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Dismissed Charges Against Surgeon Who Falsified Vaccine Cards Has Emboldened Others
Kirk Moore, M.D., had been on trial for five days, accused of falsifying COVID-19 vaccination cards and throwing away the government-supplied doses. The Utah plastic surgeon faced up to 35 years in prison if the jury found him guilty on charges that included conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Testimony had paused for the weekend when Moore’s lawyer called him early one Saturday this July with what felt to him like unbelievable news.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had ordered Utah prosecutors to drop all charges, abruptly ending his two-and-a-half year court battle. “I just literally collapsed to the floor, and tears rolling down my face,” Moore recalled in a recent interview. Bondi’s announcement marked a striking reversal of how the federal government handled the prosecution of COVID-19-related fraud under President Joe Biden.
It has since emboldened other medical professionals who were similarly charged to consider seeking reexaminations of their cases. And it signaled the increasing clout of doctors and politicians who champion what they call “medical freedom,” which rejects modern public health interventions such as vaccine requirements in favor of individual choice.
FDA Sends Warning Letters to Companies Promoting Sex-Rejecting Breast Binders
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent warning letters to twelve companies last week ordering them to stop selling breast binders to children with wrong-sex confusion. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary revealed the letter campaign on Dec. 18 at the Department of Health and Human Services’ press conference denouncing sex-rejecting procedures for minors.
“These binders are not benign,” Commissioner Makary warned. “Long-term usage has been associated with pain, compromised lung function … and even difficulty breastfeeding later in life.” Breast binders are constricting tops designed to ease swelling from some abdominal surgeries, like cancer-related mastectomies.
The FDA classifies them as medical devices and regulates their sale. Healthy women and girls with wrong-sex confusion frequently use breast binders to appear more masculine — a dangerous, off-label use with serious physical consequences.
American Food Safety Could Be Headed for a Breakdown
The infant botulism outbreak that sickened dozens of babies who drank ByHeart formula is a reminder of how vulnerable we all are to the companies that sell us food — and how important it is to have a robust food safety system that responds quickly to problems and prevents illness in the first place. But federal cuts this year will leave more people exposed to potential foodborne illness in the future, food safety experts predict.
The changes they say will degrade U.S. food safety include the reduced number of pathogens now monitored by a key surveillance program, brain drain of the foodborne illness staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) amid low morale and overwork, and cuts to the administrative staff who support FDA inspectors, which agency officials say has already led to a historic low in inspections of foreign facilities that import food to the U.S.
“It’s not that they [the Trump administration] are necessarily choosing to harm the system,” said Daniel Jernigan, who worked at the CDC for 30 years before resigning from his position as head of the agency’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases in August. “It’s that all of these cuts that are not coherent are all working against each other, and therefore you end up with a system that’s just not functioning well.”
Louisiana Social Media Age Verification Law Blocked by Federal Judge
Louisiana’s Secure Online Child Interaction and Age Limitation Act, a social media law that requires social platforms to verify user ages and implement parental controls, has been struck down.
The before-the-buzzer decision was issued on Dec. 15, made just ahead of the act’s enforcement period by Louisiana regulators. The federal judge ruled in favor of tech trade lobbying group NetChoice, which has been constitutionally challenging age verification laws across the country.
In April, NetChoice successfully blocked Arkansas’ Social Media Safety Act. “The Act is at once under-inclusive and over-inclusive,” wrote judge John W. deGravelles in the Louisiana decision.
