05a Health

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FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republican House candidates in purple districts who support changing the childhood vaccine schedule could pay the price in midterms, according to new data from President Donald Trump’s go-to pollster, Fabrizio Ward.

“In the districts that will decide the control of the House of Representatives next year, Republican and Democratic candidates who support eliminating long standing vaccine requirements will pay a price in the elections,” says a Nov. 3 memo obtained by The Daily Signal.

Fabrizio Ward, a polling firm led by Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward, surveyed 1,000 voters in the 35 most competitive congressional districts on their attitudes toward recommended vaccines.

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President Trump has made lowering prescription drug prices a clear priority, repeatedly arguing that Americans should not be forced to pay more for medicine than patients in other developed countries. Drugmakers have publicly welcomed that message. But their actions tell a more complicated story.

First reported by Reuters this week, pharmaceutical companies are raising list prices on more than 350 drugs for 2026. Many of the increases were small, but others were not, including sharp hikes on certain hospital-administered and specialty medicines that patients and providers rely on every day.

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A tiny, premature baby, who weighed less than a bag of sugar when she was born, has finally been able to leave the hospital, just in time for Christmas.

Baby Desire was born 18 weeks prematurely to first-time parents Omotola and Samuel Joseph, after her mum went into labour unexpectedly in July. The little premature baby weighed only 13 ounces, or 375 grams, when she was born, and so had to spend time in the care of doctors and nurses at a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) while she developed.

“Before she was born, we prepared our minds for what might happen. She was just so tiny, fitting entirely in the palm of my hand”, mum Omotola said.

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Eating real food is not quite that simple, and might even constitute “bowing to Big Meat,” depending on who you ask.

After Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his department dropped the new federal dietary guidelines — which have been historically referred to as the food pyramid — the recommendation of eating “real food,” including red meat and full-fat dairy, was seen as an attack by many in the dietary sphere.

‘Beef is responsible for 20 times more greenhouse gas emissions per gram of protein than beans.’

The new guidelines emphasized protein (from meat and vegetables), dairy, fruit, and some grains as part of a healthy diet. While some cleverly accused HHS of copying a popular “South Park” scene where scientists simply “flip the pyramid” to solve America’s health crisis, others decided to criticize the guidelines for promoting animal meat intake.

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The New York Times is demanding that the Canadian government advances it’s rapid expansion of “assisted suicide” laws in order to swiftly euthanize a woman suffering from mental health issues.

It comes as Canada’s spiraling assisted-suicide program is once again under international fire after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities called on the Canadian government to repeal its planned expansion of euthanasia for those suffering solely from mental illness, a policy critics warn will normalize suicide as “healthcare.”

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The World Health Organization (WHO) has unveiled its newest blueprint for “digital health transformation,” and critics warn it’s the clearest signal yet that the unelected global body intends to normalize trackable wearables, AI-driven monitoring, and centralized “health” data control for the world’s population.

Released this month, the updated “Global strategy on digital health 2020–2027” lays out a sweeping plan to expand the use of digital IDs, biometric devices, AI analytics, and remote-surveillance tools, all under the banner of “universal health coverage.”

WHO says digital health means everything from phone apps to “artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics and smart wearables,” and the organization wants governments worldwide to accelerate adoption.

Its own language makes clear this will not remain optional.

Blurb:

One may argue that no drug has done more damage to this country than Fentanyl has in the past few years. It has taken the lives of far too many Americans and destroyed more lives than anyone can count. This was all done because officials refused to even pretend to care about the problem. To the left, it’s compassion to let humans die on the street from addictive substances, which could not be further from the truth. All lives matter, including the ones that need to get off this substance, which is why President Trump did what needed to be done.

On Monday, President Donald Trump officially classified Fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, claiming it’s been far more disastrous than any bomb could ever be.

According to USA Today:

President Donald Trump has taken action classifying fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” as his administration escalates efforts to combat the flow of illicit drugs into the United States.

Trump signed an executive order on Monday, Dec. 15, to formalize the designation, which comes as the president has signed off on unprecedented airstrikes on alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean from Venezuela.

Blurb:

House Republican leadership is hoping to pass a health care plan this week. But it could hit some major speed bumps along the way.

Going into the last week in session before Christmas break, House Republicans are in a rush to pass premium-slashing legislation to counter Democrat-led efforts to extend enhanced premium tax credit levels set in place under President Joe Biden.

Republicans, arguing that these tax credits are expensive, prone to fraud, and inflationary, are now trying to advance their policy alternative as the credits are set to expire at the end of the year.

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Representative Haley Stevens (D-MI) has filed articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., saying that he “has turned his back on science” and failed to protect the American people.

Stevens, who is currently running for Senate in Michigan, had threatened to file articles of impeachment back in September after claiming that his actions and public comments had endangered public health, raised healthcare costs and cut medical research programs.

In a statement posted on social media, Stevens said: “Today, I formally introduced articles of impeachment against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. RFK Jr. has turned his back on science and the safety of the American people. Michiganders cannot take another day of his chaos.”

Stevens, who calls herself  “a very serious lawmaker,” told NBC News, “But I’m not going to sit quietly by while people’s health and safety and lives are on the line.”

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Brain implant developer Paradromics has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to test its device in an early-stage human trial, the company announced Thursday.

The Austin-based company is aiming to give a digital voice to people who have lost the ability to speak due to severe motor impairment. The trial will assess the long-term safety of the Paradromics device, as well as its ability to enable synthesized speech and text communication.

Paradromics is one of several companies—which include Neuralink, Synchron, Precision Neuroscience, and Cognixion—working on technology to control computers and other devices using brain waves. Known as brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, these systems capture brain signals associated with movement intention and translate them into commands.

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Move over, colonoscopies — researchers writing in ACS Sensors report that they have created tiny microspheres filled with bacteria that can sense the presence of blood, a key sign of gastrointestinal disease. These microspheres function like miniature “pills” that are swallowed and include magnetic particles so they can be easily collected from stool. After passing through mouse models with colitis, the sensors detected gastrointestinal bleeding within minutes. The team notes that the same bacterial system could eventually be engineered to identify other gut-related conditions.

“This technology provides a new paradigm for rapid and non-invasive detection of gastrointestinal diseases,” says Ying Zhou, a co-author of the study.

Blurb:

Canada’s healthcare crisis has entered a new and disturbing phase as the Liberal government funnels a billion dollars to fund care in foreign nations while Canadians at home are being euthanized because they cannot get the treatment they need to survive.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s latest move, pledging over a billion Canadian dollars to fund healthcare overseas, has become the tipping point for many who have watched Canada’s single-payer system crumble for years.

The announcement landed as the country continues to face a wave of avoidable deaths, including cases where desperate citizens are offered Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) instead of the care they were promised.

 

Blurb:

A new warning sign just flashed for anyone paying attention to the rapid, coordinated shift toward synthetic “meat” and “dairy” as the global food supply is about to be flooded with a disturbing new product.

Beginning early next year, a new product will hit supermarket shelves that looks like milk, pours like milk, and is marketed as “real dairy” but was never touched by a cow.

The product, created by Israeli startup Remilk, is a fully lab-produced “milk” manufactured using genetically engineered microbes.

According to The Times of Israel, Remilk has partnered with Gad Dairies to launch two variants: 3% fat “milk” and a vanilla-flavored version under the brand New Milk.

Blurb:

Every so often, physics delivers a discovery that feels as if it has stepped straight out of science fiction. The latest breakthrough is exactly that. Scientists have revealed a new kind of time crystal, an exotic phase of matter that repeats its structure not only in space but in time. Unlike ordinary crystals such as diamonds or salt, which arrange their atoms in fixed repeating patterns, a time crystal oscillates in a stable rhythm all on its own.

Now researchers have taken this concept a step further by uncovering a time crystal that behaves in an entirely unexpected way, challenging long-held assumptions about order, motion and the nature of time itself.A peer-reviewed study published in Nature Materials explains how time crystals can break both spatial and temporal symmetries, creating stable patterns that persist even under continuous disturbance.

This research provides the theoretical backbone for the newly reported discovery, which introduces a time crystal with a structured but non-repeating temporal pattern. Instead of ticking like a perfectly predictable clock, it displays a rhythm that shifts, evolves and yet remains ordered over long time periods. This opens an entirely new frontier in understanding how matter can organise itself across time.

Blurb:

While much of the history of life on Earth is written, the opening chapters are murky at best. On our ever-changing world, the older a rock is, the more it has changed, obscuring or even erasing evidence of ancient life. Beyond a hazy boundary of circa two billion years, in fact, this interference is so total that no pristine, unaltered Earth rocks are known to exist, making any potential sign of biology as clear as mud.

At least until now. In a study published on November 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of researchers say they’ve leveraged artificial intelligence to follow life’s trail further back in time than ever before, using machine learning to distinguish the echoes of biology from mere abiotic organic molecules in rocks as old as 3.3 billion years.

The results could more than double how far back in time scientists can convincingly claim to discern molecular signs of life in ancient rocks, the study authors say, citing previous record-setting measurements involving 1.6-billion-year-old rocks.

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Key Takeaways

  • A JAMA Network Open paper calls for medical schools to adopt ‘alternative strategies’ to maintain racial diversity post the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action, suggesting race-neutral approaches like increased scholarship support.
  • Researchers noted a 11% decline in Black and Hispanic medical student matriculation following the affirmative action decision, while Asian and white student admissions increased, highlighting threats to health equity.
  • Dr. Natalie Florescu, lead author, advocates for initiatives like funding minority-serving institutions and targeted programs to create equitable medical education pathways, though these approaches may face legal scrutiny for potentially being race-based preferences.

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Earth’s magnetic field acts like a protective cocoon, shielding the planet from harmful charged particles racing in from the Sun and deep space. But over the South Atlantic, that shield has developed an unusually weak patch known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. Recent observations show that this anomaly is not only expanding but also shifting, raising concerns for satellites, spacecraft and scientific instruments that pass through the region. While everyday life on the ground remains unaffected, the anomaly’s rapid evolution is prompting NASA researchers to issue stronger warnings and step up monitoring.

Blurb:

The United States may lose its measles elimination status as soon as January, marking the sustained resurgence of a disease that had been eliminated from the country 25 years ago.

On Nov. 10, Canada lost its measles elimination status, after the Pan American Health Organization concluded that the country’s recent measles outbreaks were connected and represented ongoing transmission lasting more than 12 months. Measles is considered eliminated in a country or region only when there are no outbreaks lasting longer than a year. Thus, to maintain “elimination status,” any introductions of the disease from travel must be quashed before 12 consecutive months of spread.

Blurb:

A Washington state man is “severely ill” after contracting a strain of bird flu never seen before in humans, the New York Post reports.

The outlet claims the man was hospitalized after exhibiting symptoms such as confusion, high fever, and respiratory distress.

According to the outlet, the man was infected with H5N5, a “subtype of avian influenza carried by wild birds like ducks and geese.”

More from the New York Post:

The Washington State Department of Health described the unidentified patient as being “older” and having “underlying health conditions.”

The agency noted that the man has a “mixed backyard flock of domestic poultry” at his home in Grays Harbor County, on the southwest Pacific coast of the state.

Two of the birds recently died, the Washington Post reported.

Wild birds could also access the property, with agency officials believing that either set of birds is “most likely” the source of the virus exposure.

The man remained hospitalized as of last week while the investigation continues.

Blurb:

MOSCOW, November 14. /TASS/. The magnetic storm that raged on Earth for about two days has stopped, Mikhail Leus, a leading specialist at the Phobos Weather center, said on Telegram.

“The magnetic storm that raged on Earth for almost two days has stopped. It ended late last Thursday evening, and for more than six hours the geomagnetic field has been in the ‘green’ zone,” he said.

The forecaster noted that in the coming hours, there may be disturbances in the magnetosphere until the middle of the day, but they most likely will not reach the level of a magnetic storm. According to him, the disturbances will stop in the afternoon.

“A period of a relatively calm geomagnetic field will last at least until the end of this week,” Leus said.

Blurb:

In a finding that could change how scientists understand the spread of life’s ingredients across space, astronomers have detected large organic molecules frozen in ice around a forming star called ST6 in a galaxy beyond the Milky Way.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the research team identified five carbon-based compounds in the Large Magellanic Cloud, our closest neighboring galaxy. The study, led by University of Maryland and NASA scientist Marta Sewilo, was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on October 20, 2025.

Blurb:

Oregon Right to Life (ORTL) scored a victory for the unborn last Friday when a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in its favor.

In June, ORTL filed a complaint arguing that the Appeals Court should throw out a Clinton-appointed district judge’s ruling last year that denied its request to be exempt from a 2017 Oregon state law that would have forced it to pay for abortions and contraception. Lois Anderson, ORTL’s executive director, argued that covering abortions via health insurance was an attack on their religious liberty.

“The attempt by the state to force Oregon Right to Life to finance abortion — the precise human rights violation we are dedicated to opposing — is blatantly unconstitutional and obviously unjust,” she said this past summer.

Trump-appointed Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke wrote the 2-1 majority opinion for the Appeals Court. Obama-appointee Circuit Judge John Owens agreed with him that the case should be sent back to the lower court for further investigation. Senior Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder, an 84-year-old Jimmy Carter appointee, dissented, claiming that the group was not inherently a religious organization.

Blurb:

Memory problems may not be an unavoidable part of getting older. New findings from Virginia Tech reveal that age-related memory loss stems from specific molecular changes in the brain, and that fine-tuning these processes can help restore memory function.

In two complementary studies, Timothy Jarome, an associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Animal Sciences, and his graduate students used advanced gene-editing tools to target these molecular changes and improve memory performance in older rats. Rats are commonly used as models for understanding how memory declines with age.

“Memory loss affects more than a third of people over 70, and it’s a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Jarome, who also serves in the School of Neuroscience. “This work shows that memory decline is linked to specific molecular changes that can be targeted and studied. If we can understand what’s driving it at the molecular level, we can start to understand what goes wrong in dementia and eventually use that knowledge to guide new approaches to treatment.”

Blurb:

Ever-evolving research is steadily turning science fiction into science fact. Neural implants —tiny devices that read or stimulate brain activity —have already entered human trials, showing what’s possible when technology and neuroscience intersect. While early results prove the concept works, the race is now on to make these systems smaller, safer, and more reliable.

Developers and philanthropists alike have ambitious goals: from controlling computers and prosthetics with nothing but thought to restoring movement after paralysis and monitoring neurological disorders in real time.

Now, researchers from Cornell University have taken a major step forward. They’ve created a neural implant smaller than a grain of salt that can wirelessly transmit signals from inside the brain. Their results, published in Nature Electronics, show that this tiny implant emitted clean, uninterrupted data in healthy mice for more than a year.