Health
Trump Will Withhold Money From Schools That Require Covid Vaccines
President Trump ordered on Friday that federal funding be withheld from schools and universities that require students to be vaccinated against Covid, White House officials said, another step in the administration’s campaign against coronavirus vaccine requirements.
It was not clear how widely impactful the order would be. No states require K-12 students to be vaccinated against Covid. Only 15 colleges still required Covid vaccines for students as of late last year, according to No College Mandates, an advocacy group.
Riding the same wave of anti-vaccine sentiment, 21 states had already moved to outlaw student Covid vaccine mandates, the National Academy for State Health Policy, a nonpartisan research group, has said. And Republican elected officials across the country have pursued a tide of anti-vaccine measures, including a proposed ban in Montana on administering mRNA vaccines, which include some Covid shots, and a ban on a local health department in Idaho offering any Covid vaccines.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that monitoring has shown that Covid vaccines are safe for children.
Younger people are much less likely to be severely sickened by the coronavirus, but doctors have said that the virus has still harmed many children.
For Mr. Trump, whose first administration accelerated the development and rollout of Covid shots, saving some 140,000 lives in their early months of availability, the latest executive order was a turn toward reining in efforts to promote the vaccines.
Shortly after returning to office last month, Mr. Trump also said he would reinstate more than 8,000 troops who had been dismissed for refusing the Covid vaccine.
The executive order on Friday largely took aim at mandates implemented in 2021, shortly after Covid vaccines became available. Some local school districts, especially in more liberal regions, required the shots for students participating in sports or other extracurricular activities, or for adult visitors to school buildings, including parents.
School-based mandates tend to raise vaccination rates among children, researchers have found. Those vaccinations, in turn, can protect students who might be vulnerable to more serious illness and dampen circulation of the virus, potentially sparing parents or grandparents from being exposed.
But even in more liberal areas, school mandates won only modest support. Some researchers argued they were counterproductive, polarizing communities and damaging trust in scientific institutions. As the pandemic progressed, resistance to mandates mounted. Most of the policies were short-lived.
Covid vaccine mandates at colleges also improved vaccination rates, researchers have found, with health benefits that extended to surrounding communities. In counties whose colleges all mandated vaccines, one study found, fewer residents died from Covid.
Few teachers and school staff members are working under Covid vaccine mandates, either. No state requires them, and the nation’s two largest school districts, New York City and Los Angeles, both lifted teacher Covid vaccine requirements in 2023.
The order applies only to Covid vaccines, leaving untouched state requirements that school children be vaccinated against measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and chickenpox. States excuse children who, for medical reasons, cannot receive vaccines, and many also allow exemptions for religious or other reasons.
At least some medical schools require Covid shots for students. It was not immediately clear if those rules would be affected by the new order.
Dana Goldstein and Tyler Pager contributed reporting.
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More than 59% of women may have high blood pressure by 2050, according to a new report from the American Heart Association.
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A new report by the American Heart Association (AHA) included some troubling predictions for the future of women’s health.
The forecast, published in the journal Circulation on Wednesday, projected increases in various comorbidities in American females by 2050.
More than 59% of women were predicted to have high blood pressure, up from less than 49% currently.
The review also projected that more than 25% of women will have diabetes, compared to about 15% today, and more than 61% will have obesity, compared to 44% currently.
As a result of these risk factors, the prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7%.
The prevalence of cardiovascular disease and stroke in women is expected to rise to 14.4% from 10.7% by 2050. (iStock)
Not all trends were negative, as unhealthy cholesterol prevalence is expected to drop to about 22% from more than 42% today, the report stated.
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Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods in Minnesota, commented on these “jarring findings.”
“The fact that on our current trajectory, cardiometabolic disease is projected to explode in women within one generation should be a huge wake-up call,” she told Fox News Digital.
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“Hypertension, diabetes, obesity — these are all major risk factors for heart disease, and we are already seeing what those risks are driving. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women, eclipsing all other causes of death, including breast cancer.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for women in the U.S. and around the world. (iStock)
Klodas warned that heart disease starts early, progresses “stealthily,” and can present “out of the blue in devastating ways.”
The AHA published another study on Thursday revealing one million hospitalizations, showing that heart attack deaths are climbing among adults below the age of 55.
The more alarming finding, according to Klodas, is that young women were found more likely to die after their first heart attack than men of the same age.
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“This is all especially tragic since heart disease is almost entirely preventable,” she said. “The earlier you start, the better.”
Children can show early evidence of plaque deposition in their arteries, which can be reversed through lifestyle changes if “undertaken early enough and aggressively enough,” according to the expert.
Moving more is one part of protecting a healthy heart, according to experts. (iStock)
Klodas suggested that rising heart conditions are associated with traditional risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
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Doctors are also seeing higher rates of preeclampsia, or high blood pressure during pregnancy, as well as gestational diabetes. Klodas noted that these are sex-specific risk factors that don’t typically contribute to complications until after menopause.
The best way to protect a healthy heart is to “do the basics,” Klodas recommended, including the following lifestyle habits.
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Klodas especially emphasized making improvements to diet, as the food people eat affects “every single risk factor that the AHA’s report highlights.”
“High blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol, excess weight – these are all conditions that are driven in part or in whole by food,” she said. “We eat multiple times every single day, which means what we eat has profound cumulative effects over time.”
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health,” a doctor said. (iStock)
“Even a small improvement in dietary intake, when maintained, can have a massive positive impact on health.”
The doctor also recommends changing out a few snacks per day for healthier choices, which has been proven to “yield medication-level cholesterol reductions” in a month.
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“Keep up that small change and, over the course of a year, you could also lose 20 pounds and reduce your sodium intake enough to avoid blood pressure-lowering medications,” Klodas added.
“Women should not view the AHA report as inevitable. We have power over our health destinies. We just need to use it.”
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