15 Effective Alternative Health Products With Great Black Friday Deals Right Now
Our family does weird health stuff that I'd like to share with all the millions of other folks interested in weird health stuff.Our family does weird health stuff that I'd like to share with all the millions of other folks interested in weird health stuff.Why Trump’s Obesity Drug ‘Deal’ Will Help Big Pharma Most Of All
With the market for GLP-1s already exploding, Americans might be best served by a government that focuses on promoting competition to drive down prices.Do you really have ADHD — or do they want to medicate you into conformity?
Everybody has a diagnosis these days.
Not just adults — kids too. It doesn’t matter if you're 8 or 38, there's someone somewhere waiting to explain away whatever's different about you.
Perhaps you find your work excruciatingly boring and hard to care about precisely because it is excruciatingly boring and hard to care about.
It's not a quirk of your personality or a flaw in your character or a wound in your soul. It's a illness. Never mind that the symptoms are vague or the evidence that it's a discrete medical condition are lacking — a pharmaceutical cure will fix it.
Just pop this pill, and you will be like everyone else. Isn’t that what you want?
All the rage
All the kids these days have ADHD or autism. Which often makes me wonder if any of them do. Or if these conditions exist at all.
Autism certainly seems real in its extreme forms, but I am not at all convinced that it's at the far end of a continuum. I don’t really think being a little “on the spectrum” is a thing. Those people are just a little weird and need stronger guidance on how to get on in life.
I have a friend who was an engineer at Google. He told me half the people he worked with claimed to be “on the spectrum,” and according to him, it was all bull. They didn’t have medical problems; they had personal problems. They were guys who never learned how to interact normally, so they just ended up being kind of weird and rude.
As for ADHD, it's so obscenely overdiagnosed that it's essentially fake at this point. The market has been so oversaturated by ridiculous and erroneous diagnoses that whenever I hear about another kid with ADHD, it tells me more about the doctors and the “system” and less about the kid.
Boys will be boys
Are some kids better at sitting down at a desk for three hours at a time? Sure. Are more girls than boys better at doing it? Yes. Is there a gender factor here when it comes to diagnosis? Absolutely.
Boys don’t learn the same way girls do. But much of modern education ignores this fact. So when boys fidget or get bored, it gets chalked up to ADHD. This is more or less common knowledge by now. So the only thing a boy being diagnosed with ADHD tells me is that he doesn't get enough recess.
Of course, there are extreme cases. There are kids who genuinely don’t seem to be able to focus at all. Something like actual ADHD exists in a small number of boys, but that doesn't negate the broader truth: Instead of seeing people as individuals with different strengths and weaknesses, we decide to overmedicate when someone isn’t exactly like everyone else.
My mom worked with special ed kids. Some of them had mild disabilities, some more extreme. In some cases, it was clear they would need supervised care their entire lives. But in other cases, it wasn't clear just what, if anything, was wrong — besides a certain learned helplessness reinforced by doctors and parents.
Pill and chill
Nowadays ADHD diagnoses aren’t just for kids; adults are getting in on it too. Believe it or not, an increasing amount of men and women, especially women, in their 30s and 40s are discovering that they too have ADHD — a discovery that inevitably “explains everything.” My wife sees reels on Instagram all the time, along with ads selling various solutions.
What's that? You couldn’t focus at your computer, clicking on an excel spreadsheet, sending pointless emails for seven hours at a time? Shocking. No, you don’t need ADHD medication. You need to do something else with your life. Perhaps you find your work excruciatingly boring and hard to care about precisely because it is excruciatingly boring and hard to care about.
Overmedicalization and overdiagnosis is a deep problem in our society. Not just because the result is an increase in prescription drug use, but because the individual human being is lost or suffocated a little bit at a time. Everyone is different. Everyone has skills, and everyone has weaknesses. Everyone learns in a different way, and everyone focuses on different things too.
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Free agency
Some people are just a little awkward, a little weird, a little absent-minded, or a little dry. Sure, they should try to meet society halfway in some reasonable sense — but that happens through early teaching, parental guidance, community expectations, and personal effort, not through a pill you pop every day. For most of the 20th century, we relied far more on those nonmedical supports.
All the pill-popping flattens our individualism and undercuts our own agency as humans. It presupposes that one cannot make oneself better, one cannot work to act right, and that one doesn’t have any control. This is a lie. Yes, of course, there are people who suffer with truly debilitating problems who need medication, and they should get that medication. But it is a small fraction of the population. Most people can make themselves better when they set their minds to it.
Don’t get me wrong. I'm not anti-psychiatry. I'm not into alternative medicine or any of the hippie stuff. I’m not denying that there are people with problems who are helped most effectively with medication. I’m thankful for the blessings of modern medicine and the advancements we continue to see every year.
But we have a problem with overdiagnosis in our country. We have a problem with losing sight of the individual. We have a problem with people who want to give up their agency and turn it all over to a pill, and we are worse off because of it.
'Something has gone terribly wrong': Marriage is in 'disastrous' decline — perhaps because of women
The marriage rate has been in decline for decades, dropping from 10.6 per 1,000 people in 1980 to 6.1 in 2023. Last year, American adults were less likely to be married than at nearly any other time since the Census Bureau began logging marital status in 1940, with married couples heading only 47.1% of U.S. households.
The apparent aversion to marriage is bad news for American children, who perform better in school and are far less likely to end up in prison or depressed when raised by married parents, as well as for American adults who tend to see better health outcomes, be happier, and live longer when espoused.
'Devaluing marriage and motherhood has consequences.'
Recent Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the University of Michigan suggests that this decline may continue — especially if young women's growing resistance to marriage goes unremedied.
Whereas 20 years prior, 80% of 12th graders said that they were most likely to choose marriage in the long run, only 67% of 12th graders polled in 2023 indicated that they want to get married someday. Another 24% said they don't know if they'll get married, up from 16% in 1993.
This drop appears to have been largely driven by shifting views among girls.
In 1993, 83% of girls and 76% of boys said that they wanted to get married. In 2023, only 61% of girls said they wanted to get married — a drop of 22% — while 74% of boys indicated they wanted to ultimately tie the knot.
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Pew indicated that there was also a precipitous drop in the percentage of 12th graders who indicated they wanted to have kids if they marry.
Whereas in 1993, 82% said they wanted to have kids, in 2023, only 73% indicated they wanted to welcome new life into this world. Even more dramatically, the percentage of those who said they would "very likely" want to have kids if married dropped from 64% in 1993 to 48% in 2023.
"It's almost like decades of devaluing marriage and motherhood has consequences," wrote the Alabama Policy Institute.
Katy Faust, founder of the children's advocacy group Them Before Us, stated, "More than almost anything else trending, this terrifies me. Because of the nature of our bodies women have historically pursued marriage more. What kind of disastrous, antihuman messaging are young women being flooded with to return these kinds of results?"
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Dr. Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, said the anti-nuptial trend among young women and adolescent girls was "disastrous."
Wilcox underscored that this trend reflects a particularly raw deal for women, highlighting a recent YouGov survey of U.S. women, ages 25 to 55, fielded by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute, which found that married women with children are:
- more likely (19%) to report being "very happy" than both unmarried women with children (13%) and unmarried women without children (10%);
- more likely (47%) to report that life has felt enjoyable most or all of the time in the past 30 days than both unmarried women with children (40%) and unmarried women without children (34%);
- less likely (11%) to report being lonely most or all of the time in the past 30 days than both unmarried women with children (23%) and unmarried women without children (20%);
- more likely (51%) to receive physical affection than both unmarried women with children (29%) and unmarried women without children (17%); and
- more likely (28%) to report their lives have a clear sense of purpose than both unmarried women with children (25%) and unmarried women without children (16%).
Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said of the Pew report, "Something has gone terribly wrong."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!'Not medicine — it's malpractice': Trump HHS buries child sex-change regime with damning report
The Department of Health and Human Services delivered what could prove to be a lethal blow this week to the profitable and predatory child sex-change industry that has been on the defensive since President Donald Trump's Jan. 28 executive order directing all federal agencies to ensure that medical institutions receiving federal funding "end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children."
HHS published an exhaustive peer-reviewed report on Wednesday that should make abundantly clear to those still clinging to LGBT activists' preferred narrative about so-called "gender-affirming care" that "the harms from sex-rejecting procedures — including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical operations — are significant, long term, and too often ignored or inadequately tracked."
"This is a new day in the Department of Health and Human Services. It's a new day in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, a new day for the country," Admiral Brian Christine, assistant secretary for HHS, told Blaze News. "It is because of President Trump and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that this information has come out."
'The HHS report should put an end to the scourge of child mutilation masquerading as health care.'
The 410-page report, titled "Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices," reads as the weightier American counterpart to Britain's damning Cass Review, detailing:
- the often glossed-over risks and medical uncertainties involved with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change genital mutilations;
- the unscientific nature and strategic omissions of fact in the World Professional Association of Transgender Health guidelines;
- the manipulation of medical definitions undertaken in service of gender ideologues' medical agendas;
- ethical concerns regarding consent for sex-change procedures as well as the regret often experienced by victims of such procedures; and
- the "international retreat" from the "gender-affirming" model of care.
The report — which National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya indicated "marks a turning point for American medicine" — notes that the overall quality of evidence concerning the effects of sex-change medical interventions on long-term health, psychological outcomes, quality of life, and regret was found to be "very low."
Accordingly, the beneficial effects alleged in the literature and often cited by gender ideologues are likely to differ substantially from the actual effects of the sex-change procedures.
'It's literally a billion-dollar industry. It creates lifelong customers.'
What's more, the report noted that while the risks of child sex changes are many and unmistakable — including infertility, sexual dysfunction, impaired bone density accrual, surgical complications, and heart, metabolic, and psychiatric disorders — publication bias, a failure of existing studies to adequately track and report harms, and other factors may have obfuscated the true fallout of so-called "gender-affirming care."
The report minces no words in its conclusion, stating:
Many U.S. medical professionals and associations have fallen short of their duty to prioritize the health interests of young patients. First, there was a rapid expansion and implementation of a clinical protocol that lacked sufficient scientific and ethical justification. Second, when confronted with compelling evidence that this protocol did not deliver the health benefits it promised, and that other countries were changing their policies appropriately, U.S. medical professionals and associations failed to reconsider the "gender-affirming" approach. Third, conflicting evidence — evidence that challenged the foundational assumptions of the protocol and the professional standing of its advocates — was mischaracterized or insufficiently acknowledged. Finally, dissenting perspectives were marginalized, and those who voiced them were disparaged.
"The American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics peddled the lie that chemical and surgical sex-rejecting procedures could be good for children," HHS Secretary Kennedy said in a statement.
"They betrayed their oath to first do no harm, and their so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people," continued Kennedy. "That is not medicine — it’s malpractice."
RELATED: Sacrificing body parts and informed consent to the sex-change regime
When other Western nations, Britain in particular, began to re-evaluate their barbaric medical approaches to gender dysphoria, the Biden administration and the U.S. medical establishment dug in their heels and pushed the child sex-change regime to new extremes.
For instance, Biden's transvestic Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Rachel Levine, formerly Richard Levine, successfully pressured WPATH to drop its recommended minimum age requirements for sex-change mutilations. His reasoning for lowering the recommended age minimums — 17 for genital mutilations, 15 for healthy breast removals, 16 for breast implants, and 14 for hormone treatments — was apparently not based on scientific evidence but on politics.
Levine's successor, Trump HHS Assistant Secretary Brian Christine, told Blaze News, "There was absolutely an effort by the prior administration and, very specifically, an absolute effort by the individual who was the prior assistant secretary for health, Rachel Levine," to continue politicizing children's health.
He added that both ideology and profit prompted medical professionals and associations to similarly dig in their heels.
"It's literally a billion-dollar industry. It creates lifelong customers," said Christine. "You bring a little boy or a little girl in and you have them either get hormones or they get a mutilating surgery — you've created a lifelong customer. You've created someone who's going to come back again and again and again because of surgical complications or other things going on."
Gender dysphoria is an "emotional and mental condition," he explained. "There's no question about that. These individuals who truly have gender dysphoria, they suffer terribly. They deserve compassion. They deserve mental health care. What they don't need are sex-rejecting surgeries."
Christine said that treating gender dysphoria as a mental health condition is especially important with kids. "You should treat them with mental health care because we know that if you do, the majority of these kids, by the time they're in their late teens, are very comfortable in their own skin," he said.
Neeraja Deshpande, policy analyst for the Independent Women's Forum, said that the report, "in addition to creating a more transparent system, confirms once and for all what never should have been up for debate to begin with: that so-called surgical and chemical body alteration in the name of ‘gender transition’ is a medical danger to children."
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, said in a statement to Blaze News, "The HHS report should put an end to the scourge of child mutilation masquerading as health care."
"The peer-reviewed study only confirms what the American Principles Project and anyone with common sense has known all along: The gender industrial complex relies on bad faith, bad science, and a radical ideology that places the financial interest of drug companies over those of children," said Schilling.
Schilling suggested to Blaze News that elements within the child sex-change regime are now more likely to reap the whirlwind in court.
"This is, at a minimum, some type of consumer fraud. I do think that because of how horrific the harm that they did was that it does cross into serious criminal areas."
While Schilling noted that the industry presently enjoys robust protection from trial attorneys and left-wing institutions, once major legal actions break through, prompting big payouts, "then you'll have blood in the water, and the sharks will start circling."
Schilling alluded to Chloe Cole's lawsuit as one such potential breakthrough action.
Cole, a detransitioner who has raised awareness across the country about the horrors and fallout of sex-change medical interventions, has sued Kaiser Permanente for alleged medical negligence in connection with the sex-rejecting procedures the health system performed on her as a minor.
Schilling commended the numerous experts who put their names to the report — including doctors and scientists from the Baylor College of Medicine, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Duke University — stating, "They're very courageous for doing this. This is a very powerful and embedded industry that's been doing really big and terrible things in the country ... and for these guys to put their names behind it is a very big deal."
When asked whether this report ultimately amounts to a lethal blow against the sex-change regime, HHS Assistant Secretary Christine told Blaze News, "Yeah, we certainly hope so. We certainly believe it will be. Listen, our job in the administration is to protect our children, protect our citizens. Our job is to produce gold-standard science. That's exactly what we have done. It's exactly what we're doing."
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My kids make me sick!
I never used to get sick.
Every once in a while, sure. But it wasn’t really a regular phenomenon. It also didn’t really matter that much when I did. Yeah, I had work to get done and grocery shopping to do. But when I was a young single guy without any kids, getting sick just didn’t really impact my easy life that much.
I’ve also tried avoiding the illness at all costs. Washing my hands constantly. Staying away from the kids a little. Hugging them gently rather than wrestling like a madman.
Couch bound
Before that, when I was a kid, I loved getting “sick.” Those scare quotes are key. I didn’t actually love getting sick so much as I loved staying home from school because I was sick. That was fun. One day home from school was cool. Two days home was crazy. Going to sleep after the first day home sick, it was glorious knowing that unless a miracle occurred in the middle of the night, there would be yet another day of sitting at home on the couch watching TV.
I remember one year I got mono, and I was home for more than a week. I swear it may have been two weeks. I remember secretly wondering how long I could go with it. “What if I didn’t go back for a month?” A kid can only dream of something so beautiful.
Mono was a serious illness, I guess, but I don’t ever remember really being sad about it. Getting out of school was worth far more than the pain of a sore throat or a feverish head.
Germ magnet
Now I get sick a lot. Well, maybe not a lot, but a lot more than I used to in my 20s, and I certainly don’t like it like I did in my early teens. Now I know without a shadow of a doubt that as soon as I start seeing frost on the grass in the morning, I am going to get sick. And then a month or two after that, I am going to get sick again. And maybe even again after that if I’m really unlucky.
It’s not because I have developed a debilitating disease that results in an unnaturally sickly disposition. It’s because I’m a dad, and my kids are young, and young kids touch stuff in the stores and then stick their hands in their mouths, and then three days later one gets sick, then 24 hours after that another one gets it, and then my wife, and then finally me. Whatever it is runs through the house like a steamroller, and we all get squashed.
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Amor fati
I’ve tried a variety of different tactics over the years. I’ve tried giving up right from the start. Knowing that I’ll get it eventually, I accept my fate and just sort of live life with the sick kids. It feels pretty good psychologically. I’m not worried or stressed out about how I can avoid the illness. I don’t end up over-monitoring my body, trying to discern if I am getting sick or not. I just sort of march toward the cold in a blissful state.
I’ve also tried avoiding the illness at all costs. Washing my hands constantly. Staying away from the kids a little. Hugging them gently rather than wrestling like a madman. Backing my face away as they cough without covering their mouths, then telling them in a frustrated tone, “You need to cover your mouth.” Trying my hardest to prevent the unpreventable. It’s not a great feeling, and I always end up getting sick anyway. But at least I tried. That’s something, right?
Getting sick is just a part of having kids. I know that now. It can be mitigated by hounding them about washing their hands with hot soapy water and not touching their mouths in stores, but it can’t be eliminated entirely. It’s an inescapable fact of family life. If someone gets sick, everyone gets sick.
Family fever
It’s an allegory, of course. When you have a family, you can’t get away. You can’t separate or isolate. You are no longer just yourself. You are everyone at the same time.
We have our separate bedrooms and separate closets, but we share the same space. We have our own plates and silverware, but we share the same dish. We have our own inner thoughts and our own personalities, but we share the same name, the same blood, and the same familial predispositions that are part nature and part nurture, the ones that can’t really be untangled or even really figured out.
We make our kids into the kids they are in ways we can see and in ways we intend, through the prayers we say and the manners we demand. But we make them into who they are in other ways too. Some we don’t see, and some are unintentional: the phrase a kid says that sounds just like mom or the curse word a kid says that makes you realize you really do need to stop swearing.
We make them, and they make us. I’m different now from what I was before, and it’s partly because they made me that way. When you have a family, you are not only taking on the responsibilities of raising kids but also accepting that you aren’t alone anymore. That nothing in life will be tidy (literally or figuratively) like it was before. You are trapped together, you turn yourself over to no longer being yourself and only yourself.
For better or for worse. In sickness and in health.
The hard truth about sunscreen
Since the 1980s, society has become increasingly heliophobic. Dermatologists warn “there’s no such thing as a healthy tan.” Influencers and celebrities urge us to slather on high SPF products any time we leave the house. Public health agencies like the CDC now list sunscreen as a daily essential alongside seat belts and flu shots.
Is all this solar alarmism really merited?
Dr. Paul Saladino — a double board certified MD, host of the “Fundamental Health” podcast, and author of “The Carnivore Code” — says no. And in fact, it’s the sunscreen itself we should be scrutinizing, he told BlazeTV host Nicole Shanahan on an episode of “Back to the People.”
While sunscreen advocates constantly warn of sun exposure-linked cancers, Dr. Saladino points out that the majority of mainstream sunscreens are ironically full of carcinogens and endocrine disruptors, like benzene, oxybenzone, octocrylene, and avobenzone.
Further, villainizing the sun makes no sense from an “evolutionary, historical, anthropological perspective,” he says. “Most animals have a sense of when they've gotten too much sun. This is just intrinsic to life on the earth.”
“You can't produce vitamin D naturally without sunshine, nor can you produce ... melatonin,” Nicole adds.
“Exactly. ... We can supplement with melatonin, and we can supplement with vitamin D, but questions remain about whether that's the same as being in the sun,” Dr. Saladino agrees.
Sun exposure is also critical for our circadian rhythm – our body’s natural 24-hour internal clock that regulates sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, body temperature, and other functions in sync with day and night.
And perhaps most importantly, it just makes us happy. Sunlight is one of the biggest factors in depression risk. “We know that endorphins are produced when you go out in the sun, so these are the feel-good chemicals in our bodies suggestive of some sort of evolutionary mechanism that spurs us as humans to crave the sun in reasonable amounts,” says Dr. Saladino.
On top of that, sunlight triggers the production of nitric oxide in our skin, which widens blood vessels and lowers blood pressure. Dr. Saladino says that “there have been studies in humans” proving the cardiovascular benefits of sun exposure.
And yet despite all the evidence that sunlight is critical to human flourishing, the medical industry continues to demonize it and insists we douse ourselves in toxic chemicals that block sunlight.
So what’s the answer? How do we reap the necessary benefits of sunlight while still protecting ourselves from overexposure?
Dr. Saladino has several suggestions to help you stay safe and healthy:
1. If you feel you need some protection from the sun, try “covering up” or opting for mineral sunscreens, specifically “non-nano zinc oxide” sunscreens. These products sit on the skin's surface and block UV rays without risk of absorption.
2. As far as sun exposure goes, Dr. Saladino says every person’s limit is different. It “depends on skin tone at base, where you are in the world, and the season,” he says. He recommends using a free app called D-Minder, which calculates your optimal sun exposure time to produce vitamin D without burning based on factors like skin type, location, age, weight, and UV index.
3. For naturally pale-skinned people, he recommends morning sunlight, as there’s less UV rays at that time.
4. Trust your instincts. “Most of us as humans have an intrinsic sense of when we've gotten enough sun,” he says. “If you are sitting indoors and the sun looks delicious ... and it feels heavenly, your body probably needs that sunlight.”
To hear more of Dr. Saladino’s take on the “anti-sun establishment,” watch the episode above.
Want more from Nicole Shanahan?
To enjoy more of Nicole's compelling blend of empathy, curiosity, and enlightenment, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Most Women Are On Crazy Pills, And It’s Bad For Everyone
An entire generation of women is lost amidst engineered anxiety, chasing hollow independence while forsaking the proven anchors of marriage, family, and selfless purpose.RFK Jr. Probes Health Dangers Of Offshore Wind Turbines
While offshore wind farms’ effect on marine life has garnered much attention, the human element has been largely neglected.'Pro-death legislators' want euthanasia in Illinois — Canada reveals why that's a terrible idea
Democratic lawmakers in the Illinois legislature have passed a bill that would legalize doctor-assisted suicide across the state.
The bill now awaiting Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker's signature, SB 1950, originally started out as a measure concerning sanitary food preparation. The bill was, however, hollowed out then repurposed. Instead of keeping consumers healthy, the language was changed to expedite death — authorizing a qualified patient with a terminal disease to demand that their doctor prescribe a lethal dose of medication, thereby ending "the patient's life in a peaceful manner."
Catholic leaders in the state are among the bill's loudest critics.
'Now, they can prescribe death.'
In May, Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, wrote, "I have to ask why, in a time when growing understanding of the deteriorating mental health of the U.S. population — and particularly among our youth — caused the country to create the 988 mental health crisis line, we would want to take this step to normalize suicide as a solution to life's challenges."
Cupich stressed that the Illinois legislature should explore options that instead "honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness."
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield stated after legislators ignored Cupich's counsel and passed the bill in a 30-27 vote on Friday, "It is quite fitting that the forces of the culture of death in the Illinois General Assembly passed physician-assisted suicide on October 31 — a day that, culturally, has become synonymous with glorifying death and evil."
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"It's also ironic that these pro-death legislators did it under the cloud of darkness at 2:54 a.m. Make no mistake: killing oneself is not dying with dignity. Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death," the bishop continued. "Physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities."
The Illinois Catholic Conference warned on Wednesday that the legalization of assisted suicide in Illinois will put the "state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community and have foreseeable tragic consequences."
The dangers and fallout of legalized assisted suicide are hardly hypothetical.
North of the border, Canada is weeks away from publishing its sixth annual report on so-called medical assistance in dying. While the official numbers have yet to be released accounting for all MAID deaths in 2024 nationwide, provincial data appear to indicate another year-over-year increase in state-facilitated slayings.
The federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau passed the Medical Assistance in Dying Act in 2016, legalizing euthanasia nationwide. Originally, applicants had to be 18 or older and suffering from a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" causing "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable" to them.
The state-facilitated suicide program has since been grossly liberalized such that the country's eugenicist-founded health care system can now effectively execute those struggling with anxiety, autism, depression, economic woes, PTSD, and other survivable issues.
In its first year, MAID offed 1,108 Canadians. That number tripled the following year, and by 2021, the number had climbed to over 10,000 assisted-suicide deaths in a single year.
The Canadian think tank Cardus revealed last year that "MAiD in Canada is no longer unusual or rare. Federal predictions about the expected frequency of MAiD have significantly underestimated the numbers of Canadians who are dying by this means."
As of 2022, MAID was tied with cerebrovascular diseases as the fifth leading cause of death in the country. The following year, state-facilitated suicide claimed the lives of 15,343 individuals, accounting for 4.7% of all deaths in the country.
'Feeling like a burden can play on a patient's decision to request and receive a MAiD death.'
Authorities in Nova Scotia, a province of just over 1 million souls, indicated to Blaze News that it saw a drop in completed MAID slayings last year. Whereas there were 380 slayings in 2023, there were allegedly only 169 in 2024, with 286 active cases and 71 recorded natural deaths prior to MAID.
This appears to be the exception, not the rule.
The nation's more populous provinces have alternatively seen continued increases in MAID slayings.
British Columbia's 2024 euthanasia data, for instance, indicate that there were 3,000 state-facilitated suicides in the province last year. While most of the victims were over the age of 65, 1.5% of those slain were between the ages of 18 and 45 and individuals who were not dying. In fact, among the conditions cited as reasons and/or contributing reasons for MAID were "frailty," dementia, mental disorders, and unstated neurological conditions.
The Euthanasia Prevent Coalition noted that MAID deaths in B.C. were up over 8% from the previous year and accounted for 6.7% of all deaths in the province last year.
Alberta, a province of just over 5 million souls, recorded 1,117 deaths in 2024, representing a year-over-year increase of 14.3% and making its total MAID kill count 5,646 victims since 2016.
Data obtained by the MAiD in Canada Substack indicate that in 2024, Ontario had 4,957 deaths, representing an increase of 6.8% and making its grand total 23,333 victims since 2016.
Quebec reportedly had 6,058 MAID deaths last year, representing an increase of 6.4% and making its grand total over 26,000 victims since 2016. In addition to the growing number of deaths, there is apparently a growing cohort of doctors willing to dish out lethal doses in Quebec. A recent government report indicated that over 2,000 physicians were involved in the slayings, representing an 11% increase over the previous year.
Rebecca Vachon, health program director at Cardus, told Blaze News that "based on current reporting from the most populous provinces, we expect to see more than 16,500 'medical assistance in dying' or euthanasia deaths in 2024, which is an increase from the 15,343 deaths reported in 2023. This will likely result in MAiD deaths constituting 5% of total deaths in Canada that year, which, as Cardus discussed in a report released last fall, is a far cry from the expectations set by the courts that MAiD would be for exceptional cases only."
The Canadian government released a report in 2020 indicating that the previous year, MAID resulted in a net cost reduction of over $86 million for provincial governments. The report additionally noted that further liberalization of the MAID program under Bill C-7, which was passed in March 2021, would result in an additional $62 million reduction in costs.
When asked whether MAID is being championed in part as a way to cut costs for Canada's immigration-strained health care system, Vachon told Blaze News, "Regardless of intentions, the pressure that feeling like a burden can play on a patient's decision to request and receive a MAiD death should not be understated."
"For instance, Canadian MAiD providers report that almost 50% of the patients they helped die in 2023 reported feeling they were a burden on others — up 10% from the previous year," Vachon said.
'Illinois should be a state that offers compassion, care, and hope — not death — as the answer to human suffering.'
Polls conducted by Cardus in partnership with the Angus Reid Institute found that 62% of Canadians fear that those who are financially or socially vulnerable may consider state-facilitated suicide because of difficulties accessing adequate care, Vachon indicated.
The fear is justified given that 42% of all MAID deaths from 2019 to 2023 involved people who required disability supports. Of those victims, over 1,017 never received those supports.
"Canadians deserve care that alleviates their suffering and prevents it from becoming 'unbearable,'" Vachon said.
Blaze News has reached out for comment to Prime Minister Mark Carney's office as well as to the leaders of the New Democratic Party and Conservative Party, Don Davies and Pierre Poilievre.
While the slope has been greased in Canada and in states such as California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Vermont, and Washington, there's still hope that Pritzker may reconsider, especially after he noted on Monday, "It was something that I didn't expect and didn't know it was going to be voted on, so we're examining it even now."
Rather than sign the bill, the Illinois Catholic Conference has implored Pritzker to "expand and improve on palliative care programs that offer expert assessment and management of pain and other symptoms."
Bishop Paprocki noted, "Pray for Gov. Pritzker to reject this legislation. Illinois should be a state that offers compassion, care, and hope — not death — as the answer to human suffering."
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