The secretary of California Health and Human Services, Dr. Mark Ghaly, announced on Friday that the state of California will be forming an independent review board to evaluate COVID-19 vaccine data.

We think it is an appropriate approach to take, especially because things are moving so quickly. We want to make sure — despite the urge and interest in having a useful vaccine — that we do it with the utmost safety of Californians in mind.”

Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of CA Health and Human Services

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California is not the only state or jurisdiction saying they will independently analyze coronavirus vaccines. Others include Colorado, the District of Columbia, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and West Virginia. Montana and Wyoming have said they would only administer vaccines if they had completed clinical trials and had been reviewed by an outside committee.

Confidence in the coronavirus vaccine has been steadily waning as government timelines continue to waver. President Trump has consistently promised that the vaccine will be ready before the election and all Americans will be vaccinated by April, while the director of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, maintains that widespread vaccination will not be achieved until the third quarter of 2021. According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, only 51% of Americans would probably get the vaccine as opposed to the 72% that would give the same answer in May.

The drama surrounding COVID-19 vaccines continues as President Trump suggested that the executive branch would not support stricter guidelines for evaluating a COVID-19 vaccine. If approved, the new guidelines from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would include additional specifications for clinical trial data and a committee of independent experts to review that data before any vaccine is approved. President Trump continues to promise a vaccine before the end of the year, despite experts saying that is unlikely. Trump asserted that the plan to introduce more guidelines was political in nature.

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That has to be approved by the White House. We may or may not approve it. That sounds like a political move. I think that was a political move more than anything else…”

President Trump

This announcement will add fuel to the growing anti-Trump-vaxxer movement taking place in the Democratic party. Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris cast doubt on the efficacy and safety of a COVID-19 vaccine implemented during a Trump presidency earlier in September.

I will say that I would not trust Donald Trump, and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about….I will not take his word for it.”

Senator Kamala Harris

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The Trump Administration has rolled back a regulation requiring oil and gas companies to detect and fix methane gas leaks from pipelines, storage facilities, and wells. The director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cited the economic benefits of relieving the burden of reducing air pollution on small-medium sized energy companies.

E.P.A. has been working hard to fulfill President Trump’s promise to cut burdensome and ineffective regulations for our domestic energy industry. Regulatory burdens put into place by the Obama-Biden administration fell heavily on small and medium-sized energy businesses.”

Andrew Wheeler, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency

This decision could have serious effects on climate. Methane makes up 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, but according to the EPA, methane is 28 to 36 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane gas emissions are at an all-time high globally, and fossil fuel leaks in the U.S. play a significant role in that.

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Over the past few years there has been an explosion of new research on this, and the literature has coalesced — 80 percent of papers show that methane from oil and gas leaks is two to three times higher than the E.P.A.’s estimates…” 

Robert Howarth, an earth systems scientist at Cornell University

Historically speaking, the United States government has proven it is more than happy to put business and profits before protecting the environment while paying lip service to climate concerns. The current administration clearly follows in those footsteps.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada will ban “harmful” single-use plastics by the year 2021. The precise list of products that will be banned will be available after scientific evaluation.

As parents we’re at a point when we take our kids to the beach and we have to search out a patch of sand that isn’t littered with straws, Styrofoam or bottles…That’s a problem, one that we have to do something about.”

Justin Trudeau

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This new legislation is based on bans passed in the European Union and other nations last year. During a G7 summit in Quebec in 2019, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and Italy, and the European Union signed a new letter against plastic pollution in the oceans. Those countries and the EU have committed to making 100% of plastics recyclable, recoverable, or reusable by 2030.

Scientists may have to change the way they conduct COVID-19 studies, as the United States is facing a monkey shortage. Non-human primates are usually the last step before products go into human trials, but with over 100 new COVID-19 vaccines, therapies, and drugs in development, there aren’t enough monkeys to go around.

The reasons for the shortage are threefold. First, COVID-19 has created extraordinary demand for monkeys. Second, this coincided with a massive drop in supply from China, which provided 60 percent of the nearly 35,000 monkeys imported to the U.S. last year and which shut off exports after COVID-19 hit. And third, these pandemic-related events are exacerbating preexisting monkey shortfalls. A 2018 National Institutes of Health report had found that NIH-funded national primate centers would be unable to meet future demand and specifically discussed a “strategic monkey reserve” to provide “surge capability for unpredictable disease outbreaks.” A disease outbreak is upon us; the strategic monkey reserve was never created.”

The Atlantic

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Monkeys infected with COVID-19 are also required to be put in special labs, called Animal Biosafety Level 3 labs. There are a limited number of these labs in the United States.

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In an attempt to manage the monkey demand, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has formed a public-private initiative, Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV), designed to control which products and which companies get to use the limited supply of testing monkeys. This initiative has the potential to save time and move scientists closer to vaccines, treatments, and therapies for COVID-19, but it could also make it difficult for those who aren’t affiliated with the project to gain access to non-human primate trials. A quick look at the leadership organizations involved in ACTIV show names like Merck, Johnson & Johson, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In light of that, the decision to control access to the final stages of animal testing feels less like an efficiency or safety measure, and more like a way for those who already have the power to keep it.

The house, which is currently under Democratic control, will vote on legalizing cannabis at the federal level for the first time in history. The house would vote on the act during the week of September 21st. The bill, which is sponsored by Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y), would remove cannabis from the list of controlled substances at the federal level while expunging some cannabis-related criminal records. It would still be up to each state to determine the regulations for cannabis sales. The bill is expected to pass in the house but fail in the Republican-controlled senate.

Marijuana is currently regulated by a patchwork of laws at the state and federal levels, and Goers said legalization at the federal level would add “normalization” for businesses and states by legalizing marijuana at the federal level.

House will vote on federal marijuana legalization for the first time, bill’s future in Senate uncertain

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An overwhelming majority (91%) of Americans support the legalization of medical or recreational cannabis usage. A majority (59%) of Americans support both recreational and medical usage, whereas 32% think it should only be legal for medical purposes. While the results vary within the major political parties, a majority of both republicans and democrats support legalization.

Over the course of their presidencies, both Obama and Trump declined to enforce federal prohibitions against states that made cannabis legal for both recreational and medicinal use. While in office, Obama supported cannabis decriminalization but not legalization. Trump has said that he respects each state’s decision on whether or not to legalize cannabis.

Current democratic nominee and former vice president Joe Biden supports the decriminalization of cannabis, as well as the expunging of criminal records for cannabis usage but has not come out in support of legalization.

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The varying laws between state and federal levels can make business for cannabis dispensaries and other related businesses complicated. In some cases, banks will not work with dispensaries due to federal regulations, making dispensaries cash only and more vulnerable to theft. Legalizing cannabis at the federal level would hopefully make it easier for cannabis businesses to operate.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to allow farmers who purchased dicamba-based products to use them this year, despite a June 3rd ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that canceled the product’s approval. Bayer’s XtendiMax, BASF’s Engenia, and Corteva Agriscience’s FeXapan can now be used in specific circumstances after the EPA received feedback from farmers who had already purchased the herbicides.

At the height of the growing season, the Court’s decision has threatened the livelihood of our nation’s farmers and the global food supply…Today’s cancellation and existing stocks order is consistent with EPA’s standard practice following registration invalidation, and is designed to advance compliance, ensure regulatory certainty, and to prevent the misuse of existing stocks.”

Andrew Wheeler, EPA Administrator

According to the order, distribution or sale of the dicamba-based herbicides are still prohibited unless for proper disposal or returns. Those who purchased the herbicides before the June 3rd cancellation are still able to use them. All of use of these systems must cease by July 31st.

The Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) have already filed a motion asking the Ninth Circuit Court to hold Wheeler and the EPA in contempt for allowing farmers to use the product in defiance of the court’s decision.

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It’s mind-boggling to see the EPA blatantly ignore a court ruling, especially one that provides such important protections for farmers and the environment…We’re asking this court to restore the rule of law at the Trump EPA.”

Stephanie Parent, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity