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‘The Best Tool We Have’ for Self-Harming and Suicidal Teens

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‘The Best Tool We Have’ for Self-Harming and Suicidal Teens

Mother and father looking for remedy for youngsters who self-harm or endure from nervousness, despair or suicidal ideas face an imposing thicket of therapy choices and acronyms: cognitive behavioral remedy (C.B.T.), guardian administration coaching (P.M.T.), collaborate evaluation and administration of suicidality (CAMS), acceptance and dedication remedy (ACT) and others.

Every strategy can profit a specific subset of individuals. However for youngsters at acute threat for self-harm and suicide, well being specialists and researchers more and more level to dialectical conduct remedy, or D.B.T., as an efficient therapy.

“As of this second, it’s most likely the very best device we’ve,” stated Michele Berk, a baby and adolescent psychiatrist at Stanford College.

In a 2018 examine within the Journal of the American Medical Affiliation, Dr. Berk and her colleagues discovered that D.B.T. led to sharper drops in suicidal makes an attempt and self-harm amongst adolescents than a extra generalized remedy did. A 2014 examine by researchers in Norway discovered the same impact, noting that the remedy additionally has a comparatively low dropout charge, and concluded that “it’s certainly potential for adolescents to be engaged, retained, and handled” utilizing D.B.T. The remedy can be recognized as a key evidence-based therapy by the American Academy of Pediatrics. If something, Dr. Berk stated, D.B.T. “isn’t obtainable sufficient.”

Dialectical conduct remedy is a subset of cognitive behavioral remedy, which goals to reframe an individual’s ideas and conduct. D.B.T. focuses initially on conduct and uncooked emotion, serving to the person surmount moments of disaster and perceive what prompted the conduct within the first place.

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D.B.T. is intensive. The fullest model of this system, which might take six months to a yr to finish, has 4 parts: particular person remedy for {the teenager}; group remedy; coaching for youngsters and their mother and father to show emotional regulation, and telephone entry to a therapist to assist throughout a disaster.

The preliminary step is to show a affected person to acknowledge the emotions within the physique when harmful impulses come up, like “a lump within the throat, racing pulse, tense shoulders,” stated Jill Rathus, a psychologist practising in Lengthy Island. Within the Nineties, Dr. Rathus was a part of a workforce that tailored the grownup model of D.B.T. to be used by adolescents and their households.

Sufferers then study to place these emotions into phrases. It’s vital, Dr. Rathus stated, to “put language” to a bodily and emotional expertise; this engages elements of the mind, just like the prefrontal cortex, that assist regulate feelings. In younger individuals, these mind areas aren’t totally developed and may simply develop into overwhelmed.

The subsequent step is to study to decrease the arousal state with particular, usually easy strategies: splashing the face with chilly water, doing temporary however intense train, placing an ice pack on the eyes — to “tip the physique chemistry,” within the language of D.B.T.

The intensive nature of D.B.T. displays the issue of the problem it confronts: regulating the feelings of youngsters who’re so overwhelmed that they wrestle to purpose. At that age, Dr. Rathus stated, the adolescent mind is commonly not developed sufficient to course of the flood of incoming information and social info.

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“The mind simply goes into overload, flooded with excessive emotional arousal,” Dr. Rathus stated, “and you may’t study something new, can’t course of incoming info and so recommendations of what to do or to attempt simply bounce proper off you.”

Because of this youngsters seem to their mother and father to be unable to listen to recommendations for curbing their harmful impulses, regardless of how well-intended or compassionate the supply, Dr. Rathus famous. Some adolescents are unable to start out D.B.T. and not using a remedy, like an antidepressant or anti-anxiety drug, to calm the mind sufficient for therapy to take maintain.

Medicine is a supply of rigidity amongst specialists in adolescent psychological well being, who be aware that medicine may be too simply prescribed, or prescribed in mixtures with unknown unwanted effects. However they are often very important as one device to stabilize an adolescent.

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“The remedy actually helps take the sting off,” stated Dr. Berk of Stanford. “However there’s no remedy for suicidal conduct. The remedy is for despair and nervousness, and the affected person must study different behavioral abilities that the remedy doesn’t train you.”

Therapists skilled in dialectical conduct remedy may be costly and exhausting to search out, and are sometimes booked stable.

Charges fluctuate by state and supplier, however clinicians stated it’s not unusual for a single hour of particular person counseling to value $150 to $200 or extra, with group remedy roughly half that value. Over six months, therapy can value as a lot as $10,000 for somebody paying out of pocket. However the out-of-pocket expense may fluctuate extensively relying on the kind of insurance coverage plan getting used, and whether or not or not the therapy is roofed by Medicaid, the state insurance coverage plan.

Solely two states — Minnesota and Missouri — present broad help for D.B.T., in keeping with Anthony DuBose, the top of coaching for Behavioral Tech, a company that trains D.B.T. therapists. He cited one more reason for the relative shortage of D.B.T. counseling: Some therapists concern that the remedy is simply too intensive and would possibly overtake their obtainable time. “We have to persuade psychological well being suppliers they will do that,” he stated.

The up-front prices may be value it in the long term: A number of research compiled by researchers on the College of Washington recommend that D.B.T. interventions, whereas initially expensive, can scale back the necessity for costly, repeated emergency room visits. In line with the college’s Middle for Behavioral Expertise, D.B.T. is cost-effective, and “accumulating proof signifies that D.B.T. reduces the price of therapy.”

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Slimmed-down variations of D.B.T. exist, and so they can also work for adolescents experiencing self-harm and suicidal tendencies, specialists stated. However, these specialists cautioned, many of those rising variations haven’t been studied with the identical rigor because the fuller therapy.

Anecdotally, adolescents who’ve had some D.B.T. or C.B.T. coaching seem higher outfitted to cope with misery and suicidal emotions, in keeping with Dr. Stephanie Kennebeck, a pediatric emergency room physician at Cincinnati Kids’s Hospital who has researched therapeutic approaches to suicidal impulses.

Dr. Kennebeck stated she had witnessed the worth of the coaching firsthand in circumstances when adolescents arrived on the emergency room overcome by their intense feelings. Youngsters who had not had remedy and had no coaching to fall again on usually wanted to be stored on the emergency room longer, till they might be positioned in a therapy program, Dr. Kennebeck stated. She added that she felt extra comfy sending a baby residence if they’d some sense of tips on how to navigate tough emotional conditions.

“These sufferers who’ve already had some C.B.T. or D.B.T. have the power to call what their emotion is, inform me how their emotion can translate into what they’re going to do subsequent,” Dr. Kennebeck stated. “That’s invaluable.”

There are numerous therapeutic fashions that assist deal with completely different emotional points together with nervousness, despair and trauma. When acute behavioral threat, like self-harm and suicide, is a priority, the American Basis for Suicide Prevention recommends a lot of choices past D.B.T., together with CAMS, which has been proven in research to be efficient at decreasing suicidal ideas, and cognitive behavioral remedy for suicide prevention, or CBT-SP, which has been proven in research to be efficient in stopping additional suicide makes an attempt in adults with no less than one prior try.

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In D.B.T., the adolescent isn’t the one one studying. Mother and father are skilled to validate the emotions of their youngsters, as irrational as these emotions could seem.

“The error mother and father make, even well-meaning and loving mother and father, is to reduce the emotions,” Dr. Rathus stated. Telling a distraught adolescent “to simply go for a stroll, or concentrate on schoolwork, is like telling them to climb Everest.”

She stated that the adolescent can not hear the phrases, and so they shortly “study to not belief” sturdy emotions or feelings. Mother and father take group lessons the place they’re guided to know what youngsters are going by way of and taught particular methods to handle the misery.

Valerie, an government in Silicon Valley, described her household’s expertise with D.B.T. (She requested that her final identify not be used to guard their privateness.) Halfway by way of 2021, Valerie’s 12-year-old daughter grew more and more distraught; as soon as a stable scholar, she started performing out at school, suffered seemingly uncontrollable meltdowns and have become obsessed together with her look and weight.

The lady began D.B.T., and Valerie took the parental instruction, which taught her simpler methods to reply to her daughter, she stated — as an example, by first validating the lady’s painful emotions quite than instantly proposing an answer.

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If her daughter is afraid to cope with a tough topic or trainer at school, Valerie tries to reframe the concern: “I’ll say, ‘OK, you’re going to have this dangerous expertise. So, beforehand, get some good sleep, have some good snacks, organize to fulfill a good friend after, deliver just a little fuzzy bear to class.’”

Valerie added: “It’s like filling up your gasoline tank earlier than you go on an extended journey.” She stated the ideas had been ones she had begun to undertake in her personal life as she examined “fear ideas,” reminiscent of, “Will I be lonely after I promote my enterprise?”

She stated that her daughter was enhancing. “It’s helped her get out of feeling hopeless or caught in issues,” Valerie stated. “She’s catastrophizing issues much less” and “now not happening rabbit holes she will be able to’t get out of.”

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National suicide prevention hotline plans to stop offering LGBTQ+ youth counseling. Queer advocates in L.A. wonder what's next

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National suicide prevention hotline plans to stop offering LGBTQ+ youth counseling. Queer advocates in L.A. wonder what's next

Amy Kane was filled with dread when she heard that the national suicide prevention lifeline would stop offering specialized crisis intervention to young LGBTQ+ Americans and end its partnership with the West Hollywood-based Trevor Project.

With the service set to end July 17, Kane, a therapist who identifies as lesbian, believes the Trump administration is sending a clear message to queer Americans: “We don’t care whether you live or die.”

Since it launched in 2022, more than 1.3 million queer young Americans struggling with a mental health crisis have dialed the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which gave them the option to press “3” to connect with a specialist trained to address their unique life experiences. As the largest of seven LGBTQ+ contractors, the Trevor Project alone handles about half of all volume from queer callers to the 988 line.

The government’s decision is yet another broadside from an administration whose actions have left queer public health advocates and providers reeling, including at the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center, where Kane serves as director of mental health services.

Under pressure from the Trump administration, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles sent letters to families in early June saying it planned to suspend its healthcare program for transgender children and young adults in late July. The LGBTQ Center and other groups have demanded that the hospital reconsider.

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Around the same time came the news about the 988 line and the Trevor Project, a nonprofit founded in 1998 by the makers of the Academy Award-winning short film “Trevor” — about a teen who attempts suicide — to address the absence of a major prevention network tailored to the needs of queer youth.

“So much has been thrown our way in the last five months,” Kane said. “It’s across the board. It’s not just mental health. We see what’s happening with gender-affirming care, dramatic cuts in research for HIV and STIs. … What’s next?”

Given L.A.’s status as a haven for LGBTQ+ people — the first permitted Pride parade took place in Hollywood in 1970 — Kane wonders whether the recent moves are an attempt to intimidate and punish Californians for being so welcoming.

Terra Russell-Slavin, left, denounced cuts to LGBT health funding as public health care becoming political as Rep. Laura Friedman, center, and Craig Thompson, CEO of the David Geffen Health Center look on at the APLA Health, Michael Gottlieb Health Center in West Hollywood last month.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

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The threats aren’t just coming from Washington. Kane said that she and other leaders had to lobby state legislators recently to preserve funding for a queer women’s preventive-healthcare program offered through the L.A. LGBTQ Center that was to be revoked due to a state budget shortfall. For now, the program has been given a temporary reprieve.

“It used to be this idea of, ‘Oh yeah, that’s in the red states, but I’m safe in California’ — it doesn’t feel that way anymore,” Kane said.

Staff members at the Trevor Project are scrambling to figure out how to save the jobs of about 200 counselors who are paid through the federal contract, including raising private funds to make up for the unexpected shortfall, said Mark Henson, interim vice president of advocacy and government affairs. The news couldn’t come at a worse time, given that calls nationwide are on pace to top 700,000 in 2025. That’s up from 600,000 in 2024, a spokesperson said, citing metrics from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Another 100 crisis counselors are employed and paid separately by the Trevor Project itself. They will continue taking calls through the project’s own 24/7, free crisis line, one of several options that local LGBTQ+ organizations offer. Los Angeles County’s Alternative Crisis Response has a 24/7 helpline at (800) 854-7771 that also provides culturally sensitive support services.

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But Alex Boyd, the Trevor Project’s director of crisis intervention, said he isn’t sure how his organization can make up for the loss of the nationwide visibility and federal support that the 988 partnership affords them.

LGBTQ+ young people are more than four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers, according to the Trevor Project. Its 2024 survey found that in California, 35% of LGBTQ+ young people seriously considered taking their own lives and that 11% of respondents had attempted suicide in the previous year.

In defending the decision to stop working with the Trevor Project at a House budget hearing in May, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that while Trump supports the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in general, “We don’t want to isolate different demographics and polarize our country.”

The big question, Boyd said, is will young LGBTQ+ Americans who already feel shunned or misunderstood still trust a suicide prevention line that no longer offers counselors they can easily relate to?

A one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work when it comes to people in emotional and mental distress, Boyd said.

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He fears the worst.

“The fact that such a significant amount of our capacity for impact has now been stripped away — there is no operational way in order to navigate through a moment like this that doesn’t result, in at least the short term, in a loss of life.”

Counselors at the Trevor Project hear the anguish over the anti-LGBTQ+ backlash in the voices of young callers seeking help through the lifeline, Boyd said. “The statements we are hearing are: ‘Our government doesn’t support me. The government is actively erasing my experience from the national conversation.’ ”

“Increasingly, the biggest thread that we see from young people reaching out to us is this idea that it is already difficult to be a young person in the world — this is another layer that we’re adding onto children’s lives,” Boyd said. “They’re coming to us saying they’re not sure how they’re going to be able to navigate through more years of this before they get some level of autonomy and agency and find some sense of safety.”

Along with a host of executive actions signed by the president, thousands of bills targeting the LGBTQ+ community have been introduced in state legislatures, in cities and in school districts in California and around the country, including calls to ban books that mention same-sex relationships and gender identity, remove the Pride flag from government buildings and kick trans athletes off of sports teams.

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Adding to the strain on the queer community, Trump’s self-described “Big Beautiful Bill,” recently passed in both houses in Congress, cuts public health funding for low-income Americans who receive Medicaid. LGBTQ+ Americans are twice as likely to rely on Medicaid to receive their health care than other Americans, said Alexandra Curd, a staff policy attorney at the national advocacy group Lambda Legal.

Over 40% of nonelderly U.S. adults living with HIV depend on the federal program for their healthcare needs compared to 15% for the general population, according to KFF. Many recipients rely nonprofit organizations funded by federal grants to get HIV and STI screenings and receive HIV prevention medications such as PREP and PEP, Curd said.

Because of the Medicaid cuts and the prospect of increased difficulty in accessing preventive care and emotional support, “We’re going to possibly be seeing rising infections rates for HIV,” she said.

Curd said a recent spike in HIV rates among Latino men could only worsen. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have cited a lack of adequate funding, racial bias, language barriers and mistrust of the medical system among the reasons that gay and bisexual Latino men account for a disproportionate percentage of new HIV cases.

Lambda Legal’s help desk has already received more requests for assistance with health care, employment and housing discrimination in the first half of 2025 than in all of 2024, with the most pressing need coming from trans and nonbinary callers.

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One piece of good news for L.A. came recently when Rep. Laura Friedman (D–West Hollywood) announced that the Trump administration had restored more than $19 million in federal grants for HIV and STI prevention and tracking that were earmarked for the L.A. County Department of Public Health but slashed by the CDC. Friedman said she and others spoke out against the cut were able to secure an extra $338,019 in federal funding for the new fiscal year starting June 1.

But it’s hard for healthcare organizations to celebrate given that vital funds for mental health and HIV programs were targeted in the first place.

Manny Zermeño, a behavioral health specialist at the Long Beach office of another queer community service organization, APLA Health, senses the distress in his clients. “There is fear, sadness and also with those feelings, it’s natural to have some anger and confusion,” Zermeño said.

The L.A.-based nonprofit focuses on providing free and affordable dental, medical, counseling and other services for queer people 18 and over. It was founded in 1982 as AIDS Project Los Angeles. Back then, a small team of volunteers worked a telephone hotline in the closet of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbians Community Service Center, fielding calls from panicked residents seeking answers about what was then a fatal disease for which there was no treatment.

The organization operated the first dental clinic in the U.S. catering to AIDS patients out of a trailer in West Hollywood. After movie star Rock Hudson announced he had AIDS in 1985, the organization galvanized support among Angelenos by hosting the first-ever AIDS Walk fundraiser at Paramount Studios, according to its website.

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Kane and leaders of other community organizations in L.A. said they would rally once again, this time to assist the Trevor Project.

“All of us who have boots on the ground — you’ll literally have to drag us out by our ankles in order to not provide care to our community,” Kane said. “I don’t believe that queer kids will not have access to resources, because we won’t allow it.”

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Cyborg jellyfish could help uncover the depths and mysteries of the Pacific Ocean

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Cyborg jellyfish could help uncover the depths and mysteries of the Pacific Ocean

For years, science fiction has promised a future filled with robots that can swim, crawl and fly like animals. In one research lab at Caltech, what once felt like distant imagination is becoming reality.

At first glance, they look like any other moon jellyfish — soft-bodied, translucent and ghostlike, as their bell-shaped bodies pulse gently through the water. But look closer, and you’ll spot a tangle of wires, a flash of orange plastic, and a sudden intentional movement.

These are no ordinary jellies. These are cyborgs.

At the Dabiri Lab at Caltech, which focuses on the study of fluid dynamics and bio-inspired engineering, researchers are embedding microelectric controllers into jellyfish, creating “biohybrid” devices. The plan: Dispatch these remotely controlled jellyfish robots to collect environmental data at a fraction of the cost of conventional underwater robots — and potentially redefine how we monitor the ocean.

a person reaches into an aquarium tank

Caltech graduate student, Noa Yoder, a graduate student is one of the members of a team developing cyborg jellyfish, using a device made up of a container filled with sensors and two electrodes that attach to the jellyfish’s muscles.

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“It fills the niche between high-tech underwater robots and just attaching sensors to animals, which you have little control over where they go,” said Noa Yoder, a graduate student in the Dabiri Lab. “These devices are very low cost and it would be easy to scale them to a whole swarm of jellyfish, which already exist in nature.”

Jellyfish are perfect for the job in other ways: Unlike most marine animals, jellyfish have no central nervous system and no pain receptors, making them ideal candidates for cybernetic augmentation. They also exhibit remarkable regenerative abilities, capable of regrowing lost body parts and reverting to earlier life stages in response to injury or stress — they can heal in as quickly as 24 hours after the removal of a device.

The project began nearly a decade ago with Nicole Xu, a former graduate student in the Dabiri Lab who is now a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research has demonstrated that electrodes embedded into jellyfish can reliably trigger muscle contractions, setting the stage for field tests and early demonstrations of the device. Later, another Caltech graduate student, Simon Anuszczyk, showed that adding robotic attachments to jellyfish — sometimes even larger than the jellyfish themselves — did not necessarily impair the animals’ swimming. And in fact, if designed correctly, the attachments can even improve their speed and mobility.

A reflection of a hand reaching into a tank of water.

The device allows the scientists to pilot the jellyfish through ocean waters and record measurements of pH, temperature, salinity, etc.

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There have been several iterations of the robotic component, but the general concept of each is the same: a central unit which houses the sensors used to collect information, and two electrodes attached via wires. “We attach [the device] and send electric signals to electrodes embedded in the jellyfish,” Yoder explained. “When that signal is sent, the muscle contracts and the jellyfish swims.” By triggering these contractions in a controlled pattern, researchers are able to influence how and when the jellyfish move — allowing them to navigate through the water and collect data in specific locations.

A grad student holds the device used to equip a cyborg jellyfish.

These cyborg devices offer a cheaper (and more sustainable) option for marine research, making it more widely accessible for anyone looking to study the ocean.

The team hopes this project will make ocean research more accessible — not just for elite institutions with multimillion-dollar submersibles, but for smaller labs and conservation groups as well. Because the devices are relatively low-cost and scalable, they could open the door for more frequent, distributed data collection across the globe.

The latest version of the device includes a microcontroller, which sends the signal to stimulate swimming, along with a pressure sensor, a temperature sensor and an SD card to log data. All of which fits inside a watertight 3D-printed structure about the size of a half dollar. A magnet and external ballast keep it neutrally buoyant, allowing the jellyfish to swim freely, and properly oriented.

One limitation of the latest iteration is that the jellyfish can only be controlled to move up and down, as the device is weighted to maintain a fixed vertical orientation, and the system lacks any mechanism to steer horizontally. One of Yoder’s current projects seeks to address this challenge by implementing an internal servo arm, a small motorized lever that shifts the internal weight of the device, enabling directional movement and mid-swim rotations.

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A jellyfish at the Dabiri Lab at Caltech.

Unlike most marine animals, jellyfish have no central nervous system and no pain receptors, making them ideal candidates for cybernetic augmentation.

But perhaps the biggest limitation is the integrity of the device itself. “Jellyfish exist in pretty much every ocean already, at every depth, in every environment,” said Yoder.

To take full advantage of that natural range, however, the technology needs to catch up. While jellyfish can swim under crushing deep-sea pressures of up to 400 bar — approximately the same as having 15 African elephants sit in the palm of your hand — the 3D-printed structures warp at such depths, which can compromise their performance. So, Yoder is working on a deep-sea version using pressurized glass spheres, the same kind used for deep-sea cabling and robotics.

Other current projects include studying the fluid dynamics of the jellyfish itself. “Jellyfish are very efficient swimmers,” Yoder said. “We wanted to see how having these biohybrid attachments affects that.” That could lead to augmentations that make future cyborg jellyfish even more useful for research.

The research team has also begun working with a wider range of jellyfish species, including upside-down Cassiopeia jellies found in the Florida Keys and box jellies native to Kona, Hawaii. The goal is to find native species that can be tapped for regional projects — using local animals minimizes ecological risk.

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“This research approaches underwater robotics from a completely different angle,” Yoder said. “I’ve always been interested in biomechanics and robotics, and trying to have robots that imitate wildlife. This project just takes it a step further. Why build a robot that can’t quite capture the natural mechanisms when you can use the animal itself?”

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Trump administration sues California over cage-free egg and animal welfare law

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Trump administration sues California over cage-free egg and animal welfare law

The Trump administration has sued California over the state’s voter-approved animal welfare law, which protects hens, pigs and calves from being kept in small cages, claiming the law has driven up egg prices and violates federal farming laws and regulations.

“California has contributed to the historic rise in egg prices by imposing unnecessary red tape on the production of eggs,” wrote lawyers in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta vowed to defend the state law.

“Pointing fingers won’t change the fact that it is the President’s economic policies that have been destructive. We’ll see him in court,” Bonta said in a statement.

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California’s animal-welfare law was approved by voters as Proposition 12 in 2018. The law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023.

“In a functioning democracy, policy choices like these usually belong to the people and their elected representatives,” wrote Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, in the lead opinion. He said that while many state laws may have economic effects in other states, they are only in violation of the Constitution if they were written with the intent to interfere with interstate commerce.

The Department of Justice contends the California law preempts federal laws, including the Egg Products Inspection Act, and that no state has the right to institute its own standards on the production or “quality, condition, weight, quantity or grade” of eggs that differs from those set by the federal government.

The law has been repeatedly challenged by the National Pork Producers Council and others. Just last month, the Supreme Court declined to accept a petition for certiorari from the Iowa Pork Producers Council.

In the suit filed Wednesday, the Justice Department contends that California’s egg standards “do not advance consumer welfare” and are “not based in specific peer-reviewed published scientific literature or accepted as standards within the scientific community to reduce human food-borne illness … or other human or safety concerns.”

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Egg prices soared earlier this year, soon after Trump took office. Most experts pointed to the H5N1 bird flu epidemic as the cause of the spike, as millions of egg-laying chickens across the nation were euthanized to prevent the spread.

Prices have since moderated as the outbreak has diminished. In the last 30 days, there has been only one reported commercial flock infection in Pennsylvania. The birds were not egg layers.

In February, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Secretary Brooke Rollins, penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal suggesting the Trump administration would target the law.

California egg producers have in the past opposed changing the law.

Bill Mattos, president of the California Poultry Federation, said in an interview in February that California egg farmers had spent millions of dollars to upgrade and adapt their farms. Reversing the law would put California poultry farmers — and all the other egg producers that sell to California — at a huge economic disadvantage by requiring them to invest millions more dollars to buy cages and re-adapt their facilities for such operations.

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Animal welfare advocates say the lawsuit is short-sighted and has the potential to hurt California’s egg-laying industry.

“With this ill-considered legal action, the Administration is dropping a set of stink bombs into the bosom of the egg industry,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.

He said California egg farmers are still recovering from the bird flu outbreak, and this suit, if successful, would disrupt the still fragile supply chain “and provide an opening for egg farmers from Mexico — which have no animal welfare standards at all — to access the California market.”

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