Dr. Deborah Birx has joined an air-cleaning company that built its business, in part, on technology that is now banned in California due to health hazards.

At stake? Some of the $193 billion in federal funding to schools.

From @By_CJewett and me:

khn.org/news/article/f…
The company’s own studies show that, in its effort to create the “healthiest indoor environments in North America,” it leveraged something less impressive: the disinfecting power of ozone — a molecule considered hazardous and linked to the onset and worsening of asthma.
In an interview with @KHNews , CEO Joe Urso acknowledged that ActivePure's air cleaners that emit ozone account for 5% of sales, even though its marketing repeatedly claims “no chemicals or ozone.”

"It is very confusing,” he said.
Conflicts between the science and marketing claims of an air purification company are nothing new to academic air quality experts. They warn that the industry is laser-focused on school officials, who are desperate to convince parents and teachers their buildings are safe.
But children can be particularly susceptible to the chemical exposure some of these devices potentially create, experts say.
“The concerns you have raised are legitimate” when it comes to other companies’ products, Birx said, noting that as a grandmother she shares concerns about health.

She has full confidence in ActivePure after reviewing records for the FDA’s clearance of a company device.
Schools are getting an infusion of roughly $180 billion in federal money to spend on personal protective equipment, physical barriers, air-cleaning systems and other infrastructure improvements.

Previously, they could have used $13 billion of CARES Act funding.
School boards are often lured by aggressive claims of 99.9% efficiency — based on a test of a filter inside a small cabinet and not a classroom — instead of investing in the basics like HEPA filters or MERV 13 filters.
Putting unregulated devices in classrooms is “a giant uncontrolled experiment,” said @IAQinGWN , a civil engineering professor at the University of Toronto and a member of its Building Engineering Research Group.
So far, @marwa_zaatari says she has counted more than 125 schools or districts that have already bought air cleaner models the EPA has linked to “potentially harmful byproducts” such as ozone or formaldehyde. She estimated at least $60 million was spent.
Birx told @By_CJewett she uses a hospital-grade HEPA filter in her home but noted that’s only because she wasn’t aware of the ActivePure technology when she bought it.

@KHNews

khn.org/news/article/f…

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More from @LaurenWeberHP

25 Feb
INVESTIGATION: Covid vaccination registration websites at the federal, state and local levels violate disability rights laws, hindering the ability of blind people to sign up for lifesaving vaccine.

Even @CDCgov 's embattled VAMS system is inaccessible.

khn.org/news/article/c…
As @hannah_recht and I found:

🚨 In at least 7 states, blind residents were unable to register for the vaccine without help
🚨 94 covid info and vaccine pages from the states had accessibility issues @webaim found
🚨 Phone alternatives were not available or had too long of lines
When blind people use the internet, they have software called screen readers read the text aloud to them.

If websites are not programmed properly, the software cannot read them aloud -- leaving blind people unable to register for #COVID19 vaccines.
Read 13 tweets
16 Jan
🚨🚨🚨 Black Americans are receiving covid vaccinations at dramatically lower rates than white Americans, according to our new @KHNews data analysis on the rollout

“We are missing the boat on equity” @MarcusPlescia @ASTHO said

From @hannah_recht and me: nbcnews.com/health/health-…
If the rollout were reaching people of all races equally, the shares of people vaccinated whose race is known should loosely align with the demographics of health care workers.

But in every state, Black Americans were significantly underrepresented among people vaccinated
Meanwhile, Black, Hispanic and Native Americans are dying from Covid at nearly three times the rate of white Americans, according to @CDCgov .

And Black and Asian health care workers are more likely to contract Covid and to die from it than white workers.
Read 12 tweets
15 Jan
🚨 Only 1/4 of the doses allocated to the CVS/Walgreens partnership to vaccinate nursing home residents have been administered.

Mississippi's state public health officer @TCBPubHealth says it's a "fiasco."

@RachelHBluth and me w/ @rachanadixit @KHNews cnn.com/2021/01/15/hea…
Scheduling, paperwork, staffing -- all of it is slowing down the latest privatization of the federal #COVID19 response for the nation's most vulnerable.

“There should never be an excuse about people not getting vaccinated. There’s no excuse for delays," @wassdoc said.
In Illionois, about 12,000 of the state’s roughly 55,000 nursing home residents have received their first dose.

West Virginia has finished its first round after ditching the CVS/Walgreens partnership altogether.
Read 4 tweets
15 Dec 20
1 in 8 Americans lives in a community that lost a local public health leader, our @AP @KHNews investigation found

Lawmakers in 24 states are crafting legislation to strip public health powers

This is U.S. pandemic public health #UnderfundedUnderThreat

apnews.com/article/pandem…
181 state and local public health leaders had resigned, retired or been fired since April.

It's the largest exodus of public health leaders in American history, @annabarryjester @hannah_recht @MRSmithAP and I found in our latest #UnderfundedUnderThreat investigation. 181 state and local public health department leaders have re
Many of the public health officials left due to political blowback or pandemic pressure.

Some departed to take higher profile positions, or due to health concerns.

Others were fired for poor performance.

Dozens retired.
Read 9 tweets
1 Jul 20
The U.S. has starved state and local public health departments of funding for decades, leaving the country ill-equipped for #COVID19, our @KHNews @AP investigation found.

This is America's public health system in a pandemic.

#UnderfundedUnderThreat

khn.org/news/us-public…
Workers are paid so little, some qualify for Medicaid. They track the coronavirus on paper records shared via fax.

Working seven-day weeks for months on end, they fear pay freezes, public backlash and even losing their jobs amid a wave of budget cuts.
While interviewing 150+ public health experts, analyzing records from 100s of health departments and surveying statehouses, @laura_ungar @MRSmithAP @hannah_recht @annabarryjester and I heard story after story of what this weakened line of defense means amid #COVID19.
Read 12 tweets
30 Jun 20
🚨🚨🚨 Last year, @barbfederostrov and I spent months investigating Jorge Perez's rural hospital empire, which accounted for HALF of the 2019 rural hospital bankruptcies.

@TheJusticeDept just charged him in a $1.4 BILLION fraudulent billing scheme.

khn.org/news/hospital-…
How companies run by Perez and his associates were able to drive so many rural hospitals into the ground so quickly is a story about the fragility of health care in rural America and the types of money-making ventures that have flourished in America's fraught medical system
Perez and his associates would swoop in on struggling rural hospitals and then, prosecutors say, use them as a pass-through for a lab-billing scheme.

He said he was out to save rural hospitals; instead they allegedly brought in $400 million. 8 rural hospitals closed.
Read 9 tweets

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