Free Republic

Popular produce from blueberries to potatoes poses a 'very high risk' of unhealthy pesticides linked to cancer and diabetes, a new report has revealed. Nonprofit Consumer Reports analyzed seven years of Department of Agriculture data to identify the fruit and vegetables with the most pesticides that pose the most 'unacceptable health risks'. They found pesticides posed a 'significant risk' in a shocking 20 percent of the 59 common fruits and vegetables they studied. Blueberries, potatoes and bell peppers were deemed very high risk while green beans, kale and watermelon were high risk - meaning pregnant women and children should limit...

A bird flu pandemic could be '100 times worse than Covid' and kill up to half of everyone it infects, experts have warned — as the White House says it is 'monitoring' the situation. Speaking at a briefing, virus researchers said the H5N1 strain of bird flu may now be getting 'dangerously close' to triggering a pandemic. Multiple cases of the infection in a variety of mammals, including cows, cats and, more recently, humans, are all raising the risk of the virus mutating to become more transmissible, they said. But others attending the briefing said it was too early to...

Research in mice shows limited intakes of one particular essential amino acid can slow the impacts of aging and even lengthen their lifespan. Scientists are now wondering if these findings could help people improve their longevity and quality of life. Isoleucine is one of three branched-chain amino acids we use to build proteins in our bodies. It is essential for our survival, but since our cells can't produce it from scratch, we have to get it from sources like eggs, dairy, soy protein and meats. But there can always be too much of a good thing. Earlier research using data...

In the shadows of the ongoing health challenges, a silent but deadly adversary is swiftly making its presence known across the United States: Candida auris. This rare and drug-resistant fungal infection, marked by a chilling 60% fatality rate, is sending shockwaves through the healthcare community due to its rapid spread and defiance against traditional antifungal treatments. Recent reports confirm its arrival in Washington State, underscoring the urgent need for proactive measures. With a death rate as high as 60%, Candida auris has become a formidable adversary in the realm of infectious diseases.

Extreme global warming is likely to wipe out all mammals – including humans – in 250 million years, according to a brand new first-ever scientific study. It has been reported that temperatures on Earth could skyrocket to around 70C (185F) which would ultimately transform the planet from what we know it to be like now, into a ‘hostile environment devoid of food and water’, the researcher who conducted this study has warned everyone. If this study is to come true, then it would mean Earth’s temperature would simply become too hot for mammals to live and would no longer be...

A second American tested positive for the new highly-mutated BA.2.86 Covid variant that has been causing global alarm over its rapid transmission. The positive case was detected in an asymptomatic patient in Virginia who was tested August 10 after returning to the US from Japan. Scientists identified the case in a database that contains test samples from a small number of travelers entering the US. Independent experts told DailyMail.com they believe the new strain is spreading more widely and in more US states. The new variant, also spotted in Michigan last week, is causing concern because it stems from an...

Experts have warned that the dark region, which is cooler than the surrounding area, could release energetic explosions capable of knocking out our planet's power grids. The exact measurements of the sunspot are unknown, but NASA's Perseverance rover snapped images of the spot as it sits more than 152 million miles from the sun. The rover observed the sunspot on August 17 through August 20 while exploring the Jezero Crater on the Red Planet.

The best possible future — the one with fewer climate disasters, extinctions, and human suffering — involves limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But for this to happen, a new report warns, greenhouse gas levels must start dropping by 2025. “We are on a fast track to climate disaster,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday while announcing the new report by the United Nation’s preeminent climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “This is not fiction or exaggeration,” he added. “It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies. We are on...

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci is warning vaccinated Americans of a coming “double whammy” as winter approaches and the Delta variant of the Chinese coronavirus spreads, citing “waning immunity” and essentially warning that vaccinated individuals are not fully protected. Speaking in an interview debuted at the 2021 STAT Summit Tuesday, Fauci said: The somewhat unnerving aspect of it is that if you keep the level of dynamics of the virus in the community at a high level — obviously the people who are most most vulnerable are the unvaccinated — but when you have a virus as transmissible...

As the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus gained traction around the world, the World Health Organization urged vaccinated people to continue to wear masks and social distance, according to reports. “Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO’s assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a briefing in Geneva, according to CNBC. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”

The worldwide COVID death toll is more than double the official count of 3.24 million, a controversial new study estimates, the U.S. is no exception. More than 905,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the U.S., 57% more than the official tally, researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington said Thursday in a new analysis. That’s more than any other country. The official U.S. toll is about 580,000, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. Worldwide the total is close to 7 million, which is more than double the official toll of 3.24 million,...

WASHINGTON - Deadly weather will be hitting the U.S. more often, and America had better get better at dealing with it, experts said as Texas and other states battled winter storms that blew past the worst-case planning of utilities, governments and millions of shivering citizens. This week’s storms fit a pattern of worsening extremes under climate change and demonstrate anew that local, state and federal officials have failed to do nearly enough to prepare for greater and more dangerous weather. Power supplies of all sorts failed in the extreme cold, including natural gas-fired power plants that were knocked offline amid...

A variant of the coronavirus that emerged in the U.K. and has now been identified in over 80 countries could become the dominant form of the virus worldwide, according to the head of the U.K.’s genetic surveillance program.

Places with highest daily reported cases per capitaSeven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

The coronavirus pandemic is set to make 2020 the deadliest year in US history. While final data will not be available for months, preliminary numbers suggest the US saw more than 3.2 million deaths this year, which is at least 400,000 more than in 2019 — a figure that could still go higher, according to the Associated Press. It marks a jump of 15%, the largest single-year percentage leap since 1918, when tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers died in World War I and hundreds of thousands died of Spanish flu

On Friday night, Bill Maher tore into the liberal media for their apocalyptic coverage of the Wuhan coronavirus. The HBO host believes all the doom-and-gloom headlines are making Trump the optimist, and optimists, Maher warns his fellow liberals, "tend to win American elections." The comedian cited the campaigns of FDR and even Obama who ran and won on messages of hope. "Enough with the life-will-never-be-the-same headlines," Maher implored the liberal media. "Last month, The Washington Post ran the headline 'It Feels Like a Warzone' with this picture." The picture shows a grocery store worker restocking eggs. "This is not a...

One of the most striking developments over the past two weeks is how quickly the estimates of death and hospitalizations from COVID-19 are being reduced... The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is the most influential modeler of the novel coronavirus in the United States, with White House officials and other public health professionals using the group's numbers to plan strategy and policy. On March 26, IHME predicted that if current social-distancing policies stayed in place, there would likely be 81,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States by June 1. In its most recent projection, from...

Below you will find regular, but not daily, updates on medical and political developments.April 12, 2020 New studies Stanford professor of medicine John Ioannidis concludes in a new study that the risk of death from Covid19 for people under 65 years of age, even in global „hotspots“, is equivalent to the risk of a fatal car accident for daily commuters driving between 9 and 400 miles.In a serological pilot study, the German virologist Hendrick Streeck comes to the interim result that the lethality of Covid19 is at 0.37% and the mortality (based on the total population) at 0.06%. These values...

Continuation of the thread.

An infectious diseases expert at the forefront of the search for a coronavirus vaccine said on Friday that it was the most “frightening disease“ he’s ever encountered, and that “war is an appropriate analogy” for what the country is facing, as “50 – 70 percent of the global population” may become infected. Hatchett, who sat on the White House Homeland Security Council in 2005 – 2006 and was a principal author of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Implementation Plan, and currently heads the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, told the UK’s Channel 4: “This is the most frightening disease...