Latest news with #TheStoryBehindthe
The Independent
16-04-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Behind the story of the decades-long journey of xenotransplantation
On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, we hear from Lauran Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who have been following the journey of animal to human transplants, or xenotransplants, over the last few years. That includes sharing the procedure's history, more about the people who have received these organs and what risks it may pose. Shelby Lum, Associated Press: There's more than 100,000 people on the transplant list, and most of these people are waiting for a kidney. Thousands will die on the list before ever being eligible to get one. And many experts say that there will never be enough human donors. Haya Panjwani, Associated Press: That's why scientists are turning to a procedure known as xenotransplantation. Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press: A fancy word to say animal to human organ transplant. PANJWANI: I'm Haya Panjwani. On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, we hear from Lauren Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who have been following the journey of xenotransplants over the last few years. Lauren says xenotransplantation has actually been tried for many, many years, unsuccessfully. NEERGAARD: There were a number of chimpanzee transplants back in the 1960s. Probably the most famous of them was Baby Faye in 1984, who lived for 21 days with a baboon's heart. They didn't work because back then, doctors and scientists hadn't really understood exactly how you could overcome the challenge of the immune system. The human immune system immediately recognizes those animal organs and the animal tissue as foreign and attacks. So if you just took a pig's organ, any old pig organ, and stuck it in a person on the operating table, it would literally turn black before the surgeon's eyes. That's how fast the immune system would attack it. Now, what's happening is we have companies that are gene-editing pigs. They are modifying the genes in pigs so that they are born lacking some of those molecules that say, 'attack me' to the human immune system, and with some additional human genes to make them more compatible with people. They are already used in, well, we've used them for food, but they're also already used in human medicine in a variety of ways. We get heart valves from pigs. We get skin grafts from pigs, and their organs are very compatible to human organs in the anatomy. They look like human organs, they work like human organs, the blood vessels are in the right place that you can attach them properly. PANJWANI: Shelby says they've been able to meet some of the pigs used in these procedures. LUM: And these pigs are bred specifically to be more compatible for human size, but they look like normal pigs. They look exactly like what you would think of a normal pig to look like. The pigs at the research farm are used for some of the early xenotransplant experiments. So these are for some of the decedent studies where these organs are being tested in brain dead donors, as well as some of the early compassionate care cases. NEERGAARD: We really started seeing the first examples of organs from these gene-edited pigs being tested in brain-dead donors. And so kidneys from pigs were placed in them to see what happened. And this is where Shelby got to do something really cool. LUM: I got the chance to be in the operating room for this really experimental surgery to test the pig kidney in this brain dead donor whose name is Moe. Moe's family had graciously decided to donate his body to this research to see if this could work. In order to do that, we worked with the university for months, which included sending over my vaccination history. It included getting testing done. I had to get blood work drawn to make sure that I wasn't bringing in anything into this operating room. So once you're in the operating room, it's pretty similar to a regular kidney transplant surgery. You have the surgeon who's starting the surgery and then surgeons go to the farm and they procure the pig kidney there. And so they fly it back to NYU where the surgery is being done. And in that surgery, they put the pig kidney into the donor. And it turns pink immediately, which is the big sign for a kidney transplant surgery. That's what you wanna see, is this moment where that kidney turns pink. And it was this really incredible moment where the surgeons attached the kidney, you hear all of them chattering, and you hear them say, It's pink. NEERGAARD: What was really amazing was how quickly this moved from deceased bodies into living people. PANJWANI: In January 2022, a man named David Bennett became the first person to receive a pig heart transplant. NEERGAARD: And Dr. Bartley Griffith, who was the surgeon involved here, told us how nervous he was about broaching it and then how this patient responded with humor. He said, you know, what do you think I'm gonna oink? That first operation, that first transplant, lasted only two months. PANJWANI: The second pig heart attempt with a Navy veteran named Lawrence Faucette also only lasted a little less than two months. NEERGAARD: Then the kidneys started. PANJWANI: A man named Rick Slayman and a woman named Lisa Pisano both received gene-edited pig kidneys. NEERGAARD: Those two patients also died. So this is a point where the doctors are like, 'Whoa, we're not having as much success as we wanted.' And they started looking for patients who were not quite so critically ill as those first four people. An Alabama woman named Towana Looney has lived the longest with a gene-edited pig kidney. She had it for 130 days before her doctors at NYU had to remove it earlier this month. Looney had been doing very well. She had told us she felt like superwoman. But then, at the beginning of April, her body began rejecting the organ. She's recovered from the surgery and is back home on dialysis again, disappointed, of course. But that record time living with the pig kidney did provide valuable information to scientists. So what's next? A New Hampshire man received a pig kidney at Mass General Hospital in January. Like Looney, he was not as sick as some of the prior recipients when he was transplanted, and so far, so good. Chinese researchers also recently announced a pig kidney transplant there, so this is gaining momentum. LUM: Looney issued a statement saying the outcome wasn't what anyone had hoped for, but she's hoping that it can inspire others in this journey as xenotransplantation is studied more. And there are people who are very interested in getting a xenotransplant. PANJWANI: With any new scientific procedures, there come risks. NEERGAARD: So one of the risks, of course, is that this will fail. The doctors will all say those first four were actually not failures because of how much they learned from each one of those patients. They will tell you those are names that will go down in medical history because they learned from each and every one of them. The other side of the risk, though, is the fact that we are using animal organs in people. And that does come with concern about whether there would be any possible transmission of animal viruses to people. One of the ethical challenges is whether these people are fully consenting to an experiment. Because so far, they have been people who really have been out of other options. There also are some ethical issues about how the animals are treated, how we're using animals for the good of humans. And so that's something that the proponents of this believe is helped by the fact that we're using pigs, which are also used for food already. LUM: Lauren and I have talked with a few people who have expressed interest in getting one. Because for so many people living on dialysis, being in the chair several times a week, it is just not the best quality of life. They don't feel good, they aren't able to do the things they want to, and so there are people who are really interested in being part of these early studies. NEERGAARD: I think the main theme that we've heard from all of the patients that we have managed to speak with so far, or their families, or even in the case of Moe, the man whose body was used for that early experiment that lasted two months, there's this common theme that whatever happens to them, they hope that this will teach the surgeon something and the scientist something so that eventually this will work and help other people. That's every person that Shelby and I have talked to has said that. The Food and Drug Administration has given United Therapeutics permission to do a clinical trial using pig kidneys created by their subsidiary Revivacor Incorporated on a small number of participants. They'll do surgeries on the first few patients, see how it goes, they're there for a few months and then they'll ramp up to larger numbers. PANJWANI: This has been The Story Behind the AP Story. For more on AP's health coverage, visit
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Behind the story of the decades-long journey of xenotransplantation
WASHINGTON (AP) — On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, we hear from Lauran Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who have been following the journey of animal to human transplants, or xenotransplants, over the last few years. That includes sharing the procedure's history, more about the people who have received these organs and what risks it may pose. Shelby Lum, Associated Press: There's more than 100,000 people on the transplant list, and most of these people are waiting for a kidney. Thousands will die on the list before ever being eligible to get one. And many experts say that there will never be enough human donors. Haya Panjwani, Associated Press: That's why scientists are turning to a procedure known as xenotransplantation. Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press: A fancy word to say animal to human organ transplant. PANJWANI: I'm Haya Panjwani. On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, we hear from Lauren Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who have been following the journey of xenotransplants over the last few years. Lauren says xenotransplantation has actually been tried for many, many years, unsuccessfully. NEERGAARD: There were a number of chimpanzee transplants back in the 1960s. Probably the most famous of them was Baby Faye in 1984, who lived for 21 days with a baboon's heart. They didn't work because back then, doctors and scientists hadn't really understood exactly how you could overcome the challenge of the immune system. The human immune system immediately recognizes those animal organs and the animal tissue as foreign and attacks. So if you just took a pig's organ, any old pig organ, and stuck it in a person on the operating table, it would literally turn black before the surgeon's eyes. That's how fast the immune system would attack it. Now, what's happening is we have companies that are gene-editing pigs. They are modifying the genes in pigs so that they are born lacking some of those molecules that say, 'attack me' to the human immune system, and with some additional human genes to make them more compatible with people. They are already used in, well, we've used them for food, but they're also already used in human medicine in a variety of ways. We get heart valves from pigs. We get skin grafts from pigs, and their organs are very compatible to human organs in the anatomy. They look like human organs, they work like human organs, the blood vessels are in the right place that you can attach them properly. PANJWANI: Shelby says they've been able to meet some of the pigs used in these procedures. LUM: And these pigs are bred specifically to be more compatible for human size, but they look like normal pigs. They look exactly like what you would think of a normal pig to look like. The pigs at the research farm are used for some of the early xenotransplant experiments. So these are for some of the decedent studies where these organs are being tested in brain dead donors, as well as some of the early compassionate care cases. NEERGAARD: We really started seeing the first examples of organs from these gene-edited pigs being tested in brain-dead donors. And so kidneys from pigs were placed in them to see what happened. And this is where Shelby got to do something really cool. LUM: I got the chance to be in the operating room for this really experimental surgery to test the pig kidney in this brain dead donor whose name is Moe. Moe's family had graciously decided to donate his body to this research to see if this could work. In order to do that, we worked with the university for months, which included sending over my vaccination history. It included getting testing done. I had to get blood work drawn to make sure that I wasn't bringing in anything into this operating room. So once you're in the operating room, it's pretty similar to a regular kidney transplant surgery. You have the surgeon who's starting the surgery and then surgeons go to the farm and they procure the pig kidney there. And so they fly it back to NYU where the surgery is being done. And in that surgery, they put the pig kidney into the donor. And it turns pink immediately, which is the big sign for a kidney transplant surgery. That's what you wanna see, is this moment where that kidney turns pink. And it was this really incredible moment where the surgeons attached the kidney, you hear all of them chattering, and you hear them say, It's pink. NEERGAARD: What was really amazing was how quickly this moved from deceased bodies into living people. PANJWANI: In January 2022, a man named David Bennett became the first person to receive a pig heart transplant. NEERGAARD: And Dr. Bartley Griffith, who was the surgeon involved here, told us how nervous he was about broaching it and then how this patient responded with humor. He said, you know, what do you think I'm gonna oink? That first operation, that first transplant, lasted only two months. PANJWANI: The second pig heart attempt with a Navy veteran named Lawrence Faucette also only lasted a little less than two months. NEERGAARD: Then the kidneys started. PANJWANI: A man named Rick Slayman and a woman named Lisa Pisano both received gene-edited pig kidneys. NEERGAARD: Those two patients also died. So this is a point where the doctors are like, 'Whoa, we're not having as much success as we wanted.' And they started looking for patients who were not quite so critically ill as those first four people. An Alabama woman named Towana Looney has lived the longest with a gene-edited pig kidney. She had it for 130 days before her doctors at NYU had to remove it earlier this month. Looney had been doing very well. She had told us she felt like superwoman. But then, at the beginning of April, her body began rejecting the organ. She's recovered from the surgery and is back home on dialysis again, disappointed, of course. But that record time living with the pig kidney did provide valuable information to scientists. So what's next? A New Hampshire man received a pig kidney at Mass General Hospital in January. Like Looney, he was not as sick as some of the prior recipients when he was transplanted, and so far, so good. Chinese researchers also recently announced a pig kidney transplant there, so this is gaining momentum. LUM: Looney issued a statement saying the outcome wasn't what anyone had hoped for, but she's hoping that it can inspire others in this journey as xenotransplantation is studied more. And there are people who are very interested in getting a xenotransplant. PANJWANI: With any new scientific procedures, there come risks. NEERGAARD: So one of the risks, of course, is that this will fail. The doctors will all say those first four were actually not failures because of how much they learned from each one of those patients. They will tell you those are names that will go down in medical history because they learned from each and every one of them. The other side of the risk, though, is the fact that we are using animal organs in people. And that does come with concern about whether there would be any possible transmission of animal viruses to people. One of the ethical challenges is whether these people are fully consenting to an experiment. Because so far, they have been people who really have been out of other options. There also are some ethical issues about how the animals are treated, how we're using animals for the good of humans. And so that's something that the proponents of this believe is helped by the fact that we're using pigs, which are also used for food already. LUM: Lauren and I have talked with a few people who have expressed interest in getting one. Because for so many people living on dialysis, being in the chair several times a week, it is just not the best quality of life. They don't feel good, they aren't able to do the things they want to, and so there are people who are really interested in being part of these early studies. NEERGAARD: I think the main theme that we've heard from all of the patients that we have managed to speak with so far, or their families, or even in the case of Moe, the man whose body was used for that early experiment that lasted two months, there's this common theme that whatever happens to them, they hope that this will teach the surgeon something and the scientist something so that eventually this will work and help other people. That's every person that Shelby and I have talked to has said that. The Food and Drug Administration has given United Therapeutics permission to do a clinical trial using pig kidneys created by their subsidiary Revivacor Incorporated on a small number of participants. They'll do surgeries on the first few patients, see how it goes, they're there for a few months and then they'll ramp up to larger numbers. PANJWANI: This has been The Story Behind the AP Story. For more on AP's health coverage, visit
Associated Press
16-04-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Behind the story of the decades-long journey of xenotransplantation
WASHINGTON (AP) — On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, we hear from Lauran Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who have been following the journey of animal to human transplants, or xenotransplants, over the last few years. That includes sharing the procedure's history, more about the people who have received these organs and what risks it may pose. Shelby Lum, Associated Press: There's more than 100,000 people on the transplant list, and most of these people are waiting for a kidney. Thousands will die on the list before ever being eligible to get one. And many experts say that there will never be enough human donors. Haya Panjwani, Associated Press: That's why scientists are turning to a procedure known as xenotransplantation. Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press: A fancy word to say animal to human organ transplant. PANJWANI: I'm Haya Panjwani. On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, we hear from Lauren Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who have been following the journey of xenotransplants over the last few years. Lauren says xenotransplantation has actually been tried for many, many years, unsuccessfully. NEERGAARD: There were a number of chimpanzee transplants back in the 1960s. Probably the most famous of them was Baby Faye in 1984, who lived for 21 days with a baboon's heart. They didn't work because back then, doctors and scientists hadn't really understood exactly how you could overcome the challenge of the immune system. The human immune system immediately recognizes those animal organs and the animal tissue as foreign and attacks. So if you just took a pig's organ, any old pig organ, and stuck it in a person on the operating table, it would literally turn black before the surgeon's eyes. That's how fast the immune system would attack it. Now, what's happening is we have companies that are gene-editing pigs. They are modifying the genes in pigs so that they are born lacking some of those molecules that say, 'attack me' to the human immune system, and with some additional human genes to make them more compatible with people. They are already used in, well, we've used them for food, but they're also already used in human medicine in a variety of ways. We get heart valves from pigs. We get skin grafts from pigs, and their organs are very compatible to human organs in the anatomy. They look like human organs, they work like human organs, the blood vessels are in the right place that you can attach them properly. PANJWANI: Shelby says they've been able to meet some of the pigs used in these procedures. LUM: And these pigs are bred specifically to be more compatible for human size, but they look like normal pigs. They look exactly like what you would think of a normal pig to look like. The pigs at the research farm are used for some of the early xenotransplant experiments. So these are for some of the decedent studies where these organs are being tested in brain dead donors, as well as some of the early compassionate care cases. NEERGAARD: We really started seeing the first examples of organs from these gene-edited pigs being tested in brain-dead donors. And so kidneys from pigs were placed in them to see what happened. And this is where Shelby got to do something really cool. LUM: I got the chance to be in the operating room for this really experimental surgery to test the pig kidney in this brain dead donor whose name is Moe. Moe's family had graciously decided to donate his body to this research to see if this could work. In order to do that, we worked with the university for months, which included sending over my vaccination history. It included getting testing done. I had to get blood work drawn to make sure that I wasn't bringing in anything into this operating room. So once you're in the operating room, it's pretty similar to a regular kidney transplant surgery. You have the surgeon who's starting the surgery and then surgeons go to the farm and they procure the pig kidney there. And so they fly it back to NYU where the surgery is being done. And in that surgery, they put the pig kidney into the donor. And it turns pink immediately, which is the big sign for a kidney transplant surgery. That's what you wanna see, is this moment where that kidney turns pink. And it was this really incredible moment where the surgeons attached the kidney, you hear all of them chattering, and you hear them say, It's pink. NEERGAARD: What was really amazing was how quickly this moved from deceased bodies into living people. PANJWANI: In January 2022, a man named David Bennett became the first person to receive a pig heart transplant. NEERGAARD: And Dr. Bartley Griffith, who was the surgeon involved here, told us how nervous he was about broaching it and then how this patient responded with humor. He said, you know, what do you think I'm gonna oink? That first operation, that first transplant, lasted only two months. PANJWANI: The second pig heart attempt with a Navy veteran named Lawrence Faucette also only lasted a little less than two months. NEERGAARD: Then the kidneys started. PANJWANI: A man named Rick Slayman and a woman named Lisa Pisano both received gene-edited pig kidneys. NEERGAARD: Those two patients also died. So this is a point where the doctors are like, 'Whoa, we're not having as much success as we wanted.' And they started looking for patients who were not quite so critically ill as those first four people. An Alabama woman named Towana Looney has lived the longest with a gene-edited pig kidney. She had it for 130 days before her doctors at NYU had to remove it earlier this month. Looney had been doing very well. She had told us she felt like superwoman. But then, at the beginning of April, her body began rejecting the organ. She's recovered from the surgery and is back home on dialysis again, disappointed, of course. But that record time living with the pig kidney did provide valuable information to scientists. So what's next? A New Hampshire man received a pig kidney at Mass General Hospital in January. Like Looney, he was not as sick as some of the prior recipients when he was transplanted, and so far, so good. Chinese researchers also recently announced a pig kidney transplant there, so this is gaining momentum. LUM: Looney issued a statement saying the outcome wasn't what anyone had hoped for, but she's hoping that it can inspire others in this journey as xenotransplantation is studied more. And there are people who are very interested in getting a xenotransplant. PANJWANI: With any new scientific procedures, there come risks. NEERGAARD: So one of the risks, of course, is that this will fail. The doctors will all say those first four were actually not failures because of how much they learned from each one of those patients. They will tell you those are names that will go down in medical history because they learned from each and every one of them. The other side of the risk, though, is the fact that we are using animal organs in people. And that does come with concern about whether there would be any possible transmission of animal viruses to people. One of the ethical challenges is whether these people are fully consenting to an experiment. Because so far, they have been people who really have been out of other options. There also are some ethical issues about how the animals are treated, how we're using animals for the good of humans. And so that's something that the proponents of this believe is helped by the fact that we're using pigs, which are also used for food already. LUM: Lauren and I have talked with a few people who have expressed interest in getting one. Because for so many people living on dialysis, being in the chair several times a week, it is just not the best quality of life. They don't feel good, they aren't able to do the things they want to, and so there are people who are really interested in being part of these early studies. NEERGAARD: I think the main theme that we've heard from all of the patients that we have managed to speak with so far, or their families, or even in the case of Moe, the man whose body was used for that early experiment that lasted two months, there's this common theme that whatever happens to them, they hope that this will teach the surgeon something and the scientist something so that eventually this will work and help other people. That's every person that Shelby and I have talked to has said that. The Food and Drug Administration has given United Therapeutics permission to do a clinical trial using pig kidneys created by their subsidiary Revivacor Incorporated on a small number of participants. They'll do surgeries on the first few patients, see how it goes, they're there for a few months and then they'll ramp up to larger numbers. PANJWANI: This has been The Story Behind the AP Story. For more on AP's health coverage, visit
Associated Press
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Details about Trump's executive orders around DEI are causing confusion
WASHINGTON (AP) — HAYA PANJWANI, host: In front of a large crowd in Washington, Donald Trump, shortly after being sworn into office for his second presidential term, signed a slew of executive orders. Those orders were what he calls 'Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity' and 'Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.' That executive order prompted companies around the United States to roll back their own diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. But the details of Trump's order and what it's actually implementing are still murky. I'm Haya Panjwani. On this episode of The Story Behind the AP Story, we speak with deputy global business editor Pia Sarkar and reporter Alexandra Olson. Firstly, Alexandra, what is DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion? ALEXANDRA OLSON, reporter: It's not a specific policy. It is an idea that you want to make your workplace or your school or any number of institutions inclusive and diverse and welcoming to a diverse population. I think companies over time have evolved to become more deliberate in these efforts. Some of the first waves of what people think of as modern-day DEI initiatives started in the wake of the civil rights movement. Part of the Civil Rights Act is ensuring that your workplace is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate. Some of the policies that companies had to institute involved compliance with those laws. And over time, you saw some prominent companies also institute an employment resource group for black employees or LGBTQ employees. Some of these companies started these groups in the '80s, even. PANJWANI: The Trump administration's executive order moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion staff be put on paid leave and eventually laid off. Some businesses reacted. OLSON: Businesses have been rolling back their DEI initiatives or at least evaluating their DEI practices for many months now in response to conservative-led lawsuits that target some of these policies that they claim are discriminatory. But this review has taken on more urgency in response to the election of President Trump, and even more recently, his executive orders aimed at ending DEI-related policies both in the federal and private sectors. PIA SARKAR, editor: And businesses are also rolling back DEI initiatives. PANJWANI: That's Pia Sarkar, deputy global business editor. You saw a lot more of them starting to join the movement of sorts. First, it started off with a handful of companies like Tractor Supply and John Deere. They were kind of smaller companies, but still name brands. But then suddenly you started to see much bigger companies also jumping in, including Walmart and McDonald's. And those are much bigger employers. And their rollback of some of these policies are much more impactful and may influence even bar companies to do the same. OLSON: Trump's executive orders were both very aggressive and at the same time not specific about what constitutes what the government is calling illegal or discriminatory. The orders did lay out the intention to harness the enforcement power of the federal government of the day against these policies. And that's what has gotten a lot of people's attention. For example, the executive order threatens to impose financial sanctions on federal contractors deemed to have illegal DEI programs under new contracts. Federal contractors have to have a clause stating that they do not engage in discriminatory DEI programs. If they are found to be in violation of that, they could be subject to massive damages under the 1863 False Claims Act. PANJWANI: What's being rolled back at companies varies. OLSON: Very few companies have gotten rid of everything that falls under their DEI buckets. What they're trying to do is figure out which DEI practices or programs or policies could eventually be deemed illegal by a court responding to a lawsuit or by the federal government under these new Trump executive orders. One practice that has been prominently challenged is tying executive compensation to promoting diversity. What the argument is from the conservative side is that this kind of practice can pressure hiring managers to make decisions on who to hire and who to promote and who even to let go based on race. So it's important to note that it is illegal under Title VII of the civil rights law to take race into account in hiring or promotion decisions. And prominent companies that have long promoted their DEI efforts say they do not do that. SARKAR: And some of the other DEI practices that are worth noting are a little bit more open-ended. If a company was sponsoring a pride event, for instance, some have pulled back on how much sponsorship they're going to give. Some of those events, I think, Walmart, for instance, said that it was not going to renew its equity racial center that it set up in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd. And that was a five-year commitment, and it is not renewing it. PANJWANI: Consumers are reacting differently than they have in the past. SARKAR: So some are reacting to the rollback of the initiative initiatives a little bit more, at least from what I could see, in a more muted way than some of the protests that you saw, like, after George Floyd there was a huge demand for these kind of programs in 2020 and afterwards, in terms of people boycotting these companies because they're rolling back the initiatives, you don't see as much of that. There was a boycott that had been planned against, I believe, Target. There was a lot of pressure on social media, specifically from conservative activist Robby Starbuck, going after companies that were promoting DEI. And so that had raised a lot of social media backlash and calls for boycotts. Those boycotts never seem to have taken place, but the companies reacted to the threat of a boycott, in some cases by rolling back their DEI initiatives. And those rollbacks of the DEI initiatives haven't really led to more boycotts. It seems like because so many companies have gone in this direction, it almost is starting to feel like it's becoming more the norm than the exception. You're only hearing about the companies that are rolling back their DEI policies, right? We're not hearing from companies who are keeping them in place except for Apple and Costco and Microsoft. But there could be a lot more that just aren't saying anything at all. PANJWANI: Now what exactly is the confusion? OLSON: The confusion is what is illegal. What is illegal discrimination or preference? The trouble is that DEI can constitute such a wide range, a wide range of programs, that nobody is quite sure whether their policies and practices and programs that they've had in place in some cases for many years, in some cases maybe even decades. Whether these are in fact illegal or not. There's been a few hints of, of backlash or of people protesting that some of this anti-gay effort has gone too far. So we saw that, for example, when some government institutions or museums decided to stop celebrating Black History Month or Holocaust Remembrance Day. There's some indication that the government is trying to clarify that that is not what they're after. That speaks to the confusion, because these executive orders are so wide-ranging that nobody knows exactly what they are trying to target and what they are not. But it also speaks to a certain sensitivity that the anti-drag campaign might also go too far. I think there's also a danger for these companies. They want to make sure that they don't go so far as to dismantle policies that are geared towards ensuring that they comply with anti-discrimination laws. SARKAR: And I think there is also some caution around letting this issue go up to the Supreme Court, considering that it's a conservative Supreme Court right now in terms of whether or not there will be the pendulum swing back. It is worth noting that a lot of these companies that are rolling back their DEI programs are also making it a point to say, we still care about these issues. We're not pulling back completely. So it kind of feels like they want to keep one foot in the door still. And I don't know if that's because the pendulum might swing back. So kind of playing it both ways might be the best way to approach it right now, just in case it does go the other way. But right now, it doesn't look like that's going to happen in the foreseeable future.
