Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) says he is ready to assist President Donald Trump in lowering drug prices if the commander-in-chief is &#8220;serious&#8221; about doing it.
The offer came on Monday after Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-signs-order-to-reduce-drug-prices-tells-rest-of-world-to-pay-up?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=Trump+Signs+Order+To+Reduce+Drug+Prices%2C+Tells+Rest+Of+World+To+Pay+Up" target="_blank" rel="noopener">unveiled</a> an executive <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/delivering-most-favored-nation-prescription-drug-pricing-to-american-patients/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">order</a> that aims to align U.S. prescription drug prices to match the lowest amount offered to other developed nations, promote &#8220;direct-to-consumer&#8221; sales at these rates, and prevent foreign countries from &#8220;freeloading&#8221; on American-funded pharmaceutical innovation.
&#8220;I agree with President Trump: It is an outrage that the American people pay, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,&#8221; Sanders said in a <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-statement-on-trumps-executive-order-on-prescription-drugs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. &#8220;It is beyond unacceptable that we pay, in some cases, ten times more for the same exact prescription drugs than people in other major countries. But let’s be clear: The problem is not that the price of prescription drugs is too low in Europe and Canada. The problem is that the extraordinarily greedy pharmaceutical industry made over $100 billion in profits last year by ripping off the American people.&#8221;
Sanders added: &#8220;Further, as Trump well knows, his executive order will be thrown out by the courts. If Trump is serious about making real change rather than just issuing a press release, he will support legislation I will soon be introducing to make sure we pay no more for prescription drugs than people in other major countries. If Republicans and Democrats come together on this legislation, we can get it passed in a few weeks.&#8221;
Trump unveiled his executive order during a press conference at the White House. He was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H79QL4UDU44" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joined</a> by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in the 2024 cycle ran unsuccessfully for the presidency while challenging the Democratic Party&#8217;s establishment, just like Sanders did in 2016 and 2020. Kennedy Jr. said that Democrat leaders have promised Americans for 20 years they would lower drug prices without actually doing it and asserted that Trump&#8217;s effort now was the &#8220;fulcrum&#8221; of Sanders&#8217; campaigns for the White House.
&#8220;I have a couple of kids who are Democrats, are big Bernie Sanders fans, and when I told them that this was gonna happen, they had tears in their eyes because they thought this was never going to happen in our lifetime, and we finally have a president who&#8217;s willing to stand up for the American people,&#8221; Kennedy Jr. said.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) echoed the call for action, urging Congress to make Trump’s move <a href="https://x.com/HawleyMO/status/1921950612104601836" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;permanent&#8221;</a> through legislation he introduced with Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT).
Their <a href="https://www.hawley.senate.gov/in-bipartisan-push-hawley-welch-introduce-major-legislation-to-lower-prescription-drug-prices/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bill</a>, the &#8220;Fair Prescription Drug Prices for Americans Act,&#8221; would keep pharmaceutical companies from charging higher drug prices in the United States than the average in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, and the United Kingdom, with penalties of 10 times the price difference per unit sold for violations.

Senator Bernie Sanders

Bernie Offers To Help Trump If He’s ‘Serious’ About Lower Drug Prices

Bernie Sanders

Congress

Donald Trump

Drugs

Health Care

Josh Hawley

Politics

U.S. Senate

One of the most commonly prescribed abortion pharmaceuticals in the United States today is one of the most dangerous substances in the world, according to groundbreaking new research. Sadly, it&#8217;s not as polarizing a product as Ozempic or vaccines.
According to a <a href="https://eppc.org/news/largest-ever-study-of-abortion-pill-reveals-shocking-number-of-adverse-events/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bombshell new study</a> using real-world data, the abortion pill is physically wounding thousands of women per year.
When the Food &amp; Drug Administration approved the abortion pill – mifepristone or Mifeprex – it was on the basis that clinical trials had shown a serious adverse event rate of less than 0.5%.
But the new research, which analyzed 865,727 mifepristone abortions between 2017-2023, found a serious adverse event rate of 11%. That&#8217;s twenty-two times higher than the figure cited on the drug label.
These adverse events are not mere side effects. Hemorrhage, sepsis, infection, cardiac distress, and incomplete abortions are part of the laundry list of complications suffered by women within 45 days of taking the abortion pill.
The figures come from an all-payer health claims database. Insurance companies don&#8217;t pay for things that didn&#8217;t happen. The research was published by the Ethics &amp; Public Policy Center, which has promised more is to come.
If these serious adverse events were caused by a common antibiotic or a diabetes medication, media outrage and mass public uproar would ensue. 
Reckless conduct in the service of political ideology got us here. In the final year of the Obama administration, the Department of Health and Human Services watered down safety regulations. They allowed the abortion pill to be prescribed by non-physicians, taken at home away from the watchful eye of medical professionals, and extended the maximum gestational age at which a child could be aborted from seven weeks to ten weeks.
The Biden administration took this ghoulish crusade a step further. In 2023, they removed virtually all safeguards to the extent that a woman can now order abortion pills online, take them at home, risk bleeding out, flush her aborted child down the toilet, and go it alone, all without ever seeing a doctor.
It is up to the new Trump administration to restore some sanity. President Trump has been notoriously fickle on abortion, as has his HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy.
<a href="https://catholicvote.org/catholicvote-joins-urges-trump-admin-to-reevaluate-abortion-pill/?mkt_tok=NDI3LUxFUS0wNjYAAAGaJQObGcXkcfyZbJ7FjQNwks_nKJ9XiOo9VXl6pBbxneaC7Ri29G__kqN2XupSy1lr5nuPJN-ynFfzQylzGOSa83kCwwhMt68zcxRRaMq0ww">Just this week,</a> CatholicVote joined a coalition of 30 other pro-life organizations urging President Trump to re-evaluate the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone in light of the study’s disturbing discoveries.
Both Kennedy and newly-installed FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary have expressed a commitment to prioritizing women&#8217;s safety in regard to the abortion pill. Upon questioning from Sen. Steve Daines of Montana during his confirmation hearings, Kennedy promised to study the abortion pill and take action on any new developments. Dr. Makary has expressed similar rhetoric, although he <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/24/2025/fdas-marty-makary-no-plans-to-pull-abortion-pill-mifepristone">stated</a> in late April that he had &#8220;no plans&#8221; to restrict the pill until the data could be examined thoroughly.
The question now is whether health and safety will take priority over abortion absolutism. There are too many women suffering silently for the administration to do nothing.
* * *
Tommy Valentine is the Director of the Catholic Accountability Project at CatholicVote.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Daily Wire.

Wyoming’s Only Abortion Clinic Forced To Stop Administering Abortions Due To New State Law

It’s Long Past Time To Re-Evaluate Chemical Abortion Pills

It's Long Past Time to Re-Evaluate Chemical Abortion Pills

Abortion

Abortion Drug

Biden Administration

Catholics

Department of Health and Human Services

Obama Administration

Opinion

Pregnancy

Trump Administration

President Donald Trump said Sunday that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is so afraid of drug cartels that &#8220;she can&#8217;t even think straight,&#8221; and that&#8217;s why she rejected his proposal to send American troops into Mexico to fight them.
Trump made the comments after he was asked whether news that he had made the offer was true. On Saturday, Sheinbaum said that she had turned down Trump&#8217;s offer because it would impugn Mexican sovereignty.
&#8220;It&#8217;s true,&#8221; Trump told reporters. &#8220;[The cartels] are horrible people that have been killing people left and right. They&#8217;ve made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people. We lost 300,000 people last year to fentanyl and drugs. They are bad news.&#8221;
&#8220;If Mexico wanted help with the cartels we would be honored to go in and do it,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I told her that, &#8216;I&#8217;d be honored to go in and do it.&#8217; The cartels are trying to destroy our country. They are evil! And you know, we had 300,000 people die last year from fentanyl and all that. We had millions of people brought into this country that shouldn&#8217;t be here. The cartels brought them in.&#8221;
He said that he thought Sheinbaum was nice but that she refused American help because she was scared of the cartels.
&#8220;So if she said that I offered to do that, she&#8217;s 100 percent right,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;She&#8217;s so afraid of the cartels she can&#8217;t walk so you know, that&#8217;s the reason. And I think she&#8217;s a lovely woman. The president of Mexico is a lovely woman. But she is so afraid of the cartels that she can&#8217;t even think straight.&#8221;
On Friday, it was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-pressures-mexico-to-allow-u-s-military-to-lead-fight-against-drug-cartels?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Pressures+Mexico+To+Allow+U.S.+Military+To+Lead+Fight+Against+Drug+Cartels" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that Sheinbaum and Trump got into a heated phone call last month after he pushed for the U.S. military to lead in the fight against cartels.
&#8220;He said, &#8216;How can we help you fight drug trafficking? I propose that the United States military come in and help you.&#8217; And you know what I said to him? &#8216;No, President Trump,'&#8221; Sheinbaum <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-sheinbaum-mexico-drug-cartels-c2113e74cfc122f8f5a9e162644a470f" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on Saturday, confirming the conversation.
&#8220;Sovereignty is not for sale. Sovereignty is loved and defended,&#8221; she added. &#8220;We can work together, but you in your territory and us in ours.&#8221;
Trump has designated cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-it-is-time-for-america-to-wage-war-on-the-cartels" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promised</a> in a speech before Congress to &#8220;wage war&#8221; on them.
White House National Security Council spokesman James Hewitt said Saturday that while the United States-Mexico border had largely been secured, Mexico still needed to do more to crack down on drug cartels.
&#8220;Dangerous Foreign Terrorist Organizations, however, continue to threaten our shared security and the drugs and crime they spread threaten American communities across the country,&#8221; Hewitt said. &#8220;The President has been crystal clear that Mexico must do more to combat these gangs and cartels and the United States stands ready to assist and expand the already close cooperation between our two countries.&#8221;

MixCollage-05-May-2025-07-30-AM-9035

Trump Says Mexico’s President ‘Afraid’ To Let American Troops Come Fight Cartels

Cartels

Claudia Sheinbaum

Executive

Fentanyl

Mexico

Military

Young boy jumping in mid-air

The ‘Experts’ Are Finally Admitting That ADHD Is A Scam

The 'Experts' Are Finally Admitting That ADHD Is A Scam

Boys

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kids

Matt Walsh

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Teenagers

Vice President JD Vance made good on a campaign promise of his own on Friday, bringing his mother to the White House to celebrate her tenth year of sobriety after a long struggle with addiction.
Vance shared several photos on X on Monday marking the event, adding the caption, &#8220;This year marks my mom&#8217;s 10th year of sobriety, and I&#8217;m grateful that we were able to celebrate in the White House with our family. Mom, I am so proud of you.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This year marks my mom’s 10th year of sobriety, and I&#39;m grateful that we were able to celebrate in the White House with our family.   Mom, I am so proud of you. <a href="https://t.co/aGIKebEPYb">pic.twitter.com/aGIKebEPYb</a>
&mdash; Vice President JD Vance (@VP) <a href="https://twitter.com/VP/status/1909270949817438436?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Vance described his mother&#8217;s struggles with opioid addiction in his widely acclaimed memoir, &#8220;Hillbilly Elegy&#8221; — and knowing that her 10th year sober was approaching, he had promised to celebrate the milestone at the White House from the stage at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
&#8220;I&#8217;m proud to say that tonight my mom is here, ten years clean and sober,&#8221; Vance said at the time. &#8220;It&#8217;ll be ten years officially in 2025, and if President Trump&#8217;s OK with it, let&#8217;s have the celebration in the White House.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JDVance</a> at the RNC convention: 
“I&#39;m proud to say that tonight my mom is here, 10 years clean and sober…. It&#39;ll be 10 years officially in 2025, and if President Trump&#39;s OK with it, let&#39;s have the celebration in the White House.”
On Friday, JD Vance’s mom received her 10-year… <a href="https://t.co/AwKlssfb83">pic.twitter.com/AwKlssfb83</a>
&mdash; Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1909280005030633501?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Beverly Vance received her official 10-year medallion celebrating the milestone at the White House on Friday.
The Washington Examiner&#8217;s Salena Zito shared several photos from the event as well, quoting Vance as saying, &#8220;Well, here we are. And you made it and we made it. And most importantly, you&#8217;re celebrating a very, very big milestone. And I&#8217;m just very proud of you.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&quot;And you know mom, I was thinking, it will be 10 years officially in January of 2025 and if President Trump &#39;s okay with it, lets have the celebration in the White House” <a href="https://twitter.com/JDVance?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JDVance</a> July 2024 Milwaukee
“Well here we are. And you made it and we made it. And most importantly, you&#39;re… <a href="https://t.co/6U4mdiw8mK">pic.twitter.com/6U4mdiw8mK</a>
&mdash; ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZitoSalena/status/1909006248768417925?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;This is amazing. You’ve all been thru so much. Rock on Beverly,&#8221; Megyn Kelly posted in response.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This is amazing. You’ve all been thru so much. Rock on Beverly. <a href="https://t.co/epLPar9eYc">https://t.co/epLPar9eYc</a>
&mdash; Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/megynkelly/status/1909273819421786323?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Congratulations to Ms. Beverly on this inspiring milestone,&#8221; House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Congratulations to Ms. Beverly on this inspiring milestone. <a href="https://t.co/oKFmWEle5B">https://t.co/oKFmWEle5B</a>
&mdash; Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpeakerJohnson/status/1909279517849391485?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The JD’s mom sidebar narrative is so touching and amazing,&#8221; Emma-Jo Morris posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The JD’s mom sidebar narrative is so touching and amazing. <a href="https://t.co/4NV3rz8i5c">https://t.co/4NV3rz8i5c</a>
&mdash; Emma-Jo Morris (@EmmaJoNYC) <a href="https://twitter.com/EmmaJoNYC/status/1909291152370483381?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Sobriety is a beautiful thing,&#8221; Brianna Lyman posted. &#8220;So many families are devastated by loved ones who struggle with sobriety, seeing Vance&#8217;s mom mark such a huge milestone is heartwarming.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Sobriety is a beautiful thing. 
So many families are devastated by loved ones who struggle with sobriety, seeing Vance&#39;s mom mark such a huge milestone is heartwarming. <a href="https://t.co/pssgJt1BsQ">https://t.co/pssgJt1BsQ</a>
&mdash; Brianna Lyman (@briannalyman2) <a href="https://twitter.com/briannalyman2/status/1909279324630388789?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

2024 Republican National Convention: Day 3

JD Vance Makes Good On Promise To Celebrate Mom’s Sobriety In The White House

JD Vance Makes Good On Promise To Celebrate Mom's Sobriety In The White House

General

Hillbilly Elegy

JD Vance

Opioid Crisis

U.S.

White House

Nogales border with increased presence of Mexican troops looking for fentanyl and migrants

Trump’s War On Fentanyl Off To A Strong Start

Trump's War On Fentanyl Off To A Strong Start

Border Crisis

President Trump

Southern Border

Imagine that an executive of a major corporation sits down for dinner at a restaurant. Unbeknownst to him, it&#8217;s a sting operation. Everything he says is being recorded. Very quickly, in order to impress someone he thinks is interested in him, the executive confesses that his company is lying to the American public. In secret, the executive says, they&#8217;re thinking about conducting extremely dangerous medical experiments within the borders of the United States — and these experiments are similar to the ones in Wuhan that led to the COVID pandemic. Then the executive admits that government regulators aren&#8217;t scrutinizing these experiments as much as they should, for the simple reason that they don&#8217;t want to jeopardize their potential future job opportunities at the corporation. And then imagine that, once the executive realizes he&#8217;s on camera and that he&#8217;s just confessed to a fraud on the American public, he begins screaming and crawling on the floor of the restaurant. In his hysteria, he pushes people away, tries to hide his face, and ultimately runs away. He demonstrates a clear consciousness of guilt, in other words.
What do you think the end result of this kind of episode might be? In a rational world, you might expect, at a minimum, that this executive would be fired, and that his company would immediately be investigated — both by the government, and by every media organization in the country. After all, it&#8217;s not every day that a corporate executive admits that his company is working on research that could cause another pandemic. He also just divulged trade secrets on camera, which you&#8217;d think would upset his bosses.
But in reality, none of those things happened. 
The situation I just described took place in early 2023, when Project Veritas secretly filmed a senior official in Pfizer&#8217;s research and development division. You might remember that whole episode. Pfizer came out and denied, essentially, that the executive had meant what he said. As far as we know, the company took no action against him. In the end, Pfizer, needless to say, did not suffer any significant consequences. They remain one of the largest and most profitable corporations on the planet. But incredibly, the people who exposed the Pfizer executive didn&#8217;t fare so well. It was like Pfizer pulled a Reverse Uno card. 
For one thing, Project Veritas did not survive. It collapsed soon afterwards. So did the one show on cable news that covered Project Veritas&#8217; reporting, Fox News&#8217; &#8220;Tucker Carlson Tonight.&#8221; They were taken off the air shortly after covering the Pfizer sting operation, for reasons that remain officially undisclosed. To restate: Less than five months after a Pfizer executive was exposed and humiliated on camera, everyone who talked about the scandal was deplatformed. Meanwhile the executive went back to work.
If you wanted to illustrate the extraordinary power that the pharmaceutical industry has in this country, you&#8217;d be hard pressed to find a better example. One way or another, people who criticize them tend to lose their platforms. That&#8217;s a level of protection that very few other corporations have, regardless of their financial situation. Tesla, for example, is about ten times the size of Pfizer by market cap. And as we all know, they&#8217;re subjected to constant media attacks. So what is it about the pharmaceutical industry, specifically, that makes them so hard to criticize?
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mws-ep-1563-member-exclusive">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h3>
The leading theory, which we&#8217;ve talked about before, is that companies like Pfizer essentially buy off the media. You can&#8217;t watch Fox or CNN or MSNBC without seeing an ad from the pharmaceutical industry. In total, the pharmaceutical industry <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-159740117?utm_campaign=post&amp;utm_medium=web" target="_blank" rel="noopener">spends</a> something like $5 billion on advertising every year — which in some years, is <a href="https://marylandmatters.org/2024/01/19/report-finds-some-drug-manufacturers-spend-more-on-advertising-executives-salaries-than-new-research/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more</a> than they spend on research and development. And a lot of this spending is concentrated on news stations. As the journalist Kyle Becker reported on his Substack, &#8220;Nearly 31% of ad minutes on major nightly news broadcasts in 2024 came from pharmaceutical brands.&#8221; If you watch any amount of cable news, you know that figure is probably accurate. Turn the television on, and you&#8217;ll probably see one of these ads within five minutes. These are among the most lucrative ad purchases — pushing drugs like Ozempic, Skyrizi, &#8220;Vyvgart Hytrulo,&#8221; and so on. Naturally, that kind of spending leads to favorable coverage. Big Pharma doesn&#8217;t even need to establish any kind of quid pro quo, or request anything from the news networks. It&#8217;s just generally understood that, if you&#8217;re working for one of these networks, you should go easy on the pharma giants.
This dynamic is one of the reasons why a lot of people took notice recently, on hearing the news that RFK Jr. and the HHS had supposedly implemented a total ban on direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising. Those reports turned out to be inaccurate, at least for the time being. But RFK Jr. has pledged to implement a similar ban in the past. And he&#8217;s been very clear about his reasoning. While he was campaigning for Trump last year, and while he was leading his own presidential bid, for example, RFK Jr. made the point that pharmaceutical advertising has compromised the news industry. He&#8217;s also said that, in part because of these advertisements, Americans spend far more on prescription drugs than pretty much every other major country. By some estimates we spend more than twice as much.
And it&#8217;s logical to conclude that advertising plays some role in those numbers. When people see an advertisement for a new prescription drug, they&#8217;re more likely to tell their doctor they want it, as opposed to a cheaper generic brand. Keep in mind, only two countries on the planet allow direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising: the United States and New Zealand. The vast majority of the civilized world has rejected this kind of marketing. And one of the obvious consequences of this carve-out for big pharma is that they sell a lot more drugs to people who otherwise wouldn&#8217;t pay for them. They wouldn&#8217;t spend $5 billion a year on advertisements if that weren&#8217;t true. (And this isn&#8217;t even getting into Big Pharma advertisements and solicitations that target physicians and other professionals).
Just to give one example, in 2022, the manufacturer of the drug Skyrizie, AbbVie, spent around $229 million advertising the drug that year. The next year, AbbVie decided to increase its advertising budget for the drug by more than double. And the results were clear: drug sales went up to $7.8 billion, an increase of roughly 50% year-over-year. There was no major FDA approval that occurred in this period. The drug&#8217;s formula didn&#8217;t change in some way. Instead, more people heard about it, so more people asked their doctors for it. And by the way, the vast majority of the $7.8 billion came from customers in the United States, because they&#8217;re pretty much the only people seeing the advertisements.
This advertising exemption, of course, is just one of several carve-outs that Big Pharma enjoys in this country. It&#8217;s also nearly impossible to sue them when one of their vaccines ends up hurting or killing you, thanks to a federal law passed three decades ago. But the advertising carve-out is one of the most important ones, because it has a lot of downstream effects that aren&#8217;t immediately obvious. One of those effects is that the ads increase the price of the drugs. When billions of dollars are spent on advertising, inevitably that cost will be passed on to the consumers. This is basic economics and common sense, and doctors see it everyday. As far back as a decade ago — when direct-to-consumer advertising was much less common than it is today — the American Medical Association noticed the problem. They voted to ban all direct-to-consumer advertising.
The chair of the AMA, a woman named Patrice Harris, announced that, “Today’s vote in support of an advertising ban reflects concerns among physicians about the negative impact of commercially-driven promotions, and the role that marketing costs play in fueling escalating drug prices. Direct-to-consumer advertising also inflates demand for new and more expensive drugs, even when these drugs may not be appropriate.”
It&#8217;s true that, by law, these advertisements have to list all of the potential side effects. Invariably, they rattle them off at the end of the commercial, and they do it so quickly that you can&#8217;t really tell what&#8217;s happening in some cases. Pretty much everyone ignores these disclaimers at this point, because they all end up sounding like a bizarre list of horrible afflictions, always ending in death or paralysis or something catastrophic. You can watch an ad for Claritin and they&#8217;ll tell you that the side effects could include getting hit by a train or something. It&#8217;s almost as if the drugmakers have trained us to become numb to all of these potential side effects, and to think they&#8217;re all extremely rare and unlikely to occur.
<h3><a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH&#8217;S &#8216;AM I RACIST?&#8217; NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a></h3>
That&#8217;s because, even with the often comically long disclaimer at the end of these drug commercials, the ads still don&#8217;t do enough to emphasize the potential side effects and dangers of the drugs. They don&#8217;t discuss the relative risk of every side effect, or how common they are, for example. And that makes sense because ads — regardless of who&#8217;s making them — are meant to manipulate and create an emotional response in a very short period of time. That&#8217;s fine when you&#8217;re selling cars or clothing or whatever. But it just shouldn&#8217;t be the way medical treatments are presented to the public. People should consult with professionals when they&#8217;re seeking these treatments, instead of watching paid actors sing a song about it.
But pharmaceutical ads, by design, short-circuit this process. They allow Big Pharma companies to sell the disease, not just the cure. They convince people that they have such-and-such a disorder and enlist them to go to their doctor and request the drug to treat it. This is totally backwards. You&#8217;re supposed to go to the doctor with your symptoms, not with a wishlist of drugs you want to receive. Pharma ads have helped to turn doctors into glorified drug dealers. About a dozen studies bear this out. Patients who go to the doctor and say &#8220;I saw an ad for Paxlovid&#8221; or &#8220;I saw an ad for Prozac&#8221; are a lot more likely to get that drug, than a patient who simply presents with depression-related symptoms. And on top of that, these advertisements have also contributed to the perception that, whatever problem you might have — whether it&#8217;s depression, or &#8220;feeling like you&#8217;re in the wrong body,&#8221; or whatever — that a drug from Big Pharma can be the solution. As we&#8217;ve discussed, this is a sentiment that has ruined the lives of thousands of people, including children.
Part of the reason this perception has been allowed to fester, as Liz Wheeler pointed out the other day, is that there&#8217;s no critical reporting on Big Pharma in the mainstream press. The pharmaceutical industry is allowed to buy billions of dollars&#8217; worth of advertising, which presents them as the solution to everyone&#8217;s problems. And then the press — along with many scientific institutions that also receive money from Big Pharma— don&#8217;t have any incentive to contradict the narrative. If and when HHS does ban these advertisements, then suddenly, that incentive will reappear. Very quickly, corporate media will fail, because they&#8217;ll be deprived of most of their advertising revenue. And in their place will be a slew of investigations by actual journalists into the various grotesque abuses of power by the medical establishment in recent years — on everything from gender ideology to the COVID shot.
As of right now, again, it appears that the reports were wrong about an imminent ban on these direct-to-consumer advertisements. But there are reasons to think that RFK Jr. and HHS are still planning to implement one. If that comes to pass — and there are indicators it will — then it would inevitably set up a major legal battle between Big Pharma and the federal government on First Amendment grounds. They will claim that they have the constitutional right to flood the airwaves with sales pitches for extremely potent medications that could ruin your life. But they don&#8217;t have that right, any more than the local drug dealer does. If RFK Jr. can win this fight, then in one fell swoop, he will destroy the corporate press, save billions of dollars for Americans, and usher in a new era of skepticism for an industry that badly needs it. He would be the single most consequential HHS secretary in the history of this country. All he needs to do is what pretty much every country in the world is already doing, which is to tell Big Pharma to get off our televisions.

Ozempic, Victoza and Wegovy, injectable prescription weight loss medicines.

All The Reasons Why Big Pharma Commercials Should Be Banned

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Ozempic

Pfizer

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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I Lost My Daughter To Gender Ideology. Here Is Her Story.

American Universities

College

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gender ideology

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke at an event on Thursday where the United States Coast Guard offloaded a historic seizure of drugs that were headed for America&#8217;s borders.
Speaking at Port Everglades in South Florida, Noem ushered in the offloading of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs that were seized by cutter vessels operating in America&#8217;s coastal waters.
&#8220;Today is a historic day,&#8221; Noem said. &#8220;Here at Port Everglades, over 22.5 tons or 45,000 pounds of cocaine and 50 pounds of marijuana — valued at over a half a billion dollars — are going to be offloaded and taken out of circulation.&#8221;
&#8220;This is an unprecedented seizure of illicit drugs that is the result of 14 different interdictions of drug smuggling vessels off the coasts of Mexico, Central, and South America, by the crews of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Stone and Coast Guard Cutter Mohawk,&#8221; she continued.
Noem said that the cutters worked with helicopter tactical squadron air crews and various law enforcement agencies located in the Pacific region.
Touting the work of the men and women in the United States Coast Guard, Noem said that the seizures meant that &#8220;fewer families are going to be torn apart by addiction, that fewer lives are going to be lost to overdoses, that communities will be safer and fewer resources will be at the hands of dangerous, violent cartels that seek to do all of us harm.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/Sec_Noem?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Sec_Noem</a>: &quot;In the first 100 days of President Trump&#39;s administration, he&#39;s already delivered on his campaign promises to make America safe again&#8230; Here at Port Everglades, over 2.5 tons or 45,000 pounds of cocaine and 50 pounds of marijuana, valued at over half a billion… <a href="https://t.co/dnVoRu8XEz">pic.twitter.com/dnVoRu8XEz</a>
&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1902742973579685999?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 20, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

U.S. Coast Guard Offloads Over $500 Million In Illegal Drugs

Kristi Noem Oversees Coast Guard Offloading ‘Historic’ $500+ Million Drug Seizure

Department of Homeland Security

Kristi Noem

An Alabama drug dealer who was freed from prison after being granted clemency by former President Joe Biden was arrested again this week. 
Willie Frank Peterson, 52, was <a href="https://www.dothanpd.org/2025/03/18/mugshots-of-the-day-03-17-2025/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">arrested</a> on Monday for alleged drug possession and having a gun. He was arrested in Dothan, a city of about 70,000 people in Southeast Alabama. Peterson faces two counts of unlawful possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, three counts of illegally being in possession of a gun, and possession of drug paraphernalia. 
Peterson was previously freed from prison in January after Biden <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-pamd-1_14-cr-00070/pdf/USCOURTS-pamd-1_14-cr-00070-23.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">granted clemency</a> to thousands of people convicted on drug charges. 
In March 2023, Peterson <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdal/pr/dothan-man-sentenced-federal-tax-evasion-mail-fraud-and-drug-charges" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pled guilty</a> to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and he was later <a href="https://www.wtvy.com/2025/03/18/dothan-man-arrested-weeks-after-biden-commuted-his-sentence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sentenced</a> to 75 months in prison. Biden committed his sentence to 20 months and he was no longer in Bureau of Prison custody as of January 21, 2025. 
According to the Justice Department, Peterson sold cocaine to a man named Kenneth Cherden Glasgow in 2018 and 2019. Glasgow, the half-brother of leftist activist Al Sharpton, was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison for tax evasion, mail fraud, and drug charges. 
Peterson’s clemency came as part of Biden’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-commutes-sentences-of-another-2500-drug-offenders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">decision</a> to commute the sentences of more than 2,500 drug offenders in his final days in office. 
Biden said that those whose sentences were commuted were “non-violent” offenders who had been given “disproportionately long sentences.” 
“Today, I am commuting the sentences of nearly 2,500 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses who are serving disproportionately long sentences compared to the sentences they would receive today under current law, policy, and practice,” Biden said at the time. “With this action, I have now issued more individual pardons and commutations than any president in U.S. history.”
Biden said the individuals had “received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine” and “outdated sentencing enhancements for drug crimes.”
That action came after Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-announces-mass-commutations-after-criticism-over-hunter-pardon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commuted</a> the sentences of 1,500 people, issued 39 pardons for individuals convicted of non-violent crimes, and gave a mass pardon for people convicted of marijuana possession.

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Drug Dealer Let Out Of Prison By Biden Charged With More Drug Crimes

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As the Senate considers Dr. Martin Makary’s nomination to lead the Food and Drug Administration, the safety of all Americans — especially women and children — must be a top priority. For far too long, the FDA has been grossly negligent regarding essential safeguards surrounding the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone. Dr. Makary’s initial hearing provided a glimpse into his commitment to <a href="https://grabien.com/file/getmedia?id=2831540&amp;key=756f0397187f6b49fdaab04e60406327&amp;userid=17147">data-based approaches</a> to providing the best care for our patients. I’m hopeful that this expected confirmation will stand as a first step to the FDA reprioritizing the health and safety of women and children.
Despite the common refrain that abortion should be a decision &#8220;between a woman and her doctor,&#8221; doctors are too often left out of the picture by what has become a highly politicized and aggressively pro-abortion FDA. To the detriment of women’s health and safety, the FDA has for too long made women’s health a pawn in abortion politics by promoting drug-induced abortions as safe and recklessly ignoring the necessity of proper medical oversight.
Due in large part to the Biden-era FDA’s gutting of the requirements necessary to take mifepristone, women today are denied crucial medical care in life’s most vulnerable moments. In fact, the FDA has recklessly removed its requirements that women meet with a doctor before taking abortion drugs, thereby denying women the chance to be screened for life-threatening conditions like ectopic pregnancy or to confirm how far along she is in her pregnancy. 
My 20 years of caring for women as an OB/GYN have affirmed what the medical literature <a href="https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2017/05/methods-for-estimating-the-due-date">shows</a> — the only way to ensure accurate dating of a pregnancy is to examine a woman in person, ideally with an ultrasound. This is crucial, because an error of just a couple of weeks could mean a significant increase in risk for the woman if she takes these drugs.
To be clear, I would never recommend dangerous drug-induced or surgical abortions to any woman or teen who comes to me for care, especially when so many life-affirming alternatives exist to effectively care for both mother and child. 
The FDA also shamefully fails to require any follow-up visits, even though their own label on mifepristone states roughly one in 25 women who take it will end up in the emergency room. Selling women the lie that these drugs are safe, especially without the benefit of ongoing care with a doctor, is unethical.
With the urging of abortion advocates, and without appropriate evidence to support it, the FDA has also allowed abortion drugs to be shipped to women by mail, delivered straight to their doorsteps. This move not only puts women in danger of taking <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/01/the-web-is-home-to-an-illegal-bazaar-for-abortion-pills-the-fda-is-ill-equipped-to-stop-it-00048802">counterfeit drugs</a> that could cause them harm, but it also makes them <a href="https://lozierinstitute.org/hidden-epidemic-nearly-70-of-abortions-are-coerced-unwanted-or-inconsistent-with-womens-preferences/">vulnerable to coercion and abuse.</a>
The new FDA leadership must prioritize women’s health by implementing key reforms. 
First, they should reinstate the requirement for in-person doctor visits so women can receive individualized counseling and fully informed consent, along with being adequately screened for potentially life-threatening conditions. It&#8217;s a simple but essential principle of medical ethics that patients have a right to informed consent before taking these high-risk drugs — something that can only happen with an in-person visit and individualized counseling. Even the pro-abortion American College of OB/GYNs (ACOG) <a href="https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2021/02/informed-consent-and-shared-decision-making-in-obstetrics-and-gynecology" target="_blank" rel="noopener">notes</a> that an adequate informed consent process is one where patients are “free to ask questions” and make a choice about their care, including refusing treatment. It’s impossible to have this tailored conversation when abortion drugs are dispensed online with no in-person interaction with a medical professional.
Next, should a woman choose to pursue a drug-induced abortion, the FDA should restore the seven week gestational age limit (currently 10 weeks) to decrease the risks associated with these drugs, as well as require abortion providers to see a woman for a follow&#8211;up visit to ensure her abortion is complete and to evaluate for and treat any complications she might be experiencing. This would be consistent with what was originally recommended when the drug entered the market and would reduce risks to women. With these protections in place, our federal leaders, regardless of their personal position on induced abortion, can at the very least reduce the risk of women dying from complications of abortion drugs and ensure that all women are receiving fully informed consent before taking them.
Reinstating the FDA’s original safety regulations for mifepristone is an essential first step toward protecting the health and safety of women across the nation. Women and girls seeking an induced abortion are often in a vulnerable and uncertain time of their lives. Rather than ensuring that they receive accurate information and ongoing medical care, the FDA has sold them a lie and denied them appropriate care. We all should work together to bring this negligence to an end.
Women and girls deserve the best medical care possible that is individualized and evidence-based. I&#8217;m hopeful that with Dr. Makary&#8217;s leadership the FDA will restore safety as the priority for American women and girls. Our patients deserve nothing less.
* * *
Christina Francis, MD is a board-certified obstetrician-gynecologist practicing as an obstetric hospitalist. She also serves as CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The beginning of a beautiful bond

FDA’s New Leadership Must Put Women’s Health And Safety First

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The Senate on Friday passed a Trump-admin backed bill that would further enable law enforcement to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.
In an 84-16 vote, the Senate passed the HALT Fentanyl Act (Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act), which would make traffickers of fentanyl analogues, substances that have been altered so as to not technically be fentanyl, subject to the same criminal penalties as fentanyl dealers. The bill would also make fentanyl-related substances permanently classified as Schedule 1 controlled substances.
“The HALT Fentanyl Act is a critical step towards ending the crisis that’s killing hundreds of thousands of precious American lives,” Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/senate-overwhelmingly-passes-grassley-led-halt-fentanyl-act-to-permanently-schedule-fentanyl-related-substances">said</a> after the vote. “I thank my Senate colleagues for passing this bill with broad, overwhelming support. I urge my House colleagues to swiftly pass the Senate version of this battle-tested, bipartisan bill to save lives, advance research and support our brave men and women in blue.”
All 16 opponents of the bill were Democrats, some of whom were opposed to the aspect that allowed for harsher criminal sentences. It was backed by a host of law enforcement groups including the National Fraternal Order of Police and the National Association of Police Organizations.
The bill was first introduced in January by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Grassley, and Democratic Senator Martin Heinrich (NM).
According to a <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/331">summary</a> of the bill, “offenses involving fentanyl-related substances are triggered by the same quantity thresholds and subject to the same penalties as offenses involving fentanyl analogues (e.g., offenses involving 100 grams or more trigger a 10-year mandatory minimum prison term).”
Cassidy told reporters on a call Friday morning that the bill would allow law enforcement to go after fentanyl analogs because those are still addictive and “can still kill,” saying that officers could confiscate fentanyl analogs.
Sen. James Lankford (R–OK) said in the same call that there were still a lot of avenues, especially stopping it at both the southern and northern borders, that needed to be pursued to stop the ongoing crisis as tens of thousands of Americans die from fentanyl-related deaths every year.
The bill heads to the House, which passed a similar bill last year &#8212; though it didn’t go anywhere in the Democrat-controlled Senate. The Trump administration has <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/halt_fentanyl_omb_endorsement.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signaled</a> that it strongly supports the legislation as cracking down on the flow of fentanyl has been a top priority for President Donald Trump.

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Senate Overwhelmingly Passes Fentanyl Trafficking Bill: ‘Critical Step Toward Ending The Crisis’

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