Press Conference Pass Out - November 8, 2025

Good news heralding the potential beginnings of Woke 2.0 this week, including Mamdani’s mayoral victory in NYC, the PA supreme court retaining it’s Democrat majority, CA’s passage of Prop 50, book banners losing big in TX, and Nancy Pelosi announcing she won’t seek reelection. The DC sandwich guy was even acquitted this week!

The government remains shut down, however. SNAP has been in uncharted territory. Measles ain’t going anywhere. Here’s another edition of the Public’s Health to help you stay on top of it all.

Last week, I wrote up a large summary of SNAP and the November cuts, which you can catch here if you missed it. This week has been a roller coaster for SNAP. On Monday, the Trump administration responded to the Judges that ruled the SNAP contingency fund must be used to supply benefits during November by saying they would cover half the usual benefit and that payments would be delayed. Then Trump himself posted on Tuesday that they won’t supply any fund for SNAP until the government reopened. His press secretary later denied Trumps refusal to pay, saying the USDA will supply half the normal funds to SNAP in November.

One of the Judges, John McConnell of Rhode Island, ruled again on Thursday that the government should pay out the full SNAP benefit amount by Friday. The Trump admin appealed this ruling early on Friday. Then on Friday afternoon, the USDA released a memo stating it will pay the full benefit amount for November. The back-and-forth nature of this story is complete chaos.

Has anyone gotten any SNAP benefits this month? It seems to vary by state. Some Californians have seen funds added to their SNAP EBT, for example. Hopefully that will soon be the story for Americans using SNAP in every state. But I’m not confident there won’t be more hiccups or reversals between me writing this and it going out…

If you need resources to either get food for yourself or people in your circle or community, I’ve got ideas and resources in my last post. Many local initiatives have been stepping up across the nation to distribute food to those that need it - my thanks go out to anyone working to keep people from going hungry!

I mentioned a Listeria outbreak in the October 4th newsletter. More illnesses and deaths have been linked to this outbreak, despite the recalls. There have been six deaths so far, and a majority of people that have gotten sick have required hospitalization. Please check this link to the FDA’s page on the recall to make sure you don’t have any of the products linked to this outbreak in your home:

New cases of measles seem to be holding steady, according to the latest CDC update on Wednesday. Measles isn’t a seasonal virus, but gatherings around the holidays this year could give it a chance to spread further. Travel may be limited as we get closer to the holidays as the government shutdown is now leading to cancelled flights. The measles outlook is currently uncertain, but if you’re worried, you should talk with your healthcare provider about getting an MMR booster. You may not even need one, but your healthcare provider can help you determine if you do or don’t.

Social media has been buzzing a bit around the first possible measles case identified in Salt Lake City, UT. This patient has not cooperated with the local health department and refuses to be tested for measles or answer questions related to where they have been. This prevents contact-tracing, which normally can help spread awareness to the community if they may have been exposed to measles. Netizens are pissed about this person’s refusal to cooperate, understandably so. Yelling into the void online isn’t the way to convince people of the importance of infectious disease investigations, unfortunately. Infectious disease can be highly stigmatized in the best of times, with the current climate as toxic as it is (thanks to MAHA and RFK Jr), I expect to see more stories like this one.

It’s looking more and more likely that the current outbreaks across the Americas could lead to the loss of the measles-elimination status for the region. Canada continues to have the highest number of cases.

I already mentioned the Listeria pasta recall above. I want to bring your attention to another important recall of a common medication. This one is tricky, as people taking this med should not abruptly stop taking it. The medication in question is atorvastatin, the generic form of Lipitor. It’s used to treat high cholesterol.

This article goes over the basics. Essentially, one of the manufacturers of this medication is recalling batches of atorvastatin because they noted that the pills in these batches don’t dissolve the way they should. This means the pills may not be dissolving in the body, which would prevent the medication from working. If you take atorvastatin, talk to your doctor about this recall for information on what you need to do. Again, don’t abruptly stop taking this without instruction from your doctor.

Over one million cars have been recalled due to an issue with their backup cameras. The fix is straightforward: affected vehicles need a software update to correct the issue. Toyota, Subaru, and Lexus cars are included in the recall - if you own one of those car brands, check the Consumer Reports story I linked to see which models are affected and how to contact your manufacturer for the fix.

Yet another story has hit the news about ChatGPT trying to assist someone in committing suicide. Earlier this year, a teenager died by suicide and his family is alleging it’s because ChatGPT encouraged him to do so. OpenAI is now facing seven lawsuits over cases like this, with four deaths attributed to the use of the chatbot and hundreds of complaints to the FTC over ChatGPT inducing delusions and spiritual crises.

Personally, I think these stories show we desperately need a ChatGPT recall, as it’s clearly dangerous. I don’t know that we’ll get anything of the sort in the near future, so instead I advise you against using AI chatbots until there are some rules on this road. Otherwise, you may be driving without a license or a seatbelt on a unlit dirt road, at least psychologically.

While we’re discussing my ideal recalls, let’s just recall Elon Musk, too. If you’re not immediately convinced, maybe this tragic story of his cuts to USAID will change your mind:

In the MAHA world, Dr. Oz claimed that every American will lose 400 lbs on average by midterms next year thanks to GLP-1 medications like Wegovy and Zepbound. I don’t know about you, but I am so over the flagrant lies and made up numbers coming from this bunch.

This all came after a man fainted earlier in the press conference, and to Oz’s credit, he did go to assist this man. If you haven’t seen it, you really should watch RFK Jr exit stage left as quickly as he can once the ordeal began. That’s what you want to see from a health secretary!

You’d think all this kerfuffle would be enough for one press conference, but no. That’s not how any of these fools do things. Trump also revealed that he’s been trying to get the Novo Nordisk CEO to give America “a nice big chunk of the company.” The Novo Nordisk CEO just kinda… ignores him. I don’t even know what else to say, so I’ll conclude with this:

I didn’t have time to finish my newsletter banners this week. Maybe next week I’ll pull it off! See y’all then.

Professor Batty