People 18 to 34 years old and those in underserved health regions are more likely to drop out of treatment sooner, according to an analysis of 169,250 health insurance claims made between 2014 and 2023. The report’s authors say it’s “critical” people take these drugs “long enough to achieve clinical success.”
The report authors noted that people may stop treatment before six weeks because of early side effects. Common side effects include nausea, diarrhea, stomach pain, vomiting and constipation.
These drugs mimic GLP-1 — the hormone the body naturally produces after eating — so you feel full faster and longer.REUTERS Costs— such as copays (the flat fee you pay for a doctor visit or prescription) and coinsurance (the amount you pay after meeting your deductible) — play a factor in the continuation of weight-loss drugs as well.
Individuals with monthly costs lower than $60 are significantly more likely to stay on the meds compared to people paying more. The average monthly list price for semaglutide is over $1,000, according to the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association report.
Dr. Michael Russo, a board-certified bariatric surgeon in Orange County, California, says his patients who stop their weight-loss drugs early most often blame the cost.
“Just because something is covered by the insurance doesn’t mean it’s not a prohibitive cost,” Russo told Prevention.
Studies show that those who quit these drugs typically regain two-thirds of the weight they lost.AP
No matter the reason, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association advises patients, on average, to “complete at least 12 weeks of continuous treatment to achieve a level of weight loss that will positively impact their health.”
Studies show that those who quit typically regain two-thirds of the weight they lost on the meds.
“These medications have proven to be a potent tool in treating obesity, provided they continue taking the medication,” Batash said.
It's yet another reminder of why blindly 'trusting the science' may not always be the best go-to move in the future.
217 year old Wiley science publisher has reportedly "peer reviewed" more than 11,000 papers that were determined to be fake without ever noticing. The papers were referred to as "naked gobbledygook sandwiches", Australian blogger Jo Nova wrote on her blog last week.
"It’s not just a scam, it’s an industry," she said. "Who knew, academic journals were a $30 billion dollar industry?"
According to Nova's post, professional cheating services are employing AI to craft seemingly "original" academic papers by shuffling around words. For instance, terms like "breast cancer" morphed into "bosom peril," and a "naïve Bayes" classifier turns into "gullible Bayes."
Similarly, in one paper, an ant colony was bizarrely rebranded as an "underground creepy crawly state."
The misuse of terminology extends to machine learning, where a 'random forest' is whimsically translated to 'irregular backwoods' or 'arbitrary timberland'.
Nova writes that shockingly, these papers undergo peer review without any rigorous human oversight, allowing egregious errors, like converting 'local average energy' to 'territorial normal vitality', to slip through.
The publisher Wiley has confessed that fraudulent activities have rendered 19 of its journals so compromised that they must be shuttered. In response, the industry is developing AI tools to detect these fakes, a necessary yet disheartening development. Nova writes:
The rot at Wiley started decades ago, but it got caught when it spent US $298 million on an Egyptian publishing house called Hindawi. We could say we hope no babies were hurt by fake papers but we know bad science already kills people. What we need are not “peer reviewed” papers but actual live face to face debate. Only when the best of both sides have to answer questions, with the data will we get real science:
In March, it revealed to the NYSE a $US9 million ($13.5 million) plunge in research revenue after being forced to “pause” the publication of so-called “special issue” journals by its Hindawi imprint, which it had acquired in 2021 for US$298 million ($450 million).
Its statement noted the Hindawi program, which comprised some 250 journals, had been “suspended temporarily due to the presence in certain special issues of compromised articles”.
Many of these suspect papers purported to be serious medical studies, including examinations of drug resistance in newborns with pneumonia and the value of MRI scans in the diagnosis of early liver disease. The journals involved included Disease Markers, BioMed Research International and Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience.
The problem is only becoming more urgent. The recent explosion of artificial intelligence raises the stakes even further. A researcher at University College London recently found more than 1 per cent of all scientific articles published last year, some 60,000 papers, were likely written by a computer.
In some sectors, it’s worse. Almost one out of every five computer science papers published in the past four years may not have been written by humans.
In Australia, ABC has reported on this issue, reflecting concerns over diminishing public trust in universities, which are increasingly seen as businesses rather than educational institutions. This perception is fueled by incidents where universities, driven by financial incentives, overlook academic fraud.
The core of the scientific community is corroded, exacerbated by entities like the ABC Science Unit, which rather than scrutinizing dubious research, often shields it.
This ongoing degradation calls for a shift from traditional peer review to rigorous live debates, ensuring accountability by having people argue their cases in real time.
In December 2023, Nature posted that more than 10,000 papers were retracted in 2023 -- a new record.
U.S. President Joe Biden has "limited ability" to step up security at the U.S.-Mexico border via executive action, a top Democratic lawmaker said on Sunday, arguing that the issue should be addressed with legislation in Congress.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democrat who negotiated a bipartisan border security bill introduced this year, said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" that U.S. courts would likely strike down sweeping action by Biden.
"The president has such limited ability to issue executive orders that would have an impact on the border. He can't conjure resources out of thin air," Murphy said. "If he were to try to shut down portions of the border, the courts would throw that out, I think, within a matter of weeks."
Biden, a Democrat seeking another term in Nov. 5 elections, has said his administration is looking at executive actions to potentially block migrants at the border after Republicans rejected the bipartisan Senate bill this year. Republicans spurned the measure after former President Donald Trump, Biden's Republican challenger, came out against it.
Senate Republicans blocked the bill again last week and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said it "doesn't secure the border" and "incentivizes further illegal immigration."
The number of migrants caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped this year compared with a monthly record high in December, a trend U.S. officials partly attribute to increased enforcement by Mexico.
Murphy said the decrease was due to "smart, effective diplomacy between the United States and the Mexican government" but warned that the dropoff may not be permanent and that illegal crossings remain high compared with a decade ago.
"We have to just recognize that without updating the laws of this country, without surging more resources to the border, we can't count on the numbers staying as low as they are today," Murphy said.
White House spokesperson Karine Jean Pierre said last week that the Senate bill would deliver "significant policy changes, resources, and personnel needed to secure our border and make our country safer."
Migrants and asylum seekers transit through Mexico to the U.S. to escape violence, economic distress and negative impacts of climate change, according the United Nations.
Next Tuesday both sides will present their closing arguments in the People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, a case that exists for one reason only: to stop Trump from ever occupying the White House again.
But what if this doesn’t work? What if there’s a hung jury or, worse yet, an acquittal? What if none of the 88 trumped-up felony charges results in a conviction and voters actually have a chance to elect Trump, should they prefer him over the decrepit failure known as Joe Biden?
What is the Democrats’ Plan B?
They must have one. Democrats are nothing if not always prepared. And they’ve already made it clear that they will do anything to stop Trump. Anything, that is, except run on the issues.
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It looks increasingly likely that they will need a plan. Democrats bent and twisted the law into impossible shapes to rack up those felony charges against a political opponent. Now the seams are showing.
After Michael Cohen’s disastrous turn on the stand in the “hush money” trial undermined the bedrock of this case, even CNN is hedging its bets on the outcome.
The case has already failed to live up to its billing as political kryptonite. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that a mere 16% say they’re following the trial closely. Cable news ratings are down. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg whined about how, “when people were asked how the trial made them feel, the most common response was ‘bored’.”
Of course, none of that will matter to the jury, which could very well render a guilty verdict. But even Goldberg admits that this won’t necessarily stop Trump, given that he’s unlikely to be sent to prison before his appeals are heard.
The other cases are faring just as poorly. Fani Willis, the lying district attorney prosecuting the Georgia election interference case, could get booted now that an appeals court has agreed to hear Trump’s challenge to have her removed. Either way, it means further delays which will likely prevent the case from going to trial before the election.
The federal case involving classified documents at Mar-a-Lago – which Biden’s Justice Department wanted to fast-track before the election – is also falling apart after delays, revelations that prosecutors mishandled the documents, challenges to the legality of Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel, and the fact that the wheels of justice grind slowly.
The $354 million in penalties in a civil trial for a victimless crime that wasn’t a crime was supposed to wipe out Trump, but didn’t.
And, of course, the Supreme Court seemed to indicate in its questions during oral arguments about Trump’s immunity claim that it could side at least partially with the former president.
You can tell when each one of these anti-Trump bombshells turns out to be a dud from the hair-on-fire reaction from the left. After Judge Aileen Cannon announced a delay in the documents trial to weigh all the complexities involved, which will likely postpone it until after the election, Democrats accused her of “deliberately slow-walking the case.” After the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the government’s arguments in the immunity case, a New York Times columnist said the justices “directly intervened in the 2024 presidential election.”
It seems there is no institution that Democrats won’t tear down in their zeal to “protect democracy.”
So, what is their Plan B? Here are some options we would guess that Democrats are currently considering.
Dump Biden. Democrats know if Trump survives all these legal attacks, he will likely crush Biden. Even in the midst of all this legal wrangling, Trump’s numbers have only solidified while Biden’s continue to sag. We’ve long suspected that swapping Biden out at the last minute has been the Democrats’ plan for some time, especially since mainstream reporters started parroting Democratic talking points about how Biden was 100% guaranteed to be the nominee.
Now the talk of replacing Biden has developed a sense of urgency we haven’t seen before. There is even open speculation that the reason the White House suddenly agreed to debate Trump and do so in June – before either candidate is officially nominated at their conventions – is to give Democrats time to replace Biden if he falls on his face.
Reassemble the election rigging team. After the 2020 elections, Time magazine ran a glowing feature about how a cabal of leftist groups, businessmen, Big Tech, and others “scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined president. … Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding.”
Time was careful to claim that none of this was designed to defeat Trump, but to retain the integrity of the election. Seriously? Who are they kidding?
In any case, evidence is currently emerging that the Biden administration has been using taxpayer money on a government-wide effort to selectively register voters most likely to vote for the Democrat – i.e., rig the election.
Cheat. The reason so many Americans believe that Biden stole the 2020 election is because of the many glaring irregularities that occurred that November, all of which just happened to occur in areas Democrats controlled in swing states that Biden captured by the narrowest of margins. Even if election fraud is widespread and obvious, the same institutions that rallied to “save” the 2020 election will deny it all and accuse anyone who claims otherwise of being an insurrectionist.
Call off the election. Don’t be surprised if things really look bad for Democrats that they start talking about why a free and democratic election must be postponed or canceled because Trump is such a danger to democracy.
The A-word. Democrats have been wishing Trump would die – Biden’s former press secretary, Jenn Psaki, recently dreamed that: “Maybe Donald Trump will go away. Maybe he’ll go to jail. Maybe he will die. Not to be too morbid. But maybe. He’s not a young man.” Could some deranged Democrat actually act on this death wish?
This is all just wild speculation of course. But the one thing you can count on Democrats not doing between now and Nov. 5 is to engage Trump in a debate over policy, Biden’s dismal record as president, or anything substantive.
New Cook Political Report poll looks at how swing-state voters view economic policy, abortion rights, threats to democracy and more
The 2024 White House race is close, but presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump appears to have the edge at the moment thanks in large part to swing-state voters frustrated with President Joe Biden's handling of the U.S. economy, said analysts at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Thursday as they rolled out a new poll.
"While abortion remains a strong issue for Democrats, Biden's advantage on the issue isn't strong enough to offset Trump's overall strength on bringing down the cost of living," wrote CPR's Amy Walter and David Wasserman in an analysis of a poll of seven swing states that they released Thursday.
They said this year's presidential election is currently driven by a traditional issue - the economy. That's after abortion rights were a winning issue for Democratic candidates in 2022's midterm elections as well as in contests in 2023.
CPR's poll found Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head matchup 47% to 44% in the seven states overall. The former president was ahead by a bigger margin of 43% to 38% when other presidential candidates such as independent hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were included.
The survey of 3,969 likely voters was conducted from May 6 to May 13 in collaboration with Democratic polling firm BSG and Republican polling firm GS Strategy Group. The states targeted were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
"When we asked voters which worried them more, Biden setting economic policy or Trump setting policy for abortion rights, 55% said they were more worried about Biden handling the economy than they were about Trump setting policy on abortion (45%)," Walter and Wasserman said. That result from their poll is shown in the above chart, which is titled: "If the election is a choice between opposing Trump on abortion or Biden on [the economy], Trump is currently positioned to win."
Their poll also illustrated how economic concerns are dominating for swing-state voters, as shown in the chart below.
The Biden campaign has been dismissive of some polling, noting Election Day is still around a half year away. When asked earlier this month about surveys for Minnesota and Virginia that the Trump campaign had found encouraging, Biden campaign's director for battleground states, Dan Kanninen, told reporters that he and his colleagues "don't see polls that are six or seven months out from the general election, a head-to-head number certainly, as any more predictive than a weather report is six, seven months out."
CPR's poll found swing-state voters see big risks in a second Trump presidency, with 25% saying Trump will try to become a dictator but America will remain a democracy, and 20% saying Trump will in fact become a dictator.
"Biden's overall weak position, combined with voters' deep worry about rising costs, is currently limiting his ability to make the case that Trump is the bigger risk," according to Walter, CPR's publisher and editor-in-chief; and Wasserman, the organization's senior editor and elections analyst. They said swing-state voters seem "pessimistic not just about the job Biden is doing today, but about his ability to make meaningful and positive change in a second term."
Patrick Toomey, a partner in Democratic polling firm BSG, told CPR that he's "haunted" by the section of the survey focused on the potential for a U.S. dictatorship. "There are significant numbers of voters who appear willing to risk the future of democracy because they believe Trump could help get costs down," Toomey said.
Betting markets tracked by RealClearPolitics on Friday were giving Trump a 50% chance of winning the 2024 presidential election, ahead of Biden at 38%
This week, Israel released an appallingvideofeaturing five female Israeli soldiers taken captive at Nahal Oz military base on October 7. Fearful and bloody, the women beg for their lives while Hamas fighters mill around and alternately threaten to kill them and compliment their appearance. The captors call the women “sabaya,” which Israel translated as “women who can get pregnant.” Almost immediately, others disputed the translation and saidsabayareferred merely to “female captives” and included no reference to their fertility. “The Arabic wordsabaya doesn’t have sexual connotations,” the Al Jazeera journalist Laila Al-Arian wrote in aposton X, taking exception to aWashington Post article that said that it did. She said the Israeli translation was “playing on racist and orientalist tropes about Arabs and Muslims.”
These are real women and victims of ongoing war crimes, so it does seem excessively lurid to suggest, without direct evidence, that they have been raped in captivity for the past several months. (“Eight months,” the Israelis noted, allowing readers to do the gestational math. “Think of what that means for these young women.”) But to assert that sabaya is devoid of sexual connotation reflects ignorance, at best. The word is well attested in classical sources and refers to female captives; the choice of a classical term over a modern one implies a fondness for classical modes of war, which codified sexual violence at scale. Just as concubine and comfort woman carry the befoulments of their historic use, sabaya is straightforwardly associated with what we moderns call rape. Anyone who uses sabaya in modern Gaza or Raqqah can be assumed to have specific and disgusting reasons to want to revive it.
The word sabaya recently reappeared in the modern Arabic lexicon through the efforts of the Islamic State. Unsurprisingly, then, the scholars best equipped for this analysis are the ones who observed and cataloged how ISIS revived sabaya (and many other dormant classical and medieval terms). I refer here to Aymenn J. Al-Tamimi, recently of Swansea University, and to Cole Bunzel of the Hoover Institution, who have both commented on this controversy without sensationalism, except insofar as the potential of sexual enslavement is inherently sensational.
Under classical Islamic jurisprudence on the law of war, the possible fates of enemy captives are four: They can be killed, ransomed, enslaved, or freed. Those enslaved are then subject to the rules that govern slavery in Islam—which are extensive, and are nearly as irrelevant to the daily lives of most living Muslims as the rules concerning slavery in Judaism are to the lives of most Jews. I say “nearly” because Jews have not had a state that sought to regulate slavery for many centuries, but the last majority-Muslim states abolished slavery only in the second half of the 20th century, and the Islamic State enthusiastically resumed the practice in 2014.
In doing so, the Islamic State reaffirmed the privileges, and duties, of the slave owner. (Bunzel observes that the Islamic State cited scholars who used the term sabaya as if captured women were considered slaves by default, and the other fates were implicitly improbable.) The slave owner is responsible for the welfare of the slave, including her food and shelter. He is allowed to have sex with female slaves, but certain rules apply. He may not sell her off until he can confirm that she isn’t pregnant, and he has obligations to her and to their children, if any are born from their union. I cannot stress enough that such relationships—that is, having sex with someone you own—constitute rape in all modern interpretations of the word, and they are frowned upon whether they occur in the Levant, the Hejaz, or Monticello.
But in the premodern context, before the rights revolution that consecrated every person with individual, unalienable worth, sex slavery was unremarkable, and the principal concern was not whether to do it but what to do with the children. The Prophet Muhammad freed a slave after she bore him a child. The Jewish paterfamilias Abraham released his slave Hagar into the desert 14 years after she bore him Ishmael. But these are cases from antiquity, and modern folk see things differently. Frederick Douglass, in the opening of his autobiography, emphasized the inhumanity of American slave owners by noting the abhorrent results of those relationships: fathers hating, owning, abusing, and selling their own kin.
Sabaya is a term in part born of the need to distinguish captives potentially subject to these procreative regulations from those who would be less complicated to own. To translate it as “women who can get pregnant” is regrettably misleading. It makes explicit what the word connotes, namely that these captives fall under a legal category with possibilities distinct from those of their male counterparts. As Al-Tamimi observes, Hamas could just as easily have used a standard Arabic word for female war captives, asirat. This neutral word is used on Arabic Wikipedia, say, for Jessica Lynch, the American prisoner of war from the 2003 Iraq invasion. Instead Hamas used a term with a different history.
One could read too much into the choice of words. No one, to my knowledge, has suggested that Hamas is following the Islamic State by reviving sex slavery as a legal category. I know of no evidence that it has done so, and if it did, I would expect many of the group’s supporters, even those comfortable with its killing of concertgoers and old people, to denounce the group. More likely, a single group of Hamas members used the word in an especially heady moment, during which they wanted to degrade and humiliate their captives as much as possible. Thankfully, the captives appear unaware of the language being used around them. The language suggests that the fighters were open to raping the women, but it could also just be reprehensible talk, after an already coarsening day of mass killing.
Reading too much into the language seems, at this point, to be less of a danger than reading too little into it. As soon as the Israeli translation came out, it was assailed for its inaccuracy, when it was actually just gesturing clumsily at a real, though not easily summarized, historical background. What, if anything, should the translation have said? “Female captives” does not carry the appropriate resonance; “sex-slavery candidates” would err in the other direction and imply too much. Every translation loses something. Is there a word in English that conveys that one views the battered women in one’s control as potentially sexually available? I think probably not. I would be very careful before speaking up to defend the user of such a word.
