The Health 202: Tech titans heard a bipartisan criticism: Their apps hurt kids.

“Do you know what convinced me Big Tech is a destructive force?” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) asked the executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter during the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. “It’s how you’ve abused your power to manipulate and harm our children.”

“I’m a mom of three school-aged kids,” Rodgers continued. “My husband and I are fighting the Big Tech battles in our household every day. It’s a battle for their development, a battle for their mental health, and ultimately, a battle for their safety.”

The past few years have brought a flood of studies on how children and teenagers are affected by heavy use of social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. Much of it suggests that heavy use of social media is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness, aggression or antisocial behavior.

The pandemic has only heightened concerns from parents that their children are spending too much time interacting with friends online instead of in person.

In one sharp exchange, Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) prodded Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg over whether he was “aware” of a 2019 study showing a rise in youth suicide rates.

“Congresswoman, I’m aware of the issues,” Zuckerberg responded, before Castor cut him off with another question.

“Certainly you are aware of the research that indicates a correlation between a rise in hospital admissions for self-harm and the prevalence of social media on phones and the apps on platforms that are designed to be addictive and keep kids hooked,” she said.

One study, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in October 2019, found that teen suicide rates have been on the rise since 2007.

Before that year, the annual teen suicide rate was stable, about 6.7 per every 100,000 people age 15 to 19. But by 2017, the rate had increased to 11.8 suicides per every 100,000. The pace of increase was greatest from 2014 to 2017, growing 10 percent per year on average.

The study didn’t measure exposure to social media, and experts have warned against jumping to conclusions or assuming simple causes. Yet another study has found a link between suicide risk for teenage girls and the number of hours they spend every day on social media.

Castor also referenced a study that suggested third parties are collecting personal information about preschoolers through their use of apps — even though federal laws limit the tracking and targeting of people younger than 13.

In the study, published in September in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that two-thirds of apps played by 124 preschoolers resulted in collection and sharing of identifying information. Only 8 percent of children played with apps that showed no identifying information.

“How much are you making in advertising revenue from children under the age of 13?” Castor asked the executives.

Instead, he responded that “most of our products other than a specific product designed for kids are not eligible for children under the age of 13.”

“Congresswoman, it should be none of it,” Zuckerberg responded, when Castor directed a similar question to him.

But, as my colleague Heather Kelly writes, social media companies often get around laws protecting kids younger than 13 by using weak age verification. 

“To get on popular sites and apps, children might borrow an adult’s account, have their parents make one for them or lie about their age and start their own,” Heather wrote. “Or in the case of YouTube, just open it in a browser — maybe even on a school-provided Chromebook.”

And companies are increasingly making tools specifically for children just old enough to type words on a smartphone or computer but too young for existing social media apps. 

“There is already YouTube Kids and Facebook Messenger Kids,” Heather writes. “Now Facebook is working on a version of Instagram specifically for children who are under 13.”

During the more than five-hour hearing, members of Congress excoriated executives over a wide range of issues including extremism, misinformation, cyberbullying, climate change and the coronavirus. Many of the politicians attempted to force the chief executives to answer “yes” or “no,” cutting them off if they tried to explain how “nuanced” those issues are, my colleagues report.

“The display demonstrated just how deep the desire in Washington goes to change how social media companies operate — while also underlining the lack of consensus on how exactly to do that,” they write. “Some lawmakers proposed new legislation, while others called for reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a decades-old law that shields tech companies from lawsuits stemming from the content users post on their sites.”

“The power of this technology is awesome and terrifying, and each of you has failed to protect your users and the world from the worst consequences of your creations,” Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said.

The new vaccine target comes after the administration hit its previous – and notably, modest – goal of 100 million shots on Mar. 19, 58 days into Biden’s presidency. Biden called the new goal “ambitious,” but ramped up vaccine production means that the United States is already on track to meet it.

The president also announced a $10 billion investment aimed at reaching vulnerable communities with the vaccine. The administration will draw on money from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package passed by Congress this month, to invest in community health centers and provide states and other jurisdiction with funds for programs aimed at boosting vaccine confidence.

• During the press conference, Biden didn’t receive a single question about the pandemic. Instead, many reporters focused on a huge increase in the number of migrants arriving at the southern border.

Erik Wasson, congressional reporter for Bloomberg News:

A number of leading Biden officials have worked for the Albright Stonebridge Group, a consulting firm that represents Pfizer. They include Philip Gordon, Vice President Harris’s national security adviser, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations, as well as a number of State Department officials, the Intercept’s Lee Fang reports. 

These officials could play a key role in determining whether the United States will support a proposal to waive certain intellectual property rights for the coronavirus vaccine to allow for more widespread global production. The pharmaceutical companies have pushed the Biden administration to block the waiver.

Meanwhile, Biden’s domestic policy adviser Susan Rice holds $5 million in shares of Johnson & Johnson and $50,000 in shares of Pfizer, according to a disclosure made public this week. Eric Lander, the White House science adviser, has recused himself from working on matters related to the vaccine until he can divest his $1 million in shares of BioNTech. And Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, Biden’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, previously served as an attorney advising Pfizer and Gilead on federal policy issues, Lee writes.

“A small group of top Trump health officials recently held a series of discussions to coordinate their accounts of the administration’s troubled Covid-19 response, worried they will be scapegoated by old colleagues — including their onetime boss, former Health secretary Alex Azar, according to six people with knowledge of their interactions,” Politico’s Adam Cancryn reports.

The group included former FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, former CDC director Robert Redfield, former Medicare chief Seema Verma and former White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx, all of whom had a fraught relationship with Azar.

The race to shape the narrative is on, with the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic set to become the subject of a number of forthcoming books and television programs.

“Trump himself is sitting for a least a dozen of those retrospectives. And among many other former administration officials, there’s rising angst over how their roles in the government’s chaotic Covid response will ultimately be portrayed,” Adam writes.

More than 1.5 million Americans boarded a plane on Sunday alone, a new high for the pandemic. Meanwhile, cellphone mobility data analyzed by The Washington Post shows movement is increasing everywhere except large cities, where many large office buildings remain closed. Numerous states have eased coronavirus restrictions.

But as people move, the virus spreads and there is increasing evidence of “a spring bump, if not yet anything as significant as a surge,” our colleagues write. Daily infections have ticked upward nationally, even as a decline in hospitalizations shows signs of slowing or even flattening. A more transmissible and dangerous coronavirus variant first seen in the United Kingdom is now probably dominant in Florida and on the verge of becoming dominant in several other states. 

Still, the fact that 85 million people in the United States have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine means the U.S. is better positioned to avoid the type of catastrophic spring surges in infection seen in Europe. And the most vulnerable are now protected: 70 percent of people older than 65 have received at least one dose of a vaccine.

“The expert panel for the Food and Drug Administration voted 19-1 that the drug’s modest benefits don’t outweigh its considerable risks, even with proposed measures to restrict who gets the medicine. Pfizer is seeking FDA approval of the drug, called tanezumab, to treat pain from moderate to severe arthritis in the hips and knees,” the Associated Press’s Linda A. Johnson reports.

Experts raised concerns about the long-term side effects of the drug. In studies, a small percentage of patients saw their joint damage get worse after using it. Pfizer, which has been developing tanezumab for 15 years, said it was disappointed in the vote and that they would work with the FDA to determine next steps.

The university is facing lawsuits from hundreds of women who accuse it of failing to respond to complaints about George Tyndall, a gynecologist awaiting trial on criminal charges in connection with allegations that he sexually abused patients at the university’s student health center.

“The magnitude of the settlement — about one-seventh the size of the $5.9 billion endowment USC reported in 2020 — made it a landmark case for higher education,” The Post’s Nick Anderson reports.