Category: Science / Medical Information
News I want to share. 9-14-2026
An update on my not feeling well before I start replying to comments.
I have two stomach issues causing my problems right now. I have gastroparesis and a sensitive stomach that cannot take pressure.
I woke at 1 am with stomach pain and nausea. At 1:30 am I lurched to the toilet to vomit. Everything in my stomach came up, and I felt better after the pressure was relieved. I went back to bed. Then I woke at 4:15 and knew I was going to vomit again. I was bletching a lot but it was not going to be enough pressure release. At 4:30 am I was again voiding my stomach into the toilet. I went back to bed but got up at 5 am anyway.
I drank a cup of water too fast and in 20 minutes it came back up. So I started slower. I had two fiber cookies and slow sips of water. Everything stayed down, and I felt fine if very tired. So at 10 am I am having the other half of my sandwich from last night. My stomach feels very full but I am not nauseated. Ron is getting very worried as he thinks my stomach is getting slower at emptying and that it is becoming more sensitive taking less pressure to cause me pain and being nauseous. Time will tell. Hugs
Political news I want to share. 9-4-2026
Political news I want to share. 8-26-2026
Weak Guys Disrupt WNBA | Beans Talk
This broadcast has important information on the trans issue being pushed by bigots in women’s sports. They discuss how this really is an attack on the rights of all women making them inferior to men in our society. It is part of project 2025 to lower the rights of women using trans people. Hugs
NJ Gov Mikie Sherrill signs expansive bill to fight back in war on trans & reproductive health care
Greg OwenAugust 21, 2026, 3:00 pm EDTNew Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill (D) on Thursday signed a robust defense of transgender rights and women’s bodily autonomy, shielding individuals from out-of-state investigations over medical care associated with gender identity and abortion.“If Greg Abbott or Ron DeSantis tries to investigate someone who came to New Jersey to access care, we will protect anyone seeking care that is legal here in New Jersey from investigations in other states,” Sherrill said at a signing ceremony reported by the New Jersey Monitor.
The jab at the Republican governors of Texas and Florida comes after both have sought the medical records of residents or organizations seeking or providing abortions and gender-affirming care in their own states and others in pursuit of prosecuting them.
The expansive bill passed the New Jersey Assembly and Senate in June in party-line votes. It takes effect immediately.
Addressing both abortion and gender-affirming care in the same bill is the rare instance where Democrats have used transgender rights to their political advantage, building a broader indictment against the Trump administration and its enablers.
“This isn’t just about abortion. Republicans in Washington are trying to control people’s lives. That’s why the White House has relentlessly attacked our transgender community as well,” Sherrill said. “They’ve pulled tactics straight out of the Red Scare playbook to restrict transgender people’s healthcare.”
As well as protecting patients from out-of-state investigations, the law creates a new criminal charge for individuals in New Jersey who block access or intentionally intimidate those seeking gender-affirming or reproductive healthcare at facilities that provide it.
Patients and providers may also sue those who do so for damages, attorney fees, and other relief, a tactic employed by red state legislatures targeting transgender people using restrooms that align with their gender identity.
New Jersey is “a beacon of hope for everyone who understands democracy,” said state Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D), a chief sponsor of the bill and the Senate’s majority leader. “You can’t tell us what we can read on a library shelf but want to be up in our uterus in an exam room,” she said.
The bill’s signing comes as the Trump administration scored a win this week in its effort to subpoena the records of a Washington State-based telehealth clinic that provides gender-affirming care. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Department of Justice administrative subpoena seeking the personal and confidential health records of trans youth who have used the service.
The department has issued at least 20 subpoenas to gender-affirming care providers in its anti-trans intimidation campaign. Challenges to the subpoenas have overwhelmingly prevailed, with judges labeling the efforts a “fishing expedition” intended to “harass” and “intimidate,” and to end gender-affirming care through “fear.”
Simone Kraus, a transgender woman from Sussex County, called the new law in New Jersey “a profound milestone.”
“As a trans woman who has walked this path, who knows the deeply personal and necessary journey of receiving gender-confirmation surgery, this hits home in a way policies and legal briefs rarely can capture,” she said. “New Jersey is making it clear today that what happens in a doctor’s office is strictly between the patients and the doctors. Politicians do not have a say.”
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Political news I want to share. 8-19-2026.
‘Graveyard for Grants’: NIH Is Holding Up Medical Research Funding
https://www.notus.org/health-science/nih-holding-up-medical-research-funding-status-19
Hundreds of grants, including for maternal health, contraceptives and drug abuse, are in limbo, subject to political reviews.
The Trump administration is implementing more political oversight of grants. Alex Brandon/AP
It used to be that once a National Institutes of Health grant award hit “status 19,” the money was about to go out the door.
That’s not the case anymore. The Trump administration has enacted an unprecedented political review process, pushing hundreds of awards into limbo. Status 19 — an administrative code describing awards with senior leadership sign-off — is being used as the holding cell.
Current and former career staff say this extra review by senior leaders is occurring after grants have undergone peer review, been approved by multiple offices in NIH, and screened for red-flag words around race, gender or other behavioral and social sciences. The extra political reviews are required not only for newly funded grants but also for annual payment installments for previously awarded projects.
As a result, some grants are lingering in status 19 for weeks or even months, gumming up the works as grant officers try to get awards out the door ahead of the new fiscal year starting in October. Flagged grants reviewed by NOTUS had to do with maternal health, contraceptive use, aging, dementia and opioid abuse.
“The notion that Francis Collins or Mike Lauer would ever have reviewed individual grants like this is so beyond the realm of comprehension,” a senior career staffer said, referring to the former directors of NIH and its Office of Extramural Research. “It’s laughable to me.”
A second senior NIH official called status 19 a “graveyard for grants.” The NIH staffers were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak to the media.
As one of the largest grant funders in the federal government, NIH’s process is a prime example of how the Trump administration is implementing more political oversight of grants across a wide swath of agencies, even as its efforts to formalize those reviews face pushback.
Senate Republicans voted to temporarily block a White House regulation to formalize political review, which has already led to delays in posting and awarding grants at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Department of Interior and other agencies.
Researchers, patient advocates and biotech companies are outraged by the proposed regulation, which the White House is seeking to implement by Oct. 1 but could be blocked until December if the House also approves a delay.
Senior NIH leaders sent around a new agency review flowchart in May outlining additional steps once an award hits status 19. The flowchart, viewed by NOTUS, mandates a review by the NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) and an HHS counselor before grantees are given a notice of award. There are no political appointees at OER, but its director reports to NIH Director and Trump appointee Jay Bhattacharya.
As a result of the extra reviews, the number of grants sitting for weeks in status 19 have surged. Around 8% of new grant awards are sitting in status 19 for anywhere from two to seven weeks, according to internal data shared with NOTUS.
In past years, around 11% of first-time awards had been released to the recipients within a week. This year, it’s 2%.
The delays are even more pronounced for annual payment installments for ongoing grants. The vast majority previously left status 19 within three days; now it takes 53 days to get 90% of payments out the door.
Lauer, who served as NIH’s extramural research director from 2015 to February 2025, said he couldn’t recall a time when a political appointee — including the NIH director — halted awarding of a research grant after it had gone through the review and approval process.
“Status 19 was not something I thought about,” Lauer told NOTUS.
NIH career staff stress that by the time grant awards reach status 19, they have been through dozens of editing and review steps. They’ve undergone peer review and a second look by an advisory council. Grant officers have gone through a checklist, including confirming that women and racial minorities have been appropriately included, something required by statute.
In grants reviewed by NOTUS, HHS or EOR staff flagged words including “diverse,” “equity,” “structural” and “underrepresented” and asked for clarification about what the researchers meant by them. In one project, a staffer wrote that the word “structural” could include concepts that are inconsistent with NIH priorities.
They asked for more clarification in projects that focused on health disparities or racial groups. Officials wrote that focusing on specific racial groups required more justification. In one project that expressed support for scholars and researchers from a variety of backgrounds, an official responded that the language could raise legal concerns if interpreted as targeting people based on demographics.
In multiple flagged grants, officials expressed concerns that they weren’t worth funding because their only practical use might be to support the writing of new laws.
HHS spokeswoman Emily Hilliard disputed the notion that status 19 is being used to hold up grants under extra political reviews. She said grants can remain in status 19 for five to 10 days while they are given final review by the Office of Extramural Research.
“There is no political appointee review stage in the NIH grant review process,” Hilliard said in a statement. “OER’s review is a longstanding part of NIH’s grant review process.”
Lauer said releasing grant money might face occasional delays, but it was almost always because Congress had failed to pass a budget for NIH, leading to uncertainty about how much total grant funding would be available.
Trump appointees are also conducting extra layers of review to the notices posted by the government to let researchers know money is available for specific projects or programs. Researchers say they’ve seen more delays in posting those notices — another obstacle in getting grant funding out the door.
“It’s this black box of HHS review,” said Colleen Kelley, an associate dean for research at Emory University.
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Political news and stuff I want to share. 8-12-2026
Scottie's Playtime 