Health News

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is well-known for his bulging biceps and the extreme workouts and meals he shares on social media.

The man behind Johnson’s bodybuilding physique is George Farah, the actor’s longtime trainer and nutrition guru.

Dwayne Johnson/Instagram

“Good Morning America” paired Farah with Randy Scott, a 35-year-old from West Virginia, to see how the same wellness principles he’s created for Johnson would work for Scott.

ABC

Here is Scott’s experience in his own words.

I have been into fitness and nutrition for quite a while.

I just started getting serious about it three years ago. At first I thought that lifting heavy weights was the only thing that mattered. I experienced a few minor injuries due to this naivety.

I have never been truly overweight but I was definitely unhealthy before. I would go out and drink too much and eat poorly. I was the typical “invincible” 20-something.

Eventually I got back into my wellness and decided to go to the gym. Like I said, I didn’t know what I was doing. I did the typical workouts and saw small changes.

Without the satisfaction of seeing/feeling the change, I quit going for a while.

About three years ago, I decided to get serious. I did the research, started eating correctly and started taking the proper supplements.

When I met George [Farah] he reiterated a lot of things that I had learned about body building. Less focus on the weight and more focus of the concentration of the specific muscle you are working on.

Randy Scott

Workouts were definitely not the main focus of our visit though. George is a dietitian and he focuses on the proper foods and supplements needed to help in the development of muscles and your body as a whole.

I was genuinely surprised the first time I saw the meal plan he had set up for me, mostly because of the large amount of carbs involved.

I had been told by many trainers and fitness people to reduce my intake of carbs significantly. George, however, had me eating about 35 ounces of rice a day, as well as sweet potatoes.

What I determined from this was that as long as they are good carbs, the large quantity is okay.

I’m pretty happy with my results in this three week period. I will definitely be continuing a version of this diet after this process is over.

The biggest drawbacks I experienced were the time involved and the price. While celebrities/athletes/etc have personal chefs to take care of meal prep and shopping and other essential time robbers, I unfortunately did not.

My Sundays have vanished into a fitness free-for-all involving shopping, cooking and prepping for the week. I also dedicate at least two hours a day to working out.

Randy Scott

The verdict: I will continue to grow and learn more about my nutrition and well-being. I will continue this process with slightly altered food quantities, maybe just smaller portion sizes to reduce cost. Overall, I’m loving the journey and look forward to the results after a couple months … and for the rest of my life!

Randy’s nutrition plan:

The following diet and training plan is recommended by Farah to his clients, and may not follow nutritional advice backed by medical authorities. Experts recommend consulting with a physician before starting any exercise program.

Upon rising 1 cup black coffee + 1 teaspoonful MCT (medium-chain triglycerides) oil then start cardio for 35 minutes hard core (130-plus heart rate).

Take a shower [then eat your first meal].

Take 5 grams BCAA (Branched-chain amino acid) supplements with each meal.

Meal 1: 7 oz. cod fish, 4 egg whites, 4 oz. oatmeal (measured before you cook). Take a good multivitamin.

Meal 2: 7 oz. chicken breast, 1.5 cups white rice.

Meal 3: 7 oz. Turkey breast, 1 cup white rice.

Meal 4: 7 oz. chicken breast, 1 cup rice.

Meal 5: 9 oz. steak, salad.

Meal 6: 8 egg whites, 1 cup asparagus and any vegetables you like to make a nice omelette.

Exercise: Do 20 minutes of cardio right after your last meal.

Pre-workout: 1 cup coffee, 1 teaspoonful MCT (medium-chain triglycerides) oil.

Post-workout: 60 grams hydro whey protein, then 25 minutes later drink 20 oz. Gatorade and five grams creatine.

Notes: Measure all fish, chicken, turkey or steak after it’s cooked. Measure oatmeal and potatoes before you cook. Drink plenty of water between meals and sip green tea to help increase your metabolism.

George Farah’s exercise and nutrition tips:

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I hate to tell people to diet. Instead, I tell them we are going to start living, but the right way. As soon as an individual goes on a diet they won’t follow it. Instead, let’s change the way we look at food [and] teach people what’s good and what’s bad. Then they can live a better life.

Train hard, diet hard and stay away from any junk [food] or empty calories food, otherwise it can all go backwards.

For exercise, I recommend 45 minutes with weight and maybe 20 to 40 minutes of cardio, depending on the individual.

For one elementary school principal in Georgia, students and faculty are much more than just people she works with, they are family.

According to Patricia Cook, head of Union County Elementary School, they have helped push her to fight through one of her toughest battles.

In September, Cook was diagnosed with breast cancer. Within the first two months of her diagnosis, she underwent three surgeries and was hospitalized because of a serious infection.

Kayla Duckworth

“There’s a lot of hard hoops for people to go through and it’s an emotional battle every day — and physical battle too,” Cook said.

On Jan. 9, Cook began radiation treatment. She continued to work at the school while receiving treatment but had to work in isolation.

Because her doctors were concerned about her compromised immune system and the possibility of her contracting another infection, Cook was confined to an office and had to avoid contact with any kids.

“I just love the kids so it was very hard to not be able to play with them and eat lunch with them,” she said.

Kayla Duckworth

Some children missed seeing her so much that they passed notes under her door, serving as a much-needed reminder that they were thinking of her throughout this difficult time.

“We’ll fight with her,” 11-year-old student Jayden Rogers said of helping her principal get through this battle.

Kayla Duckworth

On Monday, Cook left work for her 33rd and final treatment appointment.

This time, though, she had the send-off of a lifetime. As her car rounded the corner of the parking lot, she was greeted by 600 students and faculty members cheering her on and waving posters in the air.

“It was very overwhelming to see that much support. The love. I’m very blessed. Very, very blessed,” Cook said.

Cook said that many of her students have been touched by cancer.

One fifth-grader who’d lost her grandmother to breast cancer even made bracelets for Cook to keep her inspired.

On Tuesday, Cook returned to school.

“When you’re down and out, kids can give you energy and strength that you never thought you had,” she said, fighting back tears. “As I walked down the hall, I don’t think I passed a single kid that didn’t hug me.”

During the next few weeks, Cook said she plans to visit every single classroom to discuss her journey with students and answer any questions they may have.

“The most important thing for the kids to get from this is that we have to be a team. We have to support each other. This is not about anything I did. It’s about what they did for me,” she said.

Flu is a killer every year, and with this season’s high toll of deaths and hospitalizations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has strongly advised everyone older than six months to get the flu vaccine.

Even healthy people are at risk, but those with heart failure should take particular note of today’s news.

“It is well known that influenza infection is associated with increased risk for mortality in heart failure patients,” said Dr. Hidekatsu Fukuta, the lead author of the new study, a cardiologist at Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Japan.

Fukuta lead a study that looked at people with heart failure who had received the flu vaccine. In the study, set to be presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting, the heart failure patients who received the flu vaccine in any given year showed a 50 percent decrease in risk of death during flu season, as well as a 20 percent decrease for the rest of the year.

“Given the high mortality rate and the relatively low influenza vaccination rates in heart failure patients worldwide, our study supports a wider use of influenza vaccination in heart failure patients,” said Fukuta.

David Goldman/AP, FILE

About 6.5 million Americans live with heart failure, which means their hearts aren’t strong enough to effectively pump blood through their bodies. And they may be more susceptible to complications from the flu, including pneumonia, and of course, the stress on their body from the flu could worsen their heart problems.

The Heart Failure Society of America recommends annual influenza vaccination, but guidelines from the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the European Society of Cardiology don’t make specific mention of heart failure patients.

This study, an analysis of six past works on heart failure and flu that included more than 78,000 patients, found that the proportion of heart failure patients who had gotten the flu vaccine ranged from 26 percent to 86 percent.

Though this study focused more specifically on heart failure, 41 percent of adults hospitalized with the flu during the 2015-2016 flu season had heart disease. Heart disease includes heart failure, as well as coronary artery disease, hypertensive heart disease, pulmonary heart disease, heart valve disorders, arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation and congenital heart defects.

Researchers did caution that while the observational studies they used to collect the data mean that getting a flu vaccine is associated with fewer deaths, it doesn’t necessarily prove cause and effect the way a randomized controlled study would.

Because Fukata’s study will be presented at a cardiology meeting, it hasn’t yet been through the rigorous peer review that’s required to get new medical research published in a medical journal and the study itself hasn’t been released.

But Fukuta says that this may give heart failure patients an extra, and new, motivation to get the flu shot, which is widely available and inexpensive.

Jay-Sheree Allen, M.D. is a resident in the ABC News Medical Unit.

Women with normal blood pressure during pregnancy may be able to reduce their risk of heart disease by breastfeeding for at least six months per birth, according to new research that will be presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 67th Annual Scientific Session.

Petri Oeschger/Getty Images

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women in the United States. High blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol and smoking are risk factors for heart disease and, according to the CDC, about half of Americans have at least one of those three risk factors.

“There’s a lot we still don’t understand about the accumulation of cardiovascular risks in women,” said Dr. Malamo Countouris, a cardiology fellow at the University of Pittsburgh and the study’s lead author, in a press release. “Examining how pregnancy may increase or perhaps mitigate some of that risk can give us insights into the unique presentation and development of heart disease risk in women.”

The study enrolled 678 women from various clinics across the state of Michigan during their pregnancies, between 1998 and 2004. After an average of 11 years, the women participated in a follow-up health assessment, and were asked how long they breastfed after each pregnancy. At the same time, researchers measured the women’s blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, and the diameter and thickness of the carotid artery — factors commonly used to assess heart disease risk.

After the researchers said they adjusted for factors that could distort the results, they say they found that women who had normal blood pressure during pregnancy and who breastfed for six months or more had significantly higher levels of HDL (“good” cholesterol), lower triglycerides and healthier carotid artery thickness, compared to those who had never breastfed.

Mike Kemp/Getty Images

Since this is a meeting presentation, the study hasn’t been through the peer review process that leads to publication in a medical journal. Some questions that might be asked: if the group of pregnant women studied was older, thinner, or more educated, that might make the group more likely to exercise, eat wisely, and not smoke. Those are also factors that influence heart health.

The reason for these results? Unknown. Some theories exist, including breastfeeding increases the hormone oxytocin, which can lower blood pressure, and that breastfeeding could counteract some of the metabolic changes that occur during pregnancy.

According to Countouris, this new study “adds to the evidence that lactation is important not just for the baby but for the mother.”

Doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, have successfully completed a six-way rare organ transplant exchange performed from living donors.

The donors and recipients did not know each other ahead of the surgeries performed over three days last week.

“It literally took a village to make this swap happen,” said Dr. Joseph Leventhal, director of kidney transplantation at the hospital, at a press conference today.

The 12 participants included three sets of friends, an aunt and a niece, second cousins and a good Samaritan whose efforts started the “swapportunity.”

WLS

“It was extremely rewarding, it was a relief that we were able to get it off successfully,” said Leventhal.

Donor Kimberly Cooper said she donated to give her life more purpose, “I, now, know 100 percent that this was the most definite thing to help somebody else.”

Leventhal added it’s extremely rare for single center exchanges of this type to take place. Most of the larger swaps, he added, usually involve national organized swap programs.

WLS

Brendan Flaherty has now undergone two kidney transplants after his first failed in 2012 and he was placed back on dialysis. “I was hoping and praying someone like this would come along,” he said in reference to Cooper, “for this to be happening now is just amazing I just don’t even know what to say.”

Cooper said today, “I am extremely tired but want to share with Brendan, my ‘donor buddy,’ that my kidney has been all over the world and please take care of it.”

Leventhal said they have many more patients on the waiting list for a transplant and more than 100,000 need a kidney in the United States.

WLS

Ted Kennedy Jr., son of the late Massachusetts senator, said Wednesday he will not seek a third term in the Connecticut Senate because he wants to focus on protecting disability rights, which he said are under “an enormous threat” at the federal level.

The 56-year-old Democrat with the famous last name, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for offices from governor to U.S. senator, said he feels compelled to play a bigger role in the disability rights community.

“We have an enormous threat to the rights of people with disabilities in the current administration. I don’t feel I can sit by and watch that erosion take place,” he told The Associated Press in an interview. His state Senate term ends at the end of the year.

Asked whether he might return to elective politics, Kennedy said not to count him out, adding how he’s now redirecting his political activism.

“I don’t know what the future holds, but I know what’s in front of me right now,” he said. “Nothing is more important to me than defending the rights of people with disabilities.”

Kennedy lost his right leg to bone cancer when he was 12 years old. An attorney who has worked on disability and environmental issues, Kennedy said he’s been a member of the American Association of People with Disabilities for the past 15 years. Last summer, Kennedy decided to become chairman of the group’s board of directors, concerned about what he sees are rollbacks of disability rights, he said.

Kennedy cited a bill that recently cleared the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives that would amend the Americans With Disabilities Act. While proponents contend the bill curbs lawyers who threaten businesses with frivolous ADA-related lawsuits, disability rights advocates said legislation discourages businesses from complying with the law.

Kennedy said he’s also concerned about changes in protections for people with pre-existing conditions and the small number of attorneys working at U.S. Department of Justice on ADA compliance matters.

As chairman of the American Association of People with Disabilities, Kennedy said he plans to “rev up” a campaign to register 1 million new voters with disabilities between now and Election Day. He also plans to persuade thousands of companies to adopt policies that protect the rights of workers with disabilities.

The legislator, from Branford along the Connecticut shoreline, has focused a lot of effort in the General Assembly on environmental issues over the past four years. He is the Democratic senator chairman of the legislature’s Environment Committee, where he’s worked on issues ranging from state park funding to banning coal tar sealants on state and local highways. As the vice chairman of the Public Health Committee, he has worked on legislation to expand home health care opportunities.

“It’s been a very difficult decision for me because I love my job in the Connecticut General Assembly,’ he said, adding how he plans to remain active in his local community. “This is the right decision for me right now, given all that’s at stake.”

“Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli admitted that he was “very far from blameless” in a letter to a judge asking for leniency, according to court filings.

“I was wrong, I was a fool. I should have known better,” Shkreli wrote in his letter to Brooklyn federal court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto.

“I accept the fact that I made serious mistakes, but I still believe that I am a good person with much potential,” Shkreli said.

The brash former pharmaceuticals company CEO was convicted in August of cheating investors in two failed hedge funds. He remains in jail and faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced March 9.

Shkreli, 34, is perhaps best known for boosting the price of a life-saving drug.

He was out on bail during his trial but was jailed when the judge decided he had made veiled online threats against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“I have learned a harsh lesson. The trial and six months in a maximum security prison has been a frightening wake-up call. I now understand how I need to change.”

Earlier this week, the judge ruled that Shkreli was responsible for nearly $10.5 million in losses in the securities fraud scheme, a decision that could result in a harsher punishment.

“…. if you find it appropriate to impose a sentence that does not include an extended period of incarceration, I will do my absolute best to use my skills and whatever talents I have been blessed with for the betterment of humanity,” Shkreli writes.

A schoolteacher from Louisiana ate and worked out like a celebrity for three weeks to see how the wellness principles taught by celebrity trainer Jeannette Jenkins would affect her overall health.

As part of a series where people from all walks of life try celebrity fitness routines, “Good Morning America” paired Jenkins — whose clients include Pink, Alicia Keys and Mindy Kaling –with Asha McDowell, 26, a sixth-grade teacher from New Orleans.

Getty Images

Here McDowell shared how she felt following the diet and workout regimen recommended by Jenkins, who is also the creator of the online fitness community Hollywood Trainer Club. Experts recommend consulting with a physician before starting any exercise program.

Here is McDowell’s experience, in her own words.

When I got to L.A., I was expecting to meet with Jeanette and learn about health and fitness.

I knew that we would be talking about food and exercising. What I wasn’t expecting was for Jeanette to be all up in my business in terms of food, drink, and snacks!

Courtesy Asha McDowell

For the workout portion, I knew that we would be doing some moving around — maybe a two-step here and a jumping jack there.

Instead, we did a full on workout complete with burpees, push-ups, and whatever other muscle-exhausting moves Jeanette had up her sleeve. So needless to say, I was a little bit nervous about the diet and exercising required for this challenge.

Luckily, Jeanette was so supportive and encouraging and patiently got me through our first day!

When I got home, starting off the week was easy with all of the excitement that I had! Unfortunately for me, I live in New Orleans, Louisiana, and it was time for Mardi Gras.

However, Jeanette talked me through being able to have fun and stay on track. During that week, I did a little more having fun than staying on track. I beat myself up a little bit, but then I realized that it was Mardi Gras, and if you’re not eating jambalaya during the Zulu parade, did you really do Mardi Gras? No you didn’t.

I’m learning that having a healthy lifestyle does not mean being boring. You can still eat kale Monday through Friday and have a daiquiri to celebrate making it through the week on Saturday. You can have a side salad every day for lunch, but eat some pancakes for Sunday brunch. The problems happen when you do “the most.” You can still be healthy and have a healthy sized portion of French fries every once and a while.

The routine that Jeanette laid out was easy because it gave you options. Now, a girl like me can eat the same thing over and over and not get tired (which is exactly what I did this last month), but if you get tired of something, Jeanette has laid out meals on meals for you to choose.

The workouts also give you options.

Throughout this program, I find myself having more energy, which is great for a teacher of 11- and 12-year-olds. I used to dread putting on those tennis shoes to workout. Now I look forward to getting the Beyonce body I’ve always wanted. My boyfriend will be returning from his deployment soon and he will be Jeanette’s biggest fan when he sees me.

Courtesy Asha McDowell

I recently lifted at the gym and was pleasantly surprised by how much I can lift now compared to the amount I could lift before.

The verdict: I definitely plan on continuing because I’ve lost six pounds since the start of February. I can’t wait to see my future results on this program.

Jenkins’ top exercise and nutrition tips

1. The biggest challenge is that people get in their own way. They don’t make healthy living a priority, they don’t make it a way of life, and therefore they are not committed or consistent, so they don’t get results.

2. The number one workout move people should add to their lives is some form of 30 minute cardio exercise.

Jenkins’ 7 exercises you can do without any equipment

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Jenkins shared this circuit routine that she says you can do from anywhere, with no equipment needed. See her demonstrate each move and share modifications you can make if you are advanced in the video above.

1. Squats (20 reps)

2. Stationary lunge (16 reps)

3. High knees (30 seconds)

4. Skaters (30 seconds)

5. Side leg taps or jumping jacks (30 seconds)

6. Push-ups (25 reps)

7. Ab tucks (15 reps)

Jeanette’s healthy eating recipes

Breakfast: Egg White Muffins

Jeanette Jenkins

Ingredients:

• 6 cups egg whites

• 1/4 cup skim Mozzarella cheese

• 1/2 cup red peppers

• 1/2 cup orange peppers

• 1 cup cherry tomatoes

• 1 cup spinach

• Ground pepper

Instructions:

1. Coat the muffin tins with cooking oil.

2. Place all of the chopped veggies in the muffin tin.

3. Fill each muffin tin with egg whites.

4. Sprinkle low-fat Mozzarella (or Parmesan, Feta or your favorite low-fat cheese) on top of each muffin.

5. Sprinkle on pepper and Himalayan salt

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

7. Let cool and enjoy!

Snack: Green smoothie

Jeanette Jenkins

Ingredients:

• 2 cups spinach

• 1/2 lemon

• 2 tsps ginger

• 1 pear

• 2 celery stalks

• 1 cup ice

• 1 cup water

Instructions:

1. In a blender combine 2 cups of spinach, 1 pear, 1/2 a lemon without the rind, 1 kiwi with the skin, 2 stalks of celery, 1/2 inch piece of ginger, 1 cup of ice and 1 cup of water! Blend on high until all the contents have mixed and enjoy! It makes two cups so drink it all or share it with a friend.

Snack: Greek yogurt with Berries and Granola

Jeanette Jenkins

Ingredients:

• 6 tbsp Greek yogurt

• 1/2 cup fresh berries

Instructions:

1. In a glass bowl or cup layer the yogurt, berries and granola

Dinner: Wild Alaskan salmon with sweet potatoes and asparagus

Jeanette Jenkins

Ingredients:

• 4 oz wild Alaskan sockeye salmon

• 1/2 lemon

• 1 tsp Himalayan Salt

• 1 tsp Organic Pepper

• 1 tbsp green pepper

• 1 tbsp red pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF

2. Place filet in tin foil or parchment paper

3. Squeeze lemon over fish

4. Add a dash of Himalayan salt and organic pepper

5. Add one tablespoon of chopped onions, one tablespoon red peppers, and one tablespoon of green peppers

6. Cook for 10 mins for medium, 15 mins for well done.

The two best friends behind the viral “Lemons for Leukemia Challenge” are attempting to set a world record today for the most donors added to the national bone marrow registry within a 24-hour period.

To set a world record is one of the items on the bucket list of Chris Betancourt, 20, who was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia and given the prognosis of one year to live.

Chris Betancourt and Dillon Hill

To learn more about how to join Be the Match’s bone marrow registry, click here.

When Betancourt’s best friend, Dillon Hill, 19, learned of the leukemia diagnosis, he took time off from college to help his dying friend fulfill his bucket list.

“When we first had that phone call recently and he was re-diagnosed, he said he was afraid of not being able to experience some things in life that we all plan on doing so we kind of just decided to make a bucket list and document every single moment of it,” Hill said today on “Good Morning America.” “I couldn’t sit in a lecture hall while he was potentially dying.”

The pair created the challenge, a social media campaign that aims to raise awareness for bone marrow donations, and calls on partakers to record themselves taking a bit out of a raw lemon and then post it online and challenge someone else to take part.

Chris Betancourt and Dillon Hill

Because a marrow transplant is the only treatment that could potentially save Betancourt’s life, they are hoping to use the campaign to raise awareness for bone marrow donation.

“It’s been absolutely incredible, honestly,” Betancourt said of the response. “I expected to maybe get 500 views on our YouTube video and within the first day we broke a quarter of a million so it’s absolutely astonishing to be here right now.”

The pair are also encouraging people to sign up to Be the Match, the national bone marrow donation registry, and hoping to set a world record today by registering the most marrow donors within 24 hours.

Chris Betancourt and Dillon Hill

Be The Match has facilitated over 85,000 transplants since 1987, and 6,100 just in 2017 alone.

Hundreds have already taken part in the challenge, including students from across the country, and even actor Danny Devito, who remained surprisingly stoic while chewing on a raw lemon in his video clip, before challenging his “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” co-stars to take part too.

Betancourt and Hill have completed 25 of the 128 items on Betancourt’s bucket list, they said.

“Some of the things that we’re looking forward to right now are lifting weights with ‘The Rock,'” Betancourt said, referring to actor and former wrestler Dwayne Johnson. “The other thing that’s really far out there is go to space. You never know. I just have to put that on the list.”

Be The Match challenged “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts, who is a bone marrow recipient herself, to take on the Lemons for Leukemia Challenge.

Roberts accepted the challenge, and took part in it today along with the other “GMA” anchors.

The “GMA” anchors were joined in taking the Lemons for Leukemia Challenge by “GMA” staff, audience and people across the country, from California to Minnesota and Times Square.

ABC

ABC

To learn more about how to join Be the Match’s bone marrow registry, click here.

Argentina’s conservative President Mauricio Macri said Thursday that Congress should launch a debate on broader legalization of abortion, though he said he opposes it.

Macri told lawmakers that he favors “mature, responsible debates,” and his government believes that Congress should include the issue in its 2018 agenda.

“I hope all voices are heard and are taken into consideration,” Macri said during his annual state of the nation speech to Congress.

Abortion is only allowed in Argentina in cases of rape and health risks to the woman. But woman’s health advocates say that politicians, doctors and judges often continue to block therapeutic abortions despite a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that was supposed to remove barriers to abortion and take judges out of such decisions.

The health ministry estimates that between 370,000 and 522,000 Argentine women undergo illegal abortions each year.

Thousands of people recently gathered at a demonstration by pro-abortion activists in front of the Congress building in Buenos Aires to demand free and safe abortions.

Opposition party lawmakers say they will soon present a bill to legalize abortions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The measure is expected to face stiff resistance from lawmakers in both houses of Congress.

Elective abortions are prohibited in most of Latin America. Cuba allows abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and Uruguay permits the procedure in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.

Several nations allow abortions in cases of rape or danger to a woman’s life, and four ban it altogether.

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Associated Press writer Almudena Calatrava contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump said Thursday the “ultimate penalty” may be in order for drug dealers because the nation’s drug problem will never be solved without a show of strength and toughness.

The comments were Trump’s most explicit on the matter to date. He previously has alluded to death for drug dealers by noting that some countries are “very harsh” with drug dealers. Trump also has said he knows the answer to the drug crisis, but he isn’t sure the country is “ready for it yet.”

In remarks Thursday at a White House summit on the opioid epidemic, Trump said drug dealers and pushers kill hundreds of people but that that most don’t go to jail.

“You know, if you shoot one person, they give you life, they give you the death penalty. These people can kill 2,000, 3,000 people and nothing happens to them,” he said, referring to drug dealers.

“Some countries have a very, very tough penalty — the ultimate penalty. And, by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do,” Trump continued. “So we’re going to have to be very strong on penalties.”

Trump also held out the possibility of initiating federal lawsuits against opioid makers and distributors. He also said his administration will be “rolling out a policy” on opioids in the coming weeks that will be “very, very strong.” Neither he nor his aides provided any details.

Trump said he had spoken with Attorney General Jeff Sessions about suing opioid makers. Sessions announced this week that the Justice Department will support local officials in hundreds of lawsuits against opioid makers and distributors.

Addressing potential federal litigation, Trump said: “I think it’s very important because a lot of states are doing it, but I keep saying, if states are doing it, ‘Why isn’t the federal government doing it?’ So that will happen. So that will happen.”

Trump’s wife, Melania, opened the summit. She said many people are grieving loved ones lost to the opioid crisis and “we need to change that.”

She read from a letter from Betty Henderson, a Florida woman who lost her 29-year-old son, Billy, to drugs last September. Henderson appealed to Mrs. Trump for help “in claiming these lost souls before drugs take them from this earth.”

Opioids, including prescription opioids, heroin and fentanyl, killed more than 42,000 people in this country in 2016, more than any year on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump has declared that fighting the opioid epidemic is a priority for the administration but critics say the effort has fallen short.

Trump in the past has addressed the issue of tough penalties for drug dealers and pushers.

In January, Trump said: “We’ve never had a problem with drugs like we do, whether it’s opioid or drugs in the traditional sense. It’s never been like it is.

“And we are going to do everything we can. It’s a very difficult situation, difficult for many countries,” Trump said. “Not so difficult for some, believe it or not. They take it very seriously and they’re very harsh. And those are the ones that have much less difficulty. “

Trump raised the issue later that month as he signed legislation giving Customs and Border Protection agents new resources to stop the illicit drug flow. He suggested that he’d like to take a more aggressive approach to the drug crisis — but said the country isn’t ready for what he has in mind.

“So we’re going to sign this. And it’s a step. And it feels like a very giant step, but unfortunately it’s not going to be a giant step, because no matter what you do, this is something that keeps pouring in,” he said.

“And we’re going to find the answer. There is an answer. I think I actually know the answer, but I’m not sure the country’s ready for it yet,” he added. “Does anybody know what I mean? I think so.”

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.

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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

What would cause a 20 percent decline in firearm injuries in the U.S. during a given period of time?

According to new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the answer is the National Rifle Association’s annual convention.

Harvard Medical School’s Anupam Jena and Columbia University’s Andrew Olenski tallied both emergency room visits and hospitalizations during identical days three weeks before, three weeks after, and during NRA conventions between 2007 and 2015.

The NRA convention, which typically lasts four days, draws up to 80,000 gun enthusiasts.

Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto/Sipa USA

Particularly striking is that local gun injuries — those that occur in the state that the convention is held — show a 63 percent drop during convention week.

The researchers point out that local gun ranges often close so that their workers may attend the convention, as do some hunting areas. The cities studied, from 2007 to 2015, were Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Phoenix and Louisville.

But a note of caution: It’s not that gun-related crime decreased. The aforementioned figures pertain solely to injuries. In 2015, for example, the U.S. logged nearly 85,000 firearm injuries, of which 17,000 were unintentional.

AP Photo/David Goldman

The authors concluded that firearm-safety concerns and risks of injury are relevant, even among experienced gun owners.

“Fewer people using guns means fewer gun injuries, which in some ways is not surprising,” said Anupam Jena, senior author of the study and the Ruth L. Newhouse associate professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, in a press release. “But the drop in gun injuries during these large meetings attended by thousands of well-trained gun owners seems to refute the idea that gun injuries stem solely from lack of experience and training in gun use.”

In other words, when people who use guns simply aren’t using them for a week, injuries decline.

AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

The decrease of 20 percent nationwide holds true only for men — most who attend NRA conventions are male — and the states in which gun ownership is highest showed the highest decreases in injuries.

This study did not alter conditions to test a theory, it just looked at statistics and drew conclusions, so it can’t be said that the convention per se causes there to be fewer gun injuries. But they seem closely associated.

Some statistics: Americans own an estimated 265 million to 300 million guns. Thirty percent say they own at least one gun, and another 11 percent say they live in a household with someone who owns one, according to the Pew Research Center.

Why check on firearm injuries and the NRA convention? “No matter how one feels about guns,” Jena said, in a press release, “one thing that we should all recognize is that owning and operating a firearm entails risk.”

Jay-Sheree Allen, MD, is a resident in the ABC News Medical Unit.

Many parents are looking for guidance to navigate the often nerve-wracking process of figuring out exaclty when, and how, to introduce allergenic foods to their babies and toddlers. Some companies are stepping in with precise plans and even ready-made powders that offer help.

Even the standard guidance from doctors has changed over the past few years, particularly with regards to one of the most common and sometimes extreme allergens — peanuts.

New research, as well as an alarming 8 percent of American children documented as having food allergies in the U.S. –- 25.2 percent of which are peanut allergies -– contributed to the shift in guidelines, which now say early introduction could be helpful.

“We now have research proving that early introduction of allergenic foods, especially peanuts, can be beneficial in preventing food allergies in children, and is particularly important for those children who are at high risk,” Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatrician at Columbia University, told ABC News, “so long as parents consult with their pediatrician.”

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Up until 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics had recommended waiting until a child was 3 years old to introduce peanuts. Now, parents are often being guided to start introducing allergen-containing foods closer to when they begin feeding babies solid foods, generally around 6 months of age.

The National Insitutes of Health also revised their guidelines last year for introducing peanut-containing products, saying infants as young as 4 to 6 months of age can be introduced to the nuts, depending on their health and family history.

But, the question then becomes how to go about it.

“I knew that research now says its supposed to happen early but I didn’t know when and how,” new mom Heather VanKuiken told ABC News. She said she was particularly concerned about introducing peanut-containing products to her young daughter, Sophie, whose father has a peanut allergy.

Hello, Peanut!

Some products helping to take the guess work out of introducing the foods, providing a precise roadmap for parents. One company, Hello, Peanut!, offers a blueprint of sorts for peanut introduction. Their product is the brainchild of board-certified allergist Dr. David Erstein and comes in a powdered form meant to be mixed in specific amounts each day into baby food.

The FDA recently permitted the company to include a mention on their label about the recommendation to introduce peanuts early, to avoid an allergy to them. Allowing such a claim for ground peanut products is the first time the FDA has allowed a food allergy claim on a label, acknowledging the potential this type of exposure may have for prevention.”

“We want to make sure parents can make informed decisions based on the latest science about how they choose to approach these challenging issues, but we also recommend that they check with their infant’s healthcare provider before introducing foods containing ground peanuts,” an FDA spokesperson said.

Another product aims to introduce young children to an array of different allergens, at the same time. SpoonfulOne says its product contains parts of all of the 8 leading allergens, not just peanuts. Invented by a pediatrician and mother of five, Dr. Kari Nadeau, the product is also a powder to be mixed into a baby’s food and allows a parent to expose their child to a small dose of each top allergen all at once on a frequent basis.

Spoonful One

“We really worked to get a protein level that on the one hand is enough to be a meaningful exposure, but also low enough to be safe in the broadest population possible,” said co-founder Dr. Ashley Dombkowski. “We know that for parents to do something like this it needs to be easy and thoughtfully formulated and it needs to be delicious so that parents can trust it and kids will love it.”

Doctors say that parents can introduce peanut-containing products and other allergens to young babies in may ways, using the foods themselves. Peanuts, for example, can be introduced by diluting peanut butter with water or adding a crushed peanut to some fruit puree. But when to start introducing the foods in their natural state and in what quantities is likely an individual decision parents should discuss with their child’s pediatrician.

The worst of the nation’s nasty flu season is finally over.

The season apparently peaked in early February and has been fading since, health officials said Friday. The number of people going to the doctor with symptoms of the flu has continued to decline. Deaths from the flu or pneumonia are going down, too.

While the peak may have passed, the season isn’t finished yet. Reports of flu remained widespread in 45 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

“The season’s not over but we’re definitely on the downward trend right now,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s acting director.

Flu usually takes off after Christmas and peaks around February. This season started early and was widespread in many states by December. In early January, it hit what seemed like peak levels — but then continued to surge.

It had been driven by a kind of flu that tends to put more people in the hospital and cause more deaths, and officials lately are seeing less of that. But another kind that hits children hard has picked up steam. So far this season, health officials say 114 children have died from the flu.

Making a bad year worse, this year’s flu vaccine didn’t work very well and health officials are trying to figure out why it did so poorly.

Flu is a contagious respiratory illness, spread by a virus. It can cause a miserable but relatively mild illness in many people, but a more severe illness in others. In a bad season, there are as many as 56,000 deaths connected to the flu.

In Friday’s report, the CDC said one key measure showed doctor visits last week for fever, cough and other symptoms of the flu dropped again, down to 1 in 20 visits. The number of states reporting heavy patient flu traffic last week dropped to 32.

Amber Smith, a recruiter for a furniture store chain in Charlotte, North Carolina, thought she didn’t have to worry about the flu after a wave of illnesses that hit her company’s warehouse in January and February seemed to fade. But she started to feel sick Monday and found out she had the flu. She hadn’t gotten a flu shot; her boyfriend did and he hasn’t been sick.

“I feel like my head weighs 20 pounds,” said Smith, who tried to go to work Friday, but was sent home after a morning meeting. “But my throat isn’t as sore. I feel like the flu is running its course.”

Citing mysterious “health attacks” in Havana, the United States said Friday it is making permanent its withdrawal of 60 percent of its diplomats from Cuba, extending an action that has hurt the island nation’s economy and cramped Cubans’ ability to visit the U.S.

Last October, the State Department ordered non-essential embassy personnel and the families of all staff to leave Havana, arguing the U.S. could not protect them from unexplained illnesses that have harmed at least 24 Americans. But by law, the department can only order diplomats to leave for six months before either sending them back or making the reductions permanent.

The six months expire Sunday. So the department said it was setting in place a new, permanent staffing plan that maintains a lower level of roughly two-dozen people — “the minimum personnel necessary to perform core diplomatic and consular functions.” The department also said that the embassy in Havana would operate as an “unaccompanied post,” meaning diplomats posted there will not be allowed to have spouses or children live with them in the country.

The downsizing of the embassy staff — and a travel warning the U.S. issued warning Americans to reconsider travel to the island — have had significant effects for Cuba’s economy and for its citizens. With fewer employees on hand, the U.S. Embassy in Havana halted visa processing, forcing Cubans who wish to visit the United States to seek visas through U.S. embassies in other countries. The U.S. is also expected to fall far short of granting the 20,000 immigrant visas to Cubans that have been allotted annually for decades.

In Havana, hundreds of Cubans waited in line Friday outside the Colombian Embassy seeking visas to visit that country, from which they would have to apply for a separate visa at the American Embassy in Bogota to travel to the United States. Some slept under trees, having traveled to Cuba’s capital from the provinces.

“This whole situation is making me very sad,” said Ana Maria Velazquez, an accountant from neighboring Matanzas Province with two children in Florida. She had been waiting for her appointment with Colombian officials for three days. “There should be normal relations between the two countries, but if the U.S. doesn’t want them, at least they should do something that doesn’t hurt people.”

Maria Angeles Reyes said she and her husband paid $1,400 for flights to Bogota and lodging there. “Those who are paying are ordinary Cubans,” she said.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signed off on the permanent plan for reduced staffing out of concern for “the health, safety and well-being of U.S. government personnel and family members,” the department said in a statement Friday.

“We still do not have definitive answers on the source or cause of the attacks, and an investigation into the attacks is ongoing,” the department said.

Cuba has repeatedly denied either involvement in or knowledge of any attacks, and has said its own investigation into the illnesses has turned up no evidence of deliberate action. The United States has not accused Cuba of such action but has said Havana holds responsibility nonetheless, arguing that such incidents could not have occurred on the small, communist-run island without the knowledge of Cuban officials.

The mysterious case has sent U.S.-Cuba relations plummeting from what had been a high point when the two countries, estranged for a half-century, restored full diplomatic ties under President Barack Obama in 2015.

In late 2016, U.S. Embassy personnel began seeking medical care for hearing loss and ear-ringing that they linked to weird noises or vibrations — initially leading investigators to suspect “sonic attacks.”

An interim FBI report disclosed by The Associated Press in early January said the investigation has uncovered no evidence that sound waves could have damaged the Americans’ health. But Tillerson has said he’s still convinced the diplomats were hit by deliberate, specific attacks targeting their health.

Doctors treating the patients said in a study published last month that the sounds heard by diplomats might have been a byproduct of something else that might help explain the full symptom list: memory problems, impaired concentration, irritability, balance problems and dizziness. The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association said doctors still have no clear diagnosis of just what happened to trigger the mysterious health problems.

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AP writer Andrea Rodriguez in Havana contributed to this report.

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP and Matthew Lee at http://twitter.com/APDiploWriter. Follow the AP’s coverage of the Cuba mystery at http://apnews.com/tag/CubaHealthMystery .