In other health news, researchers at the University of Kentucky are studying the short term and long term health effects of the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

They received almost $2 million through the National Institutes of Health to continue the research.

So in looking at the portfolio of what was needed, I would only want we would want to contribute to a gap, an area that wasn't being met.

And one of the big areas that wasn't being met, we saw and heard from the community was information and just information about what these chemicals were.

How could they measure them in their bodies, what the health effects might be.

So when we saw that gap, we we created an online survey that anyone could respond to and participate in that would allow the community to begin the process of tracking the experi audiences and the health symptoms that they had, the chemicals that they were exposed to, final chloride, acrylate.

They cause I nose, irritation, throat irritation.

And that's exactly what we saw.

Now, what are the long term?

These chemicals, even a mixture could cause long term chronic health outcomes.

And not many research studies are available for us to identify and say this is exactly what to expect.

So we're keeping an open mind and an open ear to the community as we hear about symptoms that they're experiencing.

These chemicals could cause cancer.

That's a possibility.

And we're tracking that these chemicals and then our one of our studies, included measures of immune function, which is your body's ability to respond to infection.

It also indicates, stress and tissue repair.

We do see signs of the body's response to, you know, increased levels for tissue repair and a different immune, response.

So we, we know that the immune system can affect every organ in the body.

We did measure stress in the, in our cohort, in our population.

And they are they are screening very, you know, quite high for, post-traumatic stress disorder.

So we, we plan to measure, impacts on heart.

We are going to also measure the impacts on lung.

We want to look at their respiratory function and how well their lungs work.

So the lung the long term goal is, is truly go back and answer the community's questions.

And that that is did their exposure did being near the the derailment near that vent in barn where vinyl chloride was being or, you know, let out into the drainage ditches and then burned.

Did that exposure caused them any long term health consequences?

And we want to answer to help them answer that question.

Scientists at UK are partnering with the experts at the University of Pittsburgh and Yale University for the study.