As the use of Kratom rises, so do calls for regulations
Kratom, an herbal substance that can produce opioid-like effects, is on the rise. While some believe it is helpful for pain and addiction, others believe there needs to be more regulations around it. NBC News' Steven Romo talks to two people on both sides of the conversation.
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NBC News
a day ago
- NBC News
Crushed by Israeli missile strikes, Gaza's hospitals are barely functioning
Israeli military assaults on the Gaza Strip's hospitals have ramped up in recent weeks to the highest level so far this year, bringing a health system already weakened by 19 months of war to a breaking point. NBC News has analyzed 27 videos and images from the last two months taken by civilians and our own journalists on the ground to piece together a picture of the full extent of the destruction of a health system engulfed in war. In footage from a surveillance camera, men, women and children could be seen crossing the entrance to Khan Younis' European Hospital moments before a missile hit, blasting people into the air as others scattered in panic. Another video, posted to social media and verified by NBC News, showed the fiery aftermath of an explosion at a medical warehouse near Al-Awda Hospital, in northern Gaza, which has been attacked repeatedly, including on May 22 and again on May 24. 'Nearly all hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed, and half of them are no longer operational,' Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, told NBC News. During the war, Gaza's hospitals have eked back services, only to be repeatedly struck or besieged again. Hospitals are protected under international humanitarian law, butIsrael has maintained that Hamas uses hospitals and medical centers for military activities, opening them to attack. Hamas has denied doing so. Humanitarian groups, including the United Nations, havesaid Israel has not provided sufficient information to substantiate many of its claims and have called for independent investigations of Israel's attacks and Hamas' alleged misuse of the facilities. Earlier this week, however, the Israeli military gave a small group of reporters a tour of a tunnel that was uncovered beneath the European Hospital, where it said it had recovered the body of Hamas' military chief Mohammed Sinwar. 'We cannot stress this enough: Hospitals must never be militarized or targeted. If they are, it may constitute a war crime,' Laerke said. Of Gaza's 36 hospitals, none are fully functioning; 17 are providing partial services, and 19 are not functioning at all, according to World Health Organization data from Monday. The wider health system, including ambulances, field hospitals and clinics, has been attacked more than 700 times since the start of the war, killing at least 900 people and injuring more than 1,000. (The death toll across Gaza is more than 55,000, according to the health ministry.) After a ceasefire was called in January, Israeli military attacks on Gaza's health system had abated. The truce fell apart in March, and WHO data shows a ramping up of attacks in recent weeks. While the organization tallied five attacks on Gaza's health system in April, after the first three weeks of May, the number of attacks had quadrupled to 21, with at least three more attacks since, including on the vicinity of a dialysis center at the Indonesian Hospital on June 1 and strikes on Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli Hospitals on June 4 and 5. In addition, hostilities near Al-Amal Hospital have rendered it 'out of service,' the WHO said Monday. The earliest attack recorded by NBC News during that two-month period was on April 2, when an Israeli airstrike hit a UNRWA clinic in Jabalia, north of Gaza City, that was housing displaced people. Video captured by NBC News on the ground documented the chaotic aftermath: walls crushed to rubble, charred mattresses, furniture blasted into shards. A child's small, shrouded body was loaded onto a donkey cart to be taken to the morgue. In another case, the Israel Defense Forces struck two hospitals on the same day, May 13, both in Khan Younis. Video verified by NBC News shows several large plumes of smoke rising from the grounds of the European Hospital. Palestinian health officials said at least 16 people were killed and dozens more injured. The WHO said the facility had been forced to suspend services. Also struck that day was the Nasser Medical Complex. Video posted by the U.N. showed scattered debris, twisted hospital beds and damaged equipment. It was the fourth time Nasser had been hit during the war, according to the U.N., with the latest strike killing two people and injuring a dozen others. In a statement in response to those attacks, the IDF said its forces had targeted a command and control center located at Nasser Hospital and 'a Hamas underground terrorist infrastructure site' underneath the European Hospital. The IDF provided evidence of what it said was a Hamas tunnel beneath the European Hospital. It did not, however, provide evidence for the command and control center at Nasser, or for the following cases, but broadly said: 'The Hamas terrorist organization continues to use hospitals in the Gaza Strip for terrorist activity.' NBC News is not able to independently verify the IDF's statements.
NBC News
3 days ago
- NBC News
Cancer patient's fight to get authorization for treatment recommended by his doctor
In our series 'The Cost of Denial,' NBC News' Erin McLaughlin reports on a West Virginia family's appeal after appeal to get insurance coverage for a treatment called histotripsy which uses ultrasound waves to target tumors in the liver.
NBC News
3 days ago
- NBC News
Deported family of 11-year-old U.S. citizen recovering from a rare brain tumor requests humanitarian parole
An 11-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen and is recovering from a rare brain tumor has been living in Mexico since immigration authorities removed her from Texas when they deported her undocumented parents four months ago. Four of her siblings, three of whom are also U.S. citizens, were also sent to Mexico with the parents. Since then, the girl's health condition has not improved, her mother told NBC News. In an attempt to return to the United States to get her the care she needs, the family applied for humanitarian parole with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Thursday. 'We're fighting for my girl's life," the mother said, adding that her daughter isn't recovering from "just any disease. ... She is not going to be cured overnight; it's something that takes time.' Their request is for the undocumented parents and the girl's noncitizen sibling to be allowed to enter and live in the U.S. temporarily, so that the ailing girl can have "the full support of her family as she gets treatment to help save her life,' said Danny Woodward of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a legal advocacy organization representing the family. The mother said her daughter's headaches and dizziness have worsened. The symptoms have become so recurrent that the girl's parents spend sleepless nights taking turns monitoring and caring for her. 'She is very scared,' mother said. "We want to be there for her, we want to take care of her 100% like we've been doing so far. We don't want to be separated from her for even a minute." When the girl was in the U.S., under the care of doctors in Houston "who saved her life," the parents were instructed to rush her to the hospital for an emergency check-up whenever she felt these symptoms, the mother said. "But out here, that is impossible," she said in Spanish from Mexico, where her family was deported to Monterrey, an area known for the kidnapping of U.S. citizens. 'Where am I going to go?" NBC News is not publishing the family members' names out of concerns for their safety. Medical records show the child underwent surgery last year to remove a brain tumor caused by an 'unnamed 'novel' condition,' according to Woodward. This means that few medical specialists can effectively treat and monitor her. The mother said the girl's doctors in the U.S. were not just treating her daughter's illness; they were "also studying it because they don't know what caused it, why it was so aggressive." Even from Mexico, she has been in touch with the girl's doctors in the U.S., but they can't really assess what's happening to her from afar. The surgery that saved her life last year did leave the girl with some lasting side effects. The swelling on her brain is still not fully gone, causing difficulties with speech and mobility of the right side of her body as well as memory problems. These require the girl to routinely checking in with doctors monitoring her recovery, get MRI scans every three months, attend rehabilitation therapy sessions and take medication to prevent seizures. But she has not been able to consistently access this care since the family was deported, her mother and attorney said. The mother insists that the rod fixator preventing her daughter's right foot from turning inward needs to be replaced, as the girl trips more than usual. Her seizure medication is being sent to her from the United States because the family can't find the exact one she needs in Mexico, Woodward said. MRIs have also "turned out to be very expensive and challenging for the family to get in Mexico.' The girl has only been able to get one medical checkup and MRI in Monterrey. The experience made the mother realize how difficult it would be to get a new doctor in Mexico who can get up to speed with her daughter's medical history and treat her illness. 'Not any doctor wants to take on such a huge commitment,' the mother said. "It's like starting from scratch, or worse." Additionally, 'the stress of the whole situation has definitely played a negative role' in the girl's recovery, Woodward said. 'This family has been severely traumatized." A family's 'truncated dreams' On Feb. 3, the family was driving from the Rio Grande Valley area, where they lived, to Houston, where the girl's doctors are based, for an emergency medical checkup. On the way, they stopped at a stateside immigration checkpoint, one they have passed through multiple times. But this time, immigration authorities arrested the parents after they were unable to show legal immigration documentation. Five of their children, ages 15, 13, 11, 8 and 6, were with them when they were arrested. Woodward said the parents have never done anything to make them a priority for removal. The entire family was taken to a detention facility, where they spent 24 hours before they were placed in a van and dropped on the Mexico side of a Texas bridge on Feb. 4. "Another layer of this is the fact that the parents were never even given their due process rights, so they never were allowed to go in front of an immigration judge to plead their case," said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS, previously told NBC News that reports of the family's situation are 'inaccurate' and declined to speak on the specifics of the case, citing privacy reasons. They said in a statement that when 'someone is given expedited removal orders and chooses to disregard them, they will face the consequences.' The eldest son, an 18-year-old U.S. citizen, was left behind in the U.S. "The older boy woke up one morning and learned that his entire family was gone," Woodward said. He graduated high school alone, without his family. 'It breaks our hearts,' the mother said as she wept, adding that her son dreams of going to college and becoming a neurosurgeon after seeing how doctors saved his sister's life, but 'he can't do that alone. He needs our support — even though we talk to him every day, it's really hard to be away." Instead of going to college, her son is working a fast-food job, hoping to soon see his family return home. While the Trump administration has aggressively stepped up the pace of deportations, including for immigrants who don't have criminal charges or convictions against them, there are three recent cases giving the girl's family hope. A Mexican mother living in California and her 4-year-old girl, who suffers from a life-threatening intestinal illness, were granted humanitarian parole this month following a public plea for deportation relief. In April, a Venezuelan immigrant in Chicago was released from immigration detention under humanitarian parole to serve as an organ donor for his ailing brother. In March, an undocumented mother in California caring for her 21-year-old daughter, a U.S. citizen undergoing treatment for bone cancer, was detained by immigration authorities and later released "for humanitarian reasons." Even though the relatives in these cases were not deported, Woodward said, "I don't think that should make any difference from the perspective of the federal government." "It's a discretionary choice for them to make," he said. "Our case, I think, it's a very strong one for humanitarian parole." The family's parole application includes letters of support from several members of Congress, including Democratic Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York and Sylvia Garcia and Joaquin Castro of Texas, all of whom met with the family in Mexico last month. "We want them to give us that chance," the mother said. "We are not criminals. We are not delinquents. We simply want to save our daughter."
