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The MAHA movement wants to name one of its own as Americas top doctor. U.S. surgeon general nominee Casey Means fielded questions about vaccines, autism research, and her own qualifications before Congress this week, a critical moment in the Trump administrations quest to remake Americas health systems. In her opening statements on Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Means expressed concerns about the proliferation of preventable disease that plagues Americans, including chronic illness, diabetes, and high blood pressure. During the hearing, Means touched on many policy priorities she shares with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other figures in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, better known as MAHAa spin on Trumps MAGA branding. As surgeon general, I would call on every American and the Public Health Service to join in a great national healingone that halts preventable chronic disease, makes healthy living the easiest choice, honors the bodys connection to the environment, and puts America back on the road toward wholeness and health, Means said. MAHA Controversy surrounds Means A close ally and adviser of Kennedy, Means would be an anomalyas the first U.S. surgeon general who lacks an active medical license. Without an active medical license, doctors cannot see patients or write prescriptions. And Means says she has no plans to reactivate it, even if she is confirmed. Historically, practicing physicians with years of experience take on the role as Americas top public health communicator, but the qualification is tradition, not a requirement. Means, a 38-year-old wellness influencer, graduated from Stanford Universitys medical school but left her surgical residency program at Oregon Health & Science University before completing it. Left my residency in my 5th year to focus on the real root causes of why Americans are so sick, Means, who was previously an otolaryngology resident, wrote on her LinkedIn page. Public health leadership must address the evidence-based, modifiable drivers of chronic diseases, including ultra-processed diet, industrial chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, chronic stress and loneliness, and overmedicalization, Means said. I have been asked to help our nation get healthy and answer the call of millionsespecially motherswho are begging for transparency and support. That is what I am here to do.” Means cashed in on health trends Beyond her lack of experience as a practicing physician, Means is an untraditional surgeon general choice in other ways. She is a cofounder and former chief medical officer of the health tech startup Levels, which makes a popular app that helps people monitor their blood glucose levels continuously. Levels has raised funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other prominent Silicon Valley investors. In excerpts from her book, Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health, Means has extolled the virtues of monitoring blood sugar to shift eating habits and reduce global metabolic suffering. Blood glucose monitoring isnt the only health business Means has cashed in on. The surgeon general nominee has also made hundreds of thousands of dollars by promoting supplements, vitamins, and wellness products through her newsletter and social media channelsoften without disclosing her paid partnerships. Those lucrative relationships pose sticky and unprecedented ethical questions for someone seeking to shape the national health conversation as Americas next surgeon general. A MAHA-friendly vaccine message Like other members of the MAHA movement, Means emphasizes personal habits and mindful eating, criticizing common pharmaceutical and medical interventions as a corporate cash grab. A prolific blogger, Means mixes sound sciencelike recent research on the risks of alcoholwith dubious claims sowing concerns about the dangers of vaccines. There is growing evidence that the total burden of the current extreme and growing vaccine schedule is causing health declines in vulnerable children, Means wrote in a newsletter published last year, echoing a core concern of the anti-vaccine movement. On Wednesday, Means faced direct questions over her beliefs about autism and vaccines from Republicans and Democrats alike. During the hearing, Means claimed that anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message while suggesting that the link between the autism crisis and vaccines remains unexplored. Hinting at a possible link between autism and vaccines without scientific evidence denies established research on the topic and can dissuade adults and parents from seeking potentially lifesaving vaccinations. The American Medical Association wrote last year that an abundance of evidence from decades of scientific studies shows no link between vaccines and autism and urged people to seek vaccines, which have been proven to be safe and effective. This week, 15 states announced that they would sue the Trump administration over its decision to pare down federal recommendations for childhood vaccines. While vaccinations for measles, polio, and whooping cough are still recommended for all children, federal health policies no longer recommend jabs for COVID-19, rotavirus, meningitis, hepatitis A, or hepatitis B across the board. During her hearing, Means was pressed repeatedly to articulate her position on childhood vaccinesprobably the most contentious issue to emerge out of Kennedys MAHA movement. Means, who previously called the practice of giving newborns the hepatitis B vaccine absolute insanity, emphasized parent and patient choice over universal public health policies designed to protect Americans at large. “I do believe that each patient, mother, parent, needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they’re putting in their body or their children’s body, Means said.
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E-Commerce
If youve been caught up in the cottage cheese craze, take heed: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that you toss tubs of cottage cheese purchased from Walmart stores in 24 states because of concerns the ingredients werent fully pasteurized. The FDA issued an alert Thursday of a voluntary recall of Great Value brand cottage cheese made by Saputo Cheese USA, though no illnesses or hospitalizations associated with the recalled dairy products have been reported. The recall affects Great Value cottage cheese products with milkfat content of 0%, 2%, and 4%, various curd sizes, and containers ranging from 16 ounces to 3 pounds that were distributed to Walmart stores earlier this month. The issue was discovered by Saputo Cheese, the manufacturer, during pasteurizer troubleshooting exercises and the impacted pasteurizer was subsequently fixed and returned to normal function, according to the recall details. The FDA is recommending that people not eat the affected Great Value cottage cheese and either throw away the tub or return it to the Walmart store where you purchased it. Consuming products that are not fully pasteurized can pose a significant health risk, especially to the young and elderly or immunocompromised individuals, the FDA advisory cautions. The affected products have best if used by dates in early April and were sold at Walmart stores in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. A lack of full pasteurization is a very atypical reason for an FDA recall. In fact, Thursdays cottage cheese recall is the first instance among 850-plus recalls since March 2023 in which the reason cited was not fully pasteurized. COTTAGE CHEESE CRAZE Cottage cheese has become a favorite among social media foodie types in recent years thanks to its high protein content. Americans consumed roughly 2.4 pounds of cottage cheese in 2024, the most in 15 years, according to the latest figures on per-capita dairy consumption released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While cottage cheese is having a renaissance of sorts, it hasnt yet returned to its 1970s glory days when Americans were eating 4.6 pounds, on average. In January, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced new dietary guidelines that redesigned the food pyramid and encouraged Americans to consume more dairy, and particularly full-fat dairy, than in the recent past. Thursdays recall announcement and the FDAs warning about consuming food that isnt fully pasteurized might seem at odds with some additional rhetoric from the Trump administration. Before he was appointed Health Secretary Kennedy posted on X in October 2024 that he intended to end what he termed the FDAs war on public health and called out the administrations aggressive suppression of a variety of products including raw milk, which is unpasteurized. The FDA falls under the Department of Health and Human Services and is led by Dr. Marty Makary, the commissioner. Any progress on creating standards for raw milk, as advocates were banking on, hasnt happened yet and isnt among the dozens of accomplishments that Makary touts on his X account for his first year as commissioner. Neither Makary nor Kennedy have publicly commented about the cottage cheese recall.
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E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Since the 2008 housing bust and subsequent Great Financial Crisis (GFC), mortgage lending has steadily shifted away from big banks. In the years that followedamid tighter regulations, higher capital requirements, and elevated litigation riskmany large banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, reduced their mortgage footprint. In that void, nonbank lenders, also known as independent mortgage banks (IMBs), such as Rocket Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), and LoanDepot, gained market share. Now, a top Federal Reserve official is openly questioning whether policy and regulation went too farand is signaling that a policy shift may be coming. In a February 16 speech at the American Bankers Associations Community Bankers Conference, the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision, Michelle Bowman, pointed to what she described as a significant migration of mortgage origination and servicing out of the banking sector over the past 15 years. According to Bowman: In 2008, banks originated around 60% of mortgages and held the servicing rights on about 95% of mortgage balances. In 2023, banks originated around 35% of mortgages and held the servicing rights on about 45% of mortgage balances. Thats pretty in line with the data ResiClub pulled from the U.S. Department of the Treasury. During her speech, Bowman suggested that post-2013 capital rulesparticularly the treatment of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs)* under Basel standards**may have contributed to the mortgage retreat by banks. MSRs, which represent the expected value of servicing income when loans are sold into securitizations, were assigned higher risk weights and subject to deduction thresholds after the crisis. While regulators tightened those rules over concerns about valuation volatility and model risk, the capital treatment also made servicing and, by extension, mortgage origination less economically attractive for banks. The result, Bowman implied, is a mortgage market increasingly concentrated in nonbank firms that lack deposit funding and operate under different supervisory and resolution frameworks. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Bowman said, borrowers with bank servicers were more likely to receive forbearance than those serviced by nonbankshighlighting structural differences that can matter during stress periods, she says. Bowman previewed potential changes now under consideration, including removing the deduction requirement for MSRs and making mortgage capital rules more sensitive to loan-to-value (LTV) ratios rather than applying a uniform risk weight. Such changes would not unwind post-crisis reforms but could modestly improve the economics of bank mortgage activity, Bowman says. Here’s what Bowman said in her February 16 speech: Two regulatory proposals will soon be introduced that, among other broader changes to the regulatory capital framework, would increase bank incentives to engage in mortgage origination and servicing. First, the proposals would remove the requirement to deduct mortgage servicing assets from regulatory capital while maintaining the 250% risk weight assigned to these assets. We will seek comment on the appropriate risk weight for these assets. This change in the treatment of mortgage servicing assets would encourage bank participation in the mortgage servicing business while recognizing uncertainty regarding the value of these assets over the economic cycle. “Second, the proposals would also consider increasing the risk sensitivity of capital requirements for mortgage loans on bank books. One approach would be to use loan-to-value ratios to determine the applicable risk weight for residential real estate exposures, rather than applying a uniform risk weight regardless of LTV. This change could better align capital requirements with actual risk, support on-balance-sheet lending by banks, and potentially reverse the trend of migration of mortgage activity to nonbanks over the past 15 years. James Kleimann, founder of The Mortgage Scoop, writes in a recent newsletter: This stuff is quite complicated, but basically, the Fed is weighing a plan to remove the rule that banks must deduct MSR assets from regulatory capital while maintaining a 250% risk weight for those assets. In plain English, that means regulators treat $1 of MSRs like $2.50 of risky assets. What the appropriate risk weight level should be remains the central question, but this potential change is something the MBA [Mortgage Bankers Association] has been arguing in favor of for years. Big picture: If adopted, the proposals could mark the beginning of a gradual rebalancing in housing financeone that brings more mortgage origination and servicing back inside the traditional banking system after more than a decade of migration outward.
Category:
E-Commerce
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