Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.

Louisiana's latest maternal health report card reveals alarming gaps in care.

We'll look at how the state hopes to improve.

And a tiny farm in Louisiana is growing big produce.

We'll stop by mushroom Maggie's.

Farm, and we'll check out a first of its kind cancer treatment, now available in Louisiana.

Plus, southern University's Alvin Bates Jazz Institute is creating the next generation of superstars.

Let's get started.

Let's get to it.

Hi, everyone.

I'm Christina Jensen.

And I'm Johnnie Atkins and much more on those top stories in a moment on this week's edition of Louisiana, The State We're In.

But first, a new report card gives Louisiana troubling grades when it comes to protecting mothers.

It shows high death rates, racial disparities, and gaps in care before and after childbirth.

I dug into the report, and there are new programs aimed at turning those grades around.

Louisiana's mothers and babies face some of the toughest health outcomes in the nation.

Last year, more than 7400 babies were born prematurely, giving the state a preterm birth grade of F. And the latest March of Dimes report ranking 51st out of 52.

The report also highlights disparities by race, ethnicity and insurance time, showing how systemic inequities affect who gets care.

Doctor Robert Moore, a maternal fetal medicine physician at Woman's Hospital, says the solutions start long before birth.

When you look at the overall report, the country itself gets a D plus.

That's not good.

And a lot of that drivers the same problems that we're having a state is there having across the country.

And we need to focus on trying to get people healthier before they get pregnant.

We've got to focus on obesity.

We got to focus on high blood pressure.

We got to focus on diabetes.

At woman's, a team of doctors who specialize in high risk pregnancies traveled to smaller towns across Louisiana, providing care to patients with complex medical needs.

We will go to Monroe.

We will go to Lake Charles.

We will go to Hammond.

We will go to Thibodaux, and we will take care of these patients that have all these complex medical problems.

In an effort to get them the best pregnancy outcomes.

When you look at the data from 2018 to now, the biggest reason that women die within the first year of life is an accidental overdose and suicide.

So we've built what's called the perinatal mental health unit, and its job is to take care of pregnant women and postpartum women that have behavioral health issues.

As hospitals expand services for high risk mothers, including mental health care, the growing threat of substance use has spurred urgent statewide action.

The Louisiana Department of Health launched Project Mom maternal overdose mortality with an aggressive goal to reduce pregnancy associated overdose deaths by 80% within three years.

Women that die within a year from giving birth.

The number one reason it's not car accidents, homicide.

It's accidental overdose.

And not by a little bit.

It's by a lot.

Now, hospitals across the state are putting that plan into action.

Programs at women's working alongside Project Mom are already helping mothers get the care they need.

With Project Mom, a program that was developed by the Department of Health where we, do medication assisted treatment in emergency rooms and in prenatal clinics, along with our Grace program that does care navigation for moms with misuse disorder allow moms to have a network of support to help them through recovery.

Community organizations are also stepping in.

Mary's Hands Network provides doula support and maternal health education to families most at risk.

A doula offers non-medical support before, during, and after birth.

Studies show it can improve outcomes for both moms and babies.

Doula care is associated with a decreased cesarean section rate by almost 40%.

You see an increase in initial breastfeeding.

We also see these great outcomes in our newborns.

So moms with doula care often have fewer preterm births.

They have heavier babies.

So we're seeing less low birth weight infants, which is one of the things Louisiana really struggles with.

The majority of the women we serve, our services are free.

So it's doula services for all and all can be a doula.

The majority of our clients are on Medicaid, and the majority of our clients are also identifying as African American, Latino, or some other minority.

At women's hospital, leaders say doulas are helping bridge the gap between medical care and community support, working alongside organizations like Mary's Hand's network.

They have the ability to pair a mom with 2 to 3 doulas.

And the thing that I really like about their program is that they're all trained by internationally childbirth educators Association, and that's a very rigorous program.

I myself went through that program many, many, many years ago, early on in my career.

So I really understand how rigorous that program is.

And they provide a great support to our moms, from doula care to behavioral health services.

These programs are working together to improve maternal outcomes.

Louisiana health leaders say supporting mothers takes a full circle approach addressing physical, mental and substance use needs before and after birth.

When we empower moms, we transform families, strengthen communities, and change the world.

One healthy baby at a time.

Well, sports correspondent Victor How is taking the week off?

So instead of game notes, we're going to check out what's trending this week.

Yeah, there are a lot of topics we need to talk about.

First we're going to get to those Amazon data centers.

There's three of them coming to northwest Louisiana in the Shreveport area.

The governor making the announcement earlier this week.

Yeah, this is big news because these are some of the biggest facilities in Louisiana history.

And they're going to be spending $12 billion on development.

We saw that there's other AI data centers popping up in Saint Francisville and also in northern Louisiana in Richland Parish.

Yeah, some people are worried that their utility bills will be going up and Landrieu says it won't be impacted.

Yeah.

He said a company is going to invest about $400 million into the water infrastructure.

So he hopes that that's going to keep those utility bills down.

Other news wildfires are big this week.

Seems like it's been nice with the lack of rain, but it's really dangerous a lot of places.

Yeah, some of these images are just shocking to see Johnny of Fire crews battling over 40 wildfires over the weekend, a majority of them popping up on Sunday, one burning over 400 acres and causing AI 12 to shut down for several hours.

Yeah, so far no one has been injured or killed and buildings have been burned down.

But it is very dangerous.

Yeah.

And again, burn bans have been put in place.

Ascension and both Livingston parishes saw some fires pop up yesterday.

And they are controlled now.

Yeah.

Even throwing a cigaret out the window can be very dangerous cause a lot of damage.

Yeah, it is true.

And now let's talk about weather in the northeast.

A lot of those states were at a standstill earlier this week dealing with so much snow for a winter blizzard.

Yeah, last year we had snow in Louisiana up to ten inches in some parts.

We're talking about 20 to 30in.

Yeah, like you said, New York seeing 20in of snow, Rhode Island seeing 30in.

Even the Broadway theaters were closed.

And of course, travel created a travel nightmare.

New York's a major hub for domestic and international travelers.

And those flights were canceled.

Yeah, luckily, the winter is ending.

We're getting a little warmer now.

Go into spring.

Also in the news, Mondo Duplantis.

Now he's a guy from Louisiana who is setting records and pole vaulting.

Pretty amazing.

Yeah, not only is he a pole vaulter, but he has now become a pop star.

Let's take a listen to his single.

Cause I think I need something.

Deep that is you running.

I feel, I feel it coming a mile away I need, I need a socket.

Keep that in your.

Well, it sounds like a catchy tune.

You know, and that was, not his first single.

He has had two other singles, on the Swedish top charts.

One of them, ranking 31.

Yeah.

And, I mean, he's still setting records.

Pretty amazing.

12 pole vaulting records.

And every time he competes, he wins.

I just never seen anything like it.

And Johnny, I heard behind the scenes that you also, dabble in a little bit of pole vaulting.

Yeah, that I was all into the Olympics in 1976.

I built a pole vaulting set in my backyard with mattresses and bamboo poles.

I was really into it, man.

You can do everything.

Play the guitar.

Pole vault.

Let's go.

Next.

I even set a record at Catholic High, which was only recently broken.

And in other news, a family farm in Saint Francisville is growing, something that you don't often associate with Louisiana gourmet mushrooms.

The specialty products have drawn the attention of chefs and foodies across the state.

I'm taking you inside mushroom McGee's to see how they cultivate their favorite fungi.

It's not your typical Louisiana farm.

There's no tractors, and they're not dependent on the Louisiana rain and the Louisiana sunshine.

So welcome to Mushroom Farm.

Maggie Long and husband Cyrus Lester are two prolific fungi producers in Louisiana, growing 8 to 15 varieties of mushrooms throughout the year.

We started just by researching farms in like, different crops that we could grow, and without having land, without having money, without having lots of stuff.

And then we came across mushrooms.

Unlike traditional Louisiana crops of sugarcane, soybeans, rice, mushrooms require minimal space to grow, making them a perfect fit for a family.

Small plot of land China is the world's leading producer of mushrooms, and in the United States, Pennsylvania grows roughly 66% of the country's supply.

And Louisiana.

There were only a few small farms growing mushrooms, so Maggie and Cyrus took that big step, creating an indoor mushroom farm in Louisiana.

How does it all start?

So basically what we do is we take hardwood sawdust from a local sawmill right down the road, and we mix it with, soybean flake pellet.

The soil base is then sterilized before the colonizing begins.

So this is the colonization room?

That's correct.

So after the fruiting blocks leave the lab, we bring them in here to sit for between ten days to two months, depending on the variety.

Samples are then cut into wedges and put into a sterilized, hydrated grain, where it grows into fully shaped mushrooms with no waste.

We use agricultural by waste product.

So the waste from the sawmill like we go and we get and we grow our mushrooms on it.

And so we're trying to be sustainable in this in the sense of getting sourcing stuff locally, but also really using every part in everything we have.

Yeah.

Mushroom Maggies is now recognized as one of the biggest and most prominent mushroom farms in Louisiana, producing around 1,500 pounds of specialty mushrooms each week.

One day Maggie was like, start a farm with me.

And well, we didn't have any money.

You know, we're very poor, we don't have any land.

And I was just like, what are we going to grow?

So you did some research and thought mushrooms investing for Louisiana?

Yeah.

Because nobody was doing it here and nobody in.

Nobody really knew about mushrooms.

We spent the first two years that we started selling, just educating people about mushrooms.

It was the second most profitable cash crop in the country, and we could grow it year round.

So the couple experimented with growing their own mushrooms and were ready to go to market when tragedy struck.

We had a faulty propane hose that kind of blew, and I was right next to it.

A hole blew in it and we had two five foot tall full propane tanks that the valves blew and the whole barn burned down.

Like the week we were about to start selling.

Mushroom, Maggie's first yield of fresh crops, along with a barn that they'd set up, were completely destroyed.

And it was super traumatic because we just spent a year, like all of our money, on working 40 hours a week at work and then coming here working 40, 50, 60 hours a week after work.

The couple wanted to give up, but friends, family and social media were filled with support.

So the rally demoed the barn and started rebuilding.

It's actually a blessing in disguise because we didn't know what we were doing when we first set up the facility.

We, Maggie and I have never worked on a farm before.

We'd never grown mushrooms before.

We had zero experience.

The couple did some research and made improvements to their new facility, with climate controlled rooms and recycled equipment, including tables and dishwashing lines and custom welded shelves perfect for raising mushrooms.

The first time it had it not burned down, we would have had so much contamination issues that we might have not been able to, like, prosper.

Was started as a simple hobby ten years ago, has now mushroomed into a massive farm, shipping out thousands of pounds of mushrooms each week.

So we have all these available at the Saturday Farmer's Market, and we usually just have a display out and then we'll have them bagged up, closed up, ready to go or we'll bag it for you.

Mushroom Maggie sells its product to some of the state's top restaurants and at farmers markets, where they sell out almost every week.

The couple admits they didn't even like mushrooms at first, and now realize they can be used to make recipes not only tastier, but healthier.

It's just for the quality of the mushrooms.

They they look nice, they taste good.

They buy handled really well.

Everything's put together very nicely.

You can take lion's mane and you can put it in gumbo and.

Change the whole dynamic of that thing.

I've come to love mushrooms like and even eat supreme pizzas.

Now.

So Maggie and Cyrus have now spent the last decade turning that tragic fire into a successful Louisiana farm, selling the ever growing Maggie's mushrooms.

Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center has become the first facility in the region to offer a new blood cancer treatment in an outpatient setting, allowing patients to receive care while staying at home.

The treatment, called car T cell therapy, uses a patient's own immune system to destroy cancer cells, and experts say it's changing the future of cancer care.

Joining me now is Doctor Andrew Dell, CEO.

Doctor, thank you so much for joining us.

Happy to be here.

So Mary Bird Perkins is the first hospital in the region to offer fully outpatient Car-T therapy for select blood cancers.

First of all, for people out there, what is Car-T therapy?

Sure.

So so Car-T therapy actually stands for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.

So it's a mouthful.

But essentially what this is is we're able to extract a certain type of white blood cell from a patient, through an IV and a simple procedure and a machine, we're able to send those white blood cells to a laboratory where they're engineered them, to attack cancer cells and replicate them, and they send them back to us, and we're actually able to infuse them into a patient.

So these are actually kind of living drugs, and are kind of a testament to what we're really moving towards in oncology, which is a world, you know, kind of after chemotherapy.

Being the first fully outpatient program.

Why is this significant to patients?

So Car-T therapy, it's been around for about a decade.

But really had, been limited to kind of large urban areas, large academic centers, the places where they had initially done these clinical trials.

And so what we know is that, a majority or significant portion of patients up to 1 in 5 who needed these drugs, which can be curative, we're not able to get them due to proximity to their home, you know, their inability to have a caretaker.

So we're doing an outpatient Car-T, allows us to do is be able to administer this treatment to patients close to home, where they can go home, at the end of the day, and be with their family, friends, pets and those types of things.

And so, really, this allows us a, a, an opportunity to expand this access to this treatment that they otherwise wouldn't have.

So usually if they were to stay in the hospital, how long would the process take.

In general, were patients admitted for this procedure?

They're in the hospital generally from anywhere from 10 to 14 days.

If they're having any complications, it can extend out beyond that.

And so obviously, you know, that might a time away from your family can, can be pretty significant.

Are there, side effects that you guys have to watch for?

Yes.

So, so, one of the reasons that the patients are actually watched in the hospital this first week or two is because, of there's a couple, kind of side effects.

We refer to them as cytokine release syndrome or ICANN's, which are, complications.

And it can occur as we've gotten to understand why they occur, how to treat them, and how to prevent them.

We've gotten to the point where we can actually offer this outpatient with close monitoring medications to help prevent the complication.

And so really, I think, you know, as we we've gotten more comfortable using these, these treatments, what we've been able to kind of roll out this outpatient process.

Would you say this is a medical breakthrough?

I mean, this is pretty significant.

Yeah.

No, it is.

I mean, you know, these treatments are not just, hey, we can give these to you and it can extend your life for a few months.

These are actually curing, a lot of blood cancers.

And so we were literally, you know, patients that were going on to hospice are now actually having a curative option, in a lot of cases.

And interestingly, these are starting to move their way up into the first treatment patients get for their cancer.

And so, really, you know, we're we're seeing potential, you know, again, this kind of post chemotherapy world, we talk about where we won't be patient, won't need chemo like they used to.

What's your role in all of this?

Yep.

So, my my official title is the medical director of our cellular therapy program.

And so, to, to bring these treatments on, you do have to have some experience with them, obviously, because they do have unique side effects and, things need to look out for.

And so I was brought on the Mary Bird about a year ago with one of the express goals of bringing Car-T.

I think Mary Bird was very good in recognizing that that these, these treatments are really kind of where the cancer world is going.

And so bringing that program here to Mary Bird was important.

And, you know, these drugs are moving their way into other cancers, like solid tumor cancers, like lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, brain cancer.

They've already been studied in autoimmune diseases like lupus, multiple sclerosis.

And so really, you know, this type of cellular Car-T therapy is really starting to expand in the different fields.

And I think, you know, again, the ability for this to benefit a lot of people is, is amazing.

Was there a clinical study done?

Yes.

Yeah.

So basically all drugs that are FDA approved and a lot of these Car-T drugs are FDA approved had to go through rigorous clinical trial testing.

You know, often phase one, phase two, phase three.

And so these drugs have been around, like I said, for a decade, but before they've really been accessible.

They do have to go through these kind of robust clinical trials and FDA approvals.

So talk to me about how this having a fully outpatient Car-T therapy program fits into the overall vision of the cancer center.

Sure, sure.

So I think, you know, when we look at the Mary Bird's mission, which is, you know, lessening the burden of cancer, I think one of the big burdens we talk about is not so much just the physical side of things, but also kind of the emotional side of things, of being away from your family, your loved one, your pets, your your you know, your home.

And so being able to offer this treatment in a setting where patients can go home at the end of the day, you know, really I think does a huge thing for just psychological, you know, benefit and really healing, and allowing the patient's family to be around them and support them.

Yeah, it sounds great.

Is there anything else you would like to add that I haven't asked you that you want people out there today?

Our goal is to be able to offer this to all patients going through Car-T.

We do know that there are some risk factors to having severe complications in that initial phase.

So some patients, we may decide it's safer to administer the Car-T in the clinic and then admit them after.

There are some criteria that are going to have to be met, that we, you know, feel that comfortable.

We can safely do this.

Patients do need to have, support structure around them.

And that includes somebody called a caretaker.

That can really kind of be with them kind of 24 over seven in that in that couple weeks after the Car-T to help, you know, notify the care team if they're having a bad side effect or complication, help them with their medications getting to and from appointments.

And so there are some, some requirements that have to be met before we can offer this to a patient.

But but fortunately, a lot of patients are going to be able to, to, to go through with that in the outpatient setting.

Well, it sounds like a great medical achievement.

Yes.

Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah.

At Southern University, a legendary program shapes the next generation of jazz greats.

The album, British Jazz Institute was created to expose HBCU students to the art of jazz, and its alumni have performed alongside a huge list of music icons.

Here's a sneak peek at LP's new short film, Bayou Magic.

We have an absolutely fantastic show of music prepared for you this afternoon.

Put your hands together for our Master of Ceremonies, Mister John Diggs.

You.

Welcome to the second annual jazz concert Series, presented to you by the Alvin Batts East Jazz Institute.

Also known as the Jazz Ensemble.

Founded in 1969 by the renowned clarinetist Mr.

Alvin Bettis, it was to establish and introduce jazz to HBCU students.

Its alumni have gone on to perform with jazz luminaries such as Wynton Marsalis, Russell Malone, Reginald Vail.

West warmed Eddie Anderson, Ellis Marsalis, and Ed Blackwell.

And.

In my opinion, as I do this work, co-leading the jazz program here and developing students, I think about where when I want to see these kids in 4 to 5 years because you see the jazz music or R&B music or any music is expression.

There is no book for this, so you have to create the space for the students to be expressive.

And that's what Mr.

Baird did.

He wanted you to be who you are, but put the work in and find and develop your sound, because everybody's got their sound, whether they're vocalists on instrumentalists or a percussion player or a pianist is up to you to develop it.

I'll play two and two, three and four.

Oh oh, the, the, the, Okay.

Alvin Baptiste is back after three years of retirement from teaching.

The man who has trained and influenced.

Some of the most brilliant.

Classical and jazz musicians in the music world, is back.

In the classroom at Southern.

University.

In Baton Rouge.

In 1986, I guess it was, by then I had three albums out.

We had gone, a whole generation of new musicians in New Orleans.

The industry was responding to South Louisiana music, extensively.

That was an extremely beautiful human being.

So, you know, I wasn't just being mentored by by anybody, but by somebody who not just was a great musician, but who was an incredible human being.

There were people that used to just come.

And just hang out here, just because he was here.

I miss the Dizzy Gillespie days.

I was like, oh man, I wish I would have been around for that better.

Hey.

All right.

But things have.

That he had the jazz ensemble, which consisted of enrolled students and what have you.

But he also included faculty, lots of his alumni, people who studied with him to come back to.

So a lot of these big, heavy hitters, you're rolling air, as was Al Anderson's Mark Gulley, Edwin Livingston, folks who were out there doing it professionally, they would actually come back to play in the jazz ensemble.

And that would give us a whole big man.

So I learned a lot from Mr.

Bat about music and about jazz and about life.

He wanted to see students flourish, and he wanted to see them get it.

And he made this environment conducive so we could do that.

Jazz is just like life once it passed.

That's it.

The beautiful things ahead.

Okay.

When jazz program started back in the 1960s with Donald Byrd and with the album Bad Taste, there was the first two people that actually was instrumental in terms of having a specific social, codified jazz education curriculum at HBCUs in the country, and they was regarded as one of the top jazz bands in the nation.

You know, one of the great things about him.

What made him.

Such a great teacher was he was someone that could assess really, really quickly.

Your weaknesses, and he would address those weaknesses with a great sense of humor.

Okay, now you have to learn your bridge, right?

You see, we can't do what we're doing if you don't know the melody, right?

Okay.

So you don't have to learn it, Melvin.

But I like the way you play the melody.

You made it fit your personality and your capability at this particular time.

Okay, so now you have two ways to do it.

The way you just playing it and the way that it's written.

I would say that his influence is still being felt today.

He wanted you to manifest a musical personality.

He said, nobody can beat you being you.

And you guys are playing very correctly.

But play, write, Express something.

I don't care if you make a few mistakes.

Let's go try something once you got it.

Hey!

It looks like a great film.

And the full version of Bayou Magic is coming soon to the HBCU Week Now YouTube channel.

While you're there, you can also check out other stories highlighting the country's historically black colleges and universities.

Well, that is our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB, any time, wherever you are with our LPB app.

And you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs that you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram.

For everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Christina Jensen.

And I'm Johnny Adkins.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana.

And by Visit Baton Rouge.

And the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.