Pfizer Hides Brain Tumor Risks From Birth Control Shots, How Big Tobacco Manufactured Junk Food Addiction, Growing Food Not Lawns
Revealing News Articles
November 22, 2024

Pfizer Inc. failed to warn patients that its injectable contraceptive drug Depo-Provera can increase the risk of developing brain tumors, a new lawsuit alleged. “For several decades the manufacturers and sellers of Depo-Provera and its authorized generic and generic analogues” had a responsibility to investigate whether the medication could contribute to the growth of brain tumors, according to the complaint filed Monday in the US District Court for the Central District of California. Plaintiff Taylor Devorak alleged that researchers have found Depo-Provera and similar progesterone medications have been linked to a greater incidence of brain tumors called intracranial meningioma. She’s seeking damages on her failure-to-warn, defective design, negligence, misrepresentation, and breach of warranty claims against the pharmaceutical giant. Devorak’s complaint comes in the wake of a handful of substantially similar lawsuits filed in other federal courts in California and Indiana in recent weeks. The American label for Depo-Provera “still makes no mention of the increased risk to patients of developing intracranial meningiomas,” even though the EU and UK now list meningioma under the medication’s warning section, Devorak’s complaint said. Devorak cited a 2024 study published in the British Medical Journal that said prolonged use of medroxyprogesterone acetate medications like Depo-Provera were found to significantly increase the risk of developing intracranial meningioma.

Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated with added sugar, artificial sweeteners, additives and flavorings to be highly rewarding and even addictive. They can alter the brain’s reward pathways the same way that other addictive substances do, making them challenging to consume in moderation. In fact, a body of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that some ultra-processed foods (UPFs) can be as addictive as cigarettes and cocaine. Several major food brands were once owned by the world’s largest tobacco companies. Evidence suggests the same tactics used to formulate and market cigarettes were used in the creation of food products. Manufacturers of ultra-processed foods often seek to find ... “the bliss point,” a term coined by American market researcher and food scientist Howard Moskowitz in the 1990s. The bliss point triggers dopamine – a neurotransmitter in the brain that is responsible for feelings of pleasure and well-being – to spike, then crash. This brings about good feelings, then bad feelings, and generates the craving to feel good once more. Food companies not only research taste, but also consumers’ responses to color, smell, and “mouth feel” of products. “Measured in milliseconds, and the power to addict, nothing is faster than processed food in rousing the brain.” “Ultraprocessed foods … were consistently more associated with [the Yale Food Addiction Scale] indicators than were naturally occurring, minimally processed foods,” according to the study ... Is Food Addictive, republished in 2021 in the Annual Review of Nutrition. About 57% of the calories American adults consume comes from UPFs. That percentage rises to 67% in American children. The food industry spends about $14 billion annually on advertising, with 80% of that devoted to highly processed foods.

A health department in Idaho has voted to halt its COVID-19 vaccination program, joining the growing number of regional governments pushing back against federal vaccination recommendations. Board members at Southwest District Health, outside of Boise, questioned the vaccine’s safety during their Oct. 22 meeting and narrowly voted to stop providing the shot in the six counties they serve. Health departments in Texas, Florida and Michigan ... have also pushed back against the COVID-19 vaccine. Last year, Texas policymakers banned health departments and other organizations funded by the state government from using funds to promote their vaccination efforts. The Florida Department of Health issued guidance in September warning Floridians not to get mRNA COVID-19 shots. In Michigan, commissioners in Ottawa County turned down a $900,000 grant for their health department in September. Joe Moss, chair of the commission, said at the time he was “opposed to accepting any COVID grants.” The [Idaho] board's physician representative, Dr. John Tribble, questioned the vaccine's safety and cited COVID-19's "diminishing risk" as a reason for the agency's decision to discontinue the shot. "We weighed the risks versus the benefits for all individuals considering the shots," Tribble wrote. "We could not, in good faith, continue to offer a pharmaceutical product that does more harm than good."

Industry research reviewed by independent scientists show that exposure to the nation’s most common pesticides, neonicotinoids, may affect developing brains the same way as nicotine, including by significantly shrinking brain tissue and neuron loss. Exposure could be linked to long-term health effects like ADHD, slower auditory reflexes, reduced motor skills, behavioral problems and delayed sexual maturation in males. The industry science will be used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set new regulations, but the independent scientists say they found pesticide makers withheld information or did not include required data, and allege the EPA has drawn industry friendly conclusions from the research. Neonicotinoid residue is common on produce, and the EPA seems poised to set limits that are especially dangerous for developing children. Neonicotinoids are a controversial class of chemicals used in insecticides spread on over 150m acres of US cropland to treat for pests, in addition to being used on lawns. The pesticides work by destroying an insect’s nerve synapse, causing uncontrollable shaking, paralysis and death – but a growing body of science has found it harms pollinators, decimates bee populations and kills other insects not targeted by the chemical. Recent research has found the chemicals in the bodies of over 95% of pregnant women, and in human blood and urine at alarming levels.

Neonicotinoids—“neonics” for short—[are] now the most common chemicals used to kill bugs in American agriculture. Farmers can spray them on fields, but these insecticides are also attached to seeds as an outer coating, called a seed treatment. As the seeds germinate and grow, the plant’s tissues become toxic. Research shows neonics threaten pollinators, birds, aquatic organisms, and mammals, and pose risks to humans. Data from 2015 to 2016 showed about half of Americans over three years old were recently exposed to a neonic. Nearly all commodity corn farmers receive seed coated with neonics at the start of each season; many cannot identify the chemical that’s in the coating and don’t even know if another option exists. In corn and soy fields, new research ... suggest that widespread use of neonic-treated seeds provide minimal benefit to farmers. One study from Quebec helped convince the Canadian province to change its laws to restrict the use of neonic seed treatments. After five years and a 95 percent drop in the use of neonic-coated seeds, there have been no reported impacts on crop yields. For agronomist Louis Robert, the success of the Quebec government’s decision to move away from neonics on corn and soy seeds is apparent ... in the silence. “The most reliable proof is that it’s not even a matter of discussion anymore,” Robert said. “Today, as we speak in 2024 in Quebec, over half of the corn and soy acreage doesn’t carry any insecticide, and we’re going to have a fantastic year in terms of yield. So, the demonstration is right there in front of you.”

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks. Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC). The committee’s role is to provide ministers with independent advice. Yet since taking up the position in February 2020, Dempsey has continued to be paid by PMI for work including authoring a sponsored paper about regulatory strategies for heated tobacco products. She also owns shares in the tobacco giant ... and receives a PMI pension. But her appointment, unreported until now, raises questions about the potential for undue influence and possible access to inside information on policy and regulatory matters that may be valuable to the tobacco industry. PMI has a long history of lobbying and influence campaigns, including pushing against planned crackdowns on vaping. It has also invested heavily in promoting heated tobacco as an alternative to smoking and expects to ship around 140bn heated tobacco units in 2024, a 134% increase on its 59.7bn sales in 2019. Sophie Braznell, who monitors heated tobacco products as part of the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group, said Dempsey’s position on the committee risked undermining its work. “In permitting a former senior tobacco employee and consultant for the world’s largest tobacco company to join this advisory committee, we jeopardise its objectivity and integrity.”

The tobacco company Philip Morris International has been accused of “manipulating science for profit” through funding research and advocacy work with scientists. Campaigners say that leaked documents from PMI and its Japanese affiliate also reveal plans to target politicians, doctors and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as part of the multinational’s marketing strategy to attract non-smokers to its heated tobacco product, IQOS. A paper from researchers at the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath said that Philip Morris Japan (PMJ), funded a Kyoto University study into smoking cessation via a third-party research organisation. The researchers said they could find no public record of PMJ’s involvement, although a PMI spokesperson said its involvement had been attributed when the results were presented at a scientific conference in Greece in 2021. PMJ paid about £20,000 a month to FTI-Innovations, a life sciences consultancy run by a Tokyo University professor, for tasks such as promoting PMI’s science and products at academic events. In one internal email, a PMJ employee claimed they had been told “to keep it a secret”. Dr Sophie Braznell, one of [the paper's] authors, said: “The manipulation of science for profit harms us all, especially policymakers and consumers. It slows down and undermines public health policies, while encouraging the widespread use of harmful products.”

Research from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) details the widespread burdens that plastic pollution places on US cities and states, and argues that plastic producers may be breaking public-nuisance, product-liability and consumer-protection laws. It comes as cities such as Baltimore have begun to file claims against plastic manufacturers, but the authors write that existing cases “are likely only the beginning, as more states and municipalities grapple with the challenges of accumulating plastic waste and microplastics contamination.” Taxpayers foot the bill to clean plastic pollution from streets and waterways, and research shows people could ingest the equivalent of one credit card’s worth of plastic per week. From 1950 to 2000, global plastic production soared from 2m tons to 234m tons annually. And over the next 20 years, production more than doubled to 460m tons in 2019. As the public grew concerned about plastic pollution, the industry responded with “sophisticated marketing campaigns” to shift blame from producers to consumers – for instance, by popularizing the term litterbug. Plastic has clogged sewer grates, leading to increased flooding. It has also exposed populations to microplastics. The report outlines different legal theories that could help governments pursue accountability. Nuisance could account for the harms themselves ... and consumer-protection law could be used to combat deceitful marketing practices.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, which is conducting an investigation into the origin of SARS-CoV-2, sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health today in which it suggests that there has been “a conspiracy at the highest levels of NIH and NIAID to avoid public transparency regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.” Dr. David Morens, a longtime senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci ... engaged in efforts to evade the Freedom of information Act. In a September 2021 e-mail to a group of high-profile critics of the so-called lab leak theory, Morens wrote: “As you know, I try to always communicate on gmail because my NIH email is FOIA’d constantly.” In a November 2021 e-mail to Gerald Keusch, a former high-level NIH official, he asked that “NOTHING gets sent to me except to my gmail, and make sure that what gets sent to my gmail doesn’t have a cc to another government employee who could be FOIA’d.” Morens’s e-mails also suggest that the problem of FOIA noncompliance at the NIH may not be limited to him. In one February 2021 e-mail, Morens wrote: “i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts.” In another April 2021 e-mail, Morens wrote: “PS, I forgot to say there is no worry about FOIAs. I can either send stuff to Tony on his private gmail, or hand it to him at work or at his house. He is too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”

The controversy over the decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late 2004 to require a boxed warning on antidepressants regarding the risk of suicidality in children and adolescents reached a crescendo in 2007 with the publication of a study that presented two ... graphs. One showed a steady increase in antidepressant prescribing to U.S. adolescents, with a notable downtick in the last year of the series; the other showed a steady decrease in suicide rates among U.S. adolescents, with a notable uptick at the end. The prescription downtick occurred in 2005, whereas the suicide uptick had occurred in 2004. Adolescent suicide rates actually decreased for several years beginning in 2005. Despite the admitted error, the report was never retracted and is still widely cited. Ecological studies that examine geographic variability in antidepressant use often show an inverse relationship with suicide rates, but I believe that these results can best be explained by confounding. The same socioeconomic factors that promote greater availability and use of many prescription drugs (including antidepressants) also lower suicide rates among even the substantial majority of the population that does not take antidepressants. For example, one study associated the introduction of leukotriene-modifying agents for asthma and allergic rhinitis with a 3% decrease in suicides in the entire population (even though the drugs are used by only 1% of the population).

Tangles of grapes and blackberries grow in clusters along a trellis. Leafy rows of basil, sweet potatoes and mesclun spring from raised garden troughs. Most striking are corridors of elevated planters stacked four high, like multilevel bunk beds, filled with kale, cabbage, arugula, various lettuces, eggplants, tatsoi and collard greens. Run by a gardening wizard named Jamiah Hargins, this wee farm in the front yard of his bungalow provides fresh produce for 45 nearby families, all while using a tiny fraction of the water required by a lawn. At just 2,500 square feet, this farm forms the heart of Mr. Hargins’s nonprofit, Crop Swap LA, which transforms yards and unused spaces into microfarms. It runs three front yard farms that provide organic fruits and vegetables each week to 80 families, all living in a one-mile radius, and often with food insecurity. Rooted in the empowering idea that people can grow their own food, Crop Swap LA has caught on, with a wait list of 300 residents wanting to convert their yards into microfarms. The mini farms bring environmental benefits, thanks to irrigation and containment systems that capture and recycle rain. That allows the farms to produce thousands of pounds of food without using much water. “Some people pay $100 a month on their water because they’re watering grass, but they don’t get to eat anything, no one gets any benefit from it,” Mr. Hargins said. “I can’t think of a more generous gift to give to the community than to grow delicious, naturally organic food for the direct community,” [says Crop Swap LA subscriber] Katherine Wong. “This is one of the noblest things anyone is doing today.”

A new book, Your Brain on Art, by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, helps explain ... the science of “neuroaesthetics”—how our brains respond to aesthetic and artistic experiences. The authors make the case that art is good for our physical and mental health. Appreciating or making art involves using many parts of our brain—from those that process our senses to those involved in emotion, memory, and cognition. “When you experience virtual reality, read poetry or fiction, see a film or listen to a piece of music, or move your body to dance, to name a few of the many arts, you are biologically changed,” write Magsamen and Ross. “There is a neurochemical exchange that can lead to what Aristotle called catharsis, or a release of emotion that leaves you feeling more connected.” One study involving more than 23,000 ... participants found that those who either made art at least once a week or attended cultural events at least once or twice a year were happier and had better mental health than those who didn’t. This was independent of their age, marital status, income, health behaviors, social support, and more. “The arts are being used in at least six distinct ways to heal the body: as preventative medicine; as symptom relief for everyday health issues; as treatment or intervention for illness, developmental issues, and accidents; as psychological support; as a tool for successfully living with chronic issues; and at the end of life to provide solace and meaning,” the authors write.

Left on their own, some deforested areas can rebound surprisingly fast with minimal help from humans, sequestering loads of atmospheric carbon as they grow. New research from an international team of scientists, recently published in the journal Nature, finds that 830,000 square miles of deforested land in humid tropical regions—an area larger than Mexico—could regrow naturally if left on its own. Five countries—Brazil, China, Colombia, Indonesia, and Mexico—account for 52 percent of the estimated potential regrowth. That would boost biodiversity, improve water quality and availability, and suck up 23.4 gigatons of carbon over the next three decades. “A rainforest can spring up in one to three years,” said Matthew Fagan, a conservation scientist and ... coauthor of the paper. “In five years, you can have a completely closed canopy that’s 20 feet high. I have walked in rainforests 80 feet high that are 10 to 15 years old. It just blows your mind.” That sort of regrowth isn’t a given, though. First of all, humans would have to stop using the land for intensive agriculture—think big yields thanks to fertilizers and other chemicals—or raising hoards of cattle, the sheer weight of which compacts the soil and makes it hard for new plants to take root. A global goal known as the Bonn Challenge aims to restore 1.3 million square miles of degraded and deforested land by 2030. More than 70 governments and organizations from 60 countries ... have signed on.

Our brains are made up of billions of cells that work together to create our every ability. Wipe out those cells, through a stroke or other brain trauma, and you may no longer be able to read, but you might still be able to speak, sing or write. It’s all about where the brain is damaged — which systems of cells are traumatized and which are not. The three-pound mass of neurological tissue that we call the brain has the power not only to create every ability we have but also to manifest our perception of reality. Our brains have a two-pronged defense mechanism that kicks in when brain trauma occurs. Not only are we able to grow some new neurons — a process called neurogenesis — especially in the sites where physical trauma has occurred, our brain cells are capable of neuroplasticity, which means they can rearrange which other neurons they are in communication with. That’s why, whenever I meet someone who has experienced a brain trauma of any sort, I don’t focus on what abilities that person has lost, but rather I marvel at what insights that person might have gained because of the experience. Few things have greater impact on how people choose to live their lives than neurological trauma or near-death experiences. And when we find ourselves to be neurologically impaired, we become vulnerable and need others to support us rather than criticize or judge us. I became a much more compassionate and empathetic person following my stroke and recovery. Perhaps I am not the only one.

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