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What Wisconsin experts say about the safety and benefits of putting fluoride in drinking water

At least nine Wisconsin communities have decided to stop adding fluoride to their public drinking water this year, citing possible health risks. At least six more communities are considering doing the same.

The post What Wisconsin experts say about the safety and benefits of putting fluoride in drinking water appeared first on WPR.

U.S. Education Department pings states, schools to set policies on cellphone use

The U.S. Education Department urged schools and districts on Tuesday to set policies governing smartphone use in schools. (Photo by SDI Productions via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Education Department called on every state, school and district on Tuesday to adopt policies on cellphone use in schools.

The department asks schools to have well-thought-out policies on the matter, but does not dictate exactly what those policies should be. An accompanying resource for schools notes the risk social media can pose to students’ mental health.

“In this digital age, every elementary, middle, and high school should have a clear, consistent, and research-informed policy to guide the use of phones and personal devices in school,” U.S Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a written statement.

“The evidence makes clear: there is no one-size-fits-all policy,” Cardona added, noting that “different school communities have different needs, and the nuances of this issue demand that local voices — parents, educators, and students — inform local decisions around the use of personal devices in school.”

The department acknowledged the role cellphones can play in keeping parents connected to their kids, especially in emergency situations, while also highlighting the increasing evidence on the harms social media can have on youth mental health, such as sleep deprivation and depression.

Increasing state policies

An increasing number of states and school districts have enacted policies either prohibiting or restricting students from using their cellphones in the classrooms.

Across the country, schools and districts continue to grapple with how to deal with kids’ cellphone use, and more than half of all states have sought to ban or restrict cellphone use in classrooms.

As of early November, at least eight states have passed statewide policies that either limit or prohibit cellphone use in the classrooms, according to KFF.

That includes California, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina and Virginia. A Minnesota law forces schools to adopt a policy on cellphone use by March 2025.

A handful of other states’ education departments have issued policy recommendations or pilot programs, while lawmakers in several more have introduced statewide legislation regarding cellphone use.

The guidance from the U.S. Education Department coincides with the release of a resource for education officials and local communities on adopting cellphone use policies.

In the playbook, Cardona points to U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s public warning in 2023 on social media’s effects on youth mental health.

Murthy warns: “More research is needed to fully understand the impact of social media; however, the current body of evidence indicates that while social media may have benefits for some children and adolescents, there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents.” 

Anti-lockdown researcher Trump’s pick to lead National Institutes of Health

A National Institutes of Health Pediatric Oncology Branch POB researcher's lab jacket. The NIH consists of 27 different centers and institutes that each focus on health challenges facing Americans. President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday he would nominate Stanford University researcher Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the wide-ranging agency. (Photo credit: NIH)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he has selected a Stanford University professor of health policy and skeptic of COVID-19 precautions to run the National Institutes of Health, the sweeping federal agency tasked with solving many of the country’s biggest health challenges.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya will require Senate confirmation before taking over the role officially, but assuming he can secure the votes next year when the chamber is controlled by Republicans, he’ll have significant sway over where the federal government directs billions in research dollars.

“Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives,” Trump wrote in the announcement. Kennedy is Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Bhattacharya posted on social media that he was “honored and humbled” by the nomination and pledged to “reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!”

In addition to Kennedy, other Trump nominees for health-related positions include former TV personality and onetime Pennsylvania U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, former Florida Congressman Dave Weldon to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Marty Makary for commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat as the next surgeon general.

“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease,” Trump wrote in his announcement.

Health economist

Bhattacharya received his undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1990 before earning his medical degree from its School of Medicine in 1997 and a Ph.D. from the university’s Economics Department in 2000.

He focuses his research on health economics and outcomes, according to his curriculum vitae, the academic version of a resume.

Bhattacharya’s biography on Stanford’s website says that in addition to being a professor of health policy, he runs its Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, in addition to working as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research.

“Dr. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics,” according to the biography. 

Among his research areas is the “epidemiology of COVID-19 as well as an evaluation of policy responses to the epidemic.”

‘A fringe component’

Bhattacharya testified before the U.S. House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic in February 2023 that he believed there was “near universal agreement that what we did failed.”

“Official counts attribute more than one million deaths in the United States and seven million worldwide,” he said.

Bhattacharya was one of three authors of The Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, arguing that younger, healthy people should have gone about their normal lives in an effort to contract COVID-19, since they were somewhat less likely to die than at-risk populations. 

The brief declaration says that “(a)dopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19.” But it doesn’t list what those measures should include and never brings up masking, physical distancing, or vaccination.

Several public health officials and researchers rejected the declaration, noting that it didn’t cite any research, data or peer-reviewed articles.

Former NIH Director Francis S. Collins, who ran the agency from 2009 through 2021, told The Washington Post in October 2020 that the Barrington Declaration authors’ beliefs were not held “by large numbers of experts in the scientific community.”

“This is a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It’s dangerous. It fits into the political views of certain parts of our confused political establishment,” Collins said in the Post interview. “I’m sure it will be an idea that someone can wrap themselves in as a justification for skipping wearing masks or social distancing and just doing whatever they damn well please.”

One of the many reasons public health experts recommended masking, working from home and physical distancing before there was a COVID-19 vaccine was to prevent patients from overwhelming the country’s health care system.

There were concerns during some of the spikes in COVID-19 infections that the country would have so many ill people at one time there wouldn’t be enough space, health care professionals or equipment to provide treatment.

Wide-ranging agency

The NIH is made up of 27 different centers and institutes that each focus on health challenges facing Americans.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, formerly run by Dr. Anthony Fauci, became one of the more well known institutes during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially when he would regularly appear beside Trump at press briefings.

Other components at NIH include the National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the NIH Clinical Center that’s also referred to as America’s research hospital.

Congress approved $48 billion in discretionary spending for NIH during the last fiscal year, continuing a broadly bipartisan push that for years has increased funding to the agency to provide grants to research some of the most challenging diseases and illnesses facing Americans.

The current NIH director, Monica M. Bertagnolli, testified before Congress in early November about how the agency was working to rebuild trust following the pandemic.

Bertagnolli told U.S. House lawmakers the NIH was focusing some of its research on finding cures for rare diseases, since for-profit companies often don’t have the financial incentive to do so.

She also rejected the notion that NIH leaders have allowed politics to interfere with the agency’s mission.

“First and foremost, NIH concentrates on science, not on politics,” Bertagnolli said. “We actually have an integrity mandate against political interference in our work. That is the law for us and we abide by that completely.”

DataWatch: Fight against fluoride is expanding on the local and national stage

Scrub brush lies in a sink.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

In 2022, the percent of Wisconsin residents who had fluoridated water dropped sharply. According to data from the state’s Department of Health Services, 86.9% of residents had fluoridated water in 2021. A year later, that had dropped to 84.9%. Combining data from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency shows that, in 2024, about 83.6% of the state’s residents have fluoridated water.

The Wisconsin State Journal reported that multiple communities are removing fluoride from their water systems. Opponents of fluoridated water cited a report on fluoride being harmful to children. However, the CDC named fluoridated water systems as one of the greatest health achievements of the 1900s. The CDC recommends 0.7 milligrams of water per liter, or about three drops of fluoride per 55 gallons of water.

This isn’t just a Wisconsin problem. Across the country, fluoride in water is becoming a controversial topic. Coverage from the Associated Press indicated that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push for removing fluoride from water systems is one of the inciting factors to the controversy. Kennedy is now President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the federal Department of Health and Human Services. 

According to a 2018 publication by the American Dental Association, having fluoride in water systems prevents 25% of tooth decay in children and adults. It can also help reverse tooth decay and lower dental costs for the average consumer. Annually, fluoridated water can lower the cost of dental care by over $32 per person

The Fluoride Action Network, an organization dedicated to ending water fluoridation, argues that fluoride is an unnecessary, toxic and dangerous chemical that should not be added to water systems. It cites a 2024 report by the HHS’s National Toxicology Program that says having twice the CDC-recommended amount of fluoride in water systems correlates with lower IQs in children. The study was not conducted with any data from the United States and does not specify that fluoride causes a lower IQ.

DataWatch: Fight against fluoride is expanding on the local and national stage is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

NIH targeting rare diseases, director tells U.S. House funding panel

Pediatric Oncology Branch researchers observe samples in a microscope in the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. NIH Director Monica M. Bertagnolli testified at a U.S. House Appropriations hearing Tuesday. (Photo credit: NIH)

WASHINGTON — The director of the National Institutes of Health testified before Congress on Tuesday the agency is looking to rebuild trust following the COVID-19 pandemic by solving some of the biggest health challenges facing the country.

Monica M. Bertagnolli told the House panel in charge of the agency’s funding that one of those focus areas is rare diseases, since private, for-profit companies often won’t take on the financial risk of developing gene therapies. 

“What if you’re a parent of a child who has this rare disease?” Bertagnolli said. “We know if we work hard, our technology will be able to cure that child.”

Bertagnolli said during the two-hour hearing that NIH plans to soon begin “delivering more out of our pipeline for gene therapies for rare disease” and is collaborating with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ensure a smooth process.

“We will manufacture and test them within the clinical center at NIH. And then when they are ready for marketing and production — at that point after everything is completely de-risked — we will hand them over to the for-profit sector with the absolute requirements that the people who need them are able to access them,” Bertagnolli said.

The NIH, she told lawmakers, is responsible for the health of all Americans and will partner with the private sector on projects, but “can’t abandon these patients and these families.”

Bertagnolli told the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee that working to solve health challenges is one of several ways the NIH is working to rebuild trust with Americans following the global pandemic.

“We do not get people’s trust by putting out public service announcements. We do not gain people’s trust by saying ‘We’re smart, we know what to do, we’re the scientists,’” Bertagnolli testified. “We get people’s trust by solving the problems they need to have solved.”

Science, not politics

Bertagnolli also sought to reinforce basic scientific understanding about public health during the hearing, pressing back against political notions of researching infectious diseases.

“First and foremost, NIH concentrates on science, not on politics,” Bertagnolli said. “We actually have an integrity mandate against political interference in our work. That is the law for us and we abide by that completely.”

Bertagnolli noted that if NIH ceased research into diseases, death rates would rise.

“We are facing some serious threats. I mean, look in the news today, H5N1 is scary for us and we are all over risk assessment, mitigation, working with our other federal agencies to make sure that we can protect and mitigate anything that happens with that virus doing something evil,” Bertagnolli said. “We cannot afford to let down on that, people will die.”

H5N1, also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza, has caused significant disruptions to U.S. poultry farms for years, but showed up in dairy herds this March, raising alarm bells for public health experts.

Fifty-three people have been diagnosed with the virus so far, though the risk to the general public is low.

NIH duties

The NIH is made up of 27 different centers and institutes, including the National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the NIH Clinical Center that’s also referred to as America’s research hospital.

Congress approved $48 billion in discretionary funding for NIH in March as part of a full-year spending package.

The NIH writes on its budget website that 84% of its funding goes to “extramural research, largely through almost 50,000 competitive grants to more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 universities, medical schools, and other research institutions in every state.”

“In addition, approximately 11% of the NIH’s budget supports projects conducted by nearly 6,000 scientists in its own laboratories, most of which are on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland,” it states. “The remaining 6% covers research support, administrative, and facility construction, maintenance, or operational costs.”

Bipartisan support for funding

The NIH has long had broad bipartisan support in Congress, especially from members of the Appropriations committees.

That continued Tuesday with the majority of Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the panel asking genuine questions about NIH research, funding and future plans.

Alabama Republican Rep. Robert Aderholt, chairman of the subcommittee, said there was “no doubt every life is touched by the discoveries made by the investments at NIH.”

Aderholt encouraged Bertagnolli to make it a top priority to rebuild “confidence in the NIH as a leader in unbiased, nonpartisan, objective, basic science.”

A Pew Research Center survey published earlier this month showed 76% of Americans held a fair amount or a great deal of “confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests.” That represents a slight rebound for public faith in scientists after a steady decline since the start of the pandemic, according to Pew surveys.

Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed said research scientists were intelligent, while 65% said they were focused on solving real problems.

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member on the panel, applauded Bertagnolli for “ensuring NIH’s life-saving research reaches more places and more patients, especially in rural communities.”

“And she understands that health policy must be first and foremost based on science and data,” DeLauro said.

NIH funding, she said, was going toward better understanding numerous diseases facing Americans, including ALS, Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes and mental illness.

The agency is also dedicating research dollars to address several health challenges facing women, including maternal mortality, as well as other areas that historically have been ignored or underfunded.

“NIH supported research has us on the cusp of curing endometriosis and they are ramping up investments for menopause, which will ultimately impact half of our country’s population,” DeLauro said. “But there is still a long way to go.”  

Study committee considers creation of new mental health treatment facilities

The Legislative Council Study Committee on Emergency Detention and Civil Commitment of Minors met Thursday to discuss draft bills. (Screenshot via WisEye)

A study committee considered proposals Thursday to create new long-term mental health facilities for youth, expanding who could initiate an emergency detention and changing consent requirements for minors over the age of 14. 

Wisconsin children have been navigating significant mental health challenges in recent years, and the state has been exploring ways to improve support. The Legislative Council Study Committee on Emergency Detention and Civil Commitment of Minors, which includes four state lawmakers and other stakeholders, mental health providers, law enforcement, has been meeting since August to specifically focus on the current state of Wisconsin’s emergency detention and civil commitment laws as they applied to children. 

Under state law, emergency detention is a process that allows law enforcement officers to initiate an emergency “hold” for up to 72 hours if they reasonably believe a person is unable or unwilling to cooperate with voluntary treatment. Civil commitment is the involuntary restriction of a person’s liberty by a civil proceeding on the basis that the individual is in need of treatment or care for certain mental health, developmental disability or substance dependency issues in order to protect the individual or others from harm.

The committee discussed six draft bills that would change the shape of the current processes. The committee will meet again in December to discuss the priorities further before voting on which bills should move forward for consideration by the Legislature.  

“The idea here really is to roll up our sleeves and work together as a committee to turn these bill drafts into something that is workable, and that the Joint Legislative Council feels comfortable introducing in the next legislative session,” committee co-chair Sen. Jesse James (R-Altoona) said at the beginning of the meeting Thursday. 

One issue the committee has focused on is limiting the number of children with severe mental health challenges who are sent out of state for care. According to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families, from 2019 through 2023 there were 517 children placed out of state. Of those, 78 of them were placed out of state in 2023. 

The committee discussed multiple bill draft variations that would help the issue by supporting the creation of psychiatric residential treatment facilities — or PRTFs — in Wisconsin. The Legislative Fiscal Bureau has described them as long-term facilities that typically offer treatment for children diagnosed with psychiatric conditions, including bipolar disorder, disruptive behavior disorders, substance use disorders, severe emotional disturbance or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Wisconsin does have three youth crisis stabilization facilities, but those are short-term facilities with a maximum of eight beds. There are currently no PRTFs in the state.

James and Gov. Tony Evers both proposed initiatives for creating the facilities in the last legislative session but neither was successful.

The committee considered three variations of drafts that would allow for the creation of the facilities. The first would allow the Department of Health Services (DHS) to certify the facilities  to provide inpatient psychiatric services for individuals under age 21. Another one would require DHS to establish five of the facilities. The final measure allows DHS to certify the facilities, to limit the number of certifications it grants to operate a PRTF and would require DHS to request $500,000 in each year of the 2027-29 biennial state budget for the purposes of implementing PRTF certification. Some of the specific numbers are placeholders and could change. 

Committee members acknowledged the role that the cost of the facilities could play in whether they would be built. Sharon McIlquham, assistant corporation counsel for Eau Claire County, said that the facilities would need to be required by law.

“If DHS isn’t required to do it, it’s not going to happen because I don’t know that those incentives are going to be enough for a private entity to take on the liability, the cost,” McIlquham said. “I understand there’s a huge budget impact, but… if we don’t require them, I don’t think it’s going to happen.” 

“We don’t create things we can’t sustain,” Jill Chaffee, Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin’s vice president of community based services, said. “A really big issue that we have is that you have a grant and yes, that’s super helpful and appreciated to start a program, however, then you are fully dependent upon the billing of fee for service or different payers.” 

Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) pointed out that securing state money could be the biggest obstacle to creating the facilities. Wisconsin is expecting to have a $4 billion budget surplus by the end of the current fiscal year and it will be a major point of discussion in the budget writing cycle next year, however, Republican leaders have cautioned that the money will not be used to grow the size of government.

“There is no money in the budget that specifically enforces…and we all understand why. They would have to rely on Joint Finance putting those funds, specifically for this cause, and as a member of Joint Finance, I can honestly say that we don’t always do what we are supposed to do or appropriate some money that we should,” Johnson said. “They’re already operating on a limited budget but then because of this bill, if it did go through, they would be forced to do with that limited budget and that jeopardizes other programs.” 

Johnson added that the program is necessary but without a set dollar amount and the guarantee that the money will be allocated the proposal will face an uphill battle. 

James agreed, saying that he doesn’t think any of their colleagues would be supportive of a mandate. 

Changing minor consent requirements

Another proposal would amend the minor consent law when it comes to emergency detention. 

Currently, state law requires that both a minor age 14 or older and the minor’s parent or guardian consents to outpatient or inpatient mental health treatment. If consent is declined by the parent or child, the other party may petition for review and approval of the treatment.

The proposal discussed by the committee would change this to instead say that either a minor age 14 or older, or a parent or guardian, may consent to outpatient or inpatient mental health treatment.

Green Bay Police Department behavioral health officer Sheila Carlson said the change is supposed to help address the issue of parents having to go home with a child if they refuse treatment and need to file a petition.

“Once kiddo goes home, that’s when things start to get a little hairy, where parents are concerned and not really sure what to do,” Carlson said. 

Deputy State Public Defender Katie York said that she was concerned about whether not requiring consent could reduce the effectiveness of treatment.

“If the statute says you don’t need consent from the kid, is that going to encourage the practitioners to… not sufficiently seek consent, and is that going to negatively impact the treatment going forward? I would envision, if you can get buy-in from the kid, it’s going to be much more successful than, well, we don’t even need your consent, your parents signed off on it,” York said. “I don’t know if that works in the real world.” 

Expanding who could initiate minor emergency detentions

The committee also considered creating an alternative way for initiating the emergency detention of a minor by allowing medical and behavioral health clinicians to initiate the emergency detention of a minor. Currently, only law enforcement officers are allowed to initiate the detention of someone an officer believes is “mentally ill, developmentally disabled or drug dependent” based on observable behavior that the individual is “dangerous” to themself or others, and a county department of community programs must approve the need for detention and the need for evaluation, diagnosis and treatment.

The draft that the committee looked at would define clinicians as a psychologist, psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, physician, physician assistant, private practice school psychologist, marriage and family therapist, professional counselor, advanced practice social worker, independent social worker, clinical social worker, clinical substance abuse counselor, or independent clinical supervisor. It would also require a “clinician” to be in good standing and may initiate an emergency detention only if the clinician has been certified to do so by DHS.

McIlquham of Eau Claire County said the list included in the draft was too broad and expansive. 

“You start small and you can always expand it later,” McIlquham said. 

Carlson of Green Bay, however, said that she has been involved in many cases with children where police aren’t necessarily needed. 

Kids “are not combative,” she said. “They’re just reluctant, scared and confused, and then you bring in a cop and then there’s combative components to it.”  

Wisconsin Psychiatric Association President Tony Thrasher noted that some health systems may not allow their employees to do it. 

“I don’t think they’re going to take on the liability. I don’t think they’re going to agree to it.. Now that roughly 93% of all physicians are employed by large health systems, I just don’t think they’re going to let them do it. I think there’s a liability, once you start detaining them, that’s going to cause financial conflict and placement conflict, and if you’re allowed to detain them, why can’t you treat them where they’re at? How can you have the power to detain and then not care for them and ship them somewhere else?” 

The committee also discussed a bill draft that would standardize the creation of a safety plan, which would be created by a minor with behavioral or emotional challenges and a facilitator, and then require DHS to develop and maintain a portal that is available throughout the state to facilitate sharing of safety plans among safety plan partners.

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Rep. Gwen Moore predicts President-elect Trump’s tax proposals will need bipartisan support

In January, Republicans will have control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate along with the Presidency. Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore weighs in on some of the tax proposals likely to come up in the new Congress.

The post Rep. Gwen Moore predicts President-elect Trump’s tax proposals will need bipartisan support appeared first on WPR.

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