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America’s Teens Are in Crisis. States Are Racing to Respond.
Responding to clamoring from parents, and dreadful stories of youth suicide and hospitalizations, leaders in both parties convey an increasing sense of urgency to address epidemic levels of teenage anxiety, depression, loneliness and lashing out. About two dozen governors described teenage mental health as a crisis during their state-of-the-state addresses this year and proposed budgets that would expand treatment options.
The need is glaring; the pandemic supercharged trend lines that have grown worse as America’s social fabric has been pulled at the seams and social media has grown ubiquitous. Leaders across the ideological spectrum are surging resources into expanding access to mental healthcare for kids, especially those who lack strong family support systems. It’s essential to create sturdy lifelines that students know about and can grab hold of when a crisis develops.
Many places are scaling up or replicating programs that show promise. But the nation’s leaders are behind; even as they acknowledge the problem, there is a vast number of difficult-to-solve issues — such as onboarding enough mental health professionals and responding to the nation’s deepening cultural decay — after they have already become major problems. The country’s leaders should make this a long-term commitment, even as federal relief dollars dry up.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows 42% of high school students report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 22% say they seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021. It’s much worse among girls. “It’s an issue that transcends both state and party lines,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), who has made teen mental health his top priority as chair of the National Governors Association.
Why We Need to Pause AI Research and Consider the Real Dangers
I started working in the philosophy and ethics of artificial intelligence in large part because I was enthralled by its potential as the most transformative technology of my lifetime.
Google’s DeepMind says its mission is to “solve intelligence” and from there use the enhanced intelligence to solve all our other problems — global poverty, climate change, cancer, you name it. I find this vision compelling, and I still believe AI has that potential.
But I have reluctantly come to believe that path there is much narrower and much more dangerous than I once hoped. This is why I signed the Future of Life Institute’s open letter calling for a moratorium on the further development of the most powerful modern AI (notably “large language models” like OpenAI’s GPT).
First, there are dangers of AI already present but quickly amplifying in both power and prevalence: misinformation, algorithmic bias, surveillance, and intellectual stultification, to name a few. I think these worries are already sufficient to call for more reflection before we proceed.
ICE Is Grabbing Data From Schools and Abortion Clinics
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are using an obscure legal tool to demand data from elementary schools, news organizations, and abortion clinics in ways that, some experts say, may be illegal.
While these administrative subpoenas, known as 1509 custom summonses, are meant to be used only in criminal investigations about illegal imports or unpaid customs duties, WIRED found that the agency has deployed them to seek records that seemingly have little or nothing to do with customs violations, according to legal experts and several recipients of the 1509 summonses.
A WIRED analysis of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) subpoena tracking database, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, found that agents issued custom summons more than 170,000 times from the beginning of 2016 through mid-August 2022. The primary recipients of 1509s include telecommunications companies, major tech firms, money transfer services, airlines, and even utility companies. But it’s the edge cases that have drawn the most concern among legal experts.
The outlier cases include custom summonses that sought records from a youth soccer league in Texas; surveillance video from a major abortion provider in Illinois; student records from an elementary school in Georgia; health records from a major state university’s student health services; data from three boards of elections or election departments; and data from a Lutheran organization that provides refugees with humanitarian and housing support.
Clearview AI Scraped 30 Billion Images From Facebook and Gave Them to Cops: It Puts Everyone Into a ‘Perpetual Police Line-Up’
A controversial facial recognition database, used by police departments across the nation, was built in part with 30 billion photos the company scraped from Facebook and other social media users without their permission, the company’s CEO recently admitted, creating what critics called a “perpetual police line-up,” even for people who haven’t done anything wrong.
The company, Clearview AI, boasts of its potential for identifying rioters at the January 6 attack on the Capitol, saving children being abused or exploited, and helping exonerate people wrongfully accused of crimes. But critics point to wrongful arrests fueled by faulty identifications made by facial recognition, including cases in Detroit and New Orleans.
Clearview took photos without users’ knowledge, its CEO Hoan Ton-That acknowledged in an interview last month with the BBC. Doing so allowed for the rapid expansion of the company’s massive database, which is marketed on its website to law enforcement as a tool “to bring justice to victims.”
I Treated 20,000 COVID Patients and 3 Years After the Lockdown, Here’s How We Can Do Better
Seems just like yesterday. Three years ago, in March 2020, our nation was locked down for the first time in over a century. A horrific move that upended our nation, impacted the education of our youth, crushed our thriving economy and ignited the fire of a mental health crisis along with increased substance abuse, violence and drug overdoses.
After testing, diagnosing and treating thousands of COVID-19 patients on the frontlines of what was once the COVID-19 epicenter of the world, I reflect: What have we done? What have we learned? What did we lose? What wounds have we inflicted upon ourselves and what lessons are worth remembering?
Most importantly, are we prepared for the future? How can the answer be, yes, if we are still without a definitive diagnosis of the origins of COVID-19 and without answers to guide us in the development of practical policy and protocol for a pandemic emergency preparedness plan? We may find ourselves in trouble again.
For most Americans, the collateral damage was worse than the pandemic. The mandate intentions had deleterious impacts — it reduced our military personnel, we lost good firefighters, police officers, teachers, healthcare providers and even athletes who refused to capitulate to the out-of-date, CDC regulations.
The Doctor Who Questioned Ireland’s COVID Policy and Lost His Job: ‘We Destroyed Young People’s Lives for What?’
The only Health Service Executive (HSE) doctor to criticize the restrictions imposed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic says he has no regrets about his actions, which cost him his job.
Within days of The Irish Times in September 2020 reporting his criticism of “draconian” restrictions, and his belief that low-risk people should be exposed to the virus, Dr. Martin Feeley was gone from the health service after a 45-year career. He blames former HSE chief executive Paul Reid for the decision, though Reid, when asked at the time, denied involvement.
“I was forced to resign as opposed to just walking away,” he says. (At the time, he described his exit as a resignation.) More than two years on, he remains an unrepentant critic of the approach Ireland took during the pandemic. The passage of time has cast Feeley’s original claims in a new light. His contention that COVID-19 was less serious hit the headlines, but he emphasizes he was talking about the under-65s, so those most at risk could be easily identified.
Feeley also criticized the emphasis during the pandemic on daily case numbers — “the deliberate, unforgivable terrorizing of the population” is how he puts it today. This point was echoed recently by the HSE’s former infection control chief, Prof. Martin Cormican, who said Ireland’s COVID response “depended on fear.”
End of an Era: L.A. County Lifts COVID Emergency
Los Angeles County officially ended its COVID-19 emergency declaration Friday, a milestone that comes as the region’s coronavirus case rate has fallen to its lowest level since the summer of 2021.
The county’s most visible health mandate — a universal mask order in indoor public settings — was lifted 13 months ago. And a recommendation for face coverings for the general public ended two months ago.
One change that goes into effect Monday is the end — both in L.A. County and across California — of the government-ordered COVID-19 vaccination requirement for workers at adult-care facilities, jails and prisons. Individual businesses or other institutions can still continue vaccination requirements.
Most healthcare workers are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The federal rules apply to healthcare facilities that accept money from Medicare and Medicaid. Also on Monday, California will lift its order for everyone to mask up in healthcare settings.
AI Testing of Brain Tumors Can Detect Genetic Cancer Markers in Less Than 90 Seconds, Study Finds
Genetic markers have been shown to predict a person’s likelihood of developing various types of cancer.
Now, researchers believe that new artificial intelligence (AI) tools could make it easier and faster for doctors to detect those indicators.
A team of neurosurgeons and engineers at the University of Michigan announced last week that their new AI-based diagnostic tool, DeepGlioma, is capable of pinpointing genetic mutations in brain tumors during surgery within just 90 seconds.
Study: Ignoring Social Media Can Improve Your Health
Las Vegas Review-Journal reported:
Feeling stressed or just not well overall? Maybe you should put down your phone.
A new study, from Swansea University, found reducing your social media use by just 15 minutes a day can not only improve your general health and immune function but also can improve symptoms of depression and loneliness.
The researchers found those in the Reduce group actually cut out 40 minutes of social media scrolling each day. The No Change group actually added 10 minutes of phone use, while the group specifically asked to replace scrolling with another activity added a whopping 25 minutes to their average use.
“There was a significant improvement in the Reduce group in general health, immune function, loneliness, and depression compared to the other groups,” the researchers wrote.
‘I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This:’ One of China’s Most Popular Apps Has the Ability to Spy on Its Users, Say Experts
It is one of China’s most popular shopping apps, selling clothing, groceries and just about everything else under the sun to more than 750 million users a month.
But according to cybersecurity researchers, it can also bypass users’ cell phone security to monitor activities on other apps, check notifications, read private messages and change settings. And once installed, it’s tough to remove.
While many apps collect vast troves of user data, sometimes without explicit consent, experts say e-commerce giant Pinduoduo has taken violations of privacy and data security to the next level.
Multiple experts identified the presence of malware on the Pinduoduo app that exploited vulnerabilities in Android operating systems. Company insiders said the exploits were utilized to spy on users and competitors, allegedly to boost sales.
