Free Republic

More than 30,000 people in the UK were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s. A public inquiry into what has been called the biggest treatment disaster in NHS history will announce its findings in May. Victims are campaigning for compensation. Two main groups of NHS patients were caught up in the scandal. Firstly, haemophiliacs - and those with similar disorders - who have a rare genetic condition which means their blood does not clot properly, external. People with haemophilia A have a shortage of a clotting agent known as...

An amazing big picture view, both looking to the past history of nations and rebellions, and looking forward to how we course correct.

"... The UK did not import whole blood from abroad, but it did import large quantities of factor VIII given to those infected, as described in the documentary Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal. The principal reason that the UK imported these products was that it did not produce enough of its own ... " Factor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood ScandalFactor 8: The Arkansas Prison Blood Scandal was screened at Slamdance 2005 and at the American Film Institute′s Los Angeles Film Festival in November 2005.It won a special mention award at AFI and received a commendable review from...

Doug Burgum has dislodged Sen. Tim Scott at the head of the market for Republican VP nominee on betting exchanges (Betfair) @ 5.7 I know little about him. 😲

... In the early 1980s, the UK could not keep up with demand for Factor VIII, which was made by pooling - or mixing - the blood plasma of thousands of individual donors. Instead the treatment was shipped from the US. In the UK, blood donations have always been voluntary, but in the US, drug companies were allowed to pay cash for plasma. High risk groups, from prisoners to drug users, had a clear financial incentive to give blood and potentially lie about their medical history. Evidence uncovered by campaigners and seen by the ongoing public inquiry into the wider...

Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Sunday dinged Hillary Clinton for being “quite dismissive” in recent comments questioning the knowledge and perspective of anti-Israeli protesters who have stormed college campuses across the country. Last week, Clinton went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and derided some of the protesters saying they “don’t know very much at all about the history of the Middle East or frankly about history in many areas of the world.” Van Hollen (D-Md.) contended that many of the student demonstrators had legitimate concerns about the Israel-Hamas war unfolding half a world away. “I thought…that Secretary Clinton’s comments, in that...

Sherri Tenpenny, DO, had her license suspended indefinitely last summerSherri Tenpenny, DO, the Ohio physician who claimed COVID vaccines can magnetize people, had her medical license reinstated last month, according to the State Medical Board of Ohio. Tenpenny's license was suspended indefinitelyopens in a new tab or window in August 2023, but was reinstated during the April 10 board meeting, a spokesperson for the board confirmed to MedPage Today. "Sherri Tenpenny has met the Medical Board's conditions for reinstatement, including submission of an application for reinstatement, payment of her fine, and certification of cooperation with the board's investigation to date,"...

Dozens of students at Duke University walked out on legendary comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s commencement speech on Sunday, with some chanting "free Palestine," according to videos of the ceremony posted on social media. The student protesters staged the walkout just as Seinfeld, who is Jewish and a vocal supporter of Israel, was introduced, according to the videos. Some students carried Palestinian flags as they left the stadium. Other graduates and guests chanted "Jerry! Jerry!" as the comedian took the stage to receive an honorary degree. Seinfeld delivered his speech without major interruptions, Reuters reported. The "Seinfeld" star opened his speech with...

@RepMTG Last week, the Democrats proved me right when they voted the save Mike Johnson as the Uniparty Speaker. The Americans who gave us a majority want a GOP who will FIGHT to stop the Democrats’ radical agenda, including Biden’s weaponized DOJ against President Trump. Mike Johnson refuses to do that and just keeps handing over everything the Democrats want. When Nancy Pelosi supports a “Republican” Speaker, something is very wrong.

ATLANTA — Three Atlanta police officers were hospitalized with gunshot wounds after an altercation that left a suspect dead Saturday evening, authorities said. Officers responded at 5:15 p.m. to a report of an armed man in a commercial area on Fairbanks Street and encountered a man with a handgun and a knife on Desoto Avenue, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said during a news conference. “During that encounter there was a struggle, there was gunfire that resulted in three of our officers being injured. It also resulted in the death of the individual that was armed with the handgun,” Schierbaum...

Two teenagers died shortly after COVID-19 vaccination, experts reported in a study published Feb. 14, 2022. Within hours, federal officials scrambled to respond, worried the paper would harm their efforts to promote COVID-19 vaccines, internal emails show. “This is important because this report has significant implications for CDC and FDA’s vaccine safety and policy discussions,” Dr. Sarah Reagan-Steiner, a medical officer at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), wrote on Feb. 17, 2022. The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have repeatedly promoted widespread COVID-19 vaccination and downplayed confirmed and possible side effects of...

Some Morehouse College students aren’t looking forward to hearing President Biden speak at their graduation ceremony later this month. Several gathered at the men's HBCU (Historically black colleges and universities) on Wednesday to call out the school’s decision to invite Biden, calling it purely political. "The general feeling on the ground is that we don’t want him here," a student named Malik told WSB-TV in Atlanta. "It’s very obvious that we’re being used to score political points and get more Black votes. It is so obvious that it’s just about the presidential campaign." The students’ issues with Biden speaking ranged...

Eighty-four Republicans in seven states falsely claimed to be Donald Trump’s presidential electors in December 2020. Three and a half years later, dozens of them are facing criminal charges that could land them in prison for years. Dozens of others have not been charged at all. Even though the fake electors all participated in the same scheme, some have been charged as dangerous criminals while others have been treated as mere dupes. These disparities depend almost entirely on where they live. In Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, every fake elector is facing felony charges except one, whose charges were dropped in...

Some Los Angeles parents are putting up a fight against the city's most progressive activist groups, with violence in the school district nearly doubling since police were removed from school campuses following the riots over George Floyd's murder in 2020. Maria Luisa Palma, a member of the Parents Advisory Committee in Los Angeles, organized an independent petition in February calling for the return of police on school campuses as district data revealed that violent incidents rose from 2,315 in the 2018-2019 school year to 4,569 in 2022-2023. "We've seen a huge increase from our kids," Palma told Fox News Digital...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was rebuked as an "elite" during a recent Oxford Union debate, where she argued that populism in the United States is a threat to democracy. Pelosi — a self-described "devout" Catholic — said during the April 25 debate that certain Americans, whom she considered to be "poor souls who are looking for some answers," refuse to accept the answers Democrats give them on particular topics due to their beliefs about "guns, gays, [and] God." Challenging Pelosi's position in the debate about populism, Winston Marshall, a musician who was once a part of Mumford and...

Last week’s announcement that AstraZeneca would no longer market its Covid vaccine brings an end to one of the century’s most remarkable medical stories. Created within a year of the arrival of the pandemic, the AZ vaccine was cheap, easily stored and transported, and helped stave off humanitarian crises in Asia and Latin America, where many countries could not afford the more expensive mRNA vaccines that were being snapped up by rich western nations. It is estimated that it saved 6.3 million lives in 2021 alone. Yet from the start the vaccine – created by research teams led by Professor...

A Columbia professor was quickly shut down after warning her colleagues that the Morningside Heights campus had been infiltrated by outsiders with “known ties to terrorist organizations.” Professor Carol Ewing Garber immediately had her mic muted after speaking out about campus security at the May 3 Zoom meeting of the university’s faculty senate — which was held hours after the school’s Hamilton Hall was overrun by a mob of Hamas-supporting students. “There really is a need for good security on campus and it was very clear . . . that the university was unable to do that given the number...

A program that offers free booze to the homeless alcoholics that roam San Francisco caught flak this week when a tech CEO questioned the logic of feeding the addictions of the city’s street dwellers. Adam Nathan, founder and CEO of the small business AI marketing tool Blaze and the chair of the Salvation Army San Francisco Metro Advisory Board, posted a thread on X slamming the program after watching a string of unhoused drunks line up for their shots, stating it “just doesn’t feel right.” “Did you know San Francisco spends $2 million a year on a “Managed Alcohol Program?”...

The Burning Man festival removed a massive pro-Palestine sculpture from the list of art installations set to be on display at the massive gathering this summer. More than 1,000 people signed an online petition demanding the 8-foot-by-14-foot fiberglass watermelon titled “From the River to the Sea” previously listed on the event’s website be removed — but organizers said the listing was only submitted to cause a “stir” and likely won’t be part of the annual festival in the Nevada desert. “The phrase ‘From the River to the Sea’ is more than just words; it is a battle cry that legitimizes...

Supporters of Donald Trump came out in droves Saturday to hear the former president speak at a campaign rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, as the GOP front-runner faces ongoing trials in New York, D.C., Georgia, and Florida. The rally was expected to draw more than 40,000 supporters. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., who spoke ahead of Trump, dubbed it the largest political rally in the state of New Jersey.