Enlarge / A child cools off under a water sprinkler. (credit: Getty | JASON SOUTH)

In 1989, a city in Utah upgraded its drinking water system, putting in a whole new system and repurposing the old one to supply cheap untreated water for irrigating lawns and putting out fires. That meant that the treated water suitable for drinking flowed from new spigots, while untreated water gushed from the old ones. Decades went by with no apparent confusion; residents seemed clear on the two different water sources. But, according to an investigation report published recently by state and county health officials, that local knowledge got diluted as new residents moved into the area. And last summer, the confusion over the conduits led to an outbreak of life-threatening illnesses among children.

In July and August of 2023, state and local health officials identified 13 children infected with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7. The children ranged in age from 1 to 15, with a median age of 4. Children are generally at high risk of severe infections with this pathogen, along with older people and those with compromised immune systems. Of the 13 infected children, seven were hospitalized and two developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, a life-threatening complication that can lead to kidney failure.

Preliminary genetic analyses of STEC O157:H7 from two of the children suggested that the children's infections were linked to a common source. So, health officials quickly developed a questionnaire to narrow down the potential source. It soon became clear that the irrigation water—aka untreated, pressurized, municipal irrigation water (UPMIW)—was a commonality among the children. Twelve of 13 infected children reported exposure to it in some form: Two said they drank it; five played with UPMIW hoses; three used the water for inflatable water toys; two used it for a water table; and one ran through sprinklers. None reported eating fruits or vegetables from home (noncommercial) gardens irrigated with the UPMIW.

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

“I had the hormonal urges,” said Camille Parmesan, a professor and leading climate scientist based in France. “Oh my gosh, it was very strong. But it was: ‘Do I really want to bring a child into this world that we’re creating?’ Even 30 years ago, it was very clear the world was going to hell in a handbasket. I’m 62 now and I’m actually really glad I did not have children.”

Parmesan is not alone. An exclusive Guardian survey has found that almost a fifth of the female climate experts who responded have chosen to have no children, or fewer children, due to the environmental crises afflicting the world.

Such decisions were extremely difficult, they said. Shobha Maharaj, an expert on the effects of the climate crisis from Trinidad and Tobago, has chosen to have only one child, a son who is now 6 years old. “Choosing to have a child was and continues to be a struggle,” she said.

Maharaj said fear of what her child’s future would hold, as well as adding another human to the planet, were part of the struggle: “When you grow up on a small island, it becomes part of you. Small islands are already being very adversely impacted, so there is this constant sense of impending loss and I just didn’t want to have to transfer that to my child.”

“However, my husband is the most family-oriented person I know,” Maharaj said. “So this was a compromise: one child, no more. Who knows, maybe my son will grow up to be someone who can help find a solution?”

The Guardian approached every contactable lead author or review editor of all reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2018. The IPCC’s reports are the gold standard of climate knowledge. Of the 843 contacted, 360 replied to the question on life decisions, a high response rate.

Ninety-seven female scientists responded, with 17, including women from Brazil, Chile, Germany, India, and Kenya, saying they had chosen to have fewer children. All but 1 percent of the scientists surveyed were over 40 years old and two-thirds were over 50, reflecting the senior positions they had reached in their professions. A quarter of the respondents were women, the same proportion as the overall authorship of the IPCC reports.

The findings were in response to a question about major personal decisions taken in response to the climate crisis by scientists who know the most about it, and who expect global temperatures to soar past international targets in coming years. Seven percent of the male scientists who responded said they had had either no children or fewer than they would otherwise have had.

Most of the female scientists interviewed had made their decisions about children in past decades, when they were younger and the grave danger of global heating was less apparent. They said they had not wanted to add to the global human population that is exacting a heavy environmental toll on the planet, and some also expressed fears about the climate chaos through which a child might now have to live.

The role of rising global population in the destruction of nature and the climate crisis has been a divisive topic for decades. The publication of The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich in 1968, mentioned by several of the scientists in their survey responses, was a particular flashpoint. The debate prompted past allegations of racism, as nations with fast-rising populations are largely those in Africa and Asia. Compulsory population control is not part of today’s population-environment debate, with better educational opportunities for girls and access to contraception for women who want it seen as effective and humane policies.

Parmesan, at the CNRS ecology center in France, said: “When I was making my choice, it was very clear in the ecological community that human population growth was a problem: preserving biodiversity was absolutely dependent on stabilizing population.”

Prof Regina Rodrigues, an oceanographer at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, who also chose not to have children, was influenced by the environmental destruction she saw in the fast-expanding coastal town near São Paulo where she grew up.

“The fact of the limitation of resources was really clear to me from a young age,” she said. “Then I learned about climate change and it was even more clear to me. I’m totally satisfied in teaching and passing what I know to people—it doesn’t need to be my blood. [My husband and I] don’t regret a moment. We both work on climate and we are fighting.”

Professor Lisa Schipper, an expert on climate vulnerability at the University of Bonn in Germany, chose to have one child. She said that coming from the global north, where each person’s carbon footprint is much bigger than those living in the global south, there is a responsibility to think carefully about this choice.

“It is honestly only now that I am starting to panic about my child’s future,” she said. “When she was born in 2013, I felt more optimistic about the possibility of reducing emissions. Now I feel guilty about leaving her in this world without my protection, and guilty about having played a part in the changing climate. So it’s bleak.”

An Indian scientist who chose to be anonymous decided to adopt rather than have children of her own. “There are too many children in India who do not get a fair chance and we can offer that to someone who is already born,” she said. “We are not so special that our genes need to be transmitted: values matter more.”

She said rich people who choose to have large families were “self-centered and irresponsible in current times,” citing low infant mortality and the huge gap between the emissions of the rich and the poor.

The links between environmental concerns and fertility choices are complex and research to date has found little consistency across age groups and nationalities. According to a recent review, choosing to have fewer or no children for environmental reasons could be the result of fears about the future, population levels or not having the resources needed to raise the children.

A study of Americans aged 27 to 45—younger than the IPCC scientists surveyed—found concern about the wellbeing of children in a climate-changed world was a much bigger factor than worries over the carbon footprint of their offspring. However, a focus group study in Sweden across all ages found few had changed or would change their plans for children owing to climate fears.

There has been almost no research in the global south. Many researchers noted that some women do not have the freedom or ability to choose if they have children, or how many.

On the debate on the role of population growth in environmental crises, Schipper said: “How many people we have is irrelevant if only a small percentage are doing most of the damage.” Parmesan disagreed, saying the total impact is the combination of people’s level of consumption and the total number of people: “Don’t cherrypick half of the equation and ignore the other half.”

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

“I had the hormonal urges,” said Camille Parmesan, a professor and leading climate scientist based in France. “Oh my gosh, it was very strong. But it was: ‘Do I really want to bring a child into this world that we’re creating?’ Even 30 years ago, it was very clear the world was going to hell in a handbasket. I’m 62 now and I’m actually really glad I did not have children.”

Parmesan is not alone. An exclusive Guardian survey has found that almost a fifth of the female climate experts who responded have chosen to have no children, or fewer children, due to the environmental crises afflicting the world.

Such decisions were extremely difficult, they said. Shobha Maharaj, an expert on the effects of the climate crisis from Trinidad and Tobago, has chosen to have only one child, a son who is now 6 years old. “Choosing to have a child was and continues to be a struggle,” she said.

Maharaj said fear of what her child’s future would hold, as well as adding another human to the planet, were part of the struggle: “When you grow up on a small island, it becomes part of you. Small islands are already being very adversely impacted, so there is this constant sense of impending loss and I just didn’t want to have to transfer that to my child.”

“However, my husband is the most family-oriented person I know,” Maharaj said. “So this was a compromise: one child, no more. Who knows, maybe my son will grow up to be someone who can help find a solution?”

The Guardian approached every contactable lead author or review editor of all reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2018. The IPCC’s reports are the gold standard of climate knowledge. Of the 843 contacted, 360 replied to the question on life decisions, a high response rate.

Ninety-seven female scientists responded, with 17, including women from Brazil, Chile, Germany, India, and Kenya, saying they had chosen to have fewer children. All but 1 percent of the scientists surveyed were over 40 years old and two-thirds were over 50, reflecting the senior positions they had reached in their professions. A quarter of the respondents were women, the same proportion as the overall authorship of the IPCC reports.

The findings were in response to a question about major personal decisions taken in response to the climate crisis by scientists who know the most about it, and who expect global temperatures to soar past international targets in coming years. Seven percent of the male scientists who responded said they had had either no children or fewer than they would otherwise have had.

Most of the female scientists interviewed had made their decisions about children in past decades, when they were younger and the grave danger of global heating was less apparent. They said they had not wanted to add to the global human population that is exacting a heavy environmental toll on the planet, and some also expressed fears about the climate chaos through which a child might now have to live.

The role of rising global population in the destruction of nature and the climate crisis has been a divisive topic for decades. The publication of The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich in 1968, mentioned by several of the scientists in their survey responses, was a particular flashpoint. The debate prompted past allegations of racism, as nations with fast-rising populations are largely those in Africa and Asia. Compulsory population control is not part of today’s population-environment debate, with better educational opportunities for girls and access to contraception for women who want it seen as effective and humane policies.

Parmesan, at the CNRS ecology center in France, said: “When I was making my choice, it was very clear in the ecological community that human population growth was a problem: preserving biodiversity was absolutely dependent on stabilizing population.”

Prof Regina Rodrigues, an oceanographer at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil, who also chose not to have children, was influenced by the environmental destruction she saw in the fast-expanding coastal town near São Paulo where she grew up.

“The fact of the limitation of resources was really clear to me from a young age,” she said. “Then I learned about climate change and it was even more clear to me. I’m totally satisfied in teaching and passing what I know to people—it doesn’t need to be my blood. [My husband and I] don’t regret a moment. We both work on climate and we are fighting.”

Professor Lisa Schipper, an expert on climate vulnerability at the University of Bonn in Germany, chose to have one child. She said that coming from the global north, where each person’s carbon footprint is much bigger than those living in the global south, there is a responsibility to think carefully about this choice.

“It is honestly only now that I am starting to panic about my child’s future,” she said. “When she was born in 2013, I felt more optimistic about the possibility of reducing emissions. Now I feel guilty about leaving her in this world without my protection, and guilty about having played a part in the changing climate. So it’s bleak.”

An Indian scientist who chose to be anonymous decided to adopt rather than have children of her own. “There are too many children in India who do not get a fair chance and we can offer that to someone who is already born,” she said. “We are not so special that our genes need to be transmitted: values matter more.”

She said rich people who choose to have large families were “self-centered and irresponsible in current times,” citing low infant mortality and the huge gap between the emissions of the rich and the poor.

The links between environmental concerns and fertility choices are complex and research to date has found little consistency across age groups and nationalities. According to a recent review, choosing to have fewer or no children for environmental reasons could be the result of fears about the future, population levels or not having the resources needed to raise the children.

A study of Americans aged 27 to 45—younger than the IPCC scientists surveyed—found concern about the wellbeing of children in a climate-changed world was a much bigger factor than worries over the carbon footprint of their offspring. However, a focus group study in Sweden across all ages found few had changed or would change their plans for children owing to climate fears.

There has been almost no research in the global south. Many researchers noted that some women do not have the freedom or ability to choose if they have children, or how many.

On the debate on the role of population growth in environmental crises, Schipper said: “How many people we have is irrelevant if only a small percentage are doing most of the damage.” Parmesan disagreed, saying the total impact is the combination of people’s level of consumption and the total number of people: “Don’t cherrypick half of the equation and ignore the other half.”

New Hampshire could soon beat Florida—known for its anti-vaccine Surgeon General—when it comes to loosening vaccine requirements. A first-in-the-nation bill that’s already passed New Hampshire’s state House, sponsored only by Republican legislators, would end the requirement for parents enrolling kids in childcare to provide documentation of polio and measles vaccination. New Hampshire would be the only state in the US to have such a law, although many states allow religious exemptions to vaccine requirements. 

Currently, Republicans control New Hampshire’s state House, Senate and governor’s office—but that isn’t a guarantee that the bill will be signed into law, with GOP Gov. Chris Sununu seemingly flip-flopping when it comes to disease control. Sununu did sign a bill in 2021 allowing people to use public places and services even if they did not receive the Covid-19 vaccine. But the next year, the governor vetoed a bill that would bar schools from implementing mask mandates. 

The polio vaccine, first offered in 1955, and the MMR shot, which treats the highly infectious measles, mumps, and rubella viruses, are two very crucial vaccines both in the US and internationally. Since the year 2000 alone, vaccines against measles are estimated to have saved over 55 million lives around the world. 

The CDC recommends that kids get their first dose of MMR vaccine between 12 and 15 months of age, and a first dose of the polio vaccine at around two months old. All states currently require children to have at least started vaccination against measles and polio in order to enroll in childcare, according to the nonprofit Immunize.org. A CDC report found that for the 2021-2022 school year, around 93 percent of children had received the MMR and polio vaccines by the time they entered kindergarten. That figure drops to less than 80 percent for both vaccines—the lowest rate in the country—in Alaska, where a measles outbreak could be devastating. 

Rises in anti-vaccine sentiments have largely been linked to concerns that vaccines cause health issues, like the debunked claim that the MMR vaccine leads to kids being autistic. What parents may want to keep in mind is that polio and measles themselves are disabling conditions: according to the World Health Organization, 1 in 200 polio infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Children who get measles can experience symptoms including swelling of the brain. Death is always a possibility, too. 

“Childhood vaccines have helped protect generations of Americans from potentially devastating vaccine-preventable diseases,” S. Wesley Long, a professor of pathology and genomic medicine at the Houston Methodist medical center, told Mother Jones. “Many of these diseases still exist around the world, and we rely on our collective immunity, often from childhood vaccines, to prevent these diseases from circulating in our population.”

The bill would strike language requiring that immunization records be submitted to childcare agencies, but would keep those requirements for students enrolling in kindergarten through 12th grade. As of 2022, according to the nonprofit ChildCare Aware of America, there are some 700 licensed childcare centers and homes in New Hampshire (which doesn’t require the Covid-19 vaccine for enrollment in childcare, either, despite its efficiency in reducing both death rates and acute symptoms). 

Vaccine hesitancy is rising among parents of young children. A 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center found that around half of parents with kids four or younger thought that not all standard childhood vaccines—a list that also includes hepatitis B, rotavirus, DTaP and chickenpox—may be necessary. Anti-vaccine misinformation plays a role in this phenomenon, which began before the Covid-19 pandemic, but has certainly increased since. In a 2019 UK report, about 50 percent of parents of young kids encountered false information about vaccines on social media. 

While it’s nice when a beloved celebrity makes a comeback, comebacks of the very infectious measles and polio epidemics are less welcome. As New Hampshire’s state epidemiologist, Dr. Benjamin Chan, said during a state Senate hearing on the bill, “as vaccination levels decrease, this is putting our children and our communities and our childcare agencies at risk.”

The United States on Tuesday rejected charges that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in its war against Hamas. 

“We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee in a hearing.

Austin told the committee that President Biden’s recent efforts to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into taking measures to protect aid workers has prompted “changes in behavior” from Israel, including the delivery of more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The Associated Press reports that protesters repeatedly interrupted Austin’s appearance, demanding that the administration “stop the genocide.” 

Austin’s testimony comes as more Democrats speak out against the war’s devastating impacts on Palestinians and demand that the US halt the transfer of weapons to Israel after seven staffers from the World Central Kitchen were killed by Israeli airstrikes last week. The IDF claimed the WCK convoy had been mistakenly struck. But WCK Founder José Andrés has since rejected that explanation, saying that his colleagues were “deliberately attacked” and “targeted.” 

On Friday, 40 Congressional Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), sent Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken a letter urging the administration to withhold new weapons transfers to Israel “until a full investigation into the airstrike is completed.” Pelosi’s decision to sign the letter appeared to mark a shift in her stance on Israel; the former House Speaker had previously recommended that the FBI investigate pro-Palestinian protesters. The letter cited a Washington Post report from late last month revealing that the Biden administration recently authorized sending billions of dollars worth of bombs and fighter jets to Israel. Those weapons included thousands of bombs that have been previously linked to mass casualties in the war. As of Monday, another 16 lawmakers have joined the letter. 

The Biden administration’s insistence that genocide is not being carried out in Gaza follows remarks from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that began circulating on Monday in which Warren said that she believed that the International Court of Justice would soon classify Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide. “If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” Warren told a crowd when pressed to address the question of genocide. 

A statement Warren’s office subsequently shared with local news outlet GBH News clarifying that Warren was commenting on the ongoing legal proceedings at the ICJ, “not sharing her views on whether genocide is occurring in Gaza.” A spokesperson for Warren didn’t immediately respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment.

This week on Reveal, reporter Julia Lurie reports on how Universal Health Services, the largest psychiatric hospital chain in the country, profits off of foster kids who are admitted to its facilities.

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Lurie’s reporting reveals a symbiotic relationship between child welfare agencies, which don’t have enough foster homes for all the kids in custody, and large for-profit companies like Universal Health Services, which have beds to fill. Children admitted to UHS facilities have reported on the use of violent restraints and being put in seclusion rooms, among other alarming allegations (UHS has said it complies with regulations related to some of these practices and is committed to reducing the use of restraints and seclusion). Even though government and media reports have documented these complaints, Lurie’s investigation found that some foster kids continue to spend months or even years in United Health Services facilities. 

One of those kids was Trina Edwards, a former foster kid who first was admitted to a UHS psychiatric hospital called North Star in Alaska when she was 12. In this podcast episode, an updated version of a previous show, Lurie speaks to Edwards about her experience.

Since this episode first aired in October, two bills have been introduced in Alaska’s state legislature that aim to address some of the problems Lurie worked to uncover. Lurie wrote about the proposed legislation earlier this month: 

Though neither bill mentions North Star by name, it looms large as the state’s only private psychiatric hospital for children.

HB 363 would require a court to review a foster child’s placement at a psychiatric hospital within 72 hours to determine if that child meets medical criteria for hospitalization. (There’s no statute on when an initial hearing should take place, though a preliminary injunction requires a hearing within 30 days.) 

A second bill, HB 366, would require health department employees to conduct unannounced visits to residential psychiatric facilities at least twice a year, and to interview at least half of the patients during such visits. It would also require facility staff to report incidents of seclusion or restraint to the state within a day of the incident, and allow weekly, confidential video visits with parents or guardians. Rep. Maxine Dibert, a Fairbanks Democrat and the legislature’s sole female Alaska Native lawmaker, was reportedly inspired to introduce the bill by the prevalence of Native children in psychiatric residential treatment facilities. (The same legislation was also introduced in the Senate.)

This week on Reveal, reporter Julia Lurie reports on how Universal Health Services, the largest psychiatric hospital chain in the country, profits off of foster kids who are admitted to its facilities.

Subscribe to Mother Jones podcasts on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Lurie’s reporting reveals a symbiotic relationship between child welfare agencies, which don’t have enough foster homes for all the kids in custody, and large for-profit companies like Universal Health Services, which have beds to fill. Children admitted to UHS facilities have reported on the use of violent restraints and being put in seclusion rooms, among other alarming allegations (UHS has said it complies with regulations related to some of these practices and is committed to reducing the use of restraints and seclusion). Even though government and media reports have documented these complaints, Lurie’s investigation found that some foster kids continue to spend months or even years in United Health Services facilities. 

One of those kids was Trina Edwards, a former foster kid who first was admitted to a UHS psychiatric hospital called North Star in Alaska when she was 12. In this podcast episode, an updated version of a previous show, Lurie speaks to Edwards about her experience.

Since this episode first aired in October, two bills have been introduced in Alaska’s state legislature that aim to address some of the problems Lurie worked to uncover. Lurie wrote about the proposed legislation earlier this month: 

Though neither bill mentions North Star by name, it looms large as the state’s only private psychiatric hospital for children.

HB 363 would require a court to review a foster child’s placement at a psychiatric hospital within 72 hours to determine if that child meets medical criteria for hospitalization. (There’s no statute on when an initial hearing should take place, though a preliminary injunction requires a hearing within 30 days.) 

A second bill, HB 366, would require health department employees to conduct unannounced visits to residential psychiatric facilities at least twice a year, and to interview at least half of the patients during such visits. It would also require facility staff to report incidents of seclusion or restraint to the state within a day of the incident, and allow weekly, confidential video visits with parents or guardians. Rep. Maxine Dibert, a Fairbanks Democrat and the legislature’s sole female Alaska Native lawmaker, was reportedly inspired to introduce the bill by the prevalence of Native children in psychiatric residential treatment facilities. (The same legislation was also introduced in the Senate.)

As a kid, I spent countless hours watching The Amanda Show, a sketch comedy series starring Amanda Bynes that aired on Nickelodeon from 1999 to 2002. The show was created by Dan Schneider, who went on to helm many of the channel’s most beloved series, including Drake and Josh and iCarly. In addition to providing plenty of laughs, it was a rare example of a children’s show that took the comedic talents of its young star seriously. But after watching the new docuseries Quiet on Set, I know my fond memories of watching The Amanda Show will never be the same. 

The four-part docuseries aired on Max and Investigation Discovery earlier this month, and a surprise fifth episode is in the works for next week. The show explores the dark side of Dan Schneider’s tenure at Nickelodeon, painting him as a temperamental, manipulative boss with a disturbing habit of inserting sexual innuendos into scenes with child actors. Details of Schneider’s conduct began to leak out in 2018, when Schneider left Nickelodeon amid allegations of abusive behavior. The New York Times reported in 2021 that an internal investigation had found Schneider was verbally abusive to staff, while a 2022 Business Insider investigation highlighted his controlling demeanor and sexism in the writers room. 

On set, Schneider’s crew included two now-convicted sex offenders. In 2004, Jason Handy, a production assistant, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading no contest to performing lewd acts on a child, distributing sexually explicit material, and child exploitation. The same year, dialogue coach Brian Peck pleaded no contest to two charges related child sexual abuse against an anonymous child actor and was sentenced to 16 months in prison. Quiet on Set’s biggest bombshell is that Peck’s victim was Drake Bell, a star of Drake & Josh and a regular on The Amanda Show. 

The documentary chronicles the Schneider years at Nickelodeon through interviews with former cast and crew members, journalists who reported on the scandal, and the parents of child actors. It also resurfaces moments of inappropriate humor from Schneider’s shows that seem alarming in retrospect: In one scene, a 16-year-old Ariana Grande, a cast member on Schneider’s Victorious, attempts to “juice” a potato while moaning suggestively. 

The fourth episode, originally slated to be the last in the series, ends with Bell sharing how the abuse impacted him emotionally. In the last shots, we see Bell and his dad walking off the documentary set, then the camera cuts to a sunset. As the credits rolled, I felt a mix of anger and hopelessness. While the filmmakers had done a skillful job of laying out the allegations against Schneider, the show also left many questions unanswered. Schneider declined to be interviewed for the documentary, though it included a written statement from him, saying his content went through many levels of approval before it aired. (Nickelodeon provided a statement to the documentary saying it “investigates all formal complaints as part of our commitment to foster a safe and professional workplace.”) After the documentary, Schneider offered a lackluster mea culpa in a softball interview with a former iCarly cast member, where he muddled his apology with asides that his behavior was caused by “inexperience” and letting pressures get to him.

Nickelodeon’s decision to sever ties with Schneider was necessary and long overdue, but it’s unsettling to think that he can continue to live his life quietly without taking full accountability. And what cuts deeper is that so many people in the industry allowed such a toxic environment to fester—from the parents of child stars who failed to speak up to the industry insiders who wrote letters in support of Peck before his sentencing, including actor James Marsden.

Meanwhile, though Bell has rightfully received an outpouring of support for speaking out, the renewed good will toward the star treads a fine line. In 2021, Bell pleaded guilty to attempted child endangerment charges related to sexual conversations he had with a 15-year-old fan. In a victim impact statement, she claimed Bell groomed and sexually assaulted her multiple times. (Bell was charged only with attempted child endangerment and a misdemeanor for disseminating harmful material to a juvenile. He denies the allegations of sexual assault.) The documentary only mentions these allegations briefly in the context of Bell’s downward spiral after his own abuse, emphasizing that “he was not charged with doing anything physical.” 

The abuse on Nickelodeon happened before the eyes of an entire generation, tainting media intertwined with our childhood nostalgia. After Quiet on Set aired, emotions ran high online. “Jail is not enough!!!” wrote one X user, whose post received almost 5,000 likes. Social media users demanded that Drake Bell’s former costar, Josh Peck (no relation to Brian Peck), speak out. Bell released a statement saying that Josh Peck had personally reached out to him and asked fans to “take it a little easy on him.” On The View, host Sunny Hostin questioned Ariana Grande’s silence about the documentary, saying, “She is an adult now, so is silence complicity or not?” In the wake of this explosive reaction, Investigation Discovery announced that a bonus fifth episode of Quiet on Set would premiere on April 7.  The new episode, a discussion with former child actors moderated by Soledad O’Brien, is billed as “digging deeper into the crucial conversations the docuseries ignited and exploring the lingering questions left in their wake to provide further insight from the brave voices who’ve spoken out.” 

The decision to add a fifth episode felt like a tacit acknowledgement of the fact the final episode of the show had left many questions unanswered. But while the new episode is an opportunity to channel outrage into productive conversations about how to protect child actors from abuse, it may not answer every burning question. As viewers, there’s some uncertainty we have to accept: Public outrage should not come at the cost of victims’ decision to tell their stories if and when they’re ready. It’s possible we may never know everything that happened at Nickelodeon, or how every former child star was affected—and that’s okay. Justice might not come swiftly, and it may not look like what viewers expect. It might look like victims remaining nameless, going about their lives in private, and just trying to pick up the pieces. 

Enlarge / A view from a hospital as children receiving medical treatment, in capital Kabul, Afghanistan on April 18, 2022. More than 130 children have died from the measles in Afghanistan since the beginning of this year. (credit: Getty | Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association sent out separate but similar pleas on Monday for unvaccinated Americans to get vaccinated against the extremely contagious measles virus as vaccination rates have slipped, cases are rising globally and nationally, and the spring-break travel period is beginning.

In the first 12 weeks of 2024, US measles cases have already matched and likely exceeded the case total for all of 2023. According to the CDC, there were 58 measles cases reported from 17 states as of March 14. But media tallies indicate there have been more cases since then, with at least 60 cases now in total, according to CBS News. In 2023, there were 58 cases in 20 states.

"As evident from the confirmed measles cases reported in 17 states so far this year, when individuals are not immunized as a matter of personal preference or misinformation, they put themselves and others at risk of disease—including children too young to be vaccinated, cancer patients, and other immunocompromised people," AMA President Jesse Ehrenfeld said in a statement urging vaccination Monday.

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It was 2018 when Mateo Jaime was admitted to North Star Behavioral Health, a psychiatric hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. He didn’t need acute psychiatric care, he says. Rather, Jaime was a teenager in the foster system, and Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services didn’t have a foster home for him. Jaime would spend two months at the facility, during which time he was held in seclusion and witnessed the forcible injection and physical restraint of other patients. He still has PTSD from the experience.

Jaime wasn’t alone. A yearlong Mother Jones investigation found that foster kids have been admitted hundreds of times to North Star, where some spend months or even years. Despite the facility’s troubling track record of assaults, escapes, and improper use of seclusion, state officials have admitted what foster youth have long suspected: Foster children are warehoused at North Star when there’s nowhere else for them to go. 

Now, two bills introduced in the state legislature aim to reform psychiatric treatment for vulnerable youth in Alaska. Though neither bill mentions North Star by name, it looms large as the state’s only private psychiatric hospital for children.

HB 363 would require a court to review a foster child’s placement at a psychiatric hospital within 72 hours to determine if that child meets medical criteria for hospitalization. (There’s no statute on when an initial hearing should take place, though a preliminary injunction requires a hearing within 30 days.) 

Jaime was among those who testified at an emotional hearing on Thursday. “I felt like a zombie for two months,” he said. “I had no control and no voice over the situation.”

Rep. Andrew Gray, the Anchorage Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said he expected that courts and child welfare officials would push back on the proposed 72-hour timeline for scheduling reasons. “Our priority should not be to make this process more convenient for the adults involved,” he said. “Being admitted to a psychiatric facility is a form of incarceration.” Gray told Mother Jones the proposed legislation was inspired by our reporting, as well as his own experience as a foster parent. 

A second bill, HB 366, would require health department employees to conduct unannounced visits to residential psychiatric facilities at least twice a year, and to interview at least half of the patients during such visits. It would also require facility staff to report incidents of seclusion or restraint to the state within a day of the incident, and allow weekly, confidential video visits with parents or guardians. Rep. Maxine Dibert, a Fairbanks Democrat and the legislature’s sole female Alaska Native lawmaker, was reportedly inspired to introduce the bill by the prevalence of Native children in psychiatric residential treatment facilities. (The same legislation was also introduced in the Senate.)

Both bills have relatively slim chances of passing this year, with just two months left of the legislative session.

For years, Alaskan advocates have expressed concern about the unnecessary hospitalization of foster children at psychiatric facilities. In February, after learning about a 14-year-old foster child who was hospitalized for 46 days before a hearing, Alaska’s Supreme Court concluded, “There is no doubt that children in OCS custody are at substantial risk of being hospitalized for longer than they need, or when they do not need to be hospitalized at all.”

Universal Health Services, the Fortune 500 company that owns North Star, has consistently denied wrongdoing, but it didn’t immediately respond to request for comment on the legislation. The Anchorage Daily News recently reported, however, that North Star paid a lobbyist $41,000 to advocate this legislative session on “issues related to mental health, workforce, background checks and State of Alaska budget.”

It was 2018 when Mateo Jaime was admitted to North Star Behavioral Health, a psychiatric hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. He didn’t need acute psychiatric care, he says. Rather, Jaime was a teenager in the foster system, and Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services didn’t have a foster home for him. Jaime would spend two months at the facility, during which time he was held in seclusion and witnessed the forcible injection and physical restraint of other patients. He still has PTSD from the experience.

Jaime wasn’t alone. A yearlong Mother Jones investigation found that foster kids have been admitted hundreds of times to North Star, where some spend months or even years. Despite the facility’s troubling track record of assaults, escapes, and improper use of seclusion, state officials have admitted what foster youth have long suspected: Foster children are warehoused at North Star when there’s nowhere else for them to go. 

Now, two bills introduced in the state legislature aim to reform psychiatric treatment for vulnerable youth in Alaska. Though neither bill mentions North Star by name, it looms large as the state’s only private psychiatric hospital for children.

HB 363 would require a court to review a foster child’s placement at a psychiatric hospital within 72 hours to determine if that child meets medical criteria for hospitalization. (There’s no statute on when an initial hearing should take place, though a preliminary injunction requires a hearing within 30 days.) 

Jaime was among those who testified at an emotional hearing on Thursday. “I felt like a zombie for two months,” he said. “I had no control and no voice over the situation.”

Rep. Andrew Gray, the Anchorage Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said he expected that courts and child welfare officials would push back on the proposed 72-hour timeline for scheduling reasons. “Our priority should not be to make this process more convenient for the adults involved,” he said. “Being admitted to a psychiatric facility is a form of incarceration.” Gray told Mother Jones the proposed legislation was inspired by our reporting, as well as his own experience as a foster parent. 

A second bill, HB 366, would require health department employees to conduct unannounced visits to residential psychiatric facilities at least twice a year, and to interview at least half of the patients during such visits. It would also require facility staff to report incidents of seclusion or restraint to the state within a day of the incident, and allow weekly, confidential video visits with parents or guardians. Rep. Maxine Dibert, a Fairbanks Democrat and the legislature’s sole female Alaska Native lawmaker, was reportedly inspired to introduce the bill by the prevalence of Native children in psychiatric residential treatment facilities. (The same legislation was also introduced in the Senate.)

Both bills have relatively slim chances of passing this year, with just two months left of the legislative session.

For years, Alaskan advocates have expressed concern about the unnecessary hospitalization of foster children at psychiatric facilities. In February, after learning about a 14-year-old foster child who was hospitalized for 46 days before a hearing, Alaska’s Supreme Court concluded, “There is no doubt that children in OCS custody are at substantial risk of being hospitalized for longer than they need, or when they do not need to be hospitalized at all.”

Universal Health Services, the Fortune 500 company that owns North Star, has consistently denied wrongdoing, but it didn’t immediately respond to request for comment on the legislation. The Anchorage Daily News recently reported, however, that North Star paid a lobbyist $41,000 to advocate this legislative session on “issues related to mental health, workforce, background checks and State of Alaska budget.”

Enlarge / In this photo illustration, melatonin gummies are displayed on April 26, 2023, in Miami, Florida. (credit: Getty | Joe Raedle)

Federal regulators have long decried drug-containing products that appeal to kids—like nicotine-containing e-cigarette products with fruity and dessert-themed flavors or edible cannabis products sold to look exactly like name-brand candies.

But a less-expected candy-like product is sending thousands of kids to emergency departments in the US in recent years: melatonin, particularly in gummy form. According to a new report from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, use of the over-the-counter sleep-aid supplement has skyrocketed in recent years—and so have calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency departments.

Melatonin, a neurohormone that regulates the sleep-wake cycle, has become very popular for self-managing conditions like sleep disorders and jet lag—even in children. Use of melatonin in adults rose from 0.4 percent in 1999–2000 to 2.1 percent in 2017–2018. But the more people have these tempting, often candy-like supplements in their homes, the more risk that children will get ahold of them unsupervised. Indeed, the rise in use led to a 530 percent increase in poison control center calls and a 420 percent increase in emergency department visits for accidental melatonin ingestion in infants and kids between 2009 and 2020.

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Enlarge / The Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, on Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. (credit: Getty | Andi Rice)

Alabama lawmakers on Wednesday hastily passed a bill to provide some civil and criminal immunity to patients and health care providers using in vitro fertilization. The bill, signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey within the hour of its passing, comes into play in the event that embryos—which were recently ruled to be "children" by the state's Supreme Court—are damaged or destroyed, a standard and common occurrence in fertility treatment.

The new protections are intended to restore IVF treatment in Alabama after the state Supreme Court's ruling last month led at least three major IVF providers and one embryo shipping company to suddenly halt aspects of their work in fear of liability for wrongful death lawsuits. People going through the arduous and costly process of IVF were then abruptly denied the very time-sensitive treatments needed to try to grow their families. The ruling drew outcry from around the state and across the nation.

IVF is a type of assisted reproductive technology that involves fertilizing painstakingly harvested eggs with sperm in a lab setting, allowing the fertilized eggs to develop into embryos, and then either transferring a limited number of them into a uterus at a key time in hopes of implantation or freezing them for later use. Not all fertilized eggs develop into viable embryos, and any embryos that are unviable or unneeded are routinely discarded.

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Enlarge / Nitrogen tanks holding tens of thousands of frozen embryos and eggs sit in the embryology lab at New Hope Fertility Center in New York City on December 20, 2017. (credit: Getty | Carolyn Van Houten)

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) health system is halting in vitro fertilization treatment in the wake of a ruling by the state's Supreme Court on Friday that deemed frozen embryos to be "children." The ruling opens up anyone who destroys embryos to liability in a wrongful death lawsuit, according to multiple media reports.

The announcement—the first facility to report halting IVF services—is the much-feared outcome of Friday's ruling, which was widely decried by reproductive health advocates.

"We are saddened that this will impact our patients' attempt to have a baby through IVF, but we must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments," UAB said a statement to media. The statement noted that egg retrieval would continue but that egg fertilization and embryo development are now paused.

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