General Mental Health Articles
- Natalie Hussein, president of NAMI Brevard, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with serious mental illnesses, explained how common mental illness is. Hussein said one in five people suffer from mental illness. Read more here.
- Tucked away in a tangle of streets around Rome’s Termini station is a clinic that sharply contrasts with the hardline, anti-migrant stance of Italian politicians. The Samifo Centre is described by the people behind it as Europe’s – and perhaps the world’s – only publicly funded service aimed at treating post-traumatic stress disorder and trauma among asylum seekers and refugees. More than 2,000 people were treated at the clinic last year. Read more here.
The Opioid Crisis
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has treated the U.S. drug epidemic as a priority, both in his independent bid for president and now as President Trump’s nominee for health secretary. However, for all his advocacy surrounding the addiction crisis, Kennedy has never made clear his views on methadone and buprenorphine, the highly effective medications most commonly used to treat opioid use disorder. During a senate confirmation hearing, Kennedy shed light for the first time on his attitudes toward medication-assisted treatment. Read more here.
988 Lifeline
- In July 2022, 988 launched as the number anyone across the country could dial in a mental health crisis. It’s one entryway to a sprawling system of mental health care options, but new research shows that since then, critical crisis services have not become more available — a key objective of the nationwide rollout, designed to strengthen an underfunded, patchwork system that left many people alone in times of crisis. Read more here.
Transgender Issues
- President Donald Trump signed a broad executive order targeting transition-related medical care for minors. The order, titled “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” intends to restrict access to gender-affirming medical care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery — for minors, which it defines as those younger than 19. Read more here.
- A lawsuit seeking to strike down North Dakota’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors will go to trial, more than a year after families of transgender children and a doctor filed the suit that argued the law violates the state’s constitution. Read more here.
- Kansas lawmakers are trying to ban gender-affirming care for minors after several failed attempts. The proposal would ban puberty blockers, hormone treatments, and gender-affirming surgeries, which are rare. State funds couldn’t be used for these operations, and state agencies or employees couldn’t promote gender-affirming care for minors. Read more here.
- Hospitals in Colorado, Virginia, and the nation’s capital said they have paused gender-affirming care for young people as they evaluate President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at cutting federal support for such care. Denver Health in Colorado has stopped providing gender-affirming surgeries for people under age 19, a spokesperson confirmed, in order to comply with the executive order and continue receiving federal funding. Read more here.
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