Tag Archives: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Good News

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On Wednesday, NBC News reported that overdose deaths in America decreased 27 percent last year.

The article reports:

There were 30,000 fewer U.S. drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before — the largest one-year decline ever recorded.

An estimated 80,000 people died from overdoses last year, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday. That’s down 27% from the 110,000 in 2023.

The CDC has been collecting comparable data for 45 years. The previous largest one-year drop was 4% in 2018, according to the agency’s National Center for Health Statistics.

All but two states saw declines last year — with some of the biggest in Ohio, West Virginia and other states that have been hard-hit in the nation’s decades-long overdose epidemic.

Experts say more research needs to be done to understand what drove the reduction, but they mention several possible factors. Among the most cited:

    • Increased availability of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone.
    • Expanded addiction treatment.
    • Shifts in how people use drugs.
    • The growing impact of billions of dollars in opioid lawsuit settlement money.
    • The number of at-risk Americans is shrinking, after waves of deaths in older adults and a shift in teens and younger adults away from the drugs that cause most deaths.

The article notes that drug overdose deaths are still higher than they were before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article notes:

Naloxone has become more widely available, in part because of the introduction of over-the-counter versions that don’t require prescriptions.

Meanwhile, drug manufacturers, distributors, pharmacy chains and other businesses have settled lawsuits with state and local governments over the painkillers that were a main driver of overdose deaths in the past. The deals over the last decade or so have promised about $50 billion over time, with most of it required to be used to fight addiction.

Hopefully the increased border security under the Trump administration will also help reduce the number of drug overdose deaths.

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!

This Evidence May Become Useful In The Near Future

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On Monday, The Epoch Times posted an article about documents recently obtained from the National Institutes of Health. It seems that masks were not really going to help limit the spread of the Covid virus.

The article reports:

In a recently obtained letter (pdf) sent in November 2021 to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), top epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and seven colleagues informed the agency it was promoting flawed data and excluding data that did not reinforce their narrative.

The letter warned the agency that misrepresenting data on trusted websites such as the CDC and the COVID-19 Real-Time Learning Network—jointly created by the CDC and Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)—would “damage the credibility of science,” endanger public trust by “misrepresenting the evidence,” and give the public “false expectations” masking would protect them from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

“We believe the information and recommendations as provided may actually put an individual at increased risk of becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 and for them to experience a serious or even life-threatening infection,” Mr. Osterhom wrote.

The authors urged the IDSA to remove the suggestion that masking prevents severe disease from its website and asked the CDC to reconsider its statements about the “efficacy of masks and face coverings for preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”

Osterholm also noted a pattern of selectively choosing data that supported the desired narrative that masks prevent severe COVID-19 disease and transmission—claims he said are unsupported by the scientific evidence provided by the CDC and IDSA on their websites.

The IDSA “Masks and Face Coverings for the Public” webpage appears to “focus on the strengths of studies that support its conclusions while ignoring their shortcomings of study design,” Mr. Osterholm wrote. “Studies that do not support its perspective are similarly downplayed.”

Maybe we need to find out who owns stock in the mask companies.

The article concludes:

The letter was part of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by The Functional Government Initiative (FGI), an organization dedicated to “improving the American public’s awareness about the officials, decisions, and priorities of their government.”

“The story of official masking guidance should trouble the American public. Recall that Dr. Fauci at first said there was no need for masks. The cloth masks were all that stood between you and COVID. But as evidence against cloth masks appeared, the premiere scientific health organizations dug in their heels and refused to follow the science or listen to their trusted outside advisors,” FGI said in a statement (pdf).

“That Dr. Osterholm and his colleagues felt compelled to raise concerns about cherry-picked data and the danger it presented to the credibility of public health officials and the health of the public says that something was deeply dysfunctional in these agencies,” FGI stated.

The Epoch Times contacted the CDC for comment but did not receive a response.

At one point my husband and I were told by a pulmonary specialists that wearing a mask interferes with your body’s natural immunity building. He stated that after the masks come off, we could expect an increase in pneumonia cases because the masks had interfered with people’s natural immunity. Let’s not make this mistake again (I believe mask mandates are coming before the end of this year). This time, let’s just say “NO.”