The new anti-vaccine movie “Died Suddenly” begins with an ominous warning: “This film is not suitable for children.”

Another warning to viewers would have been warranted, too — that the film’s claims are unsubstantiated and linked to conspiracy theories. 

“Died Suddenly” was produced by Stew Peters, a far-right radio show host with a history of spreading conspiracy theories about COVID-19. A previous Peters film, “Watch the Water,” made the Pants on Fire claim that the coronavirus is a synthetic snake venom spread via COVID-19 vaccines and drinking water.

The new film, released Nov. 21, revives several debunked claims and repackages them to allege that COVID-19 vaccines are part of a depopulation scheme by global elites who want to establish a global regime.

Read more at PolitiFact.

Twitter said it will no longer enforce its longstanding Covid misinformation policy, yet another sign of how Elon Musk plans to transform the social media company he bought a month ago.

In 2020, Twitter developed an extensive set of rules that sought to prohibit “harmful misinformation” about the virus and its vaccines.

Between January 2020 and September 2022, Twitter suspended more than 11,000 accounts for breaking Covid misinformation rules and removed almost 100,000 pieces of content that violated those rules, according to statistics published by Twitter. The policy received acclaim from medical professionals: In an advisory to technology platforms, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy cited Twitter’s rules as an example of what companies should do to combat misinformation.

Read more at CNN.

Americans gathered for Thanksgiving last week amid a flu season that’s worse than any has been in more than a decade, and experts continue to urge caution as multiple respiratory viruses circulate at high levels nationwide.

A growing number of US states – now 33 – are experiencing “high” or “very high” respiratory virus activity, and seasonal flu activity continues to be “elevated across the country,” according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the week ending November 19, nearly 1 in 10 deaths nationwide (9.4%) was due to pneumonia, influenza or Covid-19 – well above the seasonal baseline of about 6%. And the CDC estimates that there have been at least 6.2 million illnesses, 53,000 hospitalizations and 2,900 deaths from influenza this season.

Read more at CNN.

MONDAY, Nov. 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) — When pregnant women contract COVID-19, one in 10 will have moderate, severe or even critical symptoms, a new study finds.

So it’s important they get their COVID vaccines, experts say.

“Given that patients in all trimesters of pregnancy are susceptible to infection and severe respiratory illness from COVID-19, these findings add urgency to the need for vaccination of all pregnant individuals,” said study co-author Dr. Rachel Schell. She’s an assistant instructor in obstetrics and gynecology at UT Southwestern in Dallas.

An estimated 182,000 pregnant women have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the United States during the pandemic to this point. Past research has shown they have an increased risk of severe and critical disease compared to people who are not pregnant.

Read more at U.S. News.

White House public health officials offered cautious optimism that Americans could begin to move on from coronavirus, but cautioned that keeping immunity vaccination up to date and combating scientific disinformation remained key for the country to successfully emerge from the three-year Covid-19 pandemic.

“If you look at where we were a year ago at this time, when [coronavirus variant] Omicron started to surge, we were having 800,000 to 900,000 infections and 3,000 to 4,000 deaths [a day]. Today, we had less than 300 deaths. Yesterday, we had 350 deaths, and … anywhere from 27,000 to 45,000 cases” Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the US president, said.

“That is much, much better than we were a year ago. But if you look at it in a vacuum, it’s still not a great place to be,” Fauci told CBS Face the Nation on Sunday.

Read more at The Guardian.

Already facing a challenging respiratory season, pediatricians in Ohio are now dealing with another foe: measles.

According to statistics provided to ABC News by the Columbus Public Health Department (CPHD), as of Tuesday afternoon, 19 children have contracted the virus.

Nearly half of these children were hospitalized due to severe symptoms of the infection. Almost half were under five years old.

The rate of children requiring hospitalization during this outbreak was nearly double what’s typically seen during measles outbreaks, Dr. Matthew Washam, pediatrician and chief of epidemiology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, told ABC News.

Read more at ABC.

Beginning today, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will send text and email reminders to approximately 132,579 parents and guardians of children aged 6 months through 5 years old whose records in the Colorado Immunization Information System show they may be due for their annual flu vaccine.

State health officials are working to increase flu vaccine uptake statewide since officials believe that this flu season could be more severe than we have seen in years.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show seasonal flu activity is elevated across the country.

According to the CDPHE, Colorado’s hospitalization rates are now ahead of the 2017-2018 flu season (the most severe on record). In some southeastern states, flu hospitalization rates are already at levels seen during the fall 2009 H1N1 pandemic.

Read more at KRDO.

The White House on Tuesday encouraged Americans to talk about COVID-19 vaccination at the Thanksgiving table, insisting that widespread vaccination could prevent almost every coronavirus death in the country. 

At a press briefing, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha rolled out the Biden administration’s plan for a “six-week sprint” to convince Americans to take the updated COVID-19 vaccine shots before the end of the year. The campaign includes hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding for community health centers to increase the pace of vaccinations, but Jha said every American needs to “step up” and be involved in conversations on vaccination as well.

“Bottom line is that we’re doing everything we can in the next six weeks to help families get their updated COVID shots by the end of the year, because it’s the best protection for this winter,” Jha said, adding that the latest iteration of the COVID-19 vaccine is a “once a year shot,” similar to the flu shot. 

Read more at Fox News.

Don’t be surprised if you come in contact with a few uninvited guests around the Thanksgiving table this year.

What’s happening: The threat of a “tripledemic” collision of flu, COVID and RSV cases has arrived just in time for the holidays — and the chances of getting sick this season are high.

• Meanwhile, local health workers on the front lines are seeing an unprecedented number of patients as staff levels remain squeezed.

What they’re saying: “All of our ERs are basically seeing volumes 30, 40 to sometimes even 50% above even the highest numbers that we’ve seen in previous seasons,” Kevin Carney, associate chief medical officer with Children’s Hospital Colorado, which has four Front Range facilities, told CPR.

Read more at Axios.

When women started reporting longer periods and heavier-than-normal bleeding after getting Covid vaccines last year, there was little data to back it up.

Although they made up around half the participants in Covid vaccine trials, women were not asked about any menstrual changes as part of that process. Since then, several studies have revealed that Covid vaccines can indeed induce short-term changes in menstrual cycles.

So a growing chorus of researchers is calling for further study of vaccines’ effects on menstruation. Collecting this type of data during the Covid vaccine trials, they say, could have prevented distress among those who experienced abnormal changes to their cycles and assuaged fears about the shots at a time when misinformation abounded.

Read more at NBC.