TV News LIES

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a new interview, said autism was an epidemic with an impact that surpasses the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is an epidemic. It dwarfs the COVID epidemic and the impacts on our country because COVID killed old people. Autism affects children and affects them at the beginning of their lives, the beginning of their productivity,” Kennedy said during a Sunday interview with radio host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM’s “The Cats Roundtable.”

“And it’s absolutely debilitating for them, their families, their communities,” he added.

His statements come after the secretary faced scrutiny earlier this week for claiming “autism destroys families” at a Wednesday press conference.

In the past, Kennedy has also promoted anti-vaccine rhetoric with unproven theories that vaccinations are linked to autism.

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Toothpaste can be widely contaminated with lead and other dangerous heavy metals, new research shows.

Most of 51 brands of toothpaste tested for lead contained the dangerous heavy metal, including those for children or those marketed as green. The testing, conducted by Lead Safe Mama, also found concerning levels of highly toxic arsenic, mercury and cadmium in many brands.

About 90% of toothpastes contained lead, 65% contained arsenic, just under half contained mercury, and one-third had cadmium. Many brands contain a number of the toxins.

The highest levels detected violated the state of Washington’s limits, but not federal limits. The thresholds have been roundly criticized by public health advocates for not being protective – no level of exposure to lead is safe, the federal government has found.

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CT scans diagnose afflictions from tumors to kidney stones to life-threatening diseases and injuries, such as aneurysms and blood clots leading to stroke.

But the radiation emitted by this essential diagnostic tool may cause more harm than previously known and could eventually be responsible for roughly 5% of all cancers diagnosed in the U.S. in a single year, a new study finds.

"Medical imaging has potential benefits," said radiologist Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, an epidemiology professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and lead author of the study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. "It has potential harms as well, and it's really important to balance them."

Scientists long ago established that ionizing radiation emitted by computed tomography, or CT, scans increases cancer risk. But, since 2007, use of the imaging technique has surged 35%, the study says, due in part to growth in what Smith-Bindman and her colleagues call "low-value, potentially unnecessary imaging."

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A program that provides free healthcare to first responders and survivors of the World Trade Center terror attacks has been in turmoil for months, with services cut, restored and cut again as part of the Trump administration’s “restructuring” of the federal health department.

Following the most recent cuts, groups representing survivors and even Democratic US senators say they have no clarity on how the program will continue to provide benefits.

“This is bureaucratic cruelty,” said Michael Barasch, an attorney who represents thousands of first responders and survivors of the attacks. Barasch himself was a downtown Manhattan office worker on September 11.

“You’ve got people with [post-traumatic stress disorder], which was diagnosed from all the body parts they were picking up, all that trauma – these people rely on treatment. Can you imagine their level of anxiety? Their level of anxiety is skyrocketing,” said Barasch.

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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a “massive testing and research effort” that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said will determine the cause of rising childhood autism rates in the country.

During a meeting of President Trump’s Cabinet on Thursday, Kennedy said the process will involve “hundreds of scientists around the world” and answers will come this fall.

“By September we will know what has caused the autism epidemic,” Kennedy said. “And we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”