Legislation Updates

After being reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing in late May 2024, S.1465/H.2215 was referred to the House Committee on Ways and Means and awaits a decision from the Committee Members. We thank you for your continued support on protecting the health of Massachusetts youth, and urge you to keep spreading awareness about these issues and reaching out to your representatives to get the bill on their radar. Read our Press Release.

Action Alert

As the Massachusetts legislative session draws to a close, we are doing all we can to get House Bill 2215, an Act to ban the sale of toxic over-the-counter diet pills and muscle-building supplements to minors, across the finish line! To get this done, we have a few requests for our Massachusetts advocates. Please use this action alert link to write to your legislators, urging them to take action and speak in support of H.2215.

Thank you Massachusetts Representative Khan and Senator Rush for being champions of bills to protect young people from dangerous weight loss and muscle-building supplements.

Introduced by Massachusetts Representative Kay Khan and Senator Michael Rush in the 2023-2024 Massachusetts legislative session, An Act protecting children from harmful diet pills and muscle-building supplements (H.2215/S.1465), would protect kids from dangerously underregulated over-the-counter diet pills and muscle-building supplements by restricting the sale to adults 18 years or older.

News articles:

“It’s All Strategy” In Late-Session Lobbying Season – State House News

Helpful materials:

Want to get involved with the Out of Kids’ Hands Campaign in Massachusetts? Contact us at STRIPED@hsph.harvard.edu

STRIPED News

Our Eating Disorder Public Health Surveillance Working Group hosted a webinar on July 18^thfocused on current issues related to state-level eating disorder prevention and surveillance, with an emphasis on enhanced data collection via the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Find additional details and a link to the recording here!

STRIPED hosted an exciting Advocacy Day on Tuesday, July 9, with Rep. Kay Khan, where advocates visited nearly 100 lawmaker offices on Beacon Hill to support Massachusetts bill H.2215, which would ban the sale of over-the-counter diet pills and muscle-building supplements for minors. Advocates emphasized the dangers to youth and met with dozens of lawmakers to garner support, stressing the bill’s urgency as the legislative session nears its end. Read more in this State House News article.

Harvard’s Center for Health Communication and STRIPED highlight the power of influencers in advocating for better public health policies, including our Out of Kids’ Hands campaign.