Free Republic

............. More than 18,000 Americans have died from this season’s generic flu so far, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2018, the CDC estimated, there were 80,000 flu deaths. That’s against 19 coronavirus deaths so far, from about 470 cases. Worldwide, there have been about 3,400 coronavirus deaths, out of about 100,000 identified cases. Flu, by comparison, grimly reaps about 291,000 to 646,000 annually. China is the origin of the virus and still accounts for over 80 percent of cases and deaths. But its cases peaked and began ­declining more than a...

Mike Konrad wrote an informative article saying that, even if the Coronavirus is as serious as the media says, we Americans have good medical care, including antibiotics for secondary infections and steroids to control some of the worst symptoms. Now Michael Fumento, debunker extraordinaire, says that, on the available evidence, the newest virus is (a) just another virus and (b) not likely to ravage American shores. The media is flogging the Coronavirus as if it’s the new Ebola. That’s very fertile soil because we have locked in our memories horrific images out of Africa, showing people lying dead in...

State of the Union addresses are like appendixes: They may serve a purpose but nobody knows what it is. So there’s always a temptation to insert into them a “moonshot goal” to show you’re doing Big Things. This year, President Trump’s moonshot was ending HIV transmission in the United States by 2030. Poor choice. For decades, the AIDS lobby has seized huge swaths of limited resources — not only funding but medical researchers — at the expense of diseases that kill far more people. This has to end...

Desperate appeals made on Fumento’s behalf to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota by his friend Patrick D. Hahn of Baltimore have gone unanswered Never thought the day would come when I would find it a matter of life or death trying to get a message through to President Donald Trump. But that’s where I am today. Courageous Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Michael Fumento, who saw combat as an embedded reporter with United States troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in a Bogota,Colombia prison on trumped up charges where he has been held without bail since Easter Sunday. Worse yet,...

Iconoclastic journalist and Canada Free Press columnist Michael Fumento is currently being held in atrocious conditions in a Colombian jail on absurdly trumped-up charges. Michael Fumento is the author of numerous books including The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS and The Fat of the Land. More recently he saw combat as an embedded reporter with United States troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of his combat video recordings have been aired on the History Channel. Michael Fumento’s recent troubles began Easter Sunday 1 April when he was attacked on the streets of Bogota by a man armed with a knife. The...

You’ve been snookered, folks. By that poor elderly doctor who was involuntarily dragged from his seat, had his face smashed in, and was beaten unconscious by the evil airport security at the behest of United Airlines. Because there’s no evidence any of that was true. It was in fact a premeditated temper tantrum gone viral, featuring one 69-year-old Vietnamese-American David Dao, a medical doctor who’d lost his license, planning a lawsuit from the moment United first politely asked him to give up his seat. He demanded to be dragged and, when police obliged, struck his lip on an armrest. From...

It's part of American folk lore: The man who saves the day and rides off into the sunset without anybody knowing his name. Sometimes he doesn't even leave a silver bullet. Dr. Alexander Langmuir, the father of infectious disease epidemiology, was such a man. "He had an absolutely profound impact on saving lives," said Alan Summer, Dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health and a former student of Langmuir's. "If one wants to include important roles he played, the people he trained and what they've gone on to do, a figure in the millions (of...

"To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals." So observed Benjamin Franklin centuries ago. But Franklin didn't comment on whether food intake restriction worked by keeping people thin or by making them thin. Indeed, it's become a mantra of the "size acceptance" groups that there's no scientific evidence that losing weight increases longevity. And it's been true -- until now. Sure, a mass of published studies show that thinner is better in terms of overall health and longevity. This is notwithstanding the occasional report like Katherine Flegal's in 2005 that encouraged the Center for Consumer Freedom, the notorious food and beverage...

"Religious Right Cited False Report to Combat Embryonic Stem Cell Legislation." So reads the lede of a thread (an Internet posting followed by commentaries) of a group called "DEFCON: Campaign to Defend the Constitution." Translation: DEFCON hates the religious right and anything the religious right likes. If the religious right liked ice cream, DEFCON would hate it. So DEFCON hates alternatives to embryonic stem cells no matter how valuable those alternatives are in treating and curing human disease.  In this case, if anybody took DEFCON seriously it could be sued for libel. The paper in question, presented by Catherine Verfaillie...

Another source of useful stem cells has been found – and the media and the cloning crowd are trying keep it quiet. While the Democratic-controlled House voted 253-174 to expand federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, it fell far short of the 290 votes needed to override a virtually guaranteed presidential veto. A tragedy for victims of everything from Alzheimer's to warts? Not at all. Each year there are stunning breakthroughs with adult stem cells, and 2007 has already brought its first. Adult stem cells cure and treat more 70 diseases and are involved in almost 1,300 human clinical trials....

The space shuttle program would seem to have nothing to do Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist’s call for dramatically expanded federal aid for embryonic stem cell research, but there are striking parallels..... ......Yet if the shuttle has had little use, ESCs so far have had none. They’ve never been tested on humans. And like the shuttle, there are far superior alternatives. Culled from numerous body tissues, these are generally called “adult stem cells.” Yet ASCs are routinely downplayed or ignored precisely because ESCs, like the shuttle, are of little value to the human race but are tremendously valuable for individual...

Science’s Stem Cell Scam By Michael Fumento Thursday, July 20, 2006 Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) receive tremendous media attention, with oft-repeated claims that they have the potential to cure virtually every disease known. Yet there are spoilsports, self included, who point out that they have yet to even make it into a human clinical trial. This is even as alternatives – adult stem cells (ASCs) from numerous places in the body as well as umbilical cord blood and placenta – are curing diseases here and now and have been doing so for decades. And that makes ESC advocates very, very...

There's bad news and there's more bad news for paralysis victims hoping that some variety of stem cell will soon help them walk again. Adult stem cell paralysis treatment has just suffered a major setback, on the one hand. On the other, these victims are being mercilessly exploited by those desperate to convince us that embryonic stem cells (ESCs) -- yet to be tested in a human -- are a miracle cure desperately needing massive infusions of taxpayer funds. There have been many claims of improvements for quadriplegics using adult stem cells -- those found throughout the human body as...

A year ago I wrote an article titled: “Why the Media Miss the Stem Cell Story.” It discussed the almost total disregard of adult stem cells (ASCs) and the glorification of “miraculous” human embryonic stem cells (ESCs) -- notwithstanding that the adult ones treat over 80 human diseases while embryonics haven’t even made it to human testing. For a wonderful example of this triumph of hype and politics over reality, look no further than two CBS News 60 Minutes segments that aired towards the end of February. One was “Scientist Hopes for Stem Cell Success” hosted by Ed Bradley (who...

....Javers then took it upon himself to establish, right then, a completely new set of rules regarding columnists disclosure of the receipt of corporate money. All previous standards were null and void...

With no real issues to promote, Democrats are putting all their eggs into the basket of corruption to restore their political fortunes. They and their friends in the mainstream media are working overtime to connect everyone and everything on the right side of the political spectrum to disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. One channel that Democrats and liberals are working is tying conservative think tanks to the Abramoff scandal. They know that these think tanks have been one of the most effective forces in Washington over the last 30 years in advancing a...

Adult Stem Cells Provide New Life for Livers By Michael Fumento Scripps Howard News Service, October 20, 2005 Copyright 2005 Scripps Howard News Service I have frequently written on the gulf between the "PROMISE" of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and the REALITY of therapy from adult stem cells (ASCs) – those already in our bodies and umbilical cord blood. ESCs get publicity; ASCs get results. The latest example: ASCs are now rebuilding human livers.  This is a healthy liver . . .   Until now, the only hope for persons with irreversible liver failure from such diseases as cirrhosis, which...

"THE INDICATION IS THAT we will see a return of the 1918 flu virus that is the most virulent form of flu," warns America's top health official. "In 1918, half a million people died. The projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans . . . " A quotation ripped from today's papers about an impending "bird flu" pandemic? No, the year was 1976 and the prediction of a deadly "swine flu" overshot the mark by 999,999 deaths (although dozens did die from the vaccine campaign). That's something to remember amid the current alarms. Another is that we've...

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has just announced it’s giving its highest honor to Los Angeles paralegal Erin Brockovich, best known for her virtual beatification in the allegedly “based on a true story” film of the same name. Julia Roberts portrayed her as having the mouth of a hooker but a heart of gold. Yet the Hollywood Brockovich is bunk, and this is not Harvard’s finest hour. -snip- The California Cancer Registry showed no excess cancer in Hinkley compared to surrounding counties, despite the claim of Brockovich and her law firm that they suffered terribly high rates from...

Arnold, how could you? You were the GOP’s great gubernatorial hope. Sure, you had no political experience, were “squishy” on social issues, and had married into America’s foremost Democratic family. But you were going to terminate the state’s financial problems. How could you mandate a global warming program that will leave your people drowning in red ink long after you’ve said, “Hasta la vista, baby!” Bypassing the legislature, Schwarzenegger last month signed an executive order mandating drastic cuts in so-called greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. "The debate is over," Schwarzenegger wrote July 3 in a...