👋 Welcome to Healthy, Again. I'm Max, and this publication is all about taking your health back: real food, holistic thinking, and time-tested wisdom, for you and your family.
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Abbott knew its formula plant was filthy. Babies paid.
SOUND OFF
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Montana will now sell you a drug the FDA never approved
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Drama erupts inside the ADA
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Obesity may switch off a natural cancer defense
01 Abbott knew its formula plant was filthy. Babies paid.
Abbott just agreed to pay $385 million to settle federal claims it made baby formula in filthy conditions.
The plant is Sturgis, Michigan, the same one behind the 2022 national formula shortage. Prosecutors say Abbott ran cracked, leaking equipment and skipped the bacterial testing that would have caught the contamination, then sat on the positive results it did have in 2019 and 2022 instead of telling the FDA.
Three whistleblowers split $69 million. Nobody was criminally charged. The formula was for infants.
02 Montana will now sell you a drug the FDA never approved
Montana just became the first state to let ordinary patients buy experimental drugs the FDA never approved.
Until now, only the terminally ill could reach for unapproved treatments. This new law opens that door to anyone, as long as the drug has passed Phase 1, the first small safety test, run in just a few dozen people. Phase 1 only shows a drug probably will not harm you. It does not show that it works. And a state-approved board, not the FDA, decides what the clinics can sell.
For patients who have run out of approved options, Montana is now the one place in the country where they can still try something.
TOGETHER WITH NATIVEPATH
Thinking About Collagen? Read This
Collagen is everywhere — but not all supplements are created equal. Before you buy, give yourself a quick education. NativePath’s short guide breaks down five common pitfalls — like vague sourcing, underdosed scoops, and non-hydrolyzed formulations — and shows what to look for instead. If you’re curious about collagen for skin, joints or everyday recovery, this is a smart place to start. No hype, just a shopper’s checklist you can use in minutes. Take a look through before you shop.
03 Drama erupts inside the ADA
Here is some drama for you. Back in June, the American Diabetes Association had 5 of its own scientists thrown out of its New Orleans conference for handing out a journal editorial the group did not like.
The ADA investigated itself, cleared itself, and blamed a code-of-conduct violation. The editor of its flagship journal, Diabetes Care, called that a sham. So on September 10 his editors hit back and stopped reviewing new studies. The ADA insists the reviews are still happening.
Either way, the top journal in diabetes has stopped taking in new research, which means fresh diabetes science stalls at the field's biggest outlet until someone blinks.
04 Obesity may switch off a natural cancer defense
New research reveals another way obesity drives cancer.
Normally the pathway works like this: healthy fat tissue makes a molecule called 9S-HODE, and it tells stray pre-cancer cells to self-destruct before they can grow. When you are obese, the pathway works differently: fatty tissue makes far less 9S-HODE, so that self-destruct signal goes quiet. That means the dangerous cells that would normally be cleared out get to survive and multiply.
So obesity is not only feeding tumors, it is switching off one of the body's own defenses against them. When researchers restored the molecule in obese mice, the breast tumors shrank.
✿ QUICK HITS — ON OUR RADAR
A hot-sauce maker told the state no. Connecticut ordered Monroe company Phire in the Hole to stop selling its sauces over a botulism risk, after finding they were bottled without the safety processing the law requires. The company refused to recall and never responded to the order. No one has gotten sick, but regulators are telling people to throw the bottles out.
The feds moved to get mercury out of your fillings. CMS urged every state Medicaid program to stop covering mercury "silver" amalgam fillings and to favor resin composites instead. It is guidance, not a ban, but it is the strongest signal yet that the mercury filling is on its way out.
Low vitamin D tripled patients' pain after surgery. Among 184 women having breast-cancer surgery, those deficient in vitamin D were 3 times as likely to have moderate to severe pain in the first day, and needed more opioids to get through it. A cheap, correctable shortfall may be quietly setting people up for a harder recovery.
Ultra-processed food is linked to faster muscle loss as you age. In a study of 1,006 older adults, those eating the most ultra-processed food had 2.5 times the odds of sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle and strength, versus those eating the least. It is an association, not proof, but the gap is hard to ignore.
The antioxidant in salmon may protect your skin's collagen. Astaxanthin, the reddish pigment in salmon and shrimp, blunts MMP-1, the enzyme that breaks down collagen in skin. It suppressed MMP-1 in UV-exposed skin cells in the lab, and a small human trial pairing an astaxanthin supplement with collagen improved skin elasticity. Early, but promising.
TOGETHER WITH ALLEGIANCE GOLD
The #1 RMD Mistake Retirees Make
Most retirees take their RMD the traditional way — in cash. An in-kind distribution may help you avoid selling at the wrong time.
✿ WILD STORY
Here is a cautionary tale for the supplement crowd.
Chris Hogan, a fitness influencer in Australia, figured more creatine had to be better, so he took 20 grams a day for 7 weeks, about 4 times the usual dose, ignoring the label's warning that the big "loading" dose is meant for 7 days, not 7 weeks. He got so dehydrated his skin cracked, even while drinking 2 liters of water a day, and it ended in a 17-millimeter kidney stone and surgery to cut it out.
His advice from the hospital bed: read the fine print. Even the most-studied supplement on the planet will get you if you quadruple the dose.
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THE COMMUNITY SECTION
✿ SOUND OFF
Story one: Abbott paid, but no one was charged. Your turn:
✿ POP QUIZ
✿ POLL RESULTS — FROM LAST EDITION
The EU banned this dye from food in 2022. The US still allows it. Should the FDA pull it from ours too?
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Yes, pull it (194)
🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Not sure (5)
🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No, leave it (6)
The banning of dangerous food additives is the ONLY thing Europe does better than the U.S. — Elaine
The FDA is beholden to Big Food, not the well being of the American people. — Jim A.
✿ ONE GOOD THING
Brent Buford was in the middle of chemotherapy for stage 4 lung cancer when he spotted a stranger face-down near a Colorado elementary school.
Buford, 68, called 911 and started chest compressions, keeping Alex Flordelis alive until paramedics found a pulse. Flordelis, 36, turned out to have a hidden hereditary heart condition, and his doctor says the fast response likely saved him from permanent brain damage.
This week the two men met so Flordelis could thank the person who saved his life. A man fighting for his own life still stopped to fight for someone else's.
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Thanks for reading. Take care of yourself, and forward this to someone who needs it. — Max