'FDA Warns of Toxic Oleander in Supplements'

 The FDA warned against certain supplements labeled as tejocote root

opens in a new tab or window that actually contain toxic yellow oleander.

The warning follows a reportopens in a new tab or window in September on several weight-loss supplements that were supposed to contain tejocote root but instead contained yellow oleander. The researchers' testing of a number of products was sparked by the case of a New Jersey toddler who experienced a serious heart complicationopens in a new tab or window after consuming the mother's weight-loss supplement pills.

Subsequently, the FDA launched an investigation to sample and test additional tejocote root products, the agency stated in its warning this week. All nine samples tested to date contained yellow oleander. Additional sample analysis is pending, so more products may be added to the warning, the FDA said.

Yellow oleander is a poisonous plant native to Mexico and Central America. It can cause severe, and potentially fatal, adverse health effects. It contains a cardenolide with clinical effects similar to digoxin.

In addition to adverse cardiovascular effects, ingestion of yellow oleander can cause neurologic and gastrointestinal issues. Symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, diarrhea, abdominal pain, cardiac changes, and dysrhythmia.

Products of concern are typically sold online through third-party platforms, the FDA noted. The products it tested had come from Amazon, Etsy, a natural products site, and the website of two weight-loss consultants.

Despite FDA regulations, "misbranded dietary supplements are frequently found to contain potentially dangerous substances," Noah Berland, MD, of the New Jersey Poison Information and Education System and Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, and colleagues wrote in a September report in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reportopens in a new tab or window.

"For public health officials, this is concerning because these supplements contain a highly toxic substance and are readily available from multiple retailers," they wrote.

Early in the pandemic, public health officials also warned against a botanical extract made from poisonous oleander, emphasizing that it was harmful and not a cure for COVIDopens in a new tab or window.

The FDA called for individuals who have taken any of the nine tejocote root dietary supplements that were found to be substituted with yellow oleander to contact their healthcare provider immediately. "Even if these products have not been used recently, consumers should still inform their health care provider about which product they took, so that an appropriate evaluation may be conducted," the agency noted.

Anyone experiencing serious side effects from affected products should seek immediate emergency medical help, the FDA said. Consumers can also contact their state poison control center.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/fdageneral/108133

'FBI in Florida captures 3 people linked to Jan. 6 on third anniversary'

 The FBI apprehended three people accused of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, at a ranch in Florida, the agency announced Saturday.

FBI’s Tampa office identified the fugitives as Jonathan Daniel Pollock, his sister Olivia Michele Pollock and Joseph Daniel Hutchinson III. They are scheduled to appear in federal court in Ocala, Fla., on Jan. 8, the office wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“No further details concerning their capture are available at this time,” the agency added.

The bureau was offering up to $30,000 for any information on Jonathan Pollock, who was accused of attacking police and using a riot shield as a weapon during the riots. Olivia Pollock has been missing since at least March, after she disappeared shortly before her trial was set to begin, the Associated Press reported.

Hutchinson, who has also been missing since he failed to show up at his trial last year, worked with the Pollocks at their families gun shop in Lakeland, Fla., according to prosecutors.

The three were charged in July 2021 alongside two others: Joshua Christopher Doolin and Michael Steven Perkins. Both men were sentenced in August, with Doolin being handed 18 months and Perkins given 4 years in prison.

Saturday’s arrests come on the third anniversary of the insurrection. More than 1,000 defendants have either pleaded guilty or been convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, ranging from felonies such as seditious conspiracy and assault, to misdemeanors, like trespassing. 

Justice Department statistics released Friday noted that of the people charged in the wake of Jan. 6, 718 have pleaded guilty, while another 139 have been convicted at trial.

President Biden gave a fiery rebuke of the riots Friday, arguing that former President Trump and his GOP allies have embraced the same extremism in their agenda as was displayed during the Capitol attack.

“Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice democracy to put himself in power,” the president warned in his roughly 30-minute speech in Valley Forge, Pa., adding that “Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past, it’s what he’s promising with the future. He’s being straightforward. He’s not hiding the ball.”

Trump hit back, calling Biden’s speech a “pathetic fearmongering campaign event.”

“Joe Biden’s record is an unbroken streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure,” he claimed. “Other than that, he’s doing quite well,” Trump said, mocking the president.

The former president has previously said he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants if reelected in November.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4393014-fbi-captures-3-fugitives-linked-to-jan-6-riot/

Abbott says he’s ‘heard nothing’ from White House on border concerns

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Sunday claimed he “heard nothing” from the White House after sending a series of letters outlining steps to eliminate the border crisis.

Asked by “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream if he is talking with the Biden administration or White House about the situation at the border, Abbott said, “I provided eight letters to the Biden administration, which includes the president and to [Homeland Security Secretary] Mayorkas.”

“And I personally handed a letter to President Biden and to Secretary Mayorkas when they showed up in El Paso, Texas. [I] outlined five things that they could do that would eliminate the crisis a the border,” Abbott continued. “Shannon, in response to all eight of those letters, I’ve heard absolutely nothing from the Biden administration.”

The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the White House’s request for comment.

Abbott’s comments are the latest of his ongoing calls to the Biden administration to take action on the migrant influx at the U.S. southern border.

The Texas governor has repeatedly claimed the White House does not enforce its existing laws on illegal immigration and began taking his own action nearly two years ago in protest. This has included sending buses and flights of migrants to Democratic-led cities, authorizing more funding for border wall construction and, most recently, signing a new immigration and border security law for the Lone Star State.

The law, called Senate Bill 4 or S.B. 4, was enacted last month and has been scheduled to take effect March 5. The bill would allow any Texas law enforcement officer to arrest those suspected of illegally entering the country. Upon arrest, migrants would either have to agree to a judge’s order to leave the U.S. or face misdemeanor charges of illegal entry. 

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Texas last week, asking a federal judge to rule that the new law violates the U.S. Constitution and to stop the state from enforcing the law.

The federal government pointed to a 2012 Supreme Court ruling — Arizona v. United States — when the country’s highest court decided federal immigration laws often trump state law even if there isn’t a direct conflict.

The federal government is primarily in charge of regulating immigration and controlling international borders. However, Abbott, along with some other state leaders, argue the Biden administration isn’t taking enough action at the border.

On Sunday, Abbott argued the preemption rule does not apply due to the federal government “refusing to enforce the laws passed by Congress.” He did not specify which laws he was referring to.

Abbott has come under scrutiny by some other leaders of so-called sanctuary cities for sending migrants to their area, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who filed a suit last week against over a dozen Texas charter companies that bussed the migrants to the Big Apple.

Abbott argued Adams needs to be suing the Biden administration instead of the bus companies.

“But if the mayor really is trying to cut down on the number of illegal immigrants coming into New York, he needs to be suing Joe Biden, not these bus companies because it’s Joe Biden and Joe Biden’s policies,” Abbott told Bream.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4393981-abbott-says-hes-heard-nothing-from-white-house-on-border-concerns/

Stefanik slams NBC as biased, calls Jan. 6 prisoners ‘hostages’

 Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) on Sunday blasted “biased media” and said she was concerned about “the treatment of January 6th hostages,” echoing former President Trump’s remarks on the attack on the Capitol.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker played a video of Stefanik speaking on the evening of Jan. 6, 2021, when she stated that “violence in any form is absolutely unacceptable,” adding that “it is anti-American and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Welker also pointed out that Trump referred to Jan. 6 in the past as a “beautiful day.”

In response, Stefanik, a key Trump ally, said only one excerpt from her speech was played, which she said is “typical for NBC and the biased media.”

“Well, first of all, Kristen, as typical for NBC and the biased media, you played one excerpt of my speech,” she said. “I stand by my comments that I made on the House floor. I stood up for election integrity, and I challenged and objected to the certification of the state of Pennsylvania because of the unconstitutional overreach.”

She also echoed remarks Trump made this weekend during a campaign in Iowa Saturday, where he labeled those who have been jailed for participating in the riot as “hostages.”

“I have concerns about the treatment of January 6th hostages,” Stefanik told NBC when asked if those who stormed the Capitol should be held responsible to the full extent of the law. “We have a rule in Congress of oversight over our treatments of prisoners. And I believe that we’re seeing the weaponization of the federal government against not just President Trump, but we’re seeing it against conservatives.”

“If you go back and play the full speech I gave on the House floor, I condemn the violence just like I condemned the violence of the BLM [Black Lives Matter] riots,” she later added.

It isn’t the first time Trump referred to those jailed for storming the Capitol as “hostages,” also referring to them as such during a rally in Texas in November.

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/4393986-stefanik-slams-nbc-as-biased-calls-jan-6-prisoners-hostages/

'Why fears over a ‘tripledemic’ are surging'

 Cases of three major respiratory viruses — the flu, COVID-19 and RSV — are surging in the U.S., pushing the country toward a feared “tripledemic” during its first post-pandemic respiratory viral season. 

Optimism was high this autumn as the U.S. headed into the viral season. The national arsenal against these viruses had vaccines against RSV for the first time, newly updated COVID-19 vaccines, and the flu “immunity debt” that plagued children in 2022 was history.

But now, confidence is waning. Accessing the vaccine for RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, has been a struggle for many, and enthusiasm for the new COVID-19 vaccines turned out to be abysmal. COVID-19 hospital admissions have been rising since November and wastewater detection indicates most sites — 69 percent — are seeing large increases in virus levels. 

Flu activity across the country is currently “elevated and continues to increase in most parts of the country,” according to the latest update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And vaccine uptake for the flu seems to be lagging, with the CDC saying nearly 8 million fewer people got the shot by mid-December compared to the same period in 2022. 

During the first couple of years of the pandemic, flu activity remained low, attributed to the precautionary measures that communities took to mitigate the viral spread of COVID. The 2022-23 flu season appeared to mark a return to normal flu levels.

Only about a fifth of U.S. adults say they’ve received the newest COVID-19 shot, according to polling from KFF. Uptake for the previous bivalent shots was similarly low and many Americans likely haven’t been immunized since receiving their first doses in 2020 or 2021. 

“We’re definitely seeing an increase in the number of flu cases, COVID-19. They’re both surging right now,” said Luis Ostrosky, chief of infectious diseases and epidemiology with UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann. 

Speaking on the RSV cases he’s seen in the Houston area, Ostrosky said infections appeared to surge earlier in December, though he is still seeing a “steady” number. 

“This is so alarming that it prompted CDC to send out a health alert towards the end of December reminding all clinicians to really work on getting patients vaccinated and, when they have symptoms, tested so that they can access therapy if they need it,” Ostrosky noted. 

Available RSV data from the CDC does seem to suggest test positivity peaked toward the end of November, with the positivity rates for antigen and PCR tests just beginning to drop in recent weeks. 

Hopes were high that the approval of two RSV vaccines for seniors and a preventive monoclonal antibody for infants would help keep cases low this season. 

But Sanofi, the maker of the monoclonal antibody Beyfortus, said in October that “unprecedented demand” had led to short supply, leading the CDC to advise doctors to reserve doses for their highest-risk patients. 

And RSV vaccine uptake among seniors appears rather lackluster, with CDC data suggesting only about 10 percent of nursing home residents had gotten immunized against the virus by mid-December. 

“The numbers are not looking good,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, of the three circulating viruses. 

“I think when we get some new numbers for the last week, it’s going to be sort of continued trends in the same direction and increased activity across all of those conditions,” added Plescia. 

A holiday “bump” in cases is to be expected following weeks of year-end travel. AAA estimated in December that more than 115 million people in the U.S. would be traveling 50 miles or more from home during the festivities. 

Amid all the travel, Plescia lamented that social norms which he hoped became commonplace following the pandemic appeared to have been largely abandoned. 

“I think we’re kind of going back to, you know, the old approach of people don’t stay home when they’re sick,” said Plescia. “And they think it’s sort of a minor thing and the thought that they might infect somebody else just doesn’t really occur to them.” 

Masking has also become rare once again, though Plescia noted many hospital systems are bringing back mask requirements amid the rise in respiratory viruses. These hospital-enacted requirements may be more easily accepted by communities than those issued by the government, and Plescia expects to see more like them in the future. 

While cases are rising, Plescia said his organization hasn’t yet heard of any health systems around the country being unduly stressed by the respiratory viral situation. 

“That is sort of the first concern with some kind of ‘tripledemic’ is that we would have so many people getting sick that hospitals would become overwhelmed either because they didn’t have enough beds or they didn’t have enough staff to care for that number of people. We’re not hearing that we’re approaching that, but that is the thing that we’re most concerned about,” he said.

Ostrosky is optimistic case rates will begin to go down soon after a potential holiday bump, with past winter peaks indicating a drop sometime in early January. He emphasized it is still worthwhile to get tested if you experience symptoms because there is now a plethora of therapeutics available for treating these infections. 

Going forward, Plescia also recommended that more focus be placed on vaccinations among health care workers. 

“That’s important not just because we don’t want health care workers to get sick and give it to their patients but also, you know, when you have a lot of health care workers getting sick, this whole capacity thing becomes problematic,” Plescia said.

“Because what we’re hearing now is that hospitals are less concerned about not having enough beds. They’re more concerned about having enough health care workers to staff those beds.” 

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4392133-fears-tripledemic-surging/

'Biden campaign responds to report on Obama warnings about Trump'

 The Biden campaign defended its strategy in response to new reporting on criticism from former President Obama on the structure of the Biden campaign and on his concern about President Trump’s strength as a political candidate going into 2024.

Quentin Fulks, principal deputy campaign manager for President Biden’s reelection bid, on Sunday defended the campaign’s approach and stressed that Obama and Biden are aligned in their position that Trump needs to be defeated.

“We’re going to continue to do what we need to do in order to be competitive and in order to make sure we’re growing the infrastructure that we need to win. President Obama and President Biden talk frequently, as do the campaign and former operatives from President Biden’s administration and his campaign,” Fulks said in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” when asked how the campaign is responding to Obama.

“But the one thing is that we’re both aligned on the fact that we have to push back on MAGA extremists and the threat that they pose to freedom and democracy. And so we’re focused on doing just that.”

“The president has been very clear that the experience he got as VP serving with President Obama has been critical to the experience that he brings to the job and what he’s been able to accomplish. But we’re united in the fact that we have to do everything we can to push back on Donald Trump and the threat that he poses to democracy,” he added.

Fulks’s defense of the president and his reelection bid comes after the Washington Post reported a story about concerns Obama expressed to Biden at a lunch at the White House in December. Obama reportedly told Biden that it’s important to have more top-level decision-makers in the campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del. or that he needs to empower those already there.

Fulks did not respond to a specific follow-up question on whether the campaign plans to make any structural changes to the campaign.

He said, however, that the campaign has been “awake” since April and that Americans are only now starting to tune in.

“Look, our campaign has been awake since the president announced in April, which is why we’ve come out of the gate swinging. It’s why we put innovate organizing programs in place to begin to communicate with voters on the ground, which is why we’ve made investments into constituency media, the largest investment to voters of color, Hispanic voters, young voters, than any other presidential campaign in history.”

He continued: “And now we’re in the phase where more Americans are paying attention to what’s going on. And that is why we’re making the choice. The president’s speech at Valley Forge was the first of that. We’ll do it again tomorrow in South Carolina. And we’re going to continue to make that case to the American people. Because we are running this campaign and organizing it as though democracy is on the ballot. Because that’s what’s at stake this election.’

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4394060-biden-campaign-responds-to-report-on-obama-warnings-about-trump/

Cheney rejects Johnson’s claim she considered signing amicus brief on overturning 2020 election

 Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Sunday pushed back against Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)’s claim she considered signing an amicus brief on overturning the 2020 election results, noting she was only in communication with Johnson about the brief.

Johnson, who was serving as the Republican Study Committee chair at the time, helped lead efforts to garner support among GOP members for an amicus brief that supported a Texas lawsuit aimed at overturning the 2020 election results in four swing states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. More than House 100 Republicans eventually signed the brief.

In an interview that aired earlier Sunday with CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” Johnson told moderator Margaret Brennan he was surprised to see Cheney’s criticism of the brief because she, “at one point,” “even considered signing on to that bill.”

“I’ll tell you that that is a fact, to that amicus brief.” Johnson said. “And we talked about that at great length, and we had a difference of opinion on the law, and people can agree to disagree on that. But I’m telling you that the plain language of the Constitution has never changed.”

Asked if his remarks are factual later on “Face the Nation,” Cheney said, “It is not.”

“We were, as Mike said, in constant contact throughout that period,” Cheney continued. “I actually know precisely when he sent me the brief and precisely when less than 30 minutes later, I told him my concerns with the brief. Mike knows that as well.”

Cheney said she made clear to Johnson the brief itself was “legally and constitutionally infirm,” and that Johnson was misrepresenting the brief to the members of conference.

Speaking on Sunday, Cheney also pushed back on Johnson’s claims that he “has the right to reject or ignore the rulings of the court.”

“We have dozens of state and federal courts that assessed the claims, asserted the constitutionality and rejected them. And Mike’s position — which people really need to think about because it’s so chilling — is that somehow as a member of Congress, he has the right to ignore the ones of those courts, to assert — absent any fact finding — a fact that somehow he feels that something that happened was unconstitutional and therefore he can throw out the votes of millions of Americans. That’s tyranny, it’s not the rule of law.”

In his interview with “Face the Nation,” Johnson touched upon his belief that the change in election laws without ratification violated the Constitution.

“But I’m telling you that the plain language of the Constitution has never changed. And what happened in many states by changing the election laws without ratification by the state legislatures is a violation of the Constitution. That’s a- that’s a plain fact that no one can dispute,” Johnson said.

Cheney used Johnson’s argument to reiterate her belief that House Republicans “can’t be counted on” to defend the Constitution.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4394047-cheney-rejects-johnsons-claim-she-considered-signing-amicus-brief-on-overturning-2020-election/