The Left Accuses The Right Of Hate To Avoid Debate And Silence Opposition
Conservatives' views on marriage, transgenderism, abortion, race, and more are based on reason, science, economics, and the Bible — not hate.Conservatives' views on marriage, transgenderism, abortion, race, and more are based on reason, science, economics, and the Bible — not hate.Libs gobble Tylenol, foreign officials complain after Trump highlights autism link
President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. caused an uproar among medical establishmentarians and thin-skinned liberals on Monday by formally identifying acetaminophen as one of the alleged drivers behind the rise in American autism.
Acetaminophen, often sold under the brand Tylenol in the United States but known overseas as paracetamol, is the most common over-the-counter pain and fever medication used during pregnancy. Sales of the drug this year have an estimated value of $10.9 billion.
Kennedy indicated that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will notify physicians that acetaminophen use by pregnant women may be associated with a "very increased risk" of neurological conditions like autism and ADHD in children.
The Department of Health and Human Services will also launch a nationwide public information campaign to alert parents and families to the possible risks of taking Tylenol during pregnancy.
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"The Trump administration does not believe popping more pills is always the answer for better health," said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. "There is mounting evidence finding a connection between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism — and that’s why the administration is courageously issuing this new health guidance."
Foreign health officials rushed to defend the drug, suggesting that it is safe and effective.
Alison Cave, chief safety officer of the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said in a statement, "There is no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children."
RELATED: Trump administration claims link between autism and Tylenol, greenlights remedy
"Paracetamol remains the recommended pain relief option for pregnant women when used as directed," added Cave.
The MHRA stressed further that patients should continue taking their pain medicines.
Steffen Thirstrup, the chief medical officer of the European Medicines Agency, also chimed in, stating that acetaminophen is an important option for treating pain or fever in pregnant women and that his agency's "advice is based on a rigorous assessment of the available scientific data, and we have found no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children."
'Exposure of susceptible babies and children to acetaminophen (paracetamol) induces many, if not most, cases of autism spectrum disorder.'
Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, told reporters on Tuesday that while some studies have suggested an association between prenatal exposure to the drug and autism, "evidence remains inconsistent."
"If the link between acetaminophen and autism were strong, it would likely have been consistently observed across multiple studies," added Jasarevic.
James Cusack, the autistic chief executive of Autistica, a London-based autism research charity, told Nature, "There is no definitive evidence to suggest that paracetamol use in mothers is a cause of autism, and when you see any associations, they are very, very small."
Meanwhile, numerous liberals and other critics of the administration proved memers prophetic by downing fistfuls of acetaminophen as a form of protest.
While some of the pill-popping videos appear to have been recorded in jest, others are accompanied with humorless critiques of the administration's efforts to identify and tackle the root causes of autism.
Ahead of Trump's announcement on Monday, a spokesperson for Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol whose stock price took a nose dive on Monday, told Blaze News, "We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers."
When pressed about what the "sound science clearly shows," Dr. William Parker, CEO of WPLab and visiting scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Blaze News:
The science tells us several things. Among the most important are: (a) Exposure of susceptible babies and children to acetaminophen (paracetamol) induces many, if not most, cases of autism spectrum disorder. b) Specific, invalid assumptions made when analyzing epidemiologic data have impeded recognition of the role of acetaminophen in the induction of autism.
Dr. Parker also cited his 2023 scientific review published in the Swiss peer-reviewed journal Children that concluded that "the very early postpartum period poses the greatest risk for acetaminophen-induced ASD, and that nearly ubiquitous use of acetaminophen during early development could conceivably be responsible for the induction in the vast majority, perhaps 90% or more, of all cases of ASD."
RELATED: How MAHA can really save American lives
Dr. Yuelong Ji, an assistant professor at Peking University, told Blaze News, "Officials should indeed advise caution regarding the unnecessary use of acetaminophen during pregnancy."
Ji was among the researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who collected umbilical cord blood from 996 births and measured the amount of acetaminophen and two of its byproducts in each sample.
According to the resultant National Institutes of Health-funded 2019 study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, "Cord biomarkers of fetal exposure to acetaminophen were associated with significantly increased risk of childhood ADHD and ASD in a dose-response fashion."
"These results highlight the need for careful consideration of its use during this critical period of brain development," Ji told Blaze News. "The potential mechanisms by which acetaminophen may affect the developing brain should be thoroughly investigated. Until this mechanism is better understood, it is prudent for health officials to adopt a cautious approach when advising pregnant individuals on acetaminophen use."
The White House's fact sheet concerning the president's Tylenol-autism claims and the FDA's relabeling of acetaminophen cites Parker's and Ji's studies as well as a recent NIH-supported systematic review that found positive associations of prenatal acetaminophen use with ADHD, ASD, or NDDs in offspring across dozens of high-quality studies.
It also cites the 2021 international consensus statement that recommends pregnant women "minimize exposure" to acetaminophen "by using the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time."
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Science's God-denying narrative just got crushed again
Scientists have made a discovery that should shake the foundations of modern biology.
When organisms die, some of their cells might not simply shut off like light bulbs. Instead, they reorganize, build new structures, solve problems, and make decisions. These researchers call it a “third state” of existence.
Once you accept that life itself shows signs of intention, you must also acknowledge that there is an Intender.
But to anyone steeped in Christian thought, it sounds less like a new scientific category and more like an old truth, a glimpse of the life that refuses to be reduced to chemicals and chance.
Mind in matter
Consider the strange case of xenobots, tiny clusters of frog cells lifted from their natural role and placed in a lab dish. They were expected to wither.
Instead, they began to move, formed patterns, and worked together in ways that showed clear intention.
Dr. William Miller calls this consciousness. Not the kind of awareness you and I possess, but the raw ability to adapt, to choose, to pursue a purpose. When placed outside their usual role, cells don’t behave like blind molecules colliding at random. They behave like agents. They cooperate. They solve problems. They move toward goals.
That fact alone shatters one of materialism’s deepest dogmas.
The evolution lie
For more than a century, the reigning narrative has been that consciousness is a late arrival on the evolutionary stage. It's nothing more than an accidental byproduct of brain complexity, born only after countless mutations stumbled into neurons, then into networks, then into awareness.
The atheist worldview depends on this sequence. It argues that life has no inherent meaning because what we call “mind” is simply chemistry scaled up. In this view, free will is an illusion generated by firing synapses.
But these cells expose the lie of that story.
If consciousness exists at the cellular level, then it doesn’t wait for brains. It doesn’t emerge as a lucky accident after billions of years of trial and error. It’s present from the beginning, written into life at its smallest scale.
That flips the entire evolutionary tale on its head. Instead of matter groping toward mind, we see mind animating matter. Instead of dead particles producing life, we see life infused with purpose at the very first step.
The intender revealed
What if mind, not matter, is primary? This is a profoundly important question, one that doesn’t just challenge the materialist narrative but annihilates it. Once you accept that life itself shows signs of intention, you must also acknowledge that there is an Intender.
The real shock is that these cells don’t compete; they collaborate. They don’t claw for survival but sacrifice for a greater whole. Every one of the 30 trillion cells in your body could, in theory, serve itself — yet they don’t. They choose unity. Skin cells shield. Heart cells pump. Brain cells think. All of them working in harmony with no central command.
RELATED: The Dawkins delusion: Why atheism can't explain the one thing that matters
Random mutation cannot account for this. Natural selection doesn’t explain why self-interest gives way to selflessness billions of times a day inside your body. Something is directing the orchestra.
And consider the scale of the information problem. DNA contains more information than our minds could possibly fathom. Cellular machinery reads, copies, and executes these instructions with astonishing speed and near-perfect accuracy, millions of times every second. Our best computers look painfully clumsy beside such precision.
Materialists insist that this miracle of information arranged itself over billions of years. But information doesn’t just organize itself. A letter always points back to an author, a painting to a painter, and a symphony to a composer.
God's living code
The xenobot research confirms this reality. It's what some scientists call “biological agency.” And where does this awareness come from? Scientists can describe what it does, but not where it begins. They can measure its effects, but not locate its source.
Christianity, on the other hand, has always given the only coherent answer: Consciousness originates in God, the eternal, self-existent Being who imprinted His image on creation, a God who designed life not as machinery but as community.
The Bible says humans are made in God’s image, reflecting His consciousness, His creativity, His moral compass. What Miller and others are now uncovering is that this reflection stretches deeper than we imagined. Every cell of your body participates in it. Right now, as you read these words, trillions of cells are making choices, collaborating without rest, preserving your existence.
Some might view this as a fortunate accident, another curious quirk in the endless lottery of evolution.
But randomness doesn’t yield purpose. Blind collisions don’t generate systems that adapt, collaborate, and surrender for one another with unfailing order. What we see isn’t chaos but choreography, not accident but authorship.
I see it as divine purpose. The God signal has been there all along, humming beneath the fabric of life. And now even the microscopes are beginning to see it: design in the details, direction in the data, destiny in the DNA.
'Sex recession': Study suggests Americans have lost their mojo
Movies and television programs reportedly have significantly more sexual content, nudity, and immodesty now than those shown just a few decades ago. The so-called "adult entertainment" industry has, meanwhile, exploded, with one projection suggesting that it will grow from an estimated global market size of $58.8 billion in 2023 to $74.7 billion by 2030.
While depictions of sex are ubiquitous in the media, a new study suggests that the real thing is disappearing from the lives of everyday Americans.
The delay and avoidance of marriage appear to be another major factor.
Citing General Social Survey data, the Institute for Family Studies recently indicated that "Americans are having a record-low amount of sex."
Whereas in 1990, 55% of adults ages 18 to 64 reportedly were having sex at least once a week, that number reportedly dropped to less than 50% by the turn of the century. As of last year, the percentage of adults ages 18-64 having sex weekly had fallen all the way down to 37%.
When it comes to individuals ages 18-29 who reported not having sex in the last year, the number held steady at around 15% of respondents until 2010. However, between 2010 and 2024, that number skyrocketed to 24% in the General Social Survey.
There appear to be numerous factors at play, including shifting social norms; libido-killing prescription drugs; the pandemic; decreasing alcohol consumption; the interpersonal impact of social media, gaming, and the smartphone; and pornography. The delay and avoidance of marriage appear to be another major factor.
Dr. Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, and Lyman Stone, director of the Pronatalism Initiative at the IFS, noted in a 2019 article in the Atlantic that married people have sex more often but that the share of adults who are married was falling to record lows.
Whereas 46% of married men and women ages 18-64 reported having weekly sex, only 34% of their unmarried peers reported the same, said the new IFS study. However, married couples are also facing a so-called "sex recession," as 59% of married adults ages 18-64 reportedly had sex once a week in the period between 1996 and 2008.
RELATED: American fertility rate hits all-time low as Dems clamor for foreign replacements
The new IFS study noted that younger generations are having less sex than their predecessors did in part because of a "decline in steady partnering, especially in marriage, and a decline in sexual frequency within couples."
This "sex recession" has some obvious implications besides youngsters' joylessness.
Data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July revealed that U.S. fertility rates dropped to an all-time low in last year, with 1.599 children being born per woman. For comparison, the latest reported fertility rates in Australia, England and Wales, Canada, and China are 1.5, 1.44, 1.26, and 1.01, respectively.
The fertility rate necessary for a population to maintain stability and replenish itself without requiring replacement by foreign nationals is 2.1.
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Health commissars are pushing masking again in Newsom's California
California's mask commissars are once again clamoring for Americans to cover their faces.
During the pandemic, Democrat leaders and health officials in the Golden State proved eager to condition Americans' ability to leave the house and to perform basic errands on wearing a mask.
"Bring your mask with you whenever you leave your home," said former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. "That will help us get more freedoms."
On June 18, 2020 — just over a month after L.A. reopened its beaches — the California Department of Public Health announced that Californians were required to wear face coverings in public spaces; when obtaining services from the health care sector; when waiting for or riding on public transportation; when engaged in work with other members of the public; and "while outdoors in public spaces when maintaining a physical distance of six feet from persons who are not members of the same household."
"Simply put, we are seeing too many people with faces uncovered," said Gavin Newsom — the Democrat governor who months later issued a statewide order expanding the mask requirement to most indoor and outdoor settings.
Newsom issued his order despite evidence that masks, like the COVID-19 vaccines, weren't as effective as some proponents liked to pretend.
RELATED: Let us never forget how COVID lockdown lunacy, tyranny, and hypocrisy harmed all of us
For instance, the Centers for Disease Control's peer-reviewed journal, Emerging Infectious Diseases, published a study in May 2020 that found "no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks."
The researchers stated, "There is limited evidence for [disposal medical masks'] effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. Our systematic review found no significant effect of face masks on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza."
'I recommend that everybody in West Sacramento wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces.'
Although Newsom's mask mandate was partially dropped in March 2022, mask requirements nevertheless remained in effect for certain settings. Even a comprehensive Cochrane analysis of scientific studies concerning the efficacy of masks in reducing the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses, led by Oxford epidemiologist Tom Jefferson and published in January 2023, concluded:
Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza‐like illness/COVID‐19-like illness compared to not wearing masks. ... Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing masks.
Aimee Sisson, the health officer in Yolo County, said in a statement on Friday, "California is experiencing a summer COVID wave."
The CDC's COVID-19 Hospitalization Surveillance Network indicated that in the week ending Aug. 23, the national hospitalization rate was 1.4 per 100,000 for those ages 0-4; 0.2 for those ages 5-17; 0.4 for those ages 18-49; 0.9 for those ages 50-64; and 5.1 for those 65 and older.
While the overall level of hospitalizations for the endemic virus is reportedly "low," the Los Angeles Times indicated the number is increasing across the Golden State.
According to an estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 31 states, including California.
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"Based on current wastewater levels of the virus that causes COVID-19, I recommend that everybody in West Sacramento wear a mask when they are around others in indoor public spaces," said Sisson. "I also recommend that people in the rest of Yolo County wear masks when they are around others indoors if they are 65 or older, have a weakened immune system, have an underlying medical condition that puts them at a greater risk of severe COVID-19, or spend time around people who fall into these categories."
The San Francisco Department of Public Health has similarly recommended "wearing a well-fitted mask when you are in crowded, indoor spaces, including when traveling."
The California Department of Public Health noted in a social media post on Saturday, "Protect yourself and your loved ones by considering masking in indoor public places like airports and planes. Wear a high-quality mask like an N95, KN95 or KF94 to stay protected."
The CDPH told Blaze News in a statement, "CDPH continues to recommend masks in certain situations and is not considering changing these recommendations at this time."
"Local health departments may make recommendations on masking based on virus activity in their region," the agency added in its statement. "Overall wastewater concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 are currently increasing, and it is not yet clear when wastewater activity will peak this summer."
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Al Gore wrong again: Study delivers good news for Arctic ice trends, bad news for climate hucksters
Failed presidential candidate Al Gore claimed in his 2007 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech that the previous year, "as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Polar ice cap is 'falling off a cliff.' One study estimated that it could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years."
Two years later, the climate alarmist told the Copenhagen Climate Conference that new research indicated there was "a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice free within the next five to seven years."
It turns out Al Gore, whose fearmongering reportedly nets him $200,000 per speaking engagement, was not only wrong about a 20-foot rise in the global sea level "in the near future," polar bear drownings, and the snows of Kilimanjaro, but also about the future of Arctic ice.
A paper published this month in the American Geophysical Union's biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters indicated that over the past 20 years, "Arctic sea ice loss has slowed considerably, with no statistically significant decline in September sea ice area since 2005."
This slowdown in the loss of Arctic sea ice was pronounced across all months of the year and could "plausibly" continue over the next decade.
The researchers behind the paper — from Columbia University and the University of Exeter — indicated that even with relatively high global temperatures, "climate modeling evidence suggests we should expect periods like this to occur somewhat frequently."
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Natural factors, variations in ocean currents in particular, have a tremendous impact in this arena — accelerating, slowing, or reversing ice loss — and have apparently served in recent decades to offset the impact of relatively high global temperatures.
This natural corrective is all the more critical as humans reduce their emissions.
'Now the [natural] variability has switched to largely cancelling out sea ice loss.'
While the authors take for granted that ice loss over the past 50 years has been driven in part by "human-induced climate change," they acknowledged that there was actually significant Arctic sea ice expansion during at least one other period of increasing anthropogenic greenhouse emissions — from the 1940s to the 1970s.
An increase in industrial aerosol emissions from North America and Europe reportedly helped cool the Arctic in the mid-20th century. The very phase-out of exhaust — particularly sulfur emissions — from ships that some environmentalists advocated for appears to have "contributed to enhanced global and Arctic warming since 2020," said the paper.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Program Office indicated that in 2020, new international shipping regulations "drastically" cut sulfur emissions from ships. The exhaust they previously created — reflective clouds called "ship tracks" — had long reflected sunlight back into space, thereby cooling the planet.
"It is surprising, when there is a current debate about whether global warming is accelerating, that we’re talking about a slowdown," Mark England, the researcher who led the study, told the Guardian.
While willing to admit the alarmism of yesteryear was bunkum, England still was sure to tinge his forecast with pessimism.
RELATED: The climate cult is brainwashing your kids — and you’re paying for it
"The good news is that 10 to 15 years ago when sea ice loss was accelerating, some people were talking about an ice-free Arctic before 2020," said England. "But now the [natural] variability has switched to largely cancelling out sea ice loss. It has bought us a bit more time, but it is a temporary reprieve — when it ends, it isn't good news."
England emphasized the need to maintain a sense of urgency and alarm, stating, "Climate change is unequivocally real, human-driven, and continues to pose serious threats. The fundamental science and urgency for climate action remain unchanged."
While Arctic ice loss has slowed, the Antarctic has been gaining ice in recent years.
According to a 2023 study published in the European Geosciences Union's peer-reviewed journal the Cryosphere, the Antarctic ice shelf area grew by 2048.27 square miles between 2009 and 2019, gaining 661 gigatonnes of ice mass "with 18 ice shelves retreating and 16 larger shelves growing in area."
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It's been a year since Kennedy and Trump joined forces. Here are MAHA's top 3 wins.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. noted in August 2024 that a major factor behind his decision to endorse President Donald Trump was the opportunity to help "Make America Healthy Again" in a future Trump administration.
"Don't you want healthy children?" Kennedy said in a speech. "And don't you want the chemicals out of our food? And don't you want the regulatory agencies to be free from corporate corruption? And that's what President Trump told me that he wanted."
Since his hotly contested confirmation as Trump's Health and Human Services secretary in February, Kennedy has worked ardently to deliver on the promise of MAHA.
Already, HHS under his tutelage has secured numerous victories on the health front, including the:
- cancellation of mRNA vaccine development contracts;
- elimination of the Biden-era vaccine-reporting requirement and corresponding incentive system for hospitals;
- termination of thousands of bureaucrats along with senior establishmentarians such as Christine Grady, the wife of former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci;
- removal of retarding fluoride drug products for children from the market;
- requirement that Pfizer and Moderna add new safety warnings to their COVID-19 vaccines; and
- removal of the COVID vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommended vaccine schedule for healthy pregnant women and children.
Although the Trump administration has delivered many MAHA wins, three in particular stand out as particularly consequential.
Fresh start at the ACIP
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is the federal panel whose vaccine recommendations become official policy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and apply to the entire American population once adopted by the agency's director — a position which, at the time of writing, was vacant thanks to Susan Monarez's firing on Wednesday.
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Kennedy fired all 17 members of the ACIP in June.
While every member of the ACIP was a Biden administration appointee, the health secretary's principle concern was not the panelists' politics but rather their cozy relationships with some of the organizations they were tasked with scrutinizing.
For instance, data provided on OpenPaymentData.CMS.gov, a site managed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, indicated that Edwin Jose Asturias, one of the ACIP members whom Kennedy fired, collected around $54,000 from pharmaceutical companies, including $20,705 in what appear to be consulting fees.
Blaze News previously reported that among the companies that paid Asturias what appear to have been consulting fees were Pfizer and Merck Sharpe & Dohme LLC, a bio-pharmaceutical subsidiary of the company whose pneumococcal vaccine Capvaxive the committee voted to recommend in October. Asturias also apparently netted millions in research support from Big Pharma, including over $3.1 million from Pfizer and over $730,000 from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline LLC.
Like Asturias, Kennedy noted "most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines."
Kennedy indicated that the individuals he appointed to the newly cleared panel were "highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense" and had "each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations."
Nuking gender ideology
Pursuant to President Donald Trump's Executive Order 14168, the HHS has taken a wrecking ball to gender ideology.
For starters, the department released guidance to the U.S. government, to the public, and to external partners that sex is an immutable biological classification and that there are only two sexes, male and female.
The department has applied this standard to civil rights enforcement, health care policy, and sports eligibility; launched federal civil rights investigations into whether various states violated Title IX by allowing men in women's sports; canceled funding for related programs and activities; and scrubbed its websites of messaging, guidance, and language that advanced gender ideology.
The HHS has also conditioned federal funding for states' Personal Responsibility Education Program grants on the removal of all references to gender ideology.
California learned the hard way and had its PREP grant terminated on Aug. 21. The HHS' Administration for Children and Families noted in a release that the agency would not tolerate funding "curricula that could encourage kids to contemplate mutilating their genitals, 'altering their body ... through hormone therapy,' 'adding or removing breast tissue,' and 'changing their name.'"
Axing artificial food coloring
The HHS outlined a plan in April to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from America's food supply.
Vani Hari, a critic of the food industry who founded Food Babe, told Blaze News in November that the brighter artificial colors, which are helpful with sales and attractive to children, are harmful to their health.
"The science shows that these dyes cause hyperactivity in children, can disrupt the immune system, and are contaminated with carcinogens," said Hari.
Red dye 40, for instance, has been linked in some studies to hyperactivity disorders in children, and, according to the Cleveland Clinic, has various potential side effects, including depression, irritability, and migraines.
A 2021 paper in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Nutrition noted that blue dye 1 has been found to cause chromosomal aberrations and "was found to inhibit neurite growth and act synergistically with L-glutamic acid in vitro, suggesting the potential for neurotoxicity."
In short order, the U.S Food and Drug Administration kicked off the process of revoking authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B in the short term and to eliminate another six synthetic dyes — FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2 — by the end of next year.
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The FDA also requested that companies move up their timelines for the removal of FD&C Red No. 3.
"These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development," Kennedy said in a statement. "That era is coming to an end. We're restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public's trust."
Numerous food manufacturers and fast-food chains have fallen in line or taken big steps in the right direction, including General Mills; Kraft Heinz; Starbucks; PepsiCo; Danone North America; TreeHouse Foods; Tyson Foods; and In-N-Out Burger.
In addition to tackling synthetic dyes, the HHS has paved the way for the use of food coloring from natural sources. In May, the FDA granted new color additive petitions for galdieria extract blue, butterfly pea flower extract, and calcium phosphate.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!COVID wasn’t the only virus. Arrogance infected public health.
America doesn’t have a science problem. It has a trust problem.
The collapse of trust didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened because the people running our institutions — government agencies, public health bureaucracies, and elite media — chose fear over facts, power over principle, and silence over accountability.
Truth alone won’t restore trust. We need courage. We need accountability. And above all, we need to stop pretending that silence keeps the peace.
I’ve spent more than three decades in life sciences, investing in innovation and funding companies that bring real cures to market. Bureaucracy can slow progress. But during COVID-19, the damage went farther. It wasn’t just red tape. It was arrogance, censorship, and the collapse of debate inside institutions once devoted to transparency and truth.
We told Americans to “trust the experts,” then changed the story every few weeks. We locked down playgrounds while allowing political protests. We shut down small businesses while rewarding massive platforms. We punished skepticism, not misinformation. We arrested surfers, fired nurses, and drove policemen and military personnel out of their jobs for refusing a vaccine. Where were the “my body, my choice” voices then?
Now Americans don’t just question mandates — they question everything: the data, the motives, the science itself.
Who can blame them? Childhood vaccination rates are falling because public health failed. An entire generation lost precious developmental time in isolation. Families grieved alone. And the same bureaucrats behind those mandates persuaded us to blame COVID, when in fact it was their decisions that did much of the damage. No one has been questioned. No one has been punished. Not one county health official has been held accountable.
A recent Gallup poll showed trust in institutions like the CDC and FDA has collapsed by more than 30 points in just a few years. That trust won’t be restored by press conferences or new slogans. It will only be restored when real leaders tell the truth about what went wrong and take responsibility to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Dr. Scott Atlas put it plainly: The lockdowns weren’t the result of the virus. They were the result of decisions — decisions made by people who ignored known data, silenced dissent, and wielded authority like a weapon. And they got it wrong. Pretending otherwise only guarantees the disaster repeats.
So where do we start if we want to rebuild trust?
End the illusion of absolute authority. The CDC, NIH, and FDA must return to their proper role: advisory. They don’t make laws. They don’t issue mandates. They provide information — period.
Impose term limits on public health leadership. No more 30-year bureaucratic dynasties. Power without turnover hardens into ideology.
Ban conflicts of interest. No royalty payments to government scientists from the very companies they regulate. No revolving door between regulators and pharma.
Demand transparency. Every agency meeting, vote, and decision should be public and immediate. If they work for us, we should know what they’re saying.
These aren’t partisan talking points. They’re common-sense reforms. The stakes are too high to shrug and “move on.” Parents who lost a year of their children’s development, the elderly who died alone, the small business owners who lost everything — they deserve accountability. This isn’t about public policy. It’s about principle.
RELATED: No perp walks, no peace
And here’s the deeper truth: Fixing this mess isn’t just government’s job. It’s up to us — the entrepreneurs, innovators, parents, doctors, investors, and voters — to become stewards of truth. Not because we crave power, but because we believe in clarity. Because we still believe in the ideals America was built on.
I came to the United States at 15 after fleeing war in Beirut. I’ve seen what happens when fear and control override freedom and reason. I’ve spent my life betting on better — on ideas, on people, and on this country.
Truth alone won’t restore trust. We need courage. We need accountability. And above all, we need to stop pretending that silence keeps the peace.
It doesn’t. It only postpones the next disaster.
Study warns of possible link between world's most popular painkiller and autism
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. raised the alarm earlier this year about the meteoric rise of reported autism cases in the United States, underscoring at a press conference, "We are doing this to our children, and we need to put an end to it."
"The [autism spectrum disorder] prevalence rate in 8-year-olds is now 1 in 31," said Kennedy, referring to a study that examined children born in 2014. The health secretary noted further that American boys face an "extreme risk" of ending up with autism, stating that they have a 1 in 20 chance of being diagnosed with the condition — or a 1 in 12.5 chance in California.
Kennedy promised President Donald Trump during a Cabinet meeting in April that "by September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we'll be able to eliminate those exposures."
A study published this month in the peer-reviewed medical journal BMC Environmental Health could prove valuable to the Department of Health and Human Services' campaign to narrow down the possible causes of autism.
Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles' School of Public Health, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai systematically reviewed 46 "well-designed" studies incorporating data from over 100,000 participants regarding the relationship between neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and prenatal exposure to acetaminophen.
'The research team’s findings strengthen the evidence for a connection and raise concerns about current clinical practices.'
Acetaminophen, the drug sold under the brand Tylenol in the United States and Canada, is the most common over-the-counter pain and fever medication used during pregnancy and is reportedly used by well over 50% of pregnant women worldwide.
The researchers found that 27 of the studies reported "significant links" between acetaminophen exposure in the womb and NDDs and noted that "higher-quality studies were more likely to show positive associations."
"Overall, the majority of the studies reported positive associations of prenatal acetaminophen use with ADHD, ASD, or NDDs in offspring, with risk-of-bias and strength-of-evidence ratings informing the overall synthesis," said the study.
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When specifically evaluating the studies pertaining to Tylenol use and autism in children, the researchers found "strong evidence of a relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and increased risk of ASD in children."
The drug freely crosses the placental barrier, "reaching levels in fetal circulation similar to maternal circulation within less than an hour of maternal ingestion."
According to the researchers, the drug:
- "undergoes oxidative metabolism via the enzyme CYP2E1 — present in fetal brains, placenta, and lungs — to produce toxic metabolites";
- "affects prostaglandin and endocannabinoid pathways, which are involved in prenatal neuronal development";
- has been shown in animal models to increase "oxidative stress markers in the fetal brain and is associated with neurodevelopmental deficits"; and
- "directly perturbs hormone-dependent processes, affects neurodevelopment and reproductive disorders, and might alter steroidogenesis in the placenta and induce placental damage."
Dr. Diddier Prada, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a release, "Our findings show that higher-quality studies are more likely to show a link between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and increased risks of autism and ADHD."
"Given the widespread use of this medication, even a small increase in risk could have major public health implications," added Prada.
Mount Sinai noted that while the damning study "does not show that acetaminophen directly causes neurodevelopmental disorders," "the research team’s findings strengthen the evidence for a connection and raise concerns about current clinical practices."
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The medical community has long raised concern about the possible downsides of acetaminophen consumption during pregnancy.
An international coalition of public health experts said in a consensus statement published on Sept. 23, 2021, in the journal Nature Reviews Endocrinology that "increasing experimental and epidemiological research suggests that prenatal exposure to APAP [acetaminophen] might alter fetal development, which could increase the risks of some neurodevelopmental, reproductive, and urogenital disorders."
'This work is ongoing, and the department will follow the science wherever it leads.'
"Epidemiological studies consistently suggest prenatal APAP exposure might increase the risk of adverse neurodevelopmental and behavioral outcomes, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, language delay (in girls) and decreased intelligence quotient," said the experts. "Collectively, the studies suggest that the timing and duration of maternal APAP use are critical factors."
HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard told Blaze News that HHS does not comment on outside studies. Hilliard noted, however, that "under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, HHS is taking action guided by gold-standard, evidence-based science. This work is ongoing, and the department will follow the science wherever it leads."
Tylenol does not appear to be particularly pleased with the study.
A company spokesperson for Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, said in a statement to Blaze News, "Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of the people who use our products. We continue to evaluate the science, and this study does not change our view that there is no causal link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues."
"To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and leading medical organizations agree on the safety of acetaminophen, its use during pregnancy, and the information provided on the label," added the spokesperson.
A source close to Tylenol noted further that "it appears the study was designed for litigation and not public health, as two of the authors are experts for the plaintiffs in the acetaminophen litigation."
Harvard University's Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, one of the authors on the study, served as an expert witness on matters of general causation involving acetaminophen use during pregnancy in a multi-district litigation class-action lawsuit against Tylenol.
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