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Fewer people are being vaccinated against respiratory diseases

Liz Szabo, MA

Although this year's flu season could be challenging, fewer adults have been vaccinated against influenza, a new study shows.

Much less than half of US adults have been immunized against any respiratory virus, according to a survey of 1,015 adults released this week by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).

Just 34% of adults have gotten a flu shot; 25% have had a COVID-19 shot; 8% have received a vaccine to prevent pneumococcal disease, caused by bacteria that can lead to pneumonia, meningitis, and sepsis; and 6% have been vaccinated against respiratory syncytial (RSV), a leading cause of hospitalization in infants and older adults.

New data from IQVIA, which provides health care statistics, show similar declines over the past year. Retail pharmacies have seen falling numbers of vaccinations for three major respiratory viruses:

• 34% decline in RSV vaccinations
• 27% drop in COVID-19 vaccinations
• 6% reduction in flu shots

PUC Considering Cuts to R.I. Energy’s Efficiency Programs

With Trump cuts, end of tax credits, why do this?

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Is it time for the state to cut its energy efficiency programs?

That’s the question state utility regulators are considering as the year draws to a close. Rhode Island Energy, the main utility company and sole administrator of the programs, says it’s time to cut the budget and “right-size” the amount of money Rhode Islanders are charged.

Environmental groups and advocates, however, including the state council on energy efficiency programs, say it’s not the time to downsize key initiatives that let Rhode Islanders use less energy and save money.

Under Rhode Island Energy’s proposal, the budget for electric energy efficiency programs would be cut from $82 million to $62.9 million for the next calendar year, a $19 million decrease year over year. For gas, the utility company proposed trimming its budget by more than $2 million, to $33 million.

Opposed to Rhode Island Energy’s proposed cuts is the state’s Energy Efficiency Council, which declined to endorse the utility company’s proposal earlier this year. The council is instead proposing its own plan, which also contains cuts, although not as severe as Rhode Island Energy’s.

Under the council’s plan, electric energy efficiency programs would be cut to $67.7 million for next year, and on the gas side, the council proposes the same budget as 2025 — $35 million.

The state Public Utilities Commission, which has final say over the program’s budgets, has spent the past week having evidentiary hearings for the budget proposals. It’ll be up to the PUC to decide what the final budget will look like, and if it’s time to downsize the budgets.

Arrest Mark Zuckerberg for Child Endangerment

Even though Zuckerberg, if convicted, would probably get a Trump pardon

Aaron Regunberg

Should Mark Zuckerberg be handcuffed—literally—for endangering millions of children? That’s the inescapable question raised by a legal brief filed last month in a civil case against major social media companies.

The litigation, which alleges that social media platforms have been purposefully cultivating addiction among adolescents, has been working its way through the courts since 2022. 

But the details laid out in this new court filing, and reported recently by Time, contain genuinely horrifying claims about Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. 

And they suggest that—in addition to the tort claims being pursued by the families, school districts, and state attorneys general behind this multidistrict litigation—the corporate executives responsible for these harms could and should be criminally prosecuted for child endangerment.

The brief alleges that Meta was aware that its platforms were endangering young users, including by exacerbating adolescents’ mental health issues. According to the plaintiffs, Meta frequently detected content related to eating disorders, child sexual abuse, and suicide, but refused to remove it. 

For example, one 2021 internal company survey found that more than 8 percent of respondents aged 13 to 15 had seen someone harm themself or threaten to harm themself on Instagram during the past week. The brief also makes clear that Meta fully understood the addictive nature of its products, with plaintiffs citing a message by one user-experience researcher at the company that Instagram “is a drug” and “We’re basically pushers.”

Perhaps most relevant to state child endangerment laws, the plaintiffs have alleged that Meta knew that millions of adults were using its platforms to inappropriately contact minors. According to their filing, an internal company audit found that Instagram had recommended 1.4 million potentially inappropriate adults to teenagers in a single day in 2022. 

The brief also details how Instagram’s policy was to not take action against sexual solicitation until a user had been caught engaging in the “trafficking of humans for sex” a whopping 17 times. As Instagram’s former head of safety and well-being, Vaishnavi Jayakumar, reportedly testified, “You could incur 16 violations for prostitution and sexual solicitation, and upon the 17th violation, your account would be suspended.”

The decision to expose adolescents to these threats was, according to the brief, an entirely knowing one. As plaintiffs allege, by 2019 Meta researchers were recommending that Instagram shield its young users from unwanted adult contact by making all teenage accounts private by default. 

Or HHS or Homeland Security. Maybe Vice President.

Just reading through the DOJ's new Epstein file dump....

Solving the problem of declining tourism

The Problem: Tourism to the US has dropped off dramatically under Trump:

Trump regime thinks this will help:

If that doesn't work, they'll try this:

Then there's this:

Hundreds of Sea Turtles Are Freezing in Cape Cod

Add this to climate change's tab

By Teresa Tomassoni

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Over the last few weeks, volunteers have braved bitter winds and freezing temperatures to patrol Cape Cod’s bayside beaches at night, sweeping their flashlight beams along the last high-tide line marked with mounds of seaweed, searching for signs of life.

“That’s where you’re most likely to find a turtle,” said Mark Faherty, science coordinator at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, which runs a sea turtle rescue and research program in Cape Cod. 

Every year, from November through early January, hundreds of juvenile sea turtles strand on these beaches when water temperatures drop below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, leaving them cold-stunned—a hypothermic reaction experienced by marine reptiles—and unable to swim. 

Disoriented and helpless, the animals drift until the surf deposits them on the beach, covered in algae and barnacles, so still and so camouflaged they often resemble rocks. Kemp’s ridleys—the world’s most endangered sea turtle—make up the majority, along with smaller numbers of green and loggerhead turtles.

HPV vaccines provide strong protection against cervical cancer

Cancer risk reduced by 80% when kids under 16 are vaccinated

Laine Bergeson

Two new Cochrane reviews by UK researchers provide strong, consistent evidence that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination helps prevent cervical cancer, sharply reduces high-grade precancerous lesions, and is not linked to serious adverse events, especially when administered to young people who haven’t been exposed to the virus. The findings underscore the importance of early adolescent vaccination. 

The reviews span both randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and large population-level studies, drawing on data from more than 132 million people. 

80% reduction in cervical cancer

A population-level analysis included 225 studies from 46 countries and found an 80% reduction in cervical cancer among girls vaccinated by age 16 (risk ratio [RR], 0.20). Risk reductions were smaller among those vaccinated later in adolescence or in adulthood.

The review also reported moderate-certainty evidence that vaccination lowers rates of precancerous cervical lesions and the incidence of anogenital warts.

The review also found no evidence linking HPV vaccination to widely discussed harms, including infertility, chronic fatigue syndrome (also known as myalgic encephalomyelitis), Guillain-Barre syndrome, and complex regional pain syndrome.

A separate analysis of RCTs evaluated four HPV vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO)—Cervarix, Gardasil, Gardasil-9, and Cecolin—across 60 trials including 157,414 participants. 

While the trials did not last long enough for cancers to develop, the vaccines reduced high-grade vaccine-matched precancerous cervical lesions 60% (RR, 0.40) in females ages 15 to 25 after six years. A pairwise analysis of 39 studies showed that rates of serious adverse events did not differ between the vaccine and control groups (RR, 0.99) at up to 72 months follow-up.

Merry Christmas, veterans. Trump VA to Eliminate Up to 35,000 Healthcare Jobs This Month despite chronic under-staffing

“We must expand the VA, not hollow it out.”

Jake Johnson

Before the end of the year, the Trump administration is planning to eliminate up to 35,000 healthcare jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a chronically understaffed agency that has already lost tens of thousands of employees to the White House’s sweeping assault on the federal workforce.

The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the targeted positions—many of which are unfilled—include doctors, nurses, and support staff. A spokesperson for the VA, led by former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), described the jobs as “mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary.”

VA workers, veterans advocates, and a union representing hundreds of thousands of department employees disputed that characterization as the agency faces staff shortages across the country.

Trump Reveals Biden Lurks in White House, Raising Grocery Prices

Yes, Biden did it

Mitchell Zimmerman

At the end of his address to the nation on the economy, while fact-checkers were taking a break to avoid carpal-tunnel syndrome, President Trump revealed the real cause of the nation’s economic problems: Joe Biden never actually left the White House, and as the enemy within, has stealthily made the decisions that have caused prices to rise during Trump’s first year back in office.

“Biden is a master of disguises,” Trump explained. “Some days he pretended to be Steve Miller, countermanding my orders to deport only the worst of the worse and directing Kristi Noem to deport every farm worker she could find in order to raise the prices of groceries. Then he was Treasury Secretary Steve Bessent, urging the Fed to lower interest rates in order to overheat the economy.

“Then he was Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, an old fossil fuel guy, undermining renewable energy in order to cause electricity shortages to raise energy prices.

“One day he even snuck into the oval office while I was taking a much-needed nap. He removed the sharpie from my hand and used it to increase tariffs on everything Americans buy from overseas. He even raised coffee and banana tariffs.”

In a giant security failure, the Secret Service had failed to check whether Biden was actually on the departing helicopter when he supposedly left the White House last January. And FBI head Kash Patel admitted he still could not locate former and now-de-facto-acting President Biden. But officials concluded he had to be hiding somewhere in the East Wing, hence the desperate effort to root him out with bulldozers.

“We had to destroy the White House in order to save it,” observed President Trump during a waking moment. “Just wait until next year. Prices on everything are going to come down, and they’ll go down fast, starting on day three hundred and sixty-six.”

Mitchell Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller Mississippi Reckoning. He's also a longtime contributor to Progressive Charlestown. His writing can also be found on his Substack, Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman.

Subscriptions to Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman are free at this time. If you find my writing of value, please like, subscribe and recommend Reasoning Together to your friends. Thank you.

You may also be interested in my road-trip novel / social thriller Mississippi Reckoning. Read an excerpt. Read the Progressive Charlestown review HERE.

Silver lining

Then and now

Solar Program Designed to Help Low-Income and Environmental Justice Zone Residents Instead Leaves them Stranded

Louisiana contractor picked by McKee administration abruptly goes bankrupt

By Rob Smith / ecoRI News staff

Question: what due diligence did the McKee
administration do before giving out the contract? 

The program was supposed to put solar panels on roofs and help Rhode Island’s low-income families with their electric bills. Instead, it left homeowners dealing with a bankrupt company and nowhere to turn for help.

Nearly two years ago, Gov. Dan McKee announced the Affordable Solar Access Pathways (ASAP) program. The idea behind it was simple: provide cash incentives for homeowners in low-income and environmental justice zones to install solar panels on the roofs of their homes.

The state, using money from the Renewable Energy Fund, would give incentives to a vendor to provide solar panels, leases and power-purchase agreements to qualifying homeowners. Leases would be signed for 25 years. The state would also provide energy efficiency measures and a home energy audit to the homeowners, at no cost to them, as part of the program.

The idea behind the initiative was to spur solar panel adoption among low-income homeowners and lower their energy costs. Areas of Woonsocket, Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, Cranston, West Warwick, East Providence, Warren, Middletown, and Newport would be eligible to apply.

The only other requirement for households was to have a roof in good condition and have an income at or below 80% of the state median. There was no credit score required, and homeowners in default electric service could apply. The program, as designed, was guaranteed to provide savings for homeowners in the first year.

“Low-to-moderate income communities have been historically underserved in the solar marketplace and often experience the negative impacts of climate change firsthand,” McKee said in a January 2024 press release announcing the launch of the program. “Providing environmental justice communities with affordable access to rooftop solar is essential to ensure all Rhode Islanders benefit from the renewable energy transition.”

The state hired PosiGen, a Saint Rose, La.-based company, to administer the program, which was similar to the service PosiGen provided, except the state would subsidize a big chunk of the leases for enrollees in the program.

Why ultra-processed foods make teens eat more when they aren’t hungry

There's a reason why it's called junk food

Virginia Tech

Rates of excess weight are climbing among young people in the United States.

An analysis published in The Lancet predicts that by 2050, about one in three Americans between 15 and 24 years old will meet the criteria for obesity, putting them at higher risk for serious health problems.

Many influences contribute to this trend, including genetics and low levels of physical activity, but diet plays a central role.

Ultra-processed foods -- which make up 55 to 65 percent of what young adults eat in the U.S. -- have been associated with metabolic syndrome, poor cardiovascular health, and other conditions in adolescents.

Health insurance premiums rose nearly 3x the rate of worker earnings over the past 25 years

Health insurance inflation is a problem for almost everybody

Vivian Ho, Rice University and Salpy Kanimian, Rice University

Health insurance premiums in the U.S. significantly increased between 1999 and 2024, outpacing the rate of worker earnings by three times, according to our newly published research in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Premiums can rise if the costs of the medical services they cover increase. Using consumer price indices for the main components of medical care – such as services provided in clinics and hospitals as well as administrative expenses – based on federal data and data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, we found that the cost of hospital services increased the most, while the cost of physician services and prescription drugs rose more slowly.

Some of the premium increases can be attributed to an increase in hospital outpatient visits and coverage of GLP-1 drugs. But research, including our own, suggests that premiums have rapidly escalated mostly because health system consolidation – when hospitals and other health care entities merge – has led hospitals to raise prices well above their costs.