Marcus Chen
96 stories · Page 3 of 4
Months Before Officials Told Pregnant Women the COVID Shot Was Safe, Fauci Privately Flagged a Theoretical First-Trimester Miscarriage Risk
Senators Ron Johnson and Rand Paul pulled the first messages off Fauci's government iPhone: a January 2021 chain in which he privately flagged a theoretical first-trimester miscarriage risk, months before official guidance told pregnant women the shot carried no such concern.
Infectious DiseaseBritain, France, and Germany Don't Put COVID Shots on the Childhood Schedule. A US Order to Match Them Got Called 'Anti-Science.'
Britain, France, and Germany already keep routine COVID shots off the schedule for healthy children. When a US executive order moved the same way, the AMA, Paul Offit, and the press answered with 'zero data' instead of a debate.
Infectious DiseaseThe Screwworm America Eradicated Is Back, and the FDA's First Move Was an Unapproved Spray
The fly the US drove off the continent in 1966 has crossed the border again, and the FDA's emergency answer is a wound spray that never cleared its own approval process. The method that actually won the war is the sterile fly, and Texas is racing to rebuild the factory it let die.
Drugs & FDAThe FDA Said No to Moderna's mRNA Flu Shot in February. By August, the Two Men Who Said No Were Gone.
The FDA refused to even review Moderna's mRNA flu shot in February because it was never tested against the enhanced vaccines seniors are steered toward. The two officials who objected are gone, and the agency approved it anyway, for the oldest patients, on a promise to prove it works later.
Drugs & FDAThe FDA Approved Narcolepsy's First Orexin Agonist. Takeda's Last One Was Pulled for Liver Injury.
Takeda's oveporexton switches on the orexin receptor that narcolepsy type 1 patients can no longer signal. The company's last orexin drug was halted in 2021 after patients crossed serious liver-injury thresholds.
Infectious DiseaseMexican Jalapeños Sickened 1,400 Americans in 2008. Eighteen Years Later, a Different Farm and the Same Import Gap Did It Again.
Salmonella Javiana in jalapeños from Sinaloa has sickened 345 people across 27 states. It is the second time in eighteen years that imported Mexican peppers have done this, and the FDA still physically inspects only about 1 to 2 percent of the food crossing the border.
InvestigationsArkansas Cut 18,000 Eligible People From Medicaid Over Paperwork, and the 2027 Fix Is AI Its Own Authors Say Will Reproduce the Bias
A federal work requirement hits ACA Medicaid on January 1, 2027. Health-policy academics propose using AI to verify, screen, and manage the rollout, and the paper's lead author admits the system will "100% reproduce" the biases baked into the data.
Infectious DiseaseThe Licensed Ebola Vaccine Was Never Proven to Stop the Strain Now Killing Congo
Bundibugyo virus has driven the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, with 1,707 deaths across eastern Congo and nearly 90 percent of cases in Ituri, and the WHO's own experts say the one licensed Ebola vaccine should not be used against it.
InvestigationsTwo Vaccine Injury Programs, One Country: COVID Claims Landed in the One That Almost Never Pays
The federal fund for routine vaccine injuries has paid $5.2 billion to nearly 10,000 people. The program COVID shots were routed into has compensated 34 claims, and RFK Jr. wants to change the math.
Autoimmune & InflammationRare but Real: The Autoimmune Hepatitis After mRNA That VAERS Was Built to Miss
Twenty-seven biopsy-confirmed cases of autoimmune hepatitis after an mRNA dose, jaundice and an ALT of 1,092 that resolved on steroids. The disproportionality math found 'no safety signal.' It was measuring a reporting system, not the liver.
Infectious DiseaseA Toxicologist Mapped 800 Shared Causes Across 4,000 Diseases. His Protocol Treats Them by Subtraction, Not Prescription.
Ronald Kostoff argues chronic and infectious disease grow from the same toxic soil, a damaged immune system, and that removing the cause has to come before any drug can work.
Autoimmune & InflammationHistamine Was Always the Wrong Target for the Eczema Itch
Eczema itch runs on cytokines, not mainly histamine, which is why the pills in the allergy aisle keep failing the trials, and a network meta-analysis just said so one more time.
Nutrition & FoodThe FDA Revoked Two Petroleum Dyes That Industry Abandoned Before Most Americans Were Born
Orange B was last certified in 1978. Citrus Red No. 2 has painted Florida oranges since 1959. The six petroleum dyes actually in the food supply remain on a voluntary timeline no manufacturer has publicly signed.
Infectious DiseaseFive Years After COVID, Japan Is Still Dying at Pandemic Rates, and Confirmed COVID Explains Only a Tenth
Japan's excess deaths peaked at 7.55 percent in 2022 and still ran at 5.76 percent through 2023, after Tokyo downgraded COVID to a routine infectious disease, in one of the most heavily mRNA-dosed countries on earth.
Drugs & FDAThe Last Time Washington Went After Hospital Drug Markups, the Supreme Court Blocked It. This Time CMS Brought Receipts.
In 2018 the Supreme Court blocked CMS from cutting the markup 340B hospitals charge Medicare for discounted drugs, because the agency skipped a required survey. CMS ran the survey this time, and found seniors paying co-pays bigger than what the hospital paid for the drug.
Infectious DiseaseAgainst Omicron, a Second COVID Dose Added Almost Nothing for Kids Who Were Already Infected
In Austria's own registry, one dose protected previously infected people slightly better than two; in children against the omicron they actually faced, the second dose's benefit could not be told apart from zero. The guidance never moved.
InvestigationsTwo Journals That Buried the Lab-Leak Question Now Warn of a 'Gilded Age' in American Science
The Lancet and Science marked America's 250th by casting the administration's research cuts as vandalism. Both journals spent the public trust they now invoke, and the editorials never mention how.
CancerOne Protein Keeps Your T Cells in the Fight. The Same Protein Feeds Autoimmune Disease.
In mice, deleting the LEF1 gene collapsed the reserve T cells that sustain the fight against chronic infection and cancer. The same deletion protected against autoimmune diabetes.
Infectious DiseaseThe Same System Now Racing to Test a Bundibugyo Ebola Vaccine Had Nineteen Years to Build One
Bundibugyo Ebola was identified in 2007. By the time this year's outbreak passed 1,200 cases there was still no licensed vaccine and none in clinical development. Now roughly $75 million is moving to test three experimental shots on the people dying from it.
Drugs & FDAThe FDA's Fix for a $10 Billion Flood of Chinese Vapes Is a Form the Smugglers Will Ignore
Foreign manufacturers ship most of America's vapes and falsify the customs forms to do it. Washington's answer is to ask them to register with the agency they already evade.
InvestigationsEurope Called Medical AI 'High Risk' and Still Gave Patients No Right to Refuse It
An algorithm once cut the extra care flagged for Black patients by more than half, and ran for years before anyone noticed. A commentary in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine says the rules now governing medical AI would not have caught it.
Infectious DiseaseThe Gut Lining Starves Salmonella of Iron, a Trick We Thought Only Immune Cells Knew
Salmonella sickens more than a million Americans a year. University of Vermont researchers found the cells it invades fight back by withholding the iron and manganese the bacteria need, a defense the textbooks credited mainly to immune cells.
Infectious DiseaseMost of These Ebola Patients Aren't Bleeding. That's Why It's Spreading.
A Bundibugyo virus outbreak in DRC and Uganda has topped 1,100 confirmed cases, yet roughly nine in ten patients show no bleeding, the symptom everyone is trained to look for.
Infectious DiseaseA Blocked Vaccine Study, and the Statistical Method Its Own Lead Author Warned About
A CDC vaccine-effectiveness study pulled from the agency's own journal landed in JAMA, and the press called it censorship. The method it used has a documented blind spot its own lead author once published on.