Tag: safety

‘The Bacteria Are Winning’: How Factory Farms Cause Human Sickness

Intensive farming, where animals are kept in close quarters, creates environments that encourage the evolution of harmful bacteria and other pathogens so that they gain traits making it easier to infect people and more difficult to cure, a new study suggests.

Hygiene and welfare standards are often low on industrial farms, also called factory farms, and the rising widespread use of antimicrobials has led to concerns that overuse in animal farming is playing a key role in driving antimicrobial-resistant infections in people.

To gain insights into how intensive animal farming influences the evolution of harmful bacteria, a new study investigated how modern densely populated chicken farms have shaped the evolution of strains of Campylobacter jejuni bacteria, which are the leading cause of gut illness and diarrhea from bacterial food poisoning in people, typically after eating contaminated chicken.

Chickens are of particular interest because populations have shot up sevenfold since the 1960s due to agricultural growth and increasing demand for poultry. Today, roughly 31 billion chickens inhabit the globe. Together, poultry accounts for around 70% of all bird biomass on Earth.

The results showed that C. jejuni evolved rapidly in chickens, developing genetic strains resistant to antimicrobials and more likely to adapt to other species, which makes it easier for them to infect people.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the universities of Oxford and Sheffield in the United Kingdom analyzed the genetic information of 2,747 C. jejuni samples from wild birds and chickens.

They found that since 1900, the transmission between chickens and wild birds has increased by more than 100-fold.

Farming intensification has changed how pathogens interact between populations of wild birds and domesticated chickens, says Oakem Kyne, a lead researcher on the study at the University of Oxford.

There is a much wider variety of chicken-adapted C. jejuni strains now than before they were domesticated, with a large jump since 1900 when modern poultry farming intensified, says Kyne.

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Two New Studies Raise Alarm Over Potential COVID-19 “Vaccine” Contamination of the Blood Supply

A newly published two-part scientific study raises major alarms about an issue that has received remarkably little scrutiny: What happens when blood from COVID-19-vaccinated donors is transfused into another person?

Blood banks routinely screen donations for recognized infectious threats. Yet the current blood supply is not routinely screened for vaccine-derived mRNA, spike protein, plasmid DNA, amyloid, fibrin-microclot complexes, or other relevant vaccine-associated constituents.

Our newly published two-part series investigates this blind spot from two complementary directions. The two studies were authored by James A. Thorp, MD; Claire Rogers, MSPAS, PA-C; R. Clinton Ohlers, PhD; M. Nathaniel Mead, PhD; Nicolas Hulscher, MPH (myself); Kirstin Cosgrove, CCRA; Sierra Hamm, RN; David Speicher, PhD; and Steven Hatfill, MD, M Med.

Part I presents a retrospective, hypothesis-generating case series of nine individuals who had not received a COVID-19 vaccine and subsequently experienced serious medical events after receiving blood transfusions.

Reported complications included thromboembolic disease, progressive clotting disorders, myocarditis, pericardial disease, disseminated intravascular coagulation, multi-organ system failure, and death.

We concluded that these cases, together with the existing literature, raise sufficient concern to warrant direct investigation of whether biologically active vaccine-derived constituents may be present in donated blood:

This study suggests that blood donated by COVID-19-vaccinated individuals may contain biologically active vaccine-derived constituents that could cause adverse clinical outcomes. The case reports and cited studies identify questions that warrant further investigation. All the pathogenic components of the COVID-19 vaccine or byproducts from it, have been found in several studies to be circulating in the blood of vaccinated donors. Healthcare providers must honor the ethical principles of patient autonomy and non-maleficence and support patients’ requests for autologous and directed designated donor blood. Screening blood donations for the presence of spike protein, amyloid, fibrin-microclot complexes, vaccine-derived mRNA, and plasmid DNA using quantitative assays and PCR-based methods should be considered for further evaluation by relevant public health and regulatory authorities, including the CDC and FDA.

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HORROR: Multiple Patients Paralyzed at Nashville Hospital After ‘Pharmacy Error’ Leads to Drug Mix-Up

Multiple patients went into cardiac arrest after a ‘pharmacy error’ led to a dangerous drug mix-up.

Two patients are paralyzed, and one is on a ventilator at Ascension Saint Thomas Midtown Hospital after they were given the wrong medication prior to surgery.

The four patients were reportedly given potassium instead of an anesthetic. The dangerous mix-up happened at the hospital’s in-house pharmacy.

Too much potassium administered too quickly can stop a person’s heart, CBS reported.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations is now involved in the case.

The hospital said they were “sorry” for injecting the patients with too much potassium.

“Our hearts remain entirely with the four patients and families impacted by the recent event at Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital Midtown,” the hospital said. “On behalf of our leadership and care teams, we extend our deepest apologies for the harm caused.”

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Sanofi Didn’t Follow Protocol for Clinical Trial in Which Infant Died

Sanofi shut down its RSV vaccine trial for infants and toddlers in 2024 after a baby died. It was later determined that the baby had an underlying congenital heart defect, which should have disqualified the infant from participating in the trial.

Now, a newly obtained letter shows the company paused the trial “to re-educate all participating sites and investigators” on the criteria they should use to judge who should or shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the trial, and to “reiterate the need to assess for chronic illnesses” that would make an infant or toddler ineligible to participate in a clinical trial.

The letter — obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by British general practitioner and RSV vaccine expert Dr. Peter Selley — sheds new light on the infant death and trial pause first reported by The Defender.

The infant’s death constituted a “serious adverse event” that triggered the halt.

A Sanofi spokesperson last month confirmed the death and told The Defender that the baby had underlying congenital heart disease. The company’s analysis — supported by the independent data monitoring committee — the spokesperson said, concluded the experimental vaccine was not the “underlying cause of the event.”

Research published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal indicates that most children who die from respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, have comorbidities such as congenital heart or lung disease.

Congenital disorders should have excluded babies from the study, and participants should have been assessed for preexisting conditions, according to the clinical trial’s exclusion criteria.

“Given that they stopped the trial to ‘re-educate’ investigators about inclusion and exclusion criteria, it suggests that the trial protocol was not being followed in at least one of the trial sites,” Selley told The Defender.

Sanofi told The Defender that when the infant with an undiagnosed underlying heart condition died after receiving the experimental vaccine, the company proactively informed and worked closely with the independent data monitoring committee (IDMC) and health authorities to address the issue.

He said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) put the trial on a clinical hold and the company worked “to amend the Phase 3 protocol, adjust and clarify screening procedures and inclusion criteria, and re-educate all participating sites and investigators.”

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Blue-City Would Rather Go After Community Group Cleaning Up the Streets Than Address Unsafe Conditions

Andrea Suarez, the founder of We Heart Seattle, just wanted to help clean up Seattle and make it a safer place to live. According to their website, the organization has cleaned up over 2,100,000 pounds of trash from parks and shared spaces including dangerous discarded drug paraphernalia distributed through city and county harm reduction programs.

Suarez told Fox News Digital, “One of the biggest advocacy work I have done is that I go to the needle exchange and I get what they call the ‘party kit,’ and I demonstrated that our King County ‘Health’ Department is handing out cookers and tourniquets and glass pipes and paraphernalia to do drugs.”

“I was referring to this ‘party kit’ as a ‘suicide kit’ with very little, if no information on where to get medical detox.”

Now, the group is now facing a state workplace-safety investigation over the way its volunteers pick up and dispose of used hypodermic needles and fentanyl foil which Suarez “says is its first government probe.”

Suarez told The Center Square, “We received the notice through an email. I sent it to my board of directors. I talked to an attorney. Kind of scary, right? You get this letter demanding all these forms. We, of course, asked for an extension.”

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Meta Whistleblower Testifies Meta Took ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Approach to Child Safety

A former Meta safety engineer told a federal jury this week that company leaders repeatedly received warnings about harm to children on Facebook and Instagram and largely failed to act.

Quartz reports that Arturo Béjar, who worked as a safety engineer at Meta, testified that the company operated under what he described as a “don’t ask, don’t tell” philosophy toward child safety. He said internal studies showed children encountering harmful material at elevated rates, including recommendations that surfaced content from sexual predators and graphic violent images. Béjar said he brought these findings to Facebook and Instagram executives multiple times, and those conversations produced little meaningful change.

Béjar also testified that during his second stint at Meta, from 2019 to 2021, the company replaced the term “addiction” with “problematic use,” a framing he said did not meet the thresholds academic researchers use to define addiction. He said the metrics Meta made public gave a false picture of safety because they measured violations of content policies rather than actual harm experienced by users.

Béjar told the jury that in 2021 he emailed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg after Zuckerberg publicly stated that the company does not prioritize profit over safety. “I felt that he created a false and misleading impression of Facebook’s commitment to young people,” Béjar testified. He said he briefed Zuckerberg on product issues at least 100 times during his tenure at the company.

Béjar was the first witness called in the trial, which opened Tuesday in federal court in Oakland, California, before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. The case was brought by 29 state attorneys general who allege Meta intentionally designed Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to minors, collected data on children under 13 without parental consent in violation of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and misled the public about platform safety. Opening arguments were delivered by lawyers representing California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey.

Meta attorney Paul Schmidt argued that the states had selectively quoted internal documents to build a misleading narrative. He pointed to the company’s safety measures, including parental controls, privacy defaults for teenage users, and reminders encouraging users to limit time on the app.

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Over 300,000 kids received Covid shot AFTER officials knew of myocarditis risk

New vaccination data obtained by RCR, alongside emails released earlier this year, reveal that 311,257 teenagers received a second dose of the Covid vaccine after officials and Vaccine Ministers had been advised of the increased risk of myocarditis following a second dose in young people.

An email from Dr Ian Town, the Covid-19 Vaccine Technical Advisory Group (CV TAG) chair, dated 12 August 2021, shows the group’s advice on myocarditis risk and the recommended dosing schedule for 12 to 17-year-olds had been accepted by Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield and communicated “in detail” to the Vaccine Ministerial Group.

The ‘Vaccine Ministers’ was an informal group with no terms of reference that was set up to help govern the management of New Zealand’s portfolio of Covid-19 vaccines, including the immunisation programme rollout.

Cabinet delegated decision-making authority to the Vaccine Ministers on certain aspects of the Covid-19 Immunisation Programme. Members were Chris Hipkins, Minister for Covid-19 Response and chair of the group; Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern; Finance Minister Grant Robertson; Health Minister Andrew Little; and Associate Health Ministers Dr Ayesha Verrall, Aupito William Sio and Peeni Henare.

The new data, along with the emails, helps join the dots about who knew what, when, and reveals the extraordinary scale of the teen population that subsequently received two doses.

Additionally, OIA documents obtained and reported on over several years, including in The People’s Position, The People’s Report and RCR’s myocarditis timeline, have documented discussions among CV TAG about myocarditis and pericarditis – including the elevated risk following a second dose, alongside consideration of vaccination schedules for young people.

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‘Reckless’ 18,000 reduction in firefighters during worst year for wildfires

New EU data revealing a huge reduction in the number of firefighters during the worst year on record for wildfires highlights the need to end reckless cuts to our public services. 
 
Figures published today by Eurostat show that Europe had 372,400 professional firefighters in 2025 – down from 390,600 firefighters in 2024. See notes for national figures.

The reduction coincided with the most destructive year for wildfires on record, with more than a million hectares burned across the length and breadth of the EU. 

Austerity 

In response to a campaign by trade unions, the European Commission told member states in March to ensure their fire services are adequately staffed to deal with rising climate threats.

But some of the significant staff reductions came in countries which the Commission itself put under an ‘Excessive Deficit Procedure’ in 2024. For example, Poland lost 9,000 firefighters and France lost 4,100.  

That is why the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) is calling for a revision of the EU’s economic governance rules to ensure all member states can invest in vital public services and their staff. 

ETUC General Secretary Esther Lynch said: 

“You could not design a more reckless policy if you tried: sending Europe’s fire services into its most dangerous wildfire season ever with 18,000 fewer firefighters. 

“This is austerity setting fire to common sense and putting lives, livelihoods and homes at risk. Nothing could demonstrate more clearly just how dangerous and self-defeating the EU’s economic rules are. 

“Failing to properly staff our fire services, which carry out crucial prevention work as well as tackling blazes when they occur, is a false economy at a time when the economic cost of wildfires is running into the billions.

“Europe is massively increasing spending on defence but letting our guard down against the most imminent and serious risk to people’s safety. We need a consistent approach to all of the challenges we are facing and that requires investment in our public services and their workforce.”


Jan Willem Goudriaan, General Secretary of the European Public Service Union, said: 

“The public services emergency is repeatedly showing us its dangers, yet the Commission is fiddling while Rome burns. 

“Wildfire seasons are becoming longer and more severe, while the number of firefighters is declining. 

“The Commission’s focus on deregulation and competitiveness does nothing to address people’s concerns nor does it strengthen preparedness. 

“We need to end austerity, focus on climate change and just transition – invest in firefighting and emergency services, hire more staff and protect the workers who protect us.”

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30 Dead, 17 Fatal Crashes, and a Judge Tells DHS to Wait

Thirty people were killed in 17 crashes in 2025 involving what the left’s dictionary calls “non-domiciled commercial drivers” who, under the Trump administration’s current rule, would no longer qualify for those licenses.

The issue isn’t foreign CDL drivers; plenty of lawful immigrants and foreign-born drivers safely operate commercial trucks daily. The issue is whether somebody who can’t adequately read road signs, understand warnings, communicate with police, or follow instructions in English should be behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound commercial vehicle on an American highway.

That’s a safety standard, not a nationality test.

When crashes expose drivers who apparently couldn’t meet that basic standard, the question becomes unavoidable: Who licensed them, who failed to catch it, and why were they still on the road?

Senior U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga put DHS’s access to roughly 17 million commercial driver records on hold Friday. His administrative stay is temporary, and he hasn’t ruled the subpoena unlawful. 

DHS must file its opposition Monday, the states reply Wednesday, and Trenga has scheduled a hearing for Thursday.

DHS wants five years of records from the Commercial Driver’s License Information System, including names, birth dates, license numbers, states of record, and Social Security numbers. The subpoena says the information would be used to investigate illegal practices at CDL schools, criminal fraud involving CDLs issued to illegal aliens, and civil immigration enforcement.

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Judge Blocks DHS From Obtaining 17 Million Commercial Driver’s License Records

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Department of Homeland Security from obtaining 17 million Commercial Driver’s License records.

US District Judge Anthony Trenga, a George W. Bush appointee, entered an administrative stay and prevented the Trump Administration from obtaining the records it subpoenaed.

Judge Trenga also ordered the DHS to immediately return any subpoenaed documents and not inspect the records.

The judge said he needs more time to consider the motion to quash the subpoenas.

On Friday, 21 Democrat state attorneys general and DC filed lawsuits challenging the records request.

The blue state attorneys general sued the Department of Transportation (DOT), the DHS and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

Last month, President Trump unveiled his “Freedom Haulers” initiative to license veteran truck drivers and crack down on illegal alien truck drivers.

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