New York Metropolis’s OPCs: 1 12 months in

Good morning and welcome to Monday’s New York Well being Care publication, the place we maintain you posted on what’s developing this week in well being care information, and supply a glance again on the vital information from final week.

On Nov. 30, 2021, New York Metropolis opened the nation’s first “overdose prevention facilities,” which permit residents to eat illicit medication beneath medical and/or peer supervision, along with providing a collection of different companies.

Within the 12 months since, the 2 amenities — which OnPoint NYC operates in East Harlem and Washington Heights — have been used greater than 45,000 instances by 2,000-plus contributors. And they’re credited with reversing greater than 600 overdoses that might have in any other case been deadly, in accordance with OnPoint knowledge. (The de Blasio administration had estimated that the facilities would save about 130 lives a 12 months.)

Hurt-reduction advocates have hailed overdose prevention facilities as an vital device in stopping deadly overdoses, which have soared in New York throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. However federal opposition to supervised consumption websites — together with political pushback by some critics — has stalled efforts to open them in different elements of the U.S., and even different elements of New York.

Housing Works CEO Charles King mentioned his New York Metropolis-based group, which is devoted to ending homelessness and AIDS, has “areas able to go,” however is first awaiting both state motion or the end result of federal settlement negotiations.

“OnPoint is doing a beautiful job, however they’ve needed to actually scramble to boost cash,” he mentioned in a current interview. “There’s no basis that offers the kind of cash to maintain this day-in and day-out, so that they actually needed to scramble to do fundraising to maintain their two applications working. We have now been very clear that we are going to not do it with out metropolis and/or state {dollars} to fund it.”

If the Division of Justice drops its opposition to supervised consumption websites as a part of courtroom proceedings in a Trump-era case difficult a Philadelphia facility operated by Safehouse, that might set the stage for extra overdose prevention facilities to open nationwide and finish prohibitions that at present stop them from accessing public funding. The Biden administration has till Dec. 5 to reply in that lawsuit — a deadline that had been prolonged a number of instances “in gentle of productive discussions.”

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WEED WATCH — POLITICO’s Shannon Younger: At age 23, William Durham was arrested for possessing marijuana, and he chalks up his solely conviction to being younger and within the “unsuitable place on the unsuitable time.” Durham, whose household moved to New York’s Southern Tier from Brooklyn when he was a toddler, mentioned the case affected his potential to search out work, with him shedding out on jobs for not being “squeaky clear.”

Almost twenty years later, on the age of 42, Durham is about to change into one the primary New Yorkers to be allowed to promote hashish legally within the state. And he’s not the one one with a prison document to get the possibility: New York’s first-in-the-nation legalization mannequin reserves the state’s preliminary 175 dispensary licenses for these most affected by marijuana prohibition.

The rules look to get proper what different states that legalized marijuana could have failed: ensuring underserved communities and minority companies profit from the business. “It feels surreal,” Durham mentioned of touchdown one of many licenses.

ADULT SURVIVORS ACT — POLITICO’s Katelyn Cordero: On Thanksgiving, New York grew to become the primary state to open a look-back window for grownup survivors of sexual abuse to file a declare in courtroom.

The regulation is the primary of its variety within the nation, and it comes on the heels of the state’s Youngster Victims Act, which created a two-year look-back window in 2019 and garnered almost 11,000 circumstances.

The Grownup Survivors Act will create a one-year window for civil lawsuits based mostly on intercourse crimes towards people 18 years outdated and older that have been beforehand time-barred. Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan) mentioned the regulation will open the door for survivors with allegations towards high-profile New Yorkers akin to Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein.

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NOW WE KNOW — “Water intoxication,” or having an excessive amount of water in too in need of a time interval, will be deadly, VICE reviews.

TODAY’S TIP — It’s time to throw these Thanksgiving leftovers away.

MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW Shannon @ShannonYoung413 on Twitter. And for all New Jersey well being information, try Daniel Han, @danieljhan_.

STUDY THIS — By way of the Monterey Herald: “An estimated 94% of individuals within the U.S. have been contaminated with the COVID-19 virus at the least as soon as, in accordance with a brand new paper from researchers at Harvard’s Faculty of Public Well being.

The Occasions Union reviews on the “small however rising motion to legalize ‘magic mushrooms’” in New York.

The New York Occasions examines “how New York Metropolis grew to become a free-for-all of unlicensed weed.”

New York Metropolis “public colleges are sometimes the primary supply for youth psychological well being care,” Gothamist reviews.

Kaiser Well being Information appears at how the “trickle of Covid aid funds [is helping to] fill gaps in rural youngsters’ psychological well being companies.”

France has taken step one towards including abortion rights to its structure, The Related Press reviews.

STAT reviews that an “experimental flu vaccine, developed utilizing mRNA” could possibly be a “potential recreation changer.”

Conservative states are blocking trans medical care. Households are fleeing, Annie Connell-Bryan, Joanne Kenen and Jael Holtzman report.

POLITICO’s Arek Sarkissian reviews that Florida hospitals weren’t prepared for Hurricane Ian. Some worry the following massive storm.

In a big escalation of political unrest, protests towards China’s strict zero-COVID coverage unfold to a number of cities and college campuses throughout the nation, with demonstrators in Shanghai calling for President Xi Jinping to step down, POLITICO’s Eddy Wax reviews.

POLITICO’s Olivia Olander reviews that prime Biden administration well being consultants have been cautiously optimistic Sunday about their new marketing campaign for Covid-19 boosters, whilst they admitted vaccination and booster charges continued to be decrease than they need to be.

Anthony Fauci, the retiring prime well being official within the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic, mentioned Sunday he has “a very open thoughts” in regards to the origins of the respiratory virus, Olivia additionally reviews.

POLITICO’s Carmen Paun reviews that measles is an imminent world menace as vaccination charges have dropped to the bottom ranges since 2008 as a result of Covid-19 pandemic, the World Well being Group and the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention warned Wednesday.

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