TV News LIES

A panel of experts advising the Food and Drug Administration on the use of the psychedelic MDMA for post-traumatic stress disorder found on Tuesday that the available evidence fails to show that the drug is effective or that its benefits outweigh its risks.

It represents a major setback for proponents of the drug and its sponsor Lykos Therapeutics, potentially jeopardizing FDA approval of the treatment.

Following public comment and discussion, the panel voted 9-2 that MDMA – in combination with talk therapy – is not effective for treating PTSD. And they voted 10-1 that the benefits of MDMA treatment don’t outweigh its risks.

While the FDA puts stock in the panel’s advice, it does not have to follow their recommendation.

However, that would be surprising given the host of concerns raised during the all-day meeting.

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A leading federal scientist in Canada has alleged he was barred from investigating a mystery brain illness in the province of New Brunswick and said he fears more than 200 people affected by the condition are experiencing unexplained neurological decline.

The allegations, made in leaked emails to a colleague seen by the Guardian, have emerged two years after the eastern province closed its investigation into a possible “cluster” of cases.

“All I will say is that my scientific opinion is that there is something real going on in [New Brunswick] that absolutely cannot be explained by the bias or personal agenda of an individual neurologist,” wrote Michael Coulthart, a prominent microbiologist. “A few cases might be best explained by the latter, but there are just too many (now over 200).”

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Antibiotics cannot cure COVID. They don’t help a bit. And yet, new data shows that, during the pandemic, COVID patients were given antibiotics – a lot of antibiotics.

That’s bad because the overuse of antibiotics can breed superbugs that are resistant to medications. The impact of this pandemic overuse has lingered even as the pandemic has faded.

So how did this unfortunate turn of events come to be? A series of new reports and papers shed light.

Globally, about 75% of patients hospitalized with COVID were given antibiotics, despite only 8% having a bacterial coinfection where antibiotics would be medically useful. This comes from new data published in late April that was collected through the World Health Organization’s Global Clinical Platform in 65 countries between January 2020 and March 2023.

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One of the US’s leading anti-abortion activists has been appointed to a Texas health committee tasked with reviewing maternal deaths.

The move worries reproductive justice advocates who say the state’s abortion ban – among the strictest in the US – has placed pregnant women’s lives in jeopardy. The appointment could undermine the committee’s ability to accurately examine the impact of the law on deaths during and in the immediate aftermath of pregnancy, they say.

“This appointment speaks volumes about how seriously certain state leaders are taking the issue of maternal mortality,” said Kamyon Conner, executive director of the Texas Equal Access Fund, an abortion assistance group that advocates for reproductive health equity. “It is another sign that the state is more interested in furthering their anti-abortion agenda than protecting the lives of pregnant Texans.”

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Microplastics have been found in human testicles, with researchers saying the discovery might be linked to declining sperm counts in men.

The scientists tested 23 human testes, as well as 47 testes from pet dogs. They found microplastic pollution in every sample.

The human testicles had been preserved and so their sperm count could not be measured. However, the sperm count in the dogs’ testes could be assessed and was lower in samples with higher contamination with PVC. The study demonstrates a correlation but further research is needed to prove microplastics cause sperm counts to fall.