Tag Archives: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dealing With America’s Health Crisis

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There is a health crisis in America. It has taken many forms. How many people do you know in your life that take less than two pills a day (other than vitamins)? Compare the beach-goers of today with those of the 1960’s–admittedly in the 60’s they were covered in more material, but there was a whole lot less fat. Did the entire country stop exercising or eating right? What happened? A number of well-informed people believe the increase in obesity is due to things being added to our food that weren’t there 60 years ago.

On Tuesday, Zero Hedge posted an article about the health crisis in America and some plans to make us all healthier.

The article reports:

After more than four decades in public health, Redfield believes the former president “chose the right man [RFK Jr.] for the job” to combat the processed foods industrial complex, which has ignited an obesity crisis across the Heartland. 

“For instance, obesity in American children has increased dramatically since John F. Kennedy’s presidency, from around 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent in 2024,” he said, adding, “The causes of childhood obesity are complex, but a primary origin is clearly the modern American diet of highly processed foods.” 

He explained the causes for this obesity crisis are primarily due to “special interest and corporate influences on our federal agencies.” 

Redfield pointed out that “Kennedy is right” about the corporate capture problem of federal agencies.

Kennedy is right: All three of the principal health agencies suffer from agency capture. A large portion of the FDA’s budget is provided by pharmaceutical companies. NIH is cozy with biomedical and pharmaceutical companies and its scientists are allowed to collect royalties on drugs NIH licenses to pharma. And as the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I know the agency can be influenced by special interest groups.

Redfield acknowledges that agency capture is a serious issue, highlighting that federal agencies responsible for regulating food and medicine are possibly compromised by the food industrial complex and big pharma. 

Maybe it was a warning sign when big pharma and the feds pushed Ozempic as the ‘wonder shot’ to end the obesity crisis instead of promoting exercise and safe, clean food.

Voting for President Trump could improve your health!

The Next Big Climate Scare

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In America (and in some other places) we just aren’t paying enough attention to our impending doom due to global warming, global cooling, or whatever climate change is currently fashionable. Therefore, it is time to raise the stakes to get our attention. Brace yourself, we are about to start hearing about deaths due to climate change. How you actually calculate that is a mystery, but that hasn’t stopped the propagandists yet.

On Thursday, wattsupwiththat reported:

The next big climate scare is on the way. Advocates of measures to control the climate now propose that we begin counting deaths from climate change. They appear to believe that if people see a daily announcement of climate deaths, they will be more inclined to accept climate change policies. But it’s not even clear that the current gentle rise in global temperatures is causing more people to die.

In December, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at COP28, the 28th United Nations Climate Conference, and mentioned climate-related deaths.

“We are seeing and beginning to pay attention and to count and record the deaths that are related to climate,” she said. “And by far the biggest killer is extreme heat.”

According to Ms. Clinton, Europe recorded 61,000 deaths from extreme heat in 2023, and she estimated that about 500,000 people died from heat across the world last year.

Global temperatures have been gently rising for the last 300 years. Temperature metrics from NASA, NOAA, and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom estimate that Earth’s surface temperatures have risen a little more than one degree Celsius, or about two degrees Fahrenheit, over the last 140 years. But are these warmer temperatures harmful to people?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most cases of influenza occur during December to March, the cold months in the United States. Influenza season in the southern hemisphere takes place during the cold months there, April through September. The peak months for COVID-19 infections tended to be the cold periods of the year. More people usually get sick during cold months than in warm months.

More people also die during winter months than summer months, according to many peer-reviewed studies. For example, Dr. Matthew Falagas of the Alfa Institute of Medical Sciences and five other researchers studied seasonal mortality in 11 nations. The research showed that the average number of deaths peaked in the coldest months of the year in all of them.

It’s easier to stay healthy when the weather is warm–the sun provides Vitamin D, and as long as you don’t overdue it, fresh air and sunshine are healthy.

Please follow the link to the article. It includes some very interesting charts, including the one below:

 

Numbers don’t lie.

Penalizing One Group Of People To Save Money For Another

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There is a housing crisis in America. Housing prices have skyrocketed (although they have come down slightly and the real estate market has cooled as interest rates have increased). Rents are going up and inflation is making it difficult for people to pay their rents. This will eventually work itself out, but unfortunately, the government is planning to get involved.

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted the following headline, “First step towards national rent control? Biden admin to mandate “fairness”” Government “fairness” has a way of not being fair.

The article reports:

If you’ve been renting, especially a single-family house vice an apartment, you’ve been on pins and needles the entire time, not knowing if it would be sold out from under you if the owner decides to cash in on good times, vice continues to deal with tenants. Almost every aspect has been fraught with anxiety for all concerned.

A good portion of this is attributable to measures taken (with questionable authority) by the Centers for Disease Control. In an unprecedented order on 1 September 2020, the CDC brought an immediate – and “temporary” – halt in residential evictions to “prevent the further spread of COVID-19.” Congress and then the Biden administration extended that order through various incarnations for another year, claiming a surge in Delta variant infections justified it.

What is being overlooked here is that fact that even if t he renter cannot affort to pay his rent, the homeowner is still required to pay his mortgage.The renter may not be evicted, but the owner is in danger of foreclosure.

The article concludes:

Also, please note – there’s nothing about independent landlord protections. Who is going to want to rent their home to anyone and face not getting paid with the government’s stamp of approval? Here people were, hoping for rents to start easing off some and housing to open back up. ‘Tis to laugh.

The government’s going to sanction both non-payment of rent and pay for the scofflaw’s lawyers? As the landlord is also a taxpayer, you could look at it that he’s getting shafted twice in this deal.

Well, hello. There’s another house sold to Blackrock for cash.

We need to look at any government interference against the free market as an attack on our freedom and treat it as such.

Searching For The Truth

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On Saturday, Townhall posted an article about Americans and the Covid vaccine.

The article reports:

In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, UCLA Geffen School of Medicine Doctor Joseph Lapado and Yale School of Public Health Doctor Harvey Risch are sounding the alarm that there may be serious underestimated risks involved with the side effects of the Wuhan Coronavirus vaccine.

This comes as an independent pollster found that a significant number of Americans regret receiving the vaccine in the first place. 

10 percent of those vaccinated said they wish they hadn’t done so, while 15 percent of adults said they have been diagnosed with a new condition by a medical practitioner weeks or months after the first dose. 

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) authorized the poll two years after the first vaccine was rolled out. 

“The fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports more than 232 million Americans ages 18–65 have taken at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 15 percent of those surveyed report a newly diagnosed condition is concerning and needs further study,” Laura Bono, CHD’s executive director said. 

The article lists some of the medical problems encountered by those who received the vaccine– blood clots, disrupted menstrual cycles, heart attacks, strokes, lung clots and liver damage. About 10 percent of the people who experienced these problems said that the problems were severe.

The article concludes:

The Epoch Times reported that in May, hospitals saw an increase in cases of heart inflammation among patients. They also noted that the media has given more attention to cases of blood clots despite myocarditis being more common. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci also admitted that vaccine caused menstrual irregularities, saying that the issue is “temporary” and that they “need to study it more.”

I wish they had studied it more before they demanded that everyone take the shot or lose their job.

Can We Just Admit We Don’t Have The Answer Yet?

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On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the effectiveness of the Covid-19 booster shots.

The article reports:

The effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine booster doses dropped well under 50 percent after four months against subvariants of the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines provided just 51 percent protection against emergency department visits, urgent care encounters, and hospitalizations related to COVID-19 during the time BA.2 and BA.2.12.1, subvariants of the Omicron virus variant, were predominant in the United States, CDC researchers found.

Both vaccines are administered in two-dose primary series.

After 150-plus days, the effectiveness dropped to just 12 percent.

A first booster upped the protection to 56 percent, but the effectiveness went down to 26 percent after four months, according to the study, which drew numbers from a network of hospitals funded by the CDC across 10 states called the VISION Network.

The subvariant was predominant between late March and mid-June.

The article also notes:

Underlining the waning effectiveness against severe illness, the majority of patients admitted to the hospitals between December 2021 and June 2022 had received at least two doses of the vaccines.

Further, the percentage of unvaccinated patients dropped during the later period, going from 41.6 percent to 28.6 percent (hospitalized patients) and from 41.4 percent to 31 percent (emergency department and urgent care patients), researchers found.

The researchers, some of whom work for the CDC, theorized that the protection—known as natural immunity—many unvaccinated people enjoy from having had COVID-19 could be a factor in the drop in effectiveness of the vaccines, even though adults with documented prior infection were excluded from the study.

“If unvaccinated persons were more likely to have experienced recent infection, and infection-induced immunity provides some protection against re-infection, this could result in lower VE observed during the BA.2/BA.2.12.1 period,” they wrote. VE stands for vaccine effectiveness.

“Although adults with documented past SARS-CoV-2 infection were excluded, infections are likely to be significantly underascertained because of lack of testing or increased at-home testing. In addition, although time since receipt of the second or third vaccine dose was stratified by time intervals, on average the time since vaccination was longer during the BA.2/BA.2.12.1 period,” they added.

Although the medical community recommends flu shots every year, they also admit that predicting the particular variant of the flu that will be present during that flu season is something of a crap shoot. It seems that we are having the same problem with Covid-19, also a virus. I suspect coming up with a truly effective vaccine against Covid infections is probably about as likely as coming up with a vaccine for the common cold. I think we still have a lot to learn.

The Numbers Are Changing

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On Friday, The Epoch Times reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has removed tens of thousands of deaths linked to COVID-19.

The article reports:

The health agency quietly made the change on its data tracker website on March 15.

“Data on deaths were adjusted after resolving a coding logic error. This resulted in decreased death counts across all demographic categories,” the CDC says on the site.

The CDC relies on states and other jurisdictions to report COVID-19 deaths and acknowledges on its website that the data is not complete.

But the statistics are often cited by doctors and others when pushing for COVID-19 vaccination, including figures who believe virtually all children should be vaccinated. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, cited the tracker’s death total in November 2021 while pushing for an expert panel to advise her agency to recommend vaccination for all children 5- to 11-years-old.

Before the change, the CDC listed 1,755 children as dying from COVID-19 along with approximately 851,000 others, according to Kelley Krohnert, a Georgia resident who has been tracking the updates.

The update saw the CDC cut 416 deaths among children and over 71,000 elsewhere, arriving at a total of just under 780,000.

The article notes:

Some of the deaths listed by the CDC appear unrelated to COVID-19. For instance, several deaths have drowning as a cause of death; several others were listed as being from a gun discharge, according to an Epoch Times review of the death codes.

For now, the update on the tracker was described as “great news” by Dr. Alasdair Munro, a clinical research fellow for pediatric infectious diseases at University Hospital Southampton, given that nearly a quarter of the pediatric COVID-19 deaths had vanished.

But Munro, writing on social media, called it “slightly worrying that this data was being used widely in the US to guide or advocate for policy.”

Some people called for the CDC to issue a public apology or at least announce such updates, similar to how some lower-level agencies have made clear lowering their death counts.

At some point we have to go back to the basic principle of ‘follow the money.’ Who was invested in the companies that made the vaccines? Were any of those people involved in putting together the death-from-Covid statistics? How many people in the pharmacy industry became millionaires because of the vaccines? These are the read questions.

A Constitutional Republic Will Only Stand As Long As Its Citizens And Voters Are Able To Stay Informed

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On Tuesday, The Western Journal posted an article about the lack of transparency and misinformation coming out of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the past two years or so.

The article notes:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is being called out for not sharing the vast quantities of data it had been gathering during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some medical experts are speculating that the reason why is the fear the data will be “misinterpreted” and used as justification not to follow the agency’s guidelines regarding vaccination and other matters.

“Tell the truth, present the data,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert and adviser to the Food and Drug Administration, The New York Times reported.

…Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the CDC, told the news outlet the reason much of the data has been withheld is “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.”

Bureaucracy is another reason.

The CDC is weighed down by multiple layers of bureaucracy, including a requirement to first run information to be released through the Department Health and Human Services and the White House.

“The CDC is a political organization as much as it is a public health organization,” said Samuel Scarpino, managing director of pathogen surveillance at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Pandemic Prevention Institute, the Times reported.

“The steps that it takes to get something like this [covid data] released are often well outside of the control of many of the scientists that work at the CDC.”

The article concludes:

In an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal last month, Makary (Dr. Marty Makary, a professor and researcher at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine) contended that another topic the CDC has been reluctant to address is natural immunity.

“For most of last year, many of us called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to release its data on reinfection rates, but the agency refused,” he wrote.

“Finally last week, the CDC released data from New York and California, which demonstrated natural immunity was 2.8 times as effective in preventing hospitalization and 3.3 to 4.7 times as effective in preventing Covid infection compared with vaccination,” he continued.

Makary further noted the National Institutes of Health resisted acknowledging natural immunity.

“Because of the NIH’s inaction, my Johns Hopkins colleagues and I conducted the study. We found that among 295 unvaccinated people who previously had Covid, antibodies were present in 99 percent of them up to nearly two years after infection,” he wrote.

Makary argued the failure of the CDC to release the data sooner meant many who had previously recovered from COVID and had better immunity than those were just vaccinated needlessly lost their jobs.

He concluded that they should be hired back.

There was a political agenda here and a monetary agenda here. The CDC is too closely tied financially to the drug companies. There was more money in vaccines than there ever was in ivermectin!

Masking Our Children

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On Monday, The New York Post posted an article by Dr. Joel Zinberg, MD, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and director of public health and wellness at the Paragon Health Institute. The article deals with the benefits and costs of masking children.

The article reports:

States around the nation, including Democratic ones such as New York and California, are lifting indoor mask mandates. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention refuses to budge. It continues to recommend indoor masking in communities with substantial or high transmission — essentially the entire country — a stance that is particularly exasperating and harmful in regards to schools. The agency recommends masking all students ages 2 and older.

…Two days later, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief White House medical adviser, echoed his overcautious colleague, telling CNN that ending school masking would be “risky.”

Yet, whatever rationales were previously advanced to justify school mask mandates have long since disappeared and the benefit of masking children is outweighed by the cost.

It has been known almost since the beginning of the epidemic that children were not at high risk from the coronavirus. There was no reason to mask them in the first place (particularly since the mask does not keep the virus out and children have a tendency to touch the mask).

The article continues:

Other studies primarily done before vaccine approval confirm that students are not causing transmission in schools. Staff-to-staff transmission is more common than transmission from students. The correlation between school outbreaks and COVID incidence in the community suggests that adults infected in the community pose a far greater risk to students and staff than students do.

It is no surprise that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control recommends against masks for children 12 and younger. It only recommends masks for older students and adults living in areas with high COVID community transmission.

Walensky (CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky) has repeatedly cited an Arizona study that found schools without mask mandates were 3.5 times more likely to have COVID outbreaks than schools that required masks. Yet, as David Zweig showed in the Atlantic, multiple experts agree the study was so rife with methodological problems that its conclusions are worthless.

The article concludes:

Masks always have been unrealistic for schoolkids. As the European Centre noted, children “may have a lower tolerance to wearing masks for extended periods of time, and may fail to wear them properly.”

Moreover, masks may interfere with children’s ability to recognize and interact with their peers and teachers and could stunt their development. Mask proponents often cite a study showing that children have no more difficulty reading the emotions of people wearing masks than people wearing sunglasses. But that study found children’s ability to infer emotions were more accurate with uncovered faces compared to covering with masks or sunglasses.

Besides, when do children encounter an environment where everyone is wearing sunglasses?

Earlier in the pandemic, masks may have facilitated a return to in-person learning. But now there is widespread vaccine immunity and natural immunity after recovery, particularly with the highly transmissible Omicron variant. New monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals significantly reduce the risk of severe COVID illness. And case numbers are rapidly falling. These developments, combined with the dubious evidence supporting school mask mandates, mean that the time has come for the CDC to change its guidelines.

It will take years to assess the damage masks and at-home learning have done to our children.

 

Now They Tell Us

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On Monday, Townhall posted an article with the following headline:

CDC Makes Major Admission About Rushed Vaccine Timeline and Heart Inflammation

The article explains:

The Centers for Disease Control is considering changing the timeline for the administration of a second Moderna and Pfizer Wuhan coronavirus vaccine dose. The consideration comes after a rushed timeline caused heart inflammation in a number of patients. 

“Dr. Sara Oliver, an official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the agency was considering making the recommendation for Moderna (MRNA.O) and Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech shots during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of outside advisers to the CDC,” Reuters reports.

Currently, the CDC recommends individuals receive their second dose of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines three and four weeks after an initial dose. The government agency may now recommend a second dose eight weeks after the first. 

In October a number of European countries limited Moderna’s use due to an alarming number of myocarditis cases. 

The article concludes:

Meanwhile an Oxford University study show the risk of myocarditis for young people is higher from the vaccine than it is from natural infection.

…”In under 40-year-old people…dose two of Moderna has exceeded the risk of myocarditis after infection with a second dose,” Dr. Vinay Prasad said about the study. “There have been many people who have been reluctant to take serious the risks of myocarditis after the Moderna product.”

“If you’re under 40 and if you pool men and women together, there is more myocarditis associated with dose two of Moderna than there is with an infection. That is a bombshell finding,” he continued.

This is information that anyone who has not yet taken the shot needs to know. This is also information that should end the vaccine mandates if indeed we are going to ‘follow the science.’

Common Sense Finally Shows Up

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a study showing that natural immunity from prior infection granted stronger levels of protection against the Delta variant of COVID-19 than vaccination alone.

The article reports:

Before Delta became dominant, individuals who had natural immunity were experiencing higher case rates than individuals who were only vaccinated, the study found, but after Delta took hold, those with natural immunity caught COVID-19 less frequently than those who were only vaccinated.

…The study examined four categories of people — unvaccinated and vaccinated who survived a previous COVID-19 infection, and unvaccinated and vaccinated who had never been infected — in California and New York between May and November 2021. The highest case rates were among those who had neither been vaccinated or previously infected. The most protection against infection and hospitalization was in those who had both been vaccinated and survived an earlier bout with the virus.

Most of the press, as usual, preached the current media view on vaccines:

Many legacy media outlets covered the study by minimizing the finding that natural immunity outperformed vaccines and emphasizing that a combination of both provided the best protection. Headlines from the New York Times, Associated Press, CNN and others claimed that vaccination offers the “best” or “safest” protection according to the study.

In a press call Wednesday, the CDC’s Dr. Benjamin Silk, an epidemiologist that co-authored the study, did not elaborate on the increased protection natural immunity provides and repeated the administration line that every American should get vaccinated.

There are still many of us out here who wonder why we should take a vaccine that has not been in existence or been tested for the number of years that vaccines are usually tested. We have no idea what the long-term effects of this vaccine are because it hasn’t been in existence very long.

 

The Case Against Vaccine Mandates

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On Wednesday, The Epoch Times posted an article about a recent statement by Dr. Peter McCullough.

The article reports:

COVID-19 vaccine mandates “have to be repealed” as the vaccines are “still in research” and “people cannot be mandated to participate in research,” says Dr. Peter McCullough.

McCullough, a cardiologist, epidemiologist, and internist who manages COVID-19 patients with heart-related complications and patients who become ill after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, contends that COVID-19 vaccine mandates violate the Nuremberg Code.

“When it comes to research, research can only be voluntary. And under no circumstances can anyone receiving pressure, coercion, or threat of reprisal cannot violate the cornerstone of ethics unethical, is immoral to do that,” he says.

McCullough notes that the CDC and FDA have yet to publish “their first monthly safety report” on the vaccines, and that as of Dec. 17, the CDC’s VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System) has reported 20,622 deaths post-vaccination globally and over 983,000 adverse events.

The article includes a statement about the accuracy of the VAERS data:

…a June 2021 analysis of VAERS COVID-19 vaccine death reports led by the University of London’s Scott Mclachlan. Mclachlan found that “contrary to claims that most of these reports are made by lay-people and are hence clinically unreliable,” health service employees were the reporters at least 67 percent of the time, and “there were only 14 percent of the cases for which a vaccine reaction could be ruled out as a contributing factor in their death.”

The article concludes:

A lawsuit was recently filed against the FDA by a medical transparency group, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) formed by a group of doctors and scientists, including Harvey Risch, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.

The FDA has asked a judge to grant it 75 years to fully release the documents in its possession tied to the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Aaron Siri, a lawyer working on the case, on Dec. 8 wrote, “If you find what you are reading difficult to believe—that is because it is dystopian for the government to give Pfizer billions, mandate Americans to take its product, prohibit Americans from suing for harms, but yet refuse to let Americans see the data underlying its licensure.”

Since its initial announcement of vaccine mandates in both the federal and private sectors, the Biden administration has emphasized that “vaccines are safe, free, and the most effective way for workers to be protected from COVID-19 transmission at work.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the CDC and the White House for comment.

If someone wants to get the vaccine, let them. However, vaccine mandates are simply not the right thing to do. They are unconstitutional and violate the civil rights of Americans. The government has no right to tell you that you have to take a drug or put something into you body against you will.

 

Unwarranted Fear

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On Friday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus (just for the record, moronic is an anagram of Omicron).

The article reports:

The World Health Organization (WHO) has informed The Epoch Times that it has not documented any deaths from the Omicron variant of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19.

According to the WHO, “for Omicron, we have not had any deaths reported, but it is still early in the clinical course of disease and this may change.”

When reached for comment by The Epoch Times, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent its report on the Omicron variant in the United States from Dec. 1 through 8. It shows that there were no documented deaths from Omicron during that period.

The WHO’s latest weekly epidemiological update for Dec. 7 showed that all 212 Omicron cases documented across eighteen European Union (EU) countries were either mild or asymptomatic.

“While South Africa saw an 82 percent increase in hospital admissions due to COVID-19 (from 502 to 912) during the week 28 November–4 December 2021, it is not yet known the proportion of these with the Omicron variant,” the report noted.

Omicron has also been detected in the United States, first in California and later in Colorado, New York, Maryland, Utah, and many other states.

The first American patient with the variant was identified in San Francisco, testing positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 29 after returning from a trip to South Africa on Nov. 22.

The article concludes:

“No one here in South Africa is known to have been [hospitalized] with the Omicron variant, nor is anyone here believed to have fallen seriously ill with it.”

More recently, Dr. Coetzee told ThePrint that Omicron symptoms have been mild in both vaccinated and unvaccinated patients.

“In the beginning of any wave, children and younger people are the first to be affected,” she told ThePrint. “As the wave progresses, more elderly, people with comorbidities, start getting affected. When that happens, we will know exactly how many severe cases there are.”

Viruses are serious. People who are vulnerable need to be protected and cared for. However, we do not need to go into a panic every time a new variant shows up. Every year we deal with new variants of the flu. It is not the end of the world. It’s time to end the endless panic and fear mongering.

Following The Science?

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made to the Health and Human Services Department.

The article includes the response from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):

So the letter states that the CDC has no information on whether people who have recovered from Covid have become infected again or have transmitted the disease to other people. It seems to me that in the world of looming vaccine mandates, that might be important information.

The article links to a substack article which states the following:

You would assume that if the CDC was going to crush the civil and individual rights of those with natural immunity by having them expelled from school, fired from their jobs, separated from the military, and worse, the CDC would have proof of at least one instance of an unvaccinated, naturally immune individual transmitting the COVID-19 virus to another individual.  If you thought this, you would be wrong.

My firm, on behalf of ICAN, asked the CDC for precisely this proof (see below).  ICAN wanted to see proof of any instance in which someone who previously had COVID-19 became reinfected with and transmitted the virus to someone else.  The CDC’s incredible response is that it does not have a single document reflecting that this has ever occurred.  Not one.  (See below.)

In contrast, there are endless documents reflecting cases of vaccinated individuals becoming infected with and transmitting the virus to others.  Such as this study.  And this study.  And this study.  And this study.  It goes on and on…

But it gets worse.  The CDC’s excuse for not having a shred of evidence of the naturally immune transmitting the virus is that “this information is not collected.”  What?!  No proof!  But yet the CDC is actively crushing the rights of millions of naturally immune individuals in this country if they do not get the vaccine on the assumption they can transmit the virus.   But despite clear proof the vaccinated spread the virus, the CDC lifts restrictions on the vaccinated?!  That is dystopian.   

At some point, Americans are going to have to realize that this is not about the vaccine or the virus and begin to reclaim their freedom.

The Next Step

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On September 30, The Western Journal posted a commentary on the next overreach planned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They have already attempted to interject themselves between landlords and renters, doctors and patients, employers and employees, and now they are going after gun owners.

The commentary notes:

Walensky (CDC Director Rochelle Walensky) now has our Second Amendment rights in her crosshairs. She will tackle gun violence in America, which she considers to be an epidemic.

The CDC director signaled her intentions during a late August interview with CNN, when she labeled gun violence a “serious public health threat.”

“Something has to be done about this,” she told CNN. “Now is the time — it’s pedal to the metal time.”

“The scope of the problem is just bigger than we’re even hearing about, and when your heart wrenches every day you turn on the news, you’re only hearing the tip of the iceberg,” Walensky said. “We haven’t spent the time, energy, and frankly the resources to understand this problem because it’s been so divided.”

On Wednesday, NPR reported that “the CDC is now hoping to get a fuller picture of the data and long-neglected details on the impact of daily gun violence. The CDC and the National Institutes of Health, for the first time in nearly a quarter-century, are funding new research on guns to help reduce firearm-related injuries, deaths, crime and suicides.”

“Among several other gun research projects, the CDC is now providing funding to 10 state health departments so they can start collecting data in near-real time on emergency room nonfatal firearm injuries. This will allow doctors and epidemiologists to potentially identify trends and craft swift interventions, as they have done to contain the coronavirus pandemic and other national health emergencies.”

We should all worry when the government begins to collect data. It rarely leads to good things. Rather than looking at the injuries, maybe they should look at the places that have the highest amount of gun violence and note that gun control is part of the problem, not the solution.

The commentary concludes:

The last eight months have shown us that the Democrats seek total control over America. Our right to bear arms has never been more essential to our freedom.

Americans will never give up their guns. The explosion in gun sales over the past several years shows that Americans are cognizant of our government’s slow drift into socialism.

History has proven what happens when citizens surrender their guns to a nefarious ruling class.

In the 1990s, Australians handed over their guns to the government.

Look how well that’s worked out for them.

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are the only things standing between us and tyranny. We need to work hard to protect both.

A New Level Of Federal Government Overreach

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Yesterday The Epoch Times reported that the Biden administration is threatening legal action against governors who ban school mask mandates.

The article reports:

Governors who ban school mask mandates could face legal action from the federal government, President Joe Biden warned on Aug. 18.

Biden stated that he was directing Education Secretary Miguel Cardona “to take additional steps to protect our children.”

“This includes using his oversight authority and legal action, if appropriate, against governors trying to block and intimidate local school officials and educators,” Biden said in remarks at the White House. “We’re not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children.”

As an example, he said the federal government may use money from the American Rescue Plan to pay an educator who has their salary cut by a governor.

“I am going to say a lot more about children in schools next week that as we head into the school year remember this, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, says masks are critical, especially for those not yet vaccinated, like our children under the age of 12,” Biden said. “So let’s put politics aside. Let’s follow the educators and scientists, who know a lot more about how to teach our children and keep them safe than any politician. This administration is always going to take the side of our children.”

Much of the science does not support either masks or vaccinations for children. Also, the federal government constitutionally has no role in education–that is up to the states. (However, we have ignored that for so long, I don’t know if we can get control back to the states.)

The article concludes:

After Biden’s threat, Christina Pushaw, press secretary for DeSantis, told The Epoch Times via email that “the forced-maskers often criticize Governor DeSantis for overruling ‘local control’ to protect parents’ freedom to make health and education decisions for their own children.”

“I doubt they will apply the same principle to this blatant federal overreach,” she said. “CDC bureaucrats and their politicized ‘guidance’—which does not have the force of law—shouldn’t interfere with parents’ rights, which are protected under Florida law. Governor DeSantis will continue to stand up for Florida families and defend our rights, no matter what the Biden administration attempts to do.”

This threat is aimed at Governor DeSantis. The Democrats are desperately looking for a political victory somewhere and are throwing mud against any wall they can find. Governor DeSantis will probably have a place on the Republican presidential ticket in 2024, and the Democrats would like to remove him from the picture before then. They have done similar things with candidates in the past and will continue until people wake up to what they are doing.

Ignoring The U.S. Constitution One Article At A Time

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On Tuesday, Breitbart reported that President Biden had reversed his previous position and renewed the moratorium on evictions.

The article reports:

Socialist Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied to her cause, holding rallies at the capitol to demand the administration act. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) also joined the protests and sang, “This Land Is Your Land” in defiance of Biden’s decision.

The president reversed his decision on Tuesday after it was clear that leftists were furious with it.

At the White House, Biden complained the courts prevented him from extending the moratorium by ruling against the Centers for Disease Controls order in July.

“Look, the courts made it clear that the existing moratorium was not constitutional, that it wouldn’t stand,” Biden said.

Biden’s new eviction moratorium, scheduled for release Tuesday evening, will reportedly extend protections for up to 80 percent of Americans in some of the areas experiencing a rise in cases.

But Biden conceded his new moratorium would also likely face legal challenges.

“At a minimum, by the time it gets litigated, it will probably give some additional time,” he said.

So let’s look at this for a minute. The Centers for Disease Controls (CDC) does not have the power to make laws. That is the obvious problem. Next, the federal government does not have the power to cancel a private contract (rental agreement) between two private parties. Also, if the tenant is excused from paying rent, why isn’t the landlord excused from paying the mortgage on the property? This extension will force some landlords to go into foreclosure themselves. The right to private property is one of the foundations of our Constitution. The eviction moratorium strikes a blow at private property–it is the government telling the landlord that he cannot evict people who are not paying the rent due him.

In December 2010, I posted an article about the connection between private property rights and the prosperity of a county. Basically the article notes that private property rights are one of the keys to bringing a country out of poverty and into prosperity. So why then are we undermining those rights?

Hot Air posted an article today about the impact of the decision to extend the eviction moratorium on landlords.

The article notes:

When the eviction moratorium does eventually come to an end, property owners will be reluctant to evict tenants who communicated with them in good faith, worked out payment plans, and applied for government assistance, Pinnegar said. On the other hand, people who “ghosted” their landlords – meaning they stopped paying rent, stopped responding to emails and letters, and actively avoided contact – likely won’t be given the same benefit of the doubt.

“There will be some evictions,” Pinnegar said, “but I think the conversation about millions of people being evicted, and homeless centers being overrun, and people on the streets, it’s a great exaggeration that I think unfortunately is driving public policy.”

The government is meddling where it shouldn’t meddle. Someone in Washington needs to have the courage to stand up and say this is unconstitutional.

Papers, Please

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Yesterday The Wall Street Journal posted an article about the new travel rules for people flying into America from abroad.

The article reports:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ordered that all travelers flying to the U.S. from abroad will have to show proof of negative Covid-19 tests before boarding their flight starting Jan. 26. The CDC said preflight testing is necessary as Covid-19 cases continue to soar and new, more contagious strains of the virus emerge around the world.

Does anyone want to guess how long it will be before these rules are applied to travelers in the United States?

The article answers a few pertinent questions:

Even if you have been vaccinated for Covid-19, you still will need to show proof of a negative test.

…If you have tested positive for Covid-19 in the past three months but no longer have symptoms, the CDC doesn’t recommend getting tested again. If you are in this group and have met the criteria to end isolation, the CDC says you can travel as long as you have written permission from a health-care provider or public-health official. Bring your positive test result and the doctor’s letter to show the airline in lieu of a negative test result.

We have come a long way from “Please remove your shoes,” and I am not sure this is the direction we should be headed in. The next step will be banned from flying if you haven’t had the vaccine.

So Why Is This Required?

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a statement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The article reports:

On Tuesday Tucker Carlson opened his show by questioning the CDC rules and data on mask wearing and the COVID-19.

Earlier this week the CDC confirmed that mask wearing was ineffective and over 50% of US coronavirus cases were patients who were habitual mask wearers.

The article quotes a Breitbart article:

Mass communications are now controlled by a tiny number of people, all of whom have identical agendas. There is no modern Anti-Mask League, there couldn’t be a modern Anti-Mask League. Facebook and Google would shut it down the first day. The governors of Michigan and New Jersey would indict its leaders.

Dissent used to be a defining feature of American life, but no more. Now, we have mandatory consensus. Masks are good. Anyone who questions the utter goodness of masks is bad…

…So what is the science on masks? Well, as it happened, we have the latest for you tonight. And the science comes interestingly from the CDC whose Director has told you that masks were magic, more effective than vaccines.

But the numbers from the CDC suggests otherwise. A new study conducted by 11 medical institutions analyzed a group of people who tested positive for COVID during the month of July. Here’s the interesting part.

Among those who were infected, more than 70% reported they had quote, “always worn a mask” for the preceding 14 days. Another 14.4% said they had quote, “often worn a mask.” In other words, almost everyone, 85% who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask and they were infected anyway.

So clearly this doesn’t work the way they tell us it works. Clearly, someone has been lying to us, many people actually. How did this happen? Well, the short answer is we’re not sure how so many people got the coronavirus were wearing masks, but there are clues, clues that our leaders appear to be ignoring.

We are always hearing “Trust the science” from those who want mandatory masks. Well, this is the science. Why are we still wearing masks.

Just for the record, when Tucker Carlson posted the CDC statement that masks were ineffective, Facebook censored his post. At some point you have to wonder why the establishment is so determined to keep us masked.

 

The Real Numbers On The Coronavirus

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The following information is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated on August 26th.

I realize the chart is blurry, but if you follow the link above, there is a larger, clearer version.

The report also includes the following:

Table 3 shows the types of health conditions and contributing causes mentioned in conjunction with deaths involving coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death. The number of deaths with each condition or cause is shown for all deaths and by age groups. For data on comorbidities download this.

Yesterday The Western Journal posted an article that includes more information about the CDC report.

The article reports:

The report showed that in 18,116 of 42,587 deaths in the 75-84 age group, the individual who died also had the flu or pneumonia, while in 15,100 cases the underlying condition was respiratory failure.

Overall, of the 161, 392 deaths covered by the report, 42 percent (68,004) of those who died also had the flu or pneumonia while 34 percent (54,803) had an underlying condition of respiratory failure.

…Diabetes was an underlying condition in 16 percent of the deaths (25,936 people) while various heart-related conditions including cardiac arrest, ischemic heart disease (also known as hardening of the arteries), cardiac arrhythmia and heart disease (58,687 people) were found in 36 percent of those who died.

In June, the CDC listed as high-risk individuals for COVID-19 those who had chronic kidney disease; COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease); obesity (BMI of 30 or higher); immunocompromised state (weakened immune system) from solid organ transplant; serious heart conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, or cardiomyopathies; sickle cell disease; Type 2 diabetes.

It’s time to treat the coronavirus like the seasonal flu. Practice good health habits–exercise, healthy diet, wash your hands frequently, etc. There is no reason to stay locked up at home unless you have one of the underlying conditions that puts you at risk.

News The Mainstream Media Is Likely To Overlook

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On Monday, The Blaze posted an article about a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the death rate of the coronavirus.

The article reports:

The CDC just came out with a report that should be earth-shattering to the narrative of the political class, yet it will go into the thick pile of vital data and information about the virus that is not getting out to the public. For the first time, the CDC has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26%. Officials estimate a 0.4% fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26% — almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged it a month ago.

The article includes the following chart:

…Plus, ultimately we might find out that the IFR is even lower because numerous studies and hard counts of confined populations have shown a much higher percentage of asymptomatic cases. Simply adjusting for a 50% asymptomatic rate would drop their fatality rate to 0.2% – exactly the rate of fatality Dr. John Ionnidis of Stanford University projected.

More importantly, as I mentioned before, the overall death rate is meaningless because the numbers are so lopsided. Given that at least half of the deaths were in nursing homes, a back-of-the-envelope estimate would show that the infection fatality rate for non-nursing home residents would only be 0.1% or 1 in 1,000. And that includes people of all ages and all health statuses outside of nursing homes. Since nearly all of the deaths are those with comorbidities.

The CDC estimates the death rate from COVID-19 for those under 50 is 1 in 5,000 for those with symptoms, which would be 1 in 6,725 overall, but again, almost all those who die have specific comorbidities or underlying conditions. Those without them are more likely to die in a car accident. And schoolchildren, whose lives, mental health, and education we are destroying, are more likely to get struck by lightning.

The article concludes:

Four infectious disease doctors in Canada estimate that the individual rate of death from COVID-19 for people under 65 years of age is six per million people, or 0.0006 per cent – 1 in 166,666, which is “roughly equivalent to the risk of dying from a motor vehicle accident during the same time period.” These numbers are for Canada, which did have fewer deaths per capita than the U.S.; however, if you take New York City and its surrounding counties out of the equation, the two countries are pretty much the same. Also, remember, so much of the death is associated with the suicidal political decisions of certain states and countries to place COVID-19 patients in nursing homes. An astounding 62 percent of all COVID-19 deaths were in the six states confirmed to have done this, even though they only compose 18 percent of the national population.

We destroyed our entire country and suspended democracy all for a lie, and these people perpetrated the unscientific degree of panic. Will they ever admit the grave consequences of their error?

We have been scammed. It’s time to end the scam and open up the country.

 

If You Don’t Get The Result You Want, Change The Way You Count The Numbers

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On Thursday, The Daily Caller posted an article noting that The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shifted the way deaths from COVID-19 are counted in the United States to include both “confirmed” and “probable” cases.

The article explains:

“A confirmed case or death is defined by meeting confirmatory laboratory evidence for COVID-19,” a statement posted on the CDC’s website reads about confirmed cases.

For probable cases, other evidence for the virus is considered, even if the individual who died had no testing to confirm COVID-19.

“A probable case or death is defined by meeting clinical criteria AND epidemiologic evidence with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID-19,” the CDC website reads.

The other two criteria for a “probable” COVID-19 death are, “meeting presumptive laboratory evidence AND either clinical criteria OR epidemiologic evidence” or “meeting vital records criteria with no confirmatory laboratory testing performed for COVID19.”

The change in counting could have big consequences for the overall number of cases considered in the United States, changing the number by the thousands.

The only way to come close to judging the number of coronavirus deaths will be to go back to the records in the future to see the normal statistics on death from other causes during the months of February, March, and April and compare it to those months this year. For instance, if there is a 30 percent drop in cancer deaths this year, it might be because those deaths were classified as coronavirus deaths. That may be the only way we can get figures that are even close to accurate.

 

A Different Take On The Coronavirus

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Michael Fumento posted an article at The New York Post yesterday about the coronavirus. He believes, based on the behavior of viruses in the past, that the number of cases of the virus will peak quickly and then subside.

The article notes:

More than 18,000 Americans have died from this season’s generic flu so far, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2018, the CDC estimated, there were 80,000 flu deaths. That’s against 19 coronavirus deaths so far, from about 470 cases.

Worldwide, there have been about 3,400 coronavirus deaths, out of about 100,000 identified cases. Flu, by comparison, grimly reaps about 291,000 to 646,000 annually.

China is the origin of the virus and still accounts for over 80 percent of cases and deaths. But its cases peaked and began ­declining more than a month ago, according to data presented by the Canadian epidemiologist who spearheaded the World Health Organization’s coronavirus mission to China. Fewer than 200 new cases are reported daily, down from a peak of 4,000.

Subsequent countries will follow this same pattern, in what’s called Farr’s Law. First formulated in 1840 and ignored in ­every epidemic hysteria since, the law states that epidemics tend to rise and fall in a roughly symmetrical pattern or bell-shaped curve. AIDS, SARS, Ebola — they all followed that pattern. So does seasonal flu each year.

Clearly, flu is vastly more contagious than the new coronavirus, as the WHO has noted. Consider that the first known coronavirus cases date back to early December, and since then, the virus has ­afflicted fewer people in total than flu does in a few days. Oh, and why are there no flu quarantines? Because it’s so contagious, it would be impossible.

As for death rates, as I first noted in these pages on Jan. 24, you can’t employ simple math — as everyone is doing — and look at deaths versus cases because those are ­reported cases. With both flu and assuredly with coronavirus, the great majority of those infected have symptoms so mild — if any — that they don’t seek medical attention and don’t get counted in the caseload.

Furthermore, those calculating rates ­ignore the importance of good health care. Given that the vast majority of cases have occurred in a country with poor health care, that’s going to dramatically exaggerate the death rate.

The article adds:

Like the flu, the coronavirus is afflicting high-risk groups: the elderly, those with ­underlying health conditions like diabetes or heart disease and those with compromised immune systems. Are there exceptions? Sure. But that’s the case with almost every complex biological phenomenon of the kind.

More good news. This month, the Northern Hemisphere, which includes the countries with the most cases, starts heating up. Almost all respiratory viruses hate warm and moist weather. That’s why flu dies out in America every year by May at the latest and probably why Latin America has reported only 25 coronavirus cases. The Philippines, where I live, has about a third of the US population, but it’s so damned hot and humid here, so far we have had no confirmed cases of internal transmission.

Pray for warm weather soon. Meanwhile, keep washing your hands.

The Washington Post And The Truth

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Yesterday Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line Blog about a recent article in The Washington Post. The article totally misrepresented what President Trump said at the recent press conference held at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The article reports:

In this article (the article in The Washinton Post),David Nakamura of the Washington Post ridicules Trump’s presser. That’s okay with me. Aspects of Trump’s performance invited ridicule.

Unfortunately, Nakamura also provides a false account of the substance of Trump’s remarks. The headline of his story asserts that “Trump second-guess[ed] the [medical] professions.” In the body of the story Nakamura goes further, claiming that the president “repeatedly second-guessed. . .the actual medical professionals standing next to him.” (Emphasis added)

Trump did no such thing. In fact, he did the opposite. He deferred to the medical professionals.

Nakamura cites no example of second-guessing. I watched the full presser and heard none.

The article concludes:

Nakamura also fails to note that Trump lavishly praised the U.S. medical experts dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. He called them the best experts in the world, and said that public health officials in other countries are relying heavily on them.

Trump made this statement repeatedly, so Nakamura couldn’t have missed it. He chose, however, to exclude it from his story. Why? Almost certainly because it didn’t fit Nakamura’s claim that Trump is “second-guessing the professionals.”

Nakamura is serving up fake news, and not for the first time.

The American news media gave up the illusion of fairness a long time ago. I believe that false reporting such as in The Washington Post is one of the main reasons the country is so divided. Americans who read The New York Times and The Washington Post have not seen a fair representation of President Trump. They are not acquainted with either the economic numbers or the efforts to deal with the coronavirus that began in January. They are reacting to second-hand gossip that they are reading in the newspaper. People who don’t read those newspapers have a much better grasp of the Trump administration and its accomplishments that those who do. The conflict between fact and bias is one source of the current division in our country. We got along much better when we had a more neutral news media.

Some Interesting Facts About The Coronavirus

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Yesterday BizPacReview posted an article about a report by the New England Journal of Medicine about the coronavirus.

The article reports:

The report, published Friday and authored by Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., H. Clifford Lane, M.D., and Robert R. Redfield, M.D., notes that there are no known cases of children younger than 15 being infected with the respiratory disease caused by a novel coronavirus.

Fauci, a member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force, joined the experts from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to pen the editorial citing a study which “detailed clinical and epidemiologic description of the first 425 cases reported in the epicenter of the outbreak.”

“The median age of the patients was 59 years, with higher morbidity and mortality among the elderly and among those with coexisting conditions (similar to the situation with influenza); 56% of the patients were male,” the article stated.

“Of note, there were no cases in children younger than 15 years of age,” the piece continued. “Either children are less likely to become infected, which would have important epidemiologic implications, or their symptoms were so mild that their infection escaped detection, which has implications for the size of the denominator of total community infections.”

The editorial went on to note the percentage of identified cases and that the contagious virus may “ultimately be more akin” to a case of influenza.

Much of the information the mainstream media is providing on the coronavirus is simply false. The President’s task force has been working to contain the virus since January. Preventing people traveling from China to America from entering the country has probably avoided a serious epidemic. Think of the tourists in our major cities that might have been carrying the virus if the travel ban had not been in place.

This is essentially another flu. We need to wash our hands, take care of ourselves, avoid people who are sneezing and coughing, stay home when we are sick, and generally exercise common sense. Chicken soup is also a wonderful idea if you are feeling under the weather.

Meanwhile, stay safe and stay healthy.

Why Border Security Matters

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Yesterday Fox News posted an article about a recent drug seizure at the Arizona border.

The article reports:

A drug bust last year was hailed as the largest fentanyl bust in U.S. history—254 pounds seized at an Arizona border crossing.

The seizure came as the scourge of fentanyl continues to fuel the opioid epidemic, ravaging communities across the U.S. while killing tens of thousands of people.

“Fentanyl also continues to be a tremendous problem, contributing to 68,000 overdose deaths in the United States in 2018,” Mark Morgan, acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Congress in November. He said CBP’s seizures of fentanyl rose by 30 percent in fiscal year 2019, totaling 2,770 pounds.

Fentanyl comes from China. Often it is smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico by drug cartels involved in a violent war with Mexican police and military forces.

The historic 254-pound bust was just one of a half-dozen big fentanyl busts recorded by law enforcement in recent years, a tally shows.

These six busts have led to the seizure of some 818 pounds of fentanyl–enough to kill 229 million people, according to authorities.

The article lists the six major drug busts. Please follow the link above to the article to see the details.

On March 22, 2019, I Heart Radio reported:

A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows how the opioid epidemic has ballooned over the past six years. The report found that from 2011 to 2016, the number of overdose deaths from the synthetic opiate fentanyl has risen by over 1000 percent.

The CDC says that in 2011 and 2012, around 1,600 people died each year from a fentanyl overdose. The number of deaths rose to 1,900 in 2013, but in 2014 officials saw the number of fatalities jump to 4,223. In 2015 the number of deaths nearly doubled to 8,251, and in 2016 there were another 10,000 deadly overdoses, bringing the total to 18,335 for the year.

The massive spike in fentanyl-related deaths was seen mainly in men. Up until 2013, the number of men and women who overdosed on fentanyl was about the same, but in 2014 the numbers began to diverge, and in 2016 there were three times as many men killed from an overdose as women.

Fentanyl is now considered the deadliest drug in America and is responsible for 29% of all overdose deaths in the nation.

Border security matters.