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Just last month, the American Red Cross declared the first national blood crisis in the nation’s history. The Red Cross shockingly said “as much as one-quarter of hospital needs are not being met.” Yet, as the current policies stand, members of the LGBTQIA+ population can not give blood to help their fellow man. In its most recent recommendations, the FDA has recommended that the DHQ or Donor History Questionnaire for blood donation services include policies that “defer for 3 months from the most recent sexual contact, a man who has had sex with another man during the past 3 months” and “a female who has had sex during the past 3 months with a man who had sex with another man in the past 3 months.” (Jon Andre Parrilla, 2/16)

Biden is accelerating a new Food and Drug Administration rule that will make hearing aids available over the counter, rather than only by prescription from a licensed specialist, as is now the case. He issued an executive order to that effect last July, four years after Congress passed a law authorizing such a policy, only to see the necessary regulation get bogged down in the Trump-era FDA bureaucracy. The new rule should take effect in the next few months. (Charles Lane, 2/15)

The most effective public-health communication should embody the qualities that primary-care pediatricians like me strive to emphasize daily: empathy and nuance. We start by trying to understand families’ priorities about their children’s health and well-being. We then acknowledge ways in which the treatment may fall short, or aspects that we cannot predict. From there we lay out any potential risks and benefits with complete transparency, establish clear goals for any intervention, and support the family’s decision making with compassion. (Aparna Bole, 2/15)

It was never about the science.When the first COVID-19 mandates were issued in hopes of turning back a mysterious pandemic, there wasn't enough science or data available to know for certain what would work. It was all best guesses and speculation, and a desperate instinct to do something in the face of a lethal public health threat unseen in our lifetimes. (Nolan Finley, 2/13)

Now, more than ever, the U.S. needs scientific leaders who value Americans’ health and safety, who want to improve research and testing, and who are passionate about innovative ideas. With Robert Califf once again confirmed as the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, it’s time to actualize a powerful idea he presented during his previous tenure: make the data submitted to the FDA during the drug development process publicly available. (Elizabeth Baker and Eryn Slankster-Schmierer, 2/15)

Autism has traditionally been studied from a medical perspective. Yet newer, and sometimes controversial, approaches to research are taking a new look at the autism spectrum, namely, the neurodiversity perspective. That is, shifting the "disorder" narrative that focuses on the limitations of someone with autism to looking at autism as a "valid way of being." (David Plazas, 2/15)

As horrible as it was to lay to rest the three Baltimore firefighters who died fighting a fire in a vacant city rowhouse that collapsed on them last month, it should be noted that the leading cause of line-of-duty deaths of such first responders isn’t related to burns or asphyxiation or falling debris. It’s from cancer. Firefighters are routinely exposed to a host of toxic substances that can end their lives prematurely. One of the most worrisome is a class of human-made compounds called PFAS, for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which have been linked to various forms of cancer and are present in some forms of firefighting foam. These “forever chemicals,” so-called because they don’t break down in the environment, but rather build up, are quite pervasive and can impact all of us. (2/15)