Healthcare Workers Strike
Around 700 workers walked off the job in Burbank. About 700 healthcare workers at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, have walked off the job for five days. The strike was prompted by the hospital's alleged "bad faith bargaining and other illegal tactics" following the expiration of their previous contract. The striking workers are demanding comparable wages to Providence workers in the Tarzana and Mission Hills locations. The hospital responded by saying they are prepared for the strike and have hired contract replacement workers. This strike follows a similar walkout by Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers earlier this month, which resulted in a contract agreement. The Supreme Court has agreed to review a decision that barred key government officials from contacting social media companies and a broad array of government agencies.
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• Around 700 workers walked off the job in Burbank. About 700 healthcare workers at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank walked off the job on Monday. The strike is expected to last five days. Why it matters: According to United Healthcare Workers West, the union representing the workers, the strike was prompted by the hospital’s “bad faith bargaining and other illegal tactics” following the expiration of the last contract. Background: This follows involving Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers earlier this month who have since reached a contract agreement, and a walkout by workers at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. Hospital’s response: Providence St. Joseph Medical Center said they are prepared for the strike and have hired contract replacement workers. In response to the allegations of bad faith bargaining, the healthcare provider said they are "committed to respectful discourse and urges caregivers to report concerns in a variety of ways, including via an anonymous integrity hotline.” About 700 healthcare workers at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank walked off the job on Monday for a strike that's expected to last five days. According to United Healthcare Workers West, the union representing the workers, the strike was prompted by the hospital’s “bad faith bargaining and other illegal tactics” following the expiration of their previous contract in August. “We are being intimidated and threatened for wanting to improve our hospital, while Providence executives bargain in bad faith over solutions to our short-staffing crisis,” said Christian Ayon, one of the striking healthcare workers. This latest strike follows involving Kaiser Permanente healthcare workers earlier this month who have since reached a contract agreement, and a walkout by workers at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. Eric Sanitate, a respiratory therapist, sits on the bargaining committee and said the hospital lost “a ton of staff.“ “People were leaving for more money and better working conditions elsewhere in a very tight healthcare labor market, and Providence really didn't see the need to compete,” he said. “We've only had a 6% raise around here over the last three years.” The striking workers, Sanitate said, are asking for comparable wages that Providence workers in the Tarzana and Mission Hills locations get. A Providence St. Joseph spokesperson said that each of the hospitals within the Providence network sets their own compensation scales, adding that their proposal includes "wages that are above market averages for all positions in this contract." We’ve been forced to the strike line by Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, who refuse to bargain in good faith about solutions to the staffing-crisis. @providence #betterforburbank #ULPstrike #united4all #SolidaritySeason pic.twitter.com/GutUqtrfAe — SEIU-UHW #United4All (@seiu_uhw) October 23, 2023 In a statement to LAist, St. Joseph Medical Center said they offered striking workers “a 24% increase in wages over a three-year contract and significant market wage adjustments for many jobs. Unfortunately, the union has offered unrealistic counterproposals in response and has chosen to strike instead of continuing contract negotiations.” Promise Rainey has worked at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center for 17 years in the ER department as an emergency services technician and a phlebotomist. She said the lack of a significant raise in the last three years has affected her life. “It's not keeping up with the cost of living, we were everybody's heroes three years ago, and they were sending us support and sending us food, but that doesn't pay rent,” she said. “It doesn't buy groceries, it doesn't pay for gas, and our contract has not kept up with that, so it's only gotten worse each corresponding year.” Providence St. Joseph Medical Center said they are prepared for the strike and it will not affect care. In response to the allegations of bad faith bargaining, the healthcare provider added, “Providence Saint Joseph is committed to respectful discourse and urges caregivers to report concerns in a variety of ways, including via an anonymous integrity hotline.” What questions do you have about Southern California?
• The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a lower court decision that barred White House officials and a broad array of other government employees at key agencies from contact with social media companies. Why it matters: The case has profound implications for almost every aspect of American life, especially at a time when there are great national security concerns about false information online.
The backstory: Louisiana and Missouri sued the government, contending it has been violating the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to correct or modify what the government deems to be misinformation online. The case is part of long-running conservative claims that liberal tech company owners are in cahoots with government officials in an attempt to suppress conservative views.
What's next: The case will likely be heard in February or March.
Read more:... to learn about the case. The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a lower court decision that barred White House officials and a broad array of other government employees at key agencies from contact with social media companies. In the meantime, the high court has temporarily put on ice a ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that barred officials at the White House, the FBI, a crucial cybersecurity agency, important government health departments, as well as other agencies from having any contact with Facebook (Meta), Google, X (formerly known as Twitter), TikTok and other social media platforms. The case has profound implications for almost every aspect of American life, especially at a time when there are great national security concerns about false information online during the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and further concerns about misinformation online that could cause significant problems in the conduct of the 2024 elections. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. Louisiana and Missouri sued the government, contending it has been violating the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies to correct or modify what the government deems to be misinformation online. The case is part of long-running conservative claims that liberal tech company owners are in cahoots with government officials in an attempt to suppress conservative views. Indeed, the states, joined by five individuals, contend that 67 federal entities and officials have "transformed" social media platforms into a "sprawling federal censorship enterprise." The federal government rejects that characterization as false, noting that it would be a constitutional violation if the government were to "punish or threaten to punish the media or other intermediaries for disseminating disfavored speech." But there is a big difference between persuasion and coercion, the government adds, noting that the FBI, for instance, has sought to mitigate the terrorism "hazards" of instant access to billions of people online by "calling attention to potentially harmful content so platforms can apply their content- moderation policies" where they are justified. "It is axiomatic that the government is entitled to provide the public with information and to advocate for its own policies," the government says in its brief. "A central dimension of presidential power is the use of the Office's bully pulpit to seek to persuade Americans — and American companies — to act in ways that the President believes would advance the public interest." History bears that out, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in the government's brief. She also noted that social media companies have their own First Amendment rights to decide what content to use. Three justices noted their dissents: Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Writing for the three, Justice Alito said that the government had failed to provide "any concrete proof" of imminent harm from the Fifth Circuit's ruling. "At this time in the history of our country, what the court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the Government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news, " wrote Alito. The case will likely be heard in February or March. What questions do you have about Southern California?
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• Why has climate change toppled some civilizations? New research, published in a peer-reviewed biological sciences journal from The Royal Society last month, suggests that resilience is an ability that societies can gain and lose over time. Why it matters: Focusing too closely on catastrophe can result in a skewed view of the past — it overlooks societies that navigated an environmental disaster and made it through intact. Why now: As we struggle with the climate emergency, it’s reasonable to wonder how neatly the lessons from ancient societies apply to today. The Roman Empire fell more than 1,500 years ago, but its grip on the popular imagination is still strong, as evidenced by a recent trend on TikTok. Women started filming the men in their lives to document their answers to a simple question: How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
• This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.
• Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. “I guess, technically, like every day,” one boyfriend said, as his girlfriend wheezed out an astonished “What?” He wasn’t the only one, as an avalanche of Twitter posts, Instagram Reels, and news articles made clear. While driving on a highway, some men couldn’t help but think about the extensive network of roads the Romans built, some of which are still in use today. They pondered the system of aqueducts, built with concrete that could harden underwater. There are a lot of reasons why people are fascinated by the rise and fall of ancient empires, gender dynamics aside. Part of what’s driving that interest is the question: How could something so big and so advanced fail? And, more pressingly: Could something similar happen to us? Between rampaging wildfires, a rise in political violence, and the public’s trust in government at record lows, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched that America could go up in smoke. About those theories of breakdown Theories of breakdown driven by climate change have proliferated in recent years, encouraged by the likes of Jared Diamond’s 2005 book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. The Roman Empire, for example, unraveled during a spasm of volcanic explosions, which led to a period of cooling that precipitated the first pandemic of bubonic plague. The decline of the ancient Maya in Central America has been linked with a major drought. Angkor Wat’s downfall, in modern-day Cambodia, has been pinned on a period of wild swings between drought and monsoon floods. So if minor forms of climate change spelled the collapse of these great societies, how are we supposed to survive the much more radical shifts of today? Focusing too closely on catastrophe can result in a skewed view of the past — it overlooks societies that navigated an environmental disaster and made it through intact. A review of the literature in 2021 found 77% of studies that analyzed the interplay between climate change and societies emphasized catastrophe, while only 10% focused on resilience. Historians, anthropologists, and archaeologists have recently tried to fill in that gap. The latest entry is a study that analyzes 150 crises from different time periods and regions, going off a comprehensive dataset that covers more than 5,000 years of human history, back to the Neolithic period. Environmental forces often play a critical role in the fall of societies, the study found, but they can’t do it alone. Researchers with the Complexity Science Hub, an organization based in Vienna, Austria, that uses mathematical models to understand the dynamics of complex systems, found plenty of examples of societies that made it through famines, cold snaps, and other forms of environmental stress. Several Mesoamerican cities, including the Zapotec settlements of Mitla and Yagul in modern-day Oaxaca, “not only survived but thrived within the same drought conditions” that contributed to the fall of the Maya civilization in the 8th century. And the Maya, before that point, had weathered five earlier droughts and continued to grow. The new research, published in a peer-reviewed biological sciences journal from The Royal Society last month, suggests that resilience is an ability that societies can gain and lose over time. Researchers found that a stable society can withstand even a dramatic climate shock, whereas a small shock can lead to chaos in a vulnerable one. The finding is in line with other research, such as a study in Nature in 2021 that analyzed 2,000 years’ worth of Chinese history, untangling the relationship between climate disruptions and the collapse of dynasties. It found that major volcanic eruptions, which often cause cooler summers and weaker monsoons, hurting crops, contributed to the rise of warfare. But it wasn’t the size of the eruption that mattered most: Dynasties survived some of the biggest, climate-disrupting eruptions, including the Tambora eruption of 1815 in present-day Indonesia and the Huaynaputina eruption of 1600 in what’s now Peru. What matters most, the Complexity Science Hub’s study posits, is inequality and political polarization. Declining living standards tend to lead to dissatisfaction among the general population, while wealthy elites compete for prestigious positions. As pressures rise and society fractures, the government loses legitimacy, making it harder to address challenges collectively. “Inequality is one of history’s greatest villains,” said Daniel Hoyer, a co-author of the study and a historian who studies complex systems. “It really leads to and is at the heart of a lot of other issues.” On the flipside, however, cooperation can give societies that extra boost they need to withstand environmental threats. “This is why culture matters so much,” Hoyer said. “You need to have social cohesion, you need to have that level of cooperation, to do things that scale — to make reforms, to make adaptations, whether that’s divesting from fossil fuels or changing the way that food systems work.” It’s reasonable to wonder how neatly the lessons from ancient societies apply to today, when the technology is such that you can fly halfway around the world in a day or outsource the painful task of writing a college essay to ChatGPT. “What can the modern world learn from, for example, the Mayan city states or 17th century Amsterdam?” said Dagomar Degroot, an environmental historian at Georgetown University. The way Degroot sees it, historians can pin down the time-tested strategies as a starting point for policies to help us survive climate change today — a task he’s currently working on with the United Nations Development Programme. Degroot has identified a number of ways that societies adapted to a changing environment across millennia: Migration allows people to move to more fruitful landscapes; flexible governments learn from past disasters and adopt policies to prevent the same thing from happening again; establishing trade networks makes communities less sensitive to changes in temperature or precipitation. Societies that have greater socioeconomic equality, or that at least provide support for their poorest people, are also more resilient, Degroot said. By these measures, the United States isn’t exactly on that path to success. According to a standard called the Gini coefficient — where 0 is perfect equality and 1 is complete inequality — the U.S. scores poorly for a rich country, at 0.38 on the scale, beaten out by Norway (0.29) and Switzerland (0.32) but better than Mexico (0.42). Inequality is “out of control,” Hoyer said. “It’s not just that we’re not handling it well. We’re handling it poorly in exactly the same way that so many societies in the past have handled things poorly.” One of the major voices behind that theme is Peter Turchin, one of the co-authors on Hoyer’s study, a Russian-American scientist who studies complex systems. Once an ecologist analyzing the rise and fall of pine beetle populations, Turchin switched fields in the late 1990s and started to apply a mathematical framework to the rise and fall of human populations instead. Around 2010, he predicted that unrest in America would start getting serious around 2020. Then, right on schedule, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, a reminder that modern society isn’t immune to the great disasters that shaped the past. “America Is Headed Toward Collapse,” declared the headline of an article in The Atlantic this summer, excerpted from Turchin’s book End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration. The barrage of climate catastrophes, gun violence, and terrorist attacks in the headlines are enough to make you consider packing up and trying to live off the land. A recent viral video posed the question: “So is everyone else’s friend group talking about buying some land and having a homestead together where everyone grows separate crops, [where] we can all help each other out and have a supportive community, because our society that we live in feels like it’s crumbling beneath our feet?” Is America on the brink of collapse? By Turchin’s account, America has been at the brink of collapse twice already, once during the Civil War and again during the Great Depression. It’s not always clear how “collapse” differs from societal change more generally. Some historians define it as a loss of political complexity, while others focus on population decline or whether a society’s culture was maintained. “A lot of people prefer the term ‘decline,’” Degroot said, “in part because historical examples of the collapse of complex societies really refer to a process that took place over sometimes centuries” and would perhaps even go unnoticed by people alive at the time. Living through a period of societal collapse might feel different from what you imagined, just like living through a pandemic did — possibly less like a zombie movie, and more like boring, everyday life once you get accustomed to it. The Complexity Science Hub’s study suggests that collapse itself could be considered an adaptation in particularly dire situations. “There is this general idea that collapse is scary, and it’s bad, and that’s what we need to avoid,” Hoyer said. “There’s a lot of truth in that, especially because collapse involves violence and destruction and unrest.” But if the way your society is set up is making everyone’s lives miserable, they might be better off with a new system. For example, archaeological evidence shows that after the Roman Empire lost control of the British Isles, people became larger and healthier, according to Degroot. “In no way would collapse automatically be something that would be devastating for those who survived — in fact, often, probably the opposite,” he said. Of course, there’s no guarantee that a better system will replace the vulnerable, unequal one after a collapse. “You still have to do the work of putting in the reforms, and having the support of those in power, to be able to actually set and reinforce these kinds of revisions,” Hoyer said. “So I would argue, if that’s the case, let’s just do that without the violence to begin with.” This article originally appeared in Grist at: https://grist.org/culture/climate-change-societal-collapse-explained/. Fires. Mudslides. Heat waves. What questions do you need answered as you prepare for the effects of the climate emergency?
• A leaking wellhead in the Midway-Sunset oil field in Kern County, California. Midway-Sunset is home to dozens of orphaned oil wells. A new California law aims to close loopholes that have allowed oil drillers to walk away from wells that are no longer profitable but remain harmful. But while the Orphan Well Prevention Act will help reduce the number of abandoned and orphaned wells industry watchers said it does little to address the looming issue of wells that remain dormant indefinitely, some of which leak climate-warming methane and toxic fumes. Why it matters: For a few hundred dollars a year, the California Geologic Energy Management agency, or CalGEM, allows drillers to leave wells uncapped rather than paying to plug them. As they remain unplugged, the wells put low-income, mostly Latino communities at risk of air pollution, and any greenhouse gases the wells emit contribute to the climate crisis. The backstory: About 38,800 wells in California are idle, meaning they’re unplugged but claimed by an operator; thousands more are barely producing and could be idled. Despite the health and climate risks, the state lets companies keep them that way.
A new California law just signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom aims to close loopholes that have allowed oil drillers to walk away from wells that are no longer profitable but remain harmful. Oil majors have typically sold wells to smaller companies without paying to plug the wells, essentially sealing them off. Under the new law, buyers will have to put up a cleanup bond before regulators approve the sale.
• This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication Capital & Main. It is co-published with permission. But while the Orphan Well Prevention Act will help reduce the number of abandoned and orphaned wells — currently around 5,300 — industry watchers said it does little to address the looming issue of wells that remain dormant indefinitely, some of which leak climate-warming methane and toxic fumes. About 38,800 wells in California are idle, meaning they’re unplugged but claimed by an operator; thousands more are barely producing and could be idled. Despite the health and climate risks, the state lets companies keep them that way. For a few hundred dollars a year, the California Geologic Energy Management agency, or CalGEM, allows drillers to leave wells uncapped rather than paying to plug them. As they remain unplugged, the wells put low-income, mostly Latino communities at risk of air pollution, and any greenhouse gases the wells emit contribute to the climate crisis. The agency reasons that companies might start producing oil from the wells again. But that doesn’t often happen, according to a report by Carbon Tracker Initiative, a London-based think tank. Thirty-nine percent of all wells in the state are idle; half haven’t produced oil in at least 15 years. More than 1,200 have been idle for longer than a century. That was the case for wells that leaked in the southern San Joaquin Valley earlier this year. During an inspection in May, air quality inspectors from CalGEM, the California Air Resources Board and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District discovered 27 leaking wells out of 68 inspected within a mile of Arvin and nearby Lamont. Several leaked a combustible volume of methane, though agencies said the chance of an explosion was minimal. One was a few hundred feet from a high school’s outdoor field. Records indicated that the wells, many owned by Sunray Petroleum and Blackstone Oil and Gas Co., hadn’t produced oil in years. But for annual fees that ran between $150 and $1,500, companies were able to leave the wells unplugged. The regulatory agencies, which examined the wells as part of the Methane Task Force, got the news out about the leaks via the internet. Cesar Aguirre, the oil and gas director at the Central California Environmental Justice Network, said he and other organizers did their own outreach in person. “We ended up running into people, especially closer to the wells, saying they felt lightheaded or smelled something,” Aguirre said. “They all shared symptoms typical when we do this kind of outreach, [such as] dizziness and headaches.” CalGEM said the well and dozens of others were fixed three weeks later, but they remain unplugged. In a statement, the agency said that all operators must test all their wells in idle status within six years of 2019, and repair or permanently seal them if they’re defective. It is also planning to plug and abandon 429 orphaned wells with federal and state funds. Well cleanup costs in the billions In recent weeks, the task force discovered more than a dozen leaking wells in nearby Shafter. It will present the findings in a meeting this month. Thousands of idle wells across the state are at risk of similar leaks. Earlier this year, methane leaked from an idle well that also spewed petroleum onto crops and livestock at a farm in Bakersfield back in February. The operator of the well, Sequoia Exploration, Inc, paid $150 in 2022 to idle the well. (Farmer Larry Saldana is suing the company, arguing that its proposed remediation is insufficient.) And last year Capital & Main reported on dozens of leaking wells in Los Angeles County, documented by the group FracTracker. Among them were at least five wells whose owners pay idle well fees. Since 2019, CalGEM has collected $21 million from the idle well fee program, with about $4 million earmarked to plug and abandon. That amount is far less than the actual costs the state is likely to incur to permanently plug wells in the state. There’s now a gap between the money needed to cap wells and the funds on hand to do so. It costs an average of $68,000 to plug a well; California only has about $1,000 each. Carbon Tracker put the total well and associated infrastructure cleanup cost at $21.5 billion, a figure that will likely increase over the next two years as production revenue from oil fields declines. Companies have only put $106 million on the books, both through the idle well fee program and other bonding. Public funds to plug orphan wells currently stand at about $730 million. By letting companies pay a small fee rather than forking up cash for remediation, the industry is putting the onus on taxpayers, according to Carbon Tracker. It also lets them avoid accounting for liabilities — old wells in need of costly plugging — on their balance sheets. “It’s in their self-interest to pay the fee, but that means all that time their [still-producing] wells are generating revenue that is passed on to shareholders, instead of using that money toward this eventual liability they have to pay,” said Rob Schuwerk, executive director of Carbon Tracker’s North American office. California’s lax approach to idle wells contrasts with that of other states, which impose firmer bonding rules on companies and guidelines on how long they can claim an idle well might produce oil again. In North Dakota, the state requires companies to plug wells that haven’t produced oil or natural gas “in paying quantities” for one year, unless an extension is filed. When BP decided to sell wells and other infrastructure in northern Alaska to private equity-backed Hilcorp — which one report ranked among the most polluting oil and gas companies in the U.S. — legislators said they won a legal guarantee from BP that it would remain liable for cleanup costs. By contrast, when Exxon Mobil Corp. and Shell Oil Co. sold 23,000 California wells they operated in a joint venture called Aera Energy to German firm IKAV Asset Management this year, the state received no assurance that either company would help with any cleanup. Aera Energy paid $2.26 million in idle well fees for 5,454 wells, according to state records. The majority haven’t produced any oil in the last five years, and 15 have been idle since before World War II. CalGEM said it has a rule in place permitting it to pursue the assets of operators who owned wells after 1996 — the most prominent example being a $35 million collection from Exxon to abandon an offshore platform. But in “many instances,” past operators don’t have enough money to collect for cleanups, the agency said. The aging wells crisis will become more acute. California’s long term decline in oil production started in 1985 and accelerated in the 2010s. Upswings in the price of oil haven’t reversed the trend, Carbon Tracker said. Yet regulators have continued approving permits for wells. This year, CalGEM issued 24 new well permits and nearly 2,000 for “reworks,” a type of permit issued to operators who want to repair aging wells. Environmental justice and climate advocates have opposed each new approval as one too many. A working group convened by CalGEM found that toxins from wells in close residential proximity are “associated with adverse perinatal and respiratory outcomes.” The climate risks of California’s idled wells are less well understood. Last year, The Associated Press reported that the state wasn’t counting methane emissions from leaking wells in its greenhouse gas inventory. The state’s climate plan assumes oil field emissions will decline as Californians consume less oil, but does not account for unplugged and leaking wells. Citing the passage of the Orphan Well Prevention Act, environmental groups demanded the state confront the broader costs of old wells. “Lawmakers should build on this momentum and pass a bill that attacks the root of the problem by forcing the oil industry to clean up all its wells instead of pushing that burden onto California taxpayers or allowing wells to leak dangerous air pollution for decades,” said Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute. Carbon Tracker’s Schuwerk said that in the case of California, which faces an end game scenario for the oil industry, there are few incentives regulators can offer companies to clean up legacy wells. In another report, Carbon Tracker recommended a severance tax on remaining oil output to prop up an insurance program to plug wells. Those funds could mitigate costs for both companies and the state. “Who should bear the loss? Should it be the industry or taxpayers?” Schuwerk asked. “It’s mostly industry that has benefitted from the system, so my point is it should be them.” What questions do you have about Southern California?
• Kayleigh Butler, a hair stylist, stands for a portrait at her studio in Atlanta on Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2023. "Relaxers have taken an extreme decline ... as we became more knowledgeable about the effects of the relaxer on your hair and what it can do to your hair," says Butler, who remembers getting relaxers when she was 5 years old. The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a ban on using the chemical formaldehyde as an ingredient in hair relaxers, citing its link to cancer and other long-term adverse health effects. The backstory: Researchers at the National Institutes of Health released a study last year showing an increased risk of hormone-related cancer in women who have used the chemicals, like formaldehyde in their hair. The findings in the report were especially concerning for Black women, who are far more likely to report using such products.
What's next: The target date for the proposed ban is set for April 2024. Read more ... to learn about why the FDA is proposing to ban certain chemicals in hair products.
The Food and Drug Administration is proposing a ban on using the chemical formaldehyde as an ingredient in hair relaxers, citing its link to cancer and other long-term adverse health effects. The new rule proposed by the federal agency would ban the colorless and highly toxic chemical in high-straightening and hair-smoothing products — also referred to as relaxers. The target date for the proposed ban is set for April 2024. The proposed rule takes a large step in raising awareness about the potential harm that formaldehyde creates for the many Black women who typically use popular straightening products, including many kinds of chemical relaxers, Brazilian blowouts and keratin treatments. News of the proposed rules comes as researchers at the National Institutes of Health released a study last year showing an increased risk of hormone-related cancer in women who have used the chemicals in their hair. The findings in the report were especially concerning for Black women, who are far more likely to report using such products. "We estimated that 1.64% of women who never used hair straighteners would go on to develop uterine cancer by the age of 70; but for frequent users, that risk goes up to 4.05%," lead author Alexandra White, the head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Environment and Cancer Epidemiology group told NPR last year. The proposed rule by the FDA continues to generate questions about the dangers of formaldehyde and the risks associated with the highly toxic chemical in hair-straightening products. What are the health risks associated with formaldehyde? Steam rises as a hair stylist works on a model prior to a show displaying the Tom Ford collection during Fashion Week on Feb. 6, 2019, in New York. People of color in the industry trace bias and discrimination in predominantly white salons to the sidelining of formal education focused on Black hair. Formaldehyde is a colorless and strong-smelling gas that presents health hazards when breathed into the lungs or when coming into contact with the eyes or skin, according to the FDA. When the chemical is present in the air at levels exceeding 0.1 ppm (parts per million), individuals can experience adverse effects such as:
• Burning sensations in the eyes, nose and throat Exposure to formaldehyde can also cause allergic (or contact) dermatitis, an itchy rash caused by direct contact with a substance or an allergic reaction to it. The FDA reports that the more exposure one has to products containing formaldehyde — in terms of length of time and concentration — the higher the health risk. The long-term effects associated with formaldehyde can include an increased amount of headaches, asthma, contact dermatitis and possibly cancer. Chemical hair straighteners have also been associated with risks of uterine cancer, breast cancer and even ovarian cancer — especially for Black women. How many kinds of relaxers have formaldehyde in them? Many keratin-based hair-smoothing and hair-straightening products contain formaldehyde. So far, there are more than 150 hair-straightening products on the market that contain formaldehyde, according to the New York State Department of Health. And while some claimed to be "formaldehyde-free," "organic" or "natural," investigators with the New York State Department of Health discovered that formaldehyde was actually present in the products when tested. In addition to hair straighteners and smoothers, the chemical is also used in various glues and resins, dyes, textiles, disinfectants, building materials, automobile parts, embalming and laboratories, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What comes next? Michele Watley, founder of Shirley's Kitchen Cabinet, testifies in favor of a bill before the Kansas Legislature to ban discrimination based on hairstyles in employment, housing and public accommodations during a committee hearing, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The proposed ban on the use of formaldehyde is in the early stages, as nothing has been made permanent yet by the federal agency. But before a ban is put into place, the FDA will receive and review public comments on the proposed ban. In a video posted to X (formerly known as Twitter) on Wednesday, the FDA's chief scientist, Namandjé Bumpus, cleared up misinformation spreading online regarding the federal agency's proposal. "When we do propose this rule, it will be specifically focused on removing potentially cancer-causing formaldehyde and other formaldehyde-releasing chemicals from these products, so we can protect the health of all us consumers using them," Bumpus said in the video. "If finalized, this proposed rule will help to address this disparity by really setting a standard for safety in promoting safer alternatives," she added. The federal agency's proposed ban comes months after Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, wrote an open letter asking the FDA to investigate whether chemical hair straighteners contain carcinogens that lead to a higher risk of developing uterine cancer. "Consumers need to be reassured that the cosmetic products they use do not threaten their health. It is critical that the agency act quickly to address these legitimate concerns," the representatives wrote in the letter. What questions do you have about Southern California?
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• College tries to remove stigma of mental health Sylmar resident Carla Bustamante. Bustamante has attended the mental health workshop at Los Angeles Mission College. For the first time, L.A. Mission College has begun a series of Spanish language mental health workshops. Observers say it’s an important step to provide mental health terms in Spanish to help people cope with the stressors of immigration. Why it matters: As more Spanish speakers take advantage of community colleges’ academic offerings, helping them with mental health services in their language stands to increase their chances of success. Why now: College students are increasingly seeking mental health services as economic and other factors causes roadblocks for those earning a degree. Expanding support: Several years ago, the California Community College system , while the L.A. Community College district has . At LA Mission College, Spanish Speakers Find The Right Words To Improve Their Mental Health Therapists say that giving speakers of other languages mental health vocabulary in their own language is a first step toward better mental health. This month, Los Angeles Mission College launched a series of five weekly mental health workshops, open to the public, in Spanish. It’s the first time the college has provided workshops like this in a language that’s commonly used by the people who live around the campus in the north San Fernando Valley. “[Spanish speakers] have a stigma about mental health… it’s important for our community to hold these events because they’re in their language. We need for them to understand this topic in their language, in terms they can grasp,” said Magaly Rojas-González, the basic needs coordinator at L.A. Mission College and the event organizer. The session started with some songs by Los Tigres del Norte, a San Jose-based group whose songs often deal with the challenges of being an immigrant. “When we come here [from our respective countries] we leave behind family, our history, our childhood,” said Magali Garcia de Alba to the group. She’s a mental health promoter with the L.A. County Department of Mental Health who led the hour-long workshop in a campus classroom. She spoke to about 15 people. “What happens when you yearn for all those things? You can stagnate, you don’t adapt, and that can lead to depression,” she said. At the center of this effort is what Rojas-González and De Alba describe as a barrier to help Spanish speakers improve their mental health: language. “You heard some of the students right here, they were [saying] mental health is only for those who are not well from their head, like someone needs to be out of control to get into mental health. So they don't really feel empathetic with that terminology," said Rojas-González. It’s about adding positive associations to these terms, she said. “If I hear things in my language it is easier for me to participate, it's easier for me to want to go ahead and participate and to speak about it,” said Rojas-González, “but if I hear it in English, perhaps it doesn't connect with my culture, it is just another challenge for me to participate.” Most of the attendees were middle-aged women and a few middle-aged men. “This workshop’s helping me learn how to deal with the challenges of moving to this country,” said Edgar Ruiz, who lives in Sunland and moved here from Guatemala a year ago. “The faster you adapt to the language, the culture, the better mental health you’re going to have,” he said. Words That Help Spanish Speakers Better Understand Mental Health
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• Re-humanizar la inmigración: the process of humanizing immigration to counter the dehumanizing of immigration that’s common
• La inclusion: inclusion in the context of immigrants integrating into society
• Canalizar las emociones: how to encompass our emotions, channeling emotions
• El síndrome del inmigrante: the immigrant syndrome and understanding symptoms such as loss of sleep that can lead to anxiety and depression
• La autoestima: self-esteem, we are our own best advocates
• El autocuidado: leaning on yourself and others around you for support
• La fortaleza: the inner strength to make human connections to improve mental health The college also makes available to students a 24/7 that Rojas-González said now provides service in Spanish too. The vast majority of L.A. Mission College’s students have Latin American heritage; 76% were labeled Hispanic in the fall 2022 term. Those who provide campus services say many of these students are Spanish speakers. Many of these concepts, as embodied in the Spanish or English words, are new to Spanish speakers. “These are all great words,” said Manny Reijer, a therapist at Mission who grew up speaking Spanish with his Chilean immigrant parents. “In the United States it's pretty normalized [to use these words] but when we are coming from Hispanic countries they tend to be newer words that once we come into the United States it's just something completely different for us,” he said.
Because tuition is low and there are few admissions barriers, the community colleges are entry points to higher education. Several years ago the California Community College system , while the L.A. Community College District has recently expanded the number of classes conducted in Spanish . “I think we're seeing some more [therapists] that are [Black, Indigenous, people of color] come into the field,” said Marcos Briano, director of USC’s Physical Education And Mind Body Health department. He applauds Mission’s efforts. He used to be a clinician at Pasadena City College and still works with the . It’s important for Spanish speakers “to see folks that are similar and I think we're seeing a trend where that's now shifting, where we have folks who are finishing their masters and our doctoral degrees, and they are being role models,” he said. Some of the Spanish speakers who attended the Mission workshop were encouraged to ask for help. “I learned about the immigrant syndrome and that there are many tools to overcome those challenges,” said Carla Bustamante, who moved to the U.S. from El Salvador eight years ago and lives in Sylmar. “We often get stuck in the challenges because we try to overcome the hardships on our own, not realizing there’s a lot of help out there,” she said. What questions do you have about colleges and universities? Adolfo Guzman-Lopez focuses on the stories of students trying to overcome academic and other challenges to stay in college — with the goal of creating a path to a better life.