A white New Jersey couple who had a daughter through IVF were stunned when the baby developed “Asian features” — and a DNA test proved the husband was not the father, according to their lawsuit against the clinic.

Kristina Koedderich and Drew Wasilewski, who are now divorced, went to the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science at Saint Barnabas in 2012 and spent $500,000 for treatment, according to the court papers filed in Essex County Superior Court.

Their daughter was born in 2013 and “a couple years later, they noticed the baby started having Asian features,” the couple’s attorney David Mazie of Mazie, Slater, Katz & Freeman, told The Post.

A DNA test in 2015 confirmed that there was “0% probability” that Drew, 49, was his daughter’s biological father, according to the suit.

The clinic’s negligence caused “the breakdown of the marriage between Kristina and Drew Wasilewski,” claims the suit.

Superior Court Judge Keith Lynott last month ordered the clinic to hand over a list of men who donated sperm around the same time the couple used the facility — in the hopes of narrowing down who the girl’s biological father is.

The parents want to know whose sperm was used so they can learn about their now-6-year-old daughter’s genetic history — and in case she wants to have a relationship with her biological dad in the future.

“They love her very much, but it’s a very sensitive and very stressful situation for them,” Mazie said.

They also want to know if Drew’s semen was used for someone else’s IVF treatment.

The couple is seeking unspecified monetary damages, saying the clinic’s mistake caused “great pain, suffering, permanent injuries and disabilities, as well as the loss of enjoyment of the quality of life.”

A spokesperson for Saint Barnabas Medical Center told Patch they don’t comment on litigation matters.

Last month, an Ohio couple who also went through IVF treatment filed a lawsuit claiming their clinic used a stranger’s sperm to father their now-24-year-old daughter.

via: http:// https://nypost.com/2019/09/11/white-couple-gave-birth-to-asian-daughter-after-fertility-clinic-mishap/

Photo Credit: Facebook

Two day care workers in Ohio have been arrested after they were caught on video doing nothing as older students bullied and assaulted a “frightened” 5-year-old girl, police said.

Video footage obtained by detectives in Columbus showed Joshua Tennant, 27, and Emma Dietrich, 31, making no attempt to stop several kids from taunting the girl at the Worthington Learning Center on Aug. 13, police said.

The pair was busted Tuesday on misdemeanor counts of child endangerment — after admitting they refused to stop the attack as a twisted form of discipline, according to court documents cited by WCMH.

“In the video, the older students are grabbing, pulling, dragging, swinging and just ‘bullying’ [the girl],” police said in an incident report. “She appears frightened and keeps her eyes closed or covered and attempts to curl up into a fetal position.”

The girl then tried to get away from the older students, but she was held down. As the bullying continued, police said Dietrich and Tennant “continually” sat at a table nearby and took no steps to stop the onslaught.

Later in the footage, Tennant picked up the 5-year-old girl by her right ankle and left leg and carried her upside down, placing her back on a rug near her tormentors, police said.

The owner of the day care center said she was “heartbroken” by what she saw on the video and immediately fired Dietrich and Tennant, both of Columbus, after seeing the footage, WBNS reported. The video was sent to child welfare investigators.

Several parents, meanwhile, told the station Tennant had been wonderful with their children and that they never suspected any problems at the family-operated facility. Some parents plan to remove their children after the arrests, WCMH reported.

via: https://nypost.com/2019/09/11/day-care-workers-did-nothing-as-kids-bullied-5-year-old-girl-cops/

Photo Credit: Franklin County Jail

NEW YORK — Taco Bell is debuting a vegetarian section on its newly redesigned menu, which also includes two new items.

Beginning Thursday, the fast food chain will offer two new vegetarian items: a Black Bean Crunchwrap Supreme and a Black Bean Quesarito. Those are in addition to its two other existing vegetarian options that will be displayed prominently in a new “Vegetarian Favorites” menu.

With customers becoming more health conscious, the changes makes it easier for vegetarians to see their options, the Yum Brands-owned company previously explained

The nationwide expansion of the new menu items to Taco Bell’s 7,000 US restaurants comes after a test earlier this year. It’s also planning a new advertising campaign to promote the new section.

In total, there are more than a dozen vegetarian items on Taco Bell’s menu. They will feature a new green emblem that shows off Taco Bell’s American Vegetarian Association certification. It be came the first and only quick service chain to receive the certification in 2015.

Taco Bell emphasized that non-vegetarian items can be made vegetarian by substituting beans for meat. The chain said that its menu items “can be customized more than 8 million ways” to fit a vegetarian diet.

Noticeably absent from the menu are any products featuring alternative meats from Impossible or Beyond Meat. KFC, which is also owned by Yum Brands, tested out a Beyond Meat’s new plant-based chicken in Georgia.

Plant-based meat alternatives have grown popular in supermarkets and restaurants across the world, as people search for environmentally friendly and healthier foods to eat. Taco Bell said in a release said it plans to “further innovate in this growing space.”

Other companies are trying to capitalize on diet-based resolutions. Chipotle launched “lifestyle bowls,” a new collection of meals that fit into paleo, ketogenic and Whole30 diets.

Burger King began selling the Impossible Whopper, featuring a meatless patty, nationwide in August. Perhaps encroaching on Taco Bell’s territory, Burger King is also selling $1 tacos.

via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/11/taco-bell-now-has-a-vegetarian-menu/

Photo Credit: pix11.com

Adam Hergenreder’s vaping habit almost killed him.

Late last month, the 18-year-old student athlete in Gurnee, Illinois, was hospitalized after using e-cigarettes for more than a year and a half. Now his lungs are similar to those of a 70-year-old adult, doctors told him.

“It was scary to think about that — that little device did that to my lungs,” Adam said, remembering the news from his doctors about his lung health.

Adam is among the hundreds of e-cigarette users in the United States who have been sickened with mysterious vaping-related lung illnesses, many of them young people. Investigators haven’t yet identified the cause of the illnesses.

Amid calls for more regulation, the Trump administration now plans to remove flavored e-cigarettes — except tobacco flavor — from the marketplace.

“Why is that important? We are seeing an absolute surge in high school and middle school kids using these flavored products,” US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in a video statement on Wednesday. “Mint, menthol, fruit flavor, alcohol flavor, bubble gum.”

The US Food and Drug Administration announced on Wednesday that more than a quarter of high school students this year have reported using e-cigarettes and the “overwhelming majority” reference using popular fruit and menthol or mint flavors, according to preliminary data from the National Youth Tobacco Survey.

Adam said he isn’t sure his lungs will ever be back at 100% — and he worries whether he will ever be able to wrestle again.

“I was a varsity wrestler before this and I might not ever be able to wrestle because that’s a very physical sport and my lungs might not be able to hold that exertion. … It’s sad,” Adam said.

‘We must act swiftly’
There are more than 450 possible cases of lung illness associated with using e-cigarettes across the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has called this an “outbreak.”

Health officials have also confirmed six deaths — in California, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Oregon and Kansas — in connection to vaping-related lung illnesses.

While the illnesses and deaths have occurred in both young people and older adults, experts have warned of a rise in vaping among youth.

“We must act swiftly against flavored e-cigarette products that are especially attractive to children,” Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Ned Sharpless said in the announcement, adding that the FDA will take additional steps to address youth use of tobacco-flavored products still on the market, if young people begin to use them.

“The tremendous progress we’ve made in reducing youth tobacco use in the US is jeopardized by this onslaught of e-cigarette use. Nobody wants to see children becoming addicted to nicotine, and we will continue to use the full scope of our regulatory authority thoughtfully and thoroughly to tackle this mounting public health crisis.”

Separate surveys also suggest that most teens think e-cigarettes are safe.

Adam certainly thought vaping was safe when he started using e-cigarettes, he said. One of his favorite flavors was mango.

‘It tasted good and it gave a little head high’
“I first started vaping just to fit in, because everyone else was doing it,” Adam said, adding that the flavors appealed to him, especially mango.

“It didn’t taste like a cigarette,” he said. “It tasted good,” and provided a little buzz due to the nicotine.

The vaping began about a year and a half ago, he said, and he would pick up e-cigarette products, such as those of the Juul brand, from his neighborhood gas station.

“They didn’t card me,” he said.

“He would wake up in the morning and would puff on that Juul and then cough,” said Adam’s mother, Polly Hergenreder.

“He would hit it several times throughout the day. My son was going through a pod and a half every other day, or a day and a half.”

Experts say that one Juul pod — a cartridge of nicotine-rich liquid that users plug into the dominant e-cig brand — delivers the same amount of nicotine to the body as a pack of cigarettes. “That’s smoking a lot of cigarettes,” Polly said.

Eventually, Adam said that he went from vaping over-the-counter e-liquids to vaping THC or tetrahydrocannabinol, which is the main psychoactive component of marijuana. Adam would get the THC from “a friend” or dealer.

Over time, Adam said that he developed shivers and couldn’t control them. Then, the vomiting began.

“I was just nonstop throwing up every day for three days,” he said. “Finally I went to the pediatrician.”

At first, doctors did not connect Adam’s symptoms to his vaping. He was given anti-nausea medication, but he said that his vomiting did not stop. After visiting various physicians, he finally saw someone who asked if he was “Juul-ing” and using THC.

“I answered honestly,” Adam said. “I said I was.”

The team overseeing Adam’s care performed a CT scan of his stomach and noticed something unusual about the lower portion of his lungs. The doctors then took an X-ray of his lungs.

“That’s when they saw the full damage,” Adam said.

“If I had known what it was doing to my body, I would have never even touched it, but I didn’t know,” he said about vaping. “I wasn’t educated.”

‘If we did not bring Adam in … his lungs would have collapsed’
Adam was admitted to the hospital in late August.

“If his mom had not brought him to the hospital within the next two to three days, his breathing could have worsened to the point that he could have died if he didn’t seek medical care,” said Dr. Stephen Amesbury, a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Advocate Condell Medical Center in Illinois, who was one of the doctors who saw Adam.

“It was severe lung disease, especially for a young person. He was short of breath, he was breathing heavily,” Amesbury said. “It was very concerning that he would have significant lung damage and possibly some residual changes after he heals from this.”

Adam’s mother Polly spent the following six days in the hospital with her son, who was connected to IVs and was provided oxygen through nasal tubes.

“The doctors did tell us that if we did not bring Adam in when we brought him in, his lungs would have collapsed and he would have died,” Polly said.

Yet, she added, “you should always try to find the silver lining,” and for her family, that is to use Adam’s experience to educate others about the risks of vaping.

Adam is now home from the hospital and “it’s still difficult to even do normal activities, like going upstairs. I still get winded from that,” he said.

Even though he is still recovering — including doing breathing treatments — Adam has focused on sharing his story. Through his advocacy, he said that he has even convinced some of his friends to stop vaping.

“I’m getting better each day,” he said. “I don’t want to see anybody in my situation. I don’t want to see anybody in the hospital for as long as I was.”

The federal investigation into the link between vaping and severe lung illnesses is ongoing and has not identified a cause, but all reported cases have indicated the use of e-cigarette products and some patients have reported using e-cigarettes containing cannabinoid products, such as THC.

There are also separate investigations being conducted in separate states.

New York health officials said last week that extremely high levels of the chemical vitamin E acetate were found in nearly all cannabis-containing vaping products that were analyzed as part of the investigation. At least one vape product containing this chemical has been linked to each person who fell ill and submitted a product for testing in the state.

Laboratory tests conducted at the New York State Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center in Albany showed “very high levels” of vitamin E acetate in the cannabis-containing samples, the state health department announced.

Vitamin E acetate is now “a key focus” of the state’s investigation into the illnesses, the New York Department of Health said. Some of the products that have been found to contain vitamin E acetate are candy-flavored vapes.

‘There really isn’t enough vaping history to say what’s going to happen’
Juul has maintained that its products are intended to convert adult smokers to what it described in the past as a less-harmful alternative. In other communications, the company says it cannot make claims its products are safer, in line with FDA regulations.

Scientists point out that they are still learning about the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes. One study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in May found that e-cigarette flavors can damage the cells that line your blood vessels and perhaps your heart health down the line.

Another study, published in the journal Radiology in August, foud that vaping temporarily impacts blood vessel function in healthy people. Using MRI scans, it found, for example, changes in blood flow within the femoral artery in the leg after just one use. The researchers couldn’t determine which chemical might be responsible for the changes they observed.

There are many questions that remain to be answered, according to Amesbury.

“We’re very early in the stages of finding out what problems may come up from vaping,” he said. “We’re finding these acute, severe illnesses now, but there really isn’t enough vaping history to say what’s going to happen 10, 20, 30 years down the road.”

via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/11/teen-now-has-lungs-like-a-70-year-olds-after-vaping-related-illness/

Photo Credit: pix11.com

SOUTH OZONE PARK, Queens — The search is on for a man wanted for questioning in connection to a robbery that took place in South Ozone Park on Friday.

The report came it around 6;10 p.m. A 29-year-old woman was holding her 1-year-old niece and walking into a residence near 135th Place and Sutter Avenue. An unidentified man approached showing a firearm and demanding property.

The woman refused and the man proceeded to point the firearm at the child. The woman complied and the male fled in a dark colored vehicle and a purse containing $7,000.

Anyone with information in regard to the identity of this male is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at, on Twitter @NYPDTips. All calls are strictly confidential.

via: https://pix11.com/2019/09/10/man-accused-of-pointing-a-gun-at-a-1-year-old-girl-during-a-robbery-police/

Photo Credit: pix11.com