Happy Friday, friends!
As we close out another week, I wanted to share some key developments in children’s health and education, along with some genuinely encouraging news to carry into the weekend.
FIGHTING FOR GIFTED & TALENTED PROGRAMS
NYC’s new mayor Zohran Mamdani is once again attempting to dismantle our city’s successful Gifted and Talented programs, claiming racial inequities as justification. Sound familiar? It should—because we’ve beaten back these attacks before.
Our own Maud Maron—yes, that Maud Maron, civil rights attorney, education warrior, and subject of our upcoming Palladium Pictures documentary “UNCANCELLABLE” has been making the rounds defending these critical programs. As Maud wrote in The Free Press, data from 2010 to 2019 shows that black and Hispanic students in G&T programs showed the largest increases in academic proficiency scores. The attack on excellence is an attack on the very students these programs help most.
When Maud appeared on NewsNation this week, she made it crystal clear: “The gifted and talented program has been so wildly successful because it represents the kind of high-quality education that parents want. We should expand it. We should keep it, and we should expand it, not get rid of it.”
They Called Her 'Controversial'--100,200 New Yorkers Voted for Her Anyway.
Meet Maud Maron—the woman who dared to challenge power when no one else would, and became the unexpected hero of my new upcoming documentary film for Palladium Pictures (coming in 2026).
Watch for “UNCANCELLABLE” coming very soon from Palladium Pictures—an exciting, cinéma vérité look at what happens when a New York City public school mom of four refuses to back down.
DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA AT THE NIH: SCIENCE OVER POLITICS
In tremendously encouraging news, NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, featured prominently in our documentary “15 DAYS”—continues to prioritize evidence-based science at the nation’s leading health research institution. This week, he testified before the Senate and announced he’ll headline the NORD Rare Disease Scientific Symposium in April, focusing on accelerating research, diagnosis, and therapeutic development for the more than 30 million Americans living with rare diseases.
Dr. Bhattacharya has also outlined plans to open a pediatric intensive care unit at the NIH Clinical Center, expanding critical research capabilities for our sickest children. From Justin Hart at Rational Ground “Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Bhattacharya’s testimony was his commitment to breaking the geographic monopoly on NIH funding. Currently, six states capture nearly half of all NIH grants. The bottom 30 states get 13%.
The concentration breaks the ideological echo chamber that turned our premier biomedical research institution into a partisan weapon. When all your funding flows to the same coastal elite universities staffed by the same ideologically homogeneous faculty, you get groupthink. Dangerous groupthink.
Bhattacharya wants to use market-based thinking to delink facility support from existing grants, breaking the catch-22 that keeps new institutions locked out. More voices, more perspectives, more accountability.”
Applause!!!
MAJOR VICTORY: AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLASTIC SURGEONS SAYS NO TO CHILD GENDER SURGERY
In what can only be described as a watershed moment, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons announced this week that it now recommends delaying all gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgeries until patients are at least 19 years old, citing “insufficient evidence” that the benefits outweigh the risks.
This is huge. The largest professional organization for plastic surgeons in the U.S. and Canada, representing over 11,000 members, has broken ranks with the gender ideology establishment. They cited the Cass Review and the HHS Evidence Review, both of which found serious problems with the evidence base for these irreversible procedures on children.
But let’s be honest: they should go further. Our prefrontal cortexes—the parts of our brains responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and understanding long-term consequences—don’t fully develop until age 25. Nineteen is better than eighteen, but we should be protecting young people through their full brain development.
Still, this is a major victory and a sign that we are going to defeat gender ideology. When the science finally matters more than the activism, children win.
LOOKING AHEAD
The battles continue, but so does our resolve. Whether it’s defending programs that help kids excel, supporting sound science, or protecting children from irreversible medical procedures, this work matters.
Now go spend time with your family and friends this weekend. Our children are watching how we show up for what matters most.
With gratitude, Natalya
P.S. - If you haven’t watched “15 DAYS” yet, it’s available on digital 4K and BluRay/DVD and has reached over 1 million views on X and in screenings around the country.