In the long run, everyone dies, but state health officials watch how death rates compare to what they’d expect based on the size of the population and the mix of ages within it. If younger people are dying in higher numbers than normal, it tells them that something has gone wrong.

Death rates shot up in 2020 and 2021 as COVID-19 and an increasingly dangerous illicit drug supply took out Coloradans at rates not seen in decades. They started to fall again over the following two years, but not back to their 2019 levels.

That pattern continued last year: six of the top 10 causes of death killed fewer people in 2024 than in 2023, according to newly finalized state data.

After adjusting for population growth and aging, death rates from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease also went down. The suicide death rate remained unchanged, after adjustment, while the diabetes death rate ticked up.

Most age groups are still above their pre-pandemic rates, after adjusting for population growth, though.

For people over 55, the difference is relatively small: death rates are within 3.5% of what they were in 2019. In their cases, reductions in deaths from cancer, heart disease, certain lung conditions and Alzheimer’s disease mostly offset increased mortality from overdoses, alcohol-related complications and, for the oldest Coloradans, malnutrition.

Physicians and coroners have gradually shifted away from ascribing deaths to “old age” or “failure to thrive,” and malnutrition is one of the causes they increasingly use to be more precise, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Middle-aged people fared worse. The death rate in Colorado last year was still about 22% above 2019 levels for people between 35 and 44, and 11% higher for people in the 45 to 54 age group. Drug overdoses were the primary driver of increased deaths for both groups, though they did trend down last year.

The picture was more mixed for children and the youngest adults. Death rates went up for most groups under 25 from 2023 to 2024, with the exception of youth between 15 and 18. Those older teens had lower death rates than they did before the pandemic, as did infants, while the 1 to 14 group and adults under 25 had higher rates.

For children and younger teens, homicide and traffic accidents kept their death rates above pre-pandemic levels, while for adults under 25, the biggest contributors were transportation accidents and overdoses.

Death rates tend to fluctuate for people between 1 and 24, while infant deaths are more stable, according to the state health department. The causes of infant mortality, such as premature birth, don’t change as drastically from year to year as do accidents, homicide and suicide, which are the leading killers of children and teens, the agency said in a statement.

Nationwide, “deaths of despair” – those caused by drugs, alcohol or suicide – peaked in 2021 and began to gradually fall over the next two years, with preliminary data suggesting a more significant improvement in 2024.

Overdose deaths, nationally and in Colorado,  especially dropped among young people, perhaps reflecting that teenagers are reporting less opioid use. Another possibility is that, since overdoses among teens already were uncommon, normal fluctuation produced seemingly dramatic changes, according to the state health department.

“Despite promising decreases in overdose deaths appearing in nationwide data, thousands of people across the country are still dying from preventable overdoses,” said Kirk Bol, manager of the state health department’s vital statistics program. “As the illicit drug supply continues to evolve, it remains essential to provide individuals with factual drug information and encourage engagement in proven public health strategies.”

But a reduction in deaths doesn’t necessarily point to fewer people using drugs or having nonfatal overdoses — it could simply reflect that friends or bystanders are more likely to have naloxone on hand to revive the victims than in previous years, said Dr. Anuj Mehta, a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Denver Health.

Younger people are more likely to survive an overdose, because their organs are generally healthier and better able to recover even if they went without oxygen for a time, he said.

Naloxone is likely an important contributor to the drop in deaths, and communities need to keep working to get it to the people who could help prevent an overdose from becoming a fatality, Mehta said. But ultimately, the way out of the overdose crisis is to help people get treatment for the addictions and mental health conditions that push them to take the risk of using illicit drugs, he said.

“We need to think broadly about mental health,” he said. “The data shows that deaths are decreasing, but it doesn’t show substance use is decreasing.”

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People could have encountered the measles virus at the Monarch Mountain at the Crest Gift Shop, 24500 U.S. 50, east of Salida, between 4:30 and 7 p.m. July 25.

Anyone who visited the shop during that window should watch for symptoms through Aug. 15, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

Symptoms of measles include a fever, cough, runny nose, red eyes and a rash that usually starts on the face. The rash typically appears about four days after a person becomes contagious, meaning that people who were exposed to the virus could spread it while thinking they have the flu or some other illness.

The state health department urged people who could have measles to call ahead before seeking care, so the clinic or hospital can take steps to protect other patients.

Two doses of the measles vaccine reduce the odds of getting the virus by about 97%.

The department didn’t release any information about the visitor.

The state has found 16 measles cases this year, including four people who needed hospital care. In a typical year, it has two or fewer cases.

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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. kindergarten vaccination rates inched down again last year and the share of children with exemptions rose to an all-time high, according to federal data posted Thursday.

The fraction of kids exempted from vaccine requirements rose to 4.1%, up from 3.7% the year before. It’s the third record-breaking year in a row for the exemption rate, and the vast majority are parents withholding shots for nonmedical reasons.

Meanwhile, 92.5% of 2024-25 kindergartners got their required measles-mumps-rubella shots, down slightly from the previous year. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccination rate was 95% — the level that makes it unlikely that a single infection will spark a disease cluster or outbreak.

The vaccination numbers were posted as the U.S. experiences its worst year for measles spread in more than three decades, with more than 1,300 cases so far.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention traditionally releases the vaccination coverage data in its flagship publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. CDC officials usually speak to the trends and possible explanations, and stress the importance of vaccinations. This year, the agency quietly posted the data online and — when asked about it — emailed a statement.

“The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. Parents should consult their health care providers on options for their families,” the statement said, adding; “Vaccination remains the most effective way to protect children from serious diseases like measles and whooping cough, which can lead to hospitalization and long-term health complications.”

Public health officials focus on vaccination rates for kindergartners because schools can be cauldrons for germs and launching pads for community outbreaks.

For years, those rates were high, thanks largely to school attendance mandates that required key vaccinations. All U.S. states and territories require that children attending child care centers and schools be vaccinated against a number of diseases, including, measles, mumps, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and chickenpox.

All states allow exemptions for children with medical conditions that prevent them from receiving certain vaccines. And most also permit exemptions for religious or other nonmedical reasons.

In the last decade, the percentage of kindergartners with medical exemptions has held steady, at about 0.2%. But the percentage with nonmedical exemptions has risen.

The rates can be influenced by policies that make it harder or easier to obtain exemptions, and by local attitudes among families and doctors about the need to get children vaccinated. Online misinformation and the political divide that emerged around COVID-19 vaccines have led more parents to question routine childhood vaccinations, experts say.

According to the CDC data, 15.4% of kindergartners had an exemption to one or more vaccines in Idaho in the last school year. But fewer than 0.5% did in Connecticut.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

President Donald Trump rode to reelection last fall on voter concerns about prices. But as his administration pares back federal rules and programs designed to protect patients from the high cost of health care, Trump risks pushing more Americans into debt, further straining family budgets already stressed by medical bills.

Millions of people are expected to lose health insurance in the coming years as a result of the tax cut legislation Trump signed in July, leaving them with fewer protections from large bills if they get sick or suffer an accident.

At the same time, significant increases in health plan premiums on state insurance marketplaces next year will likely push more Americans to either drop coverage or switch to higher-deductible plans that will require them to pay more out-of-pocket before their insurance kicks in.

Smaller changes to federal rules are poised to bump up patients’ bills, as well. New federal guidelines for COVID-19 vaccines, for example, will allow health insurers to stop covering the shots for millions, so if patients want the protection, some may have to pay out-of-pocket.

The new tax cut legislation will also raise the cost of certain doctor visits, requiring copays of up to $35 for some Medicaid enrollees.

And for those who do end up in debt, there will be fewer protections. In July, the Trump administration secured permission from a federal court to roll back regulations that would have removed medical debt from consumer credit reports.

That puts Americans who cannot pay their medical bills at risk of lower credit scores, hindering their ability to get a loan or forcing them to pay higher interest rates.

“For tens of millions of Americans, balancing the budget is like walking a tightrope,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “The Trump administration is just throwing them off.”

White House spokesperson Kush Desai did not respond to questions about how the administration’s health care policies will affect Americans’ medical bills.

The president and his Republican congressional allies have brushed off the health care cuts, including hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid retrenchment in the mammoth tax law. “You won’t even notice it,” Trump said at the White House after the bill signing July 4. “Just waste, fraud, and abuse.”

But consumer and patient advocates around the country warn that the erosion of federal health care protections since Trump took office in January threatens to significantly undermine Americans’ financial security.

“These changes will hit our communities hard,” said Arika Sánchez, who oversees health care policy at the nonprofit New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty.

Sánchez predicted many more people the center works with will end up with medical debt. “When families get stuck with medical debt, it hurts their credit scores, makes it harder to get a car, a home, or even a job,” she said. “Medical debt wrecks people’s lives.”

For Americans with serious illnesses such as cancer, weakened federal protections from medical debt pose yet one more risk, said Elizabeth Darnall, senior director of federal advocacy at the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. “People will not seek out the treatment they need,” she said.

Trump promised a rosier future while campaigning last year, pledging to “make America affordable again” and “expand access to new Affordable Healthcare.”

Polls suggest voters were looking for relief.

About 6 in 10 adults — Democrats and Republicans — say they are worried about being able to afford health care, according to one recent survey, outpacing concerns about the cost of food or housing. And medical debt remains a widespread problem: As many as 100 million adults in the U.S. are burdened by some kind of health care debt.

Despite this, key tools that have helped prevent even more Americans from sinking into debt are now on the chopping block.

Medicaid and other government health insurance programs, in particular, have proved to be a powerful economic backstop for low-income patients and their families, said Kyle Caswell, an economist at the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

Caswell and other researchers found, for example, that Medicaid expansion made possible by the 2010 Affordable Care Act led to measurable declines in medical debt and improvements in consumers’ credit scores in states that implemented the expansion.

“We’ve seen that these programs have a meaningful impact on people’s financial well-being,” Caswell said.

Trump’s tax law — which will slash more than $1 trillion in federal health spending over the next decade, mostly through Medicaid cuts — is expected to leave 10 million more people without health coverage by 2034, according to the latest estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The tax cuts, which primarily benefit wealthy Americans, will add $3.4 trillion to U.S. deficits over a decade, the office calculated.

The number of uninsured could spike further if Trump and his congressional allies don’t renew additional federal subsidies for low- and moderate-income Americans who buy health coverage on state insurance marketplaces.

This aid — enacted under former President Joe Biden — lowers insurance premiums and reduces medical bills enrollees face when they go to the doctor or the hospital. But unless congressional Republicans act, those subsidies will expire later this year, leaving many with bigger bills.

Federal debt regulations developed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under the Biden administration would have protected these people and others if they couldn’t pay their medical bills.

The agency issued rules in January that would have removed medical debts from consumer credit reports. That would have helped an estimated 15 million people.

But the Trump administration chose not to defend the new regulations when they were challenged in court by debt collectors and the credit bureaus, who argued the federal agency had exceeded its authority in issuing the rules. A federal judge in Texas appointed by Trump ruled that the regulation should be scrapped.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is pushing an initiative for millions of Americans to upload personal health data and medical records on new apps and systems run by private tech companies, promising that will make it easier to access health records and monitor wellness.

President Donald Trump is expected to deliver remarks on the initiative Wednesday afternoon in the East Room. The event is expected to involve leaders from more than 60 companies, including major tech companies such as Google and Amazon, as well as prominent hospital systems like the Cleveland Clinic.

The new system will focus on diabetes and weight management, conversational artificial intelligence that helps patients, and digital tools such as QR codes and apps that register patients for check-ins or track medications.

The initiative, spearheaded by an administration that has already freely shared highly personal data about Americans in ways that have tested legal bounds, could put patients’ desires for more convenience at their doctor’s office on a collision course with their expectations that their medical information be kept private.

“There are enormous ethical and legal concerns,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor who specializes in public health. “Patients across America should be very worried that their medical records are going to be used in ways that harm them and their families.”

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who will be in charge of maintaining the system, have said patients will need to opt in for the sharing of their medical records and data, which will be kept secure.

Those officials said patients will benefit from a system that lets them quickly call up their own records without the hallmark difficulties, such as requiring the use of fax machines to share documents, that have prevented them from doing so in the past.

“We have the tools and information available now to empower patients to improve their outcomes and their healthcare experience,” Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for CMS, said in a statement Wednesday.

Popular weight loss and fitness subscription service Noom, which has signed onto the initiative, will be able to pull medical records after the system’s expected launch early next year.

That might include labs or medical tests that the app could use to develop an AI-driven analysis of what might help users lose weight, CEO Geoff Cook told The Associated Press. Apps and health systems will also have access to their competitors’ information, too. Noom would be able to access a person’s data from Apple Health, for example.

“Right now you have a lot of siloed data,” Cook said.

Patients who travel across the country for treatment at the Cleveland Clinic often have a hard time obtaining all their medical records from various providers, said the hospital system’s CEO, Tomislav Mihaljevic. He said the new system would eliminate that barrier, which sometimes delays treatment or prevents doctors from making an accurate diagnosis because they do not have a full view of a patient’s medical history.

Having seamless access to health app data, such as what patients are eating or how much they are exercising, will also help doctors manage obesity and other chronic diseases, Mihaljevic said.

“These apps give us insight about what’s happening with the patient’s health outside of the physician’s office,” he said.

CMS will also recommend a list of apps on Medicare.gov that are designed to help people manage chronic diseases, as well as help them select health care providers and insurance plans.

Digital privacy advocates are skeptical that patients will be able to count on their data being stored securely.

The federal government, however, has done little to regulate health apps or telehealth programs, said Jeffrey Chester at the Center for Digital Democracy.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and those within his circle have pushed for more technology in health care, advocating for wearable devices that monitor wellness and telehealth.

Kennedy also sought to collect more data from Americans’ medical records, which he has previously said he wants to use to study autism and vaccine safety. Kennedy has filled the agency with staffers who have a history of working at or running health technology startups and businesses.

CMS already has troves of information on more than 140 million Americans who enroll in Medicare and Medicaid. Earlier this month, the federal agency agreed to hand over its massive database, including home addresses, to deportation officials.

The new initiative would deepen the pool of information on patients for the federal government and tech companies. Medical records typically contain far more sensitive information, such as doctors’ notes about conversations with patients and substance abuse or mental health history.

“This scheme is an open door for the further use and monetization of sensitive and personal health information,” Chester said.

Colorado had been planning to roll out its continuous coverage initiative on Jan. 1, 2026. But the guidance, which was released earlier this month, now has advocates worried that thousands of young children from low-income families could lose health coverage at a critical time in their development, with downstream effects on schools, hospitals and other institutions.

The Trump administration guidance will affect young children enrolled in Medicaid or Colorado’s Child Health Plan Plus program, or CHP+. Instead of allowing them to stay enrolled in the insurance plans until their third birthday, as Colorado leaders intended, their parents will have to fill out paperwork to reconfirm eligibility every 12 months. If they miss the deadline, skip the paperwork, or their income rises slightly above the government’s low-income threshold, their kids would lose coverage.

During the COVID pandemic, the federal government allowed people on public insurance programs like Medicaid and CHP+ to stay continuously enrolled without having to re-submit paperwork every year. When the pandemic ended, some states, including Colorado, sought federal approval to keep the policy going for certain vulnerable populations.

The Trump administration’s new guidance signals an end to that era.

The guidance emphasizes “fiscal and program integrity” as the rationale for ending continuous eligibility for some groups. It also comes amid a broad federal push to shrink a variety of safety net programs. The recent budget bill that Trump signed into law will make deep cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat who’s running for Colorado governor, cited some of those cuts Tuesday in announcing a federal bill that would provide continuous public health coverage to enrolled children until they turn 6.

“Guaranteed, consistent coverage during a child’s critical stage of development is especially important now, as the Republican ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ will cut $1 trillion from Medicaid and CHIP, increase barriers to coverage … and add unnecessary red tape that will lead to people improperly losing their health care,” he said in a press release.

CHIP is a joint federal and state health insurance program for children who don’t qualify for Medicaid. CHP+ is Colorado’s name for CHIP.

With Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, Bennet’s proposal may be a nonstarter.

Madi Ashour, director of K-12 education policy for the state advocacy group Colorado Children’s Campaign, said one of the biggest problems with the federal restriction on continuous eligibility for young children is that they’ll miss doctor visits that could uncover developmental problems and route them to important therapies.

“If a child is dropped for Medicaid coverage during that crucial 0-3 window, they may miss diagnoses or supports for developmental delays,” she said.

Ashour said Colorado’s continuous coverage initiative for babies and toddlers can be thought of as “a workload reduction effort for kindergarten and elementary teachers.”

“Kids who start preschool or kindergarten with undiagnosed or unaddressed developmental delays are much more likely, obviously, to struggle with early literacy, behavior, or even peer relationships,” she said. “That may require more intensive and costly interventions later in the school system.”

A 2023 Colorado law set the stage for the state’s plan to ensure continuous public health insurance coverage for two groups: young children during the first 36 months of their lives and adults in the first 12 months after release from state prison. The state received permission from the Biden administration in late 2024 to roll out the effort starting in 2026, but that permission needed to be renewed this coming December by the Trump administration. It now appears that won’t happen.

Marc Williams, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, said in an email that plans underway for the Jan. 1 launch are “being urgently pulled back” now.

The department “is analyzing whether it needs to rework legislation and what the fiscal impact may be,” Williams wrote.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters

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Experiments in mice found that genetically modified animals were more likely to have signs of metastatic cancer in their lungs if infected with flu or COVID-19 than engineered mice that researchers didn’t give a virus, said James DeGregori, deputy director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center in Aurora.

That finding launched an international partnership to determine whether the same thing happened in people, he said.

DeGregori was one of the lead investigators, alongside scientists from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Imperial College London, University College London, University of Connecticut, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the COVID-19 International Research Team, based in Massachusetts.

Two datasets, from the United States and the United Kingdom, both showed a higher risk that cancer survivors with confirmed COVID-19 infections would die from metastatic cancer, compared to survivors who didn’t test positive for the virus.

The British data showed people who tested positive had about twice the risk of those who tested negative, and the American data showed about a 44% increased risk, DeGregori said. A significant number of the U.S. patients never got tested for COVID-19, however, so the risk was likely higher because of cancer deaths in people with missed infections, he said.

The American data only included breast cancer survivors, while the British data included people who were in remission from any type of cancer. The risk of death was highest in the months immediately after an infection.

COVID-19 didn’t directly cause the cancer to spread, but created an environment where dormant cells elsewhere in patients’ bodies can wake up, DeGregori said. The body responds to an infection with inflammation to kill the virus, which helps the cancer cells, he said.

“It’s kind of like collateral damage,” he said.

Drugs exist that could block one specific molecule that ramps up inflammation, but they also suppress the immune system, which is a problem when the patient has a serious infection, DeGregori said.

“You have to balance the good it does with the bad it does,” he said.

The researchers didn’t have enough data to know whether people with more-severe cases of COVID-19 were more likely to die from their cancer, DeGregori said. They also couldn’t tell if flu infections had a similar effect, because most people who have the flu don’t seek medical care, he said.

Other questions for future studies include whether the risk is the same for infections with more recent COVID-19 variants and in vaccinated people, and whether other types of infections also can help cancer spread, DeGregori said.

Not all cancer survivors have dormant cells in their bodies, and of those who do, not everyone sees those cells wake up after an infection, DeGregori said. Still, survivors who are worried about their cancer spreading might want to get vaccinated against respiratory diseases and take steps like avoiding sick people, he said.

“We don’t want to scare people, but knowledge is power,” he said. “Anything that could limit the odds of infection should limit the odds of (cancer) awakening.”

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Vukovich first found out the federal government had him listed as dead when his January payment disappeared from his bank account. He notified the Social Security Administration of the mistake, and the problem appeared resolved, but his checks didn’t come through in February or March.

He said he later learned the Department of Government Efficiency had pulled the names of people who had mistakenly been put on the deceased list who were later declared alive, and moved them back onto the deceased list.

“My name appeared as if I had died again,” Vukovich said.

When nothing he did to fix the problem proved successful, Vukovich reached out to the office of U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who represents Aurora. A staff member worked with the local Social Security office, and when that failed, found someone higher up in the agency who could finally get Vukovich off the death list in May.

His checks have arrived on time since then.

The staff member did an “outstanding” job, but “it’s sad that it was her instead of Social Security that got it fixed,” Vukovich said.

The Social Security Administration estimated that fewer than 1% of the roughly 3.1 million death reports it receives annually need corrections. Typically, states report deaths, but some reports come from family members, funeral homes or other agencies.

The agency distributes about $1.3 trillion each year to 59 million retirees who paid into the system.

Vukovich said a person answering the phone for the agency told him the problem most likely resulted from someone entering the wrong Social Security number for a deceased beneficiary.

A Montana woman who read a previous article about Vukovich’s situation told him about a man also named Alexander Vukovich who had recently died, but he doesn’t know if someone could have mixed them up.

Vukovich advised anyone who gets a letter from Social Security that doesn’t make sense to schedule an appointment with their local office, and to bring someone to help keep track of everything the staff says. Even so, fixing mistakes is a challenge when different parts of the agency aren’t on the same page, he said.

“I just dreaded going to the mailbox to see if I’d get another letter,” he said.

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After four hours of public comment and board discussion, the RTD directors voted to send the proposal back to the Operations, Safety and Security committee to hammer out details. A final vote on the issue is expected in September.

The board had in front of it a recommendation from RTD staff to increase the fare for Access-on-Demand rides from no charge to $6.50. RTD subsidies per ride would have been reduced from $25 to $20 under the plan. There would still be a 60 ride-per-month cap in place.

A stream of people with disabilities took to the microphone Tuesday evening and beseeched the RTD board to leave the Access-on-Demand program alone, calling it “life-changing” for those with limited mobility. One speaker said the service, which uses third-party services such as Lyft and Uber to provide rides, has made grocery shopping possible for her, and she asked the board to allow her to live the “same kinds of lives you live.”

During the course of the evening, directors proposed lowering the $6.50 fare to $4.50, and then to $2.50. Dropping the fare by $2 per ride would cost RTD $1.4 million in revenues.

Director JoyAnn Ruscha pushed hard to keep Access-on-Demand service free.

“People will lose jobs; they will lose access,” Ruscha said. “There is a human cost.”

Director Chris Nicholson pointed out that cutting RTD revenues by keeping the service free would result in financial impacts to other parts of the sprawling transit system.

A group of 50 or so people with disabilities gathered in front of RTD’s headquarters building on Blake Street on Tuesday afternoon. One person held a sign reading: “Our Mobility is Not Optional.” Another read: “We Can’t Drive — Don’t Cut Our Rides.”

Dave Bahr, who is blind and lives in Louisville, said he relies on Access-on-Demand to visit his girlfriend Chelsea Cook, who lives in Littleton and is also blind.

“It is literally our lifeline,” Bahr said. “It makes my relationship with Chelsea possible.”

Cook, who uses Access-on-Demand for such travel as getting to work or rock climbing outings, said Access-on-Demand is far more convenient and efficient than Access-a-Ride.

“You can be on that little bus for four hours,” she said of Access-a-Ride.

Bahr said being able to travel in a regular vehicle rather than on a specially equipped bus makes him “feel human.”

“It is my lifeline to where I go and who I see,” he said of Access-on-Demand.

Disability activists have a long history — stretching back to the 1970s — of fighting for services and accommodations from RTD.

In 1997, the agency added the “paratransit” minibus service, called Access-a-Ride, for people who, because of disabilities, cannot use buses or light rail trains. The minibuses require day-before reservations (standard fare $4.50) and cost RTD more than $60 per trip. Riders complain that they fail to reach their destinations on time.

The Access-a-Ride service complies with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Five years ago, RTD leaders launched the Access-on-Demand, one of the first comprehensive programs in the nation to provide taxpayer-funded commercial ride-hail service for people with disabilities. It gives qualified riders up to 60 rides a month to locations they choose using Uber, Lyft or Metro Taxi.

RTD pays up to $25 per ride, which typically covers riders’ costs (the average ride cost is $16).

Hours and range of coverage for Access-on-Demand would “mirror” that of Access-a-Ride.

In metro Denver, riders with disabilities have embraced Access-On-Demand. The number of rides they took increased tenfold, from 6,250 a month in January 2021 to more than 62,750 a month, agency records show.

RTD’s monthly cost for Access-on-Demand has ballooned to more than $1 million. Agency managers recently told the board of directors that the program isn’t financially sustainable. RTD projects that the recommended changes would shave about $5.6 million off the $15 million price tag — or about 36% — needed to run the program.

Brian Grewe is executive director of Atlantis Community Inc., a Denver-based nonprofit that helps people with disabilities to live independently. He said he would like to see more emphasis put on building out the Access-on-Demand service over the Access-a-Ride program.

“AoD serves more people and costs less money,” Grewe said.

Inside the hearing room, Grewe told the board that $6.50 per ride doesn’t sound like much in isolation. But that cost is for just “one ride, one location” and that the total quickly adds up across multiple trips, he said.

In other business Tuesday, the RTD board voted unanimously to rename Civic Center Station after Wade Blank, a disability activist who was at the forefront of a movement in 1978 in which people with disabilities blocked downtown Denver streets to demand greater accommodations on RTD buses.

The station will be renamed the Wade Blank Civic Center Station in January. Blank co-founded Atlantis Community Inc.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health officials are warning Americans about the risks of an opioid-related ingredient increasingly added to energy drinks, gummies and supplements sold at gas stations and convenience stores, recommending a nationwide ban.

The chemical, known as 7- hydroxymitragynine, is a component of kratom, a plant native to Southeast Asia that has gained popularity in the U.S. as an unapproved treatment for pain, anxiety and drug dependence.

In recent months, dietary supplement companies that sell kratom have been urging the Food and Drug Administration to crack down on the products containing 7-OH, portraying it as a dangerously concentrated, synthetic form of the original ingredient.

The FDA action “is not focused on natural kratom leaf products,” according to a statement Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The agency said it was releasing a report to educate about the risks of “7-OH and its distinction from the kratom plant leaf.” Regulators are also recommending that the ingredient be placed on the federal government’s most restrictive list of illegal drugs, which includes LSD and heroin.

“7-OH is an opioid that can be more potent than morphine,” said FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. “We need regulation and public education to prevent another wave of the opioid epidemic.”

The agency’s recommendation will be reviewed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which sets federal rules for high-risk drugs including prescription medicines and illicit substances. A national ban wouldn’t take effect until the agency drafts and finalizes new rules governing the ingredient.

Federal regulators have been scrutinizing kratom for about a decade after reports of addiction, injury and overdose. But users and distributors have long opposed efforts to regulate it, saying kratom could be a safer alternative to opioid painkillers that sparked the ongoing drug addiction epidemic.

Last month, the FDA issued warning letters to seven companies selling drinks, gummies and powders infused with 7-OH. Regulators said the products violated FDA rules because they have not been evaluated for safety and, in some cases, claimed to treat medical conditions, including pain, arthritis and anxiety.

Supplement executives quickly applauded the move.

The FDA “demonstrated the exact kind of data-driven, proactive regulatory excellence needed to safeguard unwitting consumers across the U.S.,” said Ryan Niddel of Diversified Botanics, a Utah-based company that sells kratom supplements.

An industry group, the American Kratom Association, has lobbied Congress for years against restrictions on the plant. Legislation supported by the group would prohibit the FDA from regulating kratom more strictly than food and dietary supplements.

In recent years, the association has lobbied at the state level for bills that limit synthetic 7-OH products.

On Tuesday, a rival group that supports the availability of 7-OH drugs criticized the government’s move, pointing to the influence of kratom suppliers.

“Big kratom trade groups have spent years blaming 7-OH for harms caused by their own unregulated products, because it threatens their market share,” the Holistic Alternative Recovery Trust stated in an emailed message.

Nearly a decade ago, the federal government came close to banning kratom.

In 2016, the DEA announced plans to add it to the government’s most restrictive schedule 1, reserved for drugs that have no medical use and a high potential for abuse. But the plan stalled after a flood of public complaints, including a letter signed by more than 60 members of Congress.

The FDA then began studying the ingredient, concluding in 2018 that kratom contains many of the same chemicals as opioids, the addictive class of drugs that includes painkillers like OxyContin as well as heroin and fentanyl.

Since then, FDA regulators have continued to issue warnings about cases of injury, addiction and death with kratom supplements, which are usually sold in capsules or powders.

In recent months, the FDA has also issued warnings on other unapproved drugs sold as supplements or energy drinks, including the antidepressant tianeptine. Sometimes referred to collectively as “gas station heroin,” the drugs have been restricted by several states, but they are not scheduled at the federal level.

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