Tag: safety

DIABETES SHOCKER: JAMA published mind-blowing study conducted on diabetes drug that skyrockets patient’s risk of heart attack by 13%

Got heart problems? It’s probably one of two things, or both: Your diabetes medication or the Covid clot shot(s) you got. Do the research and you’ll see the science is there.

Millions of Americans rely on affordable diabetes medications to control blood sugar, but a major new study from Mass General Brigham has uncovered troubling findings about one of the most widely prescribed diabetes drugs in the U.S. – glipizide. According to research published in JAMA Network Open, glipizide is associated with a 13 percent higher risk of major cardiovascular events compared to newer alternatives, posing significant concerns for the long-term heart health of patients with Type 2 diabetes.

  • Popular diabetes drug glipizide linked to higher heart risk: A large-scale study of nearly 50,000 patients found that glipizide, a commonly prescribed sulfonylurea for Type 2 diabetes, is associated with a 13 percent higher risk of major cardiovascular events compared to DPP-4 inhibitors.
  • Not all sulfonylureas are equal: While glipizide showed the highest cardiovascular risk (9.1 percent over five years), other sulfonylureas like glimepiride (8.6 percent) and glyburide (8.4 percent) had smaller, less statistically significant risks — challenging the idea that all drugs in this class are interchangeable.
  • Real-world data strengthens findings: Researchers used electronic health records and insurance data from 10 U.S. sites to assess cardiovascular outcomes like heart attacks, strokes and heart failure, making this one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind.
  • Heart risks may stem from drug effects beyond the pancreas: Although glipizide primarily targets blood sugar, it may also impact heart receptors, potentially weakening the heart’s ability to protect itself under stress — though the exact mechanism remains unclear.

Popular diabetes drug linked to 13% higher heart attack risk in major study

The study, led by Dr. Alexander Turchin of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, analyzed data from 48,165 patients with type 2 diabetes and moderate cardiovascular risk. All participants were on metformin as their base therapy and were tracked over a five-year period.

Patients were grouped based on the second medication they began using: glipizide, glimepiride, glyburide (all sulfonylureas) or DPP-4 inhibitors (a newer drug class). The research drew from real-world health records and insurance claims data through the BESTMED consortium, making its findings broadly applicable.

Key findings include:

  • Patients on glipizide had a 9.1 percent five-year risk of major cardiovascular events, compared to 8.1 percent for those on DPP-4 inhibitors.
  • This amounts to a 13 percent relative increase in risk, including higher rates of heart attacks, strokes, heart failure hospitalizations, and cardiovascular deaths.
  • Glimepiride (8.6 percent) and glyburide (8.4 percent) also showed increased heart risk, but to a lesser and statistically less significant extent.

Dr. Turchin emphasized that a 13 percent relative risk increase is considered clinically significant, especially in a patient population already vulnerable to heart disease. These findings challenge the long-held medical assumption that all sulfonylureas function similarly and carry equal risk. Glipizide, while effective and inexpensive, may be more harmful to heart health than previously recognized.

Although the exact mechanisms behind glipizide’s elevated heart risk remain unclear, researchers suspect the drug may interfere with cardiac receptors and the heart’s protective responses during periods of reduced blood flow. Interestingly, glipizide doesn’t appear to affect these receptors more aggressively than other drugs in its class, making the specific cause of the increased risk still unknown.

This discovery reinforces the need for personalized medicine and informed decision-making between doctors and patients. Cost and familiarity should not be the sole factors in selecting a diabetes medication, especially when cardiovascular health is on the line.

In addition to medication, patients can reduce both blood sugar and heart risks through natural strategies, such as:

  • Eating whole foods that don’t spike blood sugar (e.g., vegetables, lean proteins, nuts).
  • Supplementing with nutrients like magnesium, fish oil, and alpha-lipoic acid.
  • Staying active, even through simple routines like daily walks.
  • Managing stress, which plays a crucial role in both blood sugar control and heart function.
  • Reducing inflammation using anti-inflammatory foods like turmeric and ginger.

Ultimately, this study is a wake-up call to reexamine common diabetes treatments. For patients and physicians alike, balancing effective glucose control with cardiovascular safety is vital for long-term health.

Tune your internet dial to NaturalMedicine.news for more tips on how to use natural remedies for preventative medicine and for healing, instead of succumbing to Big Pharma products, like dangerous diabetes drugs, that cause, spread and exacerbate disease and disorder, including heart attacks.

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Antidepressants During Pregnancy Raise Risk of Birth Defects, Doctors Tell FDA

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) needs to do a better job of warning pregnant women that taking SSRIs, a type of antidepressant, may harm them and their developing baby, doctors told the agency Monday.

The FDA hosted an expert panel of developmental biologists, psychiatrists, epidemiologists, obstetricians and mental health experts who discussed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and pregnancy. The agency livestreamed the two-hour conversation on YouTube and X.

SSRIs have been “implicated in different studies to be involved in postpartum hemorrhage, pulmonary hypertension and cognitive downstream effects in the baby, as well as cardiac birth defects,” said FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who opened the event.

Nearly 1 in 4 middle-aged women and up to 5% of pregnant women are on an antidepressant, Makary said.

“Antidepressants like SSRIs can be an effective treatment for depression, but we have to stop and also look at the big picture,” he said. “The more antidepressants we prescribe, the more depression there is. … We have to start talking about root causes.”

SSRIs in particular warrant scrutiny as serotonin “may play a crucial role in the development of organs of a baby in utero,” he said.

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EPA Defends Plan to Gut Key Office Studying Health Risks of Pesticides and Other Toxins

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will move forward with plans to gut the agency’s office that studies how air pollution, drinking water contamination and toxic chemicals, including glyphosate, affect human health, the agency announced Friday.

As part of its “reduction in force,” which reportedly will cut $748.8 million from the agency’s budget, the EPA is eliminating the Office of Research and Development (ORD).

ORD is strictly a scientific research organization. It has no regulatory responsibilities, which means it isn’t subject to industry influence in the same way as other sectors of the EPA.

As a result, ORD often reaches different conclusions than other EPA research groups, according to Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety.

The office’s findings underlie many of the policies and regulations issued by the agency. Its research is often used to justify stricter rules, prompting opposition from pesticide and chemical manufacturers and other industries — and even from other sections within the agency that are allegedly captured by the chemical industry.

For example, ORD identified glyphosate as a carcinogen when the EPA’s pesticide wing argued it was safe.

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Most Dangerous City In Germany Is The One With The Most Migrants

The highest crime rate of any German city is Bremen, and it just so happens that this city state also has the highest share of residents with an immigration background, at least compared to other states.

“Data from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) now show that, relative to population, no major German city has a higher crime rate. 15,424 crimes per 100,000 inhabitants are the highest, ahead of Frankfurt am Main (14,600) and Berlin (14,252),” writes Weser Kurier.

The Free Democrats (FDP) recently labeled the city the “most dangerous city in Germany.”

Bremen clearly ranks first in terms of robberies, with 194 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

In second place is Frankfurt am Main with 14,600 registered crimes per 100,000 inhabitants. Frankfurt was in first place last year.

In third is Berlin with 14,252 registered crimes per 100,000 inhabitants.

Bremen also tops the charts with theft statistics, with shoplifting and theft from vehicles also extremely high.

However, it should be noted that all of this data is for 2024, and already Bremen is seeing a decrease in some crimes this year, including a 20 percent drop in robbery so far in 2025. Critics also contend that Bremen’s crime rate, while still extremely high, is not actually the highest due to a backlog of cases being included in the 2024 statistics. Even if that backlog is removed, Bremen remains at the top of the list for a broad range of crimes.

No matter which way the data is analyzed, the share of migrants involved in crimes in Bremen still remains incredibly high.

In fact, non-German suspects are responsible for 73 percent of all crime in Bremen in 2024, compared to 57 percent in 2023.

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PESTICIDES, like antibiotics, are fueling the rise of untreatable SUPERBUGS – study

In a remote Himalayan village, a polluted river reflects a grim reality: the water, once sacred, now teems with antibiotic-resistant bacteria thriving in a chemical soup of pesticides and hospital waste. This is Ground Zero for a public health crisis that scientists now trace back to industrial agriculture’s unchecked reliance on pesticides. For decades, these toxins have been hailed as saviors against crop-destroying pests, but recent studies reveal they are unwitting partners in an even deadlier crescendo—antibiotic resistance.

Key points:

  • Pesticides and antibiotics work synergistically to breed antibiotic-resistant superbugs in waterways, accelerating a global health crisis.
  • India’s contaminated water ecosystems—harboring deadly cholera pathogens and drug-resistant E. coli—exemplify a ticking time bomb of antibiotic resistance.
  • Bacteria evolve defenses like biofilms and gene-sharing plasmids to survive pesticide bombardment, creating drug-resistant strains that even modern medicine can’t combat.
  • Farmers, governments, and corporations face pressure to abandon chemical dependency in favor of organic farming or risk triggering a healthcare collapse.

Confronting a new Silent Spring

Modern medicine’s holy grail, antibiotics, are failing spectacularly, and pesticides are making it worse. Over 5 million people died from drug-resistant infections in 2019, a toll projected to surge to 10 million annually by 2050. India’s waterways, choked with runoff from agrochemical plants and sewage, have become nurseries of superbugs, warns a harrowing study. This is no accident—it’s a consequence of agriculture’s chemical war against nature, a conflict humanity is losing.

The post-World War II Green Revolution brought pesticides like DDT and BHC to India in the 1950s, promising food security through chemical might. By 1971, when regulations finally arrived, India had already built the template for 21st-century disaster: pesticides rampaging through ecosystems, duplicating insects’ resistance in microbes.

“The Green Revolution was never just about food—it was an ideological battle to conquer nature with chemicals,” says Dr. Rajeshwari Rajammal of India’s Center for Sustainable Agriculture. “But organisms adapt, and pathogens are playing catch-up faster than we can innovate.”

Today, India is the world’s fourth-largest pesticide producer, yet its farms use just 0.4 kg per hectare compared to China’s 1.83 kg—proof that scale isn’t the only problem. The chemicals India creates but doesn’t consume flow into global supply chains, spreading resistance worldwide. “You can’t binge on toxins and call it ‘growth’ forever,” Dr. Rajammal adds. “Nature always settles the bill.”

The antibiotics dumped into rivers through pharmaceutical waste (India is a top drug producer) only amplify resistance. In the Ganges River, antibiotic-resistant Vibrio pathogens cause untreatable cholera. Groundwater in Assam and Uttar Pradesh carries E. coli strains that laugh off ampicillin. Meanwhile, aquaculture in Bangladesh combines pesticides and antibiotics into a microbial arm’s race, creating monsters that even fortified drugs can’t kill.

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Johnson & Johnson Lead Scientist and Executive Admit Baby Powder Contained ‘Cancer-Causing Heavy Metals’

The O’Keefe Media Group on Friday released undercover video of a Johnson & Johnson lead scientist and executive admit that baby power contained cancer causing heavy metals.

This is the second undercover video in OMG’s series exposing Johnson & Johnson.

Joshua Rys, a Regulatory Affairs Scientist who managed Johnson & Johnson’s baby products spilled the truth to an OMG undercover journalist.

“When I started, actually I started working on the consumer group. Johnson’s was one of my brands. So I managed all the baby products. So actually, when that all happened, I was working on that,” said Joshua Rys.

Rys continued, “It wasn’t actually the product itself, it was an impurity. So naturally talc comes from mines, and the mines don’t have, I guess, 100 percent accurate standards. So the heavy metals, it’s not the talc itself that gives you the cancer, it’s the heavy metals that are in there.”

David Altman, Executive & Senior Clinical Analyst at Johnson & Johnson, said, “This is not your father’s J&J… they don’t really give a sh*t about people.”

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 Johnson & Johnson Lead Scientist Confesses J&J COVID-19 Vaccine Was ‘Not Safe and Effective,’ Reveals “Lack of Research” From Rushing to Release Vaccine: “People Wanted It, We Gave It to Them”

“We didn’t do the typical tests,” said Joshua Rys, a Lead Scientist in Regulatory Affairs for Johnson & Johnson (J&J), revealed on hidden camera that the typical clinical process was abandoned for the COVID-19 vaccine, knowingly bypassing standard testing protocols under pressure from the U.S. government and public demand. He added, “This was just, ‘let’s test it on some lab models… and just throw it to the wind and see what happens.’”

He acknowledged that the public wasn’t informed about the shortcuts, asking, “Do you have any idea the lack of research that was done on those products?” Rys claimed, “People wanted it, we gave it to them.”

While public officials claimed the vaccines were “safe and effective,” Rys pushed back. “There’s no proof. None of that stuff was safe and effective,” he said, adding that the industry relies on a benefit-risk tradeoff to justify product launches.

Rys also pointed to government pressure through Operation Warp Speed. “The government is like, ‘We need help… You’re solving this problem,’” he said. “People panic, so they try to solve it in whatever way they think is good.”

According to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson, “Even during a public health emergency, pharmaceutical companies are still required to follow strict protocols for clinical testing. For emergency use, companies must show that the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. Oversight doesn’t stop at approval — the FDA and other agencies also monitor products closely once they’re in use. That includes real-world safety tracking, independent advisory committees, and required reporting of any adverse events. These steps are in place to make sure public health decisions are based on solid science and strong safeguards — especially in emergencies.

Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Vinay Prasad recently announced a new vaccine safety and transparency framework — one that’s built on gold-standard science, real-world data, and honest communication with the public and will require thorough safety testing before licensing. Their work is focused on strengthening trust, improving how we monitor safety after vaccines are in use, and making sure people have clear, accurate information to make informed decisions.

HHS remains committed to full transparency and evidence-based oversight — putting the safety of the American people first.”

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Why I’m Sounding the Alarm on Sprayable Intranasal COVID-19 Vaccine

Last week, Science Advances published a study on the CVXGA1 nasal COVID-19 vaccine Phase 1 trial. I was asked by The Defender to provide my thoughts on this recent development.

Excerpts from the article reveal why I’m sounding the alarm!

Investigative journalist Sonia Elijah noted that CVXGA1, which enters the mucus membranes and lungs through the nose, has the “potential for shedding viral particles through intranasal secretions, which could expose unvaccinated individuals.”

Elijah said the study didn’t examine if shed materials can be spread to others. “This raises significant safety concerns about replication and shedding risks,” she said.

The Defender highlighted my critique:

According to Elijah, the lack of a control group and the small sample size “weakens the trial’s ability to accurately assess safety and immunogenicity,” but these aren’t the only flaws.

Elijah said:

“The study lacks data on RNA detection levels and did not perform infectivity assays to confirm if shed materials can be spread to others.

The lack of specific safety and immunogenicity data for the adolescent group raises concerns about the vaccine’s effects in younger individuals.

The open-label design, where both participants and researchers knew who received the vaccine, introduces potential bias in reporting and assessing outcomes, such as adverse events.”

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USDA’s Mass H5N1 Poultry Vaccination Plan Likely to Rely on Leaky Zoetis H5N2 Vaccine

The leading candidate appears to be the Zoetis vaccine targeting H5N2 — even though the dominant strain spreading through U.S. flocks is H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b.

The vaccine uses the N2 neuraminidase subtype deliberately to support DIVA (Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Animals) surveillance — allowing authorities to detect field infections in vaccinated birds.

In February 2025, the USDA issued a conditional license to Zoetis for its Avian Influenza Vaccine, H5N2 Subtype, Killed Virus, specifically for use in chickens, based on a “reasonable expectation of efficacy based on serology data”. In other words, the approval rests on hope that antibody titers will translate into real-world protection—not on demonstrated effectiveness against infection or transmission.

A conditional license allows the vaccine to be used immediately, but only under specific circumstances—such as during an outbreak or in targeted populations. As of June 2025, Zoetis’s H5N2 vaccine remains the only avian influenza vaccine conditionally approved by the USDA for use in U.S. poultry. No other vaccines are currently authorized or ready for large-scale deployment.

However, according to the USDA, inactivated virus vaccines—such as the Zoetis H5N2 formulation—are non-sterilizing in the field. This means they do not prevent infection, do not eliminate viral shedding, and allow vaccinated birds to silently carry and transmit H5N1, particularly in densely populated commercial flocks.

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Nerve pain medication gabapentin possibly tied to dementia, study says

A drug used to treat seizures, nerve pain and restless leg syndrome might be linked with increased risk of dementia, a new study says.

Regular gabapentin use appeared to increase risk of dementia by 29% and mild cognitive impairment by 85%, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine.

What’s more, the risk was more than doubled in people normally considered too young to suffer from brain aging, those 18 to 64, results show.

“The findings of this study support the need for close monitoring in adult patients prescribed gabapentin to assess for potential cognitive decline,” wrote the research team led by Nafis Eghrari, a medical student at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

“Moreover, this provides a foundation to further research whether gabapentin plays a causal role in the development of dementia and cognitive decline,” the researchers added.

Gabapentin has become increasingly popular for the treatment of chronic pain because it’s not nearly as addictive as opioids, researchers said in background notes.

But concerns have been growing that gabapentin might contribute to cognitive decline, since it works by suppressing communication between nerve cells, researchers said.

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