Tag: safety

States Go It Alone On ‘Forever Chemicals’ As EPA Delays Federal Action

States are taking action to protect agriculture and waterways from harmful “forever chemicals” as they await federal regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Critics say this has resulted in inconsistent and inadequate regulations exposing much of the country’s soil, air, and water to contamination by the chemicals.

According to the EPA, it is working through a very complex problem concerning a huge category of chemicals.

“The agency is committed to working closely with our partners to take a fresh look at the risks and the tools available to support our rural and agricultural communities on this issue,” the EPA told The Epoch Times in a statement.

At issue are perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS are a group of more than 14,000 chemicals that have been used in stain- and water-repellent fabrics, nonstick cookware, food packaging, and firefighting foams since the 1940s because of their resistance to heat, oils, stains, grease, and water.

However, they do not degrade naturally and are almost impossible to destroy, earning them the “forever chemicals” appellation. According to the EPA, PFAS have been linked to cancer, reproductive issues, immune disorders, reduced vaccine response, hormonal issues, and weight gain.

In the early part of the 1970s, PFAS chemicals began to show up in soil to which biosolids had been applied.

Dredged as sludge from the bottom of wastewater treatment tanks and treated to reduce or eliminate harmful substances, biosolids have been sold or given to farmers as a low-cost fertilizer for more than 50 years.

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Self-Monitoring Blood Glucose Meters Recalled Due to Potentially Defective Displays: FDA

Florida-based Trividia Health Inc. is recalling a limited number of blood glucose meters because of potentially defective liquid-crystal displays that could affect product performance, the company said in an Oct. 7 statement published by the Food and Drug Administration.

The recall applies to Trividia’s True Metrix self-monitoring glucose meters that are co-branded under the Good Neighbor Pharmacy brand. The affected items belong to lot number KD0746, printed on the side of the product box. They were manufactured on Sept. 4 and sold between Sept. 8 and 16 across the United States.

“It is possible that the LCD display for the affected products may show partial or missing numerical segments or characters or show ghosting (fading) of numerical segments or characters,” the company said. “As a result, it is possible that users could misinterpret a test result or experience a delay in obtaining test results. For users with low glucose (hypoglycemia), this could result in a delay in treatment or therapy decisions.”

According to Trividia, it has so far not received any reports of people suffering injuries as a result of using the recalled products.

The company said it was sending notifications to customers, including pharmacies, to inform them of the issue.

“If you have an affected Product, the Trividia Health Customer Care Department will help with return and replacement information,” it said.

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Aluminium in Vaccines Is Harmful

It has been surprisingly difficult to get an answer to a simple and highly relevant question: Is aluminium in vaccines harmful? After having studied the best evidence we have, the randomised trials, in great detail, I conclude that the answer is yes. 

Like lead, aluminium is a highly neurotoxic metal. We will therefore expect vaccines containing aluminium adjuvants to cause neurological harms if the aluminium enters the nervous system in neurotoxic amounts. 

The aluminium in the adjuvant is important for eliciting a strong immune response in non-live vaccines and their efficacy is related to their toxicity at the injection site.1-3 Immune-reactive cells engulf particles of aluminium adjuvant and distribute their load throughout the body, including to the brain, where they are killed, releasing their contents into the surrounding brain tissue where they can produce an inflammatory response.

The precise mechanism of action is not so important, but the data we have on the harms are, and they have been systematically distorted. 

False Information from the European Medicines Agency (EMA)

In October 2016, my research group complained to the European Ombudsman about the EMA’s mishandling of their investigation into the suspected serious neurological harms of the HPV vaccines.4 In his reply to the Ombudsman, EMA’s Executive Director Guido Rasi stated that the aluminium adjuvants are safe; that their use has been established for several decades; and that the substances are defined in the European Pharmacopoeia.5,6 

Rasi gave the impression that the aluminium adjuvants in the HPV vaccines are similar to those used since 1926. However, the adjuvant in Gardasil, Merck’s vaccine, is amorphous aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulfate, ‎AlHO9PS-3 (AAHS), which has other properties than aluminium hydroxide, the substance Rasi mentioned. Moreover, its properties are not defined in the pharmacopoeia. AAHS has a confidential formula; its properties are variable from batch to batch and even within batches. The harms caused by the adjuvant are therefore likely to vary. When we investigated whether the safety of AAHS has ever been tested in comparison with an inert substance in humans, we were unable to find any evidence of this. 

Rasi mentioned that the assessment of the evidence for the safety of the adjuvants had been performed over many years by the EMA and other health authorities, such as the European Food Safety Authority, the FDA, and the WHO. 

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“We’re Going to See An Astronaut Death”: Government Report Issues Dire Warning Over Trump’s Budget Cuts to NASA

With the US Federal government nearing a possible shutdown, the future of NASA hangs in the balance, and Senate investigators say the space agency’s legendary safety culture, born out of the Challenger and Columbia tragedies, is being systematically dismantled.

This is being achieved, officials warn, by a political campaign to impose unapproved budget cuts, leaving engineers afraid to speak and astronauts at heightened risk.

Under the Trump administration, budget proposals saw a 25% slash in NASA’s funding, dropping the space agency’s overall budget to $18.8 billion, down from just over $24 billion in 2020. Experts and NASA employees are concerned that this could mean not only the demise of several projects but also the loss of hard-learned safety protocols.

“The new culture of fear at NASA jeopardizes safety and security,” the 21-page report, written by members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, warns. The report cites whistleblowers who have “already seen safety impacts” from orders to enact President Trump’s fiscal-2026 spending plan, even though Congress has not agreed to it. 

The report states that these new internal budget shifts are part of an “illegal plot” that would ignore congressional funding levels. However, the courts have already established some precedent concerning their political swing towards the White House. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to temporarily withhold nearly $4 billion in previously appropriated foreign aid while the justices consider the constitutional issues. 

According to testimony collected over the summer, managers repeatedly told employees to shift their focus to do what was in the “PBR,” slang for the President’s Budget Request, and to disregard work that “is not in the PBR” because “it does not count.”

With everyone focused on shifting to the PBR, the report states that NASA employees are “keeping their heads down,” with one veteran engineer noting that workers fear bringing safety concerns forward, fearing retaliation.

The most alarming prediction came from a senior project leader who flatly warned that “we’re going to see an astronaut death within a few years” if the new directives persist. Internal accounts describe staff members avoiding written memos to prevent creating records that could later be used against them.

The President’s plan would eliminate nearly a quarter of NASA’s workforce and slash research lines ranging from Earth-science satellites to student internships that feed the agency’s talent pipeline. Committee analysts project those cuts would erase $46 billion in economic output over the next decade and shrink the supply of U.S. researchers by more than 10,000. Simply put, these numbers translate directly into fewer eyes checking designs, running simulations, and staffing mission control consoles. 

Yet whistle-blowers insist that the harm is not theoretical but is happening now, as managers have begun canceling projects funded in the current fiscal year appropriation. Leaked internal documents and emails show that NASA’s departments have all been told by the agency’s administration to pivot to the new Presidential budget, and “not any budget approved by Congress.” One message, dated June 27th, 2025, states, “We have to begin preparing to align our workforce and resources now to meet the mission priorities it outlines.”

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German Government Report Shows Marijuana Legalization Hasn’t Increased Youth Use Or Traffic Accidents

German officials have released a report on the impact of the nation’s marijuana legalization law, finding that fears from opponents about youth use, traffic safety and more have so far proved largely unfounded. However, the illicit market has not meaningfully diminished under the limited legal regulatory model that has been rolled out in the country to date.

The interim report, which was required under the cannabis law enacted last year, assessed a series of health, public safety and economic factors associated with the end of prohibition.

Among the most notable findings in the document published on Monday is the fact that youth marijuana use has continued to decline, even after possession and home cultivation were legalized for adults and social clubs offering access to members opened.

Further, “no clear changes in the previous trend in cannabis consumption among adults could be observed,” the report, conducted on behalf of the federal Ministry of Health, says, according to a translation.

“The percentage increase in adults who have consumed cannabis in the last 12 months, which has been observed since approximately 2011, is likely to continue…without any drastic changes,” it says.

A separate recent study conducted by German federal health officials also found that rates of marijuana use declined among youth after the country legalized adult-use cannabis, contradicting one of the more common prohibitionist arguments against the reform.

Another finding of the new legalization evaluation concerns traffic safety, with researchers determining that there’s been no meaningful change in incidents on the roadways associated with the policy change.

“In the area of ​​road safety, partial legalization has so far shown no significant changes in self-reported driving under the influence of cannabis or in the number of people killed or injured in road traffic,” the report states.

Early data on the impact of legalization on the illicit market indicates that the law has “not yet made a significant contribution to the displacement of the black market intended by the legislature,” the report found.

One reason for the continued presence of the illegal market could be related to how Germany’s legalization law is being rolled out, with a limited number of social clubs that grow cannabis for members to consume—but without a comprehensive commercial industry that could provide wider access to adults. And even if broad retail launches, it may take time to substantially transition consumers to the legal market, which has been the case in Canada and U.S. states that have enacted the reform.

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Trump’s Tylenol Cautions Are Just Common Sense

ot too long ago, the corporate media seemed interested in protecting Americans from potentially harmful medications, to the point of broadcasting fabricated stories about deadly ivermectin overdoses. Yet, with a different president in office, the media is now hard at work downplaying medication safety concerns brought up by the FDA. When it comes to acetaminophen, what can we believe?

To begin with, any medical professional who pretends not to understand the life-threatening dangers posed by Tylenol is lying to you. In my years spent training in the pediatric ICU, by far the most common — and most dangerous — overdoses we saw were of acetaminophen. If such ingestions are not treated very aggressively, with regular checking of blood Tylenol levels and continuous infusion of the liver-protecting antidote, serious injury and death can ensue. Every single ER and ICU doctor and nurse knows the Tylenol overdose protocol just as well as they know the stroke treatment or asthma attack protocols — these are common emergencies that medical staff regularly treat and train on.

Indeed, the data confirms Tylenol toxicity is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the country, while Tylenol overdoses cause tens of thousands of ER visits per annum, killing five hundred Americans yearly. That’s roughly 500 more Americans than are killed each year by ivermectin overdoses, by the way. So please, please think twice before posting reels of you downing acetaminophen in your handmaid outfits to stick it to bad orange man, ladies.

Does any of the above prove conclusively that Tylenol use in pregnancy is always dangerous? No. But think back to your or your loved one’s last pregnancy. Do you remember the long, long list of forbidden items? Pregnant moms aren’t even allowed to eat cold cuts, or medium rare steak. Why must expectant mothers chew shoe leather for 9 months? Have there been extensive randomized controlled studies of Swedish twins proving that second trimester salami is fatal? Of course not. But given that there’s a chance of undercooked meats carrying some germs, doctors play it safe and advise moms to avoid them. Now, consider that Tylenol kills significantly more people yearly than black forest ham — is it responsible for doctors to encourage pregnant moms to take it without good reason?

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Agriculture Secretary Announces Update As Flesh-Eating Screwworm Comes Within 70 Miles Of US Border

More than 8,000 traps have been deployed across Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, targeting the New World screwworm (NWS) flies, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said in a Sept. 26 post on X, adding that no additional NWS infections have been detected since last Sunday.

On Sunday, Sept. 21, an announcement was made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which said that Mexico’s National Service of Agro-Alimentary Health, Safety, and Quality had confirmed a new NWS infection in Sabinas Hidalgo, Nueva Leon state, less than 70 miles from America’s southern border. The infected animal was an 8-month-old cow.

Earlier in July, an NWS infection had been reported 370 miles south of the U.S.–Mexico border.

In her post, Rollins said that over 13,000 screening samples have been screened, and zero NWS flies have been identified thus far.

In addition, 750,000 sterilized NWS flies are being trucked in and dispersed in the Nueva Leon region twice a week, she said.

Mass-produced, sterile male NWS flies are often used to tackle the spread of wild NWS fly swarms. When these sterile flies are released into a swarm in large numbers, they mate with the wild female flies, which end up laying unfertilized eggs, thus lowering the swarm population.

Tackling NWS swarms is crucial since they pose a major threat to livestock. In an Aug. 15 statement, USDA called NWS a “devastating pest.”

“When NWS fly larvae (maggots) burrow into the flesh of a living animal, they cause serious, often deadly damage to the animal. NWS can infest livestock, pets, wildlife, occasionally birds, and in rare cases, people,” the agency said.

“It is not only a threat to our ranching community, but it is a threat to our food supply and our national security.”

Since May, U.S. ports have been closed to imports of cattle, horses, and bison from Mexico to prevent the spread of NWS flies into the United States.

Rollins accused Mexico of having “failed to enforce proper cattle movement controls and neglected to regularly maintain fly traps as agreed, undermining detection efforts.”

“This is unacceptable,” she said in the post on X. “Mexico must immediately implement agreed-upon protocols, expand surveillance, and restrict cattle movement in infected zones. For the foreseeable future the border will remain closed.”

In a Sept. 22 statement, Mexico’s Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development said that the Sept. 21 detection was of an NWS fly in its larval stage, “meaning there is no possibility of the fly emerging.”

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Trump Derangement Syndrome comes for heralded off-label autism treatment after president endorses

he medical establishment and mainstream media are uniting against the Trump administration’s re-purposing of an inexpensive drug to treat an epidemic, calling it “unproven,” not “backed by science,” “not a cure” and “shocking” to endorse, with The New York Times emphasizing no profit-driven drug company suggested it.

In President Trump’s first term, it was ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19. In his second, it’s prescription leucovorin to treat autism spectrum disorder.

Long used to treat chemotherapy side effects, leucovorin calcium tablets got approved last week by the Food and Drug Administration to treat “cerebral folate deficiency” (CFD), whose clinical symptoms include “global developmental delays with autistic features,” following its own “systematic analysis of literature” from 2009 through last year.

“Published case reports provided patient-level data on over 40 patients,” adult and child, with most of those given leucovorin treatment showing “substantial improvement of symptoms of CFD that would not be expected when compared to the natural history of CFD due to FOLR1 gene variants,” the Federal Register notice says.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touted leucovorin to treat autism Monday with Trump and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, but it was quickly overshadowed by the other autism-related recommendation that pregnant women limit their use of Tylenol, which prompted a new TikTok challenge.

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After Massive Shrimp Recalls, the FDA Finds Radioactive Contamination in Spices Too

Federal regulators have detected possible radioactive contamination in a second food product sent to the U.S. from Indonesia, even as recalls of potentially tainted shrimp continue to grow. The discovery adds to questions about the source of the unusual problem.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials last week blocked import of all spices from PT Natural Java Spice of Indonesia after federal inspectors detected cesium 137 in a shipment of cloves sent to California.

That follows the import alert imposed in August on the company PT Bahari Makmuri Sejati, or BMS foods, which sends millions of pounds of shrimp to the U.S. each year.

Here’s what you need to know about potential cesium 137 contamination:

What is cesium 137?

Cesium 137 is a radioactive isotope created as a byproduct of nuclear reactions, including nuclear bombs, testing, reactor operations and accidents. It’s widespread around the world, with trace amounts found in the environment, including soil, food and air.

What have U.S. officials found?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials detected cesium 137 in shipping containers of shrimp sent by PT Bahari Makmur Sejati to several U.S. ports. CBP officials flagged the potential contamination to the FDA, which tested samples of the shrimp and detected cesium 137 in one sample of breaded shrimp.

The company has sent about 84 million pounds (38 million kilograms) of shrimp to U.S. ports this year, according to data from Import Genius, a trade data analysis company. It supplies about 6% of foreign shrimp imported in the U.S.

This month, FDA officials detected cesium 137 in one sample of cloves exported by PT Natural Java Spice, which sends spices to the U.S. and other countries. Records show the company sent about 440,000 pounds ( 200,000 kilograms) of cloves to the U.S. this year.

What are the health risks?

No food that triggered alerts or tested positive has been released for sale in the U.S., FDA officials emphasized.

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Delta to replace hundreds of engine parts after passengers, crew suffer brain injuries from toxic fume leaks

Delta Air Lines is overhauling hundreds of engine parts in its fleet after toxic fumes have been leaking into plane cockpits and cabins, causing brain damage to crew members and passengers.

The carrier will replace auxiliary power units on more than 300 Airbus A320 planes as a part of a safety initiative that began in 2022, Delta confirmed to multiple outlets.

The undertaking to replace the engines that provide power on the ground for essential systems like air conditioning and electrical services is over 90% complete, the airline told CBS News.

The move comes as airlines have filed thousands of reports with the Federal Aviation Administration, warning that engines can cause toxic fumes to seep into cockpits and cabins, according to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal.

The number of cases has surged in recent years, with Airbus’s widely used A320 jets at the center of the spike, records obtained by the Journal showed

One Delta jet bound for South Carolina was forced back to Atlanta after thick smoke poured through the overhead vents.

The mayhem sent passengers scrambling for fresh air to breathe.

“Breathe through your clothing, stay low,” a Delta flight attendant told passengers over the loudspeaker at the time as the pilots declared an emergency.

In a separate incident, JetBlue flight attendant Florence Chesson told the Journal she was left with a traumatic brain injury and permanent nerve damage after breathing the fumes on a flight to Puerto Rico.

She recalled feeling as if she was drugged midair, then witnessed a fellow crew member collapse and vomit beside her.

The two were rushed to the hospital after landing.

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