Weekly Round Up - Stories you might have missed!
I Thought My 4 y/o Was Transgender - I Was Wrong, White House Covid Censorship Machine, US Gov Approves World’s First Vaccine for Honeybees, and more!
STORY
I Thought My 4-Year-Old Was Transgender. I Was Wrong.
This experience for me has felt like leaving a cult, a cult that would have me sacrifice my child to the gods of gender ideology, in the name of social justice and collective liberation. I have left this cult, and I am never turning back.
Once one brick was pulled out of the wall holding up this belief system, the rest of the bricks tumbled. Now I sort through the rubble, and I seek to slowly and carefully rebuild. Rebuild my values, my view of reality, my belief system, my relationship to myself, to my children, and my understanding of the world. Whatever may emerge, the protection of my children will be the compass for every step on the road ahead.
NEWS
The White House Covid Censorship Machine
Newly released emails show how officials coerce social-media companies to toe the government line.
Newly released documents show that the White House has played a major role in censoring Americans on social media. Email exchanges between Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital media, and social-media executives prove the companies put Covid censorship policies in place in response to relentless, coercive pressure from the White House—not voluntarily. The emails emerged Jan. 6 in the discovery phase of Missouri v. Biden, a free-speech case brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and four private plaintiffs represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance.
“HEALTH”
Consider drugs and surgery early for obesity in kids, new guidelines say: "Waiting doesn't work"
Children struggling with obesity should be evaluated and treated early and aggressively, including with medications for kids as young as 12 and surgery for those as young as 13, according to new guidelines released Monday.
The longstanding practice of "watchful waiting," or delaying treatment to see whether children and teens outgrow or overcome obesity on their own only worsens the problem that affects more than 14.4 million young people in the U.S., researchers say. Left untreated, obesity can lead to lifelong health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes and depression.
"Waiting doesn't work," said Dr. Ihuoma Eneli, co-author of the first guidance on childhood obesity in 15 years from the American Academy of Pediatrics. "What we see is a continuation of weight gain and the likelihood that they'll have (obesity) in adulthood."
NEWS
Wearing Masks to Prevent Infection Is Not Evidence-Based Medicine: Experts
There is no scientific and medical basis for mandating wearing masks in the general public and medical facilities to prevent infection with COVID-19 or other respiratory viruses, experts said in a letter sent to the Israel Medical Association Journal (IMAJ).
The letter, published in the December 2022 issue of the monthly journal, was written by Yoav Yehezkelli and Amnon Lahad. Yehezkelli is a specialist in internal medicine and medical management, a Lt. Colonel (Res.) in the Israel Defense Forces, and one of the founders of the Epidemic Management Team and Evaluation Programs for Extreme Biological Incidents—a professional body that advises the Director General of the Israel Ministry of Health (MoH). Lahad is chairman of the National Council for the Health of the Community and head of the Department of Family Medicine at the School of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The letter “Masks for Prevention of Respiratory Infections—Is It Evidence-Based Medicine?” addressed mask mandates, which remain mandatory in medical facilities in Israel.
Both authors are members of the Public Emergency Council for the COVID-19 Crisis (PECC), an independent organization made up of Israeli physicians, researchers, and social welfare professionals.
NEWS
US Government Approves World’s First Vaccine for Honeybees
The vaccine works by incorporating some of the bacteria into the royal jelly fed by worker bees to the queen, which then ingests it and gains some of the vaccine in the ovaries. The developing bee larvae then have immunity to foulbrood as they hatch, with studies by Dalan suggesting this will reduce death rates from the disease.
“In a perfect scenario, the queens could be fed a cocktail within a queen candy – the soft, pasty sugar that queen bees eat while in transit,” Delaplane said. “Queen breeders could advertise ‘fully vaccinated queens.’”
American foulbrood originated in the US, and has since spread around the world. Dalan said the breakthrough could be used to find vaccines for other bee-related diseases, such as the European version of foulbrood.
