News ArticlesExcerpts of Key News Articles in Major Media
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Liquid capital, growing market dominance, slick ads, and fawning media made it easy for giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon to expand their footprint and grow their bottom lines. Yet ... these companies got lazy, entitled, and demanding. They started to care less about the foundations of their business – like having happy customers and stable products – and more about making themselves feel better by reinforcing their monopolies. Big Tech has decided the way to keep customers isn't to compete or provide them with a better service but instead make it hard to leave, trick customers into buying things, or eradicate competition so that it can make things as profitable as possible, even if the experience is worse. After two decades of consistent internal innovation, Big Tech got addicted to acquisitions in the 2010s: Apple bought Siri; Meta bought WhatsApp, Instagram, and Oculus; Amazon bought Twitch; Google bought Nest and Motorola's entire mobility division. Over time, the acquisitions made it impossible for these companies to focus on delivering the features we needed. Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple are simply no longer forces for innovation. Generative AI is the biggest, dumbest attempt that tech has ever made to escape the fallout of building companies by acquiring other companies, taking their eyes off actually inventing things, and ignoring the most important part of their world: the customer.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech from reliable major media sources.
The bedrock of Google's empire sustained a major blow on Monday after a judge found its search and ad businesses violated antitrust law. The ruling, made by the District of Columbia's Judge Amit Mehta, sided with the US Justice Department and a group of states in a set of cases alleging the tech giant abused its dominance in online search. "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," Mehta wrote in his ruling. The findings, if upheld, could outlaw contracts that for years all but assured Google's dominance. Judge Mehta ruled that Google violated antitrust law in the markets for "general search" and "general search text" ads, which are the ads that appear at the top of the search results page. Apple, Amazon, and Meta are defending themselves against a series of other federal- and state-led antitrust suits, some of which make similar claims. Google's disputed behavior revolved around contracts it entered into with manufacturers of computer devices and mobile devices, as well as with browser services, browser developers, and wireless carriers. These contracts, the government claimed, violated antitrust laws because they made Google the mandatory default search provider. Companies that entered into those exclusive contracts have included Apple, LG, Samsung, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Mozilla. Those deals are why smartphones ... come preloaded with Google's various apps.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech from reliable major media sources.
Dr. Amit Goswami [is the] founder of the Center for Quantum Activism and former professor at the University of Oregon. the quantum revolution, which started at the beginning of the last century, has put us in the position of an unfinished revolution, otherwise known as a kind of suspended paradigm shift where the world is shifting from a situation of materialist reductionism, as it's called, where everything is regarded as based on material particles, to a world where everything is based on energy cannot be understood apart from consciousness. And that's important for us because nonviolence does not operate materially. Nonviolence operates spiritually in the domain of consciousness. "Matter is just a possibility in consciousness," [said Gaswami]. "So, consciousness chooses out of the matter waves the actual events that we experience. In the process, consciousness identifies with our brain, the observer's brain. We can talk about nonviolence in a very scientific way. If we are all originating from the same source, if we are ultimately the same consciousness that works through us, then it is complete ignorance to be violent to each other. So, the issue of nonviolence is basically a challenge of transformation. How do we transform using creativity, using the archetype of goodness, bring that into the equation of power, and learn to be nonviolent with each other?" There's a lot of mental violence going on. But the point is that the way we approach it as violence begets more violence. So, it never stops. The answer, of course, is that nonviolence has to grow from inside of us. It has to be an intuition that often happens not just once or twice during the day, but becomes a conviction, a faith that I cannot be violent to my fellow human.
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Employees of a Texas-based nonprofit that provides housing to unaccompanied migrant children repeatedly subjected minors in its care to sexual abuse and harassment, the Department of Justice (DOJ) alleged in a new lawsuit. From 2015 through at least the end of 2023, multiple employees at Southwest Key Programs, the country's largest private provider of housing for unaccompanied children, subjected unaccompanied children in their care to "repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment, and misconduct," the lawsuit said. Minors housed in its shelters were subjected to severe sexual abuse and rape, solicitation of sex acts, solicitation of nude photos and entreaties for sexually inappropriate relationships, among other acts. The children range in age from as young as five years old to teenagers just shy of eighteen years old. Southwest Key employees allegedly discouraged children from reporting abuse, in some cases threatening them and their families. One report describes a Southwest Key Youth Care Worker who repeatedly sexually abused a five-year-old girl, an eight-year-old girl and an eleven-year-old girl. He entered their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their "private area," and threatened to kill their families if they disclosed the abuse, according to the lawsuit. The company has come under scrutiny before. Videos from Arizona Southwest Key shelters in 2018 showed staffers physically abusing children.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on immigration corruption and sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
Columbus landlords are now turning to artificial intelligence to evict tenants from their homes. [Attorney Jyoshu] Tsushima works for the Legal Aid Society of Southeast and Central Ohio and focuses on evictions. In June, nearly 2,000 evictions were filed within Franklin County Municipal Court. Tsushima said the county is on track to surpass 24,000 evictions for the year. In eviction court, he said both property management staffers and his clients describe software used that automatically evicts tenants. He said human employees don't determine who will be kicked out but they're the ones who place the eviction notices up on doors. Hope Matfield contacted ABC6 ... after she received an eviction notice on her door at Eden of Caleb's Crossing in Reynoldsburg in May. "They're profiting off people living in hell, basically," Matfield [said]. "I had no choice. I had to make that sacrifice, do a quick move and not know where my family was going to go right away." In February, Matfield started an escrow case against her property management group which is 5812 Investment Group. When Matfield missed a payment, the courts closed her case and gave the escrow funds to 5812 Investment Group. Matfield received her eviction notice that same day. The website for 5812 Investment Group indicates it uses software from RealPage. RealPage is subject to a series of lawsuits across the country due to algorithms multiple attorneys general claim cause price-fixing on rents.
Note: Read more about how tech companies are increasingly marketing smart tools to landlords for a troubling purpose: surveilling tenants to justify evictions or raise their rent. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.
Vaccine adverse effects are real. I know it makes some people uncomfortable to acknowledge this, but alongside the benefits of vaccines, there are cases of profound harm. Recently, the New York Times covered my story: "Thousands Believe COVID Vaccines Harmed Them. Is Anyone Listening?" Sadly, no one is listening yet, and very few people are willing to help. I am a research nurse practitioner who has dedicated my professional career to community health and clinical research, including vaccines. My beliefs are firmly rooted in science. Three years ago, when the COVID-19 vaccine emerged, I stepped forward to receive it. What followed was unexpected and devastating. Within hours I developed tingling along my right arm, which over days radiated across my body. A neurologist and colleague recommended that I proceed with a second dose. With the vaccine mandate from my employer at the top of my mind, I proceeded, against my own medical judgment. After the second dose, my condition rapidly worsened. I developed positional tachycardia, wildly fluctuating blood pressures, internal tremors, electrical zap sensations on my legs, intense right-sided headaches, abdominal pain and severe tinnitus. I struggle to live with all of this and more to this day. Medical gaslighting, coupled with the absence of legal recourse or adequate compensation, compounds the challenges we endure. When I reach out for help, my pleas often fall on deaf ears, or I am disparaged as a misinformed "anti-vaxxer."
Note: This article was written by Shaun Barcavage, a nurse practitioner in New York City. Explore our nuanced, uncensored investigation about this important issue. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID vaccine problems from reliable major media sources.
A little-known advertising cartel that controls 90% of global marketing spending supported efforts to defund news outlets and platforms including The Post – at points urging members to use a blacklist compiled by a shadowy government-funded group that purports to guard news consumers against "misinformation." The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), which reps 150 of the world's top companies – including ExxonMobil, GM, General Mills, McDonald's, Visa, SC Johnson and Walmart – and 60 ad associations sought to squelch online free speech through its Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative, the House Judiciary Committee found. "The extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms," the Republican-led panel said in its 39-page report. The new report establishes links between the WFA's "responsible media" initiative and the taxpayer-funded Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a London-based group that in 2022 unveiled an ad blacklist of 10 news outlets whose opinion sections tilted conservative or libertarian, including The Post, RealClearPolitics and Reason magazine. Internal communications suggest that rather than using an objective rubric to guide decisions, GARM members simply monitored disfavored outlets closely to be able to find justification to demonetize them.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on censorship and media manipulation from reliable sources.
In May, the New York State government agreed to subsidize news media. The legislation allows tax credits for up to half of journalists' salaries. Not every outlet can write off employment costs. Excluded ... are nonprofit operations as well as those owned by publicly traded companies. Governments have tried to suppress dissenting views. If a massive chunk of journalists' income comes from one reliable source–government coffers–they'll inevitably treat government as the audience to please rather than locals who've proven difficult to court and who distrust the press. Under such subsidies, the future of local media could be one of well-funded media outlets ignored by their nominal communities as they produce reports tailored for the tastes of bureaucrats with funding power. That's been an ongoing problem with publicly funded journalism. "In Europe, we have seen governments harm the reputation and independence of public media to the point of limiting their citizens' access to differing points of view," Freedom House research analyst Jessica White wrote. In December, a report from The Future of Free Speech, an independent think tank ... warned, "the global landscape for freedom of expression has faced severe challenges in 2023. Even open democracies have implemented restrictive measures." The report documented how obsession with "hate speech," "terrorist content," and "disinformation" are wielded as bludgeons by officials against critics of government officials and their policies.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.
Recall ... takes constant screenshots in the background while you go about your daily computer business. Microsoft's Copilot+ machine-learning tech then scans (and "reads") each of these screenshots in order to make a searchable database of every action performed on your computer and then stores it on the machine's disk. "Recall is like bestowing a photographic memory on everyone who buys a Copilot+ PC," [Microsoft marketing officer Yusuf] Mehdi said. "Anything you've ever seen or done, you'll now more or less be able to find." Charlie Stross, the sci-fi author and tech critic, called it a privacy "shit-show for any organisation that handles medical records or has a duty of legal confidentiality." He also said: "Suddenly, every PC becomes a target for discovery during legal proceedings. Lawyers can subpoena your Recall database and search it, no longer being limited to email but being able to search for terms that came up in Teams or Slack or Signal messages, and potentially verbally via Zoom or Skype if speech-to-text is included in Recall data." Faced with this pushback, Microsoft [announced] that Recall would be made opt-in instead of on by default, and also introducing extra security precautions – only producing results from Recall after user authentication, for example, and never decrypting data stored by the tool until after a search query. The only good news for Microsoft here is that it seems to have belatedly acknowledged that Recall has been a fiasco.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Tech and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Recent high school graduate Suborno Isaac Bari, 12, plans to start studying math and physics at New York University in the fall. "I hope to graduate college at 14 in spring 2026," said Suborno, who recently became the youngest graduate from his Long Island high school. The gifted tween, who memorized the periodic table at 2 years old and has taught lectures at colleges in India since he was 7, graduated on Wednesday from Malverne High School in Nassau County, New York. The bright young student, whose family says he's also skilled in painting, debate and playing the piano, could also be making history at NYU when he begins pursuing his bachelor of science degree. A university spokesperson informed the Bari family "NYU is unaware of anyone younger than Suborno being admitted," according to a copy of an email shared with CNN. In 2016, then-President Barack Obama sent Suborno a letter praising the bright student for his hard work and accomplishments. The family shared a copy of the letter with CNN. In 2020 when he was 7, Suborno began receiving invitations from colleges in India to teach, which he does three times a year. "That gives him lots of chances to have conversations with different levels of expertise, students, faculties, college presidents, so many people," [father] Rashidul Bari said. Suborno plans to continue his family's trend of teaching by one day becoming a math and physics professor.
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A recent audit of Pentagon funding of gain-of-function research outside the US "may have shielded" collaborations with Chinese biotech firms – including at least one linked to Beijing's military, a Republican senator alleged. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for answers about redactions that had concealed the firms – WuXi AppTec, Pharmaron Beijing Co., and Genscript Inc. – from public scrutiny in the audit, according to a letter. "American taxpayers deserve transparency about the programs they are funding, and I am disappointed this OIG report does not provide that accountability," Marshall wrote. According to the Defense Department Office of Inspector General audit, more than $15.5 million in grants between 2014 and 2023 flowed through subrecipients to "contracting research organization[s] in China or other foreign countries for research related to potential enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential." However, the 20-page audit cited "significant limitations with the adequacy of data" – and said the Pentagon "did not track funding at the level of detail necessary to determine whether the DoD provided funding ... for the gain-of-function experiments. Such research is classified as "offensive biological work" by the Pentagon, which Marshall said "raises questions" about National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials having admitted this year to funding gain-of-function experiments at the ... Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Note: Watch our 15-min Mindful News Brief video on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID-19 and military corruption from reliable major media sources.
A social prescription is officially defined as a nonmedical resource or activity that aims to improve a person's health and strengthen their community connections. Don't let the "social" bit fool you: These are not small-talky, introvert hellscapes where docs sprinkle friendship fairy dust and motley crews of strangers suddenly become best buds. And they're not prescribed only for social isolation, either. Social prescriptions can cover everything from orchestra practice to fresh vegetables and can help treat everything from depression to poverty. Instead of replacing other kinds of medicine, social prescriptions complement them, offering healing that pills and procedures can't offer alone. Instead of just treating symptoms of sickness, social prescriptions reconnect us to our sources of wellness. And instead of just addressing "What's the matter with you?", social prescriptions address "What matters to you?" History is filled with examples of "social prescribing" from all around the globe. Indigenous groups have long linked an individual's health to the health of their interconnected relationships– both with their neighbors, and the natural world. African villages have long used community rituals to help heal and prevent stress and pain. Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda in India have long emphasized the relationship between a person's body and their surrounding environment. If we want to change our health, we have to change our environment, too.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and healing social division.
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.
Renowned economist Gabriel Zucman released a blueprint Tuesday showing the world's governments that a global minimum tax on billionaires would be both technically feasible and economically beneficial, leaving political will as the only major obstacle preventing transformative changes to an international tax structure long exploited by the ultra-rich. A 2% minimum tax on the wealth of global billionaires would raise between $200 billion and $250 billion annually in revenue from roughly 3,000 individuals globally, resources that "could be invested to support sustained economic development through investments in education, health, public infrastructure, the energy transition, and climate change mitigation." Billionaires ... pay lower effective income tax rates than those in the working class, often making use of holding companies and other complex maneuvers to dodge their obligations and stockpile massive fortunes. The world's billionaires collectively own $14.2 trillion in wealth. Structuring a new tax based on a specific percentage of billionaires' wealth would prevent ultra-rich individuals who report little to no taxable income from completely avoiding taxation. The primary barrier to establishing a global tax on billionaires is not technical, Zucman argued, but political, particularly given the sway the ultra-rich have over economic policy. A YouGov poll ... found that 59% of U.S. millionaires would support a global tax on billionaires equal to 2% of their wealth.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on financial inequality from reliable major media sources.
The U.S. Postal Service has shared information from thousands of Americans' letters and packages with law enforcement every year for the past decade, conveying the names, addresses and other details from the outside of boxes and envelopes without requiring a court order. Postal Service officials have received more than 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015. Each request can cover days or weeks of mail sent to or from a person or address, and 97 percent of the requests were approved. The surveillance technique, known as the mail covers program, has long been used by postal inspectors to help track down suspects or evidence. The practice is legal, and the inspectors said they share only what they can see on the outside of the mail. [Sen. Ron] Wyden said in a statement, "Thousands of Americans are subjected to warrantless surveillance each year, and ... the Postal Inspection Service rubber stamps practically all of the requests they receive." He also criticized the agency for "refusing to raise its standards and require law enforcement agencies monitoring the outside of Americans' mail to get a court order, which is already required to monitor emails and texts." Anxieties over postal surveillance are classically American. In 1798, Vice President Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter that his fears of having his private communications exposed by the "infidelities of the post office" had stopped him from "writing fully & freely."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
Forcing a journalist to disclose confidential sources will have a crippling effect on effective investigative journalism in this country. The First Amendment provides protections for the press because an informed electorate is essential for robust debate and a strong democracy. But what happens when you find yourself dragged into a lawsuit, ordered to divulge your sources, and held in contempt when you refuse? It is relatively uncommon for a court or the government to try to force a reporter to divulge sources. But it does happen, and when it does, it has a chilling effect on sources, reporters, and journalism itself. Sources wonder if they can trust a journalist who promises confidentiality, while journalists become less willing to offer that promise. It damages the ability of the press to root out wrongdoing. There is some good news, though. Congress appears poised to make it far more difficult for journalists to be compelled to divulge their sources. In January, in a rare display of bipartisanship, the House unanimously passed the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act, or the PRESS Act. The bill, which is now awaiting action in the Senate, would mandate the disclosure of sources only in a limited number of cases. It would also bar the government from surveilling journalists. A recent letter from a coalition of more than 130 civil liberties and journalism organizations ... called the legislation "a rare chance to strengthen freedom of the press."
Note: The above was written by former CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge, who was fired after reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal–after which CBS seized her confidential reporting files. For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on censorship and media manipulation.
Last week, the Biden administration said it would allow the Azov Brigade, a Ukrainian military unit, to receive U.S. weaponry and training, freeing it from a purported ban imposed in response to concerns that it committed human rights violations and had neo-Nazi ties. A photo posted by the unit itself, however, seems to suggest that the U.S. was providing support as far back as December of last year. The photo, in tandem with the administration's own statements, highlights the murky nature of the arms ban, how it was imposed, and under what U.S. authority. Two mechanisms could have barred arms transfers: a law passed by Congress specifically prohibiting assistance to Azov, and the so-called Leahy laws that block support to units responsible for grave rights violations. The State Department said this month that weapon shipments will now go forward after a Leahy law review, but won't comment on if and when a Leahy ban was in effect. The congressional prohibition, the U.S. says, does not apply because it barred assistance to the Azov Battalion, a predecessor to the Azov Brigade. The original unit had earned scrutiny for alleged human rights violations and ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies. The U.S. has not made clear about when the apparent ban started, but a deputy Azov commander and media reports indicate some type of prohibition has been in effect for nearly a decade – though the congressional ban has only been in effect since 2018.
Note: Facebook changed its censorship policies to permit calls for the death of Russian soldiers and praise for the Azov Battalion. Learn more about US covert military support for Neo-Nazis in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.
For the fifth time since 2008, Russia has proposed to negotiate with the U.S., this time in proposals made by President Vladimir Putin on June 14, 2024. Four previous times, the U.S. rejected the offer of negotiations. The 30-year U.S. project, hatched originally by Cheney and the neocons ... has been to weaken or even dismember Russia, surround Russia with NATO forces, and depict Russia as the belligerent power. [One] Russian proposal for negotiations came from Putin following the violent overthrow of Ukraine's President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, with the active complicity if not outright leadership of the U.S. government. The post-coup government invited me for urgent economic discussions. When I arrived in Kiev, I was taken to the Maidan, where I was told directly about U.S. funding of the Maidan protest. The violent coup induced the ethnic-Russia Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine to break from the coup leaders, many of whom were extreme Russophobic nationalists, and some in violent groups with a history of Nazi SS links in the past. Almost immediately, the coup leaders took steps to repress the use of the Russian language even in the Russian-speaking Donbas. The government in Kiev [deployed] neo-Nazi paramilitary units and U.S. arms. In the course of 2014, Putin called repeatedly for a negotiated peace, and this led to the Minsk II Agreement in February 2015 based on autonomy of the Donbas and an end to violence by both sides. Russia did not claim the Donbas as Russian territory, but instead called for autonomy and the protection of ethnic Russians within Ukraine. The UN Security Council endorsed the Minsk II agreement, but the U.S. neocons privately subverted it.
Note: More than 1 million people on both sides have been either killed or injured. This article was written by Jeffrey Sachs, world-renowned economist and public policy analyst. This isn't about defending Russia, but highlighting how US foreign policy has exploited Ukraine for strategic interests–fueling ongoing conflict rather than promoting peace. Azov Battalian is a neo-nazi group tied to credible human rights violations, a group that the CIA directly supported with weapons and military training leading up to the 2014 Maidan coup.
More than 800 people were selected to participate in the Denver Basic Income Project while they were living on the streets, in shelters, on friends' couches or in vehicles. They were separated into three groups. Group A received $1,000 per month for a year. Group B received $6,500 the first month and $500 for the next 11 months. And group C, the control group, received $50 per month. About 45% of participants in all three groups were living in a house or apartment that they rented or owned by the study's 10-month check-in point, according to the research. The number of nights spent in shelters among participants in the first and second groups decreased by half. And participants in those two groups reported an increase in full-time work, while the control group reported decreased full-time employment. Parents of kids under 18 ... reported statistically significant improvements in "parental distress" after receiving money for 10 months. Researchers tallied an estimated $589,214 in savings on public services, including ambulance rides, visits to hospital emergency departments, jail stays and shelter nights. The $9.4 million project was funded by a mix of public and private money, including $1.5 million from The Colorado Trust and $2 million from the city of Denver's pot of federal pandemic relief money.
Note: Explore more positive stories about reimagining the economy and healing social division.
In 2018, still in the throes of painful withdrawal from a psychiatric drug cocktail, U.S. Air Force veteran Derek Blumke began connecting the dots. He heard horror story after horror story that followed a disturbingly familiar pattern: starting, adjusting the dose, or abruptly stopping antidepressants was followed by personality changes, outbursts and acts of violence or suicide, leaving countless families and lives destroyed. Timothy Jensen ... an Iraq war veteran who served in the Marines, had been researching psychiatric drug overprescribing in the Veterans' Health Administration (VA) system for years. He had his own harrowing personal story of antidepressant harm, and he had lost his best friend, a fellow veteran, to suicide soon after he was prescribed Wellbutrin for smoking cessation. Poring through the data, Blumke landed on some startling statistics: 68% of all veterans seen at least one time for care at the VA in 2019 had been prescribed psychotropic drugs, and 28% were issued prescriptions for antidepressants. "It should be zero shock that veterans have the suicide rates we do," Blumke said. "Veteran suicide rates are two to two and a half times that of the civilian population. Prescription rates of antidepressants and psychiatric drugs are of the same multiples, which are both the highest in the world." Antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs have huge risk profiles, but doctors and counselors aren't even being trained about these issues.
Note: Suicide among post-9/11 veterans rose more than tenfold from 2006 to 2020. Why is Mad in America the only media outlet covering this important issue affecting so many veterans? Along these lines, the UK's medicines regulator is launching a review of over 30 commonly prescribed antidepressants, including Prozac, amid rising concerns about links to suicide, self-harm, and long-term side effects like persistent sexual dysfunction–especially in children.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.