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For Immediate Release
May, 15 2015, 04:45pm EDT
Contact:
AIUSA media office,Email:,media@aiusa.org,Phone: 202-544-0200 x302
Amnesty International USA Responds to Death Penalty in Boston Bombing Case
WASHINGTON
In response to the announcement that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death after being convicted in the Boston Marathon bombings, Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA issued the following statement:
"We condemn the bombings that took place in Boston two years ago, and we mourn the loss of life and grave injuries they caused. The death penalty, however, is not justice. It will only compound the violence, and it will not deter others from committing similar crimes in the future.
It is outrageous that the federal government imposes this cruel and inhuman punishment, particularly when the people of Massachusetts have abolished it in their state. As death sentences decline worldwide, no government can claim to be a leader in human rights when it sentences its prisoners to death."
Amnesty International has documented a steady decline in the use of the death penalty in the United States and around the world over the past several years, though in 2014 there was a marked increase in death sentences to address a real or perceived threat of terrorism especially in Egypt and Nigeria. There remains no evidence showing that the death penalty deters crime or has any effect in reducing terrorism.
Annual death sentences in the U.S. have declined since 2000. In the last eight years the number of death sentences has been lower than any time since reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. In 2014 there were 72 death sentences, the lowest number on record since 1976. Executions have declined as well, from a high of 98 in 1999 to just 35 in 2014, the lowest in 20 years; there were 43 executions in 2011 and 2012 and 39 in 2013.
Amnesty International USA opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception as the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. As of today, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. The U.S. was one of only nine countries in the world that carried out executions each year between 2009 and 2013.
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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Abortion Rights Defenders 'Sound the Alarms' Over RFK Jr. Attack on Mifepristone
"Hawley is pointing to new junk science to motivate RFK Jr. and FDA to review the science on mifepristone," said one public health scientist. "The science is clear: Mifepristone is safe."
May 15, 2025
Abortion rights defenders and scientists expressed deep concern after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s remarks about mifepristone, a key medication used to end pregnancies, at a Wednesday congressional hearing.
During the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) inquired about the secretary's previous pledge to conduct "top-to-bottom review" of mifepristone, asking, "Do you continue to stand by that and don't you think that this new data shows that the need to do a review is, in fact, very pressing?"
Kennedy, one of President Donald Trump's most controversial Cabinet picks, responded by describing the data cited by Hawley as "alarming," suggesting that "the label should be changed," and confirming that he has asked Marty Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), "to do a complete review and to report back."
Ushma Upadhyay, a public health scientist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, posted the exchange on social media. She said that "Hawley is pointing to new junk science," and research has made clear "mifepristone is safe."
Hawley is pointing to new junk science to motivate RFK Jr. and FDA to review the science on mifepristone. I've been studying #abortion safety for a decade. The science is clear: mifepristone is safe. Let me tell you about a couple of **peer-reviewed and published** studies I've done... 🧪
[image or embed]
— Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH ( @ushma.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 9:20 PM
In one study of Upadhyay's studies, "among 11,000 medication abortions, less than a third of one percent (0.3%) had a serious adverse event," the expert noted. In another from last year, she continued, "we found that telehealth abortion was just as safe and effective as published estimates of in-person care. Serious adverse events were 0.25%."
However, anti-abortion groups have seized on the paper cited by Hawley—published in April by the think tank Ethics & Public Policy Center—to pressure the Trump administration to restrict mifepristone further, or even remove it from the market.
The April paper conflicts with a mountain of research. A 2023 New York Timesreview found that "more than 100 scientific studies, spanning continents and decades, have examined the effectiveness and safety of mifepristone and misoprostol, the abortion pills that are commonly used in the United States. All conclude that the pills are a safe method for terminating a pregnancy."
Upadhyay said Wednesday that "one crappy report cannot silence decades of peer-reviewed high-quaility published research."
Other critics of RFK Jr.'s comments similarly stressed medical conclusions about mifepristone's safety.
"Mifepristone has a 25-year record of safety and efficacy under the FDA's watch, but now anti-abortion extremists are peddling junk science in an effort to deny people access to it," the group Power to Decide said on social media Thursday. "The reality is that medication abortion is safe, widely used basic healthcare."
The Center for Reproductive Rights also responded on social media, declaring, "SOUND THE ALARMS!"
"Let us be clear: President Trump, who once suggested injecting bleach, should not be making decisions about our healthcare, and RFK Jr. should not be interfering with our ability to access medication that's been PROVEN SAFE AND EFFECTIVE," the center said. "In putting this target on mifepristone—and therefore on abortion access at large—Trump's administration is making it clear that they do not care about science, or our health and safety. They only care about taking away our rights. But we refuse to let that happen."
"We'll be in court on Monday, fighting to protect mifepristone and make sure this VITAL, LIFESAVING medication is accessible and available to anyone who needs it," the center added, referring to oral arguments for Whole Woman's Health Alliance v. FDA, a case aimed at eliminating restrictions that impede access to mifepristone.
The ACLU pointed out in a Wednesday statement that the "pseudo-science paper" at the center of Hawley and Kennedy's exchange echoes calls made in Project 2025—a Heritage Foundation-led guide for a far-right overhaul of the federal goverment, from which Trump unsuccessfully tried to distance himself on the campaign trail—to severely restrict access to medication abortion.
"Secretary Kennedy just revealed that he has ordered the FDA to consider making it harder for people to get medication abortions based on propaganda pushed out by a Project 2025 sponsor," said Julia Kaye, senior staff attorney for the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project. "Even leading anti-abortion advocates admit this junk science is 'not a study in the traditional sense,' and is 'not conclusive proof of anything,' but that clearly won't stop extremist politicians from waving it around as a basis to restrict abortion."
"We should all be scared if our access to safe, FDA-approved medications turns on President Trump's gut instinct rather than credible scientific evidence," she warned. "This new FDA review has nothing to do with science and everything to do with teeing up nationwide restrictions on abortion."
Kaye added that "if the FDA moves forward with this politically motivated review, that is a dangerous sign that the president is going back on his promises to voters not to restrict abortion access even further."
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Trump-GOP Cuts Could Reverse Last Year's Historic Drop in Drug Overdose Deaths, Warn Experts
Cuts to Medicaid and prevention, harm reduction, and treatment programs "will equal more people dying," said one public health expert.
May 15, 2025
Federal public health officials on Thursday announced an unprecedented drop last year in drug overdose deaths, which have plagued the United States for decades and had been rising steadily over the past several years.
But experts warned that now is exactly the wrong time to "take our foot off the gas pedal," as the Republican Party and President Donald Trump are threatening to do with steep cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that an estimated 80,391 people in the U.S. died of drug overdoses in 2024—a 27% drop, with about 30,000 fewer deaths than in 2023 and "more than 81 lives saved every day."
Synthetic opioids like fentanyl were still involved in most overdose deaths last year, but those deaths were down 37% between 2023-24.
"I would characterize this as a historically significant decrease in overdose deaths," Brandon Marshall, a Brown University School of Public Health epidemiologist, toldThe Washington Post. "We're really seeing decreases almost across the entire nation at this point."
Experts noted that numerous factors are likely behind the plunging fatal overdose numbers. The CDC said it has been able to strengthen overdose prevention capacities across the U.S. since Trump declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency in 2017 during his first term, making congressional support available.
As CNNreported, with new federal support, local policymakers in places like Mecklenburg County, North Carolina have been able to secure vending machines with naloxone, a medication that can rapidly reverse an opioid overdose; employ epidemiologists who focus on opioid trends to prevent deaths; and infrastructure that has helped public workers determine where to target their overdose prevention work.
But the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, which funded those programs, was targeted by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year as its Trump-appointed leader, billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, sought to cut federal jobs. The center is also identified as a "duplicative, DEI, or simply unnecessary" program that should be cut in the White House's proposed budget.
"Any changes or impacts to those funding streams would mean that we either have to find other funding to support the team that works in that department, or we would have to lay them off. That would, of course, impact the work," Dr. Raynard Washington, director of the county health department, told CNN. "Experts work hand-in-hand with us on the strategies that we choose to implement on the ground, and then how we're evaluating what's working, and then how we share those best practices. That technical assistance is also just as invaluable as the actual grant dollars that we receive."
Medicaid cuts in the proposed budget, which would slash $880 billion in federal spending to secure tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, could also reverse the historic progress made in 2024, as the healthcare program covers 47% of people with opioid use disorder and 64% of people who receive outpatient treatment.
Chad Sabora, a drug policy expert who helped spearhead the letter, told The Washington Post that cuts to Medicaid will leave people without medications they use to diminish the effects of opioid use disorder, like buprenorphine.
"It will equal more people dying," he told the Post.
On Monday, more than 320 faculty members from universities and other institutions wrote to Republican and Democratic Senate leaders to warn them that "dismantling the lifesaving work" of the CDC and other health agencies in the budget would have "dire consequences."
"At a time when the federal government should be boosting investments in behavioral health systems, service delivery, and public health surveillance programs, we are seeing drastic cuts to key agencies, including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the CDC, and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)," they said.
The 2026 fiscal year budget proposes over $1 billion in cuts to SAMHSA—a reduction of 16% of its funding—and $3.6 billion in cuts to the CDC, or nearly half if its funding.
The faculty members listed a number of programs that will be impacted those cuts, including:
- State and local health departments and behavioral health agencies;
- Evidence-based prevention programs like community-based naloxone distribution, peer outreach programs, drug-use related infectious disease prevention programs, and drug test strip programs, which help people determine whether a drug is laced with fentanyl;
- The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (SAMHSA), which is used extensively by policymakers, researchers, and health professionals and gives accurate population estimates of trends in alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use; and
- The Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program and Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program (HRSA), which will train the next generation of substance use care specialists across the country, with special programs dedicated to rural areas.
"Members of Congress, we urge you to protect these vital substance use and mental health services. Millions of Americans are depending on you," wrote the experts.
The White House signaled in the proposed budget that it doesn't support evidence-based harm reduction programs funded through SAMHSA grants, calling them "dangerous activities."
Adams Sibley, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, told CNN that "now is the time to double down on efforts to educate and recruit folks into harm reduction and treatment, whatever their version of safer use looks like."
With fellow researcher Nabarun Dasgupta, Sibley tracked gradual declines in overdose deaths in cities and states over the past three years, before the national shift was seen in 2024.
They identified shifts in the population of drug users, with a growing number of people in the at-risk population taking advantage of newly funded treatment options—or having already died of overdoses—as one contributing factor to the plunging overdose death numbers last year, as well as a change in the supply of drugs available.
"The general dissatisfaction with the illicit opioid supply right now is surprisingly high," Dasgupta told CNN, pointing to the animal sedative xylazine, also known as "tranq."
Many users have reached an "inflection point" with their substance use disorders, said Sibley and Dasgupta, and policymakers must ensure the treatment and prevention programs funded by the CDC, SAMHSA, and other agencies are still there for them.
"The one thing that substance use treatment providers and people who use drugs alike will tell you is that people are ready when they're ready, and there are a lot of people ready right now," Sibley said.
Daniel Ciccarone, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, cautioned that even with last year's significant decrease, "we're still at very high levels of overdose."
"We need steady pressure," he told CNN. "To the degree that we stop paying attention... we will see a reversal."
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Former UN Human Rights Head: EU Must Step Up on Climate Because US Is Being 'Stupidly' Led
The interview with Mary Robinson comes as the Trump administration seeks to undercut climate research and congressional Republicans target portions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
May 15, 2025
Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson is urging the European Union to step up and lead the way on combating the climate emergency in the face of U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to dismantle the U.S. response to the crisis. Her remarks come as congressional Republicans are moving ahead with a plan to scale back Democrats' signature climate law passed in 2022.
Speaking on a Thursday episode of the podcast "Radio Schuman" from Euronews, Robinson said that she is "hoping that there will be a sense that actually the E.U. now has an opportunity, because the United States is being badly led on climate, actually stupidly led on climate."
Robinson highlighted the fact that Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, the global treaty aimed at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, reprising a move from his first term in office. She also noted the Trump administration's efforts to undercut climate research. In April, the Trump administration dismissed hundreds of scientists and experts working on the 6th National Climate Assessment, the government's flagship climate report.
These moves from the U.S. come as the E.U. has tempered its climate ambitions.
When asked whether she's critical of how the E.U. is currently handling climate change, Robinson said that the "E.U. is taking a long time, and we would need to see leadership now, but it's better to get good leadership than rush leadership."
As part of an independent group of global leaders called The Elders, Robinson recently met with E.U. officials where she and her fellow leaders sought to "encourage Europe to step up."
"The E.U. should step up on climate and nature and fulfill the commitments that are necessary," she told the Euronews.
On top of the actions by the Trump administration Robinson highlighted, a GOP megabill currently making its way through Congress includes provisions that target the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—a move that green groups have slammed.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has approved a portion of the bill that would take back billions of dollars in unspent funds from IRA grant programs, and Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee are pressing ahead with a portion of the bill that repeals clean energy incentives under the IRA.
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