Free Republic

There are causes I believe in that cross party lines, such as transparency in the food industry. It's not that I need to know the calorie count or even how many servings are in a box, but I do want to see the ingredients I can and cannot pronounce. Sodium and especially sugar levels are also important to me when it comes to my children. I've been opposed to artificial dyes longer than I've been a parent. I was introduced to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) a few years ago while sitting next to an individual...

Glass of Water? Think TwiceThe Christian, pro-life organization Liberty Counsel Action has distributed a report that raises the disturbing question of whether U.S. water systems contain traces of drugs used in chemical abortions as well as human tissue from terminated fetuses.Here’s the issue as I understand it. After surgical abortions, the remains are incinerated. But, as of 2023, some 63 percent of abortions have occurred at home (chemical abortions), with the result that hundreds of thousands of deceased fetuses have been flushed down the toilet over the years. Moreover, the active chemicals in abortion pills also enter our sewage systems.This...

AUSTIN, TX – In a historic win for animal welfare and public health, the Texas Legislature has appropriated $13 million over the next two years to launch a statewide pilot program aimed at reducing the population of unvaccinated, unsterilized dogs and cats. The program, to be administered by the Department of State Health Services (DSHS), is designed to prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as rabies, toxoplasmosis, and leptospirosis. The funding awaits final approval by Governor Greg Abbott.“This is a crucial step forward in protecting both animals and people in Texas,” said Shelby Bobosky, Executive Director of the Texas...

President Donald Trump has selected Susan Monarez as his new nominee to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monarez, a scientist whose previous work looked at using artificial intelligence to improve health, has already been serving as acting director. The White House abruptly withdrew Trump's first pick, Dr. Dave Weldon, a Republican former congressman from Florida, just before he was scheduled for a confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee three weeks ago.

Scientists mapped genomes of bed bug strains, identifying 729 mutations linked to insecticide resistance, offering insights for improved pest control. Scientists have successfully mapped near-complete and highly accurate genomes for two strains of bed bugs: one highly susceptible to insecticides and another “superstrain” that is roughly 20,000 times more resistant. This achievement provides the most comprehensive view yet of the genetic mutations behind insecticide resistance. The findings were published in the journal Insects. While bed bugs are not known to transmit diseases to humans, their bites can cause itchy rashes and secondary infections. Insecticide use, including the now-banned DDT, nearly...

People who tested positive for COVID-19 and took ivermectin as a treatment recovered faster than a comparison group, a new study found. The time to self-reported recovery was a median of two days faster among the ivermectin recipients, according to the large UK study. The quicker recovery period was statistically significant. People who received ivermectin were also less likely to be hospitalized or die, with 1.6 percent of ivermectin recipients being hospitalized or dying versus 4 percent of the comparison group, which received typical care, which in the UK is largely focused on managing symptoms. Ivermectin recipients also enjoyed a...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is spending millions on encouraging “racially diverse trans women” in New Orleans to take PrEP, a HIV prevention medication. HHS pledged approximately $2 million to Public Health Foundation Enterprises, a public health nonprofit based in California now known as Heluna Health, to “develop, implement and measure the impact” of a social media campaign aimed at increasing the awareness of HIV-prevention medications among “trans women” in New Orleans, according to a federal grant listing. The goal of the program, which will include a year-long test run serving 200 “trans women,”, is to “adapt...

Ohio state senator and United States Senate candidate Matt Dolan, a Republican, backed the idea of “racism as a public health crisis” in June 2020. Dolan said in a statement after the death of George Floyd: I serve with Senator Steve Huffman. I have only seen him be diligent in his work and friendly to everyone he works with. We don’t always agree, but I have not found him to be disagreeable. However, I don’t know what is in his heart, but I do know this is not the guy I thought would be an impediment to improved race relations....

Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are reportedly planning to update guidance regarding patients with the Chinese coronavirus. Those who test positive no longer need to isolate themselves for five days, according to an article published Tuesday by the Washington Post. “The agency is loosening its covid isolation recommendations for the first time since 2021 to align it with guidance on how to avoid transmitting flu and RSV, according to four agency officials and an expert familiar with the discussions,” the report stated.

When New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued "a public health emergency order" that purportedly suspended the right to bear arms in Albuquerque and surrounding Bernalillo County last week, her justification was seemingly straightforward. "I have emergency powers," she told The New York Times. "Gun violence is an epidemic. Therefore, it's an emergency." Grisham's stunt was widely condemned as blatantly unconstitutional, even by some leading gun control supporters. But her legal rationale also underlined the perils posed by the sweeping emergency powers that legislators in many states have granted governors -- a problem that was abundantly clear during the COVID-19...

In March of 2020 New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham locked down her state due to the coronavirus threat. New Mexico was ranked 39th out of the 50 states in coronavirus cases at that time. But after Grisham locked down the state she made a private call to her favorite jewelry store to make a purchase. Of course, she was able to do this because she is the Democrat governor. But she got caught and started changing her story. Then in 2021 the far left governor was caught using taxpayer money to pay for groceries, whiskey and tequila. ... FOX News...

GOP Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appeared to have a medical episode on Wednesday afternoon that caused him to freeze while in mid-speech during a televised press conference. Watch as the eighty-one-year-old U.S. senator glitches while giving his opening remarks: NOW – Mitch McConnell froze and appeared unwell at presser.pic.twitter.com/OHvOaX77L9— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) July 26, 2023That’s just sad and unconscionable. Glitch McConnell seemed unable to move or speak for almost twenty seconds until one of his colleagues nudged him. This is our GOP leader? An obviously unwell octogenarian who has been in public office for over five decades — my...

“The absence of evidence of effectiveness is not the same as having evidence of ineffectiveness,” chirps Jennifer Nuzzo of Brown University’s School of Public Health in the latest bid to explain away the Great Mask-Mandate Fiasco of 2020 onward. That is, she ignores the elephant in the room: For years, Public Health Inc. lectured America to mask up — and kept them out of their kids’ schools and countless public places if they didn’t — on the basis of no evidence at all. Her New York Times essay is yet another effort to deflect from that betrayal, after the gold-standard...

As remarkable as her surgery sounds, she isn’t the oldest Israeli recipient of a pacemaker. Over the last decade, Atar’s team has placed pacemakers inside the bodies of at least three others older than 100. The eldest was 107.... Doctors judge according to biological age, and not chronological age, considering factors like a clear mind, lifestyle and diet, normal or low blood pressure, kidney function, the absence or not of diabetes. “All are predictors of longevity,” said Atar ... “May you live until 120” is a traditional Jewish birthday blessing, and Israelis already enjoy one of the longest life expectancies...

The outspoken critic of the CDC and FDA explains what went wrong—and what went right—with COVID policy.Today's guest is Vinay Prasad, a hematologist-oncologist and associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. The author of two books on how bad medical policy persists long after it has been recognized as ineffective or even deadly (Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People With Cancer and Ending Medical Reversal: Improving Outcomes, Saving Lives), Prasad has become a lightning rod during the COVID pandemic because he is outspoken both in his support for vaccines and his...

The Massachusetts Public Health Department (DPH) allegedly “worked with” Google to install its COVID-19 contact tracing app onto more than one million android devices without users’ permission or knowledge, a New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) lawsuit claims. The app was first released in April 2021, but the DPH had a version secretly installed onto devices beginning that June after few Massachusetts residents installed it voluntarily, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts. The app allegedly causes devices to emit and receive Bluetooth signals even when users do not opt into COVID-19 exposure notifications, and...

BREAKING: A federal judge has just blocked the use of Title 42 at the border as a result of ACLU litigation. Title 42 allows the U.S. to immediately expel migrants on the basis of public health. It has been used millions of times under both Trump & Biden. T42 is gone, for now.

Now that some sanity has returned to public health, we can have a sensible discussion about COVID. Is it a unique virus or just another flu virus?Politicians and public health officials would have you believe that it is unique and that you should follow "their" science to deal with it. But, as you will see, their intentions can be capably described by H.L. Mencken: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."James O. Eifert, commander...

New York’s top health official is urging the public to get vaccinated against poliovirus if they haven’t yet done so. State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett declared polio "an imminent threat to public health" in New York State Wednesday, Sept. 28. The declaration will free up resources to help local health departments set up vaccination clinics and better focus their outreach efforts to unvaccinated or under-vaccinated New Yorkers, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said. Health officials are hoping to boost immunization rates particularly in areas that have been most affected by the virus and among children. “Thanks to long-established school immunization...

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) presented Dr. Simone Gold a flag that was once flown over the U.S. Capitol on Friday, following her 45 days in jail for being involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol breach and stepping inside restricted premises. “Dr. Simone Gold is a patriot and an American hero,” Gohmert said in a Sept. 9 statement. The in-person grant upon Gold’s release from the Miami Federal Detention Center was to honor the Los Angeles-based emergency medicine specialist’s “invaluable work and contributions to public health, medical freedom, and our God-given constitutional rights,” according to the Republican lawmaker. Gold, the founder...