CDC tracked your phones, FDA annual COVID shots, Pfizer kid vaccines, Parents hesitant, Eco-friendly kid product warning, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Propaganda Exposed, MRNA danger signals, How gardening can improve your health and MORE!

May 4th, 2022 3-5PM ET

Wednesday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:

CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders Newly released documents showed the CDC planned to use phone location data to monitor schools and churches, and wanted to use the data for many non-COVID-19 purposes, too. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States to perform analysis of compliance with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation, according to CDC documents obtained by Motherboard. The documents also show that although the CDC used COVID-19 as a reason to buy access to the data more quickly, it intended to use it for more-general CDC purposes. Location data is information on a device’s location sourced from the phone, which can then show where a person lives, works, and where they went. The sort of data the CDC bought was aggregated—meaning it was designed to follow trends that emerge from the movements of groups of people—but researchers have repeatedly raised concerns with how location data can be deanonymized and used to track specific people. The documents reveal the expansive plan the CDC had last year to use location data from a highly controversial data broker. SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.

FDA officials say annual Covid-19 shots may be needed in the future The United States might need to update its Covid-19 vaccines each year, according to a trio of top US Food and Drug Administration officials, and “a new normal” may include an annual Covid-19 vaccine alongside a seasonal flu shot. “Widespread vaccine- and infection-induced immunity, combined with the availability of effective therapeutics, could blunt the effects of future outbreaks. Nonetheless, it is time to accept that the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is the new normal. It will likely circulate globally for the foreseeable future, taking its place alongside other common respiratory viruses such as influenza. And it likely will require similar annual consideration for vaccine composition updates,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research; Principal Deputy Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock; and new FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf wrote in a paper published in the medical journal JAMA on Monday. “During the 2022-2023 COVID-19 vaccine planning and selection process, it is important to recognize that the fall season will present a major opportunity to improve COVID-19 vaccination coverage with the goal of minimizing future societal disruption and saving lives,” they wrote. “With the plan for implementation of this year’s vaccine selection process, society is moving toward a new normal that may well include annual COVID-19 vaccination alongside seasonal influenza vaccination.”

Pfizer hopes to submit little-kid vaccine data by early June Pfizer now hopes to tell U.S. regulators how well its COVID-19 vaccine works in the littlest kids by late May or early June. Pfizer is testing three extra-small doses of its vaccine in children under 5 after two shots didn’t prove quite strong enough. Initial results had been expected last month but the company laid out the latest timeline Tuesday during its discussion of quarterly financial results. Currently in the U.S., only children ages 5 or older can be vaccinated, using Pfizer’s vaccine — leaving 18 million younger tots unprotected. Rival Moderna hopes to be the first to offer vaccinations for the youngest children. Last week, it filed with the Food and Drug Administration data it hopes will prove two of its low-dose shots work in children younger than 5. Moderna also has filed FDA applications for older kids, although the agency hasn’t ruled on them. The FDA already has set tentative dates in June to publicly review data on COVID-19 vaccines for tots under 5, from either or both companies.

Fewer than 1 in 5 US parents say they’ll get Covid-19 vaccines for kids under 5 as soon as they can, survey finds US children under 5 are getting closer to authorized Covid-19 vaccines, but most parents may be reluctant to actually get them when they become available, a new survey found. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Vaccine Monitor survey, published Wednesday, only 18% of parents of children under 5 said they would vaccinate their child against Covid-19 as soon as a vaccine was available. Nearly 40% of parents of young children said they would “wait and see” before vaccinating their child, 11% said they would get the vaccine only if required, and 27% said they would “definitely not” vaccinate their child against Covid-19. More than half of parents in this age group said they “don’t have enough information about the safety and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines for children in this age group,” compared with 34% of parents of children ages 5-11 and 25% of parents of children ages 12-17. About 13% of parents of young children said the US Food and Drug Administration’s delay in authorizing a vaccine in this age group made them less confident about its safety, and 22% said it made them more confident. There were similar findings among parents of older children. For the 5 to 11 age group, 39% of parents said their children were vaccinated, and 32% said their children would definitely not be vaccinated. Among parents of children 12 to 17, 56% said their kids had been vaccinated, and 31% said they definitely will not have their children vaccinated.

Many eco-friendly children’s products found to contain toxic PFAS chemicals With more consumers demanding products free of toxic ingredients, discerning which ones might be harmful and which ones are safe isn’t easy. A new study shows many children’s products, including those with green certifications, contain harmful PFAS chemicals that were not listed on the label. The findings demonstrate the pervasiveness of PFAS in products and the challenges for consumers trying to avoid toxic chemicals in their everyday lives. Studies have linked PFAS with a range of health effects including cancers, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, low birth weight, and asthma. There is also evidence that PFAS can suppress the immune system, potentially weakening the effectiveness of childhood vaccines and the body’s ability to fight infections. “Children’s bodies are still developing and are especially sensitive to chemical exposures,” says co-author Dr. Laurel Schaider, senior scientist at Silent Spring Institute. “It makes sense that parents would want to steer clear of products that contain ingredients that could impact their children’s health now and in the future.” For instance, consumers often look for products labeled as “green” or “nontoxic” when trying to avoid toxic chemicals. Schaider and her colleagues wanted to learn whether that’s an effective strategy for avoiding products with PFAS or whether there are other ways of determining if a product contains PFAS.

Hour 2 – Special Guests Ty and Charlene Bollinger!

Study into mRNA vaccine death rates sends ‘danger signals’ Do the covid vaccines save lives? That is the question on many people’s minds, that has led to heated discussions across the world. A bombshell new study by a distinguished team of Danish researchers led by Prof. Christine Stabell-Benn suggests a surprisingly nuanced answer. In the randomized trials of the covid vaccines, the adenovector-based vaccines, including the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, reduced all-cause mortality of study participants relative to people randomly assigned a placebo. Indeed, the reduction in mortality is larger than expected from the Covid effect and may suggest additional beneficial “non-specific effects” from those vaccines against other health threats. On the other hand, Stabell-Benn and her colleagues found no statistically meaningful evidence in the trial data that the mRNA vaccines reduced all-cause mortality. The numbers of deaths from other causes including cardiovascular deaths appear to be increased in this group, compensating for the beneficial effect of the vaccines on Covid. Stabell-Benn is keen to stress that the sample is relatively small and is calling for further investigation, and also that the study took place during very low levels of Covid, so the relative advantage of protection against Covid would have been smaller at that time compared to at other points in the pandemic.

How Gardening Can Improve Your Health When it comes to warm-weather activities that are good for your health, you probably think of walking, hiking or running. But there’s another beloved pastime that holds a lot of benefits with a bonus to boot: Gardening. Even if you don’t have the greenest of thumbs, there are many health benefits — both physical and mental — that come with digging into the soil and doing some planting. And that bonus? You get exercise and yield a basket of tomatoes, peppers or any number of other fruits, veggies or decorative plants. But some fear that gardening could be harmful to your body, like to your spine. But don’t worry. To get the low-down on how gardening does you good and tips to get you started, we spoke to neurosurgeon and spine specialist Deborah Benzil, MD. The health benefits of gardening cover a wide range, according to Dr. Benzil, and they work in tandem toward one essential goal: preventing osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is a condition in which your bones weaken, losing mass and strength and putting them at greater risk of fractures. Affecting over 50 million people in the U.S. alone, it’s most prominent in people over 50 years of age, and affects more women than men.