Texas Man and Dairy Cattle Test Positive for Bird Flu
A man in Texas has tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu after direct exposure to infected dairy cattle. While this is the second recent case of bird flu identified in humans in the United States, it is the first time the disease has been found in dairy cattle.1 The first case of H5N1 in […]
NC Court Rules Federal PREP Act Protects Forced Vaccination Without Parental Consent
A North Carolina Court of Appeals found that a clinic, where personnel gave a 14-year-old boy a COVID-19 shot without his consent or parental consent, was protected by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act). The court concluded that the Guilford Board of Education, which hosted the clinic, was also covered by the […]
Antidepressant Prescriptions for Young Females Dramatically Increased During COVID Pandemic
A study recently published in the journal Pediatrics found that antidepressant use in young people 12-25 years old rose 64 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic and the vast portion of this increase was seen in females. After March 2020, the rate of antidepressant prescriptions written monthly for adolescent girls 12-17 years old rose 130 percent, […]
FDA No Longer Requires Animal Testing Before Human Clinical Trials
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is no longer requiring pharmaceutical companies to test new drugs and biologics (vaccines) on animals prior to human clinical trials and licensure. This is a change that animal welfare advocates have been pushing for a long time. In December 2022, President Biden signed legislation ending a requirement that […]
U.S. Government is Funding Gain-of-Function Research in China to Make Bird Flu More Infectious
The U.S government is again funding gain-of-function (GoF) research with Chinese scientists to make a dangerous virus even more potent. This time it is with birds not bats. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave $1 million to fund risky research on bird flu viruses to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China; the […]
FDA Removes Informed Consent Protections from Some Human Clinical Trials
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a final rule that authorizes some experimental human clinical trials to operate without first obtaining informed consent from participants. The new rule, which took effect on Jan. 22, 2024, allows clinical investigations that pose no more than a “minimal risk” and have appropriate safeguards to protect […]
