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Advocates celebrate new law to detect heart disease in kids

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President Joe Biden has signed a bill that advocates say could help save thousands of kids from dying of undiagnosed cardiomyopathy.

The condition is a rare and chronic disease of the heart muscle — and it can be fatal.

Lisa Yue founded the Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation. She lost both her sons to the disease.

“This bill is very personal to me,” Yue said. “Too often we hear about in the news healthy young athletes, or they don’t necessarily have to be an athlete, but they die suddenly, and they don’t know what the cause is. And they realize later on that it is cardiomyopathy.”

Yue said the bill has two parts: one to help diagnose symptoms and the other to support training.

“Should something happen at school and a child has a sudden cardiac arrest, is the school prepared? So, the other components of the bill are to ensure that school professionals are trained in CPR and the usage of AEDs, which are Automatic External Defibrillators, and that the school has a cardiac emergency plan in place,” Yue said.

The HEARTS Act passed the House and Senate unanimously.

Around 30,000 young Americans are diagnosed with a form of cardiomyopathy every year.

Details about the new bill and cardiomyopathy can be found here.

An award-winning freelance reporter/host for WSHU, Brian lives in southeastern Connecticut and covers stories for WSHU across the Eastern side of the state.