Damning study reveals what DEI does to people — and unsurprisingly, it's really bad



Few public and private institutions proved resistant in recent years to infection by the race-obsessive ideology underpinning the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement. The body politic appears, however, to be experiencing a belated immune response.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision last year in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard/UNC, for instance, helped pave the way for the dismantling of DEI on college and university campuses nationwide. Lawsuits and federal civil rights complaints targeting companies' DEI initiatives immediately followed. Likely keen to avoid similar legal challenges and facing pressure from normalcy advocates, multiple American organizations once captive to the race-obsessed program, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply, Jack Daniel's, and Walmart, have abandoned DEI.

A study published Monday by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University provided strong justification for why Americans should dismantle the remainder of the DEI regime sooner rather than later, noting that race-obsessed programming is divisive, counterproductive, and helps create authoritarians.

'Some DEI programs not only fail to achieve their goals but can actively undermine efforts.'

The study, titled "Instructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces the Hostile Attribution Bias," noted at the outset that a Pew Research Center study found in 2023 that over half of American workers have DEI meetings or trainings at work.

While the re-education that the majority of American workers are compelled to undergo is supposedly intended to increase empathy in interpersonal interactions, cultivate inclusive environments, and maximize diversity on the basis of immutable characteristics and sexual preferences, the study indicated that there is evidence to suggest "that some DEI programs not only fail to achieve their goals but can actively undermine efforts."

"Specifically, mandatory trainings that focus on particular target groups can foster discomfort and perceptions of fairness," said the study. "DEI initiatives seen as affirmative action rather than business strategy can provoke backlash, increasing rather than reducing racial resentment. And diversity initiatives aimed at managing bias can fail, sometimes resulting in decreased representation and triggering negativity among employees."

The researchers collected various DEI education materials used across three groupings — race, religion, and caste — in "interventional and educational settings," excerpted rhetoric from the materials, then employed the excerpts in psychological surveys "measuring explicit bias, social distancing, demonization, and authoritarian tendencies." Participants in the study were also tasked with reviewing the materials or neutral control materials.

The results were damning.

The researchers found that across all three groupings, participants "engendered a hostile attribution bias, amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice."

In one test, researchers split 423 Rutgers University students into two groups. One group read an apolitical control essay about American corn production while the other read an essay incorporating racist CRT propaganda from Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo.

After each group completed reading their assigned materials, participants were presented with a "racially neutral scenario" — where a student's application to an elite East Coast university was rejected following his interview by an admissions officer — and asked questions about their perceptions of racism in the interaction. The scenario did not mention the race of either the hypothetical student or the admissions officer.

'Exposure to anti-oppressive narratives can increase the endorsement of the type of demonization and scapegoating characteristic of authoritarianism.'

The group previously provided with propaganda from Kendi and DiAngelo reportedly "developed a hostile attribution bias ... perceiv[ing] the admissions officer as significantly more prejudiced than did those who read the neutral corn essay."

According to the researchers, "Participants exposed to the anti-racist rhetoric perceived more discrimination from the admissions officer (~21%), despite the complete absence of evidence of discrimination. They believed the admissions officer was more unfair to the applicant (~12%), had caused more harm to the applicant (~26%), and had committed more microaggressions (~35%)."

Simply put, Kendi and DiAngelo had students seeing racism and unfairness that wasn't there.

In the other groupings, participants provided DEI materials similarly turned out nastier than the control group.

For instance, in the caste study, Adolf Hitler quotes resonated with participants who were exposed to DEI materials when the word "Jew" was swapped out for "Brahmin."

"These findings suggest that exposure to anti-oppressive narratives can increase the endorsement of the type of demonization and scapegoating characteristic of authoritarianism," wrote the researchers.

"When DEI initiatives typically affirm the laudable goals of combating bias and promoting inclusivity, an emerging body of research warns that these interventions may foster authoritarian mindsets, particularly when anti-oppressive narratives exist within an ideological and vindictive monoculture," said the study. "The push toward absolute equity can undermine pluralism and engender a (potentially violent) aspiration of ideological purity."

The paper concluded, "The evidence presented in these studies reveals that while purporting to combat bias, some anti-oppressive DEI narratives can engender a hostile attribution bias and heighten racial suspicion, prejudicial attitudes, authoritarian policing, and support for punitive behaviors in the absence of evidence for a transgression deserving punishment."

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Scientists Sue Over ‘Discriminatory’ Retraction Of Studies Exposing Abortion Pill Dangers

The researchers have tried for months to obtain arbitration, but the lawsuit alleges Sage has stalled progress with extra-contractual demands.

Baby's first junk food: How companies prey on new parents



Almost two-thirds of supermarket baby food is unhealthy while nearly all baby food labels contain misleading marketing claims designed to "trick" parents.

Those are the conclusions of an eyebrow-raising study in which researchers at Australia's George Institute for Global Health analyzed 651 foods marketed for children ages 6 months to 36 months at 10 supermarket chains in the United States.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients on Wednesday, found that 60% of the foods failed to meet nutritional standards set by the World Health Organization.

'Our findings highlight the urgent need for better regulation and guidance in the infant and toddler foods market in the United States - the health of future generations depends on it.'

In addition, 70% of the baby food failed to meet protein requirements, 44% exceeded total sugar recommendations, 25% failed to meet calorie recommendations, and 20% exceeded recommended sodium limits set by the WHO.

The study said the most concerning products were snack foods and pouches.

"Research shows 50% of the sugar consumed from infant foods comes from pouches, and we found those were some of the worst offenders,” said Dr. Elizabeth Dunford, senior study author and an adjunct assistant professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sales of such convenient baby food pouches soared 900% in the U.S.in the past 13 years, according to the study.

"These pouches are very worrisome. Children have to learn to chew, so they should be eating regular fruits, not pureed, sweetened things in a pouch. Often, these blends are not natural and much sweeter than real fruit, so the child’s being taught to only like super sweet things," said Dr. Mark Corkins, a University of Tennessee gastroenterologist and a chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition.

Corkins noted that children not exposed to a variety of textures of food can "develop a texture aversion and will refuse anything but smooth, pureed types of foods."

According to the study, "Snack and finger foods, such as fruit bars, cereal bars, and puffed snacks, made up nearly 20% of products available for purchase in 2023, yet had some of the lowest compliance rates across the WHO's nutrition and promotional criteria. These foods contained low levels of protein and high levels of energy, sodium, and sugar and frequently contained added free sugars and sweeteners."

Dunford noted that consumption of processed foods in early childhood can set lifelong habits of poor eating that could lead to obesity, diabetes, and some cancers.

She continued, "Time-poor parents are increasingly choosing convenience foods, unaware that many of these products lack key nutrients needed for their child’s development and tricked into believing they are healthier than they really are."

The study also found that 99.4% of the baby food analyzed had misleading marketing claims on the labels that violated the WHO's promotional guidelines. On average, products contained four misleading marketing claims; some had as many as eleven.

The authors of the study wrote, "Common claims included ‘non genetically modified (GM)’ (70 percent), ‘organic’ (59 percent), ‘no BPA’ (37 percent), and ‘no artificial colors/flavors’ (25 percent)."

Dunford said these types of marketing advertisements can lead consumers to believe the product is more nutritious than it actually is.

Dr. Daisy Coyle — a research fellow at the George Institute and one of the authors of the study — said these marketing claims create a "health halo" around these products.

"The lack of regulation in this area leaves the door wide open for the food industry to deceive busy parents," Coyle explained. "We saw this not only in the use of misleading claims but also in the use of misleading names, where the product name did not reflect the main ingredients found on the ingredient list."

Childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and tripled in adolescents in the past three decades. There are nearly 15 million U.S. youths aged 2-19 years who have obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dunford declared, "Our findings highlight the urgent need for better regulation and guidance in the infant and toddler foods market in the United States – the health of future generations depends on it."

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Waning biblical worldview in US coincides with dramatic rejection of morality: Report



The Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University conducts an annual national survey measuring the incidence of both biblical and competing worldviews, including satanism, Wicca, Marxism, moralistic therapeutic deism, nihilism, and secular humanism.

In their latest "American Worldview Inventory" report, Dr. George Barna and his team noted a precipitous decline in the incidence of adults holding a biblical worldview in each of the last five generations. Although that might warrant celebration among secularists and others hostile to Christianity, the decline appears to coincide with a growing embrace of immorality.

"The United States is witnessing the destruction of biblical morality," said Barna. "Whatever people may feel about that reality, we must recognize that an inescapable outcome of the rejection of our traditional moral base is the weakening of personal relationships

According to the report, the majority of respondents indicated that they regarded "lying, abortion, consensual intercourse between unmarried adults, gay marriage, and the rejection of absolute moral truth as morally acceptable."

Fewer than than half of respondents indicated that the Bible amounted to their primary guide to morality, and a significant cohort, 29%, indicated that behavior is permissible so long as it is not harmful.

When it comes to abortion, support grew with each successive age cohort. Whereas 60% of Boomers said the execution of the unborn was acceptable behavior, 67% of Millennials and 69% of Gen Zers endorsed the practice.

60% of Boomers said sex between unmarried adults was morally acceptable; the younger generations were far more lenient — 63% of Gen Xers, 69% of Millennials, and 73% of Gen Zers saw no wrong in such uncommitted encounters.

There were, however, two cases in which Gen Zers bucked demoralizing trends. Gen Zers were found to be less likely than members of previous generations to believe that human beings are basically good and to endorse homosexuals getting "married."

Among Christian respondents, Barna and his team found that those who attend Protestant churches were more likely than those attending Catholic churches to possess biblical moral perspectives for three-quarters of the moral choices identified in the survey. Even in the Protestant cohort, there was a perceived split between evangelicals and mainline Protestants — the former far more likely to take a Bible-based view on most moral issues.

Judging from the report's "morality indicators," 62% of adults attending evangelical churches, 42% of Catholics, 46% of mainline Protestants, 35% of people aligned with non-Christian faiths, and 27% of non-believers signaled that they live in harmony with biblical teaching, respectively.

"Biblical worldview incidence has declined with each of the last five generations," said Barna. "During that time, the national incidence of adults holding a biblical worldview has plummeted from 12% to today’s 4% level."

Barna's assessment and figures rely upon an admittedly puristic conformance with his particular criteria. Self-identified Christians who attend church, follow Christ, and attempt to lead moral lives may find themselves in the "syncretist" camp along with 92% of other Americans for having allegedly assimilated philosophies or practices deemed by the CRC to be alien to a biblical world.

"Our studies of teenagers and preteens indicate that the national incidence will drop another two points within the next 15 years, unless some dramatic and unusually effective spiritual renewal event occurs," continued the sociologist. "The expected decline can be explained by the increasing influence of the worldview championed by Millennials and Gen Z as the proportion of adults from the Boomer and Elders generations substantially decreases."

Barna suggested that the multi-generational moral slide helps to partly explain why "Americans no longer trust their central institutions or relationships. Lying, stealing, and cheating have become the new moral norm for a majority of our citizens. We have steadily moved back to the jungle mentality of 'every man for himself.'"

With the understanding that a lasting worldview is more or less formed by the time an individual enters the teenage years, Barna told "Washington Watch with Tony Perkins" that the way to arrest the moral slide is for parents to take action early on.

'Make them a disciple.'

"Our research has consistently shown is that children are not being pointed in the direction of developing a biblical worldview," said the sociologist. "In other words, a decision-making filter that's based on biblical truth. Instead, what they're doing is they're adopting the ways of the world. And part of the reason for that is because their parents love them, and they want them to succeed in life, but toward that end, they're not necessarily setting them up to develop a biblical worldview."

The reluctance or failure on the part of religious communities and parents to furnish children with a biblical worldview does not make for open-minded children, suggested Barna. Rather it leaves them at the mercy of the ideologies and intellectual fads of the day.

"The only people that make disciples are disciples. So number one, as a parent, you've got to be a disciple if you want your child or children to be followers of Jesus. And then secondly, recognize that biblically, it's your dominant responsibility in life. This may be the most important thing you ever do in your life is to raise your child to be an ardent follower of Jesus Christ," said Barna. "Make them a disciple."

"Spend more time on this than you do on sports, than you do on shopping, than you do on hobbies, than you do on watching movies and TV together. It’s the most important thing that you’re ever going to do. Do it well," he added.

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Study finds microplastics in every single human and canine testicle: 'The plastic makes a difference'



A peer-reviewed study published last week in the official journal of the Society of Toxicology indicated that human and canine testicles are teeming with microplastics. This may help account for the precipitous global decline in male fertility.

Awash in microplastics

Nature Medicine noted in an editorial last month that the "world is awash" with over 6 billion tons of plastic.

'MNPs are found everywhere on the planet, including the oceans, air, and food supply.'

Roughly 353 million tons of plastic waste were produced in 2019 alone. Nature Medicine indicated that's particularly bad news since plastics contain over 10,000 chemicals, including endocrine disruptors and cancer-causing carcinogens, and can easily steal into the human body.

Plastics find their way into the human body in the form of tiny particles called microplastics (less than 5 mm in diameter) and nanoplastics (less than 1 μm in diameter). Microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) can arise from a variety of sources, including by design, as in the case of microbeads used in cosmetic and personal care products, or inadvertently, as the result of degradation of larger plastic products, such as through the laundering of synthetic clothes or abrasion of tires. MNPs are found everywhere on the planet, including the oceans, air and food supply.

Blaze News previously detailed the findings of an Australian June 2023 study that suggested humans might be inhaling roughly 16.2 bits of plastic every hour — enough to make a credit card per week. These credit cards can prove costly.

According to the scientific journal, microplastics have been shown in rodent studies to adversely impact various organs, including the intestine, lungs, and liver along with the reproductive and nervous systems.

In terms of their impact on human beings — where they have been found polluting various organs along with placenta and breast milk — researchers have identified links between microplastics and various health conditions, including cardiovascular disease and inflammatory bowel disease.

It appears scientists may have come across yet another troubling link.

Devaluing the family jewels

Blaze News previously reported that sperm counts have been trending downward in men on every continent since at least 1973.

A 2022 peer-reviewed study published in the journal Human Reproduction Update confirmed a trend detailed by the same researchers years earlier in a groundbreaking meta-analysis. The researchers indicated that "this world-wide decline is continuing in the 21st century at an accelerated pace."

The study, led by Dr. Hagai Levine of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Dr. Shanna Swan of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, revealed that the trend was "driven by a 50%-60% decline among men" in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

After combining the findings from over 250 other studies and increasing their sample size — so as to include men not already worried about their fertility — the researchers determined that between 1973 and 2018, sperm counts "declined appreciably," not just in Western men but in 53 countries across the world.

The sperm count decline has "become steeper since 2000," dropping by 1.4% per year and by 62.3% overall.

Declining sperm counts have been attributed to various factors, including chlormequat chloride, an agricultural chemical found in oat-based foods; mobile phone radiation exposure; and certain vaccines.

Microplastics are evidently another contender.

Plastic baggage

Researchers at the University of New Mexico recently studied 47 canine and 23 human testes. Every single testicle contained microplastics, polyethylene — used to make plastic bags and bottles — being the most prevalent.

'When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans.'

According to the University of New Mexico, the researchers chemically treated the testicle samples to dissolve the fat and proteins. They then spun each sample in an "ultracentrifuge, leaving a nugget of plastic at the bottom of a tube. Then, heated the plastic pellet in a metal cup to 600 degrees Celsius. They used a mass spectrometer to analyze gas emissions as different types of plastic burned at specific temperatures."

They found that the average concentration of microplastics in testicular tissue were 122.63 micrograms per gram in dogs and 328.44 micrograms per gram in humans.

"At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system," said Dr. Xiaozhong Yu, head of the research team. "When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans."

Matthew Campen, one of the authors of the study, told NPR the tiny particles are "shard-like, stabby bits."

The human testicles, which the Guardian reported were taken from the corpses of men between the ages of 16 and 88, had been chemically preserved such that their sperm count could not be measured. Researchers were, however, able to assess whether higher plastic contamination in the dog's testes corresponded with lower sperm counts.

Researcers found that high levels of PVC — the second-most prevalent polymer in dogs — correlated with a lower sperm count.

"The plastic makes a difference — what type of plastic might be correlated with potential function," said Yu. "PVC can release a lot of chemicals that interfere with spermatogenesis, and it contains chemicals that cause endocrine disruption."

The research team examined canine testicles in particular because "compared to rats and other animals, dogs are cloer to humans," said Yu. "We believe dogs and humans share common environmental factors that contribute to their decline.

"We don't want to scare people," continued Yu. "We want to scientifically provide the data and make people aware there are a lot of microplastics. We can make our own choices to better avoid exposures, change our lifestyle and change our behavior."

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Researchers blame explosion of of cancer cases among younger people on 'accelerated aging'



Americans are increasingly suffering cancer at younger ages.

The journal Nature noted last month that the number of early-onset cancer cases will increase by roughly 30% between 2019 and 2030. Additionally, colorectal cancer, which historically has affected geriatric men, is now the leading cause of cancer death among men under 50 and is now the second-leading cause of cancer death among young women. Uterine cancer has increase by 2% every year for the past three decades. Early-onset breast cancer has reportedly jumped by nearly 4% annually between 2016 and 2019.

"If it had been a single smoking gun, our studies would have at least pointed to one factor," said Sonia Kupfer, a gastroenterologist at the University of Chicago. "But it doesn't seem to be that — it seems to be a combination of many different factors."

Various possible factors have been considered, including rising rates of obesity; dietary changes and corresponding alterations to gut bacteria; sleep deprivation; increased alcohol consumption; and vaccines.

A study presented over the weekend at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting in San Diego suggested that the incredible spike in cancer among younger adults in the U.S. may be the result of "accelerated aging."

"We all know cancer is anaging disease. However, it is really coming to a younger population. So whether we can use the well-developed concept of biological aging to apply that to the younger generation is a really untouched area," Dr. Yin Cao, an associate professor of surgery at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and senior author of the research, told CNN.

Chronological age refers to the period of time an individual has been alive. Biological age, also known as physiological age, refers to the condition of a person's body and the state of his genetic material. A chronologically younger person who vapes, eats too much, doesn't get enough sleep, and/or is genetically predisposed to various diseases could, accordingly, find himself biologically older than someone who has seen many more sunsets.

While cancer has long disproportionately affected chronologically older people, Cao and his fellow researchers have come to suspect that the spike in cases of early-onset solid tumors among younger Americans may be the result of increased biological age, characterized by "accelerated aging."

"Multiple cancer types are becoming increasingly common among younger adults in the United States and globally," Ruiyi Tian, a researcher from WUSM on Cao's team, told the American Association for Cancer Research, referencing increased incidents of cancer in adults under the age of 55. "Understanding the factors driving this increase will be key to improve the prevention or early detection of cancers in younger and future generations."

"Accumulating evidence suggests that the younger generations may be aging more swiftly than anticipated, likely due to earlier exposure to various risk factors and environmental insults," continued Tian. "However, the impact of accelerated aging on early-onset cancer development remains unclear."

Tian and her colleagues examined data from nearly 150,000 people in the U.K. Biobank database and calculated each individual's biological age using nine biomarkers found in the blood: albumin, alkaline phosphatase, creatinine, C-reactive protein, glucose, mean corpuscular volume, red cell distribution width, white blood cell count, and lymphocyte proportion.

According to the Cleveland Clinic:

  • Albumin is a protein in blood plasma. Low levels may indicate kidney disease, liver disease, inflammation, or infection. High levels may indicate dehydration or sever diarrhea.
  • Alkaline phosphatase is an enzyme found throughout the human body. High levels of the enzyme indicate liver disease or possible bone disorders.
  • Creatinine is a natural chemical the body uses to energize muscles. High creatinine levels usually signify kidney damage.
  • C-reactive protein is released by the liver into the bloodstream in response to inflammation. Elevated levels suggest serious infections or inflammatory conditions.
  • Glucose or sugar is carried by the blood to all of the body's cells for energy. Elevated levels of glucose tend to indicate diabetes.
  • Mean corpuscular volume references the average size of a patient's red blood cells. Low MCV could be a sign of iron-deficiency anemia and other blood disorders. Alternatively, high MCV could mean a vitamin B12 deficiency, folate deficiency, liver disease, or bone marrow dysfunction.
  • Red cell distribution width is measured because inconsistency or high variation could be a signal of anemia.
  • White blood cells counts are executed to detect hidden infections, immune deficiencies, autoimmune disease, and other disorders. High and low counts alike indicate possibly serious problems.

The researchers, whose study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, identified individuals whose biological age — as indicated by these biomarkers — was higher than their chronological age as having accelerated aging.

According to Tian and her colleagues, individuals born in or after 1965 had a 17% higher likelihood of accelerated aging than those born born between 1950 and 1954. They further found that "each standard deviation increase in accelerated aging was associated with a 42% increased risk of early-onset lung cancer, a 22% increased risk of early-onset gastrointestinal cancer, a 36% increase risk of early-onset uterine cancer."

Tian speculated that certain cancer types had stronger associations with accelerated aging because of the natures of the affected tissues. The lungs, for instance, have a limited ability to regenerate, making them more vulnerable to biological aging.

"If validated, our findings suggest that interventions to slow biological aging could be a new avenue for cancer prevention, and screening efforts tailored to younger individuals with signs of accelerated aging could help detect cancers early," said Tian.

The American Cancer Society revealed in its latest annual report on cancer facts and trends that over 2 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed this year. In the previous three years, the estimate was 1.9 million.

Yale Medicine noted that younger adults are ostensibly the only age group with an increase in overall cancer incidence between 1995 and 2020.

This year, there are altogether expected to be 611,720 deaths from cancer in the United States.

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Study finds 'woke' people more likely to be unhappy, anxious, and depressed



A new study revealed that people with so-called "woke" ideologies tended to be more unhappy, anxious, and depressed compared to others.

The study – published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology last week – found that individuals with attitudes geared toward critical social justice were less satisfied with their lives.

The first study examined 848 adult participants – 382 staff members and 266 students of the University of Turku in southwestern Finland as well as 64 staff and students from other Finnish universities, two from foreign universities, and 134 not associated with a university. A second study included 5,030 Finnish citizens aged 15–84.

To determine the "critical social justice attitude scale," the study inquired about seven very progressive ideologies:

  • “If white people have on average a higher level of income than black people, it is because of racism.”
  • “University reading lists should include fewer white or European authors.”
  • “Microaggressions should be challenged often and actively.”
  • “Trans* women who compete with women in sports are not helping women’s rights.” (reverse scored)
  • “We don’t need to talk more about the color of people’s skin.”
  • “A white person cannot understand how a black person feels equally well as another black person.”
  • “A member of a privileged group can adopt features or cultural elements of a less privileged group.” (reverse scored)

Study author Oskari Lahtinen, a senior researcher at the INVEST Research Flagship Centre at the University of Turku, told PsyPost, "The gender divide was probably most surprising to me. Three out of five women view ‘woke’ ideas positively, but only one out of seven men. This was the case in Finland, at least."

The research found female participants to be far more "woke" than their male counterparts.

The study noted, "Overall, male support for scale items was much lower than female."

The study found that women "expressed more than twice as much support" of the progressive ideologies.

The research found, "Regarding the extent to which select study subpopulations accepted, felt neutral about, or rejected scale items, people with 'other' gender, Left Alliance voters, Green Party voters, and female social science students accepted most scale propositions. Men and male medicine students rejected all but one scale item and male humanities students and Finnish voters rejected all scale items."

The study also discovered people in STEM fields and conservative thinkers had lower agreement with the progressive beliefs.

The significant difference in gender approval of the woke ideologies also carried over to overall happiness, according to the study.

The study revealed that those who embraced the woke ideologies suffered from heightened instances of unhappiness, anxiety, and depression.

Those who subscribed to the woke ideologies were reportedly suffering 67.9% higher for anxiety, 32.5% higher for depression, and 4.5% higher for unhappiness.

Lahtinen said, "I had been paying attention to a development in American universities, where a new discourse on social justice became prevalent in the 2010s."

"While critical social justice (or intersectional or ‘woke’) discourse draws mainly from dynamics within American society it has now surfaced in other Western countries as well," he noted. "The arrival of a critical social justice (often called ‘woke’) discourse sparked much debate in Finnish media in the last couple of years."

“This debate was largely data-free and it could thus be considered a worthwhile question to study how prevalent these attitudes are," Lahtinen said. "No reliable and valid instrument existed prior to the study to assess the extent and prevalence of these attitudes in different populations, so I set out to develop one."

The author added, "The studies were quite robust with a sample size above 5,000 and good psychometric properties. However, the scale would need to be validated in North American samples in order to know how these attitudes manifest there. I encourage colleagues in the United States to study the prevalence of these attitudes in the country where they originate from."

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Study resurfaces showing suicide rate among men doubled after sex-change mutilations



The narrative surrounding so-called "gender-affirming care" is fast collapsing. While gender ideologues have dug their heels into the movement's sandy foundations, others have begun taking a second look at the evidence long hidden in plain sight.

Benjamin Ryan is a gay health reporter with bylines in various publications who has been viciously attacked for questioning the left's dogma concerning transgenderism. Ryan recently gave new life to a glossed-over 2021 study that made abundantly clear that sex-change genital mutilations were a recipe for disaster.

Fatal transitions

Sex changes have been touted by activists as a way of saving lives. It turns out that they may actually boost the suicide rate among men.

Urologists Karyn Eilber, Kai Dallas, Victoria Scott, and Polina Reyblat and sex-change surgeon Jennifer Anger set out to assess rates of "psychiatric emergencies before and after gender affirming surgery in a large population-base cohort." The American Urological Association's Journal of Urology published their damning findings in September 2021.

In the study, the researchers reviewed datasets pertaining to men and women undergoing sex changes in California between 2012 and 2018. The researchers also identified corresponding emergency room and inpatient psychiatric encounters — "psychiatric encounters" — including suicide attempts.

The researchers calculated the rates of these encounters before and after sex-change surgeries.

"Overall, 869 and 357 patients were identified undergoing vaginoplasty and phalloplasty with 193 (22.2%) and 74 (20.7%) having at least one psychiatric encounter," said the study.

"Although the overall proportion of those experiencing a psychiatric encounter was similar between the vaginoplasty and phalloplasty groups, suicide attempts were more common in the vaginoplasty group."

In the context of sex-change procedures, a vaginoplasty is the procedure by which a man's penis and testicles are mangled and refashioned into a cavernous wound.

A phalloplasty, alternatively, is the procedure by which a woman's vagina is mangled and refashioned into a mock penis, often with the addition of skin peeled from the victim's arm, leg, or side. Sometimes, the female patient may also undergo a corresponding hysterectomy, ovary removal, and surgical sealing of the vaginal entrance.

The rate of a psychiatric encounters taking place after these procedures was 33.9% for men and 26.5% for women.

"The overall rates of suicide attempts doubled (3.3% vs 1.5%, p=0.017) after vagionoplasty (effect not observed after phalloplasty," said the study.

Among the 869 whose cases were reviewed, 74 men had psychiatric events before their surgeries; 81 had such events afterward; 38 patients had the psychiatric episodes both before and after. The overall risk before was rated at 12.8%, and the risk afterward was rated at 13.7%.

Nine of the male patients attempted to off themselves before the surgery; 25 attempted to kill themselves afterward. Four patients attempted to kill themselves both before and after.

Of the 357 women in the study, three attempted to commit suicide before their surgeries and three attempted to commit suicide afterward.

The researchers noted that the rates of psychiatric emergencies "are high both before and after gender affirming surgery"; however, the rate of suicide attempts in the vaginoplasty group "is more than double that of the general population."

Benjamin Ryan highlighted this study Monday on X. At the time of publication, his post had over 1 million views.

Blaze News reported last month that LGBT activists have lashed out at Ryan for drawing attention to the breakdown of gender ideologues' core claims. GLAAD's New York-based senior communications director Anthony Morrison, for instance, accused Ryan of peddling "junk science" and hating himself.

Other activists, including Taneja College of Pharmacy assistant professor Kevin Astle, have accused the gay health reporter and former HIV test counselor of "transphobia."

Rather than shy away from the fight, Ryan appears to have gone on a tear, overloading activists with indications that they have been pushing unethical pseudoscience.

Unethical pseudoscience

It has been a tough few weeks for LGBT activists, pharmaceutical reps, and sex-change surgeons. After all, the core claims underpinning their public support for genital mutilations and sterilizing puberty blockers have virtually all been debunked.

Weeks after Finland's leading child psychiatrist Riittakerttu Kaltiala told her government that the vast majority of kids will grow out of the delusion that their gender and sex are misaligned, England's top health authority made a similar point.

National Health Service England banned puberty blockers for minors Tuesday in all but experimental trials, highlighting a dearth of evidence to support their efficacy and the good possibility that "children who meet the criteria for gender incongruence / gender dysphoria ... may not continue to experience the conflict between their physical gender and the one with which they identify into adolescence and adulthood."

NHS England also made clear that puberty blockers don't work as advertised, stating — on the basis of nine observational studies — "there was no statistically significant difference in gender dysphoria, mental health, body image and psychosocial functioning in children and adolescents treated with GnRHA."

Rather than help, NHS England said puberty blockers "may reduce the expected increase in lumbar or femoral bone density during puberty."

Last month, a Finnish study published in the esteemed quarterly journal BMJ Mental Health concluded that "medical gender reassignment does not have an impact on suicide risk."

"All-cause and suicide mortalities did not differ between those gender referred who had and had not proceeded to [sex change surgeries] when psychiatric treatment history was accounted for," wrote the researchers.

Not only has the "gender-affirming care" narrative been demolished by scientific authorities and research, but by its leading exponents.

Leaked documents from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, long regarded by activists as the authority on transgenderism, revealed that its members have been freewheeling when it comes to science and ethics.

Members can be seen in the files admitting that minors cannot provide informed consent to the surgeries; that there are various debilitating side effects of sex-change procedures; and that various nightmarish procedures, all of which are elective, don't have a basis in nature.

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Massive study identifies 32 harmful health conditions directly linked to the consumption of ultra-processed food



A troubling new peer-reviewed study, the largest of its kind, has revealed that ultra-processed food is linked to 32 harmful health conditions and can significantly increase the risk of cancer, diabetes, and an early grave.

The study, a systematic meta-analysis published Wednesday in the BMJ, the British Medical Association's esteemed journal, found evidence pointing to "direct associations between greater exposure to ultra-processed foods and higher risks of all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease related mortality, common mental disorder outcomes, overweight and obesity, and type 2 diabetes."

The fallout of ultra-processed food exposure may be far-reaching granted the global shift in recent years from unprocessed and minimally processed foods to UPFs. According to the study, the present "share of dietary energy derived from ultra-processed foods ranges from 42% and 58% in Australia and the United States."

The study, involving experts from various top institutions, including Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Sorbonne University in France, relies on the definition of "ultra-processed foods" advanced in the Nova food classification system.

According to the Nova system, processed foods usually consist of a primary plant or animal substance to which one or more culinary ingredient — such as oil, butter, sugar, or salt — has been added. An ultra-processed food, alternatively, is not a modified primary material but rather an industrial composite of often chemically manipulated substances that have been extracted from foods, derived from food constituents, and/or cooked up in a laboratory.

UPFs appear in virtually every aisle in the grocery store. They include packaged snacks, soft drinks, instant noodles, sweetened cereals, packaged baked goods, frozen fish sticks, oven-ready pizzas, breakfast bars, and ready-made meals.

Researchers examined the findings of 14 meta-analysis studies published over the past three years with 45 distinct pooled analyses. In 87% of the pooled analyses, estimates of UPF exposure were obtained on the basis of food frequency questionnaires, 24-hour dietary recalls, and participants' dietary history.

Researchers found UPF exposure was consistently associated with 32 adverse health outcomes, including all-cause mortality; cancer-related deaths; cardiovascular disease-related deaths; heart disease-related deaths; breast cancer; central nervous system tumors; chronic lymphocytic leukemia; colorectal cancer; pancreatic cancer; prostate cancer; adverse sleep-related outcomes; anxiety; common mental disorder outcomes; depression; asthma; wheezing; Crohn's disease; ulcerative colitis; obesity; hypertension; and type 2 diabetes.

"On the basis of the random effects model, 32 (71%) distinct pooled analyses showed direct associations between greater ultra-processed food exposure and a higher risk of adverse health outcomes," said the study. "Additionally, of these combined analyses, 11 (34%) showed continued statistical significance when a more stringent threshold was applied."

Heart disease-related death, cardiovascular disease-related death, all-cause mortality, type 2 diabetes, wheezing, and depression were among the 11 adverse health outcomes that showed continued statistical significance in the face of the more stringent threshold.

The Guardian noted that evidence graded as "convincing" in the study indicated that higher UPF exposure was linked to a roughly 50% increase in cardiovascular-related death, a 48-53% higher risk of anxiety and mental disorders, and a 12% increase risk of diabetes.

"Across the pooled analyses, greater exposure to ultra-processed foods, whether measured as higher versus lower consumption, additional servings per day, or a 10% increment, was consistently associated with a higher risk of adverse health outcomes," added the study.

In a corresponding editorial in BMJ, a pair of Brazilian academics stressed that UPFs "are engineered to be highly desirable, combining sugar, fat, and salt to maximize reward, and adding flavors that induce eating when not hungry. Many are addictive, judged by the standards set for tobacco products, and aggressively marketed with meal deals, super sizing, and advertising."

The Brazilians suggested that investment management companies and manufacturers would "likely resist" efforts to control and reduce the production and consumption of UPFs. With the tobacco parallel in mind, the Brazilian duo recommended rolling out national dietary guidelines cautioning against UPF consumption; prohibiting sales of junk food near schools and hospitals; and regulating UPF marketing.

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Majority Of Americans Support Building Border Wall For First Time In Monmouth Poll’s History

'Serious problem'