Login
Whistleblower: EPA and Railroad Contractor Hid East Palestine Contamination
More than three years after the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, a member of the field response team is coming forward with allegations of contamination data being buried. Testers were told they’d better come back with good results, and residents were falsely assured the air was safe, according to a sworn affidavit obtained by NewsNation.
Peggy Dixon is a former environmental tester turned whistleblower with the Government Accountability Project. She worked on the cleanup of the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck. Twenty of the affected train cars contained materials the Environmental Protection Agency deemed hazardous, including vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol, ethylhexyl acrylate, butyl acrylate and isobutylene.
Now, in the affidavit, Dixon says the company that hired her was Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (now known as Onterris). Norfolk Southern contracted the company, and Dixon writes they both worked to hide how bad the contamination really was.
“That was a turning point for me. I realized this wasn’t about public safety — it was about liability,” Dixon said. She was part of the response teams in the weeks after the derailment, in the excavation work in 2024 and last year’s work to close the site.
New Autism Committee Chair Founded a Leucovorin Telehealth Company
John Gaitanis, MD, who was recently appointed the new chair of the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), co-founded a company that provides leucovorin to families of children with autism. Meadow Biosciences — now called Meadow Health — launched in April and described itself as the “first national telehealth platform dedicated to leucovorin care for children with autism.” It says it provides “clinician-guided care through custom-compounded medications when prescribed, delivered to the patient’s door.”
Gaitanis, who also was named director of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in August, does not appear to be involved in the company’s day-to-day operations. He is not listed on the company’s “About Us” page and doesn’t appear elsewhere on the company website.
John Slattery, Meadow Health’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement that Gaitanis divested his financial interest in Meadow before becoming NICHD director. Asked to confirm whether Gaitanis had divested himself from the company, NIH said in an email that Gaitanis “is complying with all relevant ethics requirements.”
MAHA Moms Denouncing Republican ‘Traitors’ Who Voted For Farm Bill
The Senate Agriculture Committee last week passed the farm bill, a policy package that has repeatedly faced opposition from the “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
While the farm bill was being considered, MAHA advocates urged their followers to contact senators to vote “no,” arguing that the bill’s language would fail to hold pesticide manufacturers accountable.
Following the bill’s passage, advocates expressed frustration with Republican senators, highlighting tensions between a key faction of President Donald Trump’s base and the broader GOP prior to the midterms. As the Senate Agriculture Committee reconsidered the farm bill, MAHA advocates asked their followers to call senators and urge them not to pass a package that would delay pesticide reviews and cut funding for regenerative agriculture, a pesticide-free farming method.
Several major MAHA accounts, including Moms Across America, Kelly Ryerson (known online as Glyphosate Girl) and Courtney Swan, joined in a September 14 post on Instagram urging their followers to contact five Republican senators — Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville, Iowa’s Joni Ernst, Kansas’ Roger Marshall, North Dakota’s John Hoeven, and West Virginia’s Jim Justice — and tell them to vote “no” on the farm bill.
FDA Nominee Overton Says All US Vaccines Safe as Senator Cassidy Presses on Shots
Dr. Heidi Overton, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the embattled US FDA, told senators on Thursday that all vaccines on the US market are safe and effective, as the health committee’s Republican chairman pressed her on immunization at her confirmation hearing. In his opening statement, US Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana pressed Overton to affirm the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and to commit to keeping politics out of the agency’s decisions.
He criticized Overton for standing behind Trump when the president signed an executive order breaking up the childhood vaccine schedule into more doses, a move physicians’ groups and vaccine makers strongly oppose. Cassidy, himself a physician, said the order was based on “zero scientific evidence” and would raise costs for families.
Cassidy, noting Overton’s presence when Trump called the MMR shot “potentially quite lethal”, pressed the nominee on whether she would break with the president’s characterization of the vaccine at a time when the country is experiencing its worst measles outbreak in decades due to declining vaccination rates.
Texas Governor Orders Halt to New Data Centers Weeks After Issuing Moratorium
One month after Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered a pause on Texas data center approvals pending an audit, overnight the governor doubled down and ordered the state’s environmental watchdog to withhold permits for new data centers until an audit of risks to the power grid is complete.
No authorizations can be given until the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or Ercot, completes its review, Abbott said in a statement on Monday. This matters a lot for the US data center rollout because as the chart from Apollo below shows, Texas is home of one-fifth of the US’s data center pipeline in terms of IT power capacity, by far the largest of any single state.
In his statement, Abbott said that data center projects must prove they can cover all electrical infrastructure costs, use no water needed by local communities, and result in lower bills for households. The governor also said he would work with state legislators to eliminate any financial incentives for the hubs.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker Establishes AI Cabinet Amid Calls for Greater Regulation
Gov. JB Pritzker is setting up a new group within state government to explore more regulations for artificial intelligence as calls grow across the country for new restrictions.
Pritzker signed an executive order on Tuesday to establish an AI Cabinet made up of experts and representatives from several state agencies.
The unpaid group, which will formulate policy proposals through 2027, will analyze and assess “the various risks posed by AI to the safety of Illinois residents and the critical infrastructure residents rely on.”
It’s the latest move by Illinois to tackle state-focused AI regulation as the federal government continues to take a hands-off approach, even as industry insiders sound the alarm on the technology’s capabilities.
