Tag: safety

D.C. Appeals Court STRIKES DOWN Trump DOT’s Safety Rules — Allows Immigrants to Obtain Commercial Licenses Again Despite Fatal Florida Truck Crash

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked the Trump-Vance administration’s emergency safety rule, a rule designed to keep America’s highways safe from unvetted foreign drivers.

The court sided not with public safety, not with the families of crash victims, but with activist groups, blue-city governments, and unions who argued that asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients should continue holding commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) despite major questions about identity verification, training standards, and foreign driving histories.

The stay halts the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) new rule limiting CDLs to individuals on verifiable, trackable visa categories, H-2A, H-2B, and E-2.

The rule excluded categories where driving and identity records cannot be confirmed, including asylum seekers, refugees, and DACA recipients.

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California DMV Admits to Illegally Issuing 17,000 Commercial Licenses to “Dangerous Foreign Drivers”

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has confessed to illegally handing out 17,000 non-domiciled Commercial Driver’s Licenses (CDLs) to dangerous foreign drivers who have no business operating massive semitrucks or school buses on American roads.

According to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy, the discovery came as part of an ongoing audit by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

According to the Department of Transportation, each of the 17,000 non-domiciled CDL holders has been issued notice that their license will expire within 60 days, as it no longer meets federal requirements.

FMCSA is now requiring the California DMV to hand over a full audit of all non-domiciled CDLs to verify that every unlawfully issued license is revoked and that the state corrects the systemic failures that allowed this fraud to occur.

Federal auditors found that over one in four foreign driver records sampled in California failed to comply with federal law, including CDLs that extended beyond the expiration of a foreign worker’s visa, a blatant violation of federal safety regulations.

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RFK Jr. Probes Health Dangers Of Offshore Wind Turbines

eset by soaring prices, an increasingly hostile regulatory climate, and growing public opposition in coastal communities, offshore wind faces a new challenge from a powerful public official and erstwhile booster of strict climate policies.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to investigate wind projects’ effects on the health and safety of commercial fishermen, Bloomberg News reports. Specifically, Kennedy in late summer quietly instructed CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to prepare such research. The office of the U.S. Surgeon General is also involved in the assessment.

Originally, the research was to be wrapped up within a couple of months, but its completion has been delayed by the government shutdown. “Work on this report has been halted solely due to the Democrat-led shutdown,” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told Reuters.

Human Health Effects

To date, research on the human health effects of offshore wind turbines has been spotty, with a 2011 literature review finding “no peer-reviewed articles demonstrate a direct causal link between people living in proximity to modern wind turbines, the noise they emit and resulting physiological health effects,” according to The Hill.

But a study released in January by the University of Portsmouth in the U.K. warned of potentially harmful levels of metals from turbine protection systems. “The materials used to protect wind turbines from corrosion leach into the surrounding water, which could pose risks to ecosystems, seafood safety, and human health,” the study found. “Offshore wind farms release thousands of [tons] of aluminum, zinc, and iridium each year.” 

Professor Gordon Watson of the university’s School of the Environment and Life Sciences supports wind farms because of their role in reducing carbon emissions but adds, “There is limited data on how these metals affect the environment near operational offshore wind farms, so it’s hard to assess the full risks.”

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Some Kids Getting Double or Triple Vaccinated, California Nurse Says

Babies and children who lack paper vaccination records sometimes receive two or three times the number of vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to experts who spoke with The Defender. Children whose parents immigrated to the U.S. and who don’t speak English are at the greatest risk.

Many medical providers assume that if there’s no record of a vaccination, the best way to ensure that a child receives the recommended vaccine is to readminister it, according to Rena Maculans, a registered nurse in California. “That’s the mentality of the providers,” she said.

Maculans — who spent 10 years as an emergency department (ER) nurse and later processed autism treatment claims — said urgent care and ER staff typically follow protocols that tell them to vaccinate a child if there’s no documentation of a prior vaccination.

Maculans said she followed those protocols before she realized that vaccines can cause harm. “We were all under the impression, well, if you double up on it, it’s a good thing. You have extra protection.”

Now, Maculans, whose daughter was injured by a COVID-19 vaccine, urges people to carry their immunization record with them. “That’s why I tell people, anytime you go to the doctor or urgent care, bring your immunization records with you.”

Maculans said she began piecing things together while processing medical claims for Partnership HealthPlan of California, a healthcare provider that serves over 900,000 Medi-Cal members in Northern California.

Medi-Cal is the state’s Medicaid program that provides free or low-cost health coverage for low-income individuals and families.

Maculans was a “utilization management nurse coordinator,” which meant she processed medical claims for continuation of services, including autism treatment services. It was her job to determine whether a patient should continue receiving autism treatments, including speech therapy visits, or whether the patient no longer needed the treatments.

She noticed that a highly disproportionate number of the claims were submitted by families that spoke only Spanish. In other words, more Spanish-speaking children reported having continued or increased autism symptoms that required treatment, compared to English-speaking or bilingual kids.

Knowing the link between certain vaccine ingredients and increased autism risk, she suspected that Spanish-speaking Medi-Cal families — such as migrant workers — may experience increased vaccinations due to language barriers and not having their children’s immunization records on hand to prove prior vaccination to medical staff.

California has among the highest autism rates in the country — 1 in 12.5 boys, according to the latest available CDC data.

Maculans acknowledged that she is speculating and that, under HIPAA laws that protect patients’ private health records, she could not take screenshots of the claims that she said would reveal the trends she observed.

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Trump’s Weight-loss Drug Deal: Cheaper Shots, But Is It MAHA?

President Donald Trump has unveiled a sweeping action to slash the cost of the nation’s most expensive weight-loss drugs, casting it as a turning point for both healthcare affordability and economic fairness. In what the White House calls a “historic” agreement with pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, the administration announced that prices for popular GLP-1 agonists (weight-loss drugs) such as Ozempic and Wegovy will drop by more than two-thirds under a new initiative known as TrumpRx. The program is a government-backed platform that allows Americans to purchase prescription drugs at discounted rates negotiated by the administration.

The measure, described by officials as one of the largest single reductions in drug prices in U.S. history, aims to make medications long seen as luxury treatments accessible to millions of Americans battling obesity and related conditions.

Applause for the move was far from unanimous. Within the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) camp — the wing of the movement that believes real health starts with prevention rather than prescriptions — the mood was restrained. Critics argue that the deal hands pharmaceutical companies both market dominance and political validation, locking Americans further into a medical model driven by patented injections.

The Deal

The White House framed the deal as a landmark victory for American consumers:

The agreement represents a historic reduction in prices for Americans on the two drugs with the highest annual expenditures in the United States, both of which help adults struggling with diabetes, heart disease (Ozempic and Wegovy only), obesity, and other conditions.

Under the terms of the new arrangement, the monthly cost of Ozempic and Wegovy will fall from about $1,000 and $1,350, respectively, to $350 when purchased through TrumpRx. Prices for Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Orforglipron, once approved, will be reduced from $1,086 to an average of $346. If — or rather when — the FDA later authorizes the Wegovy pill or similar oral GLP-1 drugs currently in development, “the initial dose of those drugs will be priced at $150 per month” through the portal.

The administration said the new pricing will allow Medicare and Medicaid to cover obesity treatments “at a dramatically lower cost to taxpayers than that proposed by the Biden Administration.” Under the agreement, Medicare will pay just $245 a month for drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. That is less than half of prior proposals.

According to the fact sheet:

These low prices will enable Medicare to cover Wegovy and Zepbound for patients with obesity and related comorbidities for the first time.

Beneficiaries “will pay a co-pay of just $50 per month.” Plus, “state Medicaid programs will also have access to these medications at these prices.”

The deal also extends to other high-cost medicines. Eli Lilly’s Emgality, a migraine therapy, will now cost $299 per pen, down $443 from its list price. Trulicity, another diabetes treatment, will fall to $389 per month, a reduction of nearly $600. Novo Nordisk’s insulin products NovoLog and Tresiba will be capped at $35 per monthly supply.

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‘It’s a Small World After All’ As ICE Crackdown of Illegal Immigrant Truckers Gets Even More Eye-Opening

As is usually the case regarding a horrific event, it takes something tragic before a microscope is trained on the real issue. Joe Biden and Democrats have plenty of blood on their hands from years of massive waves of illegal immigrants pouring over a wide-open southern border. There have been plenty of high-profile cases like Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray. But it took the deaths of three unknown people on a Florida highway to bring attention to the huge problem of illegal immigrants who speak and read little to no English driving 18-wheelers across the country, and the story keeps getting worse.

Since the Florida crash, the Department of Transportation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have become involved. Since late October, ICE, along with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, has targeted a portion of Interstate 40. The operation has nabbed 70 illegal immigrants, 34 of whom were operating semi-trucks in violation of Oklahoma state law. It is no surprise where the illegal immigrants are obtaining their commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs). ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Executive Associate Director Marcos Charles had this to say:

“For the second time in just the past month, the state of Oklahoma and ICE have banded together to bolster public safety along Oklahoma’s highways, identifying and apprehending illegal aliens who are in the country illegally and have been recklessly issued a commercial driver’s license by states like California, Illinois, and New Jersey. Many of the illegal aliens arrested behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound tractor trailer can’t even read basic English, endangering everyone they encounter on the roads.”

Also, as is usual, the details just get more disturbing. The sting operation called “Operation Guardian” discovered, as stated above, that 26 of the illegal immigrant truckers had CDL licenses from the usual suspect states of California, Illinois, and New York. But the best part, eight of the drivers were operating 18-wheelers with no CDL license at all. That’s right, no CDL license. The illegal immigrant truckers picked up by Operation Guardian reads like a who’s who of the United Nations from countries such as China, Guatemala, India, Uzbekistan, as well as other nations. Many also have extensive rap sheets that include convictions for violent crimes.

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Frankenbeef: Liberals Cloned Meat Policy Lets “Freak Meat” Hit Shelves Unlabelled

Health Canada just approved cloned cattle and pork—and their offspring—for Canadian grocery shelves, no labels, no warnings, and no pre-market safety review.

Under a quietly updated policy, cloned meat is no longer considered a “novel food.” That means it bypasses the scientific review once required for new or genetically manipulated foods. There’s no rule requiring companies to tell consumers if their steak came from a cloned animal or its progeny. You’ll never know—unless you ask your farmer directly.

Health Canada insists the change is safe, saying cloned animals and their offspring are “no different” from naturally bred livestock. But Canadians have heard that line before—“safe and effective,” “trust the science,” and all the other slogans used to silence dissent during the COVID years.

So here we go again—a massive, uncontrolled experiment where the only test subjects are the people doing the eating. People should be able to make informed decisions about what goes into their bodies, from medicine to meat. 

They’re calling it innovation. We’re calling it Frankenbeef.

Health Canada’s move mirrors the pre–RFK Jr. era FDA stance.

All of this doesn’t make food cheaper. It makes it weirder.

And it makes us all unwitting versions of Laika, the Soviet space dog—strapped in, eyes wide, blasted into a brave new frontier against our will.

If you want out of this latest “trust the science” experiment, there’s only one way:
Get to know your local farmer personally. Buy from people you trust, and distrust bureaucrats who think your dinner plate should double as a science project.

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Starved And Poisoned: The Dual Crisis of Decreasing Trace Minerals And Rising Heavy Metals In Our Soils

The Real World Health Consequences Of Trace Mineral Deficiencies

Research continues to uncover the links between deficiencies of trace minerals and a wide range of chronic illnesses, immune dysfunction, and increased susceptibility to infections.

A 2022 comprehensive review of nutritional deficiencies emphasized that micronutrients are crucial for sustaining life. The inadequacy of any component of the metabolic system directly affects both individuals and societies, manifesting as poorer health, reduced work capacity, decreased educational accomplishment, and lower earning potential.

Scope of the Problem

In both industrialized and developing countries, micronutrient deficiencies (as currently known and measured) affect more than 2 billion people of all ages, particularly pregnant women and children under five. Micronutrient deficiencies have been linked with almost 10% of child deaths.

Iron, folate, zinc, iodine, and vitamin A rank among the most common micronutrient deficiencies worldwide (again, I argue that such a short list is repeatedly emphasized only because we routinely look for and measure their presence or absence).

Studies show that these deficiencies contribute to intellectual impairment, poor growth, perinatal complications, and higher morbidity and mortality. In addition, research associates micronutrient deficiencies with accelerated mitochondrial decay (a big one here) and degenerative diseases of aging..

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RFK Jr. Calls for Global Ban on Mercury in Vaccines

All countries should remove mercury from vaccines following the precedent set by the United States, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said via a video address during the Nov. 3 meeting of the Minamata Convention on Mercury in Geneva, Switzerland.

“The Minamata Convention was born from a shared moral conviction that no human being should suffer from exposure to mercury,” Kennedy said.

“Article 4 of the Convention calls on parties to cut mercury use by phasing out listed mercury-added products. But in 2010, as the treaty took shape, negotiators made a major exception. Thimerosal-containing vaccines were carved out in the regulation,” Kennedy said, referring to the mercury-based preservative used to prevent microbial growth in vaccines.

The treaty, which began to phase out mercury in cosmetics and lamps, opted to allow the substance to be used in products that are injected into vulnerable people, pregnant women, and babies, the health secretary said.

“We have to ask: why? Why do we hold a double standard for mercury? Why do we call it dangerous in batteries, in over-the-counter medications, and makeup, but acceptable in vaccines and dental fillings?” he asked.

Kennedy said thimerosal has never undergone proper safety testing in human beings. He said that hundreds of peer-reviewed studies have identified the substance as a potent neurotoxin, carcinogen, endocrine disruptor, and mutagen.

“Thimerosal’s own label requires it to be treated as a hazardous material and warns against ingestion. There is not a single study that proves it safe,” he said. “That’s why in July of this year, the United States closed the final chapter on the use of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative, something that should have happened years ago.”

According to a March 2024 safety data sheet on Thimerosal, the substance is “considered hazardous” under the 2012 Hazard Communication Standard from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The substance may cause damage to organs through repeated or prolonged exposure. If a person ingests thimerosal or comes into contact with it via skin, they must immediately get in touch with a poison center or doctor, according to the fact sheet.

Beginning in 1999, thimerosal was removed from many vaccines in the United States after certain studies suggested that exposure to mercury in early stages could negatively affect children.

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More High Blood Pressure Drugs Recalled Due to Potential Carcinogens, FDA Says

The Food and Drug Administration confirmed in several notices that a recall of a type of high blood pressure medication has been expanded due to the presence of a potentially carcinogenic substance.

In three noticesissued this week, the FDA confirmed that 7,198 cartons of prazosin hydrochloride are being recalled nationwide by Ohio-based Amerisource Health Services and classified the recall as Class II.

N-nitroso prazosin, a nitrosamine found in the medication, is above the FDA’s acceptable limits, according to the FDA. Nitrosamines are a type of organic compound that is a potential human carcinogen that can form in food or other substances.

A Class II recall is considered by the FDA to be a serious but less severe product safety recall for a product that may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or if there is a remote chance of a serious adverse health consequence associated with the item.

Latest Drugs Under Recall

The three items are:

  • Prazosin Hydrochloride capsules USP in 1-milligram doses in 100-capsule (10×10) cartons, which are distributed by American Health Packaging. It has a Carton NDC of 68084-996-01, and it has individual unit doses of NDC 68084-996-11.
  • Prazosin Hydrochloride capsules USP in 2-milligram doses in 100-capsule (10×10) cartons, which are distributed by American Health Packaging. It has a Carton NDC of 68084-997-01, and it has individual unit doses of NDC 68084-997-11.
  • Prazosin Hydrochloride capsules USP in 5-milligram doses in 20-capsule (5×4) cartons, which are distributed by American Health Packaging. It has a Carton NDC of 60687-572-32, and it has individual unit doses of NDC 60687-572-33.

The FDA did not include any other information about the recalled items, including whether people should continue taking them. In numerous previous recalls for products that contain elevated nitrosamine levels, the FDA has generally advised people to continue taking the prescription medication.

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