By The Defender Staff
Hantavirus ‘Not COVID’: WHO Official
A World Health Organization (WHO) official on Thursday said the threat level imposed by hantavirus, which has killed three people aboard a cruise ship, does not resemble the pandemic-level threat that COVID-19 had six years ago.
Infectious disease epidemiologist Maria DeJoseph Van Kerkhove said during a press conference that the three hantavirus deaths of a Dutch couple and a German citizen, along with the evacuation of three people suspected of carrying the virus, are not a cause for panic.
“This is not COVID, this is not influenza,” she said. “It spreads very, very differently. So, there are different precautions that people are taking.”
Van Kerkhove addressed a similar question about how COVID-19 began with very few cases before spreading to a global pandemic. She told the reporter that COVID-19 was a novel coronavirus, while hantaviruses “have been around for quite a while.”
“But I want to be unequivocal here: this is not SARS-CoV-2, this is not the start of a COVID pandemic,” Van Kerkhove said, later adding that hantavirus spreads differently and that some “don’t transmit between people at all.”
Ex-Anthony Fauci Advisor Breaks His Silence on Damning Charges He Destroyed COVID Records
A former senior adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci proclaimed on Friday he’s “innocent” of criminal charges that he conspired to stop investigations into the origins of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. David Morens, 78, pleaded not guilty to five counts before Magistrate Judge Ajmel Ahsen Quereshi in Maryland federal court during an arraignment hearing Friday with his defense attorneys Timothy Belevetz and Morgan Taylor.
Morens, who faces up to 51 years in federal prison if convicted, told The Post, “I’m innocent” ahead of the hearing while seated in the courthouse lobby — and carried on calmly solving what appeared to be a Sudoku puzzle. Asked in the hearing whether he had reviewed the indictment, he told the judge: “Yes, I scanned it. I haven’t read it word for word.”
Fauci had disavowed Morens in a June 2024 congressional hearing, saying he “knew nothing” of his alleged use of a private Gmail account to discuss official government business and claimed he wasn’t even his adviser.
Anti-Vax Bills Peter Out in New Hampshire State House
New Hampshire Bulletin reported:
The New Hampshire Senate voted Thursday not to eliminate the state’s hepatitis B requirement — the latest setback for the State House’s Republican anti-vaccine contingent. Instead, senators sent House Bill 1719, sponsored by Republican Rep. Kelley Potenza, to interim study, a maneuver that sidelines the bill until at least next year.
HB 1719 was one of several vaccine-related bills being pushed by House lawmakers.
The most expansive legislation proposed on vaccines, House Bill 1811, already failed. The bill, which was introduced by Manchester Republican Rep. Matt Drew, would’ve ended all vaccine mandates in the state. It was killed in a 155-192 House vote in February.
New Hampshire state law requires children to be vaccinated against polio, tetanus, diphtheria, mumps, pertussis, rubella, rubeola, varicella, hepatitis B, and haemophilus influenzae type B before entering school or childcare.
Trump Exempted Some of the Nation’s Biggest Polluters From Air Quality Rules. All It Took Was an Email.
In March 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration made a tantalizing offer to coal-fired power plants, chemical manufacturing facilities and other factories: Their operations could be exempted from key provisions under the Clean Air Act, the bedrock environmental law estimated to have prevented thousands of premature deaths. All they had to do was ask.
No rigorous application was needed. An email, which they had until the end of the month to send, would suffice. Within two weeks, executives across major industries began flooding an inbox set up to receive and funnel requests from the Environmental Protection Agency to the White House.
They asked that their facilities be excused from expensive Clean Air Act requirements, relief that would save their companies money but pollute the air breathed by millions of Americans.
EPA Will Move Forward With Plans to Propose Weakening Some Biden-Era PFAS Limits, Official Says
The Trump administration will soon propose softening Biden-era limits on “forever chemicals” in drinking water, delaying but keeping tough standards for two common types and rescinding limits on some rarer forms of the substance, according to an EPA official.
The proposal will start the formal process of rolling back parts of the first-ever limits on PFAS in drinking water finalized during former President Joe Biden’s administration. Officials at the time found they increased the risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers and babies being born with low birth weight.
Jessica Kramer, head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Water, said at a conference in Washington, D.C., on Thursday the agency intended to rescind and revisit certain limits she said were improperly issued by the Biden administration. The move would align with actions the EPA had said a year ago they intended to take.
FDA Issues Update on Recall of Heart Devices After 4 Deaths Reported
A medical device manufacturer has issued an urgent recall to correct several types of heart devices after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classified the action as its most serious type of recall, the agency said in a notice on Thursday. The recall does not require the devices to be removed from patients’ bodies or from where they are sold, according to the notice.
Doctors are being told by the recalling company, Boston Scientific, that they need to update the devices’ software during an in-person visit. The FDA warned that the continued use of the devices without the update could lead to “serious injury or death.” As of mid-March 2026, the company reported four deaths and 2,557 serious injuries connected to the problem.
Impacted devices include brands such as the Accolade, Essentio, Proponent, Altrua 2, Valitude, and Visionist pacemakers and devices known as cardiac resynchronization therapy pacemakers, according to the notice, which can be accessed through the FDA’s website.
Trump Promised Cheaper Drugs. Some Prices Dropped. Many Others Shot Up.
Since his second term started, President Donald Trump has announced, negotiated, or floated a flurry of initiatives aimed at taming the excesses of the pharmaceutical industry.
No surprise. About 60% of American adults are “worried about being able to afford prescription drug costs for themselves or their families,” a recent KFF nationwide poll showed. More than 80% consider the price of prescription drugs “unreasonable,” and most support increased regulation to lower costs. Americans pay about three times as much as people in other countries for the same prescription drugs.
Last July, Trump sent letters to 17 drugmakers, demanding they voluntarily lower drug prices. Then the president said he’d negotiated with more than a dozen pharmaceutical executives one by one at the White House. In December, he announced that he had compelled them to agree to “most favored nation” pricing on Medicaid, the government coverage for low-income Americans.
The post Hantavirus ‘Not COVID’: WHO Official + More appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.
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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