By Kristi Eaton for The Daily Yonder.
Broadcast version by Roz Brown for New Mexico News Connection for the Public News Service/Daily Yonder Collaboration

The man had died three years prior. His widow was seeking about $700 a month in benefits under the Black Lung Benefits Act, a federal law allocating money to miners who suffer from pneumoconiosis or black lung disease.

"We were discussing all the problems that the widow had gone through, and that hit home very hard to the people who participated in the program," said Dr. Akshay Sood who had launched Miners Health ECHO shortly after moving to New Mexico.

When Sood moved to New Mexico, he was quickly overwhelmed by patients, many of them former uranium miners who were suffering from radiation exposure and couldn't find a single physician who would accept their federal benefits card. Many of the patients came from Latin America or were from rural isolated communities. Some didn't speak English.

Miners Health ECHO is different from traditional telemedicine: Whereas telemedicine supports a one-to-one transactional visit between a patient and a physician, telementoring supports a community of learners.

While a number of the leading research universities with strong name recognition offer training in lung diseases, many are not congruent with the rural populations that need them most, Sood said.

"The best programs exist at Harvard, at Yale, at Seattle, at Emory," he said in an interview with the Daily Yonder. "The need is in places like New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming, Utah."

Some of the most well-intentioned researchers and academics working also don't quite understand what rural people really need, he added.

"When you work in rural communities, you realize that rural people have a shortage of resources, but they don't have a shortage of innovation," he said. "And they innovate with what they have, and they do a really, really good job at it. And homegrown solutions are incredible, and you have to learn from them."

And sometimes it's giving space to people who may otherwise be unable to have a voice. Miners, Sood said, often come from underrepresented and underresourced populations. They lack advanced degrees, and in New Mexico, more than 70% come from minority backgrounds, he said.

A typical program starts with an introduction and announcements, Sood said, which lasts about five to 10 minutes. An expert usually speaks for about 15 minutes, followed by questions and answers for 20 minutes. That is followed by a case discussion, which takes about 30 minutes. Finally, the case is summarized and notes are exchanged, with the program lasting about 75 minutes.

"There's geographic diversity," he said. "There's cognitive diversity, so it's relevant to all stakeholders. Otherwise, what happens is that the two stakeholders that take up a lot of a lot of verbal space are physicians and lawyers. And so we have to make sure that there's adequate space for other stakeholders to articulate their opinions."

Specialized medicine is often expensive, and is typically distributed in populated areas and close to more affluent populations, said Bobbi A. Gore, program manager with Black Lung & Outreach at Miners' Colfax Medical Center in Raton, N.M.

"Miners who need specialized services are often in rural and less affluent communities," Gore said in an email interview with the Daily Yonder. "Telemedicine overcomes this bias, and encourages distribution of specialized medicine to miners that would otherwise be unserved or underserved."

"These are real problems real people face," Sood said. "They're very few people who want to deal with the compensation system, because, typically, they're complicated. You don't get compensated for filling out all that paperwork... It's very clear that you can't help a miner with chronic disease without addressing the compensation benefits issues as well."

Kristi Eaton wrote this article for The Daily Yonder.

Open enrollment for health insurance is underway, and in Wyoming, the number of enrollees so far this year is just below last year's rate. Experts advise there's an important deadline this weekend. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, nearly 988,000 new U.S. consumers enrolled in health plans through the Marketplace between November 1st and December 4th. In Wyoming, nearly 14,000 new and returning consumers enrolled during that time.

Caleb Smith, marketing director with Enroll Wyoming, said those who want coverage starting January 1st must enroll by this Sunday, December 15th.

"This deadline is something that we ask people to be mindful of so they can hopefully avoid a gap in health coverage. I'd hate for people to delay action or just forgo trying to get medical help just because they weren't covered," he said.

Open enrollment runs until January 15th. But those who wait until the last month to sign up won't be covered under their new plans until February 1st.

Smith added some Wyoming families are surprised at the discounts they qualify for following pandemic-era increases to advanced premium tax credits. Enroll Wyoming can help anyone navigate the Marketplace, whether they're enrolling for the first time or if they've done it before.

"I certainly know a number of people, they've done this a couple times," he said. They just appreciate somebody kind of looking over their homework to go like, 'Yeah, you got it.'"

Wyomingites can quickly be connected to a navigator by dialing 2-1-1.

Nationwide, Black women face a maternal mortality rate three times higher than white women.

To address the disparity, the Maternity Care Coalition is providing doulas to women in underserved rural areas in Pennsylvania.

Jamiylah Miller, doula program manager for the coalition, said its doula and lactation program supports families from pregnancy to three months postpartum, helping during labor and delivery, pain management and adjusting to a newborn.

However, some families who are not connected with a doula through community organizations like theirs, struggle with the cost of doula services. Recent legislation extended Medicaid coverage to help offset the cost.

"The cost varies depending on the doulas private rates, and some of those can be in the thousands," Miller explained. "We're learning that a lot of the families who need support from a doula, or who would benefit the most, are those who can't afford those prices. "

Miller noted their doula services are free to expecting families in the community. She advocated for more organizations to provide doula services to families facing financial barriers.

Miller pointed out their network of 116 doulas, including 29 certified in Pennsylvania, are independent contractors who bring specialized expertise to their services. The organization also offers doula and lactation community health worker training for those interested.

In anticipation of the growing trend of insurance reimbursement for doula services, which began earlier than expected in February 2024, they have been proactively expanding the program.

"We offered both our current doulas that are in our network, as well as our training doulas to become state certified," Miller emphasized. "We've been able to support them in getting all the components of the application that they need, including CPR training, HIPAA training. We've been able to help with the application fees."

Miller added the coalition offers vital resources to new parents including diapers, wipes, formula, breast pumps when available, and home visiting services. Additionally, they use community resources like Cribs for Kids and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia car seat program to support families. They are working to expand language services by recruiting more bilingual doulas to better support diverse families.


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By Dawn Attride for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Shanteya Hudson for California News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Avian flu, also known as H5N1, continues to infect hundreds of cattle, and is making its way into humans. Since avian flu isn't as easily spread among people for now, the main concern is for those in contact with cows, such as the dairy workers who have reported infections. However, as of November 13, 2024, a teenager in British Columbia -- who seemingly had no contact with animals - is now in critical condition, making it Canada's first human case of bird flu.

Since 2022, the current strain of the virus in the United States has infected over 100 million birds and is remarkable in its "scope and scale" to move beyond its usual avian host, and into mammals at a concerning rate, experts say. Wastewater detection shows the virus present in California, Texas and Michigan, among other states. As of this writing, there have been 53 confirmed human cases in the United States. All, except one, were exposed to infected cattle or birds, according to the CDC. Unlike Canada's critical patient, all U.S. cases reported mild symptoms.

A Potential 'Win-Win' Solution

"No matter how you look at it, we're in a pretty unique and extraordinary position. We've never had an outbreak of an animal-borne virus this large in the last five to 10,000 years of human history since we first domesticated animals for food," Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor and expert in poultry disease modeling at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, tells Sentient.

One of the main reasons for that is how we farm, he says. A California-native, Pitesky has seen hundreds of dairy facilities in the Central Valley alone overlapping or overtaking natural wild bird habitats, such as wetlands. As a result, these wild birds, particularly waterfowl, start congregating near dairy and poultry farms, leading to more interactions with farmed animals, and increasing the risk of avian flu spread.

Pitesky's lab researches how we can shift waterfowl habitat away from livestock farms, for example by restoring wetlands.

"In many ways, that's kind of a win-win solution. It creates a natural habitat for waterfowl - which we've lost a lot of - and then also reduces and mitigates the potential for exposure to viruses," Pitesky says. (It's also good for mitigating climate change.)

Another concern is that avian flu spread to a pig in a backyard farm for the first time in the U.S. this October. Pigs can pick up multiple infections at the same time, which can create a perfect storm in terms of creating a virus that can be easily spread among humans - an example being the swine flu pandemic in 2009.

More needs to be done on the public health side, Pitesky tells Sentient, to avoid human-animal interaction. "An RNA virus [such as avian flu] can mutate really easily. The more that we keep tempting fate by having the virus interact with humans, the greater the potential for the virus to eventually get snake eyes - if you will - as far as how it can adapt to different hosts, including us."

A Resurgence of Raw Milk Could Help the Virus Spread

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a controversial far-right politician, recently promoted drinking raw milk on X, citing the Republican movement to "Make America Healthy Again." Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who President-elect Donald Trump has nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is also a proponent of raw milk. Raw milk can contain a host of other microbes that cause infection and should be avoided to prevent avian flu infection, seeing as a growing number of cattle herds now have the virus. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced they will start testing bulk raw milk for the virus.

The CDC continues to say the current public health risk of avian flu is low, but that hasn't stopped health organizations from gearing up to be prepared. In Canada, several influenza vaccines are "authorized for use," as is a federal manufacturing agreement to scale up vaccine production if there is an avian flu pandemic. In early October, the U.S. invested $72 million in vaccines against avian flu "as part of national preparedness." With the upcoming change in national leadership, however, time will tell if preparing for avian flu remains a priority.

As the virus continues to spread, Pitesky recommends those with backyard chickens or other wild birds use caution when handling birds. For now, anyway, the CDC still advises consumers to avoid raw milk, practice good hygiene and avoid poultry and dairy farms, if possible.


Dawn Attride wrote this article for Sentient.


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