Disturbing: Puberty Blocking Drug Companies Refuse to Conduct Safety Trials

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Manufacturers that dominate the U.S. market for puberty blockers refuse to conduct safety trials on their frequently prescribed off-label use to treat gender dysphoria in adolescents. Endo International plc and AbbVie Inc have repeatedly declined to conduct safety tests on the puberty blocking drug Lupron, according to a new report by Reuters.

Left-wing news outlet Reuters published data on Thursday about the rising number of children and adolescents adopting a transgender identity and seeking medical interventions. Among the shocking revelations is that between 2017 to 2021, 17,683 of the 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 diagnosed with gender dysphoria received puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. Despite such widespread adoption for the drug’s off-label use, the drug’s manufacturers refuse to conduct safety trials for their use in treating gender dysphoria in adolescents.

Dr Brad Miller, division director of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Minnesota Medical School and M Health Masonic Children’s Hospital, and “several other doctors,” told Reuters they had “repeatedly asked” AbbVie, Endo, and other manufacturers of puberty blockers to seek FDA approval for the drugs in treating gender dysphoria in children and to conduct clinical trials to establish their safety. “They said the companies always declined,” reported Reuters.

“They would say it would cost a lot of money to get approval,” Miller said of the drug manufacturers’ refusal. “And they were not interested in going there because (transgender treatment) was a political hot potato.” (Read more from “Disturbing: Puberty Blocking Drug Companies Refuse to Conduct Safety Trials” HERE)

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Biden Issues Over 300K Smartphones With Tracking Devices to Illegal Aliens

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More than 300,000 smartphones used to monitor illegal immigrants were given to noncitizens by the Biden administration last month, according to data collected by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Issuing such cellular devices to illegal immigrants is part of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program called the Alternatives to Detention, which essentially gives the individuals access to U.S. soil before their court dates.

The smartphones, which cost taxpayers $361,218.08 per day, use facial recognition, GPS monitoring, and voice identification, according to ICE.

Jon Feere, former DHS senior adviser and director of investigations at the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Free Beacon last month that the ATD program has already proven to be a “costly failure,” noting that thousands of illegal immigrants have disappeared annually. (Read more from “Biden Issues Over 300K Smartphones With Tracking Devices to Illegal Aliens” HERE)

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Biden to Pardon All Federal Convictions for Marijuana Possession

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President Biden will pardon everyone convicted on federal charges of simple marijuana possession, the White House announced Thursday, saying he intended to repair America’s “failed approach” to the drug.

The president also was expected to call on governors to pardon state-level convictions in a recorded video statement later Thursday.

“As I said when I ran for president, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

The marijuana pardon, announced just a month before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, delivers a gift to the Democrats’ liberal base that has clamored for legalizing weed at the federal level and has been disappointed by the party’s failure to deliver on overhauling policing laws.

Some proponents of legalizing marijuana argue that convictions hit Black Americans disproportionately. (Read more from “Biden to Pardon All Federal Convictions for Marijuana Possession” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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US Buying Hundreds of Millions of Dollars of Drug to Treat Radiation Sickness

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As part of long-standing, ongoing efforts to be better prepared to save lives following radiological and nuclear emergencies, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is purchasing a supply of the drug Nplate from Amgen USA Inc; Nplate is approved to treat blood cell injuries that accompany acute radiation syndrome in adult and pediatric patients (ARS).

Amgen, based in Thousands Oaks, California, developed Nplate for ARS with support from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the HHS Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), as well as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health.

BARDA is using its authority provided under the 2004 Project Bioshield Act and $290 million in Project BioShield designated funding to purchase this supply of the drug. Amgen will maintain this supply in vendor-managed inventory. This approach decreases life-cycle management costs for taxpayers because doses that near expiration can be rotated into the commercial market for rapid use prior to expiry and new doses can be added to the government supply.

ARS, also known as radiation sickness, occurs when a person’s entire body is exposed to a high dose of penetrating radiation, reaching internal organs in a matter of seconds. Symptoms of ARS injuries include impaired blood clotting as a result of low platelet counts, which can lead to uncontrolled and life-threatening bleeding.

To reduce radiation-induced bleeding, Nplate stimulates the body’s production of platelets. The drug can be used to treat adults and children.

Nplate is also approved for adult and pediatric patients with immune thrombocytopenia, a blood disorder resulting in low platelet counts. Repurposing drugs for acute radiation syndrome that also are approved for a commercial indication helps to sustain availability of the product and improves healthcare provider familiarity with the drug.

Photo credit: Flickr

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Federal Agents Uncover Thousands of ‘Rainbow’ Fentanyl Pills Stashed in Lego Boxes

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A New Jersey woman was arrested this week after federal agents and New York City police officers found fentanyl packaged like candy and stored in LEGO boxes in her car.

The woman, Letitia Bush, was arrested on Sept. 28 when agents and police officers stopped her vehicle in the Lincoln Tunnel. The vehicle allegedly contained 15,000 “multicolored” pills and had an estimated street value of $300,000, according to WPVI.

Reportedly, Bush was in the backseat of the vehicle when police and agents showed up. She had two black tote bags and a yellow LEGO container. Inside the LEGO container were “brick shaped” packages covered in black tape next to LEGO blocks. Inside the black-taped packages contained the “rainbow” fentanyl pills, which were reportedly imprinted with “30 M” to resemble 30mg oxycodone hydrochloride pills.

New York City’s Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan warned that the pills “look like candy” and began showing up on the West Coast earlier this year.

Frank Tarentino, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York Division said that the pills are similar-looking to “party drugs” and are “everywhere.”

“Rainbow fentanyl is a clear and present danger and it is here in New York City,” Tarentino said to Fox 5. “Approximately forty percent of the pills we analyze in our lab contain a lethal dose.” (Read more from “Federal Agents Uncover Thousands of ‘Rainbow’ Fentanyl Pills Stashed in Lego Boxes” HERE)

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CEO Arrested Just 1 Day After NYT Profiled His Firm as the Victim of an ‘Election Denier’ ‘Conspiracy Theory’

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Twenty-four hours after New York Times reporter Stuart Thompson attacked an “election denier” claim about an election software firm as a “conspiracy theory,” he was forced to report on its CEO’s arrest on suspicion of stealing data from poll workers and storing it in China.

On Monday, Thompson published a sympathetic portrayal of a Michigan election software company called Konnech and its CEO in an article with the title and subtitle, “How a Tiny Elections Company Became a Conspiracy Theory Target: Election deniers catapulted a Michigan firm with just 21 U.S. employees to the center of unfounded voter fraud claims, exposing it to vicious threats.”

Thompson, a technology reporter “covering misinformation and disinformation,” attacked what he called a “conspiracy theory” from “a group of election deniers” over the claim that Konnech has ties to China.

“Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States,” Thompson wrote.

One day later, Eugene Yu, the founder and chief executive of Konnech, was arrested for “suspicion of theft” of poll worker information that was found to be stored in China. (Read more from “CEO Arrested Just 1 Day After NYT Profiled His Firm as the Victim of an ‘Election Denier’ ‘Conspiracy Theory’” HERE)

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Major Holes Found in FBI’s Case Against Pro-Life Father, Documents Reveal

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New documents call into question two key components of the FBI’s charges against Mark Houck, the pro-life father of seven who was arrested by federal agents Sept. 23 for allegedly shoving a Planned Parenthood clinic escort.

The FBI charged Houck with two counts of assaulting a reproductive health care clinic escort in violation of the FACE Act, which makes it a federal crime to interfere with someone “because that person is a provider of reproductive health care.” Houck’s arrest by numerous federal agents made national headlines, but newly unearthed documents undermine some of the FBI’s charges against him.

Houck was praying near an abortion clinic when Bruce Love, who claims to be a longtime clinic escort, approached him and began behaving “extremely aggressively” and harassing Houck’s then-12-year-old son, his attorney, Peter Breen, told the Daily Caller News Foundation; Love was not escorting any patients at the time of the altercation, according to Breen.

Love only mentioned being shoved once in a prior criminal complaint about the incident, according to a copy of his private criminal complaint first obtained by the Federalist, but Houck’s federal indictment is for two instances of assault. The fact that Love only later mentioned a second shoving undermines the federal government’s decision to charge Houck with two counts of assault, according to Breen.

“Apparently Mr. Love is now claiming a second instance where he says he was knocked to the ground,” Breen said. “That is false. We look forward to some sort of evidence of that alleged other instance because if a crime had actually taken place we assume that Mr. Love would have put it in his private criminal complaint he brought to the Pennsylvania state courts.” (Read more from “Major Holes Found in FBI’s Case Against Pro-Life Father, Documents Reveal” HERE)

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Justice Department Scores Win Against Trump in Mar-a-Lago Raid Case on Special Master Appeal

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An appeals court has granted the Justice Department’s request to speed up its appeal of the appointment of the special master examining the documents obtained during the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Trump opposed the DOJ’s efforts to expedite its circuit court appeal, with the former president’s lawyers saying this week that the timeline for DOJ’s appeal should be broadened and that oral arguments shouldn’t happen until January at the earliest. The appeals court panel appeared to reject much of that in siding with the Justice Department.

U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan ruled Wednesday that DOJ’s “motion to expedite appeal is granted” and that the court clerk was directed “to expedite the appeal for merits disposition purposes.” A special merits panel will decide “when and how to hear oral argument,” but for now, the Justice Department’s initial brief is due Oct. 14, Trump’s response is due Nov. 10, and the DOJ’s reply to that is due Nov. 17.

The Justice Department argued to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Friday that its alleged inability to access nonclassified documents seized in the raid in early August was hampering its investigation into whether Trump improperly moved classified information out of the White House during his presidency. (Read more from “Justice Department Scores Win Against Trump in Mar-a-Lago Raid Case on Special Master Appeal” HERE)

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Woke Army General Rebuked for Twitter-Trolling Tucker Carlson, Right-Wingers

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An Army watchdog report has found a top general broke social media protocol by taking on Fox News host Tucker Carlson and other right-wingers on Twitter last year.

An investigation by the Army’s Office of the Inspector General found Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, the former commander of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga., brought “negative publicity” to the Army for engaging in social media arguments over the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for troops and criticizing Carlson’s critique of gender-based military reforms, according to the Washington Post and Task & Purpose.

Donahoe first clashed with Carlson in March 2021 after the top-rated TV personality criticized the Pentagon for making a “mockery of the US military” by introducing new hairstyles for women and flight suits for pregnant service members.

“While China’s military becomes more masculine as it has assembled the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become as, Joe Biden says, more feminine — whatever feminine means anymore,” Carlson said at the time.

In response, Donahoe posted a video of himself re-enlisting a female staff sergeant with the caption: “Just a reminder that @TuckerCarlson couldn’t be more wrong.” Several other Army leaders tweeted in agreement, leading Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to write Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin regarding Donahoe and other military leaders’ public criticism of Carlson. (Read more from “Woke Army General Rebuked for Twitter-Trolling Tucker Carlson, Right-Wingers” HERE)

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Health Care Worker Illegally Fired for Christian Beliefs About Gender Identity, Lawyers Say

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After longtime physician assistant Valerie Kloosterman disclosed her religious beliefs about gender identity, a diversity program leader called her “evil,” her lawyers say.

Shortly thereafter, Kloosterman’s employer fired her, despite her unblemished 17-year record of conscientious patient care at a clinic.

Kloosterman’s attorneys are asking the University of Michigan Health-West (UMH-West) to reinstate her, grant a religious accommodation, and spare others from “similar discrimination.”

First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit public-interest law firm, represents Kloosterman. This summer, First Liberty won two U.S. Supreme Court rulings upholding religious freedom and has asked the court to consider hearing two more such cases this fall.

Kloosterman, a 42-year-old married mother of four (including triplets), was dismissed more than a year ago. She turned to First Liberty in a last-ditch effort to get her job back, said Jordan Pratt, senior counsel at the firm’s office in Washington, D.C. (Read more from “Health Care Worker Illegally Fired for Christian Beliefs About Gender Identity, Lawyers Say” HERE)

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