By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

October 2, 2024

TheHill.com

California’s new law directing school districts to limit student cell phone use during teaching hours may sound controversial, but it is a big win for child and adolescent public health — and a potentially important step in helping America’s students improve their mental well-being. …

There’s evidence these restrictions can lead to positive student outcomes.

Norway limited cell phone use in hundreds of middle schools years ago, and it reduced bullying (for both boys and girls) by over 40 percent. Student visits to psychology specialists dropped an astonishing 60 percent while overall grade point averages increased. …

[And] schools that have already implemented phone restrictions in the U.S. have seen encouraging academic and behavioral results in a short period of time. …

Limiting cell phones at K-12 schools across the country can strengthen teen health, advance student learning and build better school communities. America could use a healthy dose of all of the above. 

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

August 31, 2024

TheHill.com

All across the nation, children are heading back to school and millions will soon be drinking lead-contaminated water — a health hazard that is impossible to detect with the naked eye and extremely difficult to avoid. …

The U.S. government has known about this problem for decades and done little about it. Lead water contamination in schools is putting our children’s health and cognitive development in jeopardy. … Every child has the right to attend a school where the water isn’t contaminated with lead. U.S. public health agencies have a responsibility to protect them from being poisoned. …

In October, the U.S. EPA is expected to announce a new rule requiring utilities to test for lead water contamination “at all the elementary and child care facilities they serve.” … The EPA ruling will not require utilities to remediate the water if tests show lead to be present. In other words, the EPA will point out the problem, but it won’t do anything to fix it. …

Kids are being poisoned with lead at school every day, yet we deny the nation’s leading environmental regulator the authority to protect them from a known and extremely serious long-term health threat. The nation’s children need us to do better than this. 

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

June 29, 2024

TheHill.com

Once a bipartisan process, the [National Defense Authorization Act] barely passed the U.S. House this month. The reason: Republican members of Congress attached agenda-driven amendments to it, ranging from restrictions on military access to abortion services to banning the display of pride flags and books that address gender identity.      

Party-line votes on defense spending measures send the wrong message to our troops. And it couldn’t come at a worse time, as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs struggles to address the needs of those who put their lives on the line to defend our country.

The VA has announced 10,000 staffing reductions for the next fiscal year — cutbacks that will burden an already stressed healthcare system and adversely impact those who wear or have worn the uniform. …

[T]he use of the NDAA as a political weapon sends a distasteful signal by creating confusion and uncertainty for our veterans.  

Hindering access to quality care for our American heroes by eliminating thousands of jobs at the VA only adds insult to injury. 

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

June 5, 2024

TheHill.com

More than 107,000 people died of a drug overdose last year — enough to fill nearly every seat in the nation’s largest college football stadium at the University of Michigan. It’s a number that should make us stop in our tracks and recognize that drug addiction in America is a national emergency.  

This grim statistic should also remind states and municipalities of the responsibility they share as they decide how to spend billions pouring in from legal settlements with pharmaceutical companies — $50 billion over 15 years to be more precise.  …

These funds can make a difference. They can save lives, prevent suffering and begin the process of alleviating the day-to-day trauma experienced by families and communities ravaged by drug addiction. 

For this to be true, however, states will need to allocate the money to attack the very problem that caused the settlements in the first place. …

Some states have used the money to replace existing funding for addiction programs and services, shifting previously dedicated resources to other state and local needs. …

Lessons from the historic master settlement agreement between states and the tobacco industry should loom large. 

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

May 4, 2024

TheHill.com

Body language from the U.S. Supreme Court suggests cities could soon criminalize the homeless as a way to address the growing problem of outdoor encampments. No one wants to be homeless, and everyone agrees something must be done — but inhumane approaches such as these won’t solve America’s housing crisis.  

Viewing homeless people as criminals for having nowhere to go reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what we need to do to address a system that’s failed our country’s most needy constituency. …

City and federal officials have historically focused on treating the conditions of homelessness rather than addressing its pathways. Issuing citations or pushing the homeless down the road to another jurisdiction is akin to giving an aspirin to someone with a broken foot.  …

There is good news: a proven model already exists to reduce homelessness in America. It just takes a willingness on the part of Congress to fund it and make it a priority. 

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

April 12, 2024

TheHill.com

Concern over AI deepfakes has largely focused on their use in perpetrating election interference in this year’s U.S. presidential race. But they raise a more depraved problem that should scare all of us: deepfake pornography, where software programs accessible by a simple online search can turn an innocent image of an unwitting individual into a sexualized scene or video that can be posted online without consent.  …

Social media companies have proven they can’t police themselves, but Congress can. They can amend the Communications Decency Act to hold social media companies liable when deepfake pornographic images are published on their platforms. They can pass bills, such as the Preventing Deepfakes of Intimate Images Act and the Shield Act, which would make the circulation of deepfake pornography a crime. They can pass the Defiance Act, which would enhance deepfake pornography victims’ rights.  

But Congress has gutlessly failed to act on any of these measures.

As long as Congress remains impudent in standing up to them and as long as social media companies fight tooth and nail to evade responsibility, victims should drown them in litigation.  

Maybe then, and only then, they’ll get the message that the burden is on them to solve this crisis. 

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

March 14, 2024

TheHill.com

[I]t came to light last month that Robert Califf, the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, had privately urged fellow public health professionals to pressure the White House to make good on its 2021 pledge to ban menthol cigarettes.  

Califf likely didn’t intend for those conversations to end up in Politico. But the fact he encouraged his network to lobby President Biden to honor that 2021 commitment reveals the FDA is at odds with its own administration’s attempts to stall implementation of the years-old Biden-proposed regulation.    

Why has the Biden administration dragged its feet on this important public health initiative? Because a vast majority of Black smokers use menthols, and in an election year, when every vote matters, President Biden can ill-afford to alienate any potential constituency.  …

Last year, the Biden administration twice delayed its 2021 decision to ban menthols and kicked the can to this March for implementation. March is now here, so the question is: Will the Biden White House continue to value tobacco company profits over the health of thousands of Black Americans?  

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

February 21, 2024

TheHill.com

Just a few weeks ago, Senate lawmakers displayed a rare glimpse of bipartisanship when they grilled the CEOs of social media platforms on being asleep at the switch in protecting children from online predators. The hearings were intense, and attended by survivors, family members and advocates. …

In the weeks since the American people have waited patiently for legislation to be brought to the Senate floor that would force the companies represented in that room to take these issues seriously. 

It hasn’t happened. Meta, TikTok, X, Snap and Discord continue to generate billions in ad revenue and provide an open playground for perpetrators to prey on children while enjoying “a broad liability shield” that absolves them of responsibility for what takes place on their platforms. A space the companies know to be unsafe for many young people. 

For the companies, it’s business as usual. For those in Congress, it represents a failed moment, a lost opportunity, to govern and work toward a common goal to protect kids and hold companies accountable.  

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

January 27, 2024

TheHill.com

A major public health threat consistently in need of state funding involves access to the most basic human essential — food. In response, the Biden administration recently announced details of a new bipartisan summer program that would provide $2.5 billion in state funding for healthier food options that will help 21 million low-income children when school isn’t in session. …

In a stunning move, 15 governors have said they will reject those funds. That’s not a typo: These state leaders will turn down resources that can help alleviate child hunger in their very own communities. …

Their decision to turn down federal funding is an obvious stunt designed to generate headlines and secure support from their core voter bases. But that political gamesmanship will be lost on the millions of children who won’t have available resources to find healthy food options this summer. …

[It’s] inexcusable. Some issues require elected leaders to override the reflexive desire to score quick points with their voters. Some are too great. Some demand that they listen to their moral compass and put America’s collective good above their political advancement. Some don’t deserve any political debate at all.

Supporting a bipartisan program to provide children access to healthy food is at the top of that list.

By Dr. Lyndon Haviland

December 27, 2023

TheHill.com

The holidays are here, and while the decorations on Capitol Hill symbolize a season of giving, lawmakers seem more focused on getting what they want on immigration. 

Every member on Capitol Hill agrees the public health crisis at the southern border is untenable. Those truly committed to addressing the emergency know that it can’t be fixed overnight. …

Strengthening security at the border is important, but it must be part of a holistic approach. This must include measures that advance public health, such as creating a more efficient path to U.S. citizenship, building better living conditions for those stuck at the border, developing more humane ways to keep migrant families together, and establishing ways to connect migrants with host families in the U.S., to name a few.   

Beyond these proposals, a step we can take right now, one that has proven to work, is to expedite the ability for migrants living inside the U.S. to earn a living. Today migrants must wait six months after filing their applications for asylum to apply for a work permit. The faster we speed up this process, the better off they — and America — will be.