By The Defender Staff
1 of RFK Jr.’s Biggest Fans in the Senate Wants Bill Cassidy’s Job
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his followers scored a big win Saturday when Kennedy’s nemesis, Sen. Bill Cassidy, went down in his Louisiana primary.
The cherry on top for Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement would be if another Republican doctor in the Senate, Kansas’ Roger Marshall, replaces Cassidy next year as chair of the Health Committee.
Marshall, unlike Cassidy, is a big Kennedy fan, having founded a MAHA caucus to promote Kennedy’s push to combat chronic disease. Whereas Cassidy in confirmation hearings last year grilled Kennedy on his longstanding skepticism of vaccines and has given him a hard time about vaccine policy ever since, Marshall asked God to bless Kennedy and said he’d “never seen a person whose words, written and spoken, have been so misattributed, exaggerated, sensationalized and taken out of context.”
American Has Contracted Ebola: CDC
An American has tested positive for Ebola, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on May 18. The American has not been identified. The person was exposed as part of their work in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Ebola outbreak started recently, Dr. Satish K. Pillai, the CDC’s manager for Ebola response, told reporters on a call on Monday. Details of that work were not revealed.
The person developed symptoms over the weekend and tested positive late Sunday.
Ebola has an average mortality rate of about 50 percent. African officials have reported 80 suspected and confirmed deaths in the outbreak, which is centered in Congo’s Ituri province. U.S. officials are working to move the infected American, as well as six others who were exposed to Ebola, to Germany.
US Implements Temporary Travel Restrictions to Curb Ebola Risk
U.S. News & World Report reported:
The United States is suspending entry of some travelers for 30 days to reduce the risk of Ebola spread as international concerns rise over a new outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the U.S. CDC said on Monday, even as it told Americans the immediate risk was low. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order suspending the entry of travelers who have departed from, or were present in, the DRC, Uganda, and South Sudan during the past 21 days, regardless of their country of origin, it said in a statement.
The order comes as medical personnel rushed to the front lines of the outbreak in eastern DRC after the World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency over concern the disease could spread further after two cases were confirmed in neighboring Uganda. The outbreak is suspected to have killed around 80 people in recent weeks.
The measures will not apply to U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, lawful permanent residents, members of the U.S. military, government personnel overseas, their spouses, and children, according to the order, which is in effect for 30 days.
Trump Administration Proposes to Allow Some Delays for ‘Forever Chemical’ Regulations
The Trump administration is proposing to allow some delays to the deadline for water systems to regulate toxic “forever chemicals.” Under current regulations, water systems are required to filter out at least some of these toxic substances by 2029. The administration is proposing to allow companies to apply for exemptions to push that deadline back to 2031, meaning some communities could end up drinking contaminated water for two extra years.
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official told reporters Monday that extensions would be granted on a case-by-case basis and that even with an exemption, systems with high levels of contamination would need to take interim measures to reduce it. The official declined to say whether most companies that apply for an extension would be likely to receive one.
In addition, the EPA is proposing to rescind regulations on four of the six types of forever chemicals covered under Biden-era regulations. But, it said it will, in the future, evaluate them for potential drinking water regulations.
Trump Bought Stock in Drugmaker as His Government Boosted Its Obesity Drugs
President Donald Trump earlier this year bought as much as $680,000 in stock of Eli Lilly, the maker of blockbuster obesity drugs, as the agencies he oversees undertook an agenda that largely benefited the company.
On May 14, the federal government released ethics disclosures revealing a list of stock and bond trades made on Trump’s behalf from January to March of this year. They included extensive trades across the economy, including investments in tech giants such as Microsoft and Nvidia, aerospace firms such as Boeing, and household-name companies such as Target and Chipotle.
In healthcare, however, the trades for Lilly — a company valued by the stock market at just under $1 trillion — stand out. That’s because the timing of Trump’s purchases coincides with several favorable government decisions benefiting the drugmaker’s GLP-1 business, including progress toward a long-held goal: qualifying the drugs for reimbursement from Medicare, the government health insurance program primarily serving seniors, when they are prescribed for weight loss.
The disclosure forms — which bear Trump’s distinct signature — give ranges rather than exact dollar amounts for the trades. They show seven purchases of Lilly stock made on the president’s behalf through the end of March, the first of which occurred on Jan. 6.
Trump Administration Fails to Protect Endangered Wildlife From Atrazine
Center for Biological Diversity reported:
The Trump U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finalized a review of atrazine that concludes the potent, cancer-linked endocrine disruptor does not pose an extinction risk to any threatened or endangered animals or plants. The court-ordered final review, which came in response to a legal challenge by the Center for Biological Diversity, was released to the Center late Friday afternoon.
The controversial finding contrasts sharply with a 2021 Environmental Protection Agency determination that the pesticide is likely to harm more than 1,000 protected species. The new finding comes despite widespread atrazine contamination of the nation’s waterways caused by tens of millions of pounds of the pesticide being used each year in industrial agricultural operations.
“The science shows that atrazine should be banned here, just as it has been in dozens of other countries, but Trump officials keep shrugging off the danger to both wildlife and humans,” said Nathan Donley, the Center’s environmental health science director. “Instead of taking the environmental and health risks of atrazine seriously, the Trump administration has once again done the pesticide industry’s bidding, allowing this extraordinarily dangerous pesticide to continue poisoning our land and water for decades to come.”
Although atrazine is banned in more than 60 countries, it is the second most widely used pesticide in the United States. It is linked to birth defects, multiple cancers, and fertility problems like low sperm quality and irregular menstrual cycles.
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IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More
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