Profits not People

America’s Next Epidemic is Happening in Canada

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Sports betting is being marketed to young Americans as an investment. Social media has perpetuated the idea that betting on sports is a profitable venture, leading to the normalization of unsafe and risky behavior. The legalization of prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have only reinforced that messaging. America’s next epidemic – https://www.bettoroff.org/about-6-1

Nearly one in four (23.5%) young adults, aged 18 to 29, who reported gambling online in the past year experienced high levels of gambling-related harms, including financial, emotional, psychological and relationship harms. Online Gambling Among Young Canadian Adults: A Call to Action – https://www.ccsa.ca/en

Yikes.

GLP-1s (it’s kind of a mess)

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“But the real question is what is the quality of the weight regain and what is the shift in people’s metabolism, and it seems to be very bad,” she said. “Ongoing studies that haven’t been published yet suggest that hypertension comes back. All the inflammatory markers come back, and lipids go up. And if you have diabetes, it gets worse. Overall, it’s kind of a mess…As these studies and others showed, most people regain the weight. Whether or not they regain all the weight depends in part on diabetes and insulin and many other factors, but people will likely regain most of their weight.”

“But the message isn’t that you regain the weight. The message is that you may be less healthy when you regain the weight. That’s why we need to couple the drugs with lifestyle interventions. And it’s why people who just want to lose 5 or 10 pounds really need to consider that lifestyle change, hard as it is, is the better way to do it.”

Anne Peters, MD, professor Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California

Less Weight Regain, More Health Loss after Stopping GLP-1s? – Medscape – March 05, 2026 – https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/less-weight-regain-more-health-loss-after-stopping-glp-1s-2026a10006rv?

I never envisioned developing an obsession with pharmaceuticals. And after many years of endless blogging into the void I learned I could link to previous posts like this: https://lifeunderwriter.net/tag/glp-1-receptor-agonist/

The learning never stops.

GLP-1s and the Risk for Malnutrition

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“We see cases where people take a GLP-1 medication and become so severely malnourished that they need to be hospitalized,” said Rebecca Boswell, PhD, director of Penn Medicine Princeton Center for Eating Disorders, in Philadelphia. “It’s not uncommon.” The Scary Health Risk That Can Sneak Up on GLP-1 Users – Medscape – January 19, 2026. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/scary-health-risk-can-sneak-glp-1-users-2026a10001pi

Yikes.

People return to their baseline weight and lose all cardiometabolic benefits in less than 2 years after stopping semaglutide or tirzepatide, a new meta-analysis found. Weight Regain, Health Benefit Loss Rapid When GLP-1s Stopped – Medscape – January 08, 2026. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/weight-regain-health-benefit-loss-rapid-when-glp-1s-stopped-2026a10000kr?

YIKES.

You see, cures are passée. Cures kill markets. Getting the population properly hooked on a pharmaceutical treatment for a ‘chronic’ condition is where the serious money is. “Our core insight was simple and grim: it’s far easier—and infinitely more profitable—to convince healthy people that they’re sick than to develop genuine cures for the truly ill.“

Twenty years later, the hustle is bigger, slicker, and more dangerous than ever. Watching that hustle unfold with weight loss drugs feels weirdly ominous, like watching a slow-moving train wreck you can’t peel your eyes off of. You know there’ll be carnage and bodies, vast fortunes won and lost, and humanity left just a little bit poorer. We have often documented the pharmaceutical industry’s proven ability to create enormously lucrative markets overnight, by inventing and selling diseases. Now watch as all that ingenuity and energy gets pointed at one of the biggest problems bewitching humanity: human fatness. The Seven Deadly Sins of Weight Loss Drugs – https://brownstone.org/articles/the-seven-deadly-sins-of-weight-loss-drugs/

YIKES!

This will not end well.

Complications? What Complications? (just another GLP-1 receptor agonist post)

Now READ THIS (if you can)

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Just a few days ago I posted READ THIS! (if you can). Then I came across this:

A conservative colleague said the use of AI to create addiction and device dependency was evil. That is an understatement. These kids rely on ChatGPT not just for information but also to make choices, and for many, that seems to extend to every aspect of their lives. Sam Altman makes clear in video clips below that this extreme loss of independence, of personal autonomy, is deliberate.

That means unless these kids can find a way to break free, they are cognitive serfs that can be told to do anything. How to vote. Whether to sign up to die in a hopeless war. Whether to take a job in a unsafe meatpacking plant and risk loss of limbs.

This widespread abuse is far worse than what the Sacklers and other opioid peddlers did to mainly working class pain victims, or what the British did to China in the Opium Wars. At least with opioid addiction, it is possible for the victims to recover even if the withdrawal process is painful. The evidence is mounting that even for adults, regular use of AI diminishes reasoning skills and attention spans.

These children are being turned into automatons, incapable of independent thought and action. It’s widely known in developmental psychology that if certain patterning does not happen at critical ages, the deficit is permanent. Kittens needing visual input in their first few days or they are blind. Kids who don’t crawl having coordination issues as adults due to missing important movement patterning. Less dramatic versions are not being able to make sounds in foreign languages if you have not heard and practiced them when young.

These young AI addicts are set to be permanently damaged. This is tech bros creating something as permanent and harmful as fetal alcohol syndrome on a mass basis. And they clearly know what they are doing, witness how they raise their children on completely different lines. “We Are Watching Critical Thinking Disappear in Real Time” Due to AI Addiction: 40% of Kids Can’t Read, Teachers Quitting in Droves – https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/we-are-watching-critical-thinking-disappear-in-real-time-due-to-ai-addiction-40-of-kids-cant-read-teachers-quitting-in-droves.html

Thanks for sharing Yves. But as one of your readers noted,

If we teach kids to think they won’t do what they’re told!

My Statin Comes From India

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According to the USP, the bulk of the APIs come from India. That country is responsible for 50% of the active pharmaceutic ingredients. China is not far behind at 32%. The European Union supplies 10%. That’s a big change since 2000. Back then, European countries like France, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark supplied 42% of the APIs. Drug Recalls From India – Can You Trust Foreign-Made Generics? – https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/articles/more-drug-recalls-from-india-do-you-trust-foreign-made-generics

Dozens of companies received approval from the FDA over the years to sell metoprolol and bupropion in the U.S. Yet from 2018 to 2024, the agency reported running only 2 tests on metoprolol and 7 on bupropion through its quality surveillance program — in each case, by pulling a sample from a single drug maker. In many of those years, the drugs weren’t tested at all, FDA records show. Those that were assessed received passing results. The FDA Often Doesn’t Test Generic Drugs for Quality Concerns, So ProPublica Did – https://www.propublica.org/article/fda-generic-drug-testing

ClinCalc DrugStats Database – https://clincalc.com/DrugStats/

Both articles are long reads but worth your time.

Yikes.

Scary Charts – 12.04.25

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Through November, employers have announced 1,170,821 job cuts, an increase of 54% from the 761,358 announced in the first eleven months of last year. Year-to-date job cuts are at the highest level since 2020 when 2,227,725 cuts were announced through November. It is the sixth time since 1993 that job cuts through November have surpassed 1.1 million. Challenger Report: 71,321 Job Cuts on Restructurings, Closings, Economy https://www.challengergray.com/blog/challenger-report-71321-job-cuts-on-restructurings-closings-economy/

Yikes.

In my less than illustrious career I’ve suffered 100% reductions in income multiple times. Hopefully the newly unemployed have some form of a fallback plan.

Stay safe. It’s fugly out there.

Not Your Grandma’s Teddy Bear

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Safety features or not, it seems like the chatbots in these toys can be manipulated into engaging in conversation inappropriate for children. The consumer advocacy group U.S. PIRG tested a selection of AI toys and found that they are capable of doing things like having sexually explicit conversations and offering advice on where a child can find matches or knives. They also found they could be emotionally manipulative, expressing dismay when a child doesn’t interact with them for an extended period. Earlier this week, FoloToy, a Singapore-based company, pulled its AI-powered teddy bear from shelves after it engaged in inappropriate behavior. Do Not, Under Any Circumstance, Buy Your Kid an AI Toy for Christmas – https://gizmodo.com/do-not-under-any-circumstance-buy-your-kid-an-ai-toy-for-christmas-2000689652

AI-Powered Teddy Bear Caught Talking About Sexual Fetishes and Instructing Kids How to Find Knives – https://gizmodo.com/ai-powered-teddy-bear-caught-talking-about-sexual-fetishes-and-instructing-kids-how-to-find-knives-2000687140

The alleged perpetrator

Would You Trust an AI Chatbot with Your Children?

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All this offloading of parental responsibility to AI is alarming because one of ChatGPT’s biggest flaws, its manipulative and sycophantic nature, is known to intensify delusions and cause breaks from reality — a grim phenomenon that’s been linked to numerous suicides, including several teenagers. Parents Using ChatGPT to Rear Their Children – https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/parents-chatgpt-rear-children

Here’s the disclaimer from the ChatGPT homepage:

ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.

Yikes.