving in our ingesting water,” she reported.

While the evaluate is concentrated on information collection — not mandating any particular response — that is “the reasonable subsequent action,” Might said.

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Crisis Around — POLITICO’s Shannon Young: New York’s Covid-19 crisis declaration finished previous week, almost 10 months soon after Gov. Kathy Hochul took the executive motion in an work to control viral transmission as coronavirus circumstances surged at the end of 2021. Hochul instructed reporters right after a New York Town party that she would not extend the executive order when it expired.

The governor experienced routinely renewed the declaration, at occasions with slight modifications, considering the fact that initially issuing it on Nov. 26. The announcement arrived just days right after Hochul lifted the state’s mask mandate for public transit and other congregant settings in an work to “restore some normalcy.” (Masks have to even now be worn in well being care configurations and grownup treatment services, which include nursing households.)

OVERDOSE Avoidance — POLITICO’s Julian Shen-Berro: The metropolis may perhaps soon inventory bars and other nightlife venues with daily life-preserving opioid overdose medication. A invoice handed unanimously by the City Council final week requires the Division of Wellbeing and Mental Cleanliness source free opioid “antagonist kits” — and instruction on how to use them — to area nightlife institutions. Those people kits will contain naloxone and other medicines permitted by New York state and the federal Food items and Drug Administration to negate or neutralize the consequences of an opioid overdose.

The treatment can be sent by means of injection or nasal spray. “It is a public overall health disaster. We are looking at New Yorkers die on a weekly foundation,” monthly bill sponsor Chi Ossé stated of opioids as he solid his vote.

IN OTHER News: 

— The NYU Faculty of World-wide Public Wellness is signing up for the AI4HealthyCities Well being Fairness Network, a worldwide initiative to boost coronary heart overall health fairness in New York Metropolis. The network, created by the Novartis Foundation in partnership with Microsoft AI for Health, appears to be to use data science procedures to offer health and fitness officials with insights and resources to recognize the root triggers of coronary heart overall health inequities, as well as how outcomes can be enhanced.

… The Novartis Basis, Microsoft AI for Wellbeing and NYU GPH will launch AI4HealthyCities at a 5 p.m. function right now, which will be streamed on line.

— Point out Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Friday announced two Section of Health and fitness audits that discovered tens of millions in incorrect payments in the Medicaid software.

— The Cannabis Command Board will satisfy Tuesday in New York Metropolis. The in-individual meeting comes just a single 7 days in advance of the application deadline for New Yorkers wanting to open the first marijuana dispensaries in the state.

WE Adore TO Hear FROM YOU: This roundup is for you! Mail news strategies, wellbeing recommendations, tips, criticisms and corrections to [email protected].

NOW WE KNOW — An Adderall shortage and social media stigma is earning it really hard for some individuals with ADHD to entry the drug, BuzzFeed News stories.

TODAY’S Suggestion — Want to adjust someone’s mind? New research implies that a group of persons owning a strong conversation can support realize consensus — as extended as that team doesn’t contain any “blowhards,” in accordance to The New York Occasions.

MAKE Sure TO Abide by Shannon @ShannonYoung413 on Twitter. And for all New Jersey well being news, examine out Daniel Han, @danieljhan_.

Analyze THIS — Via VICE: “The American armed forces is struggling with a recruiting disaster and the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Courtroom conclusion that overturned federal protection for abortion will make it worse, according to a new analyze from the RAND Company.”

The New York Periods examines “how Russian trolls aided keep the Women’s March out of lock action.”

The Moments Union reports that California paid out less than New York for Covid-19 fast, at-home checks from a “company related with Hochul marketing campaign donors.”

“Intellia Therapeutics Inc. noted encouraging early-stage examine benefits for its Crispr gene-modifying treatment options,” The Wall Street Journal stories.

Kaiser Overall health News breaks down “what back-to-schoolers want to know” about the return of poliovirus in the U.S.

The meth addiction disaster “is worse than at any time,” STAT reports. But new treatment plans are on the horizon.

“In South The us, two decades of shuttered faculties for kids without the need of computers or WiFi finished hopes and dreams for millions,” Victoria Sousa, a journalist presently attending University of Pennsylvania, writes for POLITICO Journal.

POLITICO’s Megan R. Wilson reviews that the increase of profitable Medicare Edge strategies has offered way to a wave of misleading or misleading gross sales practices applied to drive them and a massive spike in problems from seniors who truly feel duped. The issue, which has extended been on the radar of state and federal regulators, is now drawing the consideration of best Democrats on Capitol Hill.

About half of Manhattan office environment workers are back again at their desks on a standard weekday — but far less are returning to places of work five times a week, in accordance to a new study from the Partnership for New York Metropolis, POLITICO’s Janaki Chadha studies.

POLITICO’s Ben Leonard reports that Medicare clients took advantage of pandemic-period policies allowing them to see medical practitioners in other states by way of cellphone or video clip get in touch with, a study revealed Friday in JAMA Wellbeing Forum found.