fine. >> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. ♪ kristen: hi there. i'm kristen sze. you are watching "getting answers" on abc7. every day, we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time. "no way" alluding to racism in her book. we will talk about the books or avoid controversial topics. also, california's oldest and biggest business conference to advance women is back.

the professional conference will be held in three weeks. jackie speier will be here in the studio to preview this year's event. first, lots of health medical news from a two-year-old overdose patient who had to be revived from narcan, to how to prevent a common condition caused by our excessive use of tech devices. joining us now is our special correspondent to help us stay healthy. what are you doing there? >> we love our tech devices but some often don't. kristen: we will start with two truths and a lie. >> tell us which one of these is not true -- giving narcan or naloxone to someone who is not having an overdose will cause no harm or is it b,

neck forward, increasing pressure on your neck, or is it c, attempt to tell between allergies and the cold is the type of coffee you have. -- the type of cough you have. kristen: i think b is true. i'm trying to feel that 60° pressure right now. i'm on my phone. c i think is also true. that is just anecdotal -- i'm sorry, not true, ooh yeah, the type of cough. no. let's go with c is the line. but viewers, i'm not at all confident. i hope you are right. >> the viewers do know that they have a brilliant anchor talking to them because you are correct. there's really no surefire way to know for sure of your symptoms are allergies or a common goal. there's a lot of -- common cold. there's a lot of telltale signs, you are not going to get a fever

with allergies, body aches, things like that. pay attention to what the triggers are to know if you have influenza or covid-19 or allergies. a is an extremely important point that we will talk about more with narcan. there is no negative side effects from giving someone narcan if they are not having an opioid overdose. and b, as i was demonstrating, tech neck, this can cause neck spasms, headaches, fatigue, a lot of issues. it's important for people out there to have a eye level with the screens you are at and relax your neck a little bit. your heads will thank you. kristen: that is actually really good tip, because we do do this all the time. >> all the time. i have neurology who saw an uptick in headaches coming in throughout the pandemic from people literally tilting their heads. kristen: i know. it's gotten worse. now we can't shake the habit. i want to touch on narcan a little bit more in terms of the do's and don'ts, prompted in

part by the news about the 2-year-old. >> absolutely. this news about the 2-year-old is horrific. to speak about the fact about what police think is an opioid overdose, revived by narcan. it is a good move forward that the fda did green light narcan to be available over the counter, without a prescription. the big do for anyone out there is to get narcan. if you're someone in a position where you may be around people who could have an opiate overdose or if you or someone working at a school, a college, public sector, you interact with people, it's never about idea to be safe. that graphic the producers are showing right now, here are the same two boxes in my possession. i usually have one on me when i'm traveling just in case. one of the biggest things people should understand as we mentioned earlier -- there is no bad side effect from giving someone narcan.

if someone is passed out because of a heart attack or a diabetic coma, nothing is going to go wrong if you give them narcan. kristen: reassuring. >> you can save a life. kristen: reassuring. however, there seems to be a really bad side effect to all the gun violence we have been having in america, mass shootings, on her mental health, right -- our mental health, right? >> absolutely. we are somewhere around 162 mass shootings in 2023. and studies have shown that this is taking a toll on the young people across the country. in terms of rising rates of anxiety and isolation, hopelessness. a recent study came out from the cdc showing an uptick in call to a crisis tagline after the uvalde shooting. and is not only important to be active regarding the conversation about gun violence pay attention to yourself and your children, whsoe brains are still developing -- whose brains are still developing, as we are seeing this uptick in violence across the country. kristen: if you need mental

health help, where should that journey seeking help begin? do you go to your primary doctor to seek out a specialist? >> i would love to say he's the answer is go talk to a board-certified mental health professional but the reality is we have a huge shortage of those professionals are not everybody has access to one as well. so while trying to get that appointment, it is important for people to talk to anyone that they can. a recent study came out showing in northern california, of all the teams prescribed medications for anxiety and depression, 50% were being managed by a primary care doctor such as a pediatrician. so talking to your family doctor or pediatrician is an extreme the important place to start. kristen: i want to touch on another headline we have been covering. the texas abortion drug ruling's impact on perhaps fda approvals and drug research in the future. what's your view on that? >> my view was a little bit of anxiety because since the 1900's , the fda has been the sole body for approvals and safety

standards for medications. this is the first time a in federal court has tried to overturn that and successfully did so. so there's a lot of unknowns about what could happen if this ruling were to stand. one thing that is important for people to understand is this judge made a ruling based on the safety profile and called into question mifepristone, when in reality a lot of other over-the-counter medications are far more dangerous, including tylenol and ibuprofen. given a prescription medication like viagra has killed on the magnitude of 10 times as many people than those who have taken mifepristone. this is an extremely safe medication for anyone out there who may need it. kristen: that is important context to remember. i want to cover a few cosmetic headlines. this is health, so it's also important. there was an article about cool sculpting in the new york times, the procedure to zap fat. some patients ended up disfigured. how risky is it really? >> according to the manufacturer

of the machines that do this, one in 3000, but this investigation is underway because physicians and patients are claiming that disfigurement after this is a lot higher. or take away messages if you were considering a cosmetic procedure, not only was gupton, but any type -- not only cool sculpt and but any time, risk factors and what the procedure entails. make sure you are well empowered before saying yes to anything. kristen: ozampec is a well-known drug and i have heard stories about how it can lead to sagging of the face. what's the truth about that? >> it absolutely can. semeglotide can cause

loss of weight in a short amount of time and what can happen is you can actually lose some of the fat stores in your face faster than your skin can adapt. if you think about that, that could cause sag and as of the face because that is what gives our faces shape. so that's another thing for people to really consider. and to remember these medications were approved for people with type 2 diabetes or who have obesity or excessive weight gain. not for generic people out there to say, i'm going to pop this will because i want to lose weight. kristen: loss question real quickly for those considering another covid boxing -- maybe they feel like they may be at higher risk. a new is really study shed some light on its effectiveness, right? >> the study will be presented this week at a large conference showing that between the fall of 2022 and early this year, 2023, the ancestral covert strain vaccine plus an omicron strain reduces the risk of hospitalizations in the age

about 65 -- above 65. very important data moving forward when we consider was going to happen this upcoming fall for anyone out -- for anyone at high risk when it comes to the efficacy of these bivalent shots. kristen: great information is always. and yes i want another round of two truths. thank you. >> brainiac, you are. kristen: we all are thanks to you. coming up -- in oakland children's author stands her ground against a big name publisher who wanted her to take out references to racism. why she refused to compromise. that i

kristen: amid the

over banning books, a bay area author has found her children's book in the crosshairs. "love in the library" is a story of love amid the horrors of the japanese internment experience. it is apparently too controversial for selected books -- first collected books. joining us is the author. thank you for joining us. you've written several best-selling children's books and your latest is a very personal one, isn't it? >> yeah, it is the true story of how my maternal grandparents met in an incarceration camp during world war ii. kristen: i should mention, you are the daughter of news anchor wanted to --wendy takuda. it is wendy's parents, your grandparent's love story as

told, how it happened during their internment experience. you put that in a children's book. what was your goal? what do you want the story to reveal? >> i wanted to tell a couple of things to kids. first of all i wanted to be able to address the kind of awful state sanctioned racist violence that is perfectly legal in our country and has been in many instances. exactly what my grandparents experienced. but i also wanted to be able to show the incredible strength of the marginalized groups that these sorts of policies target. that we can do things like fall in love under the most horrendous circumstances. and to highlight our incredible strength as a community. kristen: what we are showing here is your blog. you reveal problem with part of the book, what did they want you to change? >> in my authors note, i'm really careful to situate what happened to my grandparents in american history. the excised and --

entire paragraph comparing it to anything that happens similar to it, but they also removed the word racism from the author's note altogether. kristen: and so, did go back and say, hey, the whole japanese american internment experience actually happened because of racism? what is it that you said to them? >> i said, absolutely they were not up to the response ability of licensing my book if this was the kind of edit they were proposing. and i tried to make it absolutely clear that in my resounding and hard no, i wanted to communicate that books about japanese incarceration are banned anyway. "baseball saved us" has been banned, "they called us the enemy" -- trying to cede grounds of these book bans preemptively won't do any good and it will never be far enough. we have already been considered

inappropriate for children. and so, i hoped scholastic what think about this moment going forward as a considered how to act during these rising book bans, because i know i would have. if i had not said no, if i had not made this public, no one in the company would've ever thought about it again. kristen: right. do you see a parallel here between this and the college board changing its ap african-american studies to take away or watered down on black feminism, queer studies and black lives matter activism? >> absolutely. it's all a part of the same movement to turn us into jingoism in the way we talk about her history, as someone who was also jewish, it is difficult for me not to see parallels to other instances when books have been banned and told certain people's stories are not worth listening to at all. it is the groundwork for doing

harm to those people's bodies. it is the groundwork for eradication. i find it really frightening and i find it terrible. i know that that is not what scholastic is trying to do and i don't want the -- i don't want to demonize them for existing within capitalism. but sitting grounds of someone who cannot be appeased without the complete silencing of marginalized people does not serve anyone. it definitely does not serve children or literature. kristen: that existing within capitalism part, i imagine -- scholastic has not gotten back to us with a response. i don't know if they said this to you about the realities of publishing when you have two dozen states that made the -- that may threaten retaliation. when they publish a book but cannot sell in those states. is there a place where authors and publishers can meet on that? >> i don't think that it is an author's place to make that.

i think it is the publisher's place. publishers have a lot more power than people do. there are large corporations. i am a lady who lives in oakland. [laughter] my power to come by the situation alone is not nearly as potent as a multimillion dollar corporation with regent to 90% of the public schools in the country -- reach into 90% of the public school's on the country. forcing this is a local issue. how far does the first amendment go really? kristen: that is the thing with scholastic. it is so big. now what will you do, will you find a different publisher? i'm sure you are crushed but it wasn't going to be scholastic. in some way. >> it is crushing. scholastic has that no other publishing does. this was a licensing agreement. so this book has been out for a year and available-for-sale this entire time. they just wanted to be able to

repackage it to go into classrooms. and i'm really heartbroken that as it stands right now, i've had to pass on that opportunity because it came out far too high a cost. i'm sorry. go ahead. kristen: i just wanted to know when the time that we have left, what is your message here ultimately the readers, to parents, the i've heard your message loud and clear the publishers. >> for the rest of us, there can be no healing without truth. there can be no reconciliation, there can be no genuine progress without actually addressing what has happened in our history in a truthful way. just the same way as you can't apologize for something if you never change your behavior. as it stands, we have not change their behavior. we are not ready to heal. and that starts with just a truthful recounting. for parents sharing books like this --

there are so many available to cover these kinds of histories is incredibly important. for children, being curious about the truth is healthy and go down sometimes feeling bad about something you learn about is part of learning. it is part of making you a better and wiser person. kristen: maggie, t very, very much. please give your mother are best, and your father, all your relatives. thank you so much. take care. coming up next -- the professional business woman's conference return. founder jackie speier will join us live with a sneak peek at what to expect this year coming up. here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. the three what? the three ps? what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance

on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54 and was a smoker, but quit. what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65, retired, and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80 and i'm on a fixed income. what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. that's less than 35 cents a day. you cannot be turned down because of your health. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime ra

so your rate can never go up for any reason.teed. options start at $9.95 a month, plus you get a 30-day money back guarantee. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. use this valuable guide to record your important information and give helpful direction to your loved ones with your final wishes. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information. kristen: the professional business woman california conference returns next month. abc7 is a proud sponsor, celebrating its 34th year. the conference will be live online on may 9. this year's theme is engaged.

white lotus actress jennifer coolidge will be the keynote speaker. the iconic leader who founded the conference in 1988 is formen >> im..ear, lkck abo i am delighted. this is an absolutely knockout number of speakers. sid marshall will also be speaking, the first african-american woman to be the ceo of an and be a team -- an nb a team. the dallas mavericks. she came from at&t. imagine the transformation that she has made, which shows that women have the ability to change courses and do so effectively. kristen: absolutely. and your proving that -- you are proving that. you've got hillary clinton, lily tomlin, jane fonda, what is it about the energy and the mission and the goal and vibe there?

>> three or four years ago when i created it, i must tell you, i had no idea that it would become an institution. the women who are part of this effort do so on a volunteer basis for the most part. and it gives their colleagues, other women the opportunity to network, to develop personally and professionally, and it is real refresher, sort of a spa experience for your professional career. it is always an event -- women we'll come up to me and say, this has changed my life. so it is a real powerful opportunity for women. we've got lots of corporate sponsors. as you mentioned, abc7 has been a sponsor from the very beginning. kristen: we love it. there are great workshops and speakers. there's a lot of mentoring. all that is done virtually again this year.

something you started during the pandemic. >> that's right. we do want to get back to in person but because it's virtually, women from over 30 countries will be able to participate. more than 4000 women will probably be online participating in the program. kristen: wow. the other good thing about that is that if you missed something that day, don't you have additional opportunities to go back and reengage? >> that's right. until june 15th. you can procrastinate like i probably would. [laughter] kristen: but don't. you want to get your spot. >> but yes, it is available so that you can go back and relisten to something that you have actually already dissipated in. kristen: you to have a preview of jennifer coolidge's speech, do you? >> i can't wait. it is going to be amazing. for everyone who has watchedind. can you talk a little bit about this year's theme, engage? why you picked it, and what does it mean at this time? >> we have come out of this

horrific 2.5 year experience, and it is important for us to engage. to be part of what's going on in this country. when i think about the banning of books and the nonaction on gun violence, it's really important that we recognize as individuals are opportunity and responsibility to engage in our community and in our business. kristen: and that taking away of reproductive rightss. -- reproductive rights and women's agency on their own bodies. >> there are so many organizations now that we can't actually convey our displeasure as much as we would like. walgreens is something that comes to mind because they have taken action not to carry the abortion pill. which is truly a profound disservice to women. kristen: we've got to move forward, not backwards. we will keep pushing. people are encouraged to register now. it is open.

how is it structured? >> you can apply online,y for y. kristen: are there scholarships? >> they are. particularly for young women, we have a great program and scholarships for young women. yes, it is an opportunity. just go online and take advantage of the opportunities that are there. kristen: there is. pbwc.org. definitely don't miss it. thousands of people. may 9, engaged. the professional women's business conference. thank you,

kristen: thank you so much for joining us today for "getting

answers." we will be here every weekday at 3:00 p.m. answering questions with experts from around the bay area. "world news tonight" with david muir is next. >> tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. a six-year-old is mott in the arm ringing the doorbell on the way home. he was there to pick up a sibling. the homeowner fired through a door. tonight they revealed charges against the homeowner. what happened when the boy ran for help after being shot, turned away three times at different homes. alex perez standing by live in kansas city. >> also, a mass shooting at a sweet 16 birthday party in alabama. four people killed, more than two dozen injured. among the dead, a young man set to start college