Free Republic

A new Senate report found that drug shortages in the U.S. are increasing in frequency and duration, due to over-reliance on foreign countries like China and India, which is posing national security concerns. The report from the Democrat-led Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs provided a damning indictment of the U.S. government’s ability to predict drug shortages and address them effectively. It also laid out troubling statistics on the rate of drug shortages.

Young blood plasma transfusions for anti-aging are popular with some wealthy elites. There are claims that young blood rejuvenates the body's organs. But turning back the body's clock with transfusions might not need to be done anymore following research from Columbia University in New York that states an anti-inflammatory drug can rejuvenate the body and possibly increase the human lifespan by decades. "An aging blood system, because it's a vector for a lot of proteins, cytokines, and cells, has a lot of bad consequences for the organism," Emmanuelle Passegué, Ph.D., director of the Columbia Stem Cell Initiative, who's been studying...

But new evidence shows that one of the leading COVID medicine-producing companies may be manipulating the virus using antiviral drugs. Molnupiravir is sold as Lagevrio. Lagevrio is an antiviral drug produced by Merck & Company, and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics. The drug is designed, in theory, to prevent RNA viruses from replicating. Lagevrio induces viral mutations during replication. The National Institutes of Health insist that this pill has “shown antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 in vitro and in clinical trials.” But how’s this for a twist? Recent studies reveal that Lagevrio may be helping to generate and trigger new COVID-19 variants. This is...

Treatment involves adult patients with severe alopecia areata Eli Lilly has announced that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has granted marketing authorisation for baricitinib – also known as Olumiant – for the treatment of severe alopecia areata in adult patients. Marketing authorisation was based on BRAVE-AA1 and BRAVE-AA2 studies which both used the Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) score and both met the primary endpoint among the proportion of patients. Meanwhile, achievement of full regrowth or regrowth with minimal gaps in eyebrow and eyelash hair was also seen, with baricitinib, for patients who at baseline had significant...

In today’s edition of You Get What You Vote For, Manhattan’s once trendy and chic Chelsea neighborhood is now a 24/7 cesspool of drugs, sex, vagrants, and crime per this report from the Daily Mail: Manhattan’s trendy Chelsea neighborhood has become a ’24-hour drug and sex den’ according to some of its residents, as vagrants deal and use drugs in sight of a nearby school. Parents told Fox 5 that their children have become exposed to nudity, sex acts and drug use while business owners deal with constant break-ins. Some said they are begging city officials and the police department...

Democrats have continually promoted the idea of providing “gender-affirming” health care for children, such as puberty blockers. But the Food and Drug Administration has issued new warnings about one puberty blocker that could have severe side effects. President Joe Biden himself has supported initiatives to “protect” such treatments for transgender individuals. In celebration of Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, Biden issued an executive order “Reaffirming that transgender children have the right to access gender-affirming health care,” “Providing resources on the importance of gender-affirming care for children and adolescents” and “Advancing gender-affirming care as an essential health benefit.” However,...

Brittney Griner, the WNBA “star” that protested against America in the wake of George Floyd’s death by refusing to appear on the court for the national anthem and saying that she thought the national anthem shouldn’t be played at all, is not fading quietly into the night and just accepting that she’s going to go to prison in Russia for breaking that nation’s laws and smuggling drugs into the country (an act that she admitted to). Rather, she’s making absurd excuses for her conduct, as if the Russians will let her free if only she comes up with just the...

BEIJING, July 25 (Reuters) - China on Monday gave conditional approval to domestic firm Genuine Biotech's Azvudine pill to treat certain adult patients with COVID-19, adding another oral treatment option against the coronavirus. The availability of effective COVID vaccines and treatments is crucial in laying the groundwork for China's potential pivoting from its "dynamic COVID zero" policy, which aims to eliminate every outbreak - however small - and relies on mass testing and strict quarantining. The Azvudine tablet, which China approved in July last year to treat certain HIV-1 virus infections, has been given a conditional green light to treat...

Acancer treatment has shown astounding results in a small clinical trial. All of the treated patients, who had a specific form of mid-stage rectal cancer, have since experienced complete remission. Though the findings are based on a sample size of just 18 people, they could hold important implications for treating these particular cancers. The results of the Phase II trial were published over the weekend in the New England Journal of Medicine . The study involved researchers at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as well as Yale University, and it was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline. The trial...

WASHINGTON (AP) — With Congress deadlocked over how to address racism and excessive use of force, President Joe Biden plans to sign an executive order on policing Wednesday, the second anniversary of George Floyd’s death, according to three people familiar with the matter. The decision reflects Biden’s struggle to use the limited powers of his office to advance his campaign promises, as well as his attempt to strike a balance between police and civil rights groups at a time when rising concerns about crime are eclipsing calls for reform. The order would require federal law enforcement to review and revise...

The drug gabapentin, currently prescribed to control seizures and reduce nerve pain, may enhance recovery of movement after a stroke by helping neurons on the undamaged side of the brain take up the signaling work of lost cells. Results showed that daily gabapentin treatment for six weeks after a stroke restored fine motor functions in the animals' upper extremities. Functional recovery also continued after treatment was stopped, the researchers found. The team previously found that gabapentin blocks activity of a protein that, when expressed at elevated levels after an injury to the brain or spinal cord, hinders re-growth of axons,...

Antimicrobial resistance stewardship programs have to be prioritized, keeping the demands of the continuing Covid-19 pandemic in context On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, a pandemic. Two years later, the shadow of the Covid pandemic is still looming over us. While the world is making valiant attempts to move into the post-pandemic phase, the situation is akin to “one step forward, two-step backward”, as new variants of this virus are still emerging. Covid-19 has taken center stage in every facet of life. Policymakers and medical personnel are still...

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) shows that the number of fatal overdose deaths among teenagers rose from 492 in 2019 to 954 in 2020, an increase of 94%. "For decades, we've seen overdose rates rising among adults, and teens have been insulated from that," said Joe Friedman, a public health researcher at the University of California-Los Angeles, as reported by NPR. "And now, for the first time, the overdose crisis is reaching teens as well." The problem fueling the overdoses apparently is fentanyl, according to the study, in the form of counterfeit prescription...

Authorities in Louisiana said they have busted a career drug peddler for the fourth time in less than a year. Madelyn Payne, 24, was arrested during an underground operation on March 14 after information reached investigators, police said. According to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office, PAYNE has been receiving bulk quantities of heroin and fentanyl which she was then distributing in and around East Baton Rouge Parish.

Avocados are wildly important in the U.S., and most are imported from Mexico. This week, the U.S. briefly banned Mexican avocados after a U.S. inspector in the state of Michoacan reported receiving threats. But avocados and limes have long been used by drug cartels to help finance their violent business plans. Emily Green reports for VICE News from Mexico and joins us from Mexico City. Thanks so much for being with us. EMILY GREEN: Thanks so much for having me on. SIMON: How would you describe the role cartels have in the agricultural business, specifically avocados and limes? GREEN: Well,...

A drug that was approved by U.S. regulators more than 70 years ago may help protect against two major COVID-19 symptoms, according to a new study.Disulfiram, approved to treat alcoholism, protected rodents infected with COVID-19 from lung injury in the preclinical study done by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.Certain white blood cells called neutrophils form inside some people suffering from COVID-19, damaging the lungs. No drugs have yet been found to prevent this from happening, researchers said.Disulfiram, though, dramatically reduced the formation of neutrophil extracellular traps (NET), which cause fluid to accumulate in the lungs...

The December 2010 murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry exposed the bungled “Fast and Furious” investigation, in which agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed criminals to buy guns with the intention of tracking the weapons. But the agency lost most of the guns, including two that were found at the scene of Terry’s death in southern Arizona. The U.S. government has heavily pursued prosecution of the men involved in the killing. Mexico says Mexican drug gangs and former officials also participated in or failed to stop the weapons trafficking. Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office...

Moloch is preparing for the end of his bacchanalia of child-killing.Last week, a clear majority of the Supreme Court signaled that it was finished dipping its hands into the blood of millions of legally slaughtered Americans (see Supreme Court Humiliates Biden, Refuses to Stop Texas Heartbeat Law, and Gorsuch and the Wise Latina Have a Public Spat). By leaving in place a Texas law that outlaws abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, five justices essentially ruled that a state has the right to regulate abortion much as it can regulate tattooing and acupuncture.The assumption that the illegal Roe abortion...

18.6% increase compared with 2019... The UK recorded its highest ever year-on-year increase of alcohol-related deaths during 2020, with COVID-19 lockdowns playing a huge role in the rise. Figures released today by the the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that there were 8,974 deaths “from alcohol-specific causes,” an 18.6% increase compared with 2019. That represents the highest year-on-year increase since records began being collected in 2001. In an attempt to deflect the elephant in the living room, the ONS insisted that there are “many complex factors” to consider in explaining the deaths. However, the Alcohol Change charity warned last...

The large-scale drug trafficking operation of an infamous cartel just got busted in a mountain state some 1,400 miles from its Mexican headquarters and only one U.S. official, a local prosecutor, has dared to acknowledge the obvious; “This poison is coming over from our southern border unchecked,” said the elected prosecutor of Colorado’s largest district. “It will not stop coming over the border from Mexico into our communities until the federal government takes that porous border seriously.” His name is John Kellner, district attorney in the state’s 18th Judicial District which serves a population of about 1.3 million and covers...