History repeats itself

 

Major Study Debunks Common Myths About Statin Side Effects

Most side effects listed on statin labels may not be caused by the drugs at all.

By University of Oxford

Cardiovascular disease kills about 20 million people worldwide and accounts for roughly a quarter of all deaths in the UK. 

Statins are widely used because they lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and have repeatedly been shown to cut the risk of cardiovascular disease. 

Still, many people worry about side effects, especially when symptoms appear after starting a new medication.

To test whether statins truly cause the long list of problems often attributed to them, researchers pooled evidence from 23 large randomized studies in the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists’ Collaboration. 

The analysis included 123,940 participants in 19 major trials comparing statin therapy with a placebo (or dummy tablet), plus 30,724 participants in four trials that compared more intensive statin therapy with less intensive statin therapy.

Climate-friendly diet yields unexpectedly strong nutritional outcomes

This is not the Bobby Jr. diet

By Sara Håkansson, Lund University

edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan

That eating plenty of vegetables, wholegrains and legumes is beneficial for health is well known. More surprising, however, is that people who eat in an environmentally-friendly way also display nutritional values that are better than researchers had expected. This is shown in a new study from Lund University.

The EAT–Lancet diet is a global dietary guideline developed to promote both human health and a sustainable planet. It is based on plant-based foods rich in wholegrains, legumes, fruit and vegetables, with small amounts of animal products—above all, considerably lower meat consumption than what the Swedish Food Agency recommends.

RI joins several states in lawsuit challenging RFK Jr. vaccine schedule, immunization policies

We're in court again this time to fight Trump/RFK anti-vax agenda

By Ben Solis, Rhode Island Current

The US has had 3,300 new measles cases since
Trump and RFK Jr. took over

The new childhood immunization policies and vaccine schedule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the focus of yet another multistate lawsuit.

The lawsuit challenges the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “decision memo” issued in January, which stripped seven childhood vaccines, including those protecting against rotavirus, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), of what has been a typically and universally recommended status. 

The complaint — which names federal DHHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CDC Acting Director Jay Bhattacharya — also challenges what several attorneys general have called the unlawful replacement of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the expert federal panel that has guided U.S. vaccine policy for decades.

Armistice reached in South County Hospital battle

Hospital drops SLAPP suits against advocacy group, both sides call a truce

By Will Collette

Since summer 2024, South County Hospital has been roiled by a dispute with a large number of its own staff and their supporters in the community. Many health care professionals (including my primary care doctor) left the hospital and publicly protested with an open letter. They flagged problems with funding and bureaucracy that, in the words of my own former doctor, “made it impossible to work here.”

Much of the blame was focused on then newly appointed hospital CEO Aaron Robinson.

Opposition to Robinson gelled into the Save South County Organization who stepped up the pressure for reforms at the hospital. At the same time, South County’s once top-ranked ratings for patient care and satisfaction dropped significantly. Last November, their patient safety rating, once A-rated, dropped to "C."

In a surprising move, Robinson and the hospital board filed a SLAPP suit against Save South County Hospital and its leaders. “SLAPP” stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” that actually gives the defendant, usually a community group or local leader, grounds to countersue for damages under Rhode Island law. SLAPP suits have been around since the 1990s and are generally reviled as a tool used by corporations to stifle opposition.

But both sides have now agreed to end the lawsuits and apparently resolved, or at least stuck a pin in, the underlying disputes. Save South County Hospital has changed its name to “Save Our Health Care” in a clear gesture to de-escalate the conflict. They posted a statement, reprinted below, describing where they see the issues going forward.

For its part, South County Hospital has reinstated and restaffed its Oncology Department that was one of the sparks that set off the conflict. Robinson is not resigning and neither side has addressed the labor-management issues that were also the major casus belli.

I hope this really does work and that South County Hospital can improve patient care, working conditions and regain public trust and confidence.

I first got acquainted with South County Hospital in the 1970s through friendship with then  CEO Donald Ford. Alone among RI hospital administrators, Donald supported a big organizing drive in Rhode Island that aimed to get all hospitals in the state to comply with federal law requiring that patients be treated regardless of ability to pay and to provide a reasonable amount of free or reduced cost care to uninsured patients.

I worked as a strategic researcher on that campaign and Donald was a key contact who also became a cherished friend and mentor. I wish he was still alive. He never would have filed the SLAPP suits, and I doubt this painful conflict would ever have gotten so out of hand.

When Cathy and I returned to Rhode Island in 2001, South County Hospital and later South County Health became our primary source for health care. I’ve had a couple of multi-day stays as an inpatient and really came to appreciate the great staff, as I wrote in this review of my last stay.

Fingers crossed that this ordeal is over.

Here’s “Save Our Health Care’s” statement posted on their re-branded substack site:

New Approaches for Our Health Care Advocacy In and Beyond South County

With Our New Name Will Come an Expanded Purpose for Our Group

Feb 16, 2026

New Approaches for Our Health Care Advocacy In and Beyond South County

Dear Subscribers,

We’re continuing our work to support better health care in South County. As our efforts with South County Hospital continued through various discussions, our Save South County Hospital group discovered a role for itself and this site beyond just one hospital. As such, we will no longer go by that name.

Our decision came from multiple factors, including the thorny issues in our current national, state, and local health care services. We have decided to focus on both the big and small pictures. To align with that purpose, we have rebranded ourselves Save Our Health Care to touch on many and varied matters affecting medicine and your health.

In addition, our experiences in the last year have led us to see ourselves as part watchdog and part advocate of best practices overall.

This means providing periodic information related to real problems—physician shortages, physician autonomy removed when corporations decide on allowed medical services, private-practice dilemmas, management in the healthcare profession, cost-reimbursement and other kinds of financial issues, coverage denials, prior authorization delays, surprise/out-of-network bills, charity-care disputes, Medicaid access barriers, and “can’t get an appointment” problems as a larger issue than just for a few patients.

Medicine is changing at a fast rate with new drugs, new and different treatment protocols, and new approaches to healing or dealing with old ailments and serious diseases.

The point is to examine, inform, and provide commentary on a range of issues confronting health care and patients.

As a Rhode Island and South County watchdog, we also aim to be a policy and regulatory force multiplier—showing up, as time allows, where decisions are made and asking for measurable fixes.

This means we could testify at the State House, hold our own press briefings, and form partnerships with community health centers and providers, faith groups, senior centers, disability advocates, unions, and municipal leaders.

To accomplish this, we will reach out to recruit additional community members and professional stakeholders knowledgeable about the health care landscape. We will invite them to join with us to broaden the scope of our initiative and increase online commentary on this site about issues affecting you.

We will be in touch shortly with more information about this change and the overall benefits it can bring.

Yours Truly,
Save Our Health Care

Poor babies

Well, boys, that's what you get from the Pedo-in-Chief for dissing the women's team

War machine

Why U.S. middle-aged adults report more loneliness and poorer health than peers abroad

Midlife crisis is complicated in the US

By Arizona State University

Edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

Americans born in the 1960s and early 1970s report higher loneliness and depressive symptoms and show poorer memory and physical strength than earlier generations. Such declines are largely absent in peer countries, particularly in Nordic Europe, where outcomes have improved over time.

In a new study, psychologist Frank J. Infurna of Arizona State University and co-authors, analyzed survey data from 17 countries seeking to identify why U.S. trends diverge from other wealthy nations.

"The real midlife crisis in America isn't about lifestyle choices or sports cars. It's about juggling work, finances, family, and health amid weakening social supports," Infurna said. "The data make this clear."

The findings, published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, point the way to likely solutions for individuals and U.S. society.

You Don’t Really Make 200 Food Decisions a Day

Scientists say this is a misleading number

By Max Planck Institute for Human Development

What counts as a food decision? Food decisions only make sense when you know the context in which they were made. Credit: Pietro Nickl

Numbers often drive health advice. They are meant to inform, motivate, and guide behavior. But not every widely shared statistic rests on solid scientific ground. One long repeated claim says people make more than 200 food-related decisions every day without realizing it.

According to Maria Almudena Claassen, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, that figure gives a misleading impression. “This number paints a distorted picture of how people make decisions about their food intake and how much control they have over it,” she says.

Claassen, along with Ralph Hertwig, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and Jutta Mata, an associate research scientist at the Institute and Professor for Health Psychology at the University of Mannheim, published research examining how this number became so influential. Their work shows how questionable measurement methods can shape public understanding of eating behavior in inaccurate ways.

The Origin of the 200 Food Decisions Claim

The widely cited estimate dates back to a 2007 study by U.S. scientists Brian Wansink1 and Jeffery Sobal. In that study, 154 participants were first asked to estimate how many decisions they made each day about eating and drinking. The average response was 14.4 decisions.

Participants were then asked to break down their choices for a typical meal into categories such as “when,” “what,” “how much,” “where,” and “with whom.” Researchers multiplied these estimates by the number of meals, snacks, and beverages participants said they consumed in a typical day. When combined, this calculation produced an average of 226.7 daily decisions.

The difference between the initial estimate and the larger total, 212.3 decisions, was interpreted as evidence that most food choices are unconscious or “mindless.”

Vaccines CAN stop cancer, if only we could get Bobby Jr.'s anti-vaxxers out of the way

A 20-year-old cancer vaccine may hold the key to long-term survival

Duke Health

More than two decades ago, a small group of women with advanced breast cancer took part in a clinical trial that tested an experimental vaccine. All these years later, every one of them is still alive. 

Researchers say survival over such a long period is extremely uncommon for people with metastatic breast cancer, which is why the case drew renewed scientific attention.

Researchers at Duke Health took a closer look at the immune systems of the women who participated in the trial, which was led by Herbert Kim Lyerly, M.D., George Barth Geller Distinguished Professor of Immunology at Duke University School of Medicine. What they discovered surprised them. Even after many years, the women still had powerful immune cells that could recognize their cancer.

These immune cells shared a specific marker known as CD27. This marker plays an important role in helping the immune system remember past threats and respond to them again. The results, published in Science Immunology, point to CD27 as a possible way to make cancer vaccines far more effective.

"We were stunned to see such durable immune responses so many years later," said Zachary Hartman, Ph.D., senior author of the study and associate professor in the Departments of Surgery, Integrative Immunology and Pathology at Duke University School of Medicine. "It made us ask: What if we could boost this response even more?"

The real cause of skyrocketing electric bills in Rhode Island

Gov. McKee is gaslighting Rhode Island energy consumers

By Bill Ibelle, Rhode Island Current

Gov. Dan McKee and Rhode Island Energy want you to believe that the cause of your soaring energy bills is clean energy. But let me ask you a common sense question: If 10% of the state’s energy is produced by wind and solar and 87% is produced by natural gas, which one do you think is responsible for our state having the fourth-highest rates in the country?

Right. It’s the elephant in the room that’s going to trample you, not the gerbil. 

But the governor and our for-profit utility want you to pay attention to the gerbil, even though the real problem is our overdependence on natural gas. 

Save now, pay later: Critics warn McKee’s plan to ease energy bills comes with a tab

Why?

The governor is in the fight of his political life and needs a quick fix to win back support. That’s why he wants to roll back state renewable and energy efficiency programs to save ratepayers money on their monthly bills. It doesn’t matter that his quick fix doesn’t fix anything. It just has to save you a few dollars this election year. 

Sparky for President

Trump STEALS credit for retirement savings plan from 2022 Biden proposal passed by Congress. Classic Trump

ICE Barbie's rare occasion of speaking the truth about the 2026 election