Mooresville school shooting plot shows long-term toll of Indiana's opioid crisis
Shockley was a senior in Mooresville Schools until Feb. 20 when her plans for a Valentine's Day mass shooting in the cafeteria were discovered. This is the same school my daughter attends, the same cafeteria my daughter would have been sitting in with her friends during the planned attack.
Hicks: How to create equal opportunities in post-DEI Indiana
More than 320,000 children lost a parent to drug overdoses during the opioid crisis, according to the most recent data. Shockley's case is a stark reminder that efforts to combat the opioid crisis have entered a new phase. While the first two years of support have focused on supporting addicts directly, a better understanding of and support for the children of addicts deserves attention.
More than 57,500 Hoosier children were affected by the opioid crisis, with the highest concentration in rural areas. This is more than the number of children affected by autism and childhood diabetes combined.
The effects of having a parent that is an addict or has substance usage disorder is widely studied and very clear:
Higher rates of child abuse and neglect
Lower academic achievement
Higher rates of family breakdown
Higher rates of mental health issues
Lower rates of family involvement and support
Increased rates of incarceration as an adult
Increased rates of addiction and substance usage disorder as adults
The emotional and long-term toll of navigating life with a parent that is an addict is not just overwhelming Hoosier children and families, but also costing our state systems billions.
According to the most recent estimates, children with a parent that's an addict cost our state $37,000 in health care, $44,000 in child welfare and social programs, and $186,000 in special education costs. Pediatricians, schools, therapists, and social services are increasingly seeing more high-need cases at greater frequencies than ever before.
This means state agencies are overwhelmed by providing services and supporting kids displaying high acuity behaviors. These trends are not set to slow anytime soon. By 2030, the innocent victims of the opioid crisis are set to have cost the state $10.5 billion.
Indiana received $980 million in opioid settlement dollars to be doled out over 18 years. If there is one thing we have learned from this crisis, it's that only treating the addict is ineffective because it leaves family members like Shockley untreated.
We've also learned that rural areas were hit far harder than urban areas. The challenges to providing support in rural areas have proven to be far more difficult and have shown less efficacy to date. To curb the systemic impact and give these innocent victims a shot at a healthy future, we need to work smarter not harder.
We need to be investing opioid settlement dollars into evidence-based, data-driven approaches that support inner agency collaborations of all the systems that support the children of addicts. We need infrastructure that ensures data from each of these agencies are talking to each other in tangible ways. We need to focus on efforts that coordinate data and responses across health care, law enforcement, child welfare agencies and education to reduce redundancies and ensure kids are getting the best we have to offer. We need to support innovative approaches that address academic achievement, health outcomes and workforce development needs in the professional areas meeting the needs of children who have a parent battling addiction.
Most importantly, rural Indiana needs more support.
As a Mooresville mom, it's difficult to express my gratitude to Mooresville Schools and the police department for their handling of last week's incident. Their quick and decisive action ensured that all the children in our community were safe.
As an educational professional who has been working with kids with mental health needs for more than 20 years, I can't help but be impressed by the teachers, counselors, administrators, school nurses, coaches, staff members and officers who served bravely last week.
If you follow Mooresville Schools on social media, you know their hashtag is #BeMoore. After last week, I would argue that their hashtag should be #DoingMoore because they are clearly doing more with less to support our kids.
Addie Angelov is the co-founder and CEO of the Paramount Health Data Project.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Mooresville school shooting plot points to opioid crisis | Opinion
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18 hours ago
- Business Journals
Table of Experts: The future of health care
Hiring continues to trouble area health care providers Though insufficient payment, rising costs and political uncertainty vex Western New York's health care industry, finding and keeping clinicians and staff has remained at the top of their challenges since the pandemic. Industry leaders joined Buffalo Business First Publisher John Tebeau to discuss how they manage to go about their missions to serve the public amid the obstacles. Ultimately, greater collaboration and conversation could be essential to their futures. Joining Tebeau were: Melissa Farrell, COO, Spectrum Health & Human Services, 25 years in the mental health field Raymond Ganoe, president and CEO, Evergreen Health, 30 years in health care James Garvey, executive vice president and COO, Catholic Health, appointed in 2020 after serving in health care markets in the Midwest Dr. Robert Zielinski, oncologist and associate medical director, Buffalo Medical Group, 34th year in practice ATTRACTING WORKERS Health care in general is struggling with staffing and working toward a solution that will get qualified people on the job. The situation became especially critical post-Covid when many baby boomers left the workforce. There was an erosion of talent right across the board but especially in clinical areas, Garvey said, and that left a chasm in the workplace. 'You bring in all these new people, and they don't have those experiences, and you don't have that senior person who could provide that oversight,' Garvey said. In addition to doubling down on recruiting initiatives, the Catholic Health system recognized the need to aggressively move toward further development of leadership. One such program involves identifying early leaders in mid-level careers and assigning them to a sponsor who will work with them toward a leadership goal, Garvey said. The panelists agreed that the mission of an organization is increasingly important in the hiring process. 'You end up having happier employees that stay longer and are more engaged with the direction that the organization is going,' Ganoe said. 'We are bringing a lot of energy into our culture to make sure that we're picking the right people.' To do that, recruitment needs to happen at area colleges and universities where students are informed of the varied organizations in the Buffalo region, he said. The big hospital systems might be an obvious choice for some but given the array of options and their unique missions, students might be turned on to and find a better fit with other types of providers. It is critical to ask the right questions during the interview to make sure the job candidate is aware of what your mission is and those things that are important for your organization. 'They have to pick you, and you have to pick them,' Ganoe said. Evergreen provides primary care, pharmacy services and mental health care that grew out of the world of HIV and AIDS as those conditions became more treatable. The focus expanded to include populations that have been historically disenfranchised in Western New York, Ganoe said. Evergreen is a $135 million organization employing more than 600. One of the reasons why the culture phenomenon is important, Zielinski said, is a generational shift in the approach to work. The Buffalo Medical Group traditionally operated under a production model, where individuals are given the flexibility to work as much or as little as they want and be paid a salary commensurate to what is produced. There are fewer and fewer who embrace high productivity, he said. Greater numbers of physicians and staff are burning out because that is not how they want to practice, Zielinski said. The practitioners in their 40s and established in their careers are less concerned with the salary differences between working for the medical group and positions at hospitals, Zielinski said. They find greater job satisfaction with the schedule of the medical group: no weekends, overnights or holidays. Not so with younger entrants into the field, who will leave one job for another over 50-cents an hour, Zielinski said. What truly frustrates Zielinski, he said, are the job candidates who are hired and given a start date but don't show up and don't respond to further communication. They are never heard from again. 'Presumably they've got a number of lines in the water, and they got a better nibble somewhere else, but they don't have that sense that they might interact with this place someday. We're a small community,' Zielinski said. It is a similar situation at Spectrum Health with job candidates 'ghosting' their offers, staff being lured to other jobs for a few cents more an hour or leaving after achieving a full license from permit status, Farrell said. The organization's leaders try to impress on staff that while pay rates may be higher at other practices, she said, Spectrum offers benefits that amount to 30% more income such as malpractice insurance, health insurance and a 401(k) and it handles all billing. 'The greatest resource and capital is our people,' Farrell said, 'so that is where we invest to the best of our ability, to help people want to stay with us. When we have turnover, we lose our client population. If you have a therapist you trust, and they leave, you leave, too.' Spectrum Health estimated that when a single clinician leaves, the organization loses tens of thousands of dollars in lost clients and the amount it costs to hire a replacement and the months it takes to train that person, Farrell said. REIMBURSEMENT When health care leaders talk about reimbursement, it is never good news. For example, health care organizations that are heavily invested in physical plants and equipment are challenged by the anticipated cost of maintenance and replacement and the prospect of purchasing the newest technology and new business opportunities, Garvey said. None of it is inexpensive. Another example: To accept various insurances, providers are faced with additional infrastructure costs, because each insurance company has its own set of rules and processes involved. Those costs to the providers are unreimbursed. 'The priority is about patient care and safety,' Garvey said. 'Unfortunately the marketplace here in New York is a very challenging market from the reimbursement perspective.' Buffalo Medical Group had adopted the electronic medical record system known as Epic prior to the pandemic, but Covid forced the evolution of it. Zielinski bemoaned the government's lack of commitment to reimburse its use. He has little confidence in the reimbursement system, calling it 'badly broken.' 'Health care is the only industry out there where the insurance companies control the production. You don't have the people who insure buildings and property dictating construction and automobile building,' he said. 'What our reimbursement system pays for is not remotely what providers or our patients would say is the most important thing to them.' The current system is unsustainable in part because of the 'enormous sums of money' going to pay the pharmaceutical companies. He said he believes that health insurance is getting so expensive that individuals and employers eventually will get priced out, which will lead the country to a government-run single-payer system. 'The reimbursement system is so broken that we need a major overhaul,' Zielinski said. 'I'm not sure if single-payer is the best answer, but I just worry that it's going to be what we fall to because pharma is going to bust the system.' POLITICAL CLIMATE The panelists shared the opinion that things are unlikely to improve amid the uncertainty, instability and lack of clarity being put forward in the current state and national political environment. There was realization in New York State that the healthcare system is broken, so the answer was to spend a lot of money on care, Ganoe said, but the best outcomes were elusive. There are way too many middlemen, and by the time the dollar goes through insurance, there's a nickel left for providers, he said. The move toward a value-based care system would incentivize providers to keep patients healthy. It would give the providers ownership and allow them to be innovative and think creatively about treatment and potentially make more money. 'It feels like now the goal posts have changed, and we're not really going there anymore but we don't know where we're going. So, organizations like ours that have a foot in a fee-for-service world and a foot in a value-based-payment world are now asking, 'What do we do?',' Ganoe said. 'The administrative oversight and energy it is taking to try to figure out where this is going should be put into recruiting, culture and taking care of our employees and our patients, but it is now being diverted toward crisis management. That doesn't help.' EMERGING TRENDS If there are positives that emerged from the pandemic it is the easing of the stigma associated with mental health issues and the awareness of the growing array of treatment services available to address them. That helped bridge the gap for some of those populations that are higher risk, Farrell said. Many of Spectrum Health's services, clients will find, have been embedded in doctors' offices and schools, Farrell said, making access especially convenient. 'You meet people where they're at, and that promotes success, that promotes linkage, and it promotes continuity of care. If you make it easy for people to get care, they're going to follow through,' Farrell said. Spectrum Health provides outpatient behavioral health services. The organization integrates mental health and substance use care for adults and children. In 2017, Spectrum Health piloted the comprehensive community behavioral healthcare center, a federal pilot project which integrated services, so clients didn't have to have more than one treatment provider, Farrell said. 'In the past if you had mental health needs but you were drinking, we would tell you we can't talk about your mental health until you stop drinking,' Farrell said. 'Then we would make them go and try and stop drinking, but when you don't take care of your mental health you drink to cope. The integration has really helped. It also focuses on holistic treatment so looking at social determinants of health, looking at housing, access to healthcare insurance, food security, those types of things.' Spectrum is expanding its services in the Allentown Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine office to include the addition of an entire floor and two more full-time clinicians. The organization, long embedded in the Williamsville high schools, is expanding services into the district's middle schools. Conversations are continuing with other districts as well, she said. 'We found in doing that is that kids have access to services and it eliminates the barriers of transportation,' Farrell said. 'If you ask a 16-year-old to carve out two hours of their week every week, it's pretty impossible to do. So they can come to us on their free period or during their lunch and get services right there. We also found that that helps to mitigate some the cultural barriers to seeking treatment.' Spectrum has addressed access to mental health services for clients living in rural areas through promoting telehealth sessions and in Wyoming County, a clinician is available for home visits for the aging population. The organization also has established peer counseling for adults, youth and parents offered by those who have lived experience with mental health care. 'When somebody approaches it and normalizes it and says 'I've been there. My child has gone through this too, and let me tell you what helped us', there's power in that, and so people are more willing to engage,' Farrell said. STRENGTH IN NUMBERS Given their shared challenges, the panelists said continued collaboration and conversation will serve to strengthen Western New York's health care market. All the region's organizations interact on a daily basis one way or another, and there are great examples of joint efforts among them, Garvey said. 'We struggle sometimes with that just because we get caught up in our own respective spaces,' he said. 'Everybody knows everybody so you can have that conversation. Just think about what you're doing the right way and start the dialogue. These conversations aren't threatening to an organization, they can challenge an organization.' THE EXPERTS: JAMES GARVEY, Executive Vice President and COO, Catholic Health DR. ROBERT ZIELINSKI, Associate Medical Director and Oncologist, Buffalo Medical Group Mobility clinic offers real hope to those suffering with paralysis expand Buffalo now offers the possibility of mobility to the paralyzed. A person who suffers catastrophic paralysis is usually discharged from the hospital after treatment for the initial injury with the unfortunate conclusion, 'There's only so much we can do.' For these patients there has been no local rehabilitative pathway to offer hope of experiencing movement like there are in Atlanta, Denver and elsewhere. If a patient doesn't have the financial resources to pay for further rehabilitation out of town, then the person endures other issues associated with lack of mobility, such as pressure sores, breathing problems, muscle atrophy and digestion issues. Those Western New Yorkers who have traveled to get the specialized rehabilitation, return and quickly lose the gains they've made because there is no supportive technology here. To serve this population in Western New York, Daemen University's Dr. Michael Brogan and Dr. Laura Edsberg developed the Institute for Mobility Innovation and Technology, known at the IMIT, located at the Villa Maria College Athletic Center in Buffalo through a partnership with the college. Among the specialized equipment at the IMIT are state-of-the-art robotically assisted machines that are used in gait training and movement. One of most expensive pieces of equipment, few exist across the country, this unit consists of a large track on the ceiling where a robot is attached with harnesses that hang down to support body weight while an individual is on a treadmill. 'The benefit of this is you can walk,' Edsberg said. 'The way our brain relearns is if you keep that pattern the same the neuroplasticity will help that gait come back. This is typically the piece of equipment people use immediately post injury to try and get walking again, even when you don't have sensation, in hopes that your brain starts to send the signals again.' As the patient improves, the role of robotics can be reduced so the patient can control more of the motion. Even if walking isn't fully restored, the patient can continue to train on the equipment to get the exercise needed to get muscles in motion and blood flowing to offset atrophy, encourage wound healing and decrease any painful muscle spasms. Another important piece of equipment is called an alter gravity treadmill where the patient is zipped into a special unit that fills with air and reduces gravitational load so the individual can build trunk stability and improve gait. Movement is primary; everything else follows. 'Physiological effects end up being the cause of someone's poor quality of life and death, so maintenance is a big part of this,' Brogan said. 'If you wanted to feel better you can go to a gym or you could walk around the park. Where do people who can't move go?' The IMIT was funded with $2 million foundation grants and $1.2 million from then state Senator Tim Kennedy for equipment. The foundation money also supports maintenance of the equipment. This type of rehabilitation can return the individual to a more functional, independent state and lead to a better quality of life potentially including a return to work, Brogan said. 'They may not be a mail carrier, but they could work at the post office doing any job inside the building,' Brogan said. It also cuts costs by reducing the number of clinicians needed to work one-on-one with the patient at a time. Brogan, executive vice president and provost at Daemen University and a career-long physical therapist, and Edsberg, professor of natural sciences and the director of the Center for Wound Healing Research, initially collaborated on research on refractory wounds, or those that won't heal. These wounds are typically suffered by those who are immobilized by paralysis through an accident or stroke or conditions such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's. The IMIT was the evolutionary result of their work. Edsberg envisions advocacy as another important aspect of the IMIT. Insurance so far hasn't covered such rehabilitation. She expects to approach insurance companies with data from the IMIT hopeful that insurers will recognize not only the many patient benefits but the cost savings from decreased hospitalizations from complications from immobility. Research also will involve the most effective number of weekly visits to the IMIT for optimum results. The IMIT additionally provides Daemen students with the unique opportunity to work with the state-of-the art equipment. Daemen will also create opportunities for other schools to do neural placements at the IMIT program. 'Then when they go out to their jobs in their community, they will realize they should be advocating for this for their patients,' Edsberg said. 'I think this will put them ahead of other graduates.' THE EXPERTS: DR. MICHAEL BROGAN , Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost DR. LAURA EDSBERG, Co-founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Mobility Innovation & Technology (IMIT) D'Youville to bring more primary care doctors to WNY expand D'Youville University is months away from establishing the area's second academic training ground for primary care doctors. The institution is expected to welcome the first students into its College of Osteopathic Medicine a year from now. The program will further enhance D'Youville's array of health care programs that together align with a broader vision of transforming health care and health care education in Western New York, university President Dr. Lorrie Clemo said. Clemo said it is the most ambitious project ever undertaken by the university. The $120 million price tag covers the purchasing of the building, renovations and hiring the faculty. The 285 Delaware Ave. location, a mile away from the university's main campus on Porter Avenue, is significant in that it will bring hundreds of medical students to the heart of downtown Buffalo. The first class of students will begin in the fall 2026 semester. Full enrollment of 720 is expected in six years. The health care sector is eagerly awaiting them. About 27,000 primary care doctors in New York State are expected to retire within the next five years. 'What our program is going to do is to train primary care physicians, but our intent is to try to keep them here,' Clemo said. 'We know specifically that 80% of the students that received the doctor of osteopathy degree stay in primary care.' Clemo said she came to D'Youville in 2017, attracted to coming to Buffalo and moving into the president's role because the university was well positioned as a healthcare education institution. 'In the last eight years we've been able to distinguish ourselves with the great programs that prepare our students for the new work that is evolving in higher education and in health care right now,' Clemo said. 'More importantly what I saw here was a community that cared about improving health care, and I saw that we would be able to be a part of that vision, that movement that started with the BNMC (Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus). We've become very connected to that.' Doctors of osteopathy differ from medical doctors in that they practice holistic medicine, disease prevention and alternative therapies. The university has forged more than 1,200 articulation agreements with primary care physicians and has 400 partners who have signed on to be part of the medical students' training in their third and fourth years. The partners are geographically diverse, from health centers and urban trauma centers in Buffalo to rural practices in Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties. Clemo also is hopeful of forging collaborations with area institutions so their students who want medical education can come to D'Youville without having to repeat courses. The program is primarily recruiting local students, but expectations are it will be attractive to those students outside of Western New York and New York state, Clemo said. 'Our intent is to keep students here after they graduate because they'll be connected with the great caregivers in the region,' Clemo said. Another objective of the local focus is to help achieve the comfortability that patients will have graduates of D'Youville's program. 'We need physicians who understand the communities that they're going to be working in,' Clemo said. 'So that's part of the reason we've designed the program so that students from the community will be able to train in the community and also be able to practice in the community once they finish their training.' The program is anticipated to mirror the timeline of D'Youville's pharmacy program where a student enters as a freshman and achieves a doctorate in five years, Clemo said. The medical students then attend residency programs after graduation. D'Youville has more than 35 healthcare programs whose students interact and work in teams across the disciplines in the interprofessional approach that is embedded in the university's curriculum. This approach enables the communication and collaboration that benefits the patient. The addition of the medical students will enhance that experience for the students across all the majors. 'Our graduates will have had that experience not only in simulation but working with each other with real patients prior to going into the work world,' Clemo said. D'Youville is planning to build 188 single rooms in a new residence, specifically for graduate-level students, including the medical students, at 433 West Ave. Construction is expected to begin in January and be completed by August 2027. The aim is to ease the burden on students from having to find accommodations in Buffalo's housing shortage.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Trump's anti-DEI order sparks new federal funding guidance in Washington County
PORTLAND, Ore. () — Washington County has approved guidelines aimed at helping officials maintain critical funding amid President Donald Trump's anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policies. One of several established that entities with DEI practices would no longer be eligible for funding from the U.S. government. After several months of talks centered on how to preserve federal grants and other financial support, the Washington County Board of Commissioners voted to approve guiding principles during a meeting on Tuesday. CDC delves into bubonic plague case detected in Oregon in early 2024 The new guidance states that leaders will continue to operate 'in a transparent and open manner' while complying with federal, state and local regulations, among . Earlier in June, the its February 2020 commitment to DEI practices in response to the executive order. following pushback from several residents who argued leaders of the diverse county shouldn't adhere to the Trump administration's demands. However, County Administrator Tanya Ange noted that officials rely on $135 million in federal funding annually — and July through August is typically the period in which grants and contracts are renewed. Senior Medicare services administered through the Oregon Department of Human Services and overdose prevention programs managed by the Oregon Health Authority are among the resources that are currently 'at risk' as local officials wait to learn whether funding has been secured, according to Ange's . Despite uncertainty surrounding which resources will remain accessible in the county, some community members are arguing the new guidelines are too vague to ensure the protection of all residents. 'Simply changing the wording may not be enough to get the federal funds that we need, or maybe the wording is enough, but the resolution you pass is ambiguous enough to open the door for these funds to be made available for purposes they were not intended for — for not serving the under-resourced members of our community,' one testifier said. Ritz-Carlton in Portland sold back to lender to 'strengthen' struggling property District 1 Commissioner Nafisa Fai proposed an amendment that would have changed the guidelines to include language about Oregon's sanctuary state status, and to affirm that all Washington County residents would still have the right to access resources despite discrimination. When no other leaders voted to second the proposal, a decision that was met with 'boos' from attendees of the public hearing, District 4 Commissioner Jason Willey said legal counsel had already advised the county against changing the resolution. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
Boston Globe
2 days ago
- Boston Globe
Canceled HIV research in R.I. is reinstated, but fears persist about DEI crackdown
The order from US District Judge William Young in Massachusetts was narrow, reinstating nearly 900 grants awarded to the plaintiffs, not all of the thousands of grants canceled by NIH so far this year. Young called DEI an 'undefined enemy‚" and said the Trump administration's 'blacklisting' of certain topics 'has absolutely nothing to do with the promotion of science or research.' Get Rhode Island News Alerts Sign up to get breaking news and interesting stories from Rhode Island in your inbox each weekday. Enter Email Sign Up The Trump administration is appealing the ruling, and Advertisement 'We feel like we're tippy-toeing around,' said Nunn, who leads the Rhode Island Public Health Institute. 'The backbone of the field is steadfast pursuit of the truth. People are trying to find workarounds where they don't have to compromise the integrity of their science.' Advertisement Nunn said she renewed her membership to the American Public Health Association in order to ensure she'd be included in the lawsuit. Despite DEI concerns, she plans to continue enrolling gay Black and Hispanic men in her study, which will include 300 patients in Rhode Island, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. Black and Hispanic men who have sex with other men contract HIV at The study was just getting underway, with 20 patients enrolled, when the work was shut down by the NIH in March. While Nunn's clinic in Providence did not do any layoffs, the clinic in Mississippi — Express Personal Health — shut down, and the D.C. clinic laid off staff. The four-month funding flip-flop could delay the results of the study by two years, Nunn said, depending on how quickly the researchers can rehire and train new staff. The researchers will also need to find a new clinic in Mississippi. The patients — 100 each in Rhode Island, Mississippi, and D.C. — will then be followed for a year as they take Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP, to The protocol that's being studied is the use of a patient navigator for 'aggressive case management.' That person will help the patient navigate costs, insurance, transportation to the clinic, dealing with homophobia and other barriers to staying on PrEP, which can be taken as a pill or a shot. The study's delay means 'the science is aging on the vine,' Nunn said, as new HIV prevention drugs are rolled out. 'The very thing that we're studying might very well be obsolete by the time we're able to reenroll all of this.' Advertisement Dr. Amy Nunn, executive director of the Rhode Island Public Health Institute, in a patient room at Open Door Health, an HIV clinic in Providence, R.I. Patients will be seen here for her HIV study that has been reinstated following a lawsuit against the Trump administration. Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff The hundreds of reinstated grants include titles that reference race and gender, such as a study of cervical cancer screening rates in Latina women, alcohol use among transgender youth, aggressive breast cancer rates in Black and Latina women, and multiple HIV/AIDs studies involving LGBTQ patients. 'Many of these grants got swept up almost incidentally by the particular language that they used,' said Peter Lurie, the president of the Center of Science in the Public Interest, which joined the lawsuit. 'There was an arbitrary quality to the whole thing.' Lurie said blocking scientists from studying racial disparities in public health outcomes will hurt all Americans, not just the people in the affected groups. 'A very high question for American public health is why these racial disparities continue to exist,' Lurie said. 'We all lose in terms of questions not asked, answers not generated, and opportunities for saving lives not implemented.' The Trump administration is not backing down from its stance on DEI, even as it restores the funding. The reinstatement letters from the NIH sent to scientists this month include a condition that they must comply with Trump's executive order on 'biological truth,' which rescinded federal recognition of transgender identity, along with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color and national origin. Kenneth Parreno, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he was told by Trump administration lawyers that new letters would be sent out without those terms. But Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said Wednesday the administration 'stands by its decision to end funding for research that prioritized ideological agendas over scientific rigor and meaningful outcomes for the American people.' Advertisement 'HHS is committed to ensuring that taxpayer dollars support programs rooted in evidence-based practices and gold standard science — not driven by divisive DEI mandates or gender ideology," Nixon said in any email to the Globe. The Trump administration's appeal is pending before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. A motion for a stay of Young's decision was denied, and the Trump administration is appealing that ruling to the US Supreme Court. The ongoing push to remove DEI from science has created fear in the scientific community, which relies on federal funding to conduct its research and make payroll. 'Scientific morale has taken a big hit,' Nunn said. 'People are apprehensive.' Indeed, major research institutions have faced mass funding cuts from the federal government since Trump took office. Brown University, the largest research institution in Rhode Island, had more than $500 million frozen until it In exchange for the research dollars to be released, Brown agreed not to engage in racial discrimination in admissions or university programming, and will provide access to admissions data to the federal government so it can assess compliance. The university also agreed not to perform any gender-affirming surgeries and to adopt Trump's definitions of a male and female in the 'biological truth' executive order. While some have avoided speaking out, fearing further funding cuts, Nunn said she felt a 'moral and ethical duty' to do so. Advertisement 'We have to dissent,' Nunn said. 'Scientific discovery around the world hangs in the balance.' Steph Machado can be reached at
