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florawriting · 2 months ago

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My headcanon mixed universe shazam timeline

You may absolutely steal

This is a long one, buckle up

Billy (4ish years old)

The Batson family is planning a work/vacation holiday in the region of Kahndaq in Egypt. However, Billy becomes bedridden by an illness and is unable to join them, thus staying behind under the eye of Ebenezer. In Kahndaq Billy’s parents and sister die on the excavation site, leaving Billy orphaned. Not willing to deal with the boy Ebenezer throws Billy into foster care.

Mary (4ish years old)

Mary is found in Kahndaq and brought back to the USA, where she is adopted by the Bromfields through less then legal means. The Bromfields decide not to tell Mary about her adoption status.

Billy (end 8 to begin 9ish years old)

After being placed from foster home to foster home Billy has had enough of the whole circus and decides to run away. Together with his new foster brother and best friend Freddy, a disabled kid who has been suffering in the system as well, they escape.

Mary (begin 9ish years old)

Having endured the physical and emotional abuse from the Bromfields for long enough, Mary decides to run away. After being found sleeping on the sidewalk by the police she is taken in by the foster care system and is placed in the household of Rosa and Victor Vasquez.

Billy (10ish years old)

After another attempt to help someone ends with him being chased down by cops he finds himself in the Rock of Eternity, where the wizard deems him pure of heart and able to become his champion. Billy, now an adult superhero named Captain Marvel, becomes the sole protector of Fawcett before branching out to the rest of the municipality of Philadelphia.

Billy keeps this a secret from Freddy for about half a year until he is forced to reveal it. Freddy is a bit betrayed at first that Billy had not told him earlier, but turns around quickly and covers for Billy if necessary.

Billy & Freddy (11ish years old and 12ish years old)

Billy and Freddy start doing odd jobs for Whiz RTV, like selling newspapers. This gives them a small income to get food legally. The two of them also occasionally use the Rock of Eternity as shelter during cold nights.

During a battle with a villain (any can do except Black Adam) Freddy get’s injured. Unsure what to do, Billy goes to the Wizard and pleads to safe him. The Wizard, having seen Freddy before during his evenings at the Rock, instructs Billy to give a portion of his power to Freddy, turning him into Captain Marvel Jr. This leads to the two of them fighting crime together.

Billy & Freddy (begin 13 and end 13 years old)

Freddy’s leg is flaring up in pain again, and as it isn’t a one time injury, the power of Captain Marvel can not fix it. Freddy is forced to turn himself in to go to the hospital, much to Billy’s dismay. Freddy reminds him that if something goes wrong he is only two words away from freedom. Freddy and Billy part ways, both promising each other to check up when able to.

Billy starts to do more things on his own, he formally joins ether the JL or the JSA, he starts living more at the Rock of Eternity, he discovers more about his job as the champion of magic, all the while still making time to visit the sick children at all of Philly’s hospitals.

Freddy (14 years old)

After a while in the hospital Freddy needs to strengthen up before he can resume most of his activities, because of this he allows himself to be fostered by the only home that was willing to take him: Rosa and Victor Vasquez. However, the longer her stays, the nicer the house begins to feel. He becomes well acquainted with his foster siblings: Pedro, Mary, Eugene and Darla and even feels comfortable enough to invite Billy over sometimes, under the guise of him being a friend from school.

During this time he slowly starts going back to the roll of Captain Marvel Jr. He does truly take it slow, as he doesn’t want his condition to get worse.

Billy (begin 14 years old)

Billy is happy to have Freddy back, but is still skeptical about his living situation. However, from his observations he believes that Rosa and Victor are good for his friend so he lets it be. He also becomes closer with the other foster kids at the house. In particular with Mary, who he somehow feels a strong connection to.

Billy & Freddy (14 years old and begin 15 years old)

Billy and Freddy are faced by a new powerful foe named Black Adam. A shadow from the Wizard’s past that has come back to haunt them. Through certain events Billy learns what really happened the day his parents died and what involvement both Dr. Sivana (the one that financed the excavation) and Black Adam (the one that made the tomb collabs, albeit accidentally) had during the event. He also realizes that his sister Mary had actually survived the collabs and that she was in fact the Mary from the Vasquez home.

The two race to the Vasquez home to explain to Mary what had happened. While Mary first doesn’t believe them, as she has been told she was the Bromfield’s biological daughter for all her life, there is something nagging within her that was Billy is saying is right.

However, not long after Black Adam has come a similar revelation. He finds Mary, both for bait for Captain Marvel, but also because of personal interest of his revival. He also takes Pedro, Eugene and Darla with him as extra bait, as they were all there at the same time.

Cap and Jr. try their hardest to safe all of them, but find themselves being overwhelmed by the task. During a last ditch effort to safe his sister, Billy let’s out a large thunderstorm. Which shares his power both with his sister, and accidentally with the Pedro, Eugene and Darla as well. Now with the six of them, Black Adam is overwhelmed and beaten. Mary truly reunites with her brother, now that she knows everything that happened.

Billy (end 14 years old)

After the fight Pedro, Eugene and Darla lost their powers, however somehow Mary’s remained. Billy goes to the wizard for guidance, who says that his strong familial bond with Mary allows her to tap into the powers of Shazam when desired. Mary is a bit hesitant to become a full time hero, but does help out sometimes under the name Mary Marvel. Her foster siblings help her keep her secret and assist the marvels when necessary.

During this time Mary convinces Billy to come live with the Vasquez, as living on the street is not doing him good. Billy is very skeptical at first, as his prior experiences with foster homes have been very bad, but eventually reveals himself to be homeless and Mary’s brother to the Vasquez. After a long legal battle against Ebenezer and a DNA test, Billy and Mary are officially recognized as siblings and their parents inheritance is restored.

Billy (15ish to 16ish years)

Billy continues to grow closer to everyone in the family. Considering his long time best friend Freddy and Pedro, Eugene and Darla his siblings together with Mary. Because of this, his familial connection begins to shift. Instead of sharing the power of Shazam with Mary and his power with Freddy, Freddy starts being able to tap into the power of Shazam directly. The others follow soon after.

Because of this change, Freddy drops the title of Captain Marvel Jr. He is also now around 16 to 17 and thinks that the name doesn’t really fit him anymore. Pedro, Eugene and Darla are collectively dubbed the lieutenants by the media, but separately choose to take a name that doesn’t interfere with the Marvel title. Instead going by Thunder, Circuit and Bolt. Freddy decides to joint the bandwagon and names himself Voltage, although Billy does sometimes still jokingly call him Jr.

The Shazamily (Billy is mid to end 16)

Something happens that forces everyone to reveal their identities to Rosa and Victor. Both of them are shocked, but were suspecting something was off. They reaffirm their love for their foster children and become allies to the Shazamily, giving guidance when necessary.

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mariacallous · 18 days ago

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Relatives of 82-year-old Allentown resident Luis Leon are headed to a Guatemalan hospital Saturday in hopes of reuniting with the man they say disappeared without a trace into the American immigration system a month ago — and who, for a time, they thought was dead.

The last time anyone in the family saw Leon was June 20, when he went with his wife to a Philadelphia immigration office to have his lost green card replaced.

There, the family says, he was handcuffed by two officers, who led him away without explanation. His wife, who speaks little English, was left behind and kept in the building for 10 hours until she was released to her granddaughter, the family says.

Repeated inquiries to immigration officials, prisons, hospitals and even a morgue yielded no information. Leon’s name was not in ICE’s online database of detainees.

Finally, on Friday, a relative from Leon’s native Chile was told he had been taken first to a detention center in Minnesota and then to Guatemala. The hospital, citing privacy rules, would not verify his presence there when contacted by The Morning Call.

It is unclear whether Leon ended up in that Central American country deliberately or by mistake. A Supreme Court ruling in June reopened the door to the Trump administration’s efforts to deport immigrants to countries that are not their home countries.

Leon was granted political asylum in 1987 after surviving torture at the hands of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s regime, according to his granddaughter, Nataly, who asked that her surname not be used because she fears U.S. government retribution against her and her relatives.

In Allentown, he lived a quiet life, raising four children and enjoying retirement after years working at a leather manufacturing plant.

It all fell apart, Nataly said, when he lost the wallet holding his green card and made the fateful appointment to replace it at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office on 41st Street in Philadelphia.

Frustration at not knowing Leon’s whereabouts turned to grief July 9, when a caller informed Leon’s wife that he had died, Nataly said.

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thetwelvetears · 2 months ago

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Hawkins Lab Cover-up, Dimension X, Henry Creel and Will Byers parallelism, and Dr. Brenner interest:

The Hawkins Lab cover-up involving Will Byers' fake body in Season 1 wasn't just a hasty reaction to a missing child. It was a calculated move by Dr. Brenner, driven by deep, specific knowledge about Dimension X (the Upside Down) and the potential locked within Will himself.

Brenner's Pre-Existing Knowledge & Obsession:

1. The Creel Precedent: As revealed in The First Shadow, Brenner knew Henry Creel (001) gained his extraordinary psychic abilities after exposure to the entity ("Shadow") within Dimension X. Henry returned fundamentally changed.

2. The Philadelphia Experiment: Brenner's own father had previously discovered Dimension X via "Philadelphia Experiment." Exposure to its environment altered his DNA, demonstrating Dimension X's transformative potential on humans.

3. The Lost Subjects: By November 6th, 1983, Brenner's situation was desperate. Henry Creel (001) had been banished back to Dimension X by Eleven in 1979. The other test subjects were dead. Eleven was his only remaining powered asset, and she had just escaped after accidentally opening the MotherGate.

Will's Disappearance:

When Will vanished on the same night Eleven opened the Gate, Brenner immediately suspected the truth: Will hadn't been kidnapped conventionally; he had been taken into Dimension X intentionally. Brenner knew the history: Exposure to Dimension X had transformed Henry Creel and altered his own father. He theorized the same could happen to Will. Will represented a potential new test subject, one who might develop unique abilities due to Dimension X exposure, just like 001.

However, Will's case was unprecedented. His disappearance triggered an extraordinary event: Dimension X morphed, freezing into an exact, decaying replica of Hawkins as it existed on November 6th, 1983. This wasn't Henry's influence; it seemed intrinsically linked to Will's presence and the massive energy surge of the Gate's opening ("like a nuclear bomb going off," freezing time akin to Hiroshima/Nagasaki).

Brenner's team would have quickly observed this impossible, frozen reflection of their own town. This confirmed Will was in Dimension X and suggested his connection to it was uniquely potent, fundamentally altering the dimension's very fabric. This made recovering Will even more critical – he wasn't just a potential powered subject; he was the key to understanding this new, Hawkins-locked state of Dimension X.

The Cover-Up:

Hawkins Lab couldn't risk Joyce Byers, the police, or public scrutiny interfering. A frantic mother and an official investigation would jeopardize his ability to locate and retrieve Will from Dimension X for study.

The fake body served a brutal purpose:

1. Stop the Search: Declaring Will "dead" would halt the active police and community search, giving the Lab unimpeded access to search Dimension X.

2. Control the Narrative: It provided a simple, tragic explanation ("drowned") to quell public panic and suspicion.

3. Isolate the Asset: If found alive, Will could be taken into custody as a "miracle" survivor, effectively disappearing him into the Lab system. He would become their next test subject, just like the children before him – stripped from his family, manipulated, and studied, with his potential transformation in Dimension X being the core of Brenner's research.

Critical Post-Rescue Intervention:

Crucially, when Will was rescued from the Upside Down, he wasn't taken to a hospital. He was brought directly to Hawkins Lab for "medical treatment" and "decontamination." This was highly unusual for a missing child found traumatized and physically compromised.

This period under Lab control presents a significant opportunity for Brenner. Knowing the transformative potential of Dimension X exposure (from Henry Creel and his father), and observing Will's unique connection (the slug, his physical state), Brenner would have been desperate to understand and contain any changes.

It's highly plausible that during this time, Hawkins Lab implanted Will with a Soteria chip – the same neural inhibitor used on Henry Creel (001). Brenner's goal wouldn't just be study; it would be preemptive control. If Will had developed latent abilities akin to Henry's, a Soteria would prevent their manifestation and keep Will docile, manageable, and unable to become a threat like 001. This would explain why Will's profound sensitivity (visions, sensing the Mind Flayer/Vecna) never manifested as active powers – they were potentially suppressed at the source.

Conclusion:

The fake body wasn't just panic or simple containment; it was the opening gambit in Brenner's plan to exploit Will Byers as a unique scientific specimen forged in Dimension X. Armed with the knowledge of its transformative power, Brenner saw Will not as a victim to save, but as a potential successor to Henry Creel – a new source of power to be controlled. It was Brenner attempting to regain control of his life's work by exploiting another child's trauma.

What truly happened to Will Byers that night remains a mystery that I'm certain the Duffer Brothers will explain further in Season 5...

#stranger things analysis #stranger things 5 #will byers has powers #will byers #stranger things theory #dr brenner #upside down #dimension x #vecna stranger things #henry creel #the first shadow #stranger things eleven

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covid-safer-hotties · 9 months ago

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Also preserved in our archive

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from fringe figure to the prospective head of U.S. health policy was fueled by skepticism and distrust of the medical establishment—views that went viral in the Covid-19 pandemic.

People once dismissed for their disbelief in conventional medicine are now celebrating a new champion in Washington. Scientists, meanwhile, are trying to figure how they could have managed the pandemic without setting off a populist movement they say threatens longstanding public-health measures.

Lingering resentment over pandemic restrictions helped Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign draw people from the left and the right, voters who worried about the contamination of food, water and medicine. Many of them shared doubts about vaccines and felt their concerns were ignored by experts or regarded as ignorant.

Kennedy merged a crowd of Covid-era skeptics with people who long distrusted mainstream medicine and food conglomerates. Together, they helped return Donald Trump to the White House. With the president-elect’s selection of Kennedy to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the medical establishment is bracing for an overhaul of U.S. health policy.

Health authorities who beat the pandemic worry about losing more trust from the people they worked to save. Doctors, scientists and public-health officials are asking themselves how they can win it back. Among their postelection revelations: Don’t underestimate or talk down to those without a medical degree.

Officials fear that Kennedy will promote unproven remedies, appoint vaccine skeptics to immunization-advisory committees and hamper the government’s infectious-disease detectives in a future pandemic.

Kennedy has said he opposes food coloring and additives, the widely used pesticide glyphosate, seed oils and foods with added sugars, among many other issues. Medical authorities say some of his views, such as suspicion of ultra-processed foods, have scientific merit, while others are unfounded. The food and pharmaceutical industries are planning to win him over where they can and do battle where they can’t.

Much of Kennedy’s popularity reflects residual pandemic anger—over being told to stay at home or to wear masks; the extended closure of schools and businesses; and vaccine requirements to attend classes, board a plane or eat at a restaurant.

“We weren’t really considering the consequences in communities that were not New York City,” the places where the virus wasn’t hitting as hard, former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said at event last year.

Authorities focused on ways to stop the disease and failed to consider “this actually, totally disrupts peoples’ lives, ruins the economy and has many kids kept out of school,” Collins said. The U.S. overall took the right approach, he said, but overlooking long-term consequences was “really unfortunate. That’s another mistake we made.”

Public-health officials wonder if they have sufficient clout for the next national emergency. “Science is losing its place as a source of truth,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious-disease physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It’s becoming just another voice in the room.”

Pandemic restrictions wore on Joel Grey, a 62-year-old retired car salesman in Belfair, Wash., who voted for Trump. He got vaccinated only because diabetes put him at higher risk of complications from Covid-19. He said he watched acquaintances lose jobs because they wouldn’t get the shot and blamed his mother’s death at 87 partly on the isolation of lockdowns.

Grey became frustrated with scientists telling Americans how to live, he said: “I just don’t think they have a place in our lives.” His view resonated broadly.

In October 2023, 27% of Americans who responded to a Pew Research Center poll said they had little to no trust in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, up from 13% in January 2019.

‘Latest Nonsense’ Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group founded by Kennedy, got a boost during the lockdown era, a time of surging interest in alternative medical and nutrition information and advice. The nonprofit raised more than $46 million from 2020 to 2022, nearly 10 times more than it collected in the three years before the pandemic, tax filings show.

The group published articles saying Covid-19 vaccines sabotaged the immune system and enriched shareholders of drugmakers. “Ignore the Latest Nonsense About ‘Variants.’ Stay Focused on Dangers of COVID Shots,” read the headline of one 2021 article. Others took aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the federal government’s infectious-disease research center, and groups that supported vaccines, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To counter such views, Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, shared information on the importance of vaccines and face masks. She dismissed unsupported claims as misinformation and described some of their purveyors as grifters.

Looking back, Rivera said her sometimes scolding messages weren’t helpful. “Everybody has been tempted by the slam dunk,” he said. “It’s not an effective way to communicate science. It’s just not.” She and others say they are dialing back the use of the word misinformation, saying it makes people feel they are being called liars or dumb.

During the pandemic, Palmira Gerlach had questions about the Covid-19 vaccines, but doctors “were very dismissive,” the 44-year-old recalled.

Gerlach, a stay-at-home mother outside Pittsburgh, said she falsely told her child’s pediatrician that she got the shot, seeking to avoid judgment. The doctor told her, “Good girl.” Gerlach turned to podcasts featuring Kennedy, drawn to his willingness to question pandemic measures.

One challenge for health authorities was learning how to combat Covid-19 while hundreds of people died each day. Researchers needed months just to clarify how the virus spread. That meant answers to common questions kept shifting: Was it OK to gather outside? When was it safe to visit grandparents? Do I have to wear a face mask everywhere?

Health authorities sometimes got it wrong. At first, officials said Covid-19 vaccines would prevent transmission or infection. Later, they learned that the shots instead cut the risk for hospitalization or death.

Shelli Hopsecger, a small-business owner in Olympia, Wash., who described herself as an independent, said she listened closely to health officials when the pandemic hit. But as school closures and lockdowns dragged on, she began questioning what they said.

Hopsecger, 56, said the pandemic made her realize how powerful a role federal health agencies played in her life. “We all are aware now that there are these agencies that look at these things on our behalf,” she said. “As citizens, it’s time for us to start telling them what we want them to look at.”

Last year, Hopsecger said she started listening to Kennedy’s podcast interviews on the recommendation of her 26-year-old son. She recalled Kennedy pointing out how millions of Americans suffer from chronic diseases, despite vast sums spent on healthcare.

“Mr. Kennedy is definitely on to something,” Hopsecger said. “Our current policies and systems are not doing the job of preventing or even reversing chronic diseases.”

Us and them Kennedy’s polling as an independent presidential candidate had fallen to the single digits when he threw his support to Trump in August and embraced the slogan “Make America Healthy Again.”

The career of Kennedy—an environmental lawyer, former heroin addict and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy—took a turn in 2005 when he began questioning the use of vaccines. He says he exercises, meditates and attends 12-step meetings every day.

While campaigning for Trump, Kennedy talked about how more Americans were obese and more young people were getting diagnosed with cancer. He decried the quality of foods and warned that water and medicines were polluted by toxins and chemicals. He criticized the medical establishment for pushing pills and shots, rather than addressing the root causes of disease.

“We were all told in Covid: ‘Trust the experts.’ But that’s not a thing,” Kennedy said in an episode of the “What is Money?” podcast in April. “Trusting the experts is not a feature of science. It’s the opposite of science. It’s not a feature of democracy.”

Many doctors, scientists and health officials with traditional credentials share Kennedy’s view that ultraprocessed foods contribute to obesity, yet they also say more study is needed. Likewise, many establishment health figures agree that scientists need to do more to understand the role of microplastics and so-called forever chemicals in food and water.

Yet many scientists and food-industry officials say some of the food colorings and chemicals Kennedy pinpoints as dangerous don’t affect human health in such small quantities. Nearly all are alarmed by Kennedy’s unproven or disproved claims—that vaccines cause autism, AIDS might not be caused by HIV and antidepressant drugs might be linked to mass shootings.

Ashley Taylor, a 33-year-old entrepreneur in New York City, sides with Kennedy’s views on food safety and the role of experts. She became critical of traditional medicine after scoliosis surgery as a teenager left her reeling in pain and reliant on Tylenol. She said she rejected her doctors’ recommendations and found relief from her back problems with acupuncture, a nutritious diet, yoga and positive thinking.

Taylor said that health authorities during the pandemic ignored studies on natural immunity and didn’t acknowledge that people who had been infected with Covid-19 might not need to be vaccinated. “What I just don’t approve of is purposefully presenting information in a way that is not allowing the American public to arrive at their own opinion,” she said.

Taylor listened to part of Kennedy’s book, “The Real Anthony Fauci; Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.” She was attracted to his ideas even more after watching a September roundtable on nutrition featuring Kennedy and his allies, hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R, Wisc.) in the Senate.

After previously voting for Democrats, Taylor said she cast her ballot for Trump.

Mainstream doctors, researchers and health officials are bracing for a Kennedy-led federal health department. They are considering how best to communicate with the public if they need to counter decisions that stray from established public-health measures.

Some Food and Drug Administration staffers have already stopped saying that vaccines are safe and effective, instead advising that the benefits outweigh the risks, a person familiar with the matter said. The change is intended to make clear that all medical interventions have risks, the person said, and to spike the argument that rare side effects mean vaccines aren’t safe.

Virologist Dr. Greg Poland said he advises scientists to communicate with humility and empathy, to speak as a compassionate physician would with a patient. “We’re not dogmatic. We’re not about forcing people,” he said. “We’re about imparting information.”

To build trust in vaccines, Poland, who is also a Presbyterian minister, speaks to conservative churches and civic groups. He tells them he will be truthful and transparent and then explains how vaccines work and how scientists arrive at a consensus.

Poland said he stays until he has answered every last question.

#mask up #public health #wear a mask #pandemic #covid #wear a respirator #covid 19 #still coviding #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #us politics

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posttexasstressdisorder · 1 month ago

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CNN 7/7/2025

US children are much more likely to die than kids in similar countries, study finds

By Jen Christensen, CNN

Updated: 11:30 AM EDT, Mon July 7, 2025

Source: CNN

American children’s health has declined profoundly over the past few decades, a new study shows, and the issues are so serious that children in the US are dying at a much higher rate than those in similar high-income countries.

What’s particularly frustrating is that the bulk of the health problems are avoidable, said Dr. Chris Forrest, co-author of the study published Monday in the journal JAMA. There isn’t a genetic defect unique to American children and it’s not about socioeconomics within the United States, he said: The results were applicable to the total pediatric population.

“I think we all should be disturbed by this,” said Forrest, a professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and director of the Applied Clinical Research Center. “Kids in this country are really suffering.”

From 2007 to 2022, children ages 1 to 19 were 1.8 times more likely to die than children in other high-income countries, the study found. The biggest disparities were in deaths from gun violence and traffic accidents; kids in the US were 15 times more likely than their counterparts in other countries to die by firearms and more than twice as likely to die in motor vehicle crashes.

But USchildren are also sicker because of chronic conditions, Forrest said, and that’s a newer phenomenon. In the ’90s, when he started taking care of children, he said, he hardly ever saw one with a chronic condition. Today, nearly half of children are getting medical care for a chronic health problem, the study says.

The researchers, who analyzed hundreds of millions of health records from five nationally representative surveys and electronic health records from 10 pediatric health systems, found that a child in 2023 was 15% to 20% more likely to have a chronic condition than a child in 2011.

Asthma was the one chronic condition for which rates improved in the studied time period, but it was an outlier. Rates of mental health problems such as depression, anxiety and loneliness increased, as did rates of autism, behavioral conduct problems, developmental delays, speech language disorders and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorders.

Rates of physical issues also increased significantly, including problems with obesity, difficulties with limitations in activity, problems with sleeping and early menstruation. A period before age 12 is associated with immediate health problems including type 2 diabetes, but in the long term, it may also raise the risk of heart and blood pressure problems, studies show.

Chronic conditions were the focus of a recent federal government report from the Make America Healthy Again Commission that said chronic disease had made children “the sickest generation in American history.” That report blamed ultraprocessed food, exposure to chemicals in the environment, pervasive technology use and the overprescription of medicine.

The new study doesn’t pinpoint what’s driving the increase in chronic conditions, but Forrest doesn’t believe it’s just what’s on the MAHA list. Rather, he believes the nation’s entire approach toward caring for children needs to change.

“Our kids are being raised in a very toxic environment, and it’s not just the chemicals. It’s not just the food and the iPhones. It’s a much broader. It’s much deeper. It’s what we call the developmental ecosystem, and it makes it very challenging to change it,” Forrest said. “That’s a hard answer for people who want a pithy message that tells them how to fix the issues. It’s about where they’re growing up, where they’re going to school, they’re playing, where their families live, their neighborhoods, and it’s not just one population. It’s the whole nation that needs help.”

In the 1960s, children in the US were dying at about the same rate as in countries with similar incomes, but that started to change in the 1970s. The US now has about 54 excess child deaths per day compared with 18 other wealthy countries.

“This means the same kid born in this country is much more likely to die than if they were born in Germany or Denmark. Why are we allowing this to happen?” Forrest asked.

In an editorial that published alongside the study, pediatricians from Virginia and Washington wrote that there’s reason to worry the health of US children will continue to fall behind, and political winds are shifting in the wrong direction.

“While the administration’s Make America Healthy Again movement is drawing welcome attention to chronic diseases and important root causes such as ultra-processed foods, it is pursuing other policies that will work against the health interests of children,” they wrote, noting massive budget cuts at the US Department of Health and Human Services, including injury prevention, cancelled funding for safe sleep programs, Medicaid reductions, shrinking mental health funding and new initiatives that fuel vaccine hesitancy among parents.

The study found that from 2007 to 2022, babies in the US were 1.78 times more likely to die than children in 18 other high-income nations. The biggest disparities in deaths were from prematurity and sudden, unexpected infant death, which is accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed and other deaths from unknown causes.

But it’s not just children who are at risk, Forrest said. “Kids are not getting great start in life because women are also suffering in this country.”

Maternity deserts, where pregnant people don’t have easy access to a doctor, have become a growing problem. According to the March of Dimes, about 35% of counties in the US are maternity deserts, a number likely to grow as states pass stricter abortion laws, driving doctors toward states where it’s less complicated to provide care. In 2020-22, there were an excess of over 10,000 preterm births among people living in maternity care deserts or limited-access counties, the group says.

Dr. Colleen Kraft, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles who did not work on the research, said the study provides good data on broad problems.

“Nothing here surprises me at all,” said Kraft, former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who wasn’t involved in the new research.

Over 35 years of practice, she has seen the change in her own patients. At the beginning, she treated mostly infectious disease, but vaccines for conditions like meningococcal disease changed that. Now, she fears that anti-vaccine sentiment could erode much of that progress.

She also treats a lot more children now for chronic conditions that the community can help prevent, she said.

For example, schools could restrict mobile phones so kids interact more, easing problems with loneliness, anxiety and depression. Families can implement a media plan where all devices are plugged into a central location – not a bedroom – so children can get more sleep. Parents can also encourage kids to play outside and engage in more unstructured time to be social and develop their imaginations.

“There are some very common-sense things families can do,” Kraft said.

To see major improvement in childhood health in the US, Forrest believes the country will need to undergo a major transformation. In other countries, for example, day care workers are professionals who get paid a living wage, so kids get quality care. Parents also get more time off when they have a child.

“It’s time to rethink how we treat kids and how we’re supporting families,” Forrest said. “Children in our nation our like the proverbial canary in the coal mine. When their health is deteriorating, that means the foundation of our nation is also deteriorating.”

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beardedmrbean · 4 months ago

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MERRICK, N.Y. (AP) — Starting in the 1980s, New York law enforcement and health officials fielded sexual abuse complaints from the young patients of a respected pediatrician who ran his practice out of a basement office in his home on Long Island.

But Stuart Copperman was never charged with any crime, and it was only as he approached retirement in 2000, at the age of 65, that he was stripped of his medical license over the complaints.

Now, 25 years later, more than 100 of his former patients have some vindication in their yearslong fight: a court has ordered him to pay a total of $1.6 billion.

The Rev. Debbi Rhodes, who was awarded $25 million, says the completion of the litigation in late March in state Supreme Court brought a mix of relief and frustration.

“I’m not sure if he’s facing justice. He kind of got away with it for all these years,” the 63-year-old Episcopal priest in Las Vegas said by phone. “But to have a court say, definitively, ‘I believe you.’ To hear that -- that’s heavy medicine right there.”

A Manhattan lawyer who has represented Copperman over the years didn’t respond to multiple messages seeking comment in recent days.

Copperman has steadfastly denied the allegations, suggesting he was simply being “thorough” in his examinations, which his former patients say were typically conducted after he had ushered their parents out of the room.

A lengthy history of complaints

Some of the women filed complaints with local police and medical boards over the years, but no criminal charges or disciplinary actions were ever imposed, according to Rhodes' lawsuit and others. Then a state medical board revoked his license after hearing from six accusers.

Statute of limitations laws, however, prevented Copperman's accusers from filing lawsuits until passage of New York’s Child Victims Act, a 2019 law that temporarily allowed people to file suits over sexual abuse they suffered long ago as children.

The Catholic Church and other major institutions have reached huge settlements to resolve sexual misconduct claims, but lawyers for the women say their litigation has resulted in one of the largest cumulative awards against a single individual in the U.S.

"For decades, these women were silenced and dismissed,” said Kristen Gibbons Feden, a Philadelphia lawyer representing the women. “Now, they cannot be ignored.”

Copperman never responded to the litigation

The Long Island court ruled for the women because Copperman never responded to the litigation. But some of the special referees, in assessing damages, said they believed the women.

“The psychological scars from the abuse suffered by Plaintiff are profound and permanent," wrote William Bodkin in awarding $27 million to a woman identified as “Jane Doe T.A.” in April 2024.

“Here, there can only be outrage at Copperman’s reprehensible conduct," he wrote in Rhodes' $25 million judgment in December 2024.

The last of the 104 awards were handed down March 28, with amounts ranging from $500,000 to $32 million, according to Michael Della, a Long Island-based attorney also representing the women.

The women also sued local hospitals and health care networks, but those claims were dismissed.

‘Nobody can grow if they are living in shame’

Like many of the accusers, Rhodes says Copperman sexually abused her during routine visits at his home office in Merrick, some 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Manhattan. She says the abuse started in 1968 when she was 7 years old, and led to an eating disorder and alcohol and drug problems at an early age.

Rhodes says she speaks openly and often about her childhood trauma as part of her ministry, which includes working with prison inmates. She still wrestles with anxiety, depression and other mental health impacts.

“Nobody can grow if they are living in shame. Nobody can really change," said Rhodes, who has two now-grown children and whose husband is also an Episcopal priest. "I’m not even sure you can love if you’re living in shame.”

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Rhodes has.

Another woman who was awarded $27 million but declined to be named said revisiting childhood trauma during her deposition was painful but, in a way, healing.

“It feels good to know that someone heard us,” the woman, identified in the litigation as “Jane Doe A.W.,” said in a phone interview. “People now understand the magnitude of what he did.”

Lawyers for the women say they have retained a collections specialist to begin pursuing compensation from Copperman.

But Rhodes and other plaintiffs say they’ve accepted the possibility they may never see much, if any. Copperman is now 89 years old and lives in South Florida.

“I’m not sure what justice looks like even if I got a million dollars tomorrow,” Rhodes said. “For me, it’s about saying to other women who are facing this that someone will listen to you. I wasn’t believed for a very long time. Don’t stay silent. Speak your truth.”

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