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Morrisey Asks WV Supreme Court to Uphold Raleigh County School Vaccine Ruling
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey has asked the state’s highest court to affirm a Raleigh County Circuit Court ruling that found that — without religious exemptions — the state’s school vaccine policy violates a 2023 religious freedom law. West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey filed an amicus brief on Morrisey’s behalf in the state Supreme Court case Board of Education v. Guzman.
The school board is appealing Judge Michael Froble’s November ruling that schools must allow children to attend school with a religious exemption to the vaccine requirements. “West Virginia law protects religious freedom, and that law must be followed,” Morrisey said in a statement Monday. “Parents should not be forced to choose between their sincere religious beliefs and their child’s right to an education.
The Equal Protection for Religion Act is clear, and my administration will continue fighting to ensure that religious liberty is respected across state government.” States generally require school children be vaccinated against a number of infectious diseases, like measles, polio and chickenpox. West Virginia is one of only a handful of states with laws that do not allow families to opt out of vaccinations because of philosophical or religious objections to the shots.
Health Advocates Warn Government’s Claims of Baby Formula Safety Contradict Data
The Trump administration announced earlier this month that hundreds of baby formula samples it tested for toxic chemicals “meet a high safety standard”, but public health advocates warn this claim contradicts data showing a majority were contaminated with dangerous substances, such as Pfas or phthalates. Independent scientists who reviewed the results say the data gaps and the contamination raise concerns, though they added the testing shows some bright spots, and praised the US Food and Drug Administration for expanding the testing program, then making the results public.
Top FDA officials’ statements also appear to, in part, contradict a 2014 FDA paper that detailed how small amounts of the chemicals found in the current testing likely present a serious risk for newborns who are small, still developing and have a greater food to body weight ratio than adults.
In a statement announcing the results, Department of Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, said: “We tested more infant formula than ever before, and the results are clear: most products meet a high safety standard — but even small exposures matter for newborns. “We will hold manufacturers accountable, and give parents honest, transparent data they can trust. Protecting our children’s health is non-negotiable,” Kennedy added. The release did not detail the next steps.
Texas Sues Netflix Over Advertising Data Practices, Alleged User Surveillance and Addictive Design for Children
Netflix was sued on Monday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who accused the streaming giant of secretly collecting and monetizing consumers’ personal data while designing features intended to keep children and other users hooked on the platform, according to reports.
The lawsuit, filed in state court in Collin County near Dallas, marks one of the most aggressive legal challenges yet to the data collection practices of a major streaming company. Texas alleged that Netflix spent years assuring subscribers it did not gather or share sensitive viewing information, even as it allegedly tracked user behavior and sold data to advertising technology firms and commercial data brokers. Texas accused the company of constructing what it described as a “behavior-surveillance program” that relied on extensive tracking of viewers’ habits, preferences and engagement patterns.
The lawsuit also took aim at features such as autoplay, alleging they were intentionally engineered to maximize viewing time and create addictive consumption patterns, particularly among children. “Netflix has built a surveillance program designed to illegally collect and profit from Texans’ personal data without their consent,” Paxton said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit. “Netflix is not the ad-free and kid-friendly platform it claims to be. Instead, it has misled consumers while exploiting their private data to make billions.”
Inside the Rebuilding of Milwaukee’s Lead Program — and How It Could Change Lives
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported:
Thousands of Milwaukee children are growing up with poison in their blood.
It courses through their veins, cements in their bones and threatens to rob them of impulse control, learning ability and physical health. The insidious toxin lurks where kids are supposed to be the safest, at home. It flakes off front porches where families gather, collects on sills after an old window is opened and burrows under fingernails as children play in yards.
Lead, a heavy metal once used in paint, pipes and gasoline, causes devastating effects to the human body, particularly for children. Lead poisoning can be prevented — and Milwaukee once showed the country how to do it.
The city was a national leader for its approach in educating residents, fixing lead hazards and holding property owners accountable. But the program fell apart when leadership changed and community relationships withered. The fallout did not land equally across the city. That’s because lead, as the saying goes, is a health problem with a housing solution.
Pediatrics Group Issues New Guidance on Recess for the First Time in 13 Years
Recess isn’t just a fun break for grade schoolers. It’s crucial to good health and good grades for kids of all ages. That’s the message from a leading pediatricians group, which just released the first new guidance in 13 years about this unstructured time at school and how it needs to be protected. The updated policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics comes after years of shrinking recesses and worsening children’s health.
The group “has always supported play — free play for kids — but it’s been increasingly threatened over time,” partly by the drive for higher test scores, said Dr. Robert Murray, a lead author. “It has a very powerful benefit if it’s used to the fullest.”
The new guidance, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, is similar to the previous policy statement but cites the latest research on why these breaks are essential for kids’ academic success and mental, physical, social and emotional growth.
‘Bored’ Kids Are Making a Comeback. Some Parents Say It’s Changing Everything.
Summer is coming. Do you know where your children are? Chances are you do because they haven’t left your sight. They are sitting at home, staring at a screen, scrolling through TikTok videos, texting friends, and gaming the hours away.
As researchers have documented at length, most especially in Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation,” screens have contributed to an anxiety epidemic, fractured attention spans, and increasing emotional fragility in American children. The answer to this crisis is not merely to cut down on screen time, but to replace screen hours with tangible, immersive, unstructured time in the natural world.
Author Richard Louv coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” to describe how less time in nature harms modern-day children’s health, development, and wellbeing. But it’s not enough to simply get kids outside. Children don’t need to spend another week at an organized wilderness camp or to enroll in an additional sport. This only takes children out of their digital box to put them into a more physical one. What children most need this summer is, well, nothing.
