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      A report tied Iowa’s water pollution to agriculture. Then the money to promote it mysteriously disappeared

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      When a team of scientists embarked two years ago on a $1m landmark study of Iowa’s persistent water-quality problems, they knew that the findings would be important to share. High cancer rates amid the state’s inability to stem the tide of pollutants flowing into rivers and lakes was a growing public concern.But now, after the completed study pointed to agricultural pollution as a significant source of the key US farm state’s water problems, public officials have quietly stripped funding from plans to promote the study findings, according to sources involved in the project.The report, the results of two years of data analysis, has been highly controversial in Iowa because of the large amount of evidence it cites linking water pollution – and resulting human and environmental health risks – to the state’s economically and politically powerful farm industry.Supporters of the report said the agricultural industry and allied public officials have tried to downplay the findings for months, and they fear this move is another impediment to change.‘Zeroed out’When the report was finalized earlier this year, there was a little more than $400,000 left in the budget, with some of that money earmarked for communications and “public awareness” work, travel and other costs associated with promoting the findings, records show.Jennifer Terry, the project lead on the water report, had planned in-person meetings with scientists and community groups to focus on recommendations made in the report.But those funds were recently “zeroed out” with no explanation, according to email communications.Funding for the water report and related public outreach came from Polk county, Iowa’s most populous county and home to the state capital city of Des Moines. County leadership has changed since the report was commissioned.“The intent was that at the conclusion of the report to make sure it was seen widely in a public education effort,” said former Polk county administrator John Norris, who led support for the water report in 2023. “That was a big part of the value of it – that the public learns from it.”Norris, who agreed to leave office earlier this year as part of a legal settlement with the county, said he hoped the county would use some of the money in some way for water-quality work.Frank Marasco, who replaced Norris, did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Polk county spokesperson Jon Cahill. Terry also declined to comment.The water report, authored by a team of 16 scientists, focuses on pollution patterns in two “essential” rivers fed from a watershed running from southern Minnesota through the central part of Iowa to Des Moines. The rivers are the primary source of drinking water for roughly 600,000 people and considered important recreational state assets, but they’re commonly laden with harmful contaminants that include phosphorus and nitrogen, bacteria from animal and human waste, pesticides and other chemicals.This summer, nitrate levels in key drinking-water sources were measured in quantities far higher than is allowed under federal safety standards.Much, though not all, of the contamination is tied to agriculture, according to the report. Among multiple recommendations, the report calls for the top US corn-growing state to diversify into production of crops that require fewer chemical inputs, and for limits on the density of livestock.The water report comes alongside growing concerns about the prevalence of cancer across the state. For the last few years, Iowa has had the second-highest rate of cancer in the nation, and is one of only two US states where cancer is increasing. Pesticides and nitrates both are scientifically shown to cause cancers.Kerri Johannsen, senior director of policy and programs at the Iowa Environmental Council, said all allocated funds should be fully utilized to educate the public.“People in Polk county and across the state are facing a water crisis but we cannot begin to make progress until all Iowans, including decision-makers, understand the urgency of this moment,” she said.“The importance of accessible, transparent public education and awareness cannot be understated,” Johannsen added. “The current resources available for addressing our water issues are a drop in the bucket, and our elected officials have a responsibility to do everything they can to find a way forward for the sake of the health of the people of this state.”Feds add to worriesThe issues over how to address water-quality problems in Iowa, which has nearly 87,000 farms and ranks first in the nation for corn, pork and egg production, comes as the Trump administration and Republican allies in Congress are moving to dismantle regulations aimed at protecting water quality, including those that work to limit discharges of pesticides and other farm-related chemicals into waterways.One chief concern for environmental advocates is the Permit Act, which is actually a package of more than a dozen bills that would streamline permitting requirements. The legislation would cut protections for many waterways, limit requirements for updated pollution-control measures and exempt pesticide spraying and agricultural runoff from permitting and accountability, according to the advocacy group Beyond Pesticides.If the measures become law, it will make it that much harder for Iowans to clean up their waterways.In another blow to efforts to address the state’s water-quality problems, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently reversed a decision made under the Biden administration that found additional areas of four Iowa rivers should be designated as impaired.When waters are classified as impaired, it triggers stricter regulatory measures to limit pollutants entering the waterways and other enhanced measures aimed at reducing the inflow of harmful contaminants.The reversal angered environmental groups across the state as well as the utility providers tasked with cleaning up the water. But farm groups, including the Iowa Farm Bureau, which had opposed the impairment designations, cheered the news.News of the reversal broke the same week that the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, visited Iowa to meet with farmers and others and attend the Iowa state fair to serve as a grill master at the Iowa Pork Producers Association tent.When asked what drove the decision to reverse the impairment decision, an EPA spokesperson said only that the agency had been tracking the levels of nitrates this spring and summer in the waterways and is “ensuring that all of the information and data collected by the cities, universities, and other groups is provided to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for evaluation”.The agency is “not currently aware” of any “exceedances” of nitrates at public water systems “using surface waterbodies in Iowa”, the spokesperson said. The agency is working with state officials to “understand and resolve the issues forming the basis for EPA’s reconsideration of its 2024 decision”.Adam Shriver, director of wellness and nutrition policy at the Harkin Institute at Drake University, said the recent events are disheartening.“I think it shows just how far we still have left to go,” Shriver said. “The farm bureau opposed the initial impairment designation and was taking a victory lap with the recent EPA announcement. As long as they continue to get whatever they want from every level of government while other stakeholders are ignored, public health is going to suffer.”This story is co-published with the New Lede, a journalism project of the Environmental Working Group More

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      RFK Jr continues to make dubious health claims as CDC roils under his leadership

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      In a week of chaos at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has continued to make questionable medical and health claims – and has been slammed for them by experts and lawmakers alike.In recent days, Kennedy has been facing increasing calls for his resignation following the Trump administration’s firing of the CDC director, Susan Monarez, which in turn prompted four other top officials to quit the agency. The chaos across US health agencies also comes as Kennedy released a slew of controversial and contradictory rules surrounding Covid-19 vaccines.On top of all this turmoil, Kennedy has also met with significant backlash for a handful of outlandish remarks and revelations, which have only fueled the controversy surrounding his leadership at the health department.After the deadly mass school shooting in Minneapolis this week where two children were killed and 17 others injured, Kennedy suggested that psychiatric drugs may be contributing to the rise in gun violence across the country.During an appearance on Fox & Friends, the host Brian Kilmeade asked Kennedy if the health department was investigating whether medications used to treat gender dysphoria might be linked to school shootings.According to court documents reviewed by the Guardian, the 23-year-old shooter, Robin Westman, had changed their birth name from Robert to Robin because they identified as a woman.In response to Kilmeade’s question, Kennedy, without acknowledging the prevalence and easy accessibility of firearms across the US – said that his department was “launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI [selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors] drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence”.Kennedy’s comments triggered criticism from the Minnesota senator Tina Smith, who took to X and wrote: “I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do. Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired.”This week, Kennedy also suggested that he could identify “mitochondrial challenges” in children at airports just by looking at them.Speaking at an event in Texas alongside the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, Kennedy claimed: “I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today, as I walk down the street, and I see these kids that are just overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation. You can tell from their faces, from their body movements, and from their lack of social connection. And I know that that’s not how our children are supposed to look.”In response, Ashish Jha, former White House Covid-19 response coordinator under the Biden administration, said: “I’m sorry but what?”“This is wacky, flat-earth, voodoo stuff, people. This is not normal,” Jha added on X.Then, in a revelation on Thursday, Demetre Daskalakis – who recently resigned as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in protest of Monarez’s firing – revealed that Kennedy had never been briefed by CDC experts before making major public health decisions.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSpeaking to CNN, Daskalakis said: “I think that another important thing to ask the secretary is, has he been briefed by a CDC expert on anything, specifically measles, Covid-19, flu? I think that people should ask him that in that hearing,” referring to Kennedy’s upcoming hearing before the Senate finance committee.Upon being asked what Kennedy’s answer would be, Daskalakis said: “The answer is ‘no’. No one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics … He’s getting information from somewhere, but that information is not coming from CDC experts.”In a separate statement to the Daily Beast, Daskalakis said: “It’s not just that he hasn’t asked us. I asked for us to be able to do briefings, and I was told by his office of the secretary officials, some of whom are now fired, that they would be happy to have us do briefings, that they would reach out to be able to set them up. They’ve never done so.”Since he assumed leadership over the health department, Kennedy – a longtime anti-vaccine advocate – has fired health agency workers and entertained conspiracy theories. Last week, more than 750 current and former employees at US health agencies signed a letter in which they criticized Kennedy as an “existential threat to public health”.The health agency workers went on to accuse Kennedy of being “complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information”.The letter comes after a deadly shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, when a 30-year-old gunman fired more than 180 rounds into the buildings, killing a police officer before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to the gunman’s father, the shooter had been struggling with mental health issues and was influenced by misinformation that led him to believe the Covid-19 vaccine was making him sick. More

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      White House reportedly picks Kennedy deputy to replace fired CDC chief

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      The White House has reportedly chosen a deputy of Robert F Kennedy Jr to serve as the acting head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a decision that comes as the standoff over the firing of director Susan Monarez, has deepened, with Monarez’s lawyers claiming she will not depart unless Donald Trump himself removes her.The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the decision, that the White House has selected Jim O’Neill, currently the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The decision would give Kennedy a CDC chief who will be on board with his efforts to overhaul federal vaccine policy, the Post reported.Monarez, an infectious disease specialist who was confirmed as CDC chief just a month ago, was fired on Wednesday, according to a statement from the HHS, which gave no reason for the departure.However, the apparently ousted director has refused to be removed. Her lawyers claim that while the White House has said that she is “not aligned with the president’s agenda”, only the president himself can dismiss her.“As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her,” Monarez’s lawyer Mark Zaid posted on Bluesky.“For this reason, we reject notification Dr Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director. We have notified the White House Counsel of our position.”A spokesperson for Trump, Kush Desai, said: “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again. Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.”Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at her press briefing that a replacement for Monarez would be announced “very soon”.The decision to remove Monarez has sparked further turmoil within the CDC, with four of its other senior leaders resigning over what they condemned as political interference in their work, budget cuts and the spread of misinformation under the Trump administration.The CDC is ultimately overseen by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary who is known for founding an anti-vaccine group and in his current role has cut funding for medical research, removed scientific advisers and on Wednesday restricted the use of Covid vaccines for Americans.“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk,” Monarez’s lawyers said in a statement.“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”Monarez and Kennedy clashed over vaccine policy, while CDC leaders were angry and upset over how the administration handled a deadly situation earlier this month when a gunman fired upon the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta, killing a police officer, according to the New York Times.The four senior officials to resign from the CDC are Debra Houry, the chief medical officer; Daniel Jernigan, the vaccine safety chief; Jennifer Layden, head of the office for public health data; and Demetre Daskalakis, who ran the office that issues vaccine recommendations.On social media, Bernie Sanders, an independent US senator who serves as the ranking member on the health, education, labor and pensions committee, said that the attempt to fire Monarez was “outrageous” and demanded a hearing.“Vaccines save lives. Period,” Sanders said on X. More

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      CDC erupts in chaos after ousted chief Susan Monarez refuses to resign

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      The US’s top public health agency was plunged into chaos on Wednesday after the Trump administration moved to oust its leader Susan Monarez, sworn in less than a month ago, as her lawyers said she would not resign and that she was being “targeted” for her pro-science stance.Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), was ousted on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that offered no explanation its decision.“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” HHS said in an unsigned statement posted to social media. Her lawyers pushed back in a statement, saying she had “neither resigned nor received notification” from the White House of her termination.Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate just last month, appeared to have run afoul of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, after she declined to support sweeping changes to US vaccine policies, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times.“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk,” her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement. “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”The ousting has set off a wave of departures within the agency, with at least three other CDC leaders publicly resigning after the HHS announcement.The most explosive resignation letter came from Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who stepped down as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, according to Inside Medicine, an industry newsletter that obtained the full statements.“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health. You are the best team I have ever worked with, and you continue to shine despite this dark cloud over the agency and our profession,” Daskalakis wrote. “Please take care of yourself and your teams and make the right decisions for yourselves.”Those concerns were echoed by another departing CDC leader, Dr Deb Houry, the chief medical officer, who wrote that “For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations.”Daniel Jernigan, who ran the Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, has also quit the agency.Hours before Monarez was removed, Kennedy hailed decisions by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday revoking the emergency use authorization for the Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax that CDC experts estimate saved 3.2 million lives in the United States.Vaccines from the three manufacturers are now authorized by the FDA only for people who are 65 and older, or younger people with an underlying medical condition that puts them at risk for severe disease. Even those that qualify for the vaccines will only be able to get them in the US if the advisory panel, reshaped by Kennedy to include Covid vaccine opponents, votes to approve them.Monarez, 50, was the agency’s 21st director and the first to pass through Senate confirmation following a 2023 law. She was named acting director in January and then tapped as the nominee in March after Trump abruptly withdrew his first choice, David Weldon. She was sworn in on 31 July – less than a month ago – making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.Public health experts, meanwhile, are sounding the alarm about the chaos.“What’s happening at the CDC should frighten every American Regardless of whether you are MAGA, MAHA, neither, or don’t give a damn about labels or politics. It’s unclear whether the CDC director—confirmed just weeks ago—has been fired or not. Absolute shitshow,” Dr Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine doctor and professor at Brown University School of Public Health, posted. “And incredible career professionals resigned tonight, sounding a massive alarm,” he added. “This is pure chaos that leaves the country unprepared.”“RFK, Jr is increasingly becoming a liability for the White House,” Dr Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at George Washington University, observed.“There is a wholesale destruction of leadership at the CDC. The newly confirmed Director is out,” Dr Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, wrote. “Most of the top leaders who run key centers have resigned en masse. Total implosion. All because of [Secretary Kennedy’s] leadership. What a complete disaster.”Maanvi Singh and agencies contributed reporting More

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      CDC chief ‘targeted’ for refusing to ‘rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives’, lawyers say – as it happened

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      Susan Monarez was removed from her position as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday without being told why she was fired, her lawyers said in a statement.“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk”, her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement posted on social media.“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted. Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”“This is not about one official,” the lawyers added. “It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within.”The Department of Health and Human Services offered no explanation when it announced in an unsigned social media post that Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director and sworn in by Kennedy just last month, was no longer in charge of the public health agency.Sources “who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution”, told the New York Times reports that Monarez had objected to sweeping changes to the panel of experts who advise the agency on vaccine policy made by Donald Trump’s anti-vaccine health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.An administration official also told the Times that Kennedy had summoned Monarez to his office on Monday and demanded that she resign. After she refused to do so, she called Dr Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee. Kennedy then accused Monarez of “being a leaker” and said that she would be fired.Hours before Monarez left the agency, Kennedy hailed decisions by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday revoking the emergency use authorization for the Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax that CDC experts estimate saved 3.2 million lives in the United States.Vaccines from the three manufacturers are now authorized by the FDA only for people who are 65 and older, or younger people with an underlying medical condition that puts them at risk for severe disease.Even those that qualify for the vaccines will only be able to get them in the US if the advisory panel, reshaped by Kennedy to include Covid vaccine opponents, votes to approve them.This concludes our live coverage of the second Trump administration for the day, but we will be back at it on Thursday morning. Here are the latest developments:

      The leadership of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was thrown into chaos after the health department announced the Senate-confirmed CDC director, Susan Monarez, was no longer in charge, but her lawyers said she refused to resign and had not been fired.

      First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Robert F Kennedy Jr and HHS have set their sights on “weaponizing public health for political gain” and “putting millions of American lives at risk”, lawyers for Monarez said in a statement. “When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted. Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”

      At least three CDC senior officials resigned after Monarez was ousted. One squarely blamed Robert F Kennedy Jr’s leadership.

      “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases told colleagues.

      Public health experts are sounding the alarm about the chaos at the CDC, as at least three senior leaders resigned following the ouster of the apparent ouster of the CDC director.

      As a Senate-confirmed official, only the president has the authority to fire her, and, for once, Donald Trump has been strangely silent as this drams unfolded. But the White House press office issued a statement saying that Monarez had been removed, not by Trump but by “the White House”.
      While differences over vaccines appear to have been central to the rift between the ousted CDC director, Susan Monarez, and Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, Monarez also stood out from her bosses by mourning for the officer who died defending the agency’s campus in Atlanta from a gunman who was driven by misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.While Monarez publicly mourned David Rose, who, as our colleague George Chidi wrote, was murdered by a lie, others in the CDC were distressed that Kennedy said little, and Trump nothing about the attack on their campus.The confusion over whether or not Susan Monarez is still the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after the health department said she was not, and her lawyers said she has not resigned or been fired, partly stems from the fact that Monarez was confirmed by the Senate last month.As a Senate-confirmed official, only the president has the authority to fire her, and, for once, Donald Trump has been strangely silent as this drama unfolded on Wednesday night.But the White House press office has just issued a statement saying that Monarez has been removed, not by Trump but by “the White House”.“As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again” the White House deputy press secretary, Kush Desai, said in a statement to the Guardian. “Since Susan Monarez refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC.”As Aaron Fritschner, an aide to Don Beyer, a Democratic congressman, observed: “Don’t think ‘the White House’ has the power to terminate the Director of the CDC. The President does, but they didn’t say that he did, which is curious.”Public health experts are sounding the alarm about the chaos at the CDC, as at least three senior leaders resigned following the apparent ouster of the CDC director.“What’s happening at the CDC should frighten every American Regardless of whether you are MAGA, MAHA, neither, or don’t give a damn about labels or politics. It’s unclear whether the CDC director—confirmed just weeks ago—has been fired or not. Absolute shitshow,” Dr Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine doctor and professor at Brown University School of Public Health posted. “And incredible career professionals resigned tonight, sounding a massive alarm,” he added. “This is pure chaos that leaves the country unprepared. Imagine cases of Ebola in the U.S. right now? We would be an absolute mess.”“RFK, Jr is increasingly becoming a liability for the White House,” Dr Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at George Washington University, observed. “I doubt the president feels good about RFK’s incessant attack on his COVID vaccine triumph and he’s likely not going to be pleased that the HHS Sec is usurping the role of the President in hiring/firing senate confirmed officials.”“There is a wholesale destruction of leadership at the CDC. The newly confirmed Director is out,” Dr Ashish Jha, the Biden administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, wrote. “Most of the top leaders who run key centers have resigned en masse. Total implosion. All because of [Secretary Kennedy’s] leadership. What a complete disaster.”Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned on Wednesday from his position as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, just posted his full, blistering resignation letter on Instagram.In the letter, the veteran public health official blames the views and erratic leadership of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, for making it impossible for him to continue.“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health. The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people,” Daskalakis wrote, in reference to the decision in May, for the CDC to remove its recommendation of the Covid-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women.He added that the data to support this change was never shared with the CDC and that a public information sheet on the change, “written to support the Secretary’s directive” was circulated by the health department “without input from CDC subject matter experts”.Daskalakis also called out Kennedy’s fondness for “social media posts announcing major policy changes” without consulting CDC experts in advance. “Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function,” he wrote.“The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines favoring natural infection and unproven remedies will bring us to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive and many if not all will suffer,” he added. “I believe in nutrition and exercise. I believe in making our food supply healthier, and I also believe in using vaccines to prevent death and disability. Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.”“The recent shooting at CDC is not why I am resigning,” Daskalakis wrote, drawing attention to the gunman who fired hundreds of rounds into CDC buildings who was motivated by unfounded theories about injuries from the Covid-19 vaccine that Kennedy has promoted.“My grandfather, who I am named after, stood up to fascist forces in Greece and lost his life doing so. I am resigning to make him and his legacy proud. I am resigning because of the cowardice of a leader that cannot admit that HIS and his minions’ words over decades created an environment where violence like this can occur. I reject his and his colleagues’ thoughts and prayers, and advise they direct those to people that they have not actively harmed,” Daskalakis wrote.“For decades, I have been a trusted voice for the LGBTQ community when it comes to critical health topics,” the doctor, who formerly led HIV/AIDS prevention at the CDC, and once dressed in drag to administer meningitis vaccines, added. “I must also cite the recklessness of the administration in their efforts to erase transgender populations, cease critical domestic and international HIV programming, and terminate key research to support equity as part of my decision.”Susan Monarez was removed from her position as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday without being told why she was fired, her lawyers said in a statement.“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk”, her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement posted on social media.“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted. Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign.”“This is not about one official,” the lawyers added. “It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within.”The Department of Health and Human Services offered no explanation when it announced in an unsigned social media post that Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate as CDC director and sworn in by Kennedy just last month, was no longer in charge of the public health agency.Sources “who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution”, told the New York Times reports that Monarez had objected to sweeping changes to the panel of experts who advise the agency on vaccine policy made by Donald Trump’s anti-vaccine health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.An administration official also told the Times that Kennedy had summoned Monarez to his office on Monday and demanded that she resign. After she refused to do so, she called Dr Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman of the Senate health committee. Kennedy then accused Monarez of “being a leaker” and said that she would be fired.Hours before Monarez left the agency, Kennedy hailed decisions by the Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday revoking the emergency use authorization for the Covid-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax that CDC experts estimate saved 3.2 million lives in the United States.Vaccines from the three manufacturers are now authorized by the FDA only for people who are 65 and older, or younger people with an underlying medical condition that puts them at risk for severe disease.Even those that qualify for the vaccines will only be able to get them in the US if the advisory panel, reshaped by Kennedy to include Covid vaccine opponents, votes to approve them.Inside Medicine, a newsletter written by Jeremy Faust, a public health researcher and emergency medicine physician, just published the full text of email statements three CDC leaders who resigned on Wednesday sent to their colleagues to explain their reasons for leaving the US public health agency after its new director abruptly departed.The most explosive charge came from Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who stepped down as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health. You are the best team I have ever worked with, and you continue to shine despite this dark cloud over the agency and our profession,” Daskalakis wrote. “Please take care of yourself and your teams and make the right decisions for yourselves.”“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” Dr Deb Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer, wrote. “Vaccines save lives – this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact. Informed consent and shared decision-making must focus not only on the risks but also on the true, life-saving benefits that vaccines provide to individuals and communities. It is, of course, important to question, analyze, and review research and surveillance, but this must be done by experts with the right skills and experience, without bias, and considering the full weight of scientific evidence. Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of US measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency.”Houry’s statement seemed like a clear response to recent statements and actions to limit access to vaccines by the anti-vaccine health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.Dr Daniel Jernigan, who resigned as director of the premiere US center for the study of emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases, told colleagues: “I believe strongly in the mission of public health and the leadership that CDC has given for almost 80 years; however, given the current context in the Department, I feel it is best for me to offer my resignation.”Jernigan, whose center included the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, testified to Congress last year that the CDC estimates that the vaccination of children born between 1994 and 2021 “will prevent 472 million illnesses and 29.8 million hospitalizations, help avoid 1,052,000 deaths, and save nearly $2.2 trillion in total societal costs”.He also pointed to research that, as of November 2022, Covid-19 vaccines had “saved more than 3.2 million lives in the United States, prevented more than 18.5 million hospitalizations, and averted over $1.15 trillion in healthcare costs”.“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned on Wednesday from his position as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC told colleagues in an email obtained by STAT, a health news site.Those concerns were echoed by another departing CDC leader, Dr Deb Houry, the chief medical officer, who wrote that “ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency” adding that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations”.The two CDC leaders, and their colleague Daniel Jernigan, who ran the Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, quit the agency after the abrupt departure of Susan Monarez, the Senate-confirmed director of the CDC.US officials announced on Wednesday the departure of the director of the nation’s top public health agency, after less than one month in the job.“Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people,” the US Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a statement posted on social media.HHS officials did not explain why Monarez is no longer with the agency. Before the announcement was made, Monarez told the Associated Press: “I can’t comment.”Three senior officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resigned on Wednesday after the new CDC director Susan Monarez, abruptly left the agency.Shortly after the US Department of Health and Human Services, HHS, announced on social media that Monarez “is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention”, at least three CDC leaders resigned: Dr Debra Houry, the chief medical officer; Dr Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Dr Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.There was no immediate explanation for why any of the senior leaders have left the top US public health agency. Monarez was sworn in just four weeks ago. More

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      The unlikely alliance pressing Trump to regulate Pfas on US farms: ‘This is a basic human right’

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      An unlikely alliance of farmers, bikers, truckers, a detective and scientists from across the political spectrum are working to pressure the Trump administration and Republican leadership to rein in the use of toxic sewage sludge as fertilizer on the nation’s farmland.Sludge often teems with Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, which present a health risk to farmers and the public, and have destroyed farms and contaminated water across the country. The issue has touched the groups’ lives in different ways, highlighting its broad risks to health.“We can all sit down and agree that we and our children shouldn’t be fed literal poison,” said Dana Ames, a Johnson county, Texas, detective who is investigating contamination from sludge on local farms.In Oklahoma, farmer Saundra Traywick lives in an area where she says toxic sewage sludge is spread as fertilizer. Her family and animals get sick, and the potent stench can be unbearable.Mike “Lucky” Pruitt, a biker who lives in a dairy- and oil-producing region in Texas, wonders whether Pfas from sludge contributed to the rare brain cancer that killed his six-year-old son; in Johnson county, Texas, Ames took the unprecedented step of opening a criminal investigation, which is ongoing, over sludge that polluted local farms and water.Billy Randal, a trucker, just learned about the sludge’s dangers, and fears that people hauling the substance are exposed to toxic waste. And in Massachusetts, Kyla Bennett, a former US Environmental Protection Agency scientist and cancer survivor, is part of a lawsuit that could lead to sludge being banned.The alliance has a real chance of success, those involved say, because it includes everyone from liberal scientists to people on the far right – they are willing to set aside political differences for the fight.“The American people are smart – once we figure out what’s occurring, we have a whole lot more in common than we don’t, and this is a basic human right,” said Ames, the Texas detective. “We all deserve safe and clean food and water.”The alliance is aiming to hold rallies thatit hopes will draw thousands of people in Austin, Texas, and Washington DC in the coming months. Those involved are aiming to get Trump’s attention and to pressure the Texas legislature to act.Getting Trump’s attentionSludge is a mix of human and industrial waste, and a byproduct of the wastewater treatment process that regulators allow to be used as fertilizer because it’s rich in nutrients that help plants grow. It also virtually always teems with Pfas and other dangerous chemicals, which contaminate water, crops and livestock, while also sickening farmers and contaminating the nation’s food supply.Maine became the first state to ban sludge, also called biosolids, after it found Pfas had contaminated crops or water on at least 73 farms where the substance had been spread. The state established a $70m fund to bail out affected farmers.Pfas are a class of about 15,000 compounds that are dubbed “forever chemicals” because they don’t naturally break down. The chemicals are linked to a range of serious health problems like cancer, liver disease, kidney issues, high cholesterol, birth defects and decreased immunity.View image in fullscreenIn the Biden administration’s final days, the EPA issued a draft risk assessment for Pfas in sludge that could in effect ban the substance, but Republicans in Congress slipped a rider into the current appropriations bill that would essentially kill the process by withdrawing key funding. The rider was inserted just a few weeks after the EPA met with a sludge industry trade group to hear its grievances about the assessment.Ames said the EPA “has gone rogue” and she suspects Trump is unaware of the situation. The president has publicly said he wants clean water and food, Ames said, and she suspects he will act if alerted.“As his voters and his base, we want his ear, and we want to make sure that the president knows what’s going on,” Ames said.In Massachusetts, Bennett, the scientist, who is now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) non-profit, has been frustrated with the Biden and Trump administrations’ policies on sludge, and has sued the EPA under the Clean Water Act to force the agency to regulate the substance. Peer is assisting with letters for the action, though it is not directly involved with organizing the rallies.It’s not often that Peer works with folks on the right, but the “strange bedfellows” are a hopeful development, Bennett said.“This is an issue that should transcend politics because it affects human health and people are humans before they’re Republicans and Democrats,” Bennett said.‘We’ve got to make a change’In 2021, doctors diagnosed six-year-old Rylan Pruitt with a rare and aggressive brain cancer. After 30 rounds of radiation treatment and several months of chemotherapy, he died, leaving behind distraught parents looking for answers.There was no family history of cancer, and his father, Mike “Lucky” Pruitt, began to hear about the risks of Pfas. He turned his attention to the huge dairy and oil operations – both known sources of Pfas and other chemical pollution – in the rural community in which he lives.Only about 50 other people have developed the type of cancer that killed Rylan – and one of them was a young girl who lived about 11 miles (17km) away, Pruitt said. He said he put together the pieces, like family history, how the cancer was “stupidly and exceedingly rare”, and the research that has connected sludge and Pfas to rare pediatric cancers.“For me it’s: ‘This is why this is happening, and we’ve got to make a change,’” Pruitt said.View image in fullscreenHis 15,000-member motorcycle group, the Rylan Strong Network, pressures lawmakers on issues around pediatric cancer and health insurance. He contacted every Texas legislator asking them to support a bill that would require measuring Pfas in sludge. So far, very few have responded, and previous versions of the legislation were killed.“It’s all about who has the biggest checkbook,” Pruitt said.In Oklahoma, Traywick’s non-profit, Save Oklahoma Farms and Ranches, has had similar results in pressuring lawmakers. Her kids’ immune disorders, the flies that gnaw her donkeys’ legs raw and the unmeasured effects of suspected Pfas on land and water – none of it has so far convinced state legislators to act.But, she said, she is more optimistic as “a growing movement of people is waking up to the fact that this is not Democrats versus Republicans or left versus right – we all want our children to have a healthy future,” Traywick said.In New Jersey, Randal, founder of the national Truckers Movement for Justice, just learned about the sludge from Ames, and worries about what people hauling the waste are exposed to.The truckers, with thousands of members in the US and Mexico, recently worked with environmental groups to petition the US Department of Transportation to strengthen regulations around hauling fracking waste. The problem with sludge is similar, Randal said. Many drivers have to clean their trucks, there are few protections and they are not made aware of the Pfas and other risks in what they are hauling.“We have truck drivers handling this shit and they don’t have a clue about what they’re working around,” Randal said. “Industry laughs all the way to the bank and it’s time for it to stop.” He plans to mobilize truckers to join the rallies.In Johnson county, Texas, Goldman Sachs-owned Synagro, sold local farmers the tainted sludge that a lawsuit alleges polluted local waters and destroyed the land. The farms’ drinking water was found to be contaminated at levels more than 13,000 times higher than the federal health advisory for Pfos, one kind of Pfas compound, and affected meat was as much as 250,000 times above safe levels, the federal lawsuit against Synagro alleges. Synagro denies that the Pfas came from its sludge.Last year, Ames opened the first-ever criminal investigation into the situation, and Johnson county joined Peer’s Clean Water Act lawsuit. “We’re coming together and we’re saying: ‘No, this isn’t a third-world country, and there’s no reason why in America our food should be poisoned like this,’” Ames said. More

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      Maha is backing this ‘natural’ infertility treatment. Is it the right’s path to limiting IVF?

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      View image in fullscreenFor Erica L and her husband, in-vitro fertilization was the “nuclear option”.After two years of trying to conceive, Erica and her husband had no idea why they could not have a baby. Doctors said only that they had “unexplained infertility”, a non-diagnosis of a diagnosis that is given to an estimated 15% of people trying to conceive. Erica was not ideologically opposed to trying IVF, but felt daunted by the price and unpredictability.Then Erica stumbled across a clinic that specialized in “restorative reproductive medicine”, or RRM. The clinic did bloodwork on Erica and her husband and urged them to eat well-balanced foods and take supplements, as well as prioritize exercise and sleep. Erica also started tracking her temperature and menstrual cycle in intense detail.“We wanted to do everything that we could to try to have a baby as naturally as possible,” said Erica, who asked that her full last name not be published. “There’s a lot of invasive things that I just wasn’t comfortable with.”Restorative reproductive medicine is a decades-old name for a constellation of therapies that are meant to revive the “natural” fertility of people trying to conceive. Often, RRM entails prescriptions for hormones, supplements and lifestyle changes – such as adopting a better diet – as well as closely analyzing one’s menstrual cycle. Its practitioners also sometimes use aggressive surgeries to root out endometriosis, a common and chronic condition that occurs when tissue that is similar to uterine tissue grows outside of the uterus. And, critically, RRM practitioners avoid the use of assisted reproductive technology such as IVF.Top Republicans, rightwing organizations and even White House officials have recently begun to rally behind RRM, seizing on its promise to enhance fertility without resorting to IVF. Many anti-abortion conservatives revile IVF because it can create unused embryos – a practice they see as unethical, if not murderous, as they believe life begins at conception.Yet IVF remains staggeringly popular, to the point that Donald Trump pledged to make it free in the wake of a 2024 Alabama supreme court decision that imperiled the procedure. Now, conservatives are trying to pare back that commitment – and some fertility doctors, including ones who offer RRM, worry that the right is co-opting RRM as a Trojan horse in order to sell a fertility agenda to voters while undermining IVF.Backed by several high-profile anti-abortion groups, Republicans in Congress have repeatedly introduced legislation to bolster government-funded research and education on RRM. In March, the Heritage Foundation – the influential thinktank behind the notorious Project 2025 – released a 63-page report that endorsed RRM and slammed IVF.Then, in July, the Department of Health and Human Services posted a notice soliciting applications for a $1.5m grant to fund an “infertility training center” that would expand access to resources for “holistic infertility treatments” rather than assisted reproductive technology. In August, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is backing away from the president’s campaign promises about IVF, although a White House spokesperson rebutted that claim.View image in fullscreenDr Kaylen Silverberg is a reproductive endocrinologist who has advised administration officials, including Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles, about IVF. During his discussions with officials, Silverberg said he was asked about RRM.“I’ve been doing this for 31 years, and I’d never even heard the term,” said Silverberg, who is also advisory board chair of the advocacy group Americans for IVF. “So I started doing research about it. I realized that restorative reproductive medicine is just a pseudonym for a basic infertility evaluation.”Silverberg’s view is shared by many mainstream fertility doctors and organizations, who say that the difference between their work and RRM is less scientific than ideological. In their view, RRM is a rebranded version of everyday fertility medicine, minus IVF.RRM, with its focus on optimizing the body’s “natural” rhythms, is tapping into a growing interest in holistic health and wellness – one that is being increasingly politicized and expertly leveraged by the “Make America Healthy Again” (Maha) movement.But support for RRM alone, Silverberg said, cannot fulfill Trump’s campaign promises. “The problem is going to be if – and this is a big if – anybody tries to limit expansion of fertility access and care and coverage to restorative reproductive medicine.”‘There is another option’RRM is not a monolith. Some of its leading organizations and adherents take no position on IVF and reject the idea that RRM is ideologically driven or a new name for old medicine. Instead, they are drawn to RRM’s stance that infertility is not itself a disease but a symptom of something else that has gone wrong.Established in 2000, the International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine (IIRRM), the preeminent group championing RRM, maintains a registry of RRM clinicians and collects data about its techniques’ efficacy.Dr Monica Minjeur, who was trained in family medicine and serves as the US director of communications and development for the International Institute for Restorative Reproductive Medicine, said RRM is “not an anti-IVF movement”. As far as Minjeur knows, no one in Congress has approached the institute to discuss RRM.“We will never say: ‘IVF should go away.’ We just mostly want people to realize: ‘Hey, there is another option,’ because so many couples are told IVF is your only option,” said Minjeur, who added that she is a Democrat.View image in fullscreenSome RRM advocates and groups do oppose IVF and have long aligned themselves with conservative causes such as the anti-abortion movement. One of the most well-known RRM techniques is NaPro Technology, which usually involves such tactics as cervical mucus tracking and has been pioneered by the anti-abortion Saint Paul VI Institute since the 1980s, when the Vatican condemned IVF. The institute’s website presents NaPro Technology as an alternative to IVF, which it calls “a highly abortive technology that often forces women to make abortion-related decisions”.In June, a new thinktank, the Maha Institute, held a roundtable discussion about women’s health and fertility. In her introduction to the discussion, Maureen Ferguson, a commissioner for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom with longstanding ties to the anti-abortion movement, sang RRM’s praises.“Traditional women’s health and fertility care has relied heavily on big pharma bandaids and workarounds that circumvent a women’s reproductive system,” Ferguson said. “Women of all political stripes appreciate healthcare that works in harmony with their body and restores health.”IIRRM wants to harness Maha advocates’ enthusiasm but is wary of being equated with the movement, according to Minjeur and Dr Tracey Parnell, the institute’s global director of communications and development. They described RRM and Maha as two sides of a Venn diagram.“We want to bring increased health to women and men and families,” Minjeur said of Maha. “Beyond that, there are definitely a fair amount of differences.”Parnell added: “We really truly are open to quite broad collaboration without being co-opted.”The rise of wellness cultureThe Make America Healthy Again movement is perhaps the best illustration of a broader push within American conservatism to incorporate the historically leftwing language of holistic health and “natural” treatments – in short, “wellness” – to advocate for traditionally rightwing aims, such as convincing women to have big families.This push started to gain steam in the years after the Covid pandemic, as trust in mainstream medicine started to falter: a survey of nearly half a million US adults found that trust in physicians and hospitals declined from roughly 72% to just 40% between April 2020 – the month after the pandemic broke out – and January 2024. As trust eroded, the wellness industry exploded. Between 2019 and 2023, it grew from $5.3tn to $6.32tn, according to the Global Wellness Institute, which defines wellness as the ongoing and individual pursuit of “optimal holistic health and wellbeing”.“Wellness” can encapsulate a wide range of activities, from undeniably healthy behaviors (such as exercising and eating nutritious foods) to practices that may be dangerous (such as drinking raw milk). These activities are yoked together by a deceptively simple ethos, according to Amy Larocca, author of the book How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time.“In wellness, things that are natural are superior to things that are not,” Larocca explained.Wellness’s sales pitch can be particularly appealing to Americans, given the astronomical costs of traditional healthcare in the US. A single IVF cycle can run tens of thousands of dollars and most states do not require insurers to cover it. By contrast, countries such as Denmark and Sweden cover vast swathes of fertility treatments, including IVF.RRM treatments tend to cost far less than IVF, and may soon get even cheaper. In June, Arkansas’s Republican-dominated state legislature became the first in the country to pass a law requiring state insurance to cover RRM therapies.But critics say there is little quality evidence that RRM is more effective at helping people have babies than mainstream fertility medicine. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons are worried that other states may follow Arkansas’s lead; last week, the medical organizations sent a letter to urging the National Governors Association to reject pro-RRM legislation.Women’s health and infertility are especially ripe breeding groups for wellness because mainstream medicine routinely fails to take either seriously. Between 2013 and 2023, just 8.8% of research funded by the National Institutes of Health focused on women’s health. Women are also more likely to have their medical concerns dismissed. When women and people of color show up at emergency rooms with signs of chest pain, they usually wait longer; women are also less likely to be admitted.‘Many sobbing women’A year after Erica started working with the restorative reproductive medicine clinic, the clinic told her: “We’re really concerned that you’re not pregnant yet. You should be pregnant.”The RRM specialists suggested that Erica might have endometriosis, which affects about one in 10 women and girls worldwide and is believed to be a leading cause of infertility.It is also profoundly understudied. In 2023, a mere 0.06% of the NIH’s $47bn budget was earmarked for endometriosis research. Because many doctors dismiss the symptoms of endometriosis or lack the expertise to recognize it, it generally takes between five and 11 years to get a diagnosis.Erica went ahead with a surgery to diagnose and remove endometriosis tissue. RRM practitioners have suggested that the condition can be treated by a “one-and-done surgery” – as one RRM surgeon put it in the Heritage Foundation report – that aggressively excises endometriosis tissue.A month later, Erica got pregnant. Erica estimated that she and her husband spent, in total, about $2,500 on RRM.“We definitely wouldn’t have our daughter without them,” she said of RRM specialists.View image in fullscreenMany of RRM’s prescriptions are common sense: if you are trying to get pregnant, it can be helpful to take a holistic view of your health and know as much about your menstrual cycle as possible. But mainstream reproductive endocrinologists are skeptical of RRM’s position that infertility itself is not a disease, which runs counter to the World Health Organization’s definition of infertility. They also suspect that RRM may over-rely on surgery to treat endometriosis. One recent review of infertility treatments published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that while surgery can help mild cases of endometriosis, doctors should use IVF when it is severe. When treated with IVF, almost 40% of women under 35 who have endometriosis get pregnant within a single cycle, the review found.“We do a lot of surgery and other treatment options that can optimize a woman’s fertility. But in the end, there are many diagnoses that cannot be solved with those elements alone and need a very effective tool like IVF,” said Dr Rachel Weinerman, a reproductive endocrinologist and associate professor at Case Western Reserve University’s school of medicine. “You need to have a whole toolbox available to decide what is the right tool for that specific patient.”Dr Eve Feinberg, a reproductive endocrinologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg school of medicine, first heard of RRM when she started treating patients who had tried it. If patients stick with RRM and defer the use of assisted reproductive technology for too long, Feinberg warned, some may become so old that they lose their chance to have biological children.“I’ve had many sobbing women in my office who really missed out on their fertility window by trying endless numbers of years of this method, who weren’t given the truth and weren’t given a chance to explore other methods because they were misled and they were told that this would work for them,” she said. “I counsel my patients that IVF has limitations. It doesn’t work for every patient. I didn’t feel like these women were adequately counseled in that way.”In an extensive memo it shared with the Guardian, IIRRM rejected many of the critiques of RRM as unfounded, including the idea that it over-relies on surgery. Physicians who provide IVF too often default to it, the institute contended, adding that it would welcome more research comparing RRM to conventional medicine.As someone who eats a mostly plant-based diet, runs religiously and avoids makeup, Feinberg considers herself to be more “natural” than most. She understands the appeal of the wellness-style language that surrounds RRM.“It’s being marketed as being holistic. It’s being marketed as being natural and ethical,” Feinberg said. But, she continued: “I think RRM plays into this fallacy that we can understand everything and we can fix everything. 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      Raging bulls: why Maga is pushing cow products on to America

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      The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy, claims that beef tallow is a healthier alternative to seed oils (even though the American Heart Association disagrees). Raw milk advocates are currently criticizing Kennedy, who has supported them in the past, to ease restrictions on the sale of their preferred dairy product nationwide. Meanwhile, cows have also infiltrated the ever trendy skincare market, with beef tallow present in moisturizers, lip balm, deodorant and personal lubricant.Though not every beef tallow evangelist or raw milk aficionado might consider themselves Republican, cows’ connection to RFK’s “health” crusade is unavoidable. It appears that cows have won the position of Maga’s favorite animal.It’s not exactly a secret that Trump loves cows. Last year, when a child called into Fox & Friends to ask what his favorite farm animal was. “I’ll tell you what I love, I love cows, but if we go with Kamala, you won’t have any cows any more,” he said, adding: “I don’t want to ruin this kid’s day.” He made the bizarre talking point a part of his campaign stump speeches, telling crowds in North Carolina and Nevada that “they want to do things like no more cows.” Now that he’s in office, cows remain top of mind – or, at least, their byproducts do.“Woo-woo has become moo-moo,” the Atlantic’s Yasmin Tayag wrote this week, in an essay about Americans going “all-in” on “cow-based wellness”.“When it comes to animal products, it seems [that Maga] promotes cows the most,” said Mark Kern, a professor of exercise and nutritional sciences at San Diego State University. “They don’t seem to say the same things for chicken or turkey.”Pigs could be a close runner-up, as lard, another animal fat, was also used regularly in cooking until the early 20th century – a bygone era Maga loves to romanticize.It doesn’t hurt that cow mania follows the trend of tradwives taking up social media space, extolling the virtues of cooking, cleaning, child-rearing and homesteading. If Trump describes cities such as DC, Los Angeles and New York as fiery bastions of anarchy, then cows represent something entirely different: images of ruddy-cheeked children toting milk pails or Sydney Sweeney in a prairie dress.Of course, none of this is the fault of cows. “Beef can be a very healthful food when eaten in moderation,” Kern said. “I see value in it, but that doesn’t mean we should eat it at the expense of seed oils.” The Maha (Make America Healthy Again) crowd’s obsession with beef tallow is based on a “misperception” that it is less refined than seed oils, Kern explained. “You can’t just get beef tallow from a cow,” he said. “You have to render that fat, which is a refining process, too.”Though there are no known benefits of consuming beef tallow, some chain restaurants such as Steak ’n Shake and Sweetgreen have switched to using it in the wake of RFK’s endorsement.Bart Hutchins is the chef of Butterworth’s, a nouveau French restaurant in DC popular with the Maga cohort. Last month, Hutchins told Axios that his kitchen goes through 500 beef bones a week serving a roasted marrow that is Steve Bannon’s “go-to” order. (Marco Rubio and the Breitbart staff apparently love it, too.)skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBone marrow contains collagen, a protein that’s long been a beauty buzzword associated with reported cosmetic benefits such as skin, hair and nail health. It is a common ingredient in pills and powders that promise youthful skin, though dermatologists say this has not been definitively proven by any studies. That does not stop rich people from loving it. “If you describe something ‘with collagen’, it’s poised to move for a certain economic class,” Hutchins said.Candice Ray, a 24-year-old dietician student who splits her time between Canada and Vermont, liked beef tallow before it was taken on as a Maha status symbol. She has slathered it on her face every night for two years, swearing it transformed her rough, bumpy complexion into a clear, clean glow.“It’s done wonders for me,” Ray said. “My skin just looks more healthy.” To be fair, Ray – an influencer who shares “nontoxic living” tips to her following of nearly 350,000 on Instagram – adheres to other medically dubious practices such as not washing her face.You might assume that if you cover your face in beef tallow and go to bed without washing it off, you will end up reeking of barnyard musk. Ray disagrees. “I find it smells just slightly earthy,” she says.Ray is not exactly thrilled that Maga has taken up the cause of advancing beef tallow. “My choice to use it is not political whatsoever,” she said. “But when I tell people that I use beef tallow, they kind of look at me like, ‘Oh, you’re a natural-living girly.’” More