AMES, Iowa -- A middle school principal in Iowa lost a family member at a relatively young age to heart disease.

Now, he's challenging his students to join the cause in preventing similar tragedies.

Yonas Michael, the principal of Ames Middle School, says his brother was diagnosed with congestive heart failure at age 25. His brother Daniel later died at age 32 while waiting for a new heart.

"There were several months that passed before I started to think about, how do I turn this traumatic experience into something that can be educational?" Michael relates. "This school year, I just felt like this was the time to be able to personalize and help people understand that this does affect people."

Michael is working with the American Heart Association to raise awareness and funding to fight heart disease through the group's American Heart Challenge.

He has pledged $1 for each student, for a total of $1,100. He also challenged each of his students and staff to raise a minimum of $32 for a school goal of $32,000. So far, the school is near the halfway point toward its goal.

The American Heart Challenge can help participating schools buy physical education equipment, and enhance curriculum that teaches students about healthy living.

Michael says the experience allowed him to connect with a student dealing with a heart-related illness.

"That helped to make it much more real, and realistic, for our student body," he states. "And watching our students respond and our teachers respond to the needs of that specific student and their family really warmed my heart."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1% of children born in the U.S. each year have congenital heart disease.

Mental-health experts are sounding the alarm about "fire brain" - a condition caused by exposure to toxic wildfire smoke. One study found that wildfire smoke can cause brain inflammation that lasts for a month.

Suzie Dukes, Chico LMFT and survivor of the Paradise Fire, said the massive Park Fire is now re-traumatizing a community already devastated by the Camp fire, which incinerated the nearby town of Paradise in 2018.

"People are in kind of a constant state of stress afterward, the feeling of being out of control, unable to prevent anything, and this deep-seated fear of losing yet again, more things. The Park Fire is triggering PTSD symptoms all over again," she explained.

A study released in July at the Alzheimer's Association conference found that exposure to wildfire smoke can raise the risk of being diagnosed with dementia. Families in need of mental-health assistance can call the California Parent and Youth Helpline at 1-855-427-2736 or go online to live chat at CA Parent Youth Helpline.org.

The trained counselors at the helpline can help get you through an emotional crisis.

"Reaching out and feeling like you belong to a community is essential in healing. Calling to a helpline can be a way out, a way out of the terror, because the human touch is essential in being able to reconnect and get your feet under you again," Dukes said.

Parents Anonymous, which runs the helpline, also offers free weekly support groups.


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Some North Carolina groups advocating for harm reduction among people struggling with drug addiction are calling for broader access to methadone, a crucial medication for treating opioid addiction.

Louise Vincent, executive director of the grassroots group North Carolina Survivor's Union, said most people can only get methadone through a treatment center, and strict regulations around timing and drug testing pose significant challenges for people in recovery. Vincent believes allowing pharmacies to dispense methadone could make it easier for individuals to stay on their recovery path.

"Pharmacies would make all the difference in the world," asserted. "I've got a Walgreens a block away. I could actually drive my scooter to the Walgreens."

Vincent also emphasized the need to address the stigma around opioid use disorder and the mistreatment she said often occurs in clinics. Over the past two decades, more than 36,000 people in North Carolina have died from overdoses.

Greer Arthur, research director for the North Carolina Collaboratory, said they are funding research and working with other organizations to explore a variety of harm reduction strategies, including allowing pharmacies to dispense methadone.

"Our goal is to be able to provide funding to researchers who can work with pharmacists, and who can listen to all the related organizations and pharmacies to understand, what are some of the barriers that they might be experiencing? Is there a way for us to pilot something like that?" Arthur explained.

She added the research will focus on rural areas and be guided by those directly affected by the opioid crisis or working to address it. On a federal level, the Modernizing Opioid Treatment Access Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate earlier this year, but has yet to see any progress.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.


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More and more Hispanic people are taking advantage of California's medical aid-in-dying law, according to a new report from the California Department of Health.

In 2023, 43 terminally ill Hispanic patients used the End-of-Life Option Act to get a prescription to end their suffering and die peacefully. That's compared to 24 patients the year before.

Angela Schultz, California state director for Compassion & Choices, says the group's website and all materials are now available in Spanish.

"It's really important to deliver these materials and education outreach in people's own language, so that they can understand the information without having the confusion of trying to read it in English and translate it themselves," she added.

Compassion & Choices attributes the increase to the ongoing statewide public education campaign in English and Spanish with medical partners, and videos from civil rights leader Dolores Huerta and from José Alejandro Lemuz, a 60-year-old body shop mechanic from Wilmington with terminal prostate cancer - the first Latino to publicly announce his intent to use the prescription.

Schultz said there are still some common misconceptions, and pointed out that medical aid in dying isn't appropriate for people who have advanced dementia. Patients have to be able to make an affirmative choice, and to take the medication on their own.

"Medical aid in dying is for somebody who is 18 years and older, who has a terminal illness with a prognosis of six months or less. It has to be voluntary, and a person has to be mentally capable of making their own healthcare decisions," Schultz explained.

According to the report, in 2023, almost 1,300 patients in the Golden State obtained medical aid-in-dying prescriptions, and 69% took the medication. Almost 64% of the deaths were caused by cancer. The rest stemmed primarily from cardiovascular, neurological and respiratory disease.