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FDA to Target Homeopathic Quackery, Woman Births Baby Conceived in '92, Pennsylvania Governor Rejects 20-Week Abortion Ban: A. M. Links

Elizabeth Nolan Brown | 12.20.2017 9:00 AM

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    A young woman has given birth to a baby that came from an embryo fertilized and frozen in 1992—just a year after the new birth-mother was born.

  • The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to crack down on homeopathic quackery.
  • The U.S. Department of Agriculture is withdrawing Obama-era rules requiring organic livestock to have been raised humanely.
  • The Thomas wildfire in California has burned through 272,000 acres, making it the second-largest California wildfire in modern history.
  • Teens disappear. Local and national media speculate, absent any evidence, that it's probably related to sex trafficking. [Extremely narrator voice.] It was not related to sex trafficking.
  • Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed legislation that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks pregnancy.
  • The FBI has entrapped another person into terrorism charges—this time a D.C. transit cop.

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Elizabeth Nolan Brown is a senior editor at Reason.

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  1. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

    Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has vetoed legislation that would have banned abortion after 20 weeks pregnancy.

    No union kickbacks in it.

  2. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

    A young woman has given birth to a baby that came from an embryo fertilized and frozen in 1992?just a year after the new birth-mother was born.

    BABIES HAVING BABIES

    1. Conchfritters   7 years ago

      After how many weeks would Gov. Wolf allow her to abort her baby? The kid has waited 25 years, it would be a shame to end it all after 20 weeks.

  3. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to crack down on homeopathic quackery.

    Homeophobes.

    1. Rat on a train   7 years ago

      Other forms of quackery still permitted.

      1. Tom Bombadil   7 years ago

        If it walks like a duck…

        1. BYODB   7 years ago

          It’s a witch?

          1. Rat on a train   7 years ago

            Build a bridge…

            1. phillhamian   7 years ago

              You didn’t build that

      2. Vernon Depner   7 years ago

        “Other forms of quackery still permitted.”

        Like economics.

    2. Chinny Chin Chin   7 years ago

      Gwyneth Paltrow, Tom Brady hardest hit.

    3. Rockabilly   7 years ago

      Witches around the world plot mass spell against Trump!

      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..Trump.html

      Take that US Food and Drugs !!!

  4. Rich   7 years ago

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to crack down on homeopathic quackery.

    By having the manufacturers dilute their stuff even *more*?

    1. Robert   7 years ago

      Probably so, I’m afraid. Without looking, I suspect they may be interested in banning those preps that are not at extreme dilution, that still have enough active material (or an “inert” ingredient) to function the same as a corresponding allopathic drug. 1X, for instance, is merely a 1:10 dilution that can be a loophole to bypass regulation of the active material as a normal drug. The head of HHS’s office of alternative health practices in the 1990s pointed out approvingly that not all homeopathic preps are so diluted that they need to work via novel mechanisms. However, homeopathic authorities of late have been trying to cleanse their armamentarium of preps that are not extremely diluted?perhaps conscious that governments will continue to allow them to be marketed only if they can be assured there’s nothing in there.

  5. Palin's Buttplug   7 years ago

    Thanks, ENB, for your attention on personal liberty.

    Paleo types don’t like it but fuck them.

    1. Domestic Dissident   7 years ago

      In just a few hours from now, the comprehensive tax reform bill will officially be passed by both houses of Congress and ready to head to the president’s desk for his signature, and you Block Yomommatard lefty assclowns will be pOwned.

      1. Palin's Buttplug   7 years ago

        I’m great with tax cuts, but it’s the big deficits you GOPers create that I despise. Why doesn’t the Con Man have the balls to cut spending?

        Clinton cut spending several times, Obama also did (2011 sequester) but you Big Gov GOPers can’t. Now your asshole Trump wants to overturn the 2011 sequester cuts.

        1. Domestic Dissident   7 years ago

          Your Obamessiah and fellow democrats increased the national debt by $9 trillion in eight years thanks primarily to the massive and permanent increase of the budget baseline after the market crash, and then repeatedly said you’d rather shut the entire government down rather than bring the baseline back down to a more reasonable level, dickface.

          1. Palin's Buttplug   7 years ago

            Yes, $9 trillion due to EXISTING policy – mostly Bush’s.

            The annual deficit fell every year from 2010-2016.

            Even Obamacare was paid for (with a capital gains tax increase)

            1. Tom Bombadil   7 years ago

              “Even Obamacare was paid for (with a capital gains tax increase)”

              Our resident true libertarian has spoken.

              1. BYODB   7 years ago

                PB only hates Republican deficits. Democratic deficits are just fine.

                Of course, PB also ignores that taxation will never solve that problem. Spending cuts are the only solution. PB is against spending cuts.

                But yeah, I’m sure PB is the only ‘true’ libertarian.

                1. loveconstitution1789   7 years ago

                  BYODB, you are being generous.

                  Butt, makes it clear every posting day that it is not Libertarian and socialist thru-and-threw.

                  1. BYODB   7 years ago

                    The sarc tag was implied, my bad.

        2. Tom Bombadil   7 years ago

          I seem to remember Clinton getting bitch slapped by the Republican revolution and the Contract with America.

          1. Palin's Buttplug   7 years ago

            I seem to remember Clinton getting bitch slapped by the Republican revolution and the Contract with America.

            You noticed Republicans only care about deficits when a Dem is POTUS?

            Wow, give Tom a Gold Star for his homework.

            1. Tom Bombadil   7 years ago

              I just noticed you giving Clinton credit for the work of a Republican Congress. You’re such a transparent shill.

              1. Eek Barba Durkle   7 years ago

                Uhhh..the dude just gave Obama credit for the sequester…the same sequester Obama fought tooth and nail against, and claimed would kill millions.

                Obama even tried to claim later that it was 100% on Republicans, something DNC-sockpuppet Politifact called ‘mostly false’.

            2. loveconstitution1789   7 years ago

              Every time Republicans mention cutting deficits or cutting the cause- bloated entitlements, Democrats send in legions of joooornalists to show videos of grandmothers getting pushed off cliffs.

              Now RINOs and Democrats are almost one in the Universe.

              Its up to fiscal conservatives and Libertarians to save the day!

            3. I am the 0.000000013%   7 years ago

              I don’t give a hoot whether it’s Democrats or Republicans.

              If it’s a tax cut, I approve.

              If it’s a spending increase, I don’t approve.

        3. loveconstitution1789   7 years ago

          The 2018 budget is coming next, Butt.

          You are not fine with tax cuts nor getting rid of the ObamaCare mandate.

          1. Palin's Buttplug   7 years ago

            You are not fine with tax cuts nor getting rid of the ObamaCare mandate.

            Shup up, you lying Trumptard. Don’t tell me what I support.

            1. Rhywun   7 years ago

              Says the troll who reads everyone else’s minds.

            2. loveconstitution1789   7 years ago

              Butt: You don’t support anything that is Libertarian or Libertarian-ish. It happens time and time again and you lie about it all the time.

      2. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

        Bloc Yomommatard

        You can do better. I know you have it in you.

        1. Chinny Chin Chin   7 years ago

          You have exceptional faith in human beings.

          1. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

            He spit out an amazing one the other day that was a cross between free style rap and a grand Mal seizure.

            1. Eek Barba Durkle   7 years ago

              a cross between free style rap and a grand Mal seizure.

              #StillBetterThanDrake

        2. Bacon-Magic glib reasonoid   7 years ago

          Black Hussy Unitard

      3. $park? leftist poser   7 years ago

        I’m not sure what to make of any of this. Or if I should even be trying to.

        1. Unlabelable MJGreen   7 years ago

          There is only one winning move here.

          1. Phred   7 years ago

            Kill yourself?

    2. OpenBordersLiberal-tarian   7 years ago

      Exactly. Any country that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy is no different from The Handmaid’s Tale.

      Although I wish ENB would write more about the net neutrality decision and its problematic implications for abortion access. I think that important issue has been downplayed by Reason, and I have no idea why they’d ignore it.

      1. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

        ENB is a pro life secret agent. It is all that makes sense.

      2. lap83   7 years ago

        Any country that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy is no different from The Handmaid’s Tale.

        Exactly, any good progressive that reads about the recent successful premature births that have occurred at 21 and 22 weeks has the same reaction – to feel sorry for the poor enslaved mother who had to take care of these parasites and to despise the evil sexist medical science that allowed this to happen!

        1. Zeb   7 years ago

          If people want to pay for induced premature births in lieu of abortions, and then take care of the resulting babies, they can have at it.

    3. Inigo Montoya   7 years ago

      Paleo types? What do people’s dietary strategies have to do with anything? Not everything has to be politicized, you know.

  6. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture is withdrawing Obama-era rules requiring organic livestock to have been raised humanely.

    No more free school breakfasts for cows. Also, what the fuck is “organic” livestock?

    1. Rich   7 years ago

      I believe it’s the livestock used for haggis.

    2. Aloysious   7 years ago

      Maybe the FDA will crack down on organic quackery.

    3. Rhywun   7 years ago

      Cows that haven’t been sprayed for pesticides, duh.

  7. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

    Teens disappear. Local and national media speculate, absent any evidence, that it’s probably related to sex trafficking. [Extremely narrator voice.] It was not related to sex trafficking.

    I’ve seen American Pie. It was definitely about sex at least.

    1. Inigo Montoya   7 years ago

      Upon reading this, my first thought was Slender Man.

  8. Bee Tagger   7 years ago

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture is withdrawing Obama-era rules requiring organic livestock to have been raised humanely.

    What monster would find it easier to eat meat that has been on a family Christmas card?

  9. Rich   7 years ago

    A young woman has given birth to a baby that came from an embryo fertilized and frozen in 1992

    Wow! No freezer burn?

  10. Bee Tagger   7 years ago

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to crack down on homeopathic quackery.

    Running a business must feel like a perpetual game of duck duck goose.

  11. Bee Tagger   7 years ago

    A young woman has given birth to a baby that came from an embryo fertilized and frozen in 1992

    unfrozen caveman baby lawyer

    1. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

      So, Nick Krull?

      1. Unlabelable MJGreen   7 years ago

        Kroll… but that does work very well. Very well.

  12. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

    The Thomas wildfire in California has burned through 272,000 acres…

    Wait, are they naming fires like hurricanes and I guess blizzards now? Shouldn’t they all be named after Trump family members? Like the Barron Downpour or Waterspout Ivanka?

    1. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

      The Barron Downpour is insensitive to those couple’s battling infertility and I don’t appreciate your glibness about their pain.

      1. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

        Take it up with Melania.

        1. Rich   7 years ago

          Better apologize before #MeToo gets wind of this.

          1. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

            I wish ladies would come forward. I need my game documented for posterity.

            1. $park? leftist poser   7 years ago

              Hockey?

            2. Crusty Juggler   7 years ago

              More like posteriority, am I right?

    2. DaveSs   7 years ago

      Fires have been named for many decades.

      Usually the name is something to do with the location or a landmark where the fire was first reported.

      Galt’s Gulch Fire for example would let everyone in the area know about where the fire was. If you simply called it Wildfire 17-12A no one would have a clue what you were talking about.

      1. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

        Well, I don’t like it.

    3. Zeb   7 years ago

      It’s named for where it started. I think that’s been a thing for a while.

      At least they aren’t calling it “Wildfire Thomas”.

  13. colorblindkid   7 years ago

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture is withdrawing Obama-era rules requiring organic livestock to have been raised humanely.

    I never liked the use of the word “humanely” or inhumane or any similar word. If we treated animals “humanely” we wouldn’t eat them at all and the government would send them to public schools.

    1. colorblindkid   7 years ago

      The word “humanely” should only be applied to humans. Except perhaps dogs, because they co-evolved with us as our companions. Cats can all go die, though.

    2. Bee Tagger   7 years ago

      Ouch, the homeschool types certainly won’t agree that sending their little heffer through the educational-industrial complex is humane.

    3. loveconstitution1789   7 years ago

      This is what happens when you cater to extreme nutjobs. These nuts want people to stop eating meat and when you try and negotiate with terrorists you get never ending demands.

      We feed cows, water them, put a bolt gun to their heads to kill them, and eat them. That is the life of beef cows.

  14. Rich   7 years ago

    He was a longtime supporter of Islamic extremism, a Muslim convert and a Nazi sympathizer, prosecutors said. Images of him seized in his home last year show him dressed in SS garb, the Washington Post reported. He had also expressed interest in joining the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

    Now, *that* is diversity.

    1. Bee Tagger   7 years ago

      He surely just caused a foreign key violation int he SPLC database.

      1. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

        Their DB just returns true for any input anyway.

  15. Fist of Etiquette   7 years ago

    Teens disappear. Local and national media speculate, absent any evidence, that it’s probably related to sex trafficking.

    A 15-year-old sex trafficked a 14-year-old. Sad what an internet without neutrality and a president who grabs v will turn people into.

    1. Rhywun   7 years ago

      Why is two teens in luv running away a “national news” story all of a sudden.

      1. $park? leftist poser   7 years ago

        Because the world is more dangerous for children than it’s ever been!

      2. mad.casual   7 years ago

        Why is two teens in luv running away a “national news” story all of a sudden.

        Someone should write a story about wherefore they art so we can force kids to read it for the next 400 yrs.

      3. Crusty Juggler   7 years ago

        Because they are children who are our future.

        1. Bearded Spock   7 years ago

          So, you believe the children are our future?

          Train them well and let them lead the way?

          Show them all the beauty they possess insiiiiide?

        2. I am the 0.000000013%   7 years ago

          Once we get rid of the FDA, I’m planning on living forever.

          ‘The Children’ are my competitors…

        3. Vernon Depner   7 years ago

          “Our children are our future?unless we stop them NOW!”?Homer Simpson

  16. Rich   7 years ago

    Facebook is giving the US government more and more data

    Facebook also says that 57% of the requests they got from US law enforcement included a non-disclosure order that bans the company from telling the user that their data was requested.

    Sheesh, how did investigators crack any cases before social media?

  17. Rich   7 years ago

    “A Loopy, Lunkheaded Load of Drivel”

    No, it’s not the GOP tax bill.

    1. BestUsedCarSales   7 years ago

      I’ll see anything that supports Benicio Del Toro anyway.

  18. Rat on a train   7 years ago

    A young woman has given birth to a baby that came from an embryo fertilized and frozen in 1992?just a year after the new birth-mother was born.

    You know who else?

  19. $park? leftist poser   7 years ago

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to crack down on homeopathic quackery.

    So because you don’t accept it nobody else should be able to? Is that what you’re saying, Lizzie? Huh? Is it? Huh? Huh? Is that what you’re saying?

  20. Rhywun   7 years ago

    Anyone else having problems with reasonable? Commenting is painful without it.

    1. $park? leftist poser   7 years ago

      I don’t use it but I heard it’s dead as of some time last week. Is that the add-on that only works in Firefox? If so, it may be because Mozilla overhauled the backend and made it so add-ons need to be developed differently now.

      1. Rhywun   7 years ago

        No, it’s for Chrome. fascr is the one for Firefox.

    2. Unlabelable MJGreen   7 years ago

      Yep, stopped working for me last Monday on my work computer. Strangely, it kept working on my home PC until the middle of the week. I assume there was some Chrome update that, for whatever reason, my personal PC computer didn’t get for a few days.

  21. Palin's Buttplug   7 years ago

    Well, I’m out of here Peanuts.

    Thanks ENB again (for not being a conservative and respect for personal liberty)

    1. This Machine Chips Fascists   7 years ago

      Somebody open up a window and air this place out. Smells like ass up in here.

    2. Tom Bombadil   7 years ago

      “Thanks ENB again (for not being a conservative and respect for personal liberty)”

      Must be a sale on strawmen at PB’s local thrift store.
      No surprise he’s “out of here”. He got his ass kicked most efficiently above.
      I’ve noticed an effective PB repellent.
      Wait for him to parade around in his Team Blue cape and then remind him of his claim to be a classical liberal libertarian.

    3. loveconstitution1789   7 years ago

      You’re always in our prayers, Butt.

    4. Domestic Dissident   7 years ago

      I hope an 18 wheeler runs you off I-95 on your way up to Delaware and puts you out of your misery.

  22. Unlabelable MJGreen   7 years ago

    Would “extremely narrator voice” be Clint Howard?

    1. This Machine Chips Fascists   7 years ago

      Extremely Morgan Freeman

  23. Sevo   7 years ago

    “Homeopathy is an ancient practice based on the idea that small traces of substances that cause diseases can actually be used to treat illness.”

    Homeopathy is flat out quackery.

    1. mad.casual   7 years ago

      It’s not, exactly, quackery. The problem is it’s science/logic hackery in that you can’t disprove a negative. If you use too much ‘active ingredient’ it’s not homeopathy and if you use to little it literally can’t hurt.

      We had a licensed pediatrician ‘prescribe’ what turned out to be a homeopathic remedy to my/our son. The next month was like a weird version of They Live! where discussions about steeping the money, drinking the resulting brew, and still having the money to *actually* do something were had. Repeatedly.

      The interesting thing that dawned on me was, it’s a bit like libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism. It’s a cult that doesn’t really want to take over the world or save your immortal soul or even really care if you observe or abide by their tenets. The sad part is, plenty of people would rather throw money at homeopathy than keep their money and believe in libertarianism/anarcho-capitalism.

      1. Juice   7 years ago

        It’s not, exactly, quackery.

        It’s exactly quackery.

        1. Robert   7 years ago

          These days they do provings under conditions as tightly controlled as clinical trials generally?double blind, matched controls?just with a smaller number of subjects, about the size of a pilot study. But when results are significant at p less than .01 (which is what the HPCUS accepts), that should be enough.

        2. mad.casual   7 years ago

          It’s exactly quackery.

          OK, define quackery in a manner that doesn’t also cut against or directly contravene things like:
          – Providing dying people a last cigarette or drink of water.
          – Home remedies.
          – The supplement industry.

          Are Luden’s and Ricola Cough Drops quackery? Is pectin an active ingredient?

          Certainly, there is snake oil out there and are people striving to undermine Western Medicine. But there are also plenty of people who need to ‘Do something!’ for every malady they may suffer, no matter how slight, and there are entrepreneurs more than willing to step up with a sugar pill.

          We didn’t fill the prescription and now avoid that specific pediatrician at the practice, but it did cast a unique light on some things that we/I hadn’t previously considered (in that light). Sure, part or all of homeopathy is quackery. Does quackery inherently violate the NAP or even work against liberty at all? Let alone in a manner that requires us to ‘Do something!’?

          1. mad.casual   7 years ago

            Let alone in a manner that requires us to ‘Do something!’?

            I really do wish there were more people who would see my/our desire for a 200C scale of government and our cult of political quackery and were cool with it.

    2. Robert   7 years ago

      It’s not so much the “quackery” bit I’d contend about, it’s that it’s not “ancient”. Unless 200-250 yrs. is old enough.

  24. I am the 0.000000013%   7 years ago

    Given the well documented panacea affect, banning anything that anyone thinks is helping seems counter-productive.

  25. lap83   7 years ago

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has announced plans to crack down on homeopathic quackery.
    by doubling efforts to approve drugs that would actually wor….haha, sorry couldn’t quite get it out

  26. Avanthika   7 years ago

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