News StoriesExcerpts of Key News Stories in Major Media
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.
Israel has cast the deaths of civilians in the Gaza Strip as a regrettable but unavoidable part of modern conflict, pointing to the heavy human toll from military campaigns the United States itself once waged in Iraq and Syria. But ... experts say that even a conservative reading of the casualty figures reported from Gaza shows that the pace of death during Israel's campaign has few precedents in this century. People are being killed in Gaza more quickly, they say, than in even the deadliest moments of U.S.-led attacks in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, which were themselves widely criticized by human rights groups. Civilian casualties are notoriously hard to calculate, and officials in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip do not separate the deaths of civilians and combatants. Researchers point instead to the roughly 10,000 women and children reported killed in Gaza as an approximate – though conservative – measure of civilian deaths in the territory. More women and children have been reported killed in Gaza in less than two months than the roughly 7,700 civilians documented as killed by U.S. forces and their international allies in the entire first year of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. And the number of women and children reported killed in Gaza since the Israeli campaign began last month has already started to approach the roughly 12,400 civilians documented to have been killed by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan during nearly 20 years of war.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.
Male sperm count has fallen by more than 50% globally in the last 50 years, leaving researchers scrambling to understand why. Could it be pollution, PFAS and other potential toxins in our food and water, an increase in obesity and chronic disease, or even the ever-present mobile phone? A new study explored the role of cell phones and found men between the ages of 18 and 22 who said they used their phones more than 20 times a day had a 21% higher risk for a low overall sperm count. The men also had a 30% higher risk for a low sperm concentration. The study did not specify whether the men called or texted or used their phones to do both. Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are greatly reduced when texting and highest when downloading large files, streaming audio or video, when only one or two bars are displayed, and when in a fast-moving bus, car or train, according to the California Department of Public Health. The agency recommends keeping the phone away from the body and head – use the speakerphone or headphones instead – and carry the phone in a backpack in a backpack, briefcase or purse. Studies in mice have found RF-EMF fields at levels similar to cell phones do lower male fertility and contribute to sperm death and changes in the tissue of the testes. Observational studies in humans have also found that frequent use of mobile phones was connected to a decline in sperm viability as well as an impact on how the sperm swam.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and the dangers of wireless technologies from reliable major media sources.
An FDNY firefighter says he was forced to retire on half his salary after the city-mandated COVID-19 vaccine left him with permanent heart damage. O'Brian Pastrana now wants a judge to award him a more lucrative disability pension, which would pay three-quarters of his final salary tax-free, according to court papers. Pastrana, 37, got the jab in October 2021 because the city required it, and had an immediate allergic reaction, including swollen lips, chills and body aches. Despite three trips to the emergency room, he claims he was forced to get the second Pfizer shot a month later. "I thought I was going to die after that second dose," Pastrana [said], adding he was again rushed to the ER after the second shot. By February 2022, the married father of two was diagnosed with myocarditis, which results in potentially fatal inflammation of the cardiac muscle, and was nearly in heart failure, court records show. The heart condition is a rare side effect of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pastrana was then told he could never be a firefighter again, and forced to retire in March after over a decade on the job. "I was completely blindsided," he wrote in a statement to the court. The FDNY Uniformed Firefighter Association called his injury "totally avoidable." The city "held his job over his head and forced him to choose between a vaccine that he did not want, and feeding his family," Andrew Ansbro, the union's president, said.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and COVID vaccines from reliable major media sources.
Kangaroo court. That's how plaintiffs lawyers in a federal lawsuit ... describe the obscure U.S. government tribunal charged with adjudicating claims for compensation by thousands of people who say they suffered serious injuries from COVID-19 vaccines. The lawsuit ... alleges that the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) violates the 5th and 7th amendments of the U.S. Constitution by failing to provide "basic due process protections, transparency, and judicial oversight." The plaintiffs – eight people who say they experienced debilitating side-effects from the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as React 19, a nonprofit organization for people who claim vaccine-related injuries, want to stop the government from forcing their claims into the CICP until due process safeguards are added. Those include the right to review evidence, obtain discovery, present expert witnesses and appeal adverse decisions. Vaccine makers Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, which have been indemnified by the government and are not named in the suit, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The plaintiffs blame the COVID vaccine for causing a wide range of ailments including Bell's palsy, blood clots in the brain, vertigo, vascular inflammation, chronic fatigue syndrome, small fiber neuropathy, heart palpitations and more. Four plaintiffs have filed claims for compensation with the CICP but have been told there is "no timeline" for adjudicating their cases.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and COVID vaccines from reliable major media sources.
The Moderna misinformation reports, reported here for the first time, reveal what the pharmaceutical company is willing to do to shape public discourse around its marquee product. The mRNA COVID-19 vaccine catapulted the company to a $100 billion valuation. Behind the scenes, the marketing arm of the company has been working with former law enforcement officials and public health officials to monitor and influence vaccine policy. Key to this is a drug industry-funded NGO called Public Good Projects. PGP works closely with social media platforms, government agencies and news websites to confront the "root cause of vaccine hesitancy" by rapidly identifying and "shutting down misinformation." A network of 45,000 healthcare professionals are given talking points "and advice on how to respond when vaccine misinformation goes mainstream", according to an email from Moderna. An official training programme, developed by Moderna and PGP, alongside the American Board of Internal Medicine, [helps] healthcare workers identify medical misinformation. The online course, called the "Infodemic Training Program", represents an official partnership between biopharma and the NGO world. Meanwhile, Moderna also retains Talkwalker which uses its "Blue Silk" artificial intelligence to monitor vaccine-related conversations across 150 million websites in nearly 200 countries. Claims are automatically deemed "misinformation" if they encourage vaccine hesitancy. As the pandemic abates, Moderna is, if anything, ratcheting up its surveillance operation.
Note: Strategies to silence and censor those who challenge mainstream narratives enable COVID vaccine pharmaceutical giants to downplay the significant, emerging health risks associated with the COVID shots. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
People injured by the COVID-19 vaccines are suing the federal government, claiming the federal program they're forced to pursue compensation through is an opaque and unconstitutional "kangaroo court" that unjustly rejects almost all claims it receives. React19, a patient group of the vaccine injured ... is one of several plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP). The other plaintiffs are all individuals whose compensation claims were rejected by the CICP, despite many having diagnoses from their doctors that the severe injuries they experienced within a few hours or days of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine were a result of the vaccine. Their lawsuit was filed in October. The CICP is currently the only avenue through which those with a COVID-19 vaccine injury can seek compensation. A mix of federal law and pandemic-era emergency declarations bar the vaccine injured from suing vaccine manufacturers in civil court. Those with a COVID-19 vaccine injury are also prohibited from pursuing compensation through the standard Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). People must file a CICP claim within one year of vaccination. "Most of us don't know what's wrong with us for over a year if we can ever get a diagnosis," says [legal affairs director for React19 Christopher] Dreisbach, who himself suffered a COVID-19 vaccine injury. "So many ... don't even know the program even exists." The CICP was first authorized in 2005 by a piece of war-on-terror legislation intended to encourage companies to produce emergency countermeasures to a bioweapons attack or a similar disaster by shielding them from lawsuits.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and COVID vaccines from reliable major media sources.
When we think of how to rescue suffering children from the unbridled carnage of numerous wars that have forced people to go underground, the vast network of tunnels built by the Vietnamese comes to mind. Following the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, weapons makers in the United States focused on developing ordnance that could destroy underground tunnels and bases. In Afghanistan, on April 13, 2017, the United States used a Massive Ordinance Air Blast bomb nicknamed MOAB, the Mother of All Bombs, to destroy a network of tunnels in the Hindu Kush mountains. The United States had helped the Mujahideen construct these tunnels during their war against the Soviet Union in the late 1970s. Locals say this harsh terrain has been haunted by a deadly, hidden hazard: chemical contamination. Living as we do in a world where countries like the United States maintain a permanent warfare state, we must reckon with the horrific cost of war – and the obscene profits. The Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal notes that weapons makers' stocks on Wall Street have risen 7 percent since the Israel-Hamas war started. As much as we might long to grasp the hand of the child trying to free herself from underneath a collapsed building's rubble, we need to imagine and long for the chance to grasp the hand of someone outside our own community, someone we've been taught to regard as an enemy or an invisible "other."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.
The free, moneyless economy is flourishing in America. Roughly 250 million people were still visiting Craigslist worldwide each month in 2022, 27 years after the site was launched in 1995–and many of those Craigslist users are posting and sharing goods under the site's popular "free stuff" section. About eight years after Craigslist was launched, Freecycle Network came online in 2003. More than 9 million Americans were still using Freecycle as of 2020, which I detailed in an article that year. And then there's the relatively young Buy Nothing Project, which turned 10 years old in July of 2023. In addition to providing a digital space where people can request things they need, post things they're giving away, and share gratitude, one of the B corp's social benefit model goals is to encourage people to organize community and local events around buying nothing. Over the years, Buy Nothing has been gaining popularity–not through any marketing on the part of the organization but through word-of-mouth and organic growth. The Buy Nothing app, which has only been around for about two years, is ... zeroing in on 1 million users. Buy Nothing's model varies from that of Craigslist's "free stuff" and Freecycle in that it is focused on community groups, gatherings, and events organized by and for local communities. The idea is that a global reuse economy will emerge community by community. Buy Nothing exists ... "to build resilient communities where our true wealth is the connections forged between neighbors."
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
In most of Europe, fitting a heat pump is one of the most powerful actions a person can take to reduce their carbon footprint. But in Norway, where clean-yet-inefficient electrical resistance heaters have long been common, upgrading to a heat pump is often a purely financial decision. Two-thirds of households in this Nordic country of 5 million people have a heat pump, more than anywhere else in the world. For many years, Norwegians and their neighbours heated their homes with fossil fuels. But during the 1973 oil crisis, when prices shot up, the country's political leaders made a conscious choice to promote alternatives. "Norway ensured early on that fossil-fuel heating was the most expensive option, making heat pumps cost competitive," said Dr Jan Rosenow from the Regulatory Assistance Project, a thinktank that works to decarbonise buildings. "They did this by taxing carbon emissions from fossil heating fuels. That's been the key to incentivise heat pump adoption." Norway also trained up a workforce to install them. Heat pumps' efficiency has been increased over decades, partly because of the early adopters in Nordic countries who tinkered away to the point where a modern version can deliver three to five units of heat for every unit of electricity used to power it. An efficient gas boiler, on the other hand, can only produce as much heat as the energy contained in the fuel being burned. A heat pump will have a smaller carbon footprint than a gas boiler even when plugged into an electricity grid.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
Dutch sewage waste is being seen as a reliable heat source for millions of homes that the government wants to be unhooked from the country's gas system by 2050. Lieven de Key, a housing corporation in Amsterdam, is planning what is believed to be the first sewer warmth project that will tap into a main district sewage pipe to warm 1,600 existing social and student homes. "We have a photo of the street covered with snow, and the manhole covers all without snow," says Jeroen Rademaker, the project leader. "Even when there's snow in the winter, the sewer is warm. Warm sewage water flows 24 hours a day and we should capture it. This can happen wherever there is a big sewage pipe." "The warmth comes from showers, the toilet, wastewater from washing, from the dishwasher, from the washing machine," says Postuma. "Together it all gives, throughout the year, a temperature between 15 and 18 degrees. And we are going to make a bypass around the main sewer, put a heat exchanger around it and bring it to the houses in insulated pipes. We place it in an electric heat pump, and the water is heated up to 60 or 70C – medium temperature." The heat exchanger transfers that source heat from the drain to a working fluid that can be transported to the buildings without needing to circulate the actual sewage waste. Then the blocks' heat pumps, fired by solar energy, can amplify that heat in the opposite way to the workings of a refrigerator.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) ... collects reports of symptoms, diagnoses, hospital admissions, and deaths after vaccination. VAERS is supposed to be user friendly, responsive, and transparent. However, investigations by The BMJ have uncovered that it's not meeting its own standards. Not only have staffing levels failed to keep pace with the unprecedented number of reports since the rollout of covid vaccines but there are signs that the system is overwhelmed. In the face of an unprecedented 1.7 million reports since the rollout of covid vaccines, VAERS's staffing was likely not commensurate with the demands of reviewing the serious reports submitted, including reports of death. While other countries have acknowledged deaths that were "likely" or "probably" related to mRNA vaccination, the CDC–which says that it has reviewed nearly 20,000 preliminary reports of death using VAERS (far more than other countries)–has not acknowledged a single death linked to mRNA vaccines. In November 2022, React19, an advocacy group of some 30,000 people who have experienced prolonged illness after covid vaccination, reviewed 126 VAERS reports among its ranks. 22% had never been given a permanent VAERS ID number and 12% had disappeared from the system entirely. The BMJ has found that the FDA and CDC essentially maintain two separate VAERS databases: a public facing database, containing only initial reports; and a private, back end system containing all updates and corrections–such as a formal diagnosis, recovery, or death.
Note: Vaccine adverse event numbers on VAERS are made publically available here, and only capture a portion of the actual vaccine injuries. Albert Benavides is a VAERS researcher who recently wrote a comprehensive Substack piece investigating the corruption and dysfunction of the VAERS system, including how the VAERS system even deleted dead Pfizer Trial patients. Another excellent article explores these concerning implications from the perspective of cardiologists, physicians, and science researchers.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. JFK: What the Doctors Saw [is] a documentary featuring previously unreleased footage – and the testimony of seven doctors who were there in the emergency room of Parkland Hospital trying to save the then-president's life after he was shot as his motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. The film raises serious doubts about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing JFK (Oswald was shot to death two days later by local nightclub owner Jack Ruby as he was escorted through the Dallas Police building). "I became involved with the story because one of my personal physicians told me he was in the emergency room at Parkland Hospital when JFK was brought in," Jacque Lueth, the film's executive producer who interviewed the seven Parkland doctors, [said]. "He introduced me to six of the other doctors who were there that day and when I interviewed them, I began to realize their observations from Trauma Room 1 didn't match the government story." She adds, "Based upon my interviews with the doctors, Jim Jenkins and Robert Tanenbaum, and my own research, there's no question in my mind there was a government cover-up." The doctors in the film contend one of the bullets that hit JFK entered through his throat, meaning it was an entrance wound from the front – and that there were potentially two gunmen, with Oswald firing from the rear.
Note: Explore concise summaries of revealing news articles on the JFK assassination from reliable major media sources. For more along these lines, check out our JFK Assassination Information Center.
Pesticides used in our homes, gardens and lawns and sprayed on foods we eat are contributing to a dramatic decline in sperm count among men worldwide, according to a new analysis of studies over the last 50 years. "Over the course of 50 years, sperm concentration has fallen about 50% around the world," said senior study author Melissa Perry. "While there are likely many more contributing causes, our study demonstrates a strong association between two common insecticides –organophosphates and N-methyl carbamates – and the decline of sperm concentration." Organophosphates are the main components of nerve gas, herbicides, pesticides and insecticides and are also used to create plastics and solvents. They are widely used in agriculture on the crops we eat. We use them in structural applications within homes and buildings. N-methyl carbamates are structurally and operationally similar to organophosphates, killing insects by damaging their brains and nervous systems. The study, published ... in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, examined 25 studies around the world on the two chemicals. Those studies looked at 42 different levels of impact among 1,774 men in 21 different study populations. Men who were more highly exposed to the pesticides, such as those who work in agriculture, had significantly less sperm concentration than men who had the least exposure to organophosphates and N-methyl carbamates, the study found.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and food system corruption from reliable major media sources.
A federal appeals court on Thursday is tossing the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ban on a pesticide that has been linked to brain damage in children. The decision from the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to send the rule back to the agency does not preclude the agency from reinstating the ban in the future. But it said the EPA needs to give greater consideration to whether there are cases where the pesticide, called chlorpyrifos, could be used safely. Chlorpyrifos has been used as an insecticide, protecting crops like soybeans, broccoli, cauliflower and fruit trees. The EPA banned chlorpyrifos for use in growing food in 2021. That came after a prior court ruling gave the agency just 60 days to either find a safe use for chlorpyrifos or ban it outright. The appeals court determined that this deadline contributed to a rushed decision from EPA that was ultimately "arbitrary and capricious." The ruling comes from Judges Lavenski Smith, Raymond Gruender and David Stras, two of whom were appointed by former President George W. Bush and one of whom was appointed by former President Trump. The chlorpyrifos issue has ping-ponged between administrations. The Obama administration had proposed to ban its use on food, but the Trump administration reversed course and had proposed to allow some uses of the chemical.
Note: Did you know that chlorpyrifos was originally developed by Nazis during World War II for use as a nerve gas? Read more about the history and politics of chlorpyrifos, and how U.S. regulators relied on falsified data to allow its use for years. See other concise news articles we've summarized about the harms of chlorpyrifos.
The European Commission says it has decided to renew the license for the weedkiller compound glyphosate, approving its use in European Union countries for ten more years. Following the decision yesterday, the Commission released a statement saying that, on the basis of comprehensive safety assessments carried out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), it would renew the licence, "subject to certain new conditions and restrictions". These include a ban on the use of the chemical to dry crops before harvest, and "the need for certain measures to protect non-target organisms". Governments can still restrict the use of glyphosate in their own countries if they consider the risks too high. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, the world's most widely used herbicide. Some studies point to a link between glyphosate and certain cancers. Robin Mesnage, a toxicologist at King's College London, welcomes the Commission's decision to continue to allow the use of glyphosate. Others have expressed disappointment. "It is unacceptable that the Commission still plans to go ahead with its proposal, considering the amount of scientific evidence of the substance's health impacts," says Natacha Cingotti, a campaigner at the Health and Environment Alliance. "While we can't undo the decades of exposure, the Commission can still seize the opportunity to turn the tide towards more sustainable agricultural practices."
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the food system from reliable major media sources.
The US must acknowledge the right to food in order to transform its broken food system in the post-pandemic era and make it more resilient in the face of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, according to a United Nations hunger expert. "Whether we're talking about right to food, food justice or food sovereignty, there has been growing momentum over the last 10 years to understand that food is not just something we just leave to be determined by what is available or by corporations or the status quo," said Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food. Last month, Fakhri presented a report on the right to food – which would entail that adequate food be available and accessible to all people – as a means of food system recovery and transformation to the UN general assembly. The right to food, which can also be characterized as a right to culturally appropriate nutrition that a person needs to live a healthy and active life, is recognized in the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is enshrined in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In 2021, the US and Israel were the only countries to vote against a United Nations committee's draft that asserted food as a human right. The draft also expressed alarm that the number of people lacking access to adequate food rose by 320 million to 2.4 billion in 2020 – nearly one-third of the world's population. In 2022, 44.2 million people in the US lived in food-insecure households.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the food system from reliable major media sources.
High-income Americans are almost as likely to defer healthcare because of cost as people with low or average incomes in eight other developed countries, a new survey brief by the Commonwealth Fund finds. The survey findings also show that nearly half of American adults (46%) faced a problem with a medical bill in the last year, and almost half with low or average incomes (46%) skipped or delayed needed care because of price – the highest rate in any of nine countries analyzed. "In some cases, lower-income people in other countries are better off than higher-income Americans," said Munira Gunja, lead author of the study. Decades of research shows the US health system is both wildly expensive and inefficient. Internationally, it has been seen as a kind of "bogeyman" and as a way not to structure a health system, according to the late Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt. A staggering 18% of US GDP goes to healthcare spending, the highest in the world, and the logical result of the highest healthcare prices of any nation. Despite runaway spending, Americans also have among the worst outcomes. Recent work by population researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University, found US life expectancy has slipped for decades and now ranks 46th among 200 nations. The US is also the only nation surveyed without guaranteed universal health coverage for every citizen.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Health Information Center.
The U.S. was in a fit of Covid panic during Thanksgiving week two years ago. By month's end, Pfizer's stock-market value had surpassed $300 billion, up 50% from the start of the pandemic. Moderna's shares had soared by more than 1,000% over the same period. In 2022 Pfizer became the first pharmaceutical company to book more than $100 billion in annual sales owing to government purchases of its vaccines and antiviral pill. Fast-forward to today. The pandemic is over. Demand for Covid vaccines and treatments has plunged. Pfizer's total revenue has fallen more than 40% since last year. Earlier this month the company took a $5.5 billion write-off on its Covid products owing to "lower-than-expected demand." Only 14% of American adults have received the latest updated booster shots. The jabs' greatest benefit was in providing political leaders with the courage to lift destructive lockdowns and mask mandates. The vaccines were supposed to be a two-shot-and-done regimen, not blockbuster medicines that rung up tens of billions of dollars in sales every year with government support. Statins and diabetes medicines prevent heart attacks, but the government doesn't run ads urging Americans to use Lipitor or Ozempic. The government's vaccine boosterism ... has increased public cynicism toward pharmaceutical companies. Drug makers can dine out on any given medicine only for so long before needing to cook up another pharmaceutical bonanza.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma profiteering and coronavirus vaccines from reliable major media sources.
The Board of Representatives in Stamford, Connecticut, earlier this month voted to reject a model agreement that would have allowed AT&T and Verizon to install 5G equipment on city-owned utility poles. In a bid to get 5G swiftly installed in his state, Gov. Ned Lamont's office created a template contract between the nation's top two telecommunication carriers and the state's five major cities. Stamford, the state's second-largest city, is the only city so far to have voted against using the contract. [City] representatives were largely persuaded by presentations by six independent experts on the scientific evidence of harm from radiofrequency (RF) radiation, including 5G. The experts, including toxicologist and epidemiologist Devra Davis, Ph.D., MPH, said there were many documented health and environmental impacts of wireless radiation, including brain damage, memory loss, decline in reproductive function, DNA damage and harm to insects. "Confronted with overwhelming, independent scientific information about the real and present dangers of bringing electromagnetic fields closer to humans than ever before, Stamford voted to protect people," [said Davis]. Some representatives, like City Rep. Don Mays, worried that rejecting the pact would mean AT&T and Verizon would sue the city. A 2018 ruling by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) blocks states and municipalities from taking actions that would impede or delay the rollout of 5G technology.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the risks and dangers of wireless technologies from reliable major media sources.
Federal regulators announced warnings against two major food and beverage industry groups and a dozen nutrition influencers on Wednesday, as part of a broad action to enforce stricter standards for how companies and social media creators disclose paid advertising. The Federal Trade Commission sent warning letters on Monday to American Beverage, a lobbying group whose members include Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, as well as the Canadian Sugar Institute and a dozen health influencers who collectively have over 6 million followers on TikTok and Instagram. The agency flagged nearly three dozen social media posts that it said failed to clearly disclose who was paying the influencers to promote artificial sweeteners or sugary foods. The action follows a months-long investigation by The Examination and The Washington Post that revealed how the food and beverage industry had enlisted popular dietitians to promote industry-friendly messages on social media posts that often failed to disclose the names of sponsors. Social media marketing ... has been described as the Wild West of advertising. Over $6 billion is expected to be spent on influencer marketing in the United States in 2023. The enforcement action is the first the FTC has taken against major food and beverage industry groups for social media marketing. The agency urged the trade groups and nutrition influencers to remove posts or add proper disclosures and noted that future failures could trigger fines of more than $50,000 for each violation.
Note: Read how cereal giant Kellogg used fake experts to sell its sugary cereals. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption 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.