Women are just victims of everything these days. Born a woman? You’re automatically a victim by today’s standards.
Now CNN is <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/24/health/stds-are-sexist-against-women-wellness/index.html?no-st=1572101315">reporting</a> that even sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are sexist. Let’s be honest, STDs are bad no matter what sex, race, sexuality, creed, or disability one has, but CNN, with the help of doctors, has found a way to make the diseases yet another notch in the women-as-victims bedpost.
&#8220;STDs are biologically and psycho-socially sexist at all levels,&#8221; the outlet quoted Dr. Hunter Handsfield as saying. Handsfield is a professor emeritus of medicine and the University of Washington Center for AIDS and STD.
&#8220;Women bear the largest burden of these diseases,&#8221; another doctor, Edward Hook, told the outlet. Dr. Hook is co-director of the Center for Social Medicine and Sexually Transmitted Diseases at the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
&#8220;Chlamydia and gonorrhea, for example, are two of the leading preventable causes of infertility and ectopic pregnancies in the United States, and on Earth,&#8221; Hook added.
In heterosexual couples, as CNN reported, men or more likely to transmit STDs to women than women are to men. That&#8217;s because the lining of the vagina is thinner and more delicate than the skin on a penis, so it&#8217;s easier for bacteria and viruses to penetrate and take hold. Once there, the moist environment of the vagina is perfect for growth,” the outlet reported.
Once contracted, some STDs can be more harmful to women than men. Handsfield offered the example of Herpes.
“Because of the nature of the female genitalia, if you get new herpes, there&#8217;s likely multiple painful blisters,&#8221; Handsfield said. &#8220;For men, typically a few blisters.&#8221;
Multiple vs. a few.
HPV was a better example, as women are far more likely to get cervical cancer from human papillomavirus than men are to get penile cancer.
The outlet also couched STDs as sexist because… women might confuse them for a yeast infection.
&#8220;If a woman has a little burning on urination, maybe it was too much time on the exer-cycle, maybe the underwear was too tight, maybe there were spicy foods for dinner,&#8221; Dr. Hook said.
&#8220;Maybe there&#8217;s a little discharge, a little itch,&#8221; Handsfield added. &#8220;It&#8217;s easy for a woman to think it&#8217;s a yeast infection and self-treat while the chlamydia is climbing up into her fallopian tubes.&#8221;
Naturally, CNN had to include an unproven anecdote about one of the doctor’s daughters whose OB-GYN performed an exam and then allegedly lectured her about sex when she asked for a chlamydia test.
Today, we’re told everything is sexist, from <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/stop-finding-sexism-in-everything">telling someone to smile</a> to political disagreement to air conditioning. If a woman says she is inconvenienced, she’s the victim of sexism.
Diseases hurt some people more than others, but it doesn’t have to become a rallying cry for feminists. The moral of the STD story should be that men and women need to be aware of what STDs can do to their body and how they’re at risk. They should take steps to defend themselves from contracting STDs, not just because of what it will do to them but also because of what it might do to others.
The moral should not be that women have yet another thing to claim victimhood status over.

Couple In Bed

Now Even Sexually Transmitted Diseases Are Sexist

Gender

Health

Imagine being pulled over on suspicion of driving drunk even though you hadn’t had a drop of alcohol. Now imagine a blood alcohol test showing you were at twice the legal limit – again, even though you hadn’t drunk any alcohol.
Such was the case of a North Carolina man, who insisted he hadn’t drunk despite his blood alcohol level being 0.2%, more than twice the legal limit of 0.08%. He was pulled over but refused to take a breathalyzer, so he was taken to a hospital, where his BAC was determined.
He continued to say he hadn’t touched alcohol but, naturally, no one believed him.
It wasn’t until he was studied by researchers at the Richmond University Medical Center in New York that he found out what was causing his alleged drunkenness – a medical condition.
CNN <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/10/25/health/beer-stomach-autobrewery-syndrome-trnd/index.html">reported</a> the man was discovered to have a rare condition known as auto-brewery system (ABS) or gut fermentation syndrome. The condition causes his body to convert carbohydrates into alcohol.
The doctors that studied him published a study in BMJ Open Gastroenterology about his condition and what they did to treat him. The study’s lead author, Fahad Malik, chief internal medicine resident at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, told CNN what happens to a person with the condition.
“These patients have the exact same implications of alcoholism: the smell, the breath, drowsiness, gait changes,&#8221; Malik told the outlet. &#8220;They will present as someone who&#8217;s intoxicated by alcohol, but the only difference here is that these patients can be treated by antifungal medications.&#8221;
The man didn’t have the condition his entire life. It wasn’t like he was falling down “drunk” in grade school. The condition developed after he took antibiotics to treat an injury to his thumb.
“His personality started to change, researchers wrote in the study, and he experienced episodes of depression, &#8216;brain fog,&#8217; memory loss and aggressive behavior that was out of character for him,” CNN reported.
Three years after his drunk driving arrest, doctors in Ohio found two strains of yeast and told him to cut carbs out of his diet and take supplements. He seemed fine at first, but a few weeks later he began acting drunk again.
Nothing seemed to help the condition, and at some point the man fell down due to his blood alcohol level, leading to brain bleeding. Eventually, after finding an online support group, the man was directed to the Richmond University Medical Center. The researchers there found that, possibly due to the antibiotics he had taken for his thumb, his “gut microbiome” had been altered, leading to ABS.
The man was given probiotics and treated with antifungal therapies, which helped his condition. After a year and a half – except for one time when he ate pizza and beer – he appears to be nearly cured.
“Approximately 1.5 years later, he remains asymptomatic and has resumed his previous lifestyle, including eating a normal diet while still checking his breath alcohol levels sporadically,&#8221; the study’s authors wrote, as reported by CNN.
This man is not the only one with this condition. It has been studied since the early part of the century, and researchers hope their method of treating the North Carolina man can help others with the condition.

drunk

Police Thought He Was Drunk. It Turns Out He Had A Rare Medical Condition That Made His Body A Brewery.

Alcohol

Science

Even as Democrats inveigh against President Trump for his alleged norm-shattering and contempt for the rule of law, their health care plans show a growing embrace of authoritarianism. For instance, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) recently <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2019-09-25/schiff-trumps-comments-a-classic-mafia-like-shakedown" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2019-09-25/schiff-trumps-comments-a-classic-mafia-like-shakedown&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGwkxR4Q6ZOFaNqd4M8yJdUm134cA">dubbed</a> the president’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “a classic mafia-like shakedown.” He knows of which he speaks, because the Democratic Party agenda on health care now includes threats to destroy any entities failing to comply with government-dictated price controls.
The latest evidence comes from Colorado, where several government agencies recently submitted a <a href="https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/HB19-1004%20Draft%20Report%20Colorado%20State%20Coverage%20Option%20and%20Appendix.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/sites/default/files/HB19-1004%2520Draft%2520Report%2520Colorado%2520State%2520Coverage%2520Option%2520and%2520Appendix.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFDkt31ZlobGZ-HQwefFU-NC7beBQ">draft report</a> regarding the creation of a “state option” for health insurance. The plan would not create a state-run health insurer; instead, it would see agencies dragooning private sector firms to comply with government diktats.
The plan would “require insurance carriers that offer plans in a major market,” whether individual, small group, or large group, “to offer the state option as well.” In these state-mandated plans that insurers must offer, carriers would have to abide by stricter controls on their administrative costs — in the form of medical loss ratio requirements — than those dictated by Obamacare.
For medical providers, the Colorado plan would use “payment benchmarks” to cap reimbursement amounts for doctors and hospitals. And if hospitals decline to accept these government-imposed price controls, the report ominously says that “the state may implement measures to ensure health systems participate.”
In comments to reporters, Colorado officials made clear their intent to coerce providers into this price-controlled system. Insurance Commissioner Michael Conway <a href="https://coloradosun.com/2019/10/09/colorado-health-public-option-hospitals/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coloradosun.com/2019/10/09/colorado-health-public-option-hospitals/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEdfFeIqjhxySRoTgjO7RycSEOHhA">admitted</a> that “[i]f our hospital systems don’t participate, this won’t work &#8230; [w]e can’t allow that to happen.” The head of Colorado’s Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, Kim Bimestefer, <a href="https://coloradosun.com/2019/10/07/colorado-public-health-insurance-option-proposal/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://coloradosun.com/2019/10/07/colorado-public-health-insurance-option-proposal/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGvUest7eeWAQmR2Zl20j5M7mzlAw">said</a> that “if we feel that the hospitals are not going to participate, we will require their participation.”
State officials did not elaborate on the mechanisms they would use to compel participation in the state option. But they could attempt to require hospitals and insurers to participate in the new plan to maintain their license to operate in Colorado — a likely unconstitutional condition of licensure.
In threatening this level of coercion — agree to price controls, or we’ll shut down your business — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis imitated his fellow Democrat, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi’s proposed drug pricing bill, up for a vote in the House as soon as next month, would impose excise taxes of up to 95% of a drug’s sale price if companies refuse to “negotiate” with the federal government.
In its <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-10/hr3ltr.pdf" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-10/hr3ltr.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHtCPW1KJ1eddfASQamnbb-cBFA-g">analysis</a> of Pelosi’s legislation, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) noted that, because drug makers could not deduct the 95% excise tax for income tax purposes, “the combination of income taxes and excise taxes on the sales could cause the drug manufacturer to lose money if the drug was sold in the United States.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, CBO concluded that the excise tax would not generate “any significant increase in revenues,” as “manufacturers would either participate in the negotiating process” — because they have no effective alternative — “or pull a particular drug out of the U.S. market entirely.”
CBO also noted, in a classic bit of understatement, that Pelosi’s bill “could result in litigation,” for threatening losses on any company that dares defy the government’s offer of “negotiation.” But the Left seems uninterested in abiding by limits on government power — or the consistency of its own arguments. As I <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/dems-new-plan-would-ban-private-medicine-11557688457" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wsj.com/articles/dems-new-plan-would-ban-private-medicine-11557688457&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFNRhLOlmEwRWTbqkNbJt_yGEVBpw">noted this spring</a>, other proposed legislation in Congress would abolish the private health care market. Less than one decade after forcing all Americans to buy a product for the first time ever, in the form of Obamacare’s insurance mandate, liberals now want to prohibit all Americans from purchasing care directly from their doctors.
These recent proposals continue a virulent strain of authoritarianism that has permeated progressivism’s entire history. Franklin Roosevelt threatened to invoke emergency powers during his first inaugural address, and Rahm Emanuel infamously <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mzcbXi1Tkk" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D_mzcbXi1Tkk&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEqUQZt1ngA3w0MxGoRCLRx9FlQDQ">said</a> during the Great Recession that “you never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Make no mistake: The health care system needs patient-centered reform. But the true crisis comes from the progressives who would utilize blunt government force to seize control of one-fifth of the nation’s economy.
&nbsp;
Mr. Jacobs is Founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book The Case Against Single Payer. He is on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/chrisjacobsHC" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.twitter.com/chrisjacobsHC&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1572027551149000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH6oeMTNLARnFthxB33FurVWA3XYw">@chrisjacobsHC</a>.

Surgeons operating patient for breast implant

JACOBS: The Left’s Health Care Vision Is A Prescription For Brute Government Force

Democratic Party

Health Care

Leftism

Obamacare

Progressivism

After what appeared to be an almost miraculous turn-around, &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; host Alex Trebek unfortunately <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/uncategorized/alex-trebeks-cancer-fight-takes-a-turn-jeopardy-host-to-resume-chemo-my-numbers-went-sky-high/">announced on Tuesday</a> that he will have to resume chemotherapy to treat his pancreatic cancer, which has resulted in a massive weight loss.
&#8220;I was doing so well,&#8221; Trebek told &#8220;Good Morning America&#8221; on Tuesday, as reported by Mediaite. &#8220;And my numbers went down to the equivalent of a normal human being who does not have pancreatic cancer. So we were all very optimistic. And they said, ‘Good, we’re gonna stop chemo, we’ll start you on immunotherapy.’ I lost about 12 pounds in a week. And my numbers went sky high, much higher than they were when I was first diagnosed. So, the doctors have decided that I have to undergo chemo again and that’s what I’m doing.&#8221;
Trebek, however, promised to keep showing up for his hit game show so long as he is able throughout this process of undergoing chemotherapy. Trebek said that doing so will bring him happiness. &#8220;As long as I can walk out and greet the audience and the contestants and run the game, I’m happy,&#8221; he said.
What is most troubling about the reversal of fortune for Trebek is that he appeared to be in &#8220;near remission&#8221; after initially undergoing treatment earlier this year.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve gone through a lot of chemotherapy and thankfully that is over,&#8221; Trebek said in August as &#8220;Jeopardy!&#8221; was gearing up for another season. &#8220;I&#8217;m on the mend and that is all I can say right now.&#8221;
That announcement occurred just five months after the host stunned audiences when he announced his battle with stage four pancreatic cancer — a disease that yields a survivor rate of just 3%.
&#8220;I have some news to share with all of you, and it&#8217;s in keeping with my longtime policy of being open and transparent with our &#8216;Jeopardy!&#8217; fan base,&#8221; he said in the video. &#8220;I also wanted to prevent you from reading or hearing some overblown or inaccurate reports regarding my health. So therefore, I wanted to be the one to pass along this information. Now, just like 50,000 other people in the United States each year, this week I was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to fight this, and I&#8217;m going to keep working,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And with the love and support of my family and friends and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease.&#8221;
In what can only be described as a miracle, Trebek <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47982/cbs-nbc-ignore-alex-trebek-crediting-prayer-cancer-paul-bois">revealed</a> several months later that the disease was in near remission. Speaking with PEOPLE, Trebek credited his recovery to the <a href="https://people.com/health/alex-trebek-pancreatic-cancer-near-remission/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">prayers of millions of fans</a>, with doctors admitting they may have played a significant factor in his recovery.
&#8220;I told the doctors, this has to be more than just chemo,&#8221; he told the outlet. &#8220;I&#8217;ve had a couple million people out there who expressed their good thoughts, their positive energy, and their prayers. The doctors said it could very well be an important part of this.&#8221;

trebek.jpg

BAD NEWS: Alex Trebek To Resume Chemotherapy In Fight With Pancreatic Cancer

Cancer

Health professionals are investigating why, suddenly, there&#8217;s a rash of lung illnesses related to the use of e-cigs and vaping devices. It&#8217;s almost assuredly linked to black market devices and juice pods tampered with by the users.
Progressives won&#8217;t let this crisis go to waste, combining concern over the illnesses along with recent data suggesting an uptick in teen vaping, to push for nonsensical bans. These efforts reveal a deep level of hypocrisy, and ultimately, will lead to more deadly habits.
When it comes to &#8220;harm reduction&#8221; strategies, progressive politicians and talking heads promote heroin-injection sites. Some call these illegal spaces &#8220;safe injection sites&#8221; because they&#8217;re monitored by a health professional to treat addicts at risk of overdose, but the fact that they need a nurse or doctor present literally means they&#8217;re not all that safe. This is exactly why the Trump administration has warned cities like Seattle, for example, to stay away from the addiction-enabling programs.
When the Trump administration warned Seattle to stay away from the addiction-enabling programs, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan&#8217;s office decried, to the Seattle Times, the effort &#8220;to block a harm-reduction strategy to the opioid epidemic.&#8221;
Seattle is not alone, of course. Philadelphia is in a legal battle with the feds over the sites, and San Francisco Democrat Sen. Scott Wiener is pushing a bill to bring the heroin dens to California.
Harm reduction is where it&#8217;s at for these progressives!
Yet, when it comes to e-cigarettes and vaping, suddenly, they want bans. San Francisco banned the sale of e-cigarettes. Durkan immediately supported the &#8220;bold&#8221; move, saying <a href="https://mynorthwest.com/1434986/rantz-jenny-durkan-e-cigarettes-injection-sites/?">it&#8217;s time to consider banning them</a> in Seattle. Philadelphia has long sought regulations on the devices, too.
What happened to the Left&#8217;s love affair with harm reduction strategies? E-cigarettes and vaping nicotine is a popular tool used for smoking cessation. Cigarette consumption is <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/electronic-cigarettes-good-news-bad-news-2016072510010">considerably more dangerous</a> than e-cigarettes. No one is saying they’re categorically safe; they&#8217;re saying it&#8217;s safer. It&#8217;s a similar argument progressives use when talking about heroin injection sites – only, in this case, we&#8217;re talking about a lawful-for-now device.
But what about the children? King County Executive Dow Constatine in Washington state <a href="https://www.kingcounty.gov/elected/executive/constantine/news/release/2019/September/11-vaping-regulations.aspx">declared</a> &#8220;urgent action&#8221; needed to save the children! Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer <a href="https://apnews.com/642945b75fad4b64b651fb229db8eaf1">accused</a> e-flavor makers of purposefully trying to &#8220;hook children on nicotine.&#8221; Democrats aren&#8217;t alone. President Trump, along with the First Lady, used kids&#8217; health as an argument to ban e-cig flavors – except if, inexplicably, they&#8217;re tobacco flavored. Kids are often used as props in these debates. These bans are ludicrous.
Children are already banned from purchasing e-cig and vaping products. If you want to get them to stop using them, increase enforcement on shops that are illegally selling devices and increase funding to education programs – mimicking the very same ones that caused a decrease in smoking. And there&#8217;s even reason to believe that a ban like this will drive child-vapers back to cigarettes. If they&#8217;re going to consume one of these products, wouldn&#8217;t we rather have it be an e-cigarette, where they cut their exposure to toxic chemicals associated with burning tobacco?
The bigger unintended consequence of this kind of ban is that it likely brings smokers back to cigarettes. Adults overwhelmingly prefer the &#8220;kid-friendly&#8221; flavors than the tobacco one. Couldn&#8217;t this just push adults back to cigarettes? I thought this was about health.
Jason Rantz is a Seattle-based talk show host heard weekday afternoons from 3-6 p.m.on KTTH 770 AM (subscribe to the podcast <a href="http://mynorthwest.com/category/podcasts/#AM770KTTH">here</a>). He’s a frequent guest on FOX News and occasional fill-in host for the Ben Shapiro Show. Follow Jason on Twitter @JasonRantz.

Vaping.jpeg

RANTZ: Progressives Ditch ‘Harm Reduction’ Support So They Can Ban Vaping Products

Donald Trump

Trump Administration

Late-night host James Corden of CBS publicly rebuked Bill Maher on Thursday night for saying that society needs to bring back &#8220;fat-shaming.&#8221;
Last week, HBO host Bill Maher set off sparks when he publicly called for fat-shaming to return to society in some way or another to combat the obesity crisis. His comments came in response to the Democratic Party&#8217;s push for free healthcare while neglecting the fact Americans are increasingly unhealthy.
Maher stated:
<blockquote>At next Thursday’s [Democrat presidential] debate, one of the candidates has to say, &#8220;The problem with our healthcare system is Americans eat s**t… and too much of it.&#8221; All the candidates will talk about their health plans, but no one will mention the key factor: the citizens don’t lift a finger to help [obesity]. … We scream at Congress to find a way to pay for our medical bills, but it wouldn’t be nearly the issue it is if people just didn’t eat like a**holes. … What’s Elizabeth Warren’s plan for that?
Fat-shaming has to make a comeback. Some amount of shame is good. We shamed people out of smoking and into wearing seatbelts. We shamed them out of littering and most of them out of racism. Shame is the first step in reform.</blockquote>
In the same monologue, Maher did not say that only fat people should be shamed, but noted that society has come to a point where smokers are hectored regularly while obese people are coddled.
On Thursday night, James Corden, who admitted to having struggled with weight throughout his life, publicly called out Bill Maher for not understanding the obesity problem and even argued that &#8220;fat-shaming&#8221; would make the situation worse by making people feel helpless and depressed.
&#8220;There&#8217;s a common and insulting misconception that fat people are stupid and lazy, and we&#8217;re not,&#8221; Corden said, according to <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/james-corden-responds-to-bill-mahers-fat-shaming-comments-1203335512/">Variety</a>. &#8220;We get it, we know. We know that being overweight isn&#8217;t good for us, and I&#8217;ve struggled my entire life trying to manage my weight and I suck at it. I&#8217;ve had good days and bad months.&#8221;
&#8220;Fat-shaming is just bullying,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And bullying only makes the problem worse.&#8221;
Corden later noted that the American obesity epidemic is a complex issue, stemming from poverty and even genetics.
&#8220;Now Billy is right about one thing. This really is a health problem,&#8221; Corden said. &#8220;It&#8217;s an issue that needs to be discussed clearly and honestly. It&#8217;s an epidemic, and when you look at the numbers it&#8217;s terrifying. There are numerous reasons why people live their lives at an unhealthy weight. Junk food. Portion control. A lack of exercise. These are all major contributing factors. But poverty is also an issue.&#8221;
Corden concluded by accusing Maher of having a &#8220;sense of superiority&#8221; while advising him to think about his choice of words.
&#8220;We&#8217;re not all as lucky as <a href="https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/bill-maher-real-time-hbo-trump-politically-incorrect-1203249574/" data-tag="bill-maher">Bill Maher</a>. We don’t all have a sense of superiority that burns 35,000 calories a day,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In the meantime, Bill, while you&#8217;re encouraging people to think about what goes into their mouths, just think a little harder about what comes out of yours.&#8221;
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ax1U04c4gaw" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>

jamescorden.jpg

WATCH: James Corden Rebukes Bill Maher’s Call To Resurrect Fat-Shaming

Bill Maher

james Corden

The media and politicians tell us there is a &#8220;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/everyone-should-be-alarmed-by-the-vaping-crisis/2019/09/09/1f2413f8-d329-11e9-9343-40db57cf6abd_story.html">crisis</a>,&#8221; an &#8220;<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/dr-siegel-vaping-related-deaths-epidemic">epidemic</a>,&#8221; an &#8220;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/11/trump-to-consider-e-cigarette-policy-amid-outbreak-of-lung-disease.html">outbreak</a>,&#8221; even a &#8220;<a href="https://khn.org/morning-breakout/viewpoints-gops-unpopular-efforts-to-repeal-health-law-are-backfiring-with-voters-teen-vaping-is-a-looming-public-health-catastrophe/">catastrophe</a>&#8221; gripping our country. Worse yet, our children — think of the children! — are caught in the middle of it. The disaster is so very disastrous that the White House is leaping into action.
President Trump has announced that his administration will move for a ban on flavored e-cigarettes. Yes, vaping. Vaping is the crisis. Vaping is what threatens to bring about armageddon if we do not act.
Leaving aside the not-insignificant question of whether the president has the constitutional authority to unilaterally ban a consumer product (he doesn&#8217;t), is this apocalyptic fervor justified? Is there really anything that might reasonably be described as a &#8220;vaping epidemic&#8221; occurring? The answer, of course, is no. Not even close.
There have been six <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/11/kansas-reports-6th-death-related-vaping-lung-illness/2283959001/">deaths</a> in America possibly linked to vaping — six deaths out of the more than 11 million people who report using e-cigarettes. If you&#8217;re keeping track at home, that&#8217;s a fatality rate of .0005%. By comparison, <a href="https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-facts-and-statistics">88,000</a> people die from alcohol-related causes every year. An estimated <a href="https://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2016-09-27/the-danger-in-taking-prescribed-medications">128,000</a> people die from prescription pills annually. The death toll in both cases also represents a very small percentage, but the percentage is probably quite a bit higher than vaping&#8217;s meager .0005%. No matter how you look at it, the numbers just don&#8217;t come close to justifying words like &#8220;outbreak&#8221; and &#8220;catastrophe.&#8221; And they certainly don&#8217;t justify unconstitutional action from the president (not that anything ever could).
But the panic is even more absurd and counterproductive than it first appears. Keep in mind that the <a href="https://www.commentarymagazine.com/american-society/vaping-a-moral-panic/">majority</a> of the people who&#8217;ve gotten sick or died from vaping were using unlicensed, black market products. By outlawing most e-cigarettes, we are only driving more people towards precisely the kind of vaping that&#8217;s causing the problem in the first place. This is a solution to a fake problem that will inevitably cause the fake problem to become a real problem. In other words, it is exactly the kind of solution our government specializes in.
Personally, I don&#8217;t vape. It&#8217;s not my thing. I find it kind of weird, to be honest. But &#8220;kind of weird&#8221; and &#8220;not my thing&#8221; can&#8217;t in themselves justify sweeping prohibitions. My toxin of choice is alcohol. Though I drink in moderation, it would probably be healthier if I didn&#8217;t drink at all. Still, that&#8217;s my decision and my concern. I don&#8217;t need any bureaucrat to hold my hand in the liquor store and guide me towards the booze varieties that he finds most acceptable. That&#8217;s not how it&#8217;s supposed to work in a free country.
But if we are going to start banning unhealthy substances, we have a lot of banning to do before we get to comparatively mild and safe e-cigarettes. We shouldn&#8217;t start with alcohol, either: The government tried that once already and it didn&#8217;t turn out very well. The leading cause of death in America is <a href="https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/obesity-leading-cause-death-america-shame">obesity</a>. Here we have an actual public health emergency. People are fat and only getting fatter. Yet soda and fast food — two staples of Trump&#8217;s diet, as it happens — remain not only legal, but are often marketed specifically to children. So let us confiscate all the Happy Meals and send government agents to locate and destroy all vending machines. Maybe then we can start worrying about vaping.

Man Smoking E-Cigarette

WALSH: The Media Claim There’s A Vaping ‘Crisis’ And President Trump Wants To Ban It. Here’s Why The Hysteria Is Absurd.

Media

According to an internist at the New York University School of Medicine, the burgeoning number of homeless people in the cities of America, particularly Los Angeles, could see a surge in a disease thought uncommon since the Middle Ages: leprosy.
Dr. Marc Siegel, of New York University&#8217;s Langone Health, writing in <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/460442-is-a-dark-ages-disease-the-new-american-plague-threat">The Hill</a>, notes that the CDC reports that between 100 and 200 new cases of leprosy are annually reported in the U.S. He adds that a USC study found that of the 187 leprosy patients treated at its clinic between 1973 to 2018, most came from Mexico, where leprosy is more common. Siegel points out, &#8220;Leprosy is still <a href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Leprosy-Remains-Prevalent-in-24-Latin-America-Countries-20180204-0031.html">more prevalent in Central America and South America</a>, with more than 20,000 new cases per year. Given that, there is certainly the possibility of sporadic cases of leprosy continuing to be brought across our southern border undetected.&#8221;
Then Siegel addresses Los Angeles:
<blockquote>And it seems only a matter of time before leprosy could take hold among the homeless population in an area such as Los Angeles County, with <a href="https://la.curbed.com/2019/6/4/18652755/2019-homeless-count-los-angeles-numbers">close to 60,000 homeless people</a> and 75 percent of those lacking even temporary shelter or adequate hygiene and medical treatment. All of those factors make a perfect cauldron for a contagious disease that is <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/transmission/index.html">transmitted</a> by nasal droplets and respiratory secretions with close repeated contact.</blockquote>
<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-7442947/Homeless-people-risk-LEPROSY.html">The Daily Mail</a> notes, &#8220;Leprosy, or Hansen&#8217;s disease, affects 250,000 people worldwide every year, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention … The bacteria behind the infection, Mycobacterium leprae, attacks nerves in the body, which can lead to the characteristic &#8216;peeling&#8217; skin. Untreated, this can cause paralysis of the hands and feet.&#8221;
Los Angeles soaring homeless problem has also triggered an outbreak of typhus. The Los Angeles Times reported in June:
<blockquote>CatsUSA Pest Control, brought in to assess areas outside City Hall and nearby buildings, warned that homeless people create &#8220;harborage for rodents&#8221; … The company said it found &#8220;poor sanitary conditions&#8221; — including leftover food, human waste and hypodermic needles — and recommended that the city clear away the homeless population living in the Civic Center.</blockquote>
David Costa, building construction and maintenance superintendent, stated, &#8220;The homeless are using the grated areas above the pits as their bathroom and relieving themselves, This is also attracting the rats. Custodial will need to do some hazmat cleaning of the grates and the pits. There are even hypodermic needles being tossed in the pits along with human waste and other garbage.&#8221;
The Times added, &#8220;County health officials also declared a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-typhus-20181004-story.html">typhus outbreak last year</a> in downtown L.A. and one Los Angeles city employee, Deputy City Atty. Elizabeth Greenwood, has filed a $5-million legal claim against the city, saying she contracted typhus while working in her office at City Hall East.&#8221;
Siegel said <a href="v">last February</a>, &#8220;Simply cleaning up the garbage in so-called ‘typhus zones’ will not solve the problem, as people who have nowhere to go and nowhere to dispose of their waste will simply make more. And more garbage means more rats which means more fleas which means more typhus.&#8221;

NYU Doctor Warns Los Angeles: You May Be Hit With This Medieval Disease

Los Angeles

Trying desperately to take the mantle of Most Insufferable Corporate Panderer from Gillette, Calvin Klein recently unveiled a <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/calvin-klein-is-using-plus-size-models-to-reinvent-its-brand/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=NYPTwitter">new ad campaign</a> featuring obese people in their underpants. A massive, 4,000-square foot billboard erected in Manhattan shows one such model with the message: &#8220;I speak my truth #InMyCalvins.&#8221;
This is just the latest and largest iteration of the &#8220;speak my truth&#8221; slogan, which is repeated incessantly in our culture — especially since Oprah <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z84UtPAWqNM">identified</a> &#8220;speaking your truth&#8221; as &#8220;the most powerful tool we have.&#8221; And we can do more than just speak our truth. According to Tomi Lahren, we can also <a href="https://twitter.com/tomilahren/status/843115966477164544?lang=en">stand</a> in our truth.
Of course, the problem with this mantra is the possessive pronoun sandwiched conspicuously in-between &#8220;speak&#8221; and &#8220;truth.&#8221; Truth is great and speaking it is admirable. It might even be good to stand in it, on occasion, if you&#8217;re wearing the proper foot attire. But you cannot speak or stand in or do anything at all with &#8220;your&#8221; truth because there is no such thing. There is only truth and untruth. There is reality and unreality. There is correct and incorrect. Every statement or assertion will fall into one category or the other — or a combination of the two.
The &#8220;speak your truth&#8221; idiom tries to create a third category in addition to truth and untruth: My truth. But if my truth is the same as the truth, then it isn&#8217;t mine at all. It isn&#8217;t my truth that sharks have dorsal fins, even if I assert the truth and express my agreement with it. It isn&#8217;t even the shark&#8217;s truth. It is, rather, a universal truth that stands apart from and beyond and over myself, and the shark, and everyone else. It just is, and all a rational person can do is accept it.
However, if my truth contradicts the truth, then it is indeed mine but it isn&#8217;t actually truth. If I say that my truth is that I have a dorsal fin, I am simply mistaken or lying or hallucinating. It may be my impression or my belief or my conviction or my desire that I have a dorsal fin, but it isn&#8217;t my truth. It isn&#8217;t any kind of truth at all. In this case, &#8220;my truth&#8221; is just another way of saying &#8220;falsehood.&#8221;
It might be argued that &#8220;speak your truth&#8221; really means something closer to &#8220;speak your mind&#8221; or &#8220;share your story.&#8221; If that&#8217;s what&#8217;s meant, then that&#8217;s what should be said instead. It&#8217;s clear, however, that many people who use the phrase do actually mean it literally. We are raising an entire generation to believe that they can invent their own truths, which will be just as legitimate as, if not more legitimate than, the truth. The rash of creative new &#8220;gender identities&#8221; is just one example of this. If a man says he is a woman, or if a woman says she isn&#8217;t a woman but she&#8217;s <a href="https://twitter.com/pinknews/status/1028914292291190785?lang=en">still a lesbian</a>, or if a dude in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/25/secret-life-of-the-human-pups-the-men-who-live-as-dogs">terrifying Dalmatian costume</a> says he is a dog, then we are supposed to accept and affirm these claims as the unique and valid &#8220;truths&#8221; of these individuals.
This is all nonsense, of course, and a symptom of our collective madness. The truth cannot be changed according to our whims and desires. And it cannot be owned by anyone. All we can do with the truth is acknowledge it, deny it, assert it, or allege it. Though I suppose &#8220;speak your assertion of alleged truth&#8221; doesn&#8217;t quite have the same ring to it.

Obesity is a major cause of diabetes

WALSH: Stop Speaking Your Truth

Famed gameshow host Alex Trebek may no longer be in jeopardy after finishing chemotherapy treatment for pancreatic cancer. According to <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/alex-trebek-jeopardy-chemo">Fox News</a>, Trebek is now on the mend and &#8220;back in action&#8221; for another season of the iconic trivia show.
On Thursday, Trebek announced via the official &#8220;Jeopardy&#8221; Twitter page he completed his chemotherapy and will be returning for season 36 on September 9th.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve gone through a lot of chemotherapy and thankfully that is over,&#8221; Trebek shared. &#8220;I&#8217;m on the mend and that is all I can say right now.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Alex is back in action! Join him on September 9 for the premiere of Season 36. <a href="https://t.co/Vdv9t9vxDE">pic.twitter.com/Vdv9t9vxDE</a>
— Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jeopardy/status/1167142434653868032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Back in March, Trebek stunned audiences when he announced his battle with stage four pancreatic cancer — a disease that yields a survivor rate of just 3%.
&#8220;I have some news to share with all of you, and it&#8217;s in keeping with my longtime policy of being open and transparent with our Jeopardy! fan base,&#8221; he said in the video. &#8220;I also wanted to prevent you from reading or hearing some overblown or inaccurate reports regarding my health. So therefore, I wanted to be the one to pass along this information. Now, just like 50,000 other people in the United States each year, this week I was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m going to fight this, and I&#8217;m going to keep working,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And with the love and support of my family and friends and with the help of your prayers also, I plan to beat the low survival rate statistics for this disease.&#8221;
In what can only be described as a miracle, Trebek <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47982/cbs-nbc-ignore-alex-trebek-crediting-prayer-cancer-paul-bois">revealed</a> several months later that the disease was in near-remission. Speaking with PEOPLE, Trebek credited his recovery to the <a href="https://people.com/health/alex-trebek-pancreatic-cancer-near-remission/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">prayers of millions of fans</a>, with doctors admitting they may have played a significant factor in his recovery.
&#8220;I told the doctors, this has to be more than just chemo,&#8221; he told the outlet. &#8220;I&#8217;ve had a couple million people out there who expressed their good thoughts, their positive energy and their prayers. The doctors said it could very well be an important part of this.&#8221;
However, at the time, his statements were a subject of some light controversy when <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2019/05/29/nbc-edits-out-alex-trebek-crediting-prayers-helping-his">Newsbusters</a> revealed that both &#8220;NBC Nightly News&#8221; and &#8220;CBS Evening News&#8221; edited those parts about prayer out of their broadcasts while ABC&#8217;s &#8220;World News Tonight&#8221; included them. Over at NBC, Trebek&#8217;s quotes were specifically edited to eliminate the word prayers by including an ellipsis in its place. So rather than the full quote, NBC reported it as follows: &#8220;I’ve got a couple million people out there who have expressed good thoughts … I told the doctors this has to be more than just the chemo.&#8221;
Over at CBS, anchor Margaret Brennan included only a brief segment from People magazine about his &#8220;mindboggling&#8221; recovery:
&#8220;There was some encouraging news today from Alex Trebek,&#8221; reported Brennan. &#8220;The host of Jeopardy! says his doctors tell him that his stage-four pancreatic cancer is in, quote, &#8216;near remission.&#8217; In an interview with People magazine, Trebek calls the prognosis &#8216;mind-boggling&#8217; but says he has several more rounds of chemotherapy to go before he&#8217;s declared to be in full remission.&#8221;

Alex Trebek

Alex Trebek ‘Back In Action’ After Latest Cancer Update: ‘I’m On The Mend’

A rare disease typically associated with horses has so far infected four people in Massachusetts this month, one of whom has died.
Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE) is spread by mosquitos and can affect horses, humans, and birds. While the disease has “equine” in the name, birds are actually the most likely to contract the disease from a particular classification of mosquito. A different species of mosquito, however, is able to transmit the disease from birds to humans and several other mammal species. Horses do not appear able to spread the disease to humans, as their blood would not contain enough of the virus to infect mosquitos, which could then infect humans.
The first Massachusetts case of EEE in six years was discovered earlier this month, <a href="https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-has-first-human-eee-case-in-6-years-state-health-officials-say-9-communities-at-critical-risk/28666278">according to WCVB5</a>. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) issued a warning to nine southeastern Massachusetts communities about their risk of contracting the virus.
“Today’s news is evidence of the significant risk from EEE and we are asking residents to take this risk very seriously,” Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel, MD said in a statement to the outlet. “We will continue to monitor this situation and the impacted communities.”
The first case was reported in a male patient over 60, but the disease is not limited to the elderly or infirm. The second case was discovered in a patient between the ages of 19 and 30, WCVB5 reported. The third case also involved a man over 60, while the fourth case affected a woman over the age of 50.
The woman, Laurie Sylvia, died due to the illness. Sylvia’s husband was Robert Sylvia Jr., president of the Teamsters Local 59 union. The union <a href="https://www.facebook.com/teamsterslocal59/photos/a.923357174489477/1254035108088347/?type=3&amp;theater">wrote on Facebook</a> that it appeared Laurie would not recover after contracting EEE.
“It pains us to inform you that Laurie Sylvia, the wife of Teamsters Local 59 President Robert Sylvia, Jr has been stricken with the EEE Virus,” the union wrote. “For the last several days we were hopeful that with the best possible care from the Doctors and Staff at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, she would be able to recover. We have just learned that this will not be the case. Laurie’s condition has deteriorated and regrettably the Family is now preparing for the worst. Please keep Laurie, Bob and the rest of the family in your thoughts and prayers at this very difficult time.”
On Sunday, two of Laurie’s family members confirmed to the media that she had died. Her daughter, Jen, announced her death on Facebook.
“Today, I had to say goodbye to my best friend. My mum was my favorite person in the world,&#8221; Jen wrote. &#8220;She brought light and joy to everyone she came across.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t know where to go from here,&#8221; she added. &#8220;I just don&#8217;t understand how such a beautiful person could be taken from me so soon.&#8221;
The MDPH identified 37 communities in the Bay State as being high to critical risk for EEE. This week, the state will start spraying for mosquitos to try and quash the virus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/easternequineencephalitis/tech/symptoms.html">states</a> that there is no vaccine against EEE and that about “a third of all people with EEE die from the disease.” Those who do recover are often “left with disabling and progressive mental and physical sequelae, which can range from minimal brain dysfunction to severe intellectual impairment, personality disorders, seizures, paralysis, and cranial nerve dysfunction.”

Aedes aegypti biting human skin

4 People In Massachusetts Have Contracted Eastern Equine Encephalitis, One Has Died

Massachusetts

An Australian couple who fed their toddler a strict vegan diet that resulted in the child becoming so malnourished that she had no teeth will avoid jail time after a judge ruled that imprisoning them would deprive their children of an &#8220;important bond.&#8221;
The Sydney Morning Herald <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/vegan-parents-avoid-jail-over-malnourished-daughter-20190822-p52jlr.html">reported</a> that New South Wales District Court Judge Sarah Huggett sentenced the couple to 18 months of &#8220;intensive corrections orders&#8221; rather than send them to jail. The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46987/parents-who-fed-infant-vegan-diet-arrested-after-ashe-schow">reported</a> that the child had not been vaccinated or even taken to a doctor since her birth and suffered from rickets.
&#8220;The reckless failure of these offenders to provide their daughter with the necessities of life in fact caused serious harm,&#8221; Huggett said during sentencing, according to the Herald.
The couple was arrested in April 2018 and earlier pleaded guilty to failing to provide for their child. The father is 35 years old and the mother is 33. Australian press can&#8217;t name them for legal reasons.
The child &#8220;was fed oats, potatoes, rice, tofu, bread, peanut butter and rice milk,&#8221; according to court documents reviewed by the Herald. For a snack, she was given a &#8220;mouthful of fruit or two sultanas.&#8221;
The mother told a forensic psychiatrist that she didn&#8217;t think her child was ill until the girl suffered a seizure in March 2018. The mother called paramedics who found the child &#8220;floppy,&#8221; with blue lips and eyes rolling back into her head.
&#8220;The child was severely malnourished, underweight and undersized, and delayed as far as age-appropriate milestones were concerned,&#8221; Huggett said in court.
The parents faced five years in jail, but will not serve such a sentence because of Huggett&#8217;s ruling.
The mother had previously claimed she was severely depressed after her daughter’s birth, but a psychologist disputed the claims. That psychologist told the court that the mother’s medical records showed no evidence of her depression, and an interview with the mother revealed the same.
Huggett said during sentencing that &#8220;it is the responsibility of every parent to ensure the diet they chose to provide to their children &#8230; is one that is balanced and contains sufficient essential nutrients and vitamins for optimum growth and development.&#8221; She also said that the mother’s alleged depression made it difficult for her to care for her child &#8220;to an extent.&#8221;
&#8220;I say &#8216;to an extent&#8217; because this offence was committed over a substantial period of time,&#8221; Huggett said.
The father claimed he was not to blame because the mother &#8220;dictated&#8221; the child&#8217;s care. Huggett in May dismissed the father’s claims, saying he was an &#8220;educated man&#8221; who &#8220;could have picked her up and taken her to a doctor.&#8221;
During sentencing, Huggett further criticized the father, saying his &#8220;abandonment of his parental responsibility cannot be justified or excused on the basis that he was busy or preoccupied.&#8221;
It should have been obvious, Huggett said, to anyone that the child was unhealthy. At 20 months old, the girl couldn&#8217;t walk or talk and was the size of a 3-month old. Once medical staff determined the child was malnourished, she spent a month in the hospital and was then taken care of by a foster parent. Six months after her seizure, the little girl could crawl and had put on 13 pounds.
The little girl and her two older brothers are now being cared for by their maternal grandmother in Queensland.

Directly Above Shot Of Oat Flakes In Bowl On Marble Table

Vegan Parents Whose Daughter Was Malnourished Due To Vegan Diet Won’t Go To Jail

Australia

Children

The media may have fallen in love with plant-based fake meat like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods (who produce the Beyond Burger and Impossible Burger, respectively), but one high-profile super vegan doesn&#8217;t think the &#8220;meat&#8221; is good for anyone&#8217;s health.
John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/08/21/whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey-plant-based-meat-not-good-for-your-health.html">recently told</a> CNBC that while the plant-based meat is better for the environment, and is more ethical than eating animals, it is made from processed ingredients that aren&#8217;t healthier than actual meat.
&#8220;The [brands] who are capturing the imagination of people — and I&#8217;m not going to name these brands because I&#8217;m afraid I will be associated with the critique of it,&#8221; Mackey, who has been a vegan for more than 20 years, told the outlet, &#8220;but some of these that are extremely popular now that are taking the world by storm, if you look at the ingredients, they are super, highly processed foods.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think eating highly processed foods is healthy. I think people thrive on eating whole foods,&#8221; he added. &#8220;As for health, I will not endorse that, and that is about as big of criticism that I will do in public.&#8221;
CNBC listed the ingredients for Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods burgers:
<blockquote>According to Beyond Meat&#8217;s <a href="https://www.beyondmeat.com/products/the-beyond-burger/">website</a>, ingredients for its plant-based patties include water, pea protein isolate, expeller-pressed canola oil, refined coconut oil, rice protein and other natural flavors, including apple extract and beet juice extract (for color). Ingredients for Impossible Foods burger include water, soy protein concentrate, coconut oil, sunflower oil, potato protein, soy leghemoglobin (a group of protein found in animals and plants) and other natural flavors, according to its <a href="https://faq.impossiblefoods.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018937494-What-are-the-ingredients-">website.</a></blockquote>
CNBC also spoke to registered dietitian Alissa Rumsey, who told the outlet that the plant-based burgers &#8220;are not necessarily healthier than beef burgers.&#8221;
&#8220;They&#8217;re totally fine to eat, but there&#8217;s no need to replace your beef burger if you don&#8217;t enjoy these,&#8221; she added.
Mackey said that even if plant-based meat isn&#8217;t necessarily healthier than actual meat, it could serve as a &#8220;transition food&#8221; to move people away from meat.
&#8220;A lot of people say &#8230; that [plant-based] meat is a transition food, meaning it&#8217;s a way for [people] to begin to reeducate [their] palates,&#8221; he told CNBC.
He added that Americans need to readjust their palates in order to get away from eating meat, which takes time.
&#8220;So the reason why these plant-based meats have taken the world by storm is that they taste very similar to regular meats, whereas if you get a [healthy] black bean burger with flax seeds and sweet potatoes in it, that&#8217;s going to taste great to me,&#8221; but not to most other people, he said.
He said people can retrain their taste buds by continuously eating things they don&#8217;t typically like, and said he now loves fruits and vegetables because he trained himself to love them.

World Health Care Congress

Whole Foods CEO Says Plant-Based Fake Meat Is Bad For Your Health (But Good For Environment)

Vegetarian

A graphic suicide scene from the season finale of Netflix&#8217;s &#8220;13 Reasons Why&#8221; has now been edited in response to accusations that the show glorifies suicide.
According to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/netflix-alters-graphic-13-reasons-why-suicide-scene-controversy-1224489">The Hollywood Reporter</a> (THR), Netflix released a statement on Tuesday that tacitly defended the company&#8217;s original decision to keep the scene while acknowledging it may have contributed to unhealthy ideas about suicide among teens.
&#8220;We&#8217;ve heard from many young people that &#8217;13 Reasons Why&#8217; encouraged them to start conversations about difficult issues like depression and suicide and get help — often for the first time,&#8221; Netflix said on Tuesday. &#8220;As we prepare to launch season three later this summer, we&#8217;ve been mindful about the ongoing debate around the show. So on the advice of medical experts, including Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, we&#8217;ve decided with creator Brian Yorkey and the producers to edit the scene in which Hannah takes her own life from season one.&#8221;
The original three-minute scene featured the character Hannah (actress Katherine Langford) taking a razor blade to her left wrist while sitting in the bathtub as blood gushes from a cut extending all the way up to her elbow. It didn&#8217;t stop there.
&#8220;Hannah is then seen gasping for air as her breathing ultimately slows and bloodstained water tips out of the tub,&#8221; reports THR. &#8220;Not long after, Hannah&#8217;s mother (Kate Walsh) discovers her daughter&#8217;s lifeless body in the blood-filled tub. Male lead Dylan Minnette provides voiceover during the entire scene as he tells the school&#8217;s guidance counselor (played by Derek Luke) precisely what happened to Hannah.&#8221;
The new scene will simply feature Hannah assessing her life in the mirror and then cutting to her mother&#8217;s reaction to the suicide. Netflix insiders told THR that the streaming platform will be working to monitor any pirated clips that feature the original scene.
Brian Yorkey, the show&#8217;s creator, said in a statement on Tuesday that he initially intended &#8220;13 Reasons Why&#8221; to spark empathy in those who viewed it.
&#8220;It was our hope, in making &#8217;13 Reasons Why&#8217; into a television show, to tell a story that would help young viewers feel seen and heard and encourage empathy in all who viewed it, much as the best-selling book did before us,&#8221; Yorkey said. &#8220;Our creative intent in portraying the ugly, painful reality of suicide in such graphic detail in season one was to tell the truth about the horror of such an act and make sure no one would ever wish to emulate it.&#8221;
&#8220;But as we ready to launch season three, we have heard concerns about the scene from Dr. Christine Moutier at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and others, and have agreed with Netflix to re-edit it,&#8221; Yorkey continued. &#8220;No one scene is more important than the life of the show and its message that we must take better care of each other. We believe this edit will help the show do the most good for the most people while mitigating any risk for especially vulnerable young viewers.&#8221;
The move to edit the scene comes upon the heels of Netflix recently announcing it would be limiting depictions of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49233/netflix-diminish-depictions-onscreen-smoking-teen-paul-bois">on-screen smoking</a> in its original shows and movies. This past April, NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718529255/teen-suicide-spiked-after-debut-of-netflixs-13-reasons-why-report-says">reported</a> on a study that showed &#8220;13 Reasons Why&#8221; correlated with a spike in teen suicide rates.
&#8220;In the month following the show&#8217;s debut in March 2017, there was a 28.9% increase in suicide among Americans ages 10-17, said the <a href="https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(19)30288-6/fulltext">study</a>, published Monday in the &#8216;Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,'&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718529255/teen-suicide-spiked-after-debut-of-netflixs-13-reasons-why-report-says">reported</a> NPR. &#8220;The number of suicides was greater than that seen in any single month over the five-year period researchers examined. Over the rest of the year, there were 195 more youth suicides than expected given historical trends.&#8221;
In June of last year, as Netflix renewed &#8220;13 Reasons Why&#8221; for its third season, company CEO Reed Hastings <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31592/netflix-ceo-defends-13-reasons-why-nobody-has-paul-bois">dismissed critics</a> by saying &#8220;nobody has to watch it.&#8221;
&#8220;&#8217;13 Reasons Why&#8217; has been enormously popular and successful. It’s engaging content,&#8221; Hastings said during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. &#8220;It is controversial. But nobody has to watch it.&#8221;

Netflix Cuts Graphic Suicide Scene From ‘13 Reasons Why’

Hollywood

Netflix

Suicide

Infamously anti-Trump surgeon Eugene Gu claimed in a tweet posted Friday that it is “a scientific and medical fact that men can get pregnant and also have abortions.”
“It’s a scientific and medical fact that men can get pregnant and also have abortions,” he wrote. “Trans men and non-binary individuals are human beings who deserve to be acknowledged by society. They choose their own identity — not me, not you, not any doctor, and certainly not any politician.”
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">It’s a scientific and medical fact that men can get pregnant and also have abortions. Trans men and non-binary individuals are human beings who deserve to be acknowledged by society. They choose their own identity—not me, not you, not any doctor, and certainly not any politician.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) <a href="https://twitter.com/eugenegu/status/1149723485150691329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The tweet was met with mockery and blowback.
“In a world where medical science bows down and worships the gods and goddesses of political ideology, doctors say things like this &#8230;,” pro-life activist Obianuju Ekeocha captioned the outrageous tweet.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">In a world where medical science bows down and worships the gods and goddesses of political ideology, doctors say things like this&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/EAeXJgPOJp">https://t.co/EAeXJgPOJp</a>
— Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) <a href="https://twitter.com/obianuju/status/1150536921116008451?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Conservative writer Mark Hemingway mocked Gu with a list of doctors he “would solicit for medical advice before” Mr. Gu.
“The following is a list of doctors I would solicit for medical advice before consulting Eugene Gu, MD,” he wrote. &#8220;1. Dr. Rosen Rosen, 2. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, 3. Dr. Mabuse, 4. Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush, 5. Dr. Zaius.”
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">The following is a list of doctors I would solicit for medical advice before consulting Eugene Gu, MD:
1. Dr. Rosen Rosen 
2. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson 
3. Dr. Mabuse 
4. Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush 
5. Dr. Zaius <a href="https://t.co/IJg3XCASRs">https://t.co/IJg3XCASRs</a>
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) <a href="https://twitter.com/Heminator/status/1150556022731399175?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
The Federalist’s Inez Stepman joined in: “Dr. Pepper.”
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">Dr. Pepper.
— Inez Stepman (@InezFeltscher) <a href="https://twitter.com/InezFeltscher/status/1150804459385229314?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
“Don’t forget Hugh Laurie,” added Daily Wire contributor Harry Khachatrian.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">Don’t forget Hugh Laurie
— Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) <a href="https://twitter.com/Harry1T6/status/1150638171232833536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Another Twitter user accused Gu of attempting to erase women.
“I’m all for trans rights, have been out there on the protest lines. But this sounds like another way men are erasing women,” the account posted.
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">I&#8217;m all for trans rights, have been out there on the protest lines. But this sounds like another way men are erasing women
— Bmblbeeb (@Bmblbeeb) <a href="https://twitter.com/Bmblbeeb/status/1149725511238602753?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Gu is comfortably in the company of many high-ranking Democrats when he speaks of men allegedly getting pregnant and needing abortions. Last month, Julian Castro, who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development under former President Barack Obama, said biological men must have abortion “rights.”
“Let’s also not forget someone in the trans community, a trans female, is poor, doesn&#8217;t mean they shouldn&#8217;t have the right to exercise that right to choose,” <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48929/pc-insanity-julian-castros-transgender-abortion-hank-berrien">stated</a> Mr. Castro.
Gu’s claim to fame is kneeling to apparently protest America&#8217;s pervasive racism, a nod to anthem-kneeling former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The persistent Trump-basher even sued the president after Trump blocked him on Twitter; Trump was eventually forced to unblock Gu’s account.
As <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/industries/health-care/2018/06/08/vanderbilt-doctor-eugene-gu-fired-donald-trump/684562002/">reported</a> by the Tennessean last year, Dr. Gu was canned three years into a five-year surgical residency at Vanderbilt. Though Gu complained that his contract was not renewed because of his political activism, Vanderbilt said he was let go due to his “work performance and professionalism,” the outlet noted.
“The take-home message here is that there is an unwritten rule for surgical residents and that is rule is, always make your program look good and always make your hospital look good, and often that means stay silent,” Gu said, according to the Tennessean. “But as an Asian-American physician, unlike a white doctor, I don’t always have the same luxury to stay silent.&#8221;

Famed Anti-Trump Surgeon Wrecked For Tweet About Men Getting Pregnant

Abortion

Transgender

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was seen shaking in public for the third time in less than a month, raising new questions about her health.
The latest incident was captured by TV cameras as Merkel attended a military ceremony welcoming Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne in Berlin, NBC News <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/angela-merkel-seen-shaking-public-third-time-month-n1028131?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma">reported</a>. Just as she was during the last incident, Merkel was asked about her health after the ceremony, to which she responded: &#8220;I&#8217;m doing really well and one shouldn&#8217;t worry.&#8221;
Bild, a German tabloid, wrote an article after Merkel’s latest public incident titled, “Third trembling attack in three weeks.” The paper followed this up with another article asking whether Merkel was required to “tell us how she is really doing.” NBC reported Germany has “strict privacy laws regarding personal medical information.”
Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-merkel/merkel-has-third-bout-of-shaking-says-she-is-fine-and-working-through-issue-idUSKCN1U5154">reported</a> that Merkel said after the latest incident that she was “working through” the issue and added that “just as it happened one day, so it will disappear.”
“I am fine,” Merkel said after her meeting with Rinne. “I have recently said that I am working through what happened during the military honors with President Zelensky.”
She added: “This process is clearly not finished yet but there is progress and I must live with this for a while but I am very well and you don’t need to worry about me.”
As to what that “process” is, she didn’t elaborate, but insisted the was “convinced that I am quite capable [of doing my job].”
As Reuters reported, she has not indicated what, if any, medical condition she is working through and has “no history of serious health issues.”
As The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48925/merkel-unwell-german-chancellor-seen-shaking-ashe-schow">previously reported</a>, Merkel was filmed shaking two weeks ago at a farewell ceremony for Justice Minister Katarina Barley. Merkel can be seen holding on to her arms as if she’s trying to stop herself from shaking. When someone offered her a glass of water, she waved them off.
A spokesman for the chancellor later <a href="https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/06/27/europe/angela-merkel-shaking-scli-intl/index.html">told CNN</a> that Merkel was “fine.”
“Everything is taking place as planned. The chancellor is well,&#8221; the spokesman said.
A week or so earlier, while meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Merkel was filmed shaking. She later claimed she was merely dehydrated, hence the water offering during her next episode.
“Since then I have drunk at least three glasses of water — I obviously needed that and so I&#8217;m doing very well now,&#8221; Merkel said after the incident.
After Merkel’s second episode, CNN reported that tremors could be caused “by a number of conditions, ranging from neurological disorders to less serious issues such as medicinal side effects, stress or caffeine consumption.”
While this is the third recent incident, Reuters pointed out that Merkel was also seen shaking on a hot day in 2017.
Merkel announced last year that she would not seek re-election when her term ends in 2021. Reuters reported that if Merkel became “incapacitated, [German President Frank-Walter] Steinmeier would appoint a cabinet minister as acting chancellor until parliament elects a new chancellor.”

‘DOING WELL’: Angela Merkel Filmed Shaking For Third Time In Three Weeks

Angela Merkel

A Canadian doctor who specializes in transgender &#8220;top surgery&#8221; is showing off his young patients online to promote his practice, causing alarm from social media users.
Dr. Hugh A. McLean’s practice, the McLean Clinic, generated attention when a tweet posted on Sunday highlighted the doctor’s younger patients.
&#8220;Some patients at this top surgery McLean clinic look incredibly young, I’d even say underage,” the user posted. “Our brains don’t fully form until 25, but teenagers are being allowed to get these life changing mutilating procedures and someone is getting very rich off them.”
Four photos of young patients from McLean’s Instagram account were screen-shotted and included in the tweet.
<div class="embed tweet"></div>
“Dr. McLean and Dr. McEvenue are cosmetic plastic surgeons specializing in transgender female to male top surgery,” the Instagram bio for the clinic reads.
Replies to the post were mostly from alarmed social media users. “Oh my heart hurts seeing this,” one comment said, while another woman wrote, “This is child abuse&#8230; I weep for humanity.” Other comments said: “Exploiting emotionally vulnerable children for money instead of sending them to a psychologist. What a world we live in,” and, simply, “This is horrifying.”
Other commenters claimed the surgery was fine since the youths in question presumably wanted the life-changing procedure. For example, one person said, “Frankly, you get absolutely no say in this. This is between us and our doctors.&#8221;
As previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/9298/transgender-8-year-old-featured-dallas-pride-amanda-prestigiacomo">noted</a> by The Daily Wire, studies show that the rate of children who grow out of their sexual confusion about their identity by adulthood is upward of <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-transgender-battle-line-childhood-1451952794?mod=djemMER">80%</a>. And scores of children who were allegedly victimized by the “<a href="https://pjmedia.com/parenting/2016/08/21/real-life-victims-of-the-transgender-cult/">transgender cult</a>” have shared their tragic stories with the world, warning against mutilating &#8220;trans&#8221; children&#8217;s bodies.
&#8220;I am a real, live 22-year-old woman, with a scarred chest and a broken voice, and five o&#8217;clock shadow because I couldn’t face the idea of growing up to be a woman, that’s my reality,” Cari Stella, a de-transitioned blogger, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L2jyEDwpEw">shared</a>. ”Gender was done to me, gender was traumatizing to me, I don&#8217;t want anything to do with it anymore. &#8230; It can be damn hard to figure out that the treatment you&#8217;re being told is to help you is actually making your mental health worse. Testosterone made me even more dissociated than I already was.”
In 2016, Time Magazine <a href="http://time.com/4595422/transgender-survey-data-united-states/">reported</a> on a National Center for Transgender Equality survey that looked at the largest sampling of transgender people at the time. “The U.S. Transgender Survey found that a whopping 40 percent of trans people have attempted suicide, compared to just 4.6 percent of the general population. That is, a trans person is more than eight times more likely to try to kill themselves than a non-trans person,” The Daily Wire noted.

SHOCK: Doctor Shows Off Young Transgender &#8216;Top Surgery&#8217; Patients On Instagram

Canada

We are still more than a year away from the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but no matter who is officially named as President Donald Trump’s opponent, we already know he or she will be pushing for a government takeover of the health care sector.
The only question is how fast.
All of the top U.S. senator candidates, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), have endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-VT) “Medicare For All” health care bill. This is the most direct route to government-run medicine.
But while former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg have, so far, declined to sign on to Sanders legislation, they both have endorsed “single-payer lite” alternatives that purportedly let Americans “buy-in” to Medicare.
Unfortunately, as Juniper Research Group CEO Chris Jacobs explains in his <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Single-Payer-System_And/dp/1645720020">new book, “The Case Against Single Payer,”</a> all of these Medicare buy-in plans are simply slightly slower ways to get to the desired single-payer goal.
The problem with all of these plans, from both “Medicare For All to “Medicare For All Who Want It,” is that they are all pegged to the Medicare reimbursement system.
The thing is, doctors and hospitals do not get paid the same amount for every patient they see. Each private insurer negotiates a rate with hospitals, and then the government sets the rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients.
And hospitals get paid far less for the Medicare and Medicaid patients they serve. Currently, Medicare pays hospitals just 60% of what private insurance pays and Medicaid pays just 61%. If hospitals could only charge the Medicare reimbursement rate, many of them would go out of business. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 72% of hospitals lost money on their Medicare patients in 2017.
So, if most hospitals are losing money on every Medicare patient they serve, then where are they making all their money? From private insurance. And this is why the Medicare “buy-in” plans are no better than the “Medicare For All” plans.
The more people “buy-in” to Medicare, the more Medicare patients hospitals serve, and the more hospitals have to recuperate that money by charging private insurance more. The more insurers have to pay hospitals, the higher insurance premiums go, causing more and more people to “buy-in” to Medicare.
“Medicare For All Who Want It” plans are really just a death spiral for private insurance that will eventually lead to “Medicare For All Whether They Want It Or Not.”
“Good!” single-payer advocates will say. The sooner private insurance dies the better! “The insurance companies last year alone sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system, $23 billion,” Sen. Warren said at the first Democratic debate.
But as Jacobs notes in his book, when you start to look at all the fraud and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid systems, that $23 billion in insurance profits starts to look like a bargain. In 2018 alone, Medicare ($48.5 billion) and Medicaid ($36.2 billion) made $84.7 billion in fraudulent and improper payments. Not a dime of that money made a single patient healthier. It was a pure loss for taxpayers.
And that number would only skyrocket if Medicare became the only way Americans were allowed to finance health care. “In 2018,” Jacobs writes, “Americans spent nearly $3.65 trillion on health care. If a single-payer system in control of all that health spending maintains an improper payment rate equal to the current fee-for-service Medicare program, that would imply approximately $296.1 billion in spending on fraudulent or improper payments every year.”
There are many more reasons Americans should reject single-payer health care, and Jacobs touches on many of them in his book, including: Doctors being forced to perform abortions, the doubling all personal and corporate income taxes, and the loss of 1.5 million hospital jobs.
Our current system definitely has its flaws, and Jacobs has some suggestions on how to make it better; but the last thing we should do is double down on the worst parts of our existing system. Single-payer health care, however, would do just that.
Mike Lee, a Republican, is the senior U.S. senator from Utah.

LEE: Everything You Need To Know To Fight Single-Payer

Democratic Socialism

Medicaid

Medicare

Socialism

As Netflix <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31592/netflix-ceo-defends-13-reasons-why-nobody-has-paul-bois">exploits teen suicide</a>, threatens to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/47762/netflix-may-consider-boycotting-filming-georgia-kassy-dillon">boycott Georgia</a> for protecting unborn children, and denounces the term <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/46166/netflix-denounces-term-chick-flick-offensive-paul-bois">&#8220;chick flick&#8221; as offensive</a>, the streaming platform has now suddenly had a &#8220;come to Jesus&#8221; moment on its depictions of smoking cigarettes.
&#8220;Netflix says it will cut back on depictions of smoking in its shows in the wake of a report that called out the streamer for the number of instances in which characters use tobacco in shows like <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/topic/stranger-things" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Stranger Things</a>,&#8221; according to <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/netflix-vows-curb-onscreen-smoking-stranger-things-criticism-1222797">The Hollywood Reporter</a>.
In a statement to CNN, a Netflix spokesperson said that all shows with a TV-14 rating or movies with PG-13 ratings will no longer depict smoking unless the story absolutely needs it.
&#8220;Going forward, all new projects that we commission with ratings of TV-14 or below for series or PG-13 or below for films, will be smoking and e-cigarette free — except for reasons of historical or factual accuracy,&#8221; said the spokesperson.
The spokesperson added that Netflix still supports artistic expression and will be including tobacco warnings in the ratings box. &#8220;Netflix strongly supports artistic expression,&#8221; the statement continued. &#8220;We also recognize that smoking is harmful and when portrayed positively on screen can adversely influence young people.&#8221;
The announcement comes on the heels of a Truth Initiative <a href="https://truthinitiative.org/sites/default/files/media/files/2019/07/WUWS-SOD-FINAL.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">report</a> released last week that showed Netflix had nearly tripled the number of scenes depicting tobacco use (866) in just one year.
&#8220;[Netflix] topped the list with nearly triple the number of tobacco instances (866) compared with the prior year (299),&#8221; the study found. &#8220;Smoking on the small screen has gone from common to nearly unavoidable, as popular programs like &#8216;Stranger Things,&#8217; [Netflix&#8217;s] &#8216;Orange Is the New Black&#8217; and [ABC&#8217;s] &#8216;Modern Family&#8217; increasingly show images of tobacco and portray characters who smoke.&#8221;
&#8220;For both the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, episodic programming on Netflix had a greater total number of tobacco depictions than programs aired on broadcast or cable TV, with Stranger Things continuing to show the most tobacco overall,&#8221; the report continued. &#8220;Researchers found that 100 percent of &#8216;Stranger Things&#8217; episodes coded included tobacco.&#8221;
Regardless of the moral questions behind depictions of tobacco on screen, Netflix caving to this one report from Truth Initiative stands in stark contrast to the leadership&#8217;s treatment toward critics of shows like &#8220;13 Reasons Why,&#8221; which has led to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718529255/teen-suicide-spiked-after-debut-of-netflixs-13-reasons-why-report-says">an actual spike in teen suicide rates</a>.
&#8220;In the month following the show&#8217;s debut in March 2017, there was a 28.9% increase in suicide among Americans ages 10-17, said the <a href="https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(19)30288-6/fulltext">study</a>, published Monday in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry,&#8221; <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/30/718529255/teen-suicide-spiked-after-debut-of-netflixs-13-reasons-why-report-says">reported</a> NPR this past April. &#8220;The number of suicides was greater than that seen in any single month over the five-year period researchers examined. Over the rest of the year, there were 195 more youth suicides than expected given historical trends.&#8221;
In June of last year, as Netflix renewed &#8220;13 Reasons Why&#8221; for its third season, company CEO Reed Hastings <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/31592/netflix-ceo-defends-13-reasons-why-nobody-has-paul-bois">dismissed critics</a> by saying &#8220;nobody has to watch it.&#8221;
&#8220;&#8217;13 Reasons Why&#8217; has been enormously popular and successful. It’s engaging content,&#8221; Hastings said during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. &#8220;It is controversial. But nobody has to watch it.&#8221;

Netflix To Diminish Depictions Of Onscreen Smoking. Teen Suicide Still Okay.

This article has been updated since its original publication.
Actress and new-age wellness enthusiast Gwyneth Paltrow has been called an &#8220;extortionist&#8221; for having people pay $5,700 to her wellness summit in London that turned out to be little more than a sales pitch for her company, Goop &#8212; while Paltrow remained absent throughout most of the event.
&#8220;One attendee told us that a prominent British guest was so appalled by the aggressive Goop hype that she sent a WhatsApp message to fellow attendees saying, &#8216;GP [what the Goop community calls Paltrow] is a f&#8202;***ing extortionist,'&#8221; reports <a href="https://pagesix.com/2019/07/02/fury-at-gwyneth-over-wellness-summit-a-f%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8aking-extortionist/">Page Six</a>. &#8220;Those at the event this weekend were urged to book rooms through Goop at $1,300 for two nights at the Kimpton Fitzroy London Hotel, but some later discovered that rates that weekend started at $250 a night.&#8221;
The few times that Gwyneth did appear at the summit, one guest described her as being a pretentious snob who hijacked wellness rhetoric to line her pockets. Not once, they allege, did she appear without an armada of security around her, nor did she make herself approachable to the people who had paid upwards of $6,000 to attend the summit.
&#8220;Gwyneth acts like she&#8217;s a health goddess, but actually she&#8217;s a pretentious, greedy extortionist. She had a ton of security &#8230;. She was unapproachable,&#8221; the summit guest told the outlet. &#8220;She did the minimum &#8212; a few fireside chats with Twiggy and Penelope Cruz, then she put on her Birkenstocks and snuck out &#8230; I was a huge fan of Gwyneth; now I feel like I have lost my faith in God.&#8221;
The event featuring Paltrow essentially boiled down to her dishing out wellness platitudes, like &#8220;creativity with your hands is like channeling God,&#8221; while a merchandise store charged people $55 for a vibrator named &#8220;The Millionaire&#8221; because it apparently &#8220;feels like a million bucks.&#8221;
A Goop representative refuted the claims to Page Six, arguing that the high price included free extras such as &#8220;golden facials and &#8216;far-infrared gemstone therapy,&#8217; as well as health panels not connected to Goop.&#8221; The representative also claimed that Paltrow made herself approachable in other Q&amp;A settings.
&#8220;In addition to walking around the summit, she also hosted an intimate workout class with Tracy &#8230; followed by &#8230; a panel, where she and Tracy answered attendee questions in an honest, casual setting,&#8221; the representative said. &#8220;We have not received negative feedback &#8230; [It] was more along the lines of, &#8216;Thanks for an amazing weekend!&#8217;&#8202;&#8221;
Whether or not Gwyneth Paltrow delivered on her promises, people willing to spend that much money on her health summits should have been aware of the fact that her so-called &#8220;wellness&#8221; company has been severely scrutinized by the medical and science community for giving people faulty advice.
&#8220;When it comes to health tips, the site is full of dodgy information, with unfounded warnings about things that are safe &#8212; like <a href="http://goop.com/could-there-possibly-be-a-link-between-underwire-bras-and-breast-cancer/">bras</a> and <a href="http://goop.com/the-8-best-clean-sunscreens/">sunscreen</a>&#8212; and zealous promotion of things with little-to-no proven benefits &#8212; like <a href="http://goop.com/does-detoxing-really-work/">cleanses</a> and <a href="http://goop.com/city-guide/infrared-saunas-detox-spas-and-the-best-spots-for-colonics/los-angeles/">vaginal steaming</a>, not to mention various trendy diets. Some of the alternative medicine practices on the site could even be dangerous,&#8221; reports <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gwyneth-paltrow-goop-bad-health-advice-2016-5">Business Insider</a>.
UPDATE:
In an email to The Daily Wire, a representative from Goop denounced the original Page Six story as &#8220;inaccurate&#8221; for not including the full statement from the company in defense of Gwyneth Paltrow. 
&#8220;The overwhelming response to our London Summit was incredibly positive. It should be noted that the actual value of the weekend package was over $8000,&#8221; said the full Goop statement. &#8220;The cost included a hotel suite (valued at $1600) and a gift bag valued at $3000, among other items. During the event, Gwyneth opened the day, conducted three fireside chats (almost half the day&#8217;s panels) and hosted a workout and Q &amp; A the next day.&#8221;
The representative also clarified the reason behind the high costs, noting that Page Six provided just three statements out of 250 people. 
&#8220;These statements to Page Six are from three attendees (out of 250), and are not representative of the actual response to the event,&#8221; the rep said. &#8220;The $200/ night hotel room mentioned in the original story was an urban double, and not inclusive of VAT or breakfast, while our guests had the highest category room inclusive of both, hence the discrepancy in price.&#8221;

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