Health News Stories

Excerpts of Key Health News Stories in Major Media

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on health from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

For further exploration, delve into our comprehensive Health and Food Corruption Information Center.

Note: This comprehensive list of news stories is usually updated once a week. Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

Ultra-processed foods are industrially formulated with added sugar, artificial sweeteners, additives and flavorings to be highly rewarding and even addictive. They can alter the brain's reward pathways the same way that other addictive substances do, making them challenging to consume in moderation. In fact, a body of scientific research has emerged in recent years to show that some ultra-processed foods (UPFs) can be as addictive as cigarettes and cocaine. Several major food brands were once owned by the world's largest tobacco companies. Evidence suggests the same tactics used to formulate and market cigarettes were used in the creation of food products. Manufacturers of ultra-processed foods often seek to find ... "the bliss point," a term coined by American market researcher and food scientist Howard Moskowitz in the 1990s. The bliss point triggers dopamine – a neurotransmitter in the brain that is responsible for feelings of pleasure and well-being – to spike, then crash. This brings about good feelings, then bad feelings, and generates the craving to feel good once more. Food companies not only research taste, but also consumers' responses to color, smell, and "mouth feel" of products. "Measured in milliseconds, and the power to addict, nothing is faster than processed food in rousing the brain." "Ultraprocessed foods … were consistently more associated with [the Yale Food Addiction Scale] indicators than were naturally occurring, minimally processed foods," according to the study ... Is Food Addictive, republished in 2021 in the Annual Review of Nutrition. About 57% of the calories American adults consume comes from UPFs. That percentage rises to 67% in American children. The food industry spends about $14 billion annually on advertising, with 80% of that devoted to highly processed foods.

Note: Eating junk food is more deadly than smoking and is linked to $50 billion in US health care costs due to how harmful it is on our bodies. Meanwhile, the NIH invests very little funding into nutrition studies and students in medical schools spend less than 1 percent of their education learning about diet. Read our latest Substack article on how the US government turns a blind eye to the corporate cartels fueling America's health crisis.

A health department in Idaho has voted to halt its COVID-19 vaccination program, joining the growing number of regional governments pushing back against federal vaccination recommendations. Board members at Southwest District Health, outside of Boise, questioned the vaccine's safety during their Oct. 22 meeting and narrowly voted to stop providing the shot in the six counties they serve. Health departments in Texas, Florida and Michigan ... have also pushed back against the COVID-19 vaccine. Last year, Texas policymakers banned health departments and other organizations funded by the state government from using funds to promote their vaccination efforts. The Florida Department of Health issued guidance in September warning Floridians not to get mRNA COVID-19 shots. In Michigan, commissioners in Ottawa County turned down a $900,000 grant for their health department in September. Joe Moss, chair of the commission, said at the time he was "opposed to accepting any COVID grants." The [Idaho] board's physician representative, Dr. John Tribble, questioned the vaccine's safety and cited COVID-19's "diminishing risk" as a reason for the agency's decision to discontinue the shot. "We weighed the risks versus the benefits for all individuals considering the shots," Tribble wrote. "We could not, in good faith, continue to offer a pharmaceutical product that does more harm than good."

Note: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a voluntary government reporting system that only captures a portion of the actual injuries. Vaccine adverse event numbers are made publicly available, and currently show 38,068 COVID Vaccine Reported Deaths and 1,652,230 COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports. Our Substack dives into the complex world of COVID vaccines with nuance and uncensored investigation.

Industry research reviewed by independent scientists show that exposure to the nation's most common pesticides, neonicotinoids, may affect developing brains the same way as nicotine, including by significantly shrinking brain tissue and neuron loss. Exposure could be linked to long-term health effects like ADHD, slower auditory reflexes, reduced motor skills, behavioral problems and delayed sexual maturation in males. The industry science will be used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set new regulations, but the independent scientists say they found pesticide makers withheld information or did not include required data, and allege the EPA has drawn industry friendly conclusions from the research. Neonicotinoid residue is common on produce, and the EPA seems poised to set limits that are especially dangerous for developing children. Neonicotinoids are a controversial class of chemicals used in insecticides spread on over 150m acres of US cropland to treat for pests, in addition to being used on lawns. The pesticides work by destroying an insect's nerve synapse, causing uncontrollable shaking, paralysis and death – but a growing body of science has found it harms pollinators, decimates bee populations and kills other insects not targeted by the chemical. Recent research has found the chemicals in the bodies of over 95% of pregnant women, and in human blood and urine at alarming levels.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

Neonicotinoids–"neonics" for short–[are] now the most common chemicals used to kill bugs in American agriculture. Farmers can spray them on fields, but these insecticides are also attached to seeds as an outer coating, called a seed treatment. As the seeds germinate and grow, the plant's tissues become toxic. Research shows neonics threaten pollinators, birds, aquatic organisms, and mammals, and pose risks to humans. Data from 2015 to 2016 showed about half of Americans over three years old were recently exposed to a neonic. Nearly all commodity corn farmers receive seed coated with neonics at the start of each season; many cannot identify the chemical that's in the coating and don't even know if another option exists. In corn and soy fields, new research ... suggest that widespread use of neonic-treated seeds provide minimal benefit to farmers. One study from Quebec helped convince the Canadian province to change its laws to restrict the use of neonic seed treatments. After five years and a 95 percent drop in the use of neonic-coated seeds, there have been no reported impacts on crop yields. For agronomist Louis Robert, the success of the Quebec government's decision to move away from neonics on corn and soy seeds is apparent ... in the silence. "The most reliable proof is that it's not even a matter of discussion anymore," Robert said. "Today, as we speak in 2024 in Quebec, over half of the corn and soy acreage doesn't carry any insecticide, and we're going to have a fantastic year in terms of yield. So, the demonstration is right there in front of you."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks. Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC). The committee's role is to provide ministers with independent advice. Yet since taking up the position in February 2020, Dempsey has continued to be paid by PMI for work including authoring a sponsored paper about regulatory strategies for heated tobacco products. She also owns shares in the tobacco giant ... and receives a PMI pension. But her appointment, unreported until now, raises questions about the potential for undue influence and possible access to inside information on policy and regulatory matters that may be valuable to the tobacco industry. PMI has a long history of lobbying and influence campaigns, including pushing against planned crackdowns on vaping. It has also invested heavily in promoting heated tobacco as an alternative to smoking and expects to ship around 140bn heated tobacco units in 2024, a 134% increase on its 59.7bn sales in 2019. Sophie Braznell, who monitors heated tobacco products as part of the University of Bath's Tobacco Control Research Group, said Dempsey's position on the committee risked undermining its work. "In permitting a former senior tobacco employee and consultant for the world's largest tobacco company to join this advisory committee, we jeopardise its objectivity and integrity."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and government corruption from reliable major media sources.

The tobacco company Philip Morris International has been accused of "manipulating science for profit" through funding research and advocacy work with scientists. Campaigners say that leaked documents from PMI and its Japanese affiliate also reveal plans to target politicians, doctors and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as part of the multinational's marketing strategy to attract non-smokers to its heated tobacco product, IQOS. A paper from researchers at the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath said that Philip Morris Japan (PMJ), funded a Kyoto University study into smoking cessation via a third-party research organisation. The researchers said they could find no public record of PMJ's involvement, although a PMI spokesperson said its involvement had been attributed when the results were presented at a scientific conference in Greece in 2021. PMJ paid about Ł20,000 a month to FTI-Innovations, a life sciences consultancy run by a Tokyo University professor, for tasks such as promoting PMI's science and products at academic events. In one internal email, a PMJ employee claimed they had been told "to keep it a secret". Dr Sophie Braznell, one of [the paper's] authors, said: "The manipulation of science for profit harms us all, especially policymakers and consumers. It slows down and undermines public health policies, while encouraging the widespread use of harmful products."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and science corruption from reliable major media sources.

Research from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) details the widespread burdens that plastic pollution places on US cities and states, and argues that plastic producers may be breaking public-nuisance, product-liability and consumer-protection laws. It comes as cities such as Baltimore have begun to file claims against plastic manufacturers, but the authors write that existing cases "are likely only the beginning, as more states and municipalities grapple with the challenges of accumulating plastic waste and microplastics contamination." Taxpayers foot the bill to clean plastic pollution from streets and waterways, and research shows people could ingest the equivalent of one credit card's worth of plastic per week. From 1950 to 2000, global plastic production soared from 2m tons to 234m tons annually. And over the next 20 years, production more than doubled to 460m tons in 2019. As the public grew concerned about plastic pollution, the industry responded with "sophisticated marketing campaigns" to shift blame from producers to consumers – for instance, by popularizing the term litterbug. Plastic has clogged sewer grates, leading to increased flooding. It has also exposed populations to microplastics. The report outlines different legal theories that could help governments pursue accountability. Nuisance could account for the harms themselves ... and consumer-protection law could be used to combat deceitful marketing practices.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine, the highest-ranking transgender official in the Biden administration ... has supported a misinformation campaign that has turned the U.S. into an international outlier in the use of the "gender-affirming" model of care, which recommends hormones and surgeries rather than psychotherapy as the first-line treatment for adolescent distress around puberty. In 2022, Levine pressured the World Association for Transgender Health to remove age minimums for gender surgeries. Since 2017, a Manhattan Institute analysis of health insurance claims has shown, that more than 5,000 teenage girls had their breasts amputated as part of a "gender-affirming" procedure designed to help them achieve a male look. These figures ... do not include procedures performed at large health care systems like Kaiser Permanente (which is currently being sued by two young women who underwent "top surgery"). These surgeries do not seem to pose a problem for those like Levine who believe the theory that "trans kids know who they are." Children who do not fit sex stereotypes and same-sex attracted adolescents are now given the idea they are "trans" and encouraged to perceive hormones and surgeries as a solution to the substantial difficulties that society imposes on gender non-conforming young people. Contrary to the slogans, these treatments are not lifesaving.

Note: For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on transgender medicine.

Health officials in the Biden administration pressed an international group of medical experts to remove age limits for adolescent surgeries from guidelines for care of transgender minors. Email excerpts from members of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health recount how staff for Adm. Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services and herself a transgender woman, urged them to drop the proposed limits from the group's guidelines and apparently succeeded. If and when teenagers should be allowed to undergo transgender treatments and surgeries has become a raging debate within the political world. Opponents say teenagers are too young to make such decisions, but supporters ... posit that young people with gender dysphoria face depression and worsening distress if their issues go unaddressed. The draft guidelines, released in late 2021, recommended lowering the age minimums to 14 for hormonal treatments, 15 for mastectomies, 16 for breast augmentation or facial surgeries, and 17 for genital surgeries or hysterectomies. The proposed age limits were eliminated in the final guidelines. Gender-related medical interventions for adolescents have been steadily rising as more young people seek such care. A Reuters analysis of insurance data estimated that 4,200 American adolescents started estrogen or testosterone therapy in 2021, more than double the number from four years earlier.

Note: For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on transgender medicine.

How is America allowed to feed us certain products that are harmful and banned in other countries? What some people may dismiss as a fixation of "granola moms" is actually a legitimate concern, says Melanie Benesh, the vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group. The impact many of these chemicals have is chronic: They accumulate over time, after a lot of tiny exposures. For example, the whitening agent titanium dioxide in soups and dairy products can build up in the body and even damage DNA. European countries take a much more precautionary approach to additives in their food, Benesh says. "If there are doubts about whether a chemical is safe or if there's no data to back up safety, the EU is much more likely to put a restriction on that chemical." California banned four chemicals in 2023: brominated vegetable oil, Red Dye No. 3, propylparaben, and potassium bromate. This year, lawmakers in about a dozen states have introduced legislation banning those same chemicals and, in some states, additional chemicals as well. But federal oversight has been limited. When Congress wrote the food chemical law, they included an exception for things that are generally recognized as safe, or GRAS. This was intended to be a narrow loophole, an exception for ... things like spices or vinegar or flour or table salt. An analysis in 2022 ... found that 99 percent of new food chemicals were exploiting this GRAS loophole.

Note: Read more about the growing list of chemicals banned in the EU but not the US. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on food system corruption.

The food system is inextricably linked to an economic system that, for decades, has been fundamentally biased against the kinds of changes we need. Economic policies almost everywhere have systematically promoted ever-larger scale and monocultural production. Those policies include: Massive subsidies for globally traded commodities, direct and hidden subsidies for global transport infrastructures and fossil fuels, ‘free trade' policies that open up food markets in virtually every country to global agribusinesses, [and] health and safety regulations [that] destroy smaller producers and marketers and are not enforced for giant monopolies. Monocultures rely heavily on chemical inputs–fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides–which pollute the immediate environment, put wildlife at risk, and–through nutrient runoff–create "dead zones" in waters ... thousands of miles away. More than half of the world's food varieties have been lost over the past century; in countries like the U.S., the loss is more than 90 percent. Agribusiness has gone to great lengths to convince the public that large-scale industrial food production is the only way to feed the world. But the global food economy is massively inefficient. More than one-third of the global food supply is wasted or lost; for the U.S., the figure is closer to one-half. The solution to these problems ... requires a commitment to local food economies. [Several towns in the state of Maine] declared "food sovereignty" by passing ordinances that give their citizens the right "to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing." In 2013, the government of Ontario, Canada, passed a Local Food Act to increase access to local food, improve local food literacy, and provide tax credits for farmers who donate a portion of their produce to nearby food banks.

Note: Read the full article for a comprehensive explanation of why local food and economies are far better for human health and environment. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of news articles on food system corruption.

[Kevin] Hall's work at the National Institutes of Health presents an existential challenge to the food industry, which has staked its business model for decades on developing ultra-processed meals that are cheap, easy to prepare. The NIH invested just over $2 billion on nutrition research last year. That includes both research, like Hall's, done in government facilities, and grants to outside scientists at universities. The agency, meanwhile, spent nearly $11.9 billion on neuroscience, $8.9 billion on brain disorders, and $5.1 billion on neurodegenerative diseases. Hall's first study on ultra-processed foods ... housed 20 adults at the NIH's clinical hospital. For half the time, participants were fed a diet of ultra-processed foods, and the other half, they got unprocessed foods. Participants had no control over what they ate, except that they could eat as much or as little ... as they wanted. The study found that people ate, on average, over 500 calories more on the ultra-processed diet. The results made Hall a minor celebrity by NIH standards. "The take-home lesson from this was absolutely unambiguous: If you're worried about weight, don't eat ultra-processed foods," [NYU professor of nutrition and public health Marion] Nestle said. "The idea that the NIH isn't sinking a fortune into this is just shocking to me," said [Nestle], who called Hall's first clinical trial on ultra-processed foods "the most important study in nutrition that's been done since vitamins." "Nutrition funding represents around 4 to 5% of total obligations from the NIH ... Which is like – compared to the impact that nutrition and food can have – just a really low number."

Note: For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on health and food system corruption.

A small, tight-knit community of scientific sleuths has been unearthing growing evidence that many studies, including landmark papers published in top journals, contain manipulated images and falsified findings. These revelations have led to high-profile investigations, raised concerns about clinical trials, and culminated in the departure of university presidents. Their work – often posted on PubPeer, a website where users comment on published studies – has also forced a reckoning around how the crushing pressure to publish splashy results incentivizes fraud. "Claire Francis" is a pseudonym for someone who has commented on, by their own reckoning, 20,000 articles since 2010. About 2,000 of these studies were later retracted. Elisabeth Bik ... comments on papers using her real name, and she has earned a reputation for her preternatural ability to spot fishy figures. Bik has flagged issues with about 8,500 studies, contributing to 1,300 retractions and about 1,100 corrections, she told STAT. Those retractions include a study supporting a popular hypothesis for Alzheimer's disease that has been cited more than 2,000 times, as well as a stem cell paper cited nearly 4,500 times. Her work has made her the recipient of more derisive emails, cease-and-desist letters, and legal threats than Bik can count. That's not an uncommon experience, and Bik is an adviser to the Scientific Integrity Fund, which has set aside money to support sleuths being sued for their work.

Note: Top leaders in the field of medicine and science have spoken out about the rampant corruption and conflicts of interest in those industries. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on science corruption.

Mexico is fighting to phase out genetically modified (GM) U.S.-grown corn. The Mexican government says this will protect its citizens' health and the country's native corn varieties. Yet the announcement provoked strong objections from the U.S., whose largest annual customer for GM corn is often Mexico–between 2018 and 2020, Mexico bought nearly 30 percent of all U.S. corn exports. The dispute has escalated to formal negotiations under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Mexico ... insists that GM corn threatens human health, and that modified seeds threaten Mexico's agricultural traditions and cultural identity. What began as a wild grass called teosinte nearly 10,000 years ago ... has evolved through millennia of domestication and selective breeding to yield the corn that we know today. Mexico is concerned that GM corn poses the risk of genetic contamination–genes from U.S. corn have a history of crossing the border and entering Mexican varieties. Pollen from GM crops can travel considerable distances and cross-pollinate with the native varieties, potentially altering their genetic makeup and, in some cases, making them less suited to the specific conditions they were bred for. In the U.S., most corn is grown with seed produced by large corporations, which create just a handful of genetically identical corn varieties grown at mass scale.

Note: Read how big agrochemical giant Monsanto worked with US officials to pressure Mexico into abandoning its intended ban on glyphosate. For more along these lines, explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on GMOs and food system corruption from reliable major media sources.

AstraZeneca is being sued by a woman who claims she was disabled by the company's Covid-19 vaccine. Brianne Dressen said she was "the picture of good health" when getting the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine in 2020 at the age of 39 through a Salt Lake County, Utah, clinical trial. In the hours that followed, her arm began to tingle and the feeling spread up to her shoulder, then to her opposite arm. Later, other symptoms followed, including blurred vision, a headache, ringing ears, and vomiting. In 2021, National Institutes of Health neurologists diagnosed her with "post vaccine neuropathy." Dressen is the co-chair of React19, an interest group for people alleging injury from Covid-19 vaccines. Now, she's suing AstraZeneca over medical expenses and more, arguing she's still disabled and unable to work and carry on with many activities as she once had. The lawsuit, which accuses AstraZeneca of breaching contractual obligations, comes days after AstraZeneca pulled its Covid-19 vaccine off the market. AstraZeneca has said it was doing so due to a lack of demand and not for safety reasons. The vaccine, however, has faced concerns over its efficacy and safety. As of April 1, over 10,000 claims alleging injury or death from a Covid-19 shot have been filed with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program, according to the HHS. In a separate lawsuit, Dressen's React19 and people alleging vaccine injuries are suing the HHS over the program.

Note: People injured by AstraZeneca's vaccine were censored on social media when they tried to talk about their experiences. While mainstream narratives emphasize how rare these injuries are, the numbers speak for themselves. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a voluntary government reporting system that only captures a portion of the actual injuries. Vaccine adverse event numbers are made publicly available, and currently show 38,068 COVID Vaccine Reported Deaths and 1,652,230 COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports.

Clinicians know that their patients' health is determined not just by the care they receive but also factors outside the confines of medicine – employment, financial stability, safe housing and access to nutritious food, to name a few. Boston Medical Center ... is well ahead of the curve; 23 years ago, it began its first "food as medicine" program. Patients identified as having food insecurity receive a food "prescription," meaning they could visit a food pantry run by the hospital once every two weeks and receive boxes customized for their medical conditions. Latchman Hiralall, manager of BMC's Preventive Food Pantry, explained that clinicians give a referral to the program, so workers know whether the patient requires a diet for diabetes, kidney disease, autoimmune conditions and so forth. Eligible patients can walk in right away, chat with pantry staff and leave with a wide array of food. Crucially, it's patients who decide what food they take. Eligibility is simply a matter of answering yes to two questions about whether they are worried about getting enough food. They don't need to show proof of financial stress. The program serves about 6,800 patients, distributing 50,000 pounds of food a month. The source of much of the fresh produce: The hospital itself. That's right – BMC operates its own rooftop farm. Seventy percent of the vegetables grown there go to Preventive Food Pantry participants. A portion of the rest is served in the hospital cafeteria.

Note: Read about how German hospitals are offering patients the "planetary health diet," a plant-based, whole food approach that's also in service to the Earth. Explore more positive stories like this about healing our bodies.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the WK Kellogg headquarters in Michigan on Tuesday calling for the company to hold up its promise to remove artificial dyes from its breakfast cereals sold in the U.S. Nearly 10 years ago, Kellogg's, the maker of Froot Loops and Apple Jacks, committed to removing such additives from its products by 2018. While Kellogg's has done so in other countries including Canada, which now makes Froot Loops with natural fruit juice concentrates, the cereals sold in the U.S. still contain both food dyes and a chemical preservative. In the U.S., Froot Loops ingredients include Red Dye No. 40, Yellow Dye No. 5, Yellow Dye No. 6 and Blue Dye No. 1. Kellogg's insisted its products are safe for consumption, saying its ingredients meet the federal standards set by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.The agency has said that most children experience no adverse effects from color additives, but critics argue the FDA standards were developed without any assessment for possible neurological effects. The protests come in the wake of a new California law known as the California School Food Safety Act that bans six potentially harmful dyes in foods served in California public schools. The ban includes all of the dyes in Froot Loops, plus Blue Dye No. 2 and Green Dye No. 3. Consumption of said dyes ... may be linked to hyperactivity and other neurobehavioral problems in some children.

Note: Big Food profits immensely as American youth face a growing health crisis. Read about the health concerns linked to these food dyes, including neurobehavioral problems, attention issues, DNA damage, allergies, chronic digestive issues, cancer, and more. Check out our latest Substack for a deep dive into who's behind the chronic disease epidemic that's threatening the future of humanity.

An ex-FDA employee has revealed what he claims is the most harmful breakfast cereal on the US market. Dr. Darin Detwiler, who previously served as a food safety expert for the agency, [said] that Kellogg's Froot Loops is the worst of the bunch, pointing out that the rainbow rings are "heavily processed and contain high levels of added sugars, artificial dyes and preservatives, which are linked to health concerns." Given the laundry list of bad-for-you ingredients in the bagged cereal, Detwiler says excess sugar is the least odious. A 1-cup serving of Froot Loops contains 12.35 grams of sugar, nearly half of the recommended daily allowance for children. However ... that serving size is unrealistic as most kids eat more than the recommended single cup. The bright red hue found in Froot Loops comes courtesy of Red 40, a controversial additive linked to a slew of health problems. A 2022 study yielded "alarming" results about the effects of Red 40 – sometimes called Allura red – on the human digestive tract. Researchers from McMaster University ... claimed the synthetic dye could potentially trigger irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn's disease after observing the biomarkers of damage in the gut cells of mice. The good doctor's revelation comes as more than 1,000 cereal lovers and health activists marched on Kellogg's Michigan headquarters on Tuesday, demanding the end of "harmful additives" being injected into US batches of products like Froot Loops and Apple Jacks.

Note: Big Food profits immensely as American youth face a growing health crisis. Read our latest Substack for a deep dive into who's behind the chronic disease epidemic that's threatening the future of humanity. For more along these lines, explore summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption from reliable major media sources.

Jaye Rochon struggled to lose weight for years. But she felt as if a burden had lifted when she discovered YouTube influencers advocating "health at every size" – urging her to stop dieting and start listening to her "mental hunger." In two months, she regained 50 pounds. As her weight neared 300 pounds, she began to worry about her health. The videos that Rochon encountered are part of the "anti-diet" movement, a social media juggernaut that began as an effort to combat weight stigma and an unhealthy obsession with thinness. But now global food marketers are seeking to cash in on the trend. General Mills, maker of Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms cereals, has launched a multipronged campaign that capitalizes on the teachings of the anti-diet movement. General Mills has toured the country touting anti-diet research it claims proves the harms of "food shaming." It has showered giveaways on registered dietitians who promote its cereals online with the hashtag #DerailTheShame, and sponsored influencers who promote its sugary snacks. The company has also enlisted a team of lobbyists and pushed back against federal policies that would add health information to food labels. Since the 1980s, the U.S. obesity rate has more than doubled, according to federal data. Nearly half a million Americans die early each year as a result of excess body weight, according to estimates in a 2022 Lancet study. The anti-diet approach essentially shifts accountability for the health crisis away from the food industry for creating ultra-processed junk foods laden with food additives, sugars and artificial sweeteners.

Note: For more along these lines,explore summaries of news articles on health and food system corruption from reliable major media sources.

Toxic PFAS "forever chemicals" are widely added to pesticides, and are increasingly used in the products in recent years, new research finds, a practice that creates a health threat by spreading the dangerous compounds directly into the US's food and water supply. The analysis of active and inert ingredients that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved for use in pesticides proves recent agency claims that the chemicals aren't used in pesticides are false. The researchers also obtained documents that suggest the EPA hid some findings that show PFAS in pesticides. About 14% of all active ingredients in the country's pesticides are PFAS, a figure that has doubled to more than 30% ... during the last 10 years. PFAS are a class of about 15,000 compounds typically used to make products that resist water, stains and heat. They are called "forever chemicals" because they do not naturally break down and accumulate, and are linked to cancer, kidney disease, liver problems, immune disorders, birth defects and other serious health problems. PFAS are added to a range of pesticides, including those used on crops, to kill mosquitoes, or to kill fleas. About two years ago, an EPA research fellow identified PFOS in pesticides and raised the alarm. In a Freedom of Information Act request that was part of the new study, researchers found documents showing the EPA had in fact found PFOS in pesticides but omitted those findings from the final study.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news stories on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.