Tag: health care

UCLA Med School Launches Review Of ‘Health Equity’ Course But Warns That Whistleblowers Could Be Disciplined

The University of California, Los Angeles medical school is launching a probe of its controversial “health equity” class—and warning whistleblowers they could be punished if any more information leaks about it.

The dean of the medical school, Steven Dubinett, announced Friday that his office had formed a task force to review all first-year courses, including “Structural Racism and Health Equity,” after the Washington Free Beacon published materials from the mandatory class. But the school isn’t happy about having its hand forced.

In an email to students and faculty, Dubinett implied that the leaks were an “attempt to intimidate” the medical school and hinted that future leakers could face discipline—especially if they record lectures. 

“Recording class sessions is not permitted without express consent from the instructor and class participants,” Dubinett wrote. That warning appears to be a reference to an earlier incident in which a guest lecturer, Lisa Gray Garcia, led the required course in chants of “Free, Free Palestine” as well as a prayer to “Mamma Earth,” part of which was caught on tape and thrust the course into the national spotlight.  

“Doxxing or publishing, posting or identifying private information of faculty, staff, trainees or students in any public forum, including social media, is contrary to UCLA policy and our core values of mutual respect and inclusion,” Dubinett continued. “Guidelines for overseeing invited guest speakers are being developed that will address adherence to our policies.”

The veiled threats come days after the full syllabus for the course went viral online and sparked outrage from prominent doctors—including former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier—who said it was filled with unscientific claptrap and called for an investigation. Leaked readings claimed that weight loss is a “hopeless endeavor,” described “anti-capitalist politics” as a tenet of “disability justice,” and advocated for abolishing the police. 

The syllabus was designed with input from Shamsher Samra, a professor of emergency medicine who has endorsed “Palestinians’ right to return” and published research on the “health of border abolition.” Though the course initially included an exercise that separated students by race, that lesson was canceled in January after it became the subject of a local civil rights complaint.

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Leaked Files From Transgender Association ‘Shocking’ And ‘Horrific’ Admission, Critics Say

A leaked video and documents exposing the inner workings of the organization responsible for setting the so-called “standards of care” for gender transition treatments and surgeries on children is a “shocking” and “horrific” admission, critics say.

The leaked files from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health—better known as WPATH—reveal “widespread medical malpractice on children and vulnerable adults,” according to a 241-page report disclosing emails, documents, and an 82-minute video.

Environmental Progress, a nonprofit organization led by founder and president Michael Shellenberger that obtained the files, released them to the public in an exposé on March 4.

“The WPATH Files show that what is called ‘gender medicine’ is neither science nor medicine,” Mr. Shellenberger said in a statement. “The experiments are not randomized, double-blind, or controlled. It’s not medicine since the first rule is to do no harm. And that requires informed consent.”

The files are “a shocking admission” by WPATH doctors and other medical practitioners privately acknowledging they’re not getting proper informed consent from parents and children before proceeding with gender transition treatments and surgeries, prominent civil rights attorney Harmeet Dhillon told The Epoch Times.

Ms. Dhillon, the founder and CEO of the Center for American Liberty, which is representing several women who’ve allegedly suffered harm and irreversible damage as a result of WPATH’s recommendations of transgender surgery for gender dysphoric children and young adults, called the exposé “an important act of journalism.”

“These leaked files show that behind closed doors, WPATH members are admitting to the fact that they’re not getting informed consent for hormonal and surgical interventions from young patients, which is the very premise of our litigation for young women who’ve been mutilated by these doctors when they were children,” she said.

The Center for American Liberty has taken on three pro-bono cases representing detransitioners Chole Cole, Layla Jane, and Luka Hein, who are suing Kaiser Permanente and doctors who performed double mastectomies on these young women.

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How therapy has turned generation of Americans into ‘victims’ and may be CAUSING depression epidemic, according to top experts

There has been a big push to get more Americans talking about their feelings in recent decades.

But now experts are starting to wonder if the widespread use of therapy may be having the opposite effect and actually fueling America’s depression crisis.

They argue the treatment, however well-intentioned, can instill a ‘victim’ mentality where people become hyper-focused on their feelings and less engaged with the world around them, making them more depressed.

Around a quarter of US adults said they had visited a therapist or psychiatrist in 2022, which is twice as high as 20 years ago and far higher than the around 3 percent in the UK.

Therapy speak has become so common it has permeated mainstream culture in the US. Clinical words used during counseling like ‘gaslighting’, ‘trauma’ and ‘microaggressions’ have become household terms.

Professor Robert Dingwall, a social scientist and adviser to the UK government, told DailyMail.com that looking on at the situation in America, there is a concern among sociologists that people are being referred to therapy at the slightest sign of hardship in their life. 

‘There is a tendency to medicalize everyday problems in pursuit of commercial interests,’ he said, whether it be rejection from a partner or a failed job interview.

‘This is something that people have been saying for 50 or 60 years, a concern that’s been expressed by both psychiatrists and sociologists.’ 

This fosters a victim mentality, said Shawn Smith, a clinical psychologist based in Colorado.

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UK’s National Health Service – literally costing an arm and a leg – hundreds of them

From here:

UK Hospitals Have “Mistakenly” Amputated Over 100 Limbs in Just Three Years – The Alarming Cost of Socialized Medicine Exposed! – Liberty Resolve

“In a shocking display of incompetence, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) hospitals have become hotbeds for “accidental” amputations, showcasing the dire consequences of government-run healthcare systems. Over the past three years, an appalling number of 105 patient limbs have been “mistakenly” removed by British doctors due to what can only be described as medical negligence.”

Yikes!

The article also points out “The incompetence doesn’t stop at scheduled surgeries; U.K. emergency rooms are also guilty of “mistakenly” severing limbs.”

The article does not detail the reasons for these “mistakes” – communication, language, influence of drugs and alcohol, overwork, language translation errors, criminal acts, administration errors, incompetence etc, but it does list the worst “Health Trusts”.

  • York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,
  • Sheffield Teaching Hospitals,
  • George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust,
  • East Kent Hospitals University Trust,
  • Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust,
  • North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust,
  • Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust,
  • Warrington and Halton Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

But wait, there’s more!

“Adding insult to injury, another 15 NHS Foundation Trusts have also been implicated in similar negligent acts leading to accidental amputations. However, these organizations have shrouded their exact numbers in secrecy under the guise of “confidentiality concerns.” It’s estimated that among these 15 trusts alone, at least 82 patients suffered unnecessary amputations:”

115 plus 82 = 197 amputations, and probably more.

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The Era of Informed Consent is Over

In a significant blow to patient autonomy, informed consent has been quietly revoked just 77 years after it was codified in the Nuremberg Code.

On the 21st of December 2023, as we were frantically preparing for the festive season, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a final ruling to amend a provision of the 21st Century Cures Act. This allowed 

…an exception from the requirement to obtain informed consent when a clinical investigation poses no more than a minimal risk to the human subject…

This ruling went into effect on January 22nd, 2024, which means it’s already standard practice across America. 

So, what is the 21st Century Cures Act? It is a controversial Law enacted by the 114th United States Congress in January 2016 with strong support from the pharmaceutical industry. The Act was designed to

…accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of 21st-century cures, and for other purposes [?]…[emphasis added]

Some of the provisions within this Act make for uncomfortable reading. For example, the Act supported: 

High-risk, high-reward research [Sec. 2036].

Novel clinical trial designs [Sec. 3021]

Encouraging vaccine innovation [Sec. 3093].

This Act granted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) legal protection to pursue high-risk, novel vaccine research. A strong case could be made that these provisions capture all the necessary architecture required for much of the evil that transpired over the past four years.

Overturning patient-informed consent was another stated goal of the original Act. Buried under Section 3024 was the provision to develop an

Informed consent waiver or alteration for clinical investigation.

Scholars of medical history understand that the concept of informed consent, something we all take for granted today, is a relatively new phenomenon codified in its modern understanding as one of the critical principles of the Nuremberg Code in 1947. It is inconceivable that just 77 years after Nuremberg, the door has once again opened for state-sanctioned medical experimentation on potentially uninformed and unwilling citizens.  

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A lifesaving therapy for children with a rare disease is now the world’s most expensive drug, raising questions about access

A new gene therapy for the fatal genetic disorder metachromatic leukodystrophy, or MLD, will carry a wholesale price of $4.25 million, its manufacturer announced Wednesday, making it the world’s most expensive medicine.

Lenmeldy was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration on Monday and is the first therapy for the rare and devastating disease, which typically kills affected children before they turn 7.  About 40 children are born with MLD in the US each year.

The wholesale cost isn’t usually what patients pay, but it’s a cost that’s considered and shouldered by public and private health insurance plans, including state Medicaid plans, which cover roughly 4 out of every 10 children in the United States.

Manufacturers of gene therapies say the big prices reflect big benefits — the chance to be free of a disabling or even fatal disease — and they point out that they need to be able to recoup the steep costs of development, testing and manufacturing their products.

Health policy experts say that as the list of gene and cell therapies with eye-popping prices grows, it may strain the ability of states and other insurers to cover their costs, and ultimately limit patient access if plans begin to exclude these therapies as a class from coverage.

Dr. Bobby Gaspar, the co-founder and CEO of Orchard Therapeutics, the company that makes Lenmeldy, said the treatment is “paradigm-shifting medicine and has the potential to stop or slow the progression of this devastating childhood disease with a single treatment.”

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Man, 62, in Boston is given a PIG’S kidney just days after Chinese doctors transplanted liver from hog into 50-year-old patient, in twin medical breakthroughs

Animal to human transplant science took a major step forward this week after surgeons transplanted a kidney and a liver from pigs into humans.

In Boston, an ailing 62-year-old man received a genetically-altered kidney from a pig in a world first.

The new organ began to produce urine almost immediately, doctors at Mass General said, and the patient is already walking the hospital’s halls. He may soon be discharged.

At the same time in China, a 50-year-old man became the first person to receive a genetically-engineered liver from a pig — which was kept in his body for ten days.

Surgeons say the organ’s color and texture appeared ‘normal’ upon extraction and that it was even secreting bile — a fluid aiding digestion — in a sign it was working. 

Both breakthroughs could offer hope for new ways to supply hospitals with organs for transplants, as the waiting list runs into years. 

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Illinois Moves To Cut Thousands Of Non-Citizens From Taxpayer-Subsidized Health Care

Illinois officials are moving to stop providing taxpayer-subsidized health care to thousands of non-citizens, including many illegal immigrants, in a bid to rein in soaring costs.

The Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services said in a recent statement it will start annually verifying the eligibility for two programs—Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults (HBIA) and Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors (HBIS)—after enrollment was paused due to budget concerns.

“This process will mirror the redetermination process used in the traditional Medicaid program to ensure those enrolled remain eligible,” the agency said.

The plans include closing cases for people who are enrolled who make over a certain amount or who otherwise are no longer eligible for the program in which they’re enrolled. Officials also plan on removing legal permanent residents who qualify for Medicaid, which is a federal program.

“The redetermination process ensures that those who are enrolled remain eligible for coverage,” Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services spokesperson Jamie Munks told WBEZ. “If an individual loses coverage through the redetermination process, it is because they no longer meet eligibility requirements, or they are required to respond or submit additional information to prove their continued eligibility, but they do not do so.”

The processes are estimated to reduce the number of enrollees in the state programs by about 6,000 people, state Sen. Don DeWitte, a Republican, told the Center Square after hearing from state health officials. Those removals would result in savings of $14 million.

HBIS, launched in 2020, provides taxpayer-funded health care for seniors who would receive Medicaid coverage but can’t get it due to their immigration status. HBIA, introduced in 2022, provides the same state benefits for people aged 42 to 64. Illegal immigrants are among the approximately 63,000 covered.

“Everyone, regardless of documentation status, deserves access to holistic healthcare coverage,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said in one of his statements in support of the programs.

Many Republicans have opposed the programs, noting that some citizens still lack health care.

The costs of the programs have increasingly sparked concern among lawmakers of both parties.

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Surging nervous system disorders now top cause of illness: study

Conditions affecting the nervous system — such as strokes, migraines and dementia — have surged past heart disease to become the leading cause of ill health worldwide, a major new analysis said on Friday.

More than 3.4 billion people — 43 percent of the global population — experienced a neurological condition in 2021, far more than had previously been thought, the analysis found.

The study was carried out by hundreds of researchers led by the US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which has become a global reference for health statistics.

Lead study author Jaimie Steinmetz of the IHME said the results showed that nervous system conditions are now “the world’s leading cause of overall disease burden”.

Cases of these conditions have soared by 59 percent in the last three decades, she said, with the increase mainly driven by the fact that the world’s population was ageing and growing fast.

The researchers looked at how 37 different neurological conditions affected ill health, disability and premature death across 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2021.

This data was used to estimate how many years of healthy life were lost to each condition, called disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

More than 443 million years of healthy life were lost to nervous system disorders globally in 2021, an 18-percent increase from 1990, the study found.

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Report: ‘Healthcare workers’ raped innocents; UN ‘peacekeepers’ shelled civilians

Healthcare rapists

As shocking as the revelations about mass rapes of women and children by UN “peacekeepers” and “teachers” may be, even more distressing is that UN employees supposedly dedicated to healthcare have carried out those very same atrocities and are led by an actual terrorist.

As Frontline News previously reported, the World Health Organization (WHO), a UN agency, is headed by a terrorist who keeps rapists and pedophiles on staff giving them the power to abuse the poorest people in the world.  He even flies these staff members to towns in the developing world, with fancy rental cars and hotel rooms waiting for them, and with far more cash than the local residents have – a perfect recipe for exploitation.

Actual terrorist at the helm

Even hardcore anti-globalists might be tempted to write off such charges as ludicrous, yet it is hard to ignore the evidence Frontline News has detailed about WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s past:

Tedros [was] a leader of Ethiopia’s brutal minority party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a wing of the ruling Marxist-rooted Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front …The United States State Department has categorized TPLF as a terrorist organization due to its “violent activities …

During his tenure as Ethiopia’s health minister and then foreign minister, Tedros risked the health of citizens for political gain:

[H]ealth experts in Ethiopia noticed a strange phenomenon: The government was refusing to acknowledge cholera outbreaks. Instead, the authorities labelled the outbreaks as “acute watery diarrhea” … the Ethiopian government was pressuring its health workers to avoid any mention of cholera, which could damage the country’s image and deter tourists.

That’s from Tedros’ pre-WHO days. What of Tedros today?

Actual rapists on the healthcare staff

Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts argued on the floor of Parliament that the WHO, far from having well-meaning leaders unaware of the child rapes carried out by their subordinates, “is rotting from the head,” Frontline News reported. Here’s his textual introduction to the video of his speech, posted on his YouTube Channel:

Former terrorist Tedros Ghebreyesus will not fire 83 WHO staff engaged in abuse including rape and forced abortions, with one victim 13, claiming rape and forced abortion do not violate WHO’s policies because the victims were not receiving WHO aid. [Emphasis added.]

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