Health News Articles
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When Elon Musk gave the world a demo in August of his latest endeavor, the brain-computer interface (BCI) Neuralink, he reminded us that the lines between brain and machine are blurring quickly. It bears remembering, however, that Neuralink is, at its core, a computer — and as with all computing advancements in human history, the more complex and smart computers become, the more attractive targets they become for hackers. Our brains hold information computers don't have. A brain linked to a computer/AI such as a BCI removes that barrier to the brain, potentially allowing hackers to rush in and cause problems we can't even fathom today. Might hacking humans via BCI be the next major evolution in hacking, carried out through a dangerous combination of past hacking methods? Previous eras were defined by obstacles between hackers and their targets. However, what happens when that disconnect between humans and tech is blurred? When they're essentially one and the same? Should a computing device literally connected to the brain, as Neuralink is, become hacked, the consequences could be catastrophic, giving hackers ultimate control over someone. If Neuralink penetrates deep into the human brain with high fidelity, what might hacking a human look like? Following traditional patterns, hackers would likely target individuals with high net worths and perhaps attempt to manipulate them into wiring millions of dollars to a hacker's offshore bank account.
Note: For more on this, see an article in the UK’s Independent titled “Groundbreaking new material 'could allow artificial intelligence to merge with the human brain’.” Meanwhile, the military is talking about “human-machine symbiosis.” And Yale professor Charles Morgan describes in a military presentation how hypodermic needles can be used to alter a person’s memory and much more in this two-minute video. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on microchip implants from reliable major media sources.
Oregon on Wednesday became the first state to legalize the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms on an election night that saw more states ease restrictions on recreational drugs across the country. Oregon’s Measure 109 will give legal access to psilocybin, the main active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” for mental health treatment in supervised settings. While some cities have moved to legalize and regulate access to the drug, Oregon will become the first state in the country to legalize it on a statewide basis. Supporters of the measure point to the medical benefits of the drug, which has been shown in some studies to benefit trauma survivors. Through Measure 110, which has captured more than 58% of the vote so far, Oregon would also decriminalize the possession of small amounts of some hard drugs, including heroin and LSD. Instead of criminal prosecution, people in possession would face a $100 fine, which can be waived if the person agrees to pursue treatment, according to the measure. Ronan Levy, the cofounder of Field Trip Health, a Toronto-based company that provides psychedelic-enhanced psychotherapy, said the ballot wins are “fantastic news” for what he called the psychedelic renaissance. Research is mounting that indicates the benefits of using psychedelic drugs to enhance therapy, Levy said, adding that ... the drug alone isn’t necessarily helpful; it needs to be taken under supervision of trained personnel.
Note: Recent studies suggest psilocybin can be used to treat addiction and anxiety. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the healing potential of mind-altering drugs from reliable major media sources.
With all the talk of remote learning for secondary schools and colleges, one important population is missing from the nationwide conversation about learning during the pandemic: babies and toddlers. Many parents are keeping their little ones away from playgrounds, playgroups and preschool preparatory programs. As a result, the social and learning opportunities for the youngest children have been curtailed, just like everyone else’s Without group settings, “we are missing a lot of observations, so there is going to be a whole raft of problems,” said Patricia K. Kuhl ... at the University of Washington. That’s partly because group settings like day care, classrooms and even playgrounds are often where adults notice, sometimes by comparing children with their peers, that little ones have sensory, motor, cognitive and learning problems that can benefit from early interventions. To encourage the sense of discovery and the “problem solving, turn-taking and perspective-taking” that comes from situations like “navigating that playground moment of when you are going up a slide, and another kid wants to come down the slide,” [psychologist Aliza W. Pressman] advises letting children play in an undirected manner. That may mean allowing children “to use garages, backyards, basements or attics to find opportunities for exploring,” Dr. Pressman said. If children encounter obstacles, allow them to work things out. That includes conflicts with siblings, though “if you do need to jump in, help them communicate with each other,” she said.
Note: Children around the world have been told to keep at least six feet away from their friends and they have to wear a mask if they leave home. They can no longer play and explore freely with their friends or even see their smiles. How does this affect their mental, emotional, and spiritual health? How do you think those who are only children with no playmates are faring? How will this impact this entire generation of children growing up now? For more along these lines, see revealing news articles on the coronavirus from reliable major media sources.
Remember the coronavirus? We were told by public health experts ... that we could not go outside for any reason. Roughly two weeks ago, everything changed. We all watched as mass stay-at-home orders and self-isolation gave way to massive street protests, where tens or hundreds of thousands of people gathered together in the U.S. and around the world. Virtually no prominent experts have denounced any of this on the ground that it will spread the coronavirus and ultimately kill more people. To the contrary, many infectious disease experts have done the exact opposite: they have endorsed and encouraged these mass street protests, claiming not that their support for them is grounded in their political values but in their health and scientific judgment. Perhaps the most egregious and illustrative example of the utter manipulation of public health science and expertise for nakedly political ends is found in the open letter that was originally crafted by epidemiologists at the University of Washington and then ultimately signed by 1,300 experts from around the country. These health experts ... decree that support for these protests is mandated as a matter of public health and scientific expertise, while imperiously insisting that other protests should still be scorned and prohibited. How is it remotely within the scope of the expertise of epidemiologists to pick and choose which political protests should be permitted and/or encouraged and which ones banned and/or denounced?
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and corruption in science from reliable major media sources.
A few days after preliminary results from a large-scale antibody study in Santa Clara County suggested coronavirus infections in the county are underreported by a factor as large as 50 to 85, results from a newly-released antibody study conducted in Los Angeles County contained similar findings. The L.A. antibody study was conducted by the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Unlike the Stanford study, where participants were recruited via Facebook ads, participants in the Los Angeles County were recruited by market services firm LRW Group, which used a large proprietary database to create a random sample of the county population. Of the 1,000 individuals tested in early April, 4.1 percent were found to have COVID-19 antibodies. When adjusting for statistical margin of error, the study finds that 2.8 percent to 5.6 percent of the county's adult population has already been infected, which translates to 221,000 to 442,000 people. If infections are this vastly underreported, then the mortality rate of COVID-19 is substantially lower than current estimates. The Stanford researchers ... projected deaths through April 22 and divided that figure by the number of infections to calculate a "true" mortality rate of .12 to .20 percent when using the weighted figures. Using the unweighted numbers ... one gets a "true" mortality rate of .35 percent, a number almost identical to the mortality rate calculated following antibody tests in a hard-hit German town.
Note: The WHO has claimed a mortality rate of 3.4%, 10 times higher than these studies are showing. The Washington Post on April 17th wrote a very misleading article with "U.S. coronavirus fatality rate rises to 5 percent" as part of the headline, despite knowing about the above study. Could it be that fear mongering serves the WHO, the media, and elites? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and the coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.
It might not be until fall 2021 that Americans "can be completely safe" from COVID-19, Bill Gates said in a Tuesday interview with Judy Woodruff on PBS Newshour. That's because it will take more than a year before a vaccine can be developed and deployed, according to researchers working to develop a treatment for COVID-19. "The vaccine is critical, because, until you have that, things aren't really going to be normal," the billionaire philanthropist told Woodruff. "They can open up to some degree, but the risk of a rebound will be there until we have very broad vaccination." Social distancing is helping to lower the number of COVID-19 cases. The goal, Gates explained, is to get that number down to a point where "contact tracing" (a process in which those within close contact with an infected person are closely monitored) can be done, in order to maintain necessary quarantines. To understand what life in the U.S. will look like six to 12 months from now, Gates suggested China as a good model. "They are sending people back to work, but they're wearing masks. They're checking temperatures. They're not doing large sporting events. And so they have been able to avoid a large rebound," he said. Beyond that, "returning to some semblance of normal," as Woodruff put it, can be predicted by watching the behaviors of other countries. Sweden, for example, isn't "locking down quite as much," so their experience will be informative, Gates explained.
Note: In this video interview, Gates says we need to vaccinate everyone in the world. And he wants indemnity in case the vaccine he sponsors ends up killing or injuring many. Learn more about how Gates uses his billions to gain political power. And don't miss this most important video focused on how he is using fear of the virus to promote his agenda to require a "digital certificate" to ensure they've been vaccinated. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus pandemic from reliable major media sources.
The percentage of national income that is absorbed by health care has grown over the past half-century, from 5% in 1960 to 18% in 2017, reducing what is available for anything else from 95% in 1960 to 82% today. The costs of health care contribute to the long-term stagnation in wages; to fewer good jobs, especially for less educated workers; and to rising income inequality. American health care is the most expensive in the world, and yet American health is among the worst among rich countries. The U.S. has lower life expectancy than the other wealthy countries but vastly higher expenditures per person. In 2017, the Swiss lived 5.1 years longer than Americans but spent 30% less per person; other countries achieved a similar length of life for still fewer health dollars. How is it possible that Americans pay so much and get so little? The money is certainly going somewhere. What is waste to a patient is income to a provider. The industry is not very good at promoting health, but it excels at promoting wealth among health care providers. Employer-based coverage is a huge barrier to reform. So is the way that the health care industry is protected in Washington by its lobbyistsfive for every member of Congress. Our government is complicit in an extortion that is an important contributor to income inequality. Through pharma companies that get rich by addicting people, and through excessive costs that lower wages and eliminate good jobs, the industry that is supposed to improve our health is undermining it.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.
One of the first things I learned about pain was its value. I was a third-year medical student in 1976. We were ... encouraged to listen carefully to the patients experience of pain, the timing, the duration and any factors that made it better or worse. Forty years later, our concept of pain couldnt be more different. Instead of learning from pain, we now regard it as an illness in and of itself. Insurance companies, health-care providers and drugmakers have all worked to increase the publics fear of pain, leading us to see it as something to be treated, eliminated, banished never lived with or accommodated or managed lest it destroy us. They turned our natural fear into big business; our fee-for-service system has multiplied treatments based primarily on the financial rewards for pharmaceutical companies, doctors and hospitals. That attitude shift is perhaps the most overlooked explanation for an opioid crisis that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year. A healthy fear of pain ... protects us from injury and reminds us to allow time for healing. But otherwise, the fear of pain, and the belief that a pain-free existence is optimal or even possible, has been a catastrophe for patients. Before the opioid revolution, doctors understood that pain was important to keeping us safe, to be lived with and managed. Even if this meant we bore frequent episodes of discomfort, that was better than the nationwide crisis America faces today. Life isnt pain free. If we want to end the epidemic of addiction, we need to relearn that lesson.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.
"Ultraprocessed" describes many foods, including pre-prepared dishes found in grocery store freezers, packaged baked goods, dehydrated soups, ice cream, sugary cereals and fizzy beverages. Two separate studies published Wednesday in The BMJ link eating the popular factory-made fare with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and an increased risk of early death. Previous studies have associated highly processed food consumption with higher risks of obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and even some cancers. "Ultraprocessed foods already make up more than half of the total dietary energy consumed in high-income countries such as USA, Canada and the UK," [said] Maira Bes-Rastrollo, senior author of one study. "Products in this category are rich in poor quality fat, added sugar and salt, along with low vitamin density and fiber content, and they "are economically profitable (low cost ingredients), very palatable and convenient," said Bes-Rastrollo. Worst of all, she explained, they are replacing unprocessed or minimally processed foods and freshly prepared meals in our diets. Bes-Rastrollo and her colleagues also collected information on lifestyle, demographic factors, physical activity, weight and health. Analyzing the data, the team found that a higher consumption of heavily processed foods - more than four servings each day - was associated with a 62% increased risk for early death due to any cause relative to those who ate these foods less frequently.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and food system corruption from reliable major media sources.
Purdue Pharma has agreed to pay $270 million to settle a historic lawsuit brought by the Oklahoma attorney general, who accused the OxyContin maker of aggressively marketing the opioid painkiller and fueling a drug epidemic that left thousands dead in the state. The settlement comes after Purdue [sought] to delay the start of the trial, which is scheduled for May 28. Attorney General Mike Hunter said ... that $102.5 million of the settlement would be used to help establish a national addiction treatment and research center at Oklahoma State University. The company will also provide $20 million of addiction treatment and opioid rescue medications to the center. A remaining $12.5 million from the settlement will be used directly to help cities and counties with the opioid crisis. The Sackler family, who founded and own Purdue Pharma, will also contribute $75 million over the next five years to the treatment and research center. The lawsuit was brought by Hunter against some of the nation's leading makers of opioid pain medications, alleging that deceptive marketing over the past decade fueled the epidemic in the state. Hunter has said the defendants - Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Allergan and others - deceived the public into believing that opioids were safe for extended use. The settlement was only with Purdue Pharma, and the other defendants are still scheduled to go to trial. Thirty-six states have brought cases against Purdue and other opioid drugmakers.
Note: Many doctors also profited from excessive prescribing of dangerous opioids. And according to a former DEA agent, Congress helped drug companies fuel the opioid epidemic. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing Big Pharma corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.
When nurse Meleney Gallagher was told to line up with her colleagues on the renal ward at Sunderland Royal Hospital, for her swine flu vaccination, she had no idea the injection she was about to have had not gone through the usual testing process. It had been rushed into circulation after the swine flu virus had swept across the globe in 2009. Gallagher was one of thousands of NHS staff vaccinated with Pandemrix, a vaccine made by pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Eight years later, her career in the NHS is a memory and she's living with incurable, debilitating narcolepsy and suffers from cataplexy, a sudden, uncontrollable loss of muscle tone that can cause her to collapse without warning. Because of her condition, she can no longer work or drive. People with narcolepsy experience chronic fatigue and difficulty sleeping at night. They can have night terrors, hallucinations, and a range of mental health problems. Gallagher is not alone. More than a dozen frontline NHS staff are among around 1,000 adults and children across Europe who are believed to have developed narcolepsy after being given Pandemrix. Gallagher and four other NHS professionals – two nurses, a community midwife, and a junior doctor – have told how they felt pressured into receiving the vaccine, were given misleading information, and ultimately lost their careers. They are all suing GlaxoSmithKline seeking compensation for what they believe was a faulty drug that has left them with lifelong consequences.
Note: Yet the media and big Pharma continually tout the safety of their vaccines. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on vaccines from reliable major media sources.
The latest study to look at the long-term effects of Roundup, a popular weed killer developed by Monsanto in the 1970s, raises questions about the herbicide’s possible contributions to poor health in certain communities. The study, published Tuesday in JAMA, tracked people over the age of 50 in southern California from 1993-1996 to 2014-2016, with researchers periodically collecting urine samples during that time. The percentage of people who tested positive for a chemical called glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, shot up by 500% in that time period. The levels of glyphosate also spiked by 1208% during that time. One trial from the UK, in which rats were fed low levels of glyphosate throughout their lives, found that the chemical contributed to a higher risk of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a condition in which fat accumulates in the liver and contributes to inflammation and scarring of the tissue. [Researcher Paul] Mills says that the levels of glyphosate documented in the people in his study were 100-fold greater than those in the rats. While Roundup was developed to eliminate most weeds from genetically modified crops — and thus reduce the amount of pesticides sprayed on them — recent studies have found that many weeds are now resistant to Roundup. That means growers are using more Roundup, which could only exacerbate potential negative health effects on people who consume those products.
Note: Bayer recently agreed to a $10 billion settlement over claims that its glyphosate-containing product RoundUp causes cancer. Meanwhile, Mexico is banning glyphosate and GMO corn. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and GMOs from reliable major media sources.
It's hard to talk about the dangers of cell-phone radiation without sounding like a conspiracy theorist. This is especially true in the United States, where non-industry-funded studies are rare, where legislation protecting the wireless industry from legal challenges has long been in place, and where our lives have been so thoroughly integrated with wireless technology that to suggest it might be a problem ... is like saying our shoes might be killing us. Except our shoes don't send microwaves directly into our brains. And cell phones do - a fact that has increasingly alarmed the rest of the world. There are multiple reports, mostly out of Europe's premier research institutions, of cell-phone and PDA use being linked to "brain aging," brain damage, early-onset Alzheimer's, senility, DNA damage, and even sperm die-offs. In September 2007, the European Union's environmental watchdog, the European Environment Agency, warned that cell-phone technology "could lead to a health crisis similar to those caused by asbestos, smoking, and lead in petrol." In the U.S., there's been very little resistance to the march of the cell towers. In fact, in Congress there's been almost nothing but support. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 ... was the result, in part, of nearly $50 million in political contributions and lobbying largesse from the telecom industry. A rider known as Section 704 ... specifically prohibits citizens and local governments from stopping placement of a cell tower due to health concerns.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on wireless technology risks from reliable major media sources.
For 40 years the United States Public Health Service has conducted a study in which human beings with syphilis, who were induced to serve as guinea pigs, have gone without medical treatment for the disease and a few have died of its late effects, even though an effective therapy, was eventually discovered. The study was conducted to determine from autopsies what the disease does to the human body. It is too late to treat the syphilis in any surviving participants. The experiment, called the Tuskegee Study, began in 1932 with about 600 black men mostly poor and uneducated, from Tuskegee, Ala., an area that had the highest syphilis rate in the nation at the time. Four hundred of the group had syphilis and never received deliberate treatment for the Venereal Infection. A control group of 200 had no syphilis and did not receive any specific therapy. As Incentives to enter the Program, the men were promised free transportation to and from hospitals, free hot lunches, free medicine for any disease other than syphilis and free burial after autopsies were performed. The Tuskegee Study began 10 years before penicillin was found to be a cure for syphilis and 15 years before the drug became widely available. Yet, even after penicillin became common, and while its use probably could have helped or saved a number of the experiment subjects, the drug was denied them. Senator William Proxmire ... called the study “a moral and ethical nightmare.”
Note: Read more about the disturbing history of government and industry experiments on human guinea pigs. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.
The Modern Ag Alliance, launched by Bayer in 2024, enables the company to lobby and campaign through an entity that looks like a coalition of farm organizations, not a single giant chemical corporation. MAA represents itself as a “diverse coalition, founded by Bayer, that today represents more than 110 agricultural organizations.” But public records suggest it functions as a front group for Bayer’s interests. Tax records reveal that a Bayer vice president sits on the board of directors, and nearly all of its budget has gone to a public relations firm that also works for Bayer. Bayer itself describes the MAA as a key part of its lobbying. The company has portrayed the MAA – whose tagline is “Pesticides power America’s ag” – as its strategy for “fighting back” against glyphosate concerns and lawsuits. MAA is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, a structure that allows it to raise unlimited funds for advocacy or lobbying while keeping donors secret. Disclosed members of the Modern Ag Alliance include large agribusiness trade groups, and national and state commodity crop growers’ groups. Many of these groups have financial relationships with Bayer and other pesticide firms, via sponsorships, partnerships or direct funding, though these ties are often opaque. The MAA lobbies for legislation that ... would make it harder for Americans to use state-law failure-to-warn claims to sue pesticide manufacturers for cancer and other injuries.
Note: Our Substack, "The Pesticide Crisis Reveals The Dark Side of Science. We Have The Solutions to Regenerate," uncovers the scope of Bayer/Monsanto's media propaganda machine and the widespread conspiracy to poison our food, air, and along with the powerful remedies and solutions to this crisis. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on corporate corruption and toxic chemicals.
The single biggest predictor of how happy you are at any given moment isn’t your income, your relationship status, your health, your career, or the city you live in. It’s whether your mind is focused on what you’re doing right now or wandering somewhere else. That’s the whole finding. Present equals happy. Absent equals unhappy. Everything else is details. In 2010, Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert published a paper in the journal Science with a title that sounds like a Buddhist proverb: “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind.” They developed an iPhone app that pinged 2,250 people at random intervals throughout the day, asking three questions: What are you doing? What are you thinking about? How happy are you? People’s minds wandered from what they were doing 46.9 percent of the time. And when their minds wandered, they were consistently less happy than when they were focused on whatever was in front of them. This held true regardless of the activity. What you’re thinking about matters more than twice as much as what you’re doing. You could have the perfect life — the career, the partner, the health, the house — and spend most of it mentally somewhere else, and the somewhere else would make you miserable. We don’t struggle with presence during peak experiences. Nobody’s mind wanders during their wedding or the birth of their child or the moment they land the job they wanted. Those moments are vivid enough to command attention. They handle presence for you. The problem is that peak experiences make up maybe two percent of your life. The other ninety-eight percent ... is ordinary, and your capacity to be present during ordinary moments determines the quality of your entire existence. That’s where happiness actually lives. In the ninety-eight percent. In the ability to be present in an ordinary moment without wishing it were something else.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Some top US lobbying firms are simultaneously working both sides of the Pfas “forever chemicals” issue, raising serious conflict of interest questions and concerns that their activity is slowing states’ efforts to rein in the public health threat. The review of six states’ lobbying records conducted by the non-profit F-Minus found a range of scenarios in which firms lobbied both sides. Most common Pfas are linked to cancer. The lobbying firm Holland & Knight works for the American Chemistry Council, which represents the nation’s largest Pfas makers, and aggressively opposes most regulations. Simultaneously, Holland & Knight lobbies for the American Cancer Society. The review found 26 healthcare systems, 11 public school systems, 15 wildlife groups and 132 local governments that share lobbying firms with Pfas makers or trade groups, including the American Chemistry Council and Cookware Sustainability Alliance. The lobbyists work across 36 states. The report comes amid a broad effort at all levels of the government that aims to rein in Pfas pollution and exposures. The chemicals are widely used in consumer goods and industry, and are linked to a range of health problems like cancer, birth defects, decreased immunity, kidney disease and hormone disruption. The public health effort has drawn an intense lobbying operation in opposition by the chemical industry, which has killed most Pfas legislation in recent years.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on toxic chemicals.
Syngenta, maker of a controversial pesticide linked to Parkinson’s disease, said on Tuesday that it would stop making its paraquat weed killer by the end of June. The announcement comes as the company is facing several thousand lawsuits brought by people in the US who allege they developed Parkinson’s disease due to their exposure to Syngenta’s paraquat products. The company did not mention the litigation in its announcement. Paraquat has been used in the US since 1964 as a tool to kill broadleaf weeds and grasses. Though banned in several countries, including throughout Europe, Syngenta’s paraquat-based Gramoxone herbicide brand has remained popular with US farmers for use in growing soybeans, cotton and corn, as well as in growing grapes, pistachios, peanuts and many other crops. Numerous scientific studies have found that paraquat damages cells in the brain in ways that can lead to Parkinson’s, and more than 8,000 lawsuits are pending in US courts over the Parkinson’s allegations. The New Lede, in conjunction with the Guardian, obtained and revealed many of Syngenta’s internal corporate files, which show that not only was Syngenta aware of research linking paraquat to Parkinson’s decades ago, but it also sought to secretly influence scientific information and public opinion regarding those links. Lawmakers in multiple states have introduced legislation to ban paraquat, and several federal lawmakers have also called for bans.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
Chemicals increasingly used to replace the toxic plastic additive bisphenol A (BPA) may disrupt fertility, fetal development, and reproductive health through many of the same biological mechanisms, according to a narrative review of human, animal and laboratory studies. Concerns about BPA have led some manufacturers to phase it out and replace it with structurally similar compounds, most commonly bisphenol S (BPS), bisphenol F (BPF) and bisphenol AF (BPAF). While BPA exposure has declined, BPS and BPF use is rising, especially in North America and Asia. The review, published this month [February 2026] in Archives of Medical Research, found that these BPA substitutes—widely used in plastics, processed food and food packaging, children’s toys, and paper receipts—can interfere with the same hormone systems and gene-regulation pathways that control reproductive development in both males and females. “Although these compounds were originally synthesized to be safe for human use, they have also exhibited endocrine-disrupting activity similar to BPA, which affects reproductive function,” the researchers wrote. “These changes can lead to reproductive disorders and negative long-term and transgenerational consequences.” The [BPA] substitutes can mimic estrogen or block hormone activity. They also appear to induce epigenetic changes, altering the chemical signals that control how genes are turned on or off.
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on health and toxic chemicals.
Jeffrey Epstein may have forced an underage victim to carry his child in a “Nazi”-like effort to create a “superior gene pool,” according to documents released by the Department of Justice. Among the more than three million Epstein files released last week is a harrowing diary penned by an alleged victim, who wrote that she was a “human incubator” for Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Minutes after giving birth, she wrote that the child was snatched away from her. The contents of the diary have not been verified, and the woman’s accusations against an Epstein associate have been disputed in court. The DOJ has cautioned that the newly published files may contain “fake or falsely submitted” materials. The first-person narrative makes several references to New Mexico, where the deceased sex offender owned a sprawling ranch outside Santa Fe. Epstein planned to use the estate to impregnate women in an effort to “seed the human race with his DNA,” The New York Times reported in 2019, citing his acquaintances and public records. The woman claims to have given birth around 2002, when she would have been either 16 or 17 years old. In the entry, she recounts the experience of going into labor, claiming that a doctor and Maxwell were both present, and that her bed was soaked in blood. In her posthumous memoir, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre also claimed that Epstein and Maxwell asked her to carry their child in 2002.
Note: In our latest Substack, "Epstein Files Pt. 2: Beyond Sex Trafficking—Zorro Ranch and a Darker Scientific Agenda," we explore the diary entries mentioned in this article and how they fit neatly into the larger picture now emerging from the newly-public information. Specifically, Epstein's deep ties to the scientific elite and their active exploration into eugenics, designer babies, human cloning, social engineering, and other ethically questionable human experimentation practices.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
