Health News Stories

Excerpts of Key Health News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on health from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

For further exploration, delve into our comprehensive Health and Food Corruption Information Center.

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Massachusetts health officials on Tuesday reported ... 290 more deaths in people with breakthrough cases. In the last week, 27,530 new breakthrough cases - infections in people who have been vaccinated - were reported, with 555 more vaccinated people hospitalized over the period. It's a 40% drop in the rate of new breakthrough cases in Massachusetts - the previous week saw 46,092 new COVID infections in vaccinated people. On Tuesday ... there were 127 new deaths reported -- a statistic that includes three days because of the weekend -- bringing the death toll to 21,546. The seven-day average test positivity stands at 7.13%. In December, Massachusetts Department of Public Health officials released a study that found that 97% of breakthrough cases in the state did not become severely ill and rarely led to deaths, especially among young people. Massachusetts' COVID metrics, tracked on the Department of Public Health's interactive coronavirus dashboard, have been trending downward after spiking to heights not seen since previous surges, a peak thought to be driven at least in part by the omicron variant.

Note: As of Jan. 31, 2022, Massachusetts had a total of 21,546 COVID deaths as reported above. Their first COVID death was on Mar. 20, 2020. So over the 97 weeks since the start of the pandemic, they averaged 222 deaths a week. Yet in the last week of January 2022, this NBC article reports 290 breakthrough deaths. So the number of deaths among the vaccinated in that one week was greater than the average weekly number of deaths for the whole pandemic. Weren't these vaccines supposed to be 90% effective or more?

In May, a long-awaited randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 clinical trial testing MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of PTSD was published in Nature Medicine. The trial was conducted by MAPS Public Benefit Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary launched by the registered non-profit in 2014, with the goal of conducting the necessary research to make MDMA a legally available medicine. "We are a for-profit, but we're wholly owned. We only have one shareholder, and it's a non-profit," says CEO Amy Emerson. While a non-profit is tax exempt and operates for charity, the PBC, like a traditional corporation, pays taxes, operates for profit, and has shareholders and stocks. The results of the Phase 3 clinical trial conducted by MAPS PBC revealed that after receiving a combination of talk therapy and MDMA, 67 percent of participants who received the drug no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, compared to 32 percent of participants who received the placebo. The trial was recently acknowledged as a "big win for the field" in Science Magazine's annual Breakthrough of the Year awards. "In our three-session model, there's no follow-up medication needed," [MAPS CMO Dr. Corine de Boer] says. After pooling the data of six Phase 2 trials together, de Boer's team found that 57 percent of participants no longer met the criteria for PTSD. At a one-year follow-up during which no MDMA was administered, that number increased to 67 percent.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the healing potentials of mind-altering drugs from reliable major media sources.

McMaster Children's Hospital says it has seen a steady increase of youth in crisis since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Youth admitted for medical support after a suicide attempt has tripled over a four-month period, compared to last year. The hospital also said that patients are staying in hospital longer due to more serious attempts. A large number of these youth have reported COVID-related issues such as lack of social interaction, increased conflict at home, and the inability to rely on friends as main contributors. Over the same time period, youth admitted with substance use disorders has doubled compared to last year. In particular, the use of potentially deadly opioids has increased. The number of cases admitted to hospital with predominant symptoms of psychosis has doubled, with the large majority related to substance use. Meanwhile, McMaster Children's Hospital says referrals to its Eating Disorders Program have increased by 90 per cent in a four-month period, compared to last year. Admissions are projected to increase by 33 per cent over the 12-months since the pandemic started. "It's unprecedented," says clinical manager Paul Agar.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus and health from reliable major media sources.

European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible. Repeat booster doses every four months could eventually weaken the immune response and tire out people, according to the European Medicines Agency. Instead, countries should leave more time between booster programs and tie them to the onset of the cold season in each hemisphere, following the blueprint set out by influenza vaccination strategies, the agency said. The advice comes as some countries consider the possibility of offering people second booster shots in a bid to provide further protection against surging omicron infections. Earlier this month Israel became the first nation to start administering a second booster, or fourth shot, to those over 60. The U.K. has said that boosters are providing good levels of protection and there is no need for a second booster shot at the moment, but will review data as it evolves. Boosters "can be done once, or maybe twice, but it's not something that we can think should be repeated constantly," Marco Cavaleri, the EMA head of biological health threats and vaccines strategy, said at a press briefing on Tuesday. "We need to think about how we can transition from the current pandemic setting to a more endemic setting."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Pregnant women have long been assured that acetaminophen can treat their aches, pains and fevers without bringing harm to the babies they carry. Now researchers say they have found a strong link between prenatal use of the medication and cases of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in children. The results, published ... in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, add to growing evidence that the active ingredient in Tylenol may influence brain development in utero. But they do not provide clear answers for mothers-to-be or their doctors about whether acetaminophen is safe during pregnancy. In analyzing data on more than 64,000 Danish women and their children, researchers found that kids whose mothers took the painkiller at any point during pregnancy were 29% more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than were kids whose mothers took none. The risk increased the most – by 63% – when acetaminophen was taken during the second and third trimesters, and by 28% when used in the third trimester alone. But when taken only in the first trimester, the added risk was 9%. Members of the research team had long suspected that acetaminophen may behave as an endocrine-disrupting chemical capable of influencing fetal brain development. The drug is known to cross the placental barrier between mother and fetus, and some studies have found higher rates of male babies with undescended testicles born to women who took it during pregnancy.

Note: Another study on Tylenol found a two-fold increase in risk of children being born with both ADHD and autism. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.

After 30 years of immunology research, [Louis Picker] is on the verge of launching human trials for a vaccine that could stop AIDS, an epidemic that has become something of an afterthought decades after it began ravaging gay men in America. For many in the developed world, complacency has set in, largely thanks to a regimen of antiretroviral drugs that allow people with HIV to live long and healthy lives, and decades of failed attempts to develop a vaccine. In 1984, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Margaret Heckler expressed hope ... that science might have a vaccine for HIV within two years. Instead, a decade passed, and by 1994, AIDS was the leading cause of death for Americans ages 25 to 44. Four vaccines have made it to human trials, but none made it to market. As Picker continued his research, scientists developed a series of antiretroviral drugs that slowly downgraded HIV to a chronic disease ... in the developed world. But globally, AIDS is still killing a lot of people, largely because most of those infected in poorer countries don't have access to the drugs. According to the World Health Organization, 1.1 million people died from AIDS in 2015. In the U.S., 50,000 new cases of HIV are reported every year. Worldwide, the number is 2 million. Every time news reports come out about Picker's research, he fields a series of phone calls from HIV-infected patients, their friends and their family. "Can I be in your trial?" people ask him. "Please, can you save my son?"

Note: How is it that COVID-19 vaccines were created just months after it became a threat while many decades later no vaccine has been found for the deadly AIDS epidemic, which according to the WHO has killed 36 million - many times the number of deaths from COVID? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.

A year ago, just two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine – or even one, in the case of Johnson & Johnson's formulation – were thought to offer sufficient protection against the coronavirus. On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded eligibility for boosters to adolescents and backed away from describing anyone as "fully vaccinated" because two shots no longer seem adequate. Instead, one's vaccination status will now be "up to date" – or not. It's no surprise that many Americans are wondering: Where does this end? Are we to roll up our sleeves for booster shots every few months? Scientists are reluctant to predict the future. But in interviews this week, nearly a dozen said that whatever happens, trying to boost the entire population every few months is not realistic. Nor does it make much scientific sense. For starters, persuading people to line up for shots every few months is probably a losing proposition. Just as important, there are no data to support the effectiveness of a fourth dose of the current vaccines. If the coronavirus settles into a flulike seasonal pattern, as it seems possible, "you can imagine a scenario where we simply give boosters before the winter each year," Dr. Hensley said. Lessons from flu season also suggest that frequent vaccination is unlikely to be helpful. Giving the flu vaccine twice a year "has a diminishing return, and so it may not make sense to do vaccination so frequently," said [epidemiologist] Ben Cowling.

Note: Could it be that this is what big Pharma has been hoping for all along - forever boosting? And if it's all free, you won't even see how billions of your tax dollars are flowing into the pockets of the elite. Could this be why the Australian government on their website stated they are securing 195 million doses of COVID vaccine boosters for their population of 25 million? For more, see this revealing article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Psychedelics startups don't just want to just reinvent mental health. They also want to reinvent capitalism. And judging by the news coming out of last week's "Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics" conference in Manhattan, they're having some early success. Stephen Jurvetson, co-founder of Future Ventures and a board member at SpaceX, told me ... that he's a true believer in the industry's mission to fix the state of mental-health care. He decided last week to carve up his own estate by giving around half of his net worth to fund psychedelic science. Organizations like the public-benefit corporation of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies, or MAPS, and the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, a nonprofit organization, have both accepted charitable donations but fund research that could lead to blockbuster drugs. Psychedelics startups do need funding, and badly. Like biotech, it's a high-risk industry with expensive clinical trials and regulatory uncertainty. And patents, a traditional financial engine for biotech, are harder to win for plants that have been around for centuries, or molecules that have already made the rounds as street drugs. MAPS also made a major announcement: The New York-based venture capital fund Vine Ventures has created a $70 million special purpose vehicle to fund its Phase 3 clinical trials on post-traumatic stress disorder and MDMA. The novel funding method ... will help keep MAPS a nonprofit while letting it retain control of its intellectual property.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the healing potentials of mind-altering drugs from reliable major media sources.

Legal psychedelic medicine is poised to soon disrupt the multibillion-dollar mental health field. Treatments being trialed today in clinical settings using substances like psilocybin-containing mushrooms will soon offer legal alternatives to the more than 50 percent of patients receiving therapy for major depressive disorder (MDD) who do not respond to approved depression medications. The creation of new effective therapies will likely put pressure on healthcare providers to examine the upside of psychedelic therapies and how such treatments will inevitably affect their bottom line. While these therapies will not be a cure-all for everyone, over the next three to five years an expanding number of psychedelic treatments will produce alternatives for the many patients who find no relief from FDA-approved, first-line therapeutics like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Since legalizing the use of psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms in 2020 through a ballot measure, Oregon is now in the process of creating an intricate statewide system for qualified caregivers to deliver psilocybin treatments in therapeutic settings. Sessions using psilocybin can last over six hours, which does not include vital therapy before and after treatments. MDMA-assisted therapy for severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which is very close to being an FDA-approved therapy, will likewise require significant clinician involvement before, during and after a session.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the healing potentials of mind-altering drugs from reliable major media sources.

Existing surveillance studies are not designed to reliably estimate life-threatening event or vaccine-induced fatality rates (VFR). Here, regional variation in vaccination rates was used to predict all-cause mortality and non-COVID deaths in subsequent time periods using two independent, publicly available datasets from the US and Europe. Results [suggest] 146K to 187K vaccine-associated US deaths between February and August, 2021. Comparing our estimate with the CDC-reported VFR (0.002%) suggests VAERS deaths are underreported by a factor of 20, consistent with known VAERS under-ascertainment bias. Comparing our age-stratified VFRs with published age-stratified coronavirus infection fatality rates (IFR) suggests the risks of COVID vaccines and boosters outweigh the benefits in children, young adults, and older adults with low occupational risk or previous coronavirus exposure. There is little to no evidence that vaccines reduce community spread and transmission. Vaccine mandates in workplaces, colleges, schools and elsewhere are ill-advised. The mandates are not based on sound science given the relatively low COVID risk in healthy middle-aged and young adults and growing evidence base for alternative prevention and early treatment options for COVID.

Note: See this webpage for information on the author of this study. Why has the media been all but silent on deaths and injuries from the vaccines? Read hundreds of personal stories of severe vaccine injury and death that are not being reported. And explore an excellent website which presents official VAERS information and in easily understandable format. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Arpad Pusztai spoke for only two and a half minutes during his interview for ITN's World in Action in 1998, but it was enough to end his career. The Hungarian-born expert in lectins, a type of protein, had spent decades working at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen and had almost 300 scientific papers and three books to his name. In the mid-1990s, with big food manufacturers increasingly developing and promoting genetically modified crops, he had been asked to investigate the effect that their products, specifically GM potatoes, could have on rats. His data showed that those being fed GM potatoes experienced stunted organ and brain growth and disturbance to their immune systems. Pusztai ... agreed to discuss his research on television in the hope of attracting new funding. His comments, which were promoted by the programme in a press release headed "new health fears over 'Frankenstein' food", started a media frenzy. Pusztai was suspended and his raw data was seized. According to [author Andrew] Rowell: "All GM work was stopped immediately and Pusztai's team was dispersed. His three PhD students were moved to other areas. He was threatened with legal action if he spoke to anyone. His phone calls and emails were diverted. No one was allowed to speak to him either." In Pusztai's telling ... the Rowett Institute came under pressure from senior figures in the government and the food industry. Two employees told him that the institute had taken calls from the office of Tony Blair, the prime minister.

Note: Read more about this important scientist. And for more on the dangers of GM food, see this important book summary. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and GMOs from reliable major media sources.

Drug makers and other healthcare companies spent almost $30 billion in a single year to influence the medical choices made by Americans and steer them toward treatments that were newer, vastly more expensive and sometimes riskier than their tried-and-true alternatives, new research shows. The 2016 expenditures paid for TV commercials, sponsorships of patients' groups, promotional meetings for doctors, free drug samples and perks for prescribers. The amount represents a 70% increase since 1997, when drug companies began making direct appeals to American consumers. The study ... offers the most comprehensive accounting of healthcare marketing efforts to date. It traces broad shifts in the media and regulatory environment in which health companies operate, as well as the drugs and services – including erectile dysfunction pills, DNA testing kits and robotic surgery services – they are keen to sell. While lawmakers and regulators have tried to counter the impact of healthcare marketing in recent years, the reforms have had little effect on an industry that accounts for nearly 18% of the country's gross domestic product. The drug industry has increasingly turned to a more indirect approach in its marketing: sponsoring disease-awareness campaigns. Such campaigns, in which a company sponsors ads that do not name a particular medication, rose from 44 in 1997 to 401 in 2016, with an attendant spending increase from $177 million to $430 million.

Note: The pharmaceutical industry provides 75% of television advertising revenue when many countries do not allow drug advertising. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma profiteering from reliable major media sources.

High COVID-19 vaccination rates were expected to reduce transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in populations by reducing the number of possible sources for transmission and thereby to reduce the burden of COVID-19 disease. Recent data, however, indicate that the epidemiological relevance of COVID-19 vaccinated individuals is increasing. In the UK it was described that secondary attack rates among household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases was similar to household contacts exposed to unvaccinated index cases (25% for vaccinated vs 23% for unvaccinated). 12 of 31 infections in fully vaccinated household contacts (39%) arose from fully vaccinated epidemiologically linked index cases. Between week 39 and 42, a total of 100.160 COVID-19 cases were reported among citizens of 60 years or older. 89.821 occurred among the fully vaccinated (89.7%), 3.395 among the unvaccinated (3.4%). One week before, the COVID-19 case rate per 100.000 was higher among the subgroup of the vaccinated compared to the subgroup of the unvaccinated. The [CDC] identifies four of the top five counties with the highest percentage of fully vaccinated population (99.9–84.3%) as "high" transmission counties. It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission.

Note: This paper in the UK's highly esteemed Lancet shows that the vaccines are not stopping the spread of infection of COVID. They clearly are greatly decreasing the number of hospitalizations and deaths among the vaccinated, but they are not helping to stop the spread of this virus. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Laurie Valeriano first heard about DINP decades ago. "I started to worry about the chemicals that come out of all these plastics," she said. DINP, one of a group of chemicals called phthalates that makes plastic more pliable, was one of them. It was already clear that DINP could cause cancer and interfere with hormonal functioning. In February 2000, Valeriano and her employer, the Washington Toxics Coalition, asked the Environmental Protection Agency to add DINP to the list of chemicals it monitors through a nationwide program called the Toxics Release Inventory. Seven months later ... the EPA announced that it planned to grant the group's request and issued a proposed rule that would add DINP to the toxics inventory. Yet more than 20 years later, the EPA has yet to make good on its promise to add DINP to the list of chemicals. It never finalized the rule. Companies have continued to churn out DINP ... in astounding amounts without disclosing how much individual plants make and emit. In addition to the cancer and hormone disruption that sparked Valeriano's claim 21 years ago, we now know more about how DINP affects the sexual development of children. It decreases sperm motility, increases malformations of the testes and other organs, and makes boys ... more likely to be infertile later in life. In fact, the entire group of phthalates – an estimated half-billion pounds of which are made and used in the U.S. each year – seem to cause a similar constellation of health problems.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health from reliable major media sources.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is rewriting history. He is doing so to disguise his shameful role in delaying promotion of an AIDS treatment that would have prevented tens of thousands of deaths in the first years of the epidemic. In my book, Body Counts, A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival, I recount how slow the federal government was in publicizing the use of Bactrim and other sulfa drugs to prevent PCP (the pneumonia that was then the leading killer of people with AIDS). Had Fauci listened to people with AIDS and the clinicians treating them, and responded accordingly, he would have saved thousands of lives. Between 1987, when [AIDS activist Michael] Callen met with Fauci and 1989, when the guidelines were ultimately issued, nearly 17,000 people with AIDS suffocated from PCP. Most of these people might have lived had Fauci responded appropriately. Callen and others ... met with Fauci to plead for his support. They explained that many frontline AIDS physicians, following the lead of Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, were already using Bactrim effectively to prevent the recurrence of PCP. The science was clear. Fauci refused to acknowledge the evidence and, according to one account, even encouraged people with AIDS to stop taking treatments, like Bactrim. Treatment activist Richard Jefferys wrote in 2001 that Fauci "went as far as telling activists attending a 1987 meeting that there was no data to suggest PCP prophylaxis was beneficial and that it may, in fact be dangerous."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health from reliable major media sources.

In his new bestselling book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, Children's Health Defense board chair and lead counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. provides readers with previously little-known information on Dr. Fauci's handling of pandemics prior to COVID including the AIDS epidemic. "...Dr. Fauci copied the choreographed script for winning remdesivir's EUA from the worn rabbit-eared playbook that he developed during his early AIDS years, and then used repeatedly across his career to win approvals for deadly and ineffective drugs," writes Kennedy. "Time and again, he has terminated clinical trials of his sweetheart drugs the moment they begin to reveal cataclysmic toxicity. He makes the absurd claim that his drug-du-jour had proven so miraculously effective that it would be unethical to deny it to the public, and then he strong-arms FDA to grant his approvals." One of the AIDS treatments promoted by Dr. Fauci and his agency [NIAID] was azidothymidine (AZT), a powerful and toxic chemotherapy drug used widely for AIDS patients despite the availability of less toxic options. AZT, according to SPIN magazine, is a drug that "was worse than the disease." Kennedy also exposes Dr. Fauci's experiments using various toxic AIDS drugs on Black and Hispanic foster children in New York and six other states.

Note: Read more about the foster children used as guinea pigs to test HIV drugs. If you don't have time for the whole book (rated 4.9 stars on amazon.com), you can find an engaging summary of key points on this webpage. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health from reliable major media sources.

Longtime vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a runaway bestseller on his hands with his blockbuster book skewering Dr. Anthony Fauci, no thanks to what his publisher calls a "total media blackout." "The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health" continued its reign Wednesday atop the Amazon and USA Today nonfiction bestseller lists and ranked fifth on The New York Times' list of top-selling books. The book is flying off the shelves even though technology platforms refuse to carry its advertising. Mainstream media outlets won't touch it, much to the frustration of Tony Lyons, president and publisher of Skyhorse Publishing. "I defy you to find a single case where the No. 1 bestselling book in America over a 16-day period has not been mentioned in one mainstream newspaper in the country," Mr. Lyons [said]. Not even the aura of the Kennedy name has tempted the mainstream media. The snub hasn't occurred in a vacuum. Mr. Kennedy became persona non grata after he launched his vaccine criticism in 2005. Dr. Fauci is a media favorite, and social media companies have cracked down on content that contests the coronavirus authorities in the name of squelching "misinformation." Among the book's claims are that the White House chief medical adviser oversaw the "disastrous mismanagement" of the 2020 pandemic and has prioritized the pharmaceutical industry over public health.

Note: If you don't have time for the whole book (rated 4.9 stars on amazon.com), you can find an engaging summary of key points on this webpage. Learn how the CIA is involved in suppressing Kennedy's book and so much more. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on media manipulation and the coronavirus from reliable sources.

Although 74 percent of its population is fully vaccinated, the state of Vermont is experiencing its largest surge of COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began. Throughout the past week, coronavirus infections have jumped 54 percent along with an 18 percent increase in hospitalizations. According to the Vermont Department of Health, six new deaths have been attributed to COVID-19 complications across the state. Ninety percent of those hospitalized in intensive care units in the state are unvaccinated. Vermont is far from the only state recording surges of COVID-19 infections. The number of Americans fully vaccinated reached 200 million Wednesday amid a dispiriting holiday-season spike in cases and hospitalizations that has hit even New England, one of the most highly inoculated corners of the country. New cases in the U.S. climbed from an average of nearly 95,000 a day on November 22 to almost 119,000 a day this week, and hospitalizations are up 25 percent from a month ago. Deaths are running close to 1,600 a day on average, back up to where they were in October. The overall U.S. death toll less than two years into the crisis could hit another heartbreaking milestone, 800,000, in a matter of days. Some states, notably in highly vaccinated New England, but also in the Midwest, are grappling with some of the worst surges since the start of the pandemic. Hospitals are filling up and reacting by canceling non-urgent surgeries or taking other crisis measures, while states are strongly promoting boosters.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Autism may be more prevalent among American children than believed, a new U.S. government study shows. One in 44 children at age 8 in the United States have been diagnosed with the developmental disorder, a jump from the previous estimate of 1 in 54 children, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report found. But a second study offered more heartening news: After looking at 4-year-old children in the same 11 communities analyzed in the first report, researchers found there was progress in the early identification of children with autism. These children were 50% more likely to receive an autism diagnosis or special education classification by age 4 when compared to the 8-year-olds. The new rate was based on 2018 data from 11 communities in the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) network. Autism rates in those communities ranged from 1 in 60 (1.7%) in Missouri to 1 in 26 (3.9%) in California. These differences could be due to how communities identify children with autism, according to the CDC, which noted that some communities also have more services for children with autism and their families. The reports were published Dec. 2 in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Researchers also found persistent racial and ethnic differences in the diagnosis of autism. In several of the 11 communities, fewer Hispanic children were diagnosed with autism than Black or white children.

Note: Why isn't the government pouring in billions of dollars to get to the bottom of what is causing this huge and continuing rise in autism? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.

Since May 2021, people living in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump during the last presidential election have been nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 as those who live in areas that went for now-President Biden. That's according to a new analysis by NPR that examines how political polarization and misinformation are driving a significant share of the deaths in the pandemic. NPR looked at deaths per 100,000 people in roughly 3,000 counties across the U.S. from May 2021, the point at which vaccinations widely became available. People living in counties that went 60% or higher for Trump in November 2020 had 2.73 times the death rates of those that went for Biden. Counties with an even higher share of the vote for Trump saw higher COVID-19 mortality rates. In October, the reddest tenth of the country saw death rates that were six times higher than the bluest tenth, according to Charles Gaba, an independent health care analyst who's been tracking partisanship trends during the pandemic and helped to review NPR's methodology. Those numbers have dropped slightly in recent weeks, Gaba says: "It's back down to around 5.5 times higher." The trend was robust, even when controlling for age, which is the primary demographic risk of COVID-19 mortality. The data also reveal a major contributing factor to the death rate difference: The higher the vote share for Trump, the lower the vaccination rate.

Note: Though COVID vaccines do not prevent viral spread, the evidence is strong that they are effective at reducing disease severity and death. Yet the media is clearly hiding the many thousands of deaths and side effects resulting from the vaccines, as can be seen at https://nomoresilence.world. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.