Current Events in October 2024

A Massachusetts judge has ruled that Meta must face a lawsuit accusing it of using Instagram features to intentionally addict young users and hiding the platform’s harmful effects on teens' mental health.

Meta's defense, claiming protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, was rejected. The court found that the case focuses on Meta's business practices, not user content.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell says the ruling allows the state to hold Meta accountable for its impact on youth. Meta disputes the claims.

Suffolk County Judge Peter Krupp said that Section 230 does not apply to false statements Meta allegedly made about the safety of Instagram, its efforts to protect its young users’ well-being or its age-verification systems to ensure people under age 13 stay off the platform.

He said the state was “principally seeking to hold Meta liable for its own business conduct,” not content posted by third parties.

A Meta spokesperson said the “evidence will demonstrate our commitment to supporting young people.”

That ruling came after a federal judge in California rejected a request by Meta to dismiss lawsuits by more than 30 states accusing it of fueling mental health problems among teens by making its social media platforms addictive.

A new report suggests that safety agencies need to do more to address ergonomic hazards in warehouses and delivery companies, where worker injuries are rising.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed safety in e-commerce warehouses like Amazon and last-mile delivery, highlighting issues like overexertion, slips, trips, and falling objects.

The transportation and warehousing sector had the highest serious injury and illness rate of all 19 sectors in 2022. OSHA cited last-mile delivery and warehouse employers for over 2,500 workplace violations between the fiscal years of 2018-2023. Eleven of these citations were related to ergonomic hazards, the report shows.

With technology and productivity pressures potentially increasing injury risks, the report found that the guidelines used by the Occupational Health and Safety Agency (OSHA) are outdated and its training insufficient.

Recommendations include improving training, updating guidance, and ensuring follow-up with businesses to address ergonomic hazards.

Amazon singled out

Other studies have found that Amazon warehouse workers suffer serious injuries at a higher rate than those at rival companies

In 2020, there were 5.9 serious injuries for every 100 Amazon warehouse workers, which is nearly 80% higher than the serious injury rate at non-Amazon warehouses

OSHA inspectors found Amazon workers to be “at high risk for lower back injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders” due to factors such as heavy lifting and awkward postures.

In the 18 months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, leading more than a dozen states to implement near-total abortion bans, hundreds more babies died than expected, new research has found.

The research, which was conducted by researchers from the Ohio State University and published Monday in Jama Pediatrics, compared data on infant mortality from the months before Roe’s downfall with data from afterward. Overall infant mortality, the researchers found, rose by 7%.

On average, researchers found that there were roughly 247 more infant deaths per month than expected. Among infants with congenital anomalies – whose mortality rose by 10% – there were about 210 more deaths per month than expected.

Latest study to show similar results

This study is the latest to examine how Roe’s demise has affected babies’ health. In June, another study estimated that, after Texas outlawed abortions past roughly six weeks of pregnancy, the number of infants who died in their first year of life rose by 13%.

The researchers behind that study also found that deaths among infants with congenital anomalies spiked.

These conditions can frequently be detected in utero and, in states where abortion is still legal, lead people to terminate their pregnancies, especially since they may be incompatible with life. However, that may no longer be an option for people living under abortion bans.

“Any infant death is tragic, but then layering on top of that, this pregnant person’s situation where they know that they’re carrying a fetus that is incompatible with life, whereas before, they maybe would have had the option to terminate,” Alison Gemmill, the lead author of the June study and an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Guardian after her study was released.

The study released on Monday did not break down infant mortality rates by state.