health – Page 2

Custom machine kept man alive without lungs for 48 hours

bioengineering, breathing, engineering, health, infection, lungs, machinery, transplants / 9u50fv / January 29, 2026

Infections had turned his lungs to soup and had to be cleared before transplant.

Humans can’t live without lungs. And yet for 48 hours, in a surgical suite at Northwestern University, a 33-year-old man lived with an empty cavity in his chest where his lungs used to be. He was kept alive by a custom-engineered artificial device that represented a desperate last-ditch effort by his doctors. The custom hardware solved a physiological puzzle that has made bilateral pneumonectomy, the removal of both lungs, extremely risky before now.

The artificial lung system was built by the team of Ankit Bharat, a surgeon and researcher at Northwestern. It successfully kept a critically ill patient alive long enough to enable a double lung transplant, temporarily replacing his entire pulmonary system with a synthetic surrogate. The system creates a blueprint for saving people previously considered beyond hope by transplant teams.

Melting lungs

The patient, a once-healthy 33-year-old, arrived at the hospital with Influenza B complicated by a secondary, severe infection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that in this case proved resistant even to carbapenems—our antibiotics of last resort. This combination of infections triggered acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a condition where the lungs become so inflamed and fluid-filled that oxygen can no longer reach the blood.

In this case, the infections were necrotizing—the cells in the lungs were dying, turning his lung tissue into a liquid. The surgeons faced a seemingly impossible choice. The patient needed a transplant to survive, but he was in refractory septic shock. His kidneys were shutting down, and his heart was failing to the point where it completely stopped shortly after hospital admission. The doctors had to bring him back with CPR.

He was too sick for a transplant, yet the very organs that needed replacing were the source of the infection fueling his decline. “When the infection is so severe that the lungs are melting, they’re irrecoverably damaged,” Bharat explained. “That’s when patients die.”

But this patient did not die.

The empty chest problem

To save him, Bharat’s team had to remove the infected lungs, a procedure called a bilateral pneumonectomy, to remove the source of the sepsis. We have machines that can oxygenate the blood. But removing both lungs creates a lethal mechanical problem for the heart.

The human heart is two pumps in one. The right side, called the pulmonary circuit, pumps oxygen-poor blood returning from the body into the lungs, which remove its carbon dioxide and load it with a fresh supply of oxygen. The left side, known as the systemic circuit, receives freshly oxygenated blood and pumps it to the rest of the body. The pulmonary vascular bed, all these miles of tiny vessels inside the lungs, facilitates this gas exchange. But it also acts as a capacitor, absorbing the pressure and volume of the blood ejected by the right ventricle.

If you remove the lungs and simply shut the pulmonary arteries, the right ventricle has nowhere to pump—it would experience an immediate, massive pressure spike, distend like a balloon, and fail within minutes. At the same time, the left side of the heart would have no blood returning to it, leading to a total collapse of blood pressure and systemic circulation.

This is the reason why most double-lung transplants are performed sequentially: The surgeons replace one lung, get it up and running, and then move on to the second. But desperate times require desperate measures.

The last line of defense

In rare cases where both lungs must be removed at once, a patient can still be supported by the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a mechanical lung that takes blood out of the body, removes the carbon dioxide, adds oxygen, and pumps it back in. The problem is that while ECMO can support a person for up to over a year when their lungs are still in their body, the risks of using it skyrocket when the lungs are removed.

The empty chest cavity creates a void where blood and fluids can pool, leading to huge internal bleeding. The heart, which relies on the physical presence and pressure of the lungs to maintain its proper anatomical position, can flop around or collapse. Finally, circulating blood through complex machinery significantly increases the risk of stroke or clotting.

Because of all these risks, surgeons always treat removing both lungs as the last line of defense, one they can only rely on for a short time—the shorter the better. Bharat and his colleagues, though, had to keep their patient this way until the sepsis had been dealt with.

It wasn’t enough for the team to keep the patient alive without lungs in his body until the transplant arrived. In this lungless state, somehow, they had to improve his health.

Synthetic lungs

To make this happen, Bharat’s team engineered a device they called the “flow-adaptive extracorporeal total artificial lung system” (TAL), a complex circuit designed to mimic the physics of the missing organs. At its core was a pump and an oxygenator borrowed from the standard ECMO setup, but it also used four new components to replace biological functions.

The first was a dual-lumen cannula, essentially a single tube with two separate channels inside. Inserted through the internal jugular vein, this tube acted as the primary drain. It allowed the team to pull deoxygenated blood directly from the right side of the heart, unloading the right ventricle to prevent it from distending.

The second component was something the researchers called a flow-adaptive shunt, which connected the right pulmonary artery back to the right atrium. When the right ventricle pumped out more blood than the external pump could handle, the excess blood would safely recirculate back into the atrium through this low-resistance path, protecting the heart and the surgical staples from pressure spikes. During the 48 hours the patient was supported by the TAL, this shunt self-regulated its flow to anywhere between 1.1 and 6.3 liters per minute, based on the patient’s needs.

To ensure the left side of the heart stayed full and active, the team used a device called dual left atrial return. It comprised two 10 mm grafts that returned oxygenated blood from the ECMO artificial lung directly into the left atrium. This, the team said in a paper that describes the hardware, maintained what’s called Starling physiology: the principle that the heart pumps better when it is properly filled. It also prevented blood from stagnating and forming clots inside the heart chambers.

Finally, to prevent the heart from physically shifting and damaging vital vessels in the empty chest cavity, the surgeons used bovine pericardium to reconstruct the heart’s protective sac and filled the empty space with tissue expanders and surgical sponges.

Lungless recovery

The results of hooking the patient up to TAL were immediate.

Within hours of the surgery, the patient’s septic shock began to resolve. His lactate levels, a key marker of tissue oxygen starvation, dropped from a dangerous 8.2 mmol/L to a normal level of less than 1.0 mmol/L within 24 hours. The medications used to keep his blood pressure up were discontinued after just 12 hours.

For two days, the patient lived as a human being with no lungs, stabilized by a machine that breathed and buffered his circulation with surgical precision. When donor lungs became available 48 hours later, the patient’s body was no longer suffering from sepsis.

He was ready for the transplant, which the team successfully performed. And after putting in the new lungs, they focused on the lungs they had removed.

When lungs die

Conventionally, patients with ARDS do not get transplants because doctors hope that with the right treatment and support, the diseased lungs will eventually heal. But the examination of the infected lungs removed from Bharat’s patient told a different story and helped define the clinical point of no return, when a lung is truly dead.

Based on the spatial transcriptomics, a set of techniques that let scientists see which genes are active at different sites in the tissue, the team built a high-resolution molecular map of the removed lungs. What they found was a landscape of total devastation.

The lungs were filled with aberrant basaloid cells—a signature of failed regeneration. The stem cells required to rebuild the lungs were almost entirely gone. The architecture was uniformly destroyed and replaced by cells that were laying down scar tissue.

“People think if you get severe ARDS, you keep supporting them and ultimately the lungs will get better,” Bharat says. The data collected by his team suggested no amount of waiting or life support would have brought this patient’s lungs back to life. “In my practice, young patients die almost every week because no one realized that transplantation was an option,” Bharat added.

Tough choices

In many hospitals, patients with severe, acute lung infections are often allowed to die because they are considered too unstable for surgery. While Bharat’s study offers some hope that this situation might improve in the future, the team admits that their approach currently requires immense expertise and access to a highly specialized medical center with donor lungs. Making expertise and resources more accessible will take some time.

And that’s not the only thing we have to wait for. Bharat and his colleagues note in their paper that one key challenge in ARDS is determining whether the injury is reversible. His study offers some initial insights into diagnosing irreversible damage, but the researchers note that their conclusions were based on a single case. The features of lungs that are beyond repair may differ across various pathogens, stages of disease, or the way individual patient’s body responds to the disease.

For Bharat’s patient, though, all possible stars aligned. The paper says that two years after the procedure, he has returned to a normal, independent life with excellent lung function.

Med, 2026. DOI: 10.1016/j.medj.2025.100985

Jacek Krywko is a freelance science and technology writer who covers space exploration, artificial intelligence research, computer science, and all sorts of engineering wizardry.

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A weird, itchy rash is linked to the keto diet—but no one knows why

case report, dermatology, health, ketogenic, New England Journal of Medicine, rash, weight loss / Mike M. / January 24, 2026

Diet downsides

Otherwise, the keto diet is popular among people trying to lose weight, particularly those trying to lose visceral fat, like the man in the case study. Anecdotal reports promote the keto diet as being effective at helping people slim down relatively quickly while also improving stamina and mental clarity. But robust clinical data supporting these claims are lacking, and medical experts have raised concerns about long-term cardiovascular health, among other things.

There are also clear downsides to the diet. Ketones are acidic, and if they build up too much in the blood, they can be toxic, causing ketoacidosis. This is a particular concern for people with type 1 diabetes and for people with chronic alcohol abuse. For everyone else, there’s a list of common side effects, including nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, bad breath, headache, fatigue, and dizziness. Ketogenic diets are also linked to high cholesterol and kidney stones.

But there’s one side effect that’s well established but little known and still puzzling to doctors: the “keto rash” or prurigo pigmentosa. This rash fits the man’s case perfectly—red, raised, itchy bumps on the neck, chest, and back, with areas of hyperpigmentation also developing.

The rash was first identified in Japan in 1971, where it was mostly seen in women. While it has been consistently linked to metabolic disorders and dietary changes, experts still don’t understand what causes it. It’s seen not only in people on a keto diet but also in people with diabetes and those who have had bariatric surgery or are fasting.

In a review this month, researchers in Saudi Arabia noted that a leading hypothesis is that the high levels of ketones in the blood trigger inflammation around blood vessels driven by a type of white blood cell called neutrophils, and this inflammation is what causes the rash, which develops in different stages.

While the condition remains poorly understood, effective treatments have at least been worked out. The most common treatment is to get the person out of ketosis and give them an antibiotic in the tetracycline class. Antibiotics are designed to treat bacterial infections (which this is not), but they can also dampen inflammation signals and thwart the activity of neutrophils.

In the man’s case, doctors gave him a two-week course of doxycycline and told him to ditch his keto diet. A week later, the rash was gone.

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US officially out of WHO, leaving hundreds of millions of dollars unpaid

health, trump administration, WHO, World Health Organization / Shannon Garcia / January 24, 2026

“The United States will not be making any payments to the WHO before our withdrawal on January 22, 2026,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The cost [borne] by the US taxpayer and US economy after the WHO’s failure during the COVID pandemic—and since—has been too high as it is. We will ensure that no more US funds are routed to this organization.”

In addition, the US had also promised to provide $490 million in voluntary contributions for those two years. The funding would have gone toward efforts such as the WHO’s health emergency program, tuberculosis control, and the polio eradication effort, Stat reports. Two anonymous sources told Stat that some of that money was paid, but they couldn’t provide an estimate of how much.

The loss of both past and future financial support from the US has been a hefty blow to the WHO. Immediately upon notification last January, the WHO began cutting costs. Those included freezing recruitment, restricting travel expenditures, making all meetings virtual, limiting IT equipment updates, and suspending office refurbishment. The agency also began cutting staff and leaving positions unfilled. According to Stat, the WHO staff is on track to be down 22 percent by the middle of this year.

In a recent press conference, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the US withdrawal is a “lose-lose situation” for the US and the rest of the world. The US will lose access to infectious disease intelligence and sway over outbreak responses, and global health security will be weakened overall. “I hope they will reconsider,” Tedros said.

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mRNA cancer vaccine shows protection at 5-year follow-up, Moderna and Merck say

cancer, clinical trial, health, melanoma, moderna, mRNA, skin cancer, vaccine / DJ Henderson / January 21, 2026

mRNA’s potential

Previous data from the trial reported that 107 participants received the mRNA vaccine and Keytruda treatment, while the remaining 50 only received Keytruda. At the two-year follow-up, 24 of the 107 (22 percent) who got the experimental vaccine and Keytruda had recurrence or death, while 20 of 50 (40 percent) treated with just Keytruda had recurrence or death, indicating a 44 percent risk reduction. The companies did not report the breakdown of the two groups in the press release this week for the five-year follow-up, but said the risk reduction was 49 percent, which is also what the companies reported for the three-year follow-up.

As for side effects, the companies reported that little had changed from previous analyses; adverse events were similar between the two groups. The top side effects linked to the vaccine were fatigue, injection site pain, and chills.

The results “highlight the potential of a prolonged benefit” of the vaccine combined with Keytruda in patients with high-risk melanoma,” Kyle Holen, a senior vice president at Moderna, said.

They also “illustrate mRNA’s potential in cancer care,” he said, noting that the company has eight more Phase 2 and Phase 3 trials going for mRNA vaccines against a variety of other cancers, including lung, bladder, and kidney cancers.

Marjorie Green, a senior vice president at Merck, called the five-year follow-up data a “meaningful milestone” and “encouraging.”

“[W]e look forward to late-stage data from the INTerpath clinical development program with Moderna, across a range of tumor types where significant unmet needs remain,” she said.

While the top-line results appear positive, conclusions can’t be drawn until the full data from the trial are published. The vaccines are also being developed amid a political environment hostile to mRNA vaccines. Anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has railed against mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, making false claims about their safety and efficacy. In August, Kennedy unilaterally canceled $500 million in grant funding for the development of mRNA-based vaccines against diseases that pose pandemic threats.

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Flesh-eating flies are eating their way through Mexico, CDC warns

CDC, flies, HAN, health, new world screwworm, parasites, screwworm, USDA / 9u50fv / January 20, 2026

Across Central America and Mexico, there have been 1,190 human cases of NWS reported and seven deaths. More than 148,000 animals have been affected.

Close calls

In September, the USDA warned that an 8-month-old cow with an active NWS infection was found in a feedlot in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, just 70 miles from the border. The finding prompted Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller to step up warnings about the threat.

“The screwworm is dangerously close,” Miller said at the time. “It nearly wiped out our cattle industry before; we need to act forcefully now.”

According to the USDA’s latest data, Nuevo León has seen three cases in the outbreak, with none that are currently active. But, its neighboring state, Tamaulipas, is having a flare-up, with eight animal cases considered active. The Mexican state shares a border with the southern-most portion of Texas. Mexico overall has reported 24 hospitalizations among people and 601 animal cases.

For now, the NWS has not been detected in the US, and the CDC considers the risk to people to be low.

“However, given the potential for geographic spread, CDC is issuing this Health Advisory to increase awareness of the outbreak and to summarize CDC recommendations for clinicians and health departments in the United States on case identification and reporting, specimen collection, diagnosis, and treatment of NWS, as well as guidance for the public,” the agency said.

Generally, the agency advises being on the lookout for egg masses or fly larvae in wounds or infection sites, especially if there’s destruction of living tissue or feelings of movement. Once discovered, health care workers should report the case and promptly remove and kill all larvae and eggs, preferably by drowning in a sealed, leak-proof container of 70 percent ethanol. “Failure to kill and properly dispose of all larvae or eggs could result in the new introduction and spread of NWS in the local environment,” the CDC warns in bold. At least 10 dead larvae should then be sent to the CDC for confirmation.

The USDA is currently releasing 100 million sterile male flies per week in Mexico to try to establish a new biological barrier.

This isn’t the fly’s first attempt at a US comeback since the 1960s. In 2016, the flies were somehow reintroduced to the Florida Keys, where they viciously attacked Key Deer, an endangered species and the smallest of North America’s white-tailed deer. The flies were eliminated again in 2017 using the sterile fly method.

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This may be the grossest eye pic ever—but the cause is what’s truly horrifying

antibiotic resistance, bacteria, brain, eye, Features, health, hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae, infection, liver, lungs, New England Journal of Medicine / Mike M. / January 17, 2026

Savage microbe

Whatever was laying waste to his eye seemed to have come from inside his own body, carried in his bloodstream—possibly the same thing that could explain the liver mass, lung nodules, and brain lesions. There was one explanation that fit the condition perfectly: hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae or hvKP.

Classical K. pneumoniae is a germ that dwells in people’s intestinal tracts and is one that’s familiar to doctors. It’s known for lurking in health care settings and infecting vulnerable patients, often causing pneumonia or urinary tract infections. But hvKP is very different. In comparison, it’s a beefed-up bacteria with a rage complex. It was first identified in the 1980s in Taiwan—not for stalking weak patients in the hospital but for devastating healthy people in normal community settings.

An infection with hvKP—even in otherwise healthy people—is marked by metastatic infection. That is, the bacteria spreads throughout the body, usually starting with the liver, where it creates a pus-filled abscess. It then goes on a trip through the bloodstream, invading the lungs, brain, soft tissue, skin, and the eye (endogenous endophthalmitis). Putting it all together, the man had a completely typical clinical case of an hvKP infection.

Still, definitively identifying hvKP is tricky. Mucus from the man’s respiratory tract grew a species of Klebsiella, but there’s not yet a solid diagnostic test to differentiate hvKP from the classical variety. Since 2024, researchers have worked out a strategy of using the presence of five different virulence genes found on plasmids (relatively small, circular pieces of DNA, separate from chromosomal DNA, that can replicate on their own and be shared among bacteria.) But the method isn’t perfect—some classical K. pneumoniae can also carry the five genes.

A string test performed on the rare growth of *Klebsiella pneumoniae* from the sputum culture shows a positive result, with the formation of a viscous string with a height of greater than 5 mm. Credit: NEJM 2026

Another much simpler method is the string test, in which clinicians basically test the goopy-ness of the bacteria—hvKP is known for being sticky. For this test, a clinician grows the bacteria into a colony on a petri dish, then touches an inoculation loop to the colony and pulls up. If the string of attached goo stretches more than 5 mm off the petri dish, it’s considered positive for hvKP. This is (obviously) not a precise test.

This may be the grossest eye pic ever—but the cause is what’s truly horrifying Read More »

This may be the grossest eye pic ever—but the cause is what’s truly horrifying

antibiotic resistance, bacteria, brain, eye, health, hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae, infection, liver, lungs, New England Journal of Medicine / DJ Henderson / January 16, 2026

Savage microbe

Classical K. pneumoniae is a germ that dwells in people’s intestinal tracts and is one that’s familiar to doctors. It’s known for lurking in health care settings and infecting vulnerable patients, often causing pneumonia or urinary tract infections. But, hvKP is very different. In comparison, it’s a beefed-up bacteria with a rage complex. It was first identified in the 1980s in Taiwan—not for stalking weak patients in the hospital, but devastating healthy people in normal community settings.

An infection with hvKP—even in otherwise healthy people—is marked by metastatic infection. That is, the bacteria spread throughout the body, usually starting with the liver, where it creates a pus-filled abscess. Then it goes on a trip through the bloodstream, invading the lungs, brain, soft tissue, skin, and the eye (endogenous endophthalmitis). Putting it all together, the man had a completely typical clinical case of an hvKP infection.

Still, definitely identifying hvKP is tricky. Mucus from the man’s respiratory tract grew a species of Klebsiella, but there is not yet a solid diagnostic test to differentiate hvKP from the classical variety. Just since 2024, researchers have worked out a strategy of using the presence of five different virulence genes found on plasmids (relatively small, circular pieces of DNA, separate from chromosomal DNA, that can replicate on their own and be shared among bacteria.) But the method isn’t perfect—some classical K. pneumoniae can also carry the five genes.

Another, much simpler method is the string test, in which clinicians basically test the goopy-ness of the bacteria—hvKP is known for being sticky. For this test, a clinician grows the bacteria into a colony on a petri dish then touches an inoculation loop to the colony and pulls up. If the string of attached goo stretches more than 5 mm off the petri dish, it’s considered positive for hvKP. But, this is (obviously) not a precise test.

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Big Pharma is openly railing against RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda

anti-vaccine, health, pharmaceutical, Robert F Kenned Jr. / Mike M. / January 15, 2026

Waiting for the midterms

But pharmaceutical executives don’t appear comforted by the pushback. “Today it may be childhood vaccines or mRNA, but tomorrow it’s everything,” Noubar Afeyan, co-founder and chairman of Moderna, maker of mRNA vaccines, said. “We have to say not just ‘why is this happening?,’ but ‘Where will it stop?’”

As a bad flu season is underway, Dean Li, president of Merck Research Laboratories, noted that the anti-vaccine rhetoric is hitting seasonal flu shots. “With the pressure on vaccination, I cannot foresee flu vaccination increasing in this country over the next three years,” he said in a presentation.

Sanofi Chief Executive Paul Hudson had a similarly pessimistic outlook. “It’s clear this administration has a particular sensitivity around vaccination, and indeed pediatric vaccination,” Hudson said. “I’m asked all the time ‘what are you going to do to fix this?,’ and the truth is we just need to stay extremely objective and continue presenting the evidence. There’s really very little else we can do,” except wait for the midterm elections, he said.

“We will have to maintain a steely focus on the long-term future of vaccines and deal with any uncertainty around vaccine coverage rates in the short-term based on misinformation, Facebook posts, and statements from the top,” he said.

Bourla also worried about the conditions Kennedy is creating to attack drug makers. Kennedy, who is an environmental lawyer with no scientific or medical background, has profited from lawsuits against vaccine makers, as have many of his allies and advisors. “There is also a lot of plaintiffs’ playbook there,” Bourla said. “Everybody will start litigating.”

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Man got $2,500 whole-body MRI that found no problems—then had massive stroke

health, imaging, lawsuit, MRI, Prenuvo, stroke, whole-body / Mike M. / January 14, 2026

A New York man is suing Prenuvo, a celebrity-endorsed whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provider, claiming that the company missed clear signs of trouble in his $2,500 whole-body scan—and if it hadn’t, he could have acted to avert the catastrophic stroke he suffered months later.

Sean Clifford and his legal team claim that his scan on July 15, 2023, showed a 60 percent narrowing and irregularity in a major artery in his brain—the proximal right middle cerebral artery, a branch of the most common artery involved in acute strokes. But Prenuvo’s reviews of the scan did not flag the finding and otherwise reported everything in his brain looked normal; there was “no adverse finding.” (You can read Prenuvo’s report and see Clifford’s subsequent imaging here.)

Clifford suffered a massive stroke on March 7, 2024. Subsequent imaging found that the proximal right middle cerebral artery progressed to a complete blockage, causing the stroke. Clifford suffered paralysis of his left hand and leg, general weakness on his left side, vision loss and permanent double vision, anxiety, depression, mood swings, cognitive deficits, speech problems, and permanent difficulties with all daily activities.

He filed his lawsuit against Prenuvo in September 2024 in the New York State Supreme Court. In the lawsuit, he argues that if he had known of the problem, he could have undergone stenting or other minimally invasive measures to prevent the stroke.

Ongoing litigation

In the legal proceedings since, Prenuvo, a California-based company, has tried to limit the damages that Clifford could seek, first by trying to force arbitration and then by trying to apply California laws to the New York case, as California law caps malpractice damages. The company failed on both counts. In a December ruling, a judge also denied Prenovo’s attempts to shield the radiologist who reviewed Clifford’s scan, William A. Weiner, DO, of East Rockaway, New York.

Notably, Weiner has had his medical license suspended in connection with an auto insurance scheme, in which Weiner was accused of falsifying findings on MRI scans.

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FDA deletes warning on bogus autism therapies touted by RFK Jr.‘s allies

anti-vaccine, autism, fda, fraud, health, Robert F Kenned Jr., Scams, treatment / 9u50fv / January 13, 2026

For years, the Food and Drug Administration provided an informational webpage for parents warning them of the dangers of bogus autism treatments, some promoted by anti-vaccine activists and “wellness” companies. The page cited specifics scams and the “significant health risks” they pose.

But, under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—who has numerous ties to the wellness industry—that FDA information webpage is now gone. It was quietly deleted at the end of last year, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to Ars Technica.

The defunct webpage, titled “Be Aware of Potentially Dangerous Products and Therapies that Claim to Treat Autism,” provided parents and other consumers with an overview of the problem. It began with a short description of autism and some evidence-based, FDA-approved medications that can help manage autism symptoms. Then, the regulatory agency provided a list of some false claims and unproven, potentially dangerous treatments it had been working to combat. “Some of these so-called therapies carry significant health risks,” the FDA wrote.

The list included chelation and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, treatments that those in the anti-vaccine and wellness spheres have championed.

Dangerous detoxes

Chelation is a real treatment for heavy metal poisoning, such as lead poisoning. But it has been co-opted by anti-vaccine activists and wellness gurus, who falsely claim it can treat autism, among other things. These sham treatments can come in a variety of forms, including sprays, suppositories, capsules, and liquid drops. Actual FDA-approved chelation therapy products are prescription only, the agency noted, and chelating certain minerals from the body “can lead to serious and life-threatening outcomes.”

Many anti-vaccine activists promote the false and thoroughly debunked claim that vaccines cause autism, and more specifically, that trace metal components in some vaccines cause the neurological disorder. For years, anti-vaccine activists like Kennedy focused on thimerosal, a vaccine preservative that contains ethylmercury. Thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines by 2001 amid unfounded concerns. The removal made no impact on autism rates, and many studies have continued to show that it is safe and not a cause of autism. Anti-vaccine activists moved on to blame other vaccine components for autism, including aluminum, which is used in some vaccines to help spur protective immune responses. It too has been found to be safe and not linked to autism.

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Google removes some AI health summaries after investigation finds “dangerous” flaws

AI, AI hallucination, ai overviews, Biz & IT, generative ai, Google, health, machine learning, misinformation, search engines, the guardian / 9u50fv / January 12, 2026

Why AI Overviews produces errors

The recurring problems with AI Overviews stem from a design flaw in how the system works. As we reported in May 2024, Google built AI Overviews to show information backed up by top web results from its page ranking system. The company designed the feature this way based on the assumption that highly ranked pages contain accurate information.

However, Google’s page ranking algorithm has long struggled with SEO-gamed content and spam. The system now feeds these unreliable results to its AI model, which then summarizes them with an authoritative tone that can mislead users. Even when the AI draws from accurate sources, the language model can still draw incorrect conclusions from the data, producing flawed summaries of otherwise reliable information.

The technology does not inherently provide factual accuracy. Instead, it reflects whatever inaccuracies exist on the websites Google’s algorithm ranks highly, presenting the facts with an authority that makes errors appear trustworthy.

Other examples remain active

The Guardian found that typing slight variations of the original queries into Google, such as “lft reference range” or “lft test reference range,” still prompted AI Overviews. Hebditch said this was a big worry and that the AI Overviews present a list of tests in bold, making it very easy for readers to miss that these numbers might not even be the right ones for their test.

AI Overviews still appear for other examples that The Guardian originally highlighted to Google. When asked why these AI Overviews had not also been removed, Google said they linked to well-known and reputable sources and informed people when it was important to seek out expert advice.

Google said AI Overviews only appear for queries where it has high confidence in the quality of the responses. The company constantly measures and reviews the quality of its summaries across many different categories of information, it added.

This is not the first controversy for AI Overviews. The feature has previously told people to put glue on pizza and eat rocks. It has proven unpopular enough that users have discovered that inserting curse words into search queries disables AI Overviews entirely.

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Measles continues raging in South Carolina; 99 new cases since Tuesday

health, Infectious disease, measles, outbreak, South Carolina / DJ Henderson / January 9, 2026

The disease usually develops seven to 14 days after an exposure, but it can take up to 21 days (which is the length of quarantine). Once it develops, it’s marked by a high fever and a telltale rash that starts on the head and spreads downward. People are contagious for four days before the rash develops and four days after it appears. Complications can range from ear infections and diarrhea to encephalitis (swelling of the brain), pneumonia, death in up to 3 out of 1,000 children, and, in very rare cases, a fatal neurological condition that can develop seven to 10 years after the acute infection (subacute sclerosing panencephalitis).

Two doses of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is considered 97 percent effective against the virus, and that protection is considered lifelong. Ninety-nine percent of the 310 cases in the South Carolina outbreak are in people who are unvaccinated, partially vaccinated, or have an unknown vaccination status (only 2 people were vaccinated).

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which only has data as of January 6, has tallied three confirmed cases for this year (two in South Carolina and one in North Carolina, linked to the South Carolina outbreak). Since then, South Carolina reported 26 cases on Tuesday and 99 today, totaling 125. North Carolina also reported three additional cases Tuesday, again linked to the South Carolina outbreak. In all, that brings the US tally to at least 131 just nine days into the year.

In 2025, the country recorded 2,144 confirmed cases, the most cases seen since 1991. Three people died, including two otherwise-healthy children. In 2000, the US declared measles eliminated, meaning that it was no longer continuously circulating within the country. With ongoing outbreaks, including the one in South Carolina, the country’s elimination status is at risk.

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