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Nara Organics Infant Formula Linked to Another Case of Botulism
The number of U.S. infants who contracted botulism after eating recalled Nara Organics baby formula has risen to four, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The four confirmed cases involve infants in California, Pennsylvania and Washington who consumed Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Powdered Infant Formula.
The product was recalled last month after three infants were hospitalized, and federal officials are continuing to test unopened containers from the affected product lots.
Results from the tests are expected in the “coming weeks,” the FDA said. The organic baby formula was sold nationwide in Target stores and online at Nara.com.
The four infants fell ill between April and May 2026, the FDA said on Monday. “Parents and caregivers should stop using Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Infant Formula immediately,” the FDA said in its statement. “If your child is experiencing symptoms after consuming Nara Organics Whole Milk Organic Infant Formula, seek immediate health care.”
The Mental Health Crisis Turned Tragedy That Goes Beyond American Girls
As countries around the world consider social media bans for kids under 16, the question has come up again: Is the teen mental health crisis confined to the U.S., or is it international? There are many reasons to support a social media ban that have nothing to do with mental health. Many parents don’t want their kids using TikTok at 2 a.m., buying drugs or exchanging explicit photos on Snapchat, or comparing themselves to the perfect bodies on Instagram.
There are also many reasons to care about the teen mental health crisis apart from the role of social media. But understanding the scope of the mental health crisis is useful for knowing where teens are suffering more than in generations past and for determining the cause of the crisis.
Air Pollution May Cause Childhood Obesity by Disrupting Impulse Control, Study Finds
Exposure to common air pollution may cause childhood obesity because it affects children’s ability to control impulse, new first-of-its-kind peer-reviewed research finds.
Particular matter 2.5 (PM2.5) is a neurotoxin that has been linked to obesity, and Mt Sinai researchers say they have for the first time identified impulse control as a potential pathway.
The study found that babies exposed to higher levels of PM2.5 during their first year of life were more likely to develop difficulties with controlling impulses later in childhood.
Those behavioral changes were then linked to higher body fat and higher BMI in children between four to eight years old.
“A lot of the obesity research primarily focuses on — and is being shaped by — diet and physical activity, and a lot may not include environmental exposures, including air pollution,” said Jamil Lane, a co-author with Mt Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine.
One in Five Hospitalized Children Developed Severe Respiratory Disease, Canadian Study Finds
Researchers led by Dr. Haifa Mtaweh of The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Toronto, report in JAMA Network Open that 21.3% of 2,585 children hospitalized with acute respiratory tract infections (RTIs) developed severe disease requiring advanced respiratory support, extracorporeal therapies, cardiac resuscitation, or resulting in death.
The multicenter retrospective cohort study, conducted at two Canadian pediatric hospitals between July 2022 and June 2023, found that children with multiple chronic medical conditions and those requiring interhospital transfer were significantly more likely to experience severe illness.
Notably, although viral coinfections were common, they were not independently associated with worse outcomes, suggesting that a child’s underlying health status may be more important than the number of viruses detected.
Our Teens Are Using AI Chatbots Daily. It’s Our Fault.
A teenager sits on the edge of her bed, phone screen glowing, thumbs moving fast. But she isn’t texting a friend. She isn’t calling a parent. She’s asking an artificial intelligence chatbot what to do with the panic in her chest, the loneliness at lunch, the dread that hits at night.
That scenario isn’t rare. A 2025 Pew survey found that 64% of U.S. teens use AI chatbots, and that about 3 in 10 use them daily. A 2026 JAMA Pediatrics survey found that about 1 in 5 U.S. adolescents and young adults had used AI chatbots for mental health advice. Common Sense Media also reported in 2025 that nearly 3 in 4 teens have used “AI companions,” with half using them regularly.
We’re panicking about AI “replacing” friendship. But the real emergency is that too many youth don’t have a trusted human to go to in the first place. If a chatbot feels safer than a parent, teacher, coach, counselor or friend, it’s not a technology story; it’s a culture story.
Screen Time in the Classroom Topic of Kentucky Legislative Committee
Legislation on screen time in the classroom could be in the works for the 2027 legislative session. Lawmakers heard from critics of one-to-one digital technology usage in the classroom during the Interim Joint Committee on Education meeting on Monday. Teacher turned neuroscientist Dr. Jared Horvath told the committee that research from more than 90 countries shows digital technology use in the classroom results in lower test scores.
In Kentucky, this is also true, he said. Kentucky began the transition to one-to-one in 2016. The year before Kentucky went digital, math and reading scores were the highest they had ever been for fourth graders, Horvath said. “Since 2016, you adopted tech. Math has gone down four points to the lowest levels we’ve seen since 2006, and reading dropped 10 points, lower than it has ever been in Kentucky history,” he said.
While the COVID-19 pandemic forced students to be fully digital for some of the last decade, Horvath said the pandemic is not the main source of the problem. “I took COVID out of the data. It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What we’re seeing is not unique to your state … I could do this for all 50 states.”
Horvath said learning using digital methods is always “shallower, weaker and less durable” than learning done with analog methods, and that “digital literacy is not determined by the amount of tech you use, it’s determined by the amount of knowledge you have.”
