TV News LIES

As flu season nears, so do new COVID-19 variants.

A newly discovered COVID strain known as XEC continues to spread rapidly across multiple countries, including the U.S.

Scripps Research’s Outbreak.info page, last updated on Sept. 5, reported 95 XEC cases across 12 U.S. states and 15 different countries.

However, Australia based data integration specialist Mike Honey wrote on X Saturday that the new strain, which emerged in Berlin last June, has shown up in hundreds more patients across 27 countries in Europe, North America and Asia.

Omicron variant KP.3.1.1, also known as deFLuQE, made up over half (52.7%) of COVID-19 cases between Sept. 1 and Sept. 14. However XEC and a variant known as MV.1 seem poised to become the next dominant strains, scientists say.

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The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that last month nearly half of the United States have reported "very high" levels of COVID-19 activity.

As concerns with COVID have waned across the U.S., the CDC has come to rely on wastewater data to track the virus, which often lags several weeks behind current case counts.

Data collected between Aug. 25 and Aug. 31 by the CDC showed that 23 states have reported "very high" levels of wastewater viral activity nationwide. The data was published on Sept. 5.

Here are the overall numbers of the states and territories that have reported wastewater viral activity levels as of Aug. 31.

Typically, wastewater data are updated weekly and the data that is published shows the results for the prior week. However, the results can take up to five days to a week to be published online. Thus, the data from Aug. 31 is considered the most recent data.

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Girls exposed to certain chemicals that are common ingredients in household products may be starting puberty comparatively early, a new study has found.

Substances of particular concern include musk ambrette — a fragrance used in some detergents, perfumes and personal care products — and a group of medications called cholinergic agonists, according to the study, published on Tuesday in Endocrinology.

These chemicals are all known as “hormone-disrupting” or “endocrine-disrupting” compounds, due to their tendency to block or interfere with hormone function in the body’s endocrine system.

To draw their conclusions, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers performed an initial screening of 10,000 environmental compounds and then studied the activities of select substances using lines of both rodent and human brain cells that control reproductive functions.

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A ballot initiative in Missouri that would overturn the state’s near-total abortion ban ran into a roadblock Friday after a judge agreed with anti-abortion opponents that the measure did not inform voters of the ramifications.

Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh sided with anti-abortion lawmakers and activists in his ruling, arguing Amendment 3 did not adequately inform voters who signed petitions about the amendment’s ramifications

He found the measure was “insufficient” and a “blatant violation” of the statutory requirements because it failed to list the laws that would be repealed if the amendment was passed.

But he declined to immediately issue an injunction to allow time for proponents to appeal ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.

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A Missouri judge has ruled that a ballot measure asking voters whether abortion rights should be enshrined in the state constitution is invalid, potentially jeopardizing an election scheduled for November.

In a ruling issued on Friday, Cole county circuit judge Christopher Limbaugh said that the reproductive rights petition – also known as amendment 3 – led by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom did not comply with state law.

Abortion rights activists are hopeful an appellate court could reverse Limbaugh’s decision, but for now it remains unclear whether voters will be able to decide the issue as scheduled on 5 November, the same day as the presidential election.

According to Limbaugh, his decision came as a result of the campaign’s “failure to include any statute or provision that will be repealed, especially when many of these statues are apparent”. He went on to add: “The court must conclude that the defendant-intervenors’ initiative petition was insufficient.”

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The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals recently allowed Florida’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth to go back into effect.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Charles Wilson stated, “This matter is a medical issue, where patients are best left to make decisions alongside health professionals, with access to complete, unbiased information, as needed.”

Wilson’s words demonstrate how bans like the one in Florida not only affect transgender individuals, but also disrupt health professionals’ ability to communicate with patients about evidence-based care.

While we should not forget transgender youths and their families are the central target of these bans, the legislation also interferes with healthcare providers’ ability to do their jobs. The systemic impact of these providers’ moral distress, and the medical brain drain and burnout that follows, means that these bans affect every single person in this country seeking health care.

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