Tag: health care

US Immigration’s Expanding Gulag

The March 4, 2026, edition of the Arizona Daily Star put the facts succinctly:

“A Haitian asylum seeker held for four months at Florence Correctional Center died Monday at a Scottsdale hospital due to complications from an infected tooth.” It seems the infection spread from his tooth to his lungs, and he developed the pneumonia that killed him.

In other words, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) allowed a prisoner to die of a toothache. His name was Emmanuel Damas. He was 56 years old and the father of two.

And we can only expect medical treatment at ICE centers to deteriorate further. As Judd Legum at Popular Information reported in January 2026:

“ICE… has not paid any third-party providers for medical care for detainees since October 3, 2025. Last week, ICE posted a notice on an obscure government website announcing it will not begin processing such claims until at least April 30, 2026. Until then, medical providers are instructed ‘to hold all claims submissions.’”

Emmanuel Damas’s unnecessary death would be outrageous enough, were it the only one of its kind. In fact, 32 people died in ICE custody during 2025, the most in two decades. Another six died in January 2026 alone, among them Geraldo Lunas Campos, a Cuban father aged 55, at Camp East Montana detention center in El Paso, Texas.

Although ICE initially claimed Lunas Campos had attempted suicide, the American Immigration Council reports that “the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled his death was a homicide arising from asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”

Of course, it’s pretty hard to strangle yourself to death.

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Anti-Marijuana Groups File Lawsuit To Block Trump Administration’s Hemp CBD And THC Medicare Coverage Plan

A coalition of anti-marijuana organizations is suing the Trump administration over a novel initiative set to launch this week to widen the availability of CBD and THC for certain patients by covering hemp-derived products under select federal health insurance programs.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) and nine other drug prevention groups on Monday filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the legality of the cannabis program—which is being facilitated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)—and seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately halt the process.

The filing names CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as defendants in the lawsuit. The lawsuit comes as CMS is set to start covering CBD and THC products as a Substance Access Beneficiary Engagement Incentive (BEI) beginning on Wednesday.

Under the BEI, patients enrolled in specific federal health insurance programs could have up to $500 worth of hemp-derived products covered each year. The CBD-focused plan will also allow a certain amount of THC in products, but the agency said earlier this month the rules are subject to change if federal hemp policy changes, as is currently expected under a law set to take effect later this year.

SAM and the other organizations—including the Cannabis Impact Prevention Coalition, Drug Free American Foundation and Save Our Society From Drugs—made several arguments in support of legal intervention to prevent the cannabidiol BEI from moving forward. Much of the complaint focuses on alleged violations of administrative rules to provide the treatment, which they point out has not received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval.

CMS didn’t publish a notice of proposed rulemaking for the cannabis BEI that would have afforded the public with a comment period to weigh in, and the agency’s initiative runs counter to a separate final rule it issued last year that “declared cannabis products ineligible for supplemental Medicare coverage for chronically ill patients,” the prohibitionist plaintiffs said.

Beyond those alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the groups noted that CMS described a BEI for CBD containing a maximum THC concentration that exceeds what would constitute federally legal hemp under a policy that’s set to be implemented in November.

The filing says the program would additionally violate the Social Security Act (SSA), which “does not allow CMS to sanction the possession and use of illegal and dangerous Schedule I substances by Medicare patients without clear congressional authorization.”

“CMS’s action represents an unprecedented and unlawful assertion of binding decision-making authority that will profoundly affect the health of elderly Americans,” SAM and the other organizations said in their complaint. “CMS took this action without the guardrails imposed by the administrative process, without any reasoned explanation, in conflict with the agency’s own recent APA-compliant determination, and without statutory authority.”

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The Hidden Dangers of Hospital Births & How to Protect Your Family

Many traditions throughout history have come to view the prenatal period and childbirth as one of the most important moments in a human’s life as it sets the stage for all that follows. Unfortunately, much in the same way we desecrate the death process by over-medicalizing it (to the point research has found doctors are less likely to seek end of life care at a medical facility), the same issue also exists with childbirth. Many physicians I know who are familiar with the hospital birthing process chose to skip it and give birth at home (along with many more doctors featured in a 2016 documentary).

Conversely, a minority of childbirths do need advanced medical care, and for those mothers, access to a hospital greatly benefits them, particularly if actions are taken to mitigate the most dangerous aspects of hospital birth. As such, childbirth occupies a similar place as many other medical controversies; neither side of the issue is entirely correct. However, the discussion remains perpetually polarized because advocates on either side will not acknowledge the valid points raised by the other side for fear of weakening their own position. Since I feel strongly about the dangers of hospital birth, it is my hope in this article that I will be able to portray both sides of the issue fairly.

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A Nursing Home Owner Got a Trump Pardon. The Families of His Patients Got Nothing.

Doris Coulson remained spirited even as her illness progressed — watching cooking shows on TV, working crossword puzzles and wheeling herself down the hallways of her nursing home to show off her granddaughter when she came to visit.

Coulson had been admitted to Hillview Post Acute and Rehabilitation Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, in January 2016, after Parkinson’s disease left her at risk of choking when she swallowed. That April, the facility’s operations were taken over by Skyline Healthcare, a New Jersey-based company that was buying up nursing homes across the country.

Medical records for the retired cardiac nurse, then 71, were marked “NPO” — nothing by mouth.

Then that September, a nursing assistant found Coulson unresponsive and hanging off the side of her bed, her skin ashy and her breathing shallow. She was taken to a hospital in a coma and died several days later. The chief cause of death was aspiration pneumonia, according to her death certificate.

“The doctors said they found scrambled eggs in her lungs,” said her daughter Melissa Coulson.

Coulson’s death and the circumstances surrounding it led her family to file a lawsuit against Skyline and its owner, the New Jersey businessman Joseph Schwartz, alleging that cost-cutting at Hillview left Coulson without the care she needed. It was one of several lawsuits tied to patient outcomes as Schwartz’s empire expanded and then unraveled, with much of the chain collapsing by 2018.

Schwartz didn’t contest the case, and a judge in 2020 awarded nearly $19 million in damages. Coulson’s family has never been able to collect. Schwartz had by that time relinquished all of his property in Arkansas, so there was nothing left in the state for the family’s lawyer to try to seize, nor was there enough information about assets he may hold in other states.

Coulson’s civil action was one of several efforts to hold Schwartz accountable for what happened at his nursing homes. In perhaps the most sweeping move, federal prosecutors in New Jersey charged Schwartz with orchestrating a $39 million payroll tax scheme connected to his nursing home empire.

He pleaded guilty last April to failure to pay the IRS taxes withheld from employees and failing to file a financial report for his employees’ benefit plan. A federal judge sentenced him to three years in prison.

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There are fashions in medicine just as much as there are fashions in clothes

Badly conceived fashions in clothes may embarrass you, but ill-conceived fashions in medicine may kill you. And the fashions in medicine have, by and large, as much scientific validity as the fashions in the rag trade.

The most obvious fashions in medicine relate to treatments. For example, a couple of centuries ago, enemas, purges and bleedings were all the rage. In 17th century France, Louis XIII had 212 enemas, 215 purges and 47 bleedings in a single year. The Canon of Troyes is reputed to have had a total of 2,190 enemas in a two-year period; how he found time to do anything else is difficult to imagine. By the mid-19th century, enemas were a little last year’s style and bleeding was the in-thing. Patients would totter into their doctor’s surgery, sit down, tuck up their sleeves and ask the doctor to “draw me a pint of blood.” Bleeding was the universal cure, recommended for most symptoms and ailments. Feeling a little under the weather? A little light bleeding should soon put you to rights. Constant headaches? We’ll soon have that sorted for you, sir. Just roll up your sleeve. Bit of trouble down below, madam? Not to worry. Slip off your frock and hold your arm out.

A little later, in the 19th century, doctors put their lancets away and started recommending alcohol as the new panacea. Brandy was the favoured remedy in the doctor’s pharmacopoeia. People took it for almost everything. And when patients developed delirium tremens, the recommended treatment was more alcohol. If things got so bad that the brandy didn’t work, doctors added a little opium. Those were the days to be ill. Hypochondriacs must have had a wonderful time.

In the years from the 1930’s onwards, removing tonsils became the fashionable treatment. Tonsils were removed from between a half and three-quarters of all children in the 1930’s. This often useless and unnecessary (and always potentially hazardous) operation is less commonly performed these days, but in the 1970’s over a million such operations were done every year in Britain alone. Doctors used to rip out tonsils on the kitchen table and toss them to the dog. Between 200 and 300 deaths a year were caused by the operation. One suspects that few, if any, of those unfortunate children would have died from tonsillitis.

Diseases go in cycles, too. In the early 19th century, the fashionable diagnosis was “inflammation.” Then, when patients and doctors tired of that, the new keyword was “debility.” Doctors didn’t know terribly much and so their diagnoses, like their treatments, tended to be rather general.

These days, patients expect more specific diagnoses and doctors are invariably happy to oblige.

One year, everyone will be suffering from asthma. It will be the disease of the moment, just as the mini skirt or ripped jeans may drift mysteriously in and out of fashion. Another year, arthritis will be the fashionable disease as a drug company persuades journalists to write articles extolling the virtues (and disguising the vices) of its latest product. The cycle is a relatively simple one. The drug company with a new and profitable product to sell (usually designed for some long-term – and therefore immensely profitable – disorder) will send teams of well-trained representatives around to talk to family physicians, give them presents and take them out for expensive luncheons. The sales representatives will be equipped with information showing that the disorder in question is rapidly reaching epidemic proportions, lists of warning symptoms for the doctor to watch out for and information about the drug company’s new solution to the problem. Because the product will be new to the market, there will probably be very little evidence available about side effects and the sales representative will be able to accurately describe the drug as extremely “safe.” Older drugs, well-tried, possibly effective and probably safer than the new replacement, will be discarded as out-of-date. After all, their side effects will, over the years, have been well-documented.

There are even non-existent diseases which seem to me, and, I suspect, a growing number of other physicians, to have been originally invented in order to find a use for expensive medicinal compounds (and enthusiastically welcomed by parents who find the fictitious disease to be a handy and enormously useful explanation for bad behaviour).

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Woman visiting ER for back pain shocked after doctor suggests EUTHANASIA: ‘Last thing on my mind’

A Canadian woman who went to the emergency room with back pain said she was left shocked when a doctor immediately floated the suggestion of euthanasia. 

Miriam Lancaster, 84, was rushed to Vancouver General Hospital last April with a fractured sacrum, a break at the base of the spine relatively frequent in elderly people.

Lancaster said she was stunned by the doctors’ immediate suggestion upon examination.

‘I was approached by a young lady doctor whose very first words out of her mouth is we would like to offer you [euthanasia],’ Lancaster said in a video posted on X.

The retired piano teacher said she just wanted to find out why she was in pain and had never considered a medically-assisted death.

‘That was the last thing on my mind,’ Lancaster added. ‘I did not want to die.’

She said that she had been most upset by the ‘timing’ of the request.

‘A patient is already upset and disoriented and wishing they weren’t there,’ she told the National Post. ‘To give them a decision, a life-terminating decision, when they are in this condition, that’s what I object to.’

Lancaster added that she was not thinking about ‘cashing my chips,’ which her daughter agreed with.

‘To be offered [euthanasia] right off the bat for a non-life-threatening condition? It was a matter of pain management,’ she said. ‘Just because someone is 84 does not mean they’re ready to go on the scrap heap of life.’

She called the hospital’s treatment of her mother an ‘insult to seniors.’

Euthanasia is legal in Canada for those who are 18 and over, able to make decisions for themselves and have a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition.’

That does not mean a fatal or terminal condition, but rather ‘an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed’ or ‘unbearable physical or mental suffering.’

There have been 76,475 medically assisted deaths in the country since euthanasia was legalized in 2016, per the Canadian government.

Weaver said religious motives prevented her from accepting euthanasia, which is also known as medical aid in dying (MAID).

‘My mother and I are practicing Catholics,’ she said. ‘We would never accept MAID under any circumstances.’

Lancaster’s daughter claimed that other treatment options were only suggested after euthanasia was firmly rejected.

‘The doctor said, “Well, you could get rehab, but it will be a long road, and it will be very difficult,”‘ Weaver said.

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DOJ Opens Probes Into Possible Race Discrimination at 3 Medical Schools

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has initiated investigations into possible race discrimination in the admissions processes of three U.S. medical schools.

The DOJ sent letters to the medical schools of Stanford University, Ohio State University, and the University of California—San Diego, notifying them of the federal probes. Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division, confirmed the probes in a post on X on March 26.

In the letters, the DOJ requested documents on the schools’ admissions policies to determine how race is considered in evaluating applicants, along with applicant-level admissions data, including standardized test scores, extracurricular activities, admission outcomes, and demographics.

Stanford School of Medicine told The Epoch Times by email that it was reviewing the DOJ’s letter and “will respond appropriately.”

“Stanford School of Medicine prohibits unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, or any other characteristics protected by applicable law,” the school’s spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Ohio State University also said the school will respond appropriately to the DOJ’s letter and affirmed its compliance with state and federal regulations and legal rulings governing admissions policies.

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Portugal Bans Irreversible Sex Change Treatments for Minors and Restores Clinical Criteria in Gender Identity

The Portuguese Parliament has approved in first reading several bills introduced by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), the CDS-PP, and the sovereigntist CHEGA party that substantially modify the gender identity regulations in force since 2018.

The central measure establishes a strict prohibition on puberty blockers and hormonal treatments for any minor under 18 years of age, while requiring the reinstatement of mandatory clinical reports—prepared by psychologists and physicians—for any change in registered name and sex, thereby eliminating the pure self-determination allowed by the previous law.

This reform, driven by the center-right coalition and strongly supported by CHEGA, returns the legal framework to scientific and medical criteria similar to those of the 2011 legislation, prioritizing the protection of childhood against irreversible decisions.

According to the promoters, including CHEGA’s parliamentary leader Pedro Pinto, “changing sex before the age of 18 is inconceivable,” and the measure responds to consultations with parents’ associations and medical professionals, reinforcing the role of families in decisions of this magnitude.

The defenders of the law consider it a measure for the protection of childhood and the reinforcement of the role of families in this type of decisions.The 2018 law, which made Portugal one of Europe’s pioneering countries in allowing gender change by mere personal will without medical requirements, is partially repealed in its most controversial aspects.

Now, legal identity is once again based on clinical evidence and not solely on subjective self-determination. For minors, any hormonal intervention or puberty suppression is prohibited, thus avoiding treatments that, according to accumulated scientific evidence in several European countries, can cause permanent consequences in bone, cardiovascular, and psychological development.

This decision is set within a European context of growing prudence. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland have already restricted or suspended these protocols for minors following independent reviews that questioned their long-term safety and efficacy.

In Portugal, the parliamentary right—including the governing formation—has acted responsibly in the face of the gender ideology that for years imposed changes without deep debate or safeguards.

The approval, with 151 votes in favor and 79 against, marks a clear turning point in Portuguese politics and demonstrates that, when the best interests of the child are prioritized, reason and science prevail over ideological dogmas.

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A Mysterious Ancient Egyptian Text Reveals Evidence of Advanced Medicine 1000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought

It was 1862, and the American Egyptologist Edwin Smith had just made a fascinating discovery in Luxor, Egypt, the site of ancient Thebes.

This was no archaeological mystery unearthed from the country’s time-worn sands, however. Instead, Smith’s acquisition came from an Egyptian dealer, Mustafa Agha, who sold him an unusual papyrus that seemed to describe medical practices from Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period.

Smith kept the papyrus until his death in 1906, largely unaware of its contents, as his understanding of hieratic was limited and he was unable to translate it. After Smith’s passing, many of the items in his collection, including the mysterious papyrus, were given to the New York Historical Society by his daughter, where they quietly remained for several more years.

It wasn’t until 1920 that the ancient treatise came to the attention of the classical archaeologist and Egyptologist Caroline Ransom Williams, who brought it to the attention of noted archaeologist James Henry Breasted.

“The papyrus is probably the most valuable one owned by the Society,” Williams wrote to Breasted at the time, “and I am ready to waive my interest in it, in the hope that it may be published sooner and better than I could do it.” Recognized as the first chair in Egyptology and Oriental History in the United States at the University of Chicago, Breasted was immediately fascinated by the ancient text and set to work deciphering it.

One decade later, Breasted had finally completed the task of interpreting the obscure ancient document in its entirety, a translation of which was published in 1930. The result was a fundamental shift in our understanding of the ancient history of medical science and its early beginnings, revealing evidence for advanced medical knowledge in ancient Egypt as much as 1000 years before what scholars had commonly accepted at the time.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus: Obscure Origins and a Cliffhanger Ending

The document, known today as the Edwin Smith Papyrus, was cut into one-column pages at some point in the last century. It features Egyptian hieratic written in ink of two different colors: most of the text is black, while some portions with addenda to the primary document appear in red.

Little is known about the author of the papyrus, although scholars agree that the version that exists today is likely the work of a single scholar, and probably also represents a copy of an even older manuscript from Egypt’s Old Kingdom.

Several clues point to this possibility: despite the document’s physical age, scholars note the inclusion of archaic forms of Egyptian words and grammar, suggesting the papyrus is a copy of a much earlier document. Equally tantalizing is that the document ends in mid-sentence, suggesting that, in addition to being a copy, the surviving version is an incomplete work.

From Ancient Magic to Medical Science

Most intriguing of all is the information the document contains. Outlined in an illustrated survey of 48 case histories, the Edwin Smith Papyrus presents a remarkable ancient Egyptian perspective on various injuries and their treatments. Each case details a different region of the body and/or a specific organ and discusses each injury systematically, even including references to the original doctor’s notes on ailments “which I will treat,” suggesting a physician logging their diagnoses of conditions afflicting their patients.

From descriptions of human anatomy to treatments for bleeding, curing infections, and closing wounds, the medical knowledge outlined in the papyrus is remarkably advanced for the period in which it is believed to have originated. Additionally, discussions of medicines featured in the document reveal a level of understanding that exceeds that previously known to have existed at the time by a significant margin, even going beyond medicinal knowledge first recorded by the Greek physician Hippocrates, close to 1000 years later.

Perhaps most significant of all, the document’s precocious discussion of medical knowledge marks a significant shift away from the use of spells and incantations, which are widely believed to have been commonly used for the treatment of a variety of ailments during Egypt’s Old Kingdom. Although the Edwin Smith Papyrus does still contain some references to magic—there are eight magic spells that appear on its “verso” (back left-hand) side—it is believed that these magical references may have represented a sort of “last effort” in cases where all forms of medical treatment had proven ineffective.

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The Feds Are Investing in Wearable Health Trackers. That Could Put Your Private Data at Risk.

By gathering continuous data about sleep, heart rate, and physical activity, biowearable devices can give individuals more control over their well-being. But they also create a detailed digital record of our daily lives—one that the federal government may soon be able to access readily.

Consider this scenario.

You’ve recently received a government-subsidized biowearable. Accordingly, the authorities now know when you’re sleeping, because the device reports your sleep cycle, location, and daily movements in real time to a cloud server accessible through a legal process. It knows when you’re home. It knows when you leave.

Those data are then obtained by an FBI field office (either through direct purchase or, if necessary, a legal process), because a federal prosecutor has decided that your criticism of immigration enforcement operations and your social media posts supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement protesters constitute “incitement to violence” against federal agents. Under the Trump administration’s elastic (and legally dubious) domestic terrorism definitions and designations, that is enough to open a criminal investigation.

And because the government has known for weeks when you’re at home sleeping, it knows exactly when to break down your door.

That scenario may sound far-fetched, but it is getting closer to reality. In March, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) would begin investing in new biowearable technologies through a program it called Delphi, after the ancient Greek sanctuary where the maxim “know thyself” was inscribed. It’s a fitting name for a program designed to help people understand their bodies, but it also raises an uncomfortable question: Who else might come to know them just as well?

The program aims to develop biosensors capable of continuously monitoring cytokines (cellular inflammation markers) and hormone levels, going substantially beyond what current wearables can detect. Funding will be determined on a competitive basis as private-sector stakeholders submit proposals; no specific appropriation has been announced.

It remains unclear why this taxpayer funding is necessary in a field that is already thriving. The global wearables market was valued at roughly $43 billion in 2024 and is projected to exceed $168 billion by 2030.

Devices worn on the wrist, finger, or skin can already monitor heart rates, blood oxygen levels, sleep patterns, physical activity, and—in the case of continuous glucose monitors—blood sugar levels in real time. Some smartwatches can even conduct electrocardiograms capable of detecting irregular heart rhythms, such as atrial fibrillation.

Until recently, people could access most of this information only during periodic visits to a clinic or hospital. Biowearables now enable people to monitor many of these signals continuously in everyday life.

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