TV News LIES

Ali Mokdad stands in the heart of Beirut. Cars and trucks and motorcycles rumble everywhere.

"If you look at a car passing by, you see smoke coming out of it — that's illegal in Lebanon. But nobody enforce[s] it," says Mokda, the chief strategy officer of population health at the University of Washington.

As a result, Beirut has terrible air quality and is often submerged under a blanket of exhaust. And it's not just in the big cities — vehicles belch pollution across the country.

It's one reason that cancer is surging in Lebanon. Mokdad co-authored a global survey that revealed that the tiny nation on the Mediterranean is experiencing the fastest increase in cancer incidence and mortality anywhere in the world. According to the study, published in The Lancet, the frequency of new cancer cases in Lebanon has increased by an astounding 162% from 1990 to 2023, with cancer-related deaths increasing by 80% over that same period. In 2023, for every 100,000 people in the country, there were 233.5 new cancer cases.

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Nearly 80 people got sick in a norovirus outbreak on an Oceania Cruises ship.

Among the 637 guests aboard its Oceania Insignia ship, 74 reported being ill, along with one crew member, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Their main symptoms were vomiting and diarrhea.

The ship departed from Montreal on Oct. 16 for a cruise with stops in Canada and Maine, according to CruiseMapper. The voyage is scheduled to end in Boston on Oct. 27.

The cruise line implemented heightened cleaning and disinfection onboard and isolated sick passengers and crew, according to the CDC. Oceania did not immediately respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.

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For years, parents were told not to expose their babies to peanuts, to prevent a potentially dangerous allergy. But 10 years ago, a landmark study found the opposite to be true, stating that if babies consume peanut products at an early age, they were far less likely to become allergic to them.

Health experts quickly took notice — and the resulting reversal in pediatric guidance has helped to push peanuts out of the No. 1 spot as the cause of food allergy for children under 3 in the U.S., according to a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics.

"Early allergen introduction works," Dr. David Hill, who led the study, tells NPR. "For the first time in recent history, it seems like we're starting to put a brake pedal on the epidemic of food allergy in this country."

"Early allergen introduction works," Dr. David Hill, who led the study, tells NPR. "For the first time in recent history, it seems like we're starting to put a brake pedal on the epidemic of food allergy in this country."

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Late last month, the New York City medical examiner confirmed the man who shot and killed four people at a Manhattan office tower had the degenerative brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, also known as CTE.

The shooter, Shane Tamura, targeted the NFL headquarters in July. He left a note at the scene, claiming to suffer from CTE. He blamed football, which he played from age 6 through high school.

Tamura shot himself in the chest. His letter urged scientists to study his brain. That note included the names of prominent researchers in the field, including neuroscientist Chris Nowinski, CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation and a former professional wrestler.

Nowinski said he wasn’t surprised by Tamura’s diagnosis.

“CTE risk in football players, we know from the work at the Boston University CTE Center, is related to how many years of football you play. And we don't know where it starts, but the research thus far suggests it goes up by as much as 30% per year you play, your odds increase,” Nowinski said. “And in our experience now at BU studying hundreds of football players, if you get to 12 seasons, more than half of those that we've studied have had it.”

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The Trump administration can’t force organizations that receive federal teen pregnancy prevention grants to comply with an executive order against “indoctrinating” children about “radical gender ideology,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday. 

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., an appointee of former President Obama, ruled that a July directive from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was arbitrary and capricious and contradicted the original congressional intent of the grants.

Howell said HHS imposed binding requirements on grant recipients but gave no indication that those requirements “were the product of reasoned decision-making and analysis of evidence.”

Instead, the agency “seemingly relied on irrelevant ideological factors, and did not justify its change in position,” Howell wrote.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s making animal welfare a component of his Make America Healthy Again mission.

The health secretary has asked his agencies to refine high-tech methods of testing chemicals and drugs that don’t involve killing animals. He thinks phasing out animal testing and using the new methods will help figure out what’s causing chronic disease. It’s also got an ancillary benefit for Republicans: Animal-rights advocates like what they’re hearing.

That’s another opportunity for President Donald Trump to co-opt a traditionally left-leaning constituency.

“No one likes to see suffering,” Emily Trunnell, director of science advancement and outreach at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told POLITICO. “The animal welfare benefits are very obvious to most people.”

Last week, the National Institutes of Health announced it would spend $87 million on a new center researching alternatives to animal testing and permit agency-supported researchers to use grant funding to find homes for retired lab animals.

Kennedy signed off because he thinks the new methods will enable scientists to more quickly and inexpensively draw conclusions about how chemicals and drugs work. He expects that’ll confirm his belief that chemicals in the environment and in food are making Americans sick and also speed cures for chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

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