The Frog Whisperer Was Right

The Frog Whisperer Was Right: What Atrazine Tells Us About Who Really Protects Your FamilyWhy a weed killer banned across Europe still flows from American taps, why the scientist who exposed it was hunted by the company that made it, and why the chemical you should worry about is not the one you eat but the one you drink.There is a particular kind of American story that should make your blood run cold. It goes like this: a young scientist takes a job studying a chemical for the company that profits from it. He assumes he will find nothing. Instead, he finds something disturbing. And rather than fix the chemical, the company turns its machinery on the man.That is not a metaphor. It is the documented history of atrazine, the second-most-used herbicide in the United States, and of Dr. Tyrone Hayes, the U.C. Berkeley biologist who studied it. If you care about chronic disease, about the hormones of your children, about whether the institutions that are supposed to protect you actually do, this story is yours.A scientist studies a frog, and a company studies the scientistIn 1997, Hayes was hired by a corporate predecessor of the agribusiness giant Syngenta to look at what atrazine did to amphibians. He found that the chemical scrambled the sexual development of frogs. In his most striking work, published in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, genetically male frogs exposed to atrazine were chemically castrated, and some were so thoroughly feminized that they mated with other males and laid viable eggs [1].What happened next is the part that should stay with you. Internal company documents, later pried loose from a class-action lawsuit through a Freedom of Information Act request, revealed that while Hayes studied atrazine, Syngenta studied Hayes [2][3]. The company’s communications team drew up a list of goals. The first was to discredit him [2]. A communications manager’s notebook described plans to reveal him as “noncredible” and floated the idea that if he could be tied to a scandal, his environmental allies would abandon him [2][3]. Other records described investigating his wife, tracking his speaking calendar, purchasing his name as a search term, and keeping a roster of roughly 130 supposedly independent experts the company could deploy on demand, sometimes for a fee [3][4].This is not a conspiracy theory. It is the New Yorker, Mother Jones, and a nonprofit investigative newsroom reporting from court exhibits [2][3][4]. A company that makes a chemical compiled a psychological profile of the scientist who questioned it. Sit with that.If you have ever suspected that the science you are handed has been shaped by the people who profit from the answer, atrazine is your case study.What the science actually says, including the parts that are still contestedHonesty is the only thing that makes a movement like this credible, so let us be precise about what is proven and what is fought over.Hayes’s headline claim, complete sex reversal in frogs, has been the hardest to replicate, and industry-funded studies reported no such effect [5]. But step back from that single dramatic image, and the broader picture is much stronger. Independent reviews, including meta-analyses by amphibian biologist Jason Rohr, who is not in anyone’s pocket, found that atrazine reliably disrupts amphibian biology: it alters gonadal development and sex hormones, suppresses immune function, raises infection rates, and changes behavior at concentrations you actually find in the environment [6]. The specific “turns males into females” headline is debated. The conclusion that atrazine is a real endocrine disruptor is not.Then came November 2025. A working group convened by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, the same body considered the gold standard for cancer hazard assessment, reviewed the evidence, and classified atrazine as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” Group 2A [7][8]. They cited limited evidence in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, sufficient evidence of cancer in animals, and strong mechanistic evidence that atrazine behaves like a carcinogen, causing oxidative stress, DNA damage, immune suppression, inflammation, and hormone disruption [7]. This is the same category, by the same agency, that glyphosate landed in a decade earlier.The fair counterpoint, and you should know it because your opponents will raise it: the largest American study of farm applicators, the Agricultural Health Study, did not find an overall link between atrazine and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in its 2024 update, though it did flag elevated cancers in applicators diagnosed younger than fifty [9]. IARC weighs hazard, the question of whether something can cause cancer. EPA tends to argue about risk at typical exposures. Both can be partly right. But notice the asymmetry: the WHO’s cancer agency says probably carcinogenic, and the EPA continues to defend the chemical’s use [8].There is also the matter of the unborn. A peer-reviewed study in Indiana found that higher atrazine levels in drinking water during pregnancy were associated with a measurable increase in babies born small for gestational age [10]. Birth weight. Development. The most vulnerable people there are.Now, let us clear up the desiccant question, because precision mattersYou have probably read the alarming and accurate reporting about pre-harvest desiccation: the practice of spraying a herbicide on a mature crop days before harvest to dry it down, which drives chemical residues straight into oats, wheat, bread, and legumes. That reporting is real, and it matters. But the chemical at its center is glyphosate, not atrazine [11][12].Atrazine is not a desiccant, and getting this right protects your credibility. Atrazine is a Group 5 photosynthesis inhibitor used early in the season on corn, sorghum, and sugarcane, usually before or shortly after the weeds and crop emerge [13]. Its label requires a long gap between application and harvest, a 45-day pre-harvest interval for sweet corn forage, for example, and prohibits late-season spraying [14]. So there is no equivalent of the glyphosate-on-oats story for atrazine, and no dataset of “atrazine desiccant residues,” because that is simply not how the chemical is used. Anyone who tells you otherwise has confused two different molecules.Here is the twist, though. Atrazine’s exposure route is in some ways sneakier than a residue on your toast. You do not mainly eat atrazine. You drink it.You do not mainly eat atrazine. You drink it.Set the food question aside quickly, because it is the small part of this story. On the plate, atrazine is a minor actor. EPA’s dietary assessment concluded that risk from atrazine residues in food did not exceed the agency’s level of concern. Trace amounts turn up in grain, milk, and meat because the chemical is fed to livestock, and year after year USDA monitoring reports most sampled foods sitting below tolerance [15][16][17]. EPA even tightened several atrazine food tolerances in December 2025 [14]. Fine. If atrazine were only a residue on your cornflakes, it would barely be worth an essay.The real exposure runs through water, and that changes everything. Atrazine is practically engineered to become a water problem. It is cheap, it lingers in soil, and it does not cling tightly to the ground, so when the spring rains arrive after the fields are sprayed, it washes off in sheets. It runs off into streams and rivers, and it leaches down into the aquifers that millions of rural families pump straight from their wells. By EPA’s own account, it is among the most frequently detected pesticide contaminants in American ground and surface water [13].And once atrazine reaches the water, it is in no hurry to leave. It shrugs off the two natural forces that dismantle most chemicals: it resists breakdown by water chemistry across the normal range of acidity, and it resists breakdown by sunlight. In a sunlit stream, it may fade over days to months, but in the cool darkness of an aquifer, where most well water originates, its half-life is measured in years rather than weeks [26]. The cautionary tale is Germany, which banned atrazine in 1991. More than eighteen years later, it was still the single most abundant pesticide in German groundwater [27]. Contaminated groundwater is not a spill you mop up. It is a legacy your children inherit. And atrazine does not vanish into nothing, even as it slowly degrades. It sheds a family of breakdown products, desethylatrazine and desisopropylatrazine among them, that are themselves mobile and long-lived, and that turn up in monitoring right beside the parent chemical [28].This is not a trace problem at the margins. A 2021 U.S. Geological Survey analysis of 442 streams detected atrazine in 55 percent of surface water samples and in 70 percent of the groundwater tested [25]. In the Corn Belt, the contamination is seasonal and predictable: concentrations spike every late spring and early summer, right after application, exactly when the watershed is most loaded [13]. An Environmental Working Group analysis estimated that roughly 30 million Americans across 28 states have atrazine in their drinking water [20]. And you do not get to opt out of this exposure the way you can choose organic oats. If it is in your tap, it is in your coffee, your baby’s formula, and the glass your kid drinks after practice.Which forces the question every parent should ask: how much is allowed? The United States caps atrazine in drinking water at 3 micrograms per liter. The European Union caps any single pesticide in drinking water at 0.1 micrograms per liter, a limit thirty times stricter [20]. Same molecule, same chemistry, the same endocrine biology, and two sets of regulators looking at overlapping evidence land on thresholds an order of magnitude apart. One of them is wrong about the water you give your family. It is worth asking which one had a financial stake in the answer.Here is where the contamination stops being arguable, because money changes hands when harm is real. A class-action lawsuit ended in 2012 with Syngenta paying 105 million dollars to more than a thousand community water systems, serving tens of millions of people, to help cover the cost of filtering atrazine out of their drinking water [18][19]. The company admitted no wrongdoing, as companies never do. But nobody writes a nine-figure check to scrub a chemical out of the public water supply if that chemical is staying out in the field where it belongs.And recall the birth-weight finding from earlier. That Indiana study did not measure atrazine on food. It measured atrazine in drinking water, and tied higher levels during pregnancy to more babies born too small [10]. The exposure pathway that matters most, and that reaches the most vulnerable people among us, is the one pouring out of the faucet.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Why it ends up in the milk, and what to pour insteadFollow the water one step further, into the dairy barn. Atrazine does not stop at the stream. A dairy cow drinks contaminated well water and eats forage grown on atrazine-treated ground, and because the molecule is fat-loving, it builds up in her body fat and is then mobilized into her milk, especially during lactation [29][30]. Researchers describe the route plainly: people are exposed to atrazine mainly through polluted water and high-fat foods such as beef and dairy [30]. The chemical sprayed on a cornfield in May can end up in the glass poured at breakfast.This is not hypothetical. A 2022 study of dairy farms on the heavily farmed plains of Argentina detected atrazine in 89 percent of raw milk samples, and in some of them the levels exceeded the limits set internationally as safe for human consumption [30]. The honest caveat is that the calculated health risk from any single glass came out low in that study, and I am not going to tell you a cup of milk will give you cancer. But here is the part that should land for any parent: the contamination is avoidable, and someone has already proven it.When researchers tested retail milk sold in American grocery stores, comparing conventional brands against organic, the contrast was stark. Organic milk carried no detectable residues of the current-use pesticides tested. Conventional milk did, with atrazine turning up in roughly a quarter of the conventional samples, right alongside other pesticides, elevated growth hormones, and even antibiotics that are banned in lactating cows [29]. Every organic sample tested clean [29].Now the fair counterpoint, because credibility demands it. The federal government’s own milk testing tells a more reassuring story. When the FDA sampled domestically produced milk for its pesticide residue monitoring program, it reported finding no pesticide residues in the milk samples at all, and no violations [31]. That sounds like an all clear, and at the level the program is built to measure, it is. But look closely at what the two findings actually measure. The FDA’s compliance program is designed to catch residues that break federal tolerances, using detection limits set for that purpose. The retail study used far more sensitive methods built to find trace contamination, and it picked up atrazine at low levels the regulatory program is not designed to flag. The government reporting no violations and the researchers reporting atrazine in a quarter of samples are not in conflict. They answer different questions: is it illegal, versus is it there at all. For a parent, the second question is the one that matters.The reason organic comes up clean is structural, not luck. Organic certification forbids atrazine and the other synthetic pesticides on the feed and the pasture, so the chemical never enters the cow to begin with. You cannot filter your way out of every exposure in modern life, but milk is the rare case where you can simply choose the clean supply. For a staple that children drink by the gallon, during the exact developmental windows when an endocrine disruptor does the most damage, that is not fussiness. It is among the cheapest insurance a family can buy. Source your milk from organic dairies that do not use atrazine, and you have closed one of the few atrazine doors you actually control.Europe said no. We said maybe. Then we said less.Here is the comparison that captures everything. The European Union effectively banned atrazine in 2004 [20]. The reasoning was almost elegant in its caution: the chemical kept showing up in groundwater above Europe’s strict limit, the contamination looked impossible to prevent, and the manufacturer could not prove it was safe, so out it went [20]. Precaution first. Prove it is safe, then sell it.The United States runs the opposite logic. We allow a chemical until it is proven harmful, and the burden of that proof sits on an agency that has been pulled in two directions for twenty years. Watch the bouncing number that defines how much atrazine is allowed in water before mitigation kicks in. In 2016, EPA’s own scientists set the ecological level of concern at 3.4 micrograms per liter [21]. In 2020, by the agency’s own later account, political leadership pushed a far weaker limit of 15, described in EPA’s words as a policy decision rather than a scientific one [21]. Litigation followed, the decision was reopened, an advisory panel met, and in 2024 the number settled at 9.7 [22]. Down from the protective 3.4, up from the permissive 15. A negotiated figure.And the most recent turns of the wheel point toward the chemical, not your family. In 2026 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized a review concluding atrazine poses no extinction risk to endangered species, reversing the thrust of the agency’s own earlier biological evaluation that had found the chemical likely to harm more than a thousand listed species [23][24]. Environmental and health groups responded in late May 2026 with fresh legal action over EPA’s long failure to set water quality standards for the chemical, and a petition to ban it outright remains on the table [24].The movement that named it, and the politics that blunted itIf you came to this issue through Make America Healthy Again, you already know atrazine has a place in the movement’s story. In May 2025, the MAHA Commission, chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., released its first report on childhood chronic disease and named atrazine directly, pointing to animal and wildlife studies showing the chemical can cause endocrine disruption and birth defects [32]. For a chemical the EPA keeps calling safe, having a cabinet secretary put that in writing was no small thing.Kennedy did not stumble into the position. Before he ran anything, he was an environmental lawyer who took on the pesticide industry, and on the campaign trail, he called glyphosate one of the likely culprits in America’s chronic disease epidemic and promised to ban it [34]. The instinct that animates this essay, that the people selling a chemical should not be the ones certifying it safe, is one he spent decades arguing in court.So here is the uncomfortable part, delivered straight. Naming a problem is not the same as fixing it, and the follow-through has been thin. The report stopped short of recommending that anything actually be restricted, and Kennedy spent the rollout reassuring nervous farmers that their tools were not about to disappear [32]. Then, when the President signed an executive order in February 2026 to promote production of glyphosate, the very chemical Kennedy had vowed to ban, Kennedy praised it, a reversal that stunned the activists who had trusted him [34].Part of the reason sits one cabinet seat away. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins also serves on the MAHA Commission, and she has used that seat to defend the farm chemicals rather than question them. Farm-industry insiders openly credit her with softening the report’s language on glyphosate and atrazine before publication [33]. Her public statements praised farmers for building the safest and most abundant food supply in the world and cast agriculture as the heart of the solution rather than any part of the problem [33]. She has called herself a MAHA mom while serving as the farm lobby’s most effective voice inside the administration.The result is a movement at war with itself. The mothers who joined MAHA to get endocrine disruptors out of their children’s water and milk pull one way. The agriculture wing, which delivered crucial votes, pulls the other, and the EPA that actually holds the regulatory pen keeps defending atrazine as safe. Kennedy himself reportedly named the bind, warning that if they lose the farmers, the MAHA agenda is bankrupt [35]. That may be shrewd politics. It is also why, after all the noise, atrazine remains registered, still sprayed, and still in the water, while the operative aquatic limit sits at 9.7 micrograms per liter rather than the 3.4 the agency’s own scientists once defended.The lesson is the oldest one in this whole saga, and it does not care which party holds the microphone or how sincere the concern sounds. A chemical stays in your water until someone with the power to remove it is willing to spend real political capital to do it. So far, on atrazine, no one has.What this is really aboutStrip away the molecules and the dockets and you are left with a simple question. When a chemical is banned by sixty-some countries, flagged as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization, linked to endocrine disruption in the lab and to low birth weight in the clinic, and defended by a company willing to profile and harass the scientist who studied it, who exactly is the regulatory system protecting?You do not need to resolve every scientific dispute to answer that. You need clean water, honest science that is not authored by the seller, and a government that treats the precautionary instinct of a worried parent as wisdom rather than hysteria. Europe managed it twenty years ago. The frog whisperer tried to tell us. We are still arguing about the number.Filter your water. Read the source documents. And the next time someone tells you a chemical is perfectly safe, ask who signed their paycheck.A note on sourcingThis essay leans on primary and neutral sources for its factual spine: peer-reviewed journals, the EPA’s own statements and the Federal Register, IARC andThe Lancet Oncology, and court reporting from the New Yorker and a nonprofit investigative newsroom. The framing is mine. Where the science is genuinely contested, such as the frog sex-reversal claim and the human cancer epidemiology, I have said so, because a case built only on the strongest possible reading does not survive contact with a skeptic. The strongest honest version is more than enough.Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareReferences1. Hayes, T. B., et al. “Atrazine induces complete feminization and chemical castration in male African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis).”PNAS, 2010. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.09095191072. Aviv, R. “A Valuable Reputation.”The New Yorker, February 10, 2014. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/10/a-valuable-reputation3. Howard, C. “Pest Control: Syngenta’s Secret Campaign to Discredit Atrazine’s Critics.”100Reporters, 2013. https://100r.org/2013/06/pest-control-syngentas-secret-campaign-to-discredit-atrazines-critics/4. “Special Report: Syngenta’s campaign to protect atrazine, discredit critics.”Environmental Health News. https://www.ehn.org/special-report-syngentas-campaign-to-protect-atrazine-discredit-critics-2646375953.html5. “Frogs feminized, but atrazine’s effects on people uncertain.”Environmental Health News. https://www.ehn.org/frogs-feminized-but-atrazines-effects-on-people-uncertain6. Rohr, J. R., and McCoy, K. A. “A Qualitative Meta-Analysis Reveals Consistent Effects of Atrazine on Freshwater Fish and Amphibians.”Environmental Health Perspectives, 2010. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831963/ ; see also Rohr, J. R. “The Atrazine Saga and its Importance to the Future of Toxicology, Science, and Environmental and Human Health.”Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 2021. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.50377. International Agency for Research on Cancer evaluation, summarized inThe Lancet Oncology, November 2025. Reporting: “Atrazine probably causes cancer in humans, WHO cancer agency says.” U.S. Right to Know. https://usrtk.org/pesticides/atrazine-probably-carcinogenic-iarc/8. “WHO’s Cancer Research Arm Finds Atrazine Is Probable Human Carcinogen.” Center for Biological Diversity, November 21, 2025. https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/whos-cancer-research-arm-finds-atrazine-is-probable-human-carcinogen-2025-11-21/9. “An Updated Evaluation of Atrazine-Cancer Incidence Associations among Pesticide Applicators in the Agricultural Health Study Cohort.”Environmental Health Perspectives, 2024. https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP1368410. Winchester, P., et al. “Drinking-Water Herbicide Exposure in Indiana and Prevalence of Small-for-Gestational-Age and Preterm Delivery.”Environmental Health Perspectives. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2790519/11. “Crop desiccation.” Wikipedia (overview of glyphosate as the principal pre-harvest desiccant). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_desiccation12. “New report alleges ’mass contamination’ of foods from use of glyphosate to dry crops.” FoodNavigator-USA, February 22, 2022. https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2022/02/22/New-report-alleges-mass-contamination-of-foods-from-use-of-glyphosate-to-dry-crops/13. “Atrazine.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/atrazine14. “Pesticide Tolerances; Implementing Registration Review Decisions for Certain Pesticides; Atrazine, et al.” Federal Register, December 11, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/11/2025-22519/pesticide-tolerances-implementing-registration-review-decisions-for-certain-pesticides-atrazine-et15. “Interim Reregistration Eligibility Decision for Atrazine.” U.S. EPA (dietary exposure assessment). https://www.thecre.com/pdf/20030224-epa.pdf16. Hong, J., et al. “Degradation of Residual Herbicide Atrazine in Agri-Food and Washing Water.”Foods, 2022. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9407628/17. “Pesticide Data Program: 30 years of food residue data and trends.” 2023. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10541321/ ; USDA Pesticide Data Program Annual Summary, Calendar Year 2022. https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/2022PDPSummary.pdf18. “$105 Million Settlement for Water Providers Harmed by Atrazine Contamination.” Baron & Budd / Storm Water Solutions. https://www.estormwater.com/standards-water-regulations/news/10988714/105-million-settlement-for-water-providers-harmed-by-atrazine-contamination19. “Water Law: $105 Million Settlement in Water Pollution Lawsuit.” Circle of Blue, 2012. https://www.circleofblue.org/2012/world/water-law-105-million-settlement-in-water-pollution-lawsuit-between-swiss-company-and-u-s-communities/20. “Atrazine, an herbicide banned in Europe, is the second-most used weed killer in the US.” FoodFight USA (on the 2004 EU ban and the 0.1 vs 3 microgram per liter contrast). https://foodfightusa.com/blog/2024/10/atrazine-an-herbicide-banned-in-europe-is-the-second-most-used-weed-killer-in-the-us/21. “EPA Announces Update on Atrazine.” U.S. EPA, 2024 (3.4, 15, and 9.7 microgram per liter history). https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-announces-update-atrazine22. “Atrazine; Updated Proposed Mitigation for the Interim Registration Review Decision.” Federal Register, December 5, 2024. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/12/05/2024-28459/atrazine-updated-proposed-mitigation-for-the-interim-registration-review-decision-notice-of23. “Atrazine: the pesticide banned in 60 countries still in U.S. food and water” (on the May 2026 Fish and Wildlife Service finding and the 2021 biological evaluation). https://culturacolectiva.com/en/history/atrazine-health-risks-trump-epa-approved-banned-pesticide/24. “Suit Launched to Reduce Cancer-Linked Atrazine Pollution in Thousands of U.S. Waterways, Drinking-Water Supplies.” Center for Biological Diversity, May 28, 2026. https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/suit-launched-to-reduce-cancer-linked-atrazine-pollution-in-thousands-of-us-waterways-drinking-water-supplies-2026-05-28/25. “Atrazine.” U.S. Right to Know (citing the 2021 U.S. Geological Survey analysis inEnvironmental Science & Technology: 55 percent of surface water and 70 percent of groundwater sampled). https://usrtk.org/pesticides/atrazine/26. Comber, S. D. W. “Abiotic persistence of atrazine and simazine in water.” 1999 (half-lives of about six days in sunlit acidic water, months in lowland rivers, and years in groundwater due to slow hydrolysis). https://agris.fao.org/search/en/records/65de3ac40f3e94b9e5cc230f27. “Still present after all these years: persistence plus potential toxicity raise questions about the use of atrazine.”Environmental Science and Pollution Research(atrazine still the most abundant pesticide in German groundwater more than 18 years after the 1991 ban). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-010-0431-y28. “Ultimate fate and possible ecological risks associated with atrazine and its principal metabolites (DIA and DEA) in soil and water environment.”Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, 2022 (metabolites found in soil, surface, and groundwater years after application due to persistence and mobility). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014765132201139329. Welsh, J. A., et al. “Production-related contaminants (pesticides, antibiotics and hormones) in organic and conventionally produced milk samples sold in the USA.”Public Health Nutrition(current-use pesticides including atrazine detected in 26 to 60 percent of conventional samples and in none of the organic samples). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6792142/30. “Atrazine pollution in groundwater and raw bovine milk: Water quality, bioaccumulation and human risk assessment.”Science of the Total Environment, 2022 (atrazine in 89 percent of raw milk samples; transfer to milk via contaminated water and forage; lipophilic bioaccumulation mobilized during lactation). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004896972205597831. “FDA Releases FY 2023 Pesticide Residue Monitoring Report.” U.S. Food and Drug Administration (no violative residues in animal-derived foods; no residues detected in the milk samples analyzed); see also the FY 2017 report finding no residues in any domestic milk samples. https://www.fda.gov/food/hfp-constituent-updates/fda-releases-fy-2023-pesticide-residue-monitoring-report32. “MAHA Acknowledges Pesticide Concerns While Recognizing Farmers’ Role in Health.” DTN/Progressive Farmer, May 2025 (the MAHA Commission report named atrazine and cited animal and wildlife studies of endocrine disruption and birth defects); see also “RFK Jr. releases MAHA report on childhood chronic disease,” CBS News, May 2025. https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/columns/washington-insider/article/2025/05/22/maha-acknowledges-pesticide-concerns33. “MAHA Report’s Surprising Stance on Glyphosate, Atrazine Explained.” AgWeb, May 2025 (farm media crediting Secretary Rollins with softening the report’s pesticide language); and “MAHA Report Points Fingers at Pesticides, Farm Industry Responds.” No-Till Farmer, May 2025 (Rollins statement on farmers and the food supply). https://www.agweb.com/news/policy/politics/maha-reports-surprising-stance-glyphosate-atrazine-explained34. “Trump Betrayed the MAHA Movement This Week. RFK Jr.’s Reaction Was Telling.” Slate, February 2026 (Kennedy’s prior pledge to ban glyphosate and his praise for the 2026 executive order promoting it). https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/02/trump-kennedy-maha-roundup.html35. “The MAHA movement feels like it’s making headway on vaccines but pesticides threaten a MAGA political divorce.” CNN Politics, September 2025 (Kennedy on the political stakes of losing farmers; the internal MAHA rift over pesticides). https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/12/politics/maha-commission-pesticides-rfk-maga


The Next Pandemic Starts Here

Federal prosecutors have charged senior NIH virologist Vincent Munster (originally from the Netherlands) and his junior colleague Claude Kwe (Cameroon) with conspiracy to smuggle biological materials into the United States and with making false statements to federal authorities. According to the criminal complaint, the two scientists returned from the Republic of Congo in January carrying a large black case that they allegedly told Customs and Border Protection officers contained diagnostic and testing equipment. Federal investigators later discovered 113 vials packed inside Styrofoam coolers inside the case. Of the first twenty vials tested by the FBI, seventeen reportedly contained deactivated mpox virus, one contained chickenpox virus, and two contained human DNA. Both men worked at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, one of the federal government’s premier Biosafety Level 4 facilities, where researchers study some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens. If convicted, they face up to five years in prison.On its face, this sounds like a story about improperly transported laboratory specimens and a customs declaration.It isn’t.The real story is that one of the federal government’s most prominent virus hunters now finds himself at the center of a criminal investigation while Congress continues to uncover evidence that the institutions responsible for overseeing dangerous pathogen research learned almost nothing from COVID.To understand why this case matters, you first have to understand who Vincent Munster is.Munster is not a minor scientist. He serves as Chief of the Virus Ecology Section at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, one of the federal government’s premier high-containment research facilities. His career has been built around the collection, study, and characterization of emerging viruses. During the COVID era, he became one of the most visible federal researchers studying SARS-CoV-2 transmission, animal susceptibility, pathogenesis, and outbreak dynamics.In short, Munster is not on the periphery of the biodefense establishment. He sits near its center.  One USG insider I spoke to in preparing this story, who has been investigating Munster and federal GOF research for years, called him “one of the worst members of the gain of function mafia.”And that is where the story becomes much larger.In April 2024, Senator Rand Paul released documents showing that Munster’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory was listed as a participant in EcoHealth Alliance’s infamous DEFUSE proposal. That proposal brought together Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Ralph Baric’s laboratory at the University of North Carolina, and other collaborators to pursue research involving bat coronaviruses and pandemic prediction.The significance of DEFUSE is not that it was funded.It wasn’t.The significance is that it revealed what some of the world’s most influential pandemic-preparedness scientists wanted to do before COVID ever appeared.According to documents later released through congressional investigations, EcoHealth Alliance’s DEFUSE proposal brought together a network of researchers that included the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Ralph Baric’s laboratory at the University of North Carolina, and collaborators connected to NIAID’s virus-hunting enterprise. The proposal contemplated experiments involving novel bat coronaviruses, manipulation of spike proteins, and insertion of furin cleavage sites.DARPA reviewed the proposal and rejected it. That should have been the end of the story.Instead, it became a glimpse behind the curtain.One of the most revealing documents to emerge from the COVID origins controversy was a memorandum prepared by Major Joseph Murphy, a Marine officer assigned to DARPA. Murphy documented that DARPA had reviewed and rejected the DEFUSE proposal because of concerns regarding gain-of-function research and biosafety risks. Whether every aspect of Murphy’s analysis ultimately proves correct is less important than the central fact: a federal defense agency looked at the proposal and saw danger. According to Murphy, DARPA’s concern was that the proposal crossed into gain-of-function territory and posed unacceptable biosafety risks.That should have been a flashing red warning light.Instead, many of the same institutions, many of the same researchers, and many of the same scientific objectives were then funded and remained embedded within the NIH-funded virus-hunting network overseen by Anthony Fauci’s NIAID.  My USG insider source told me that Munster was a key EcoHealth Alliance collaborator.That is the part of the story Washington would rather forget.The American people were repeatedly told that dangerous coronavirus research was tightly controlled and carefully supervised. Yet Fauci’s NIAID continued funding EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn supported coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Basically, the very same research program the DARPA rejected because this gain-of-function research was deemed too dangerous. Congressional investigations later documented reporting failures, delayed disclosures, inadequate oversight, and repeated efforts to obscure exactly what research was being conducted and who was responsible for monitoring it.The issue is that one branch of the federal government looked at this research direction and saw danger, while another branch funded and encouraged the same research ecosystem.That ecosystem included EcoHealth Alliance. It included the Wuhan Institute of Virology. It included the collection and characterization of novel bat coronaviruses. It included experiments designed to understand how those viruses might infect human beings. And it included many of the same scientists who lied when they assured the public that concerns about biosafety and laboratory accidents were unfounded.Then the engineered SARS-CoV-2  emerged in Wuhan.The research ecosystem funded and protected by NIAID was far riskier than the American people were led to believe. It led to a mass casualty event, as the world had never known before.COVID should have triggered a wholesale reassessment of the entire enterprise.Instead, the opposite happened.The institutions involved closed ranks. Questions were dismissed. Definitions changed. Records disappeared. Congressional investigators spent years uncovering reporting violations, withheld information, missing communications, and repeated failures of oversight. The public was repeatedly assured that safeguards were working even as evidence accumulated that the system was far less transparent and far less accountable than advertised.The history of EcoHealth Alliance should have ended the debate.For years, EcoHealth received federal funding to support overseas coronavirus research, including work conducted through the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Congressional investigations documented repeated reporting failures and oversight deficiencies. The organization became the conduit through which American taxpayer dollars flowed into coronavirus research in Wuhan, while federal officials repeatedly reassured the public that everything was under control, that gain-of-function work was no longer done, and hid their risky research from the general public.Instead of transparency, the public got stonewalling. Instead of accountability, it got censorship. Instead of humility, it got lectures.Yet even after COVID, the machine kept running.While Congress was investigating EcoHealth Alliance and Wuhan-related research, lawmakers simultaneously uncovered another controversy inside NIAID itself.This time the focus was on Dr. Bernard (Bernie) Moss, one of the world’s most prominent poxvirus researchers.House investigators revealed that NIAID had approved or considered experiments involving the transfer of genes between different clades of mpox virus. Congressional investigators, including Senator Rand Paul and members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, raised concerns that the proposed work could combine characteristics of more virulent and more transmissible strains. These experiments crossed into gain-of-function territory and represented exactly the type of research that Americans had been assured was subject to strict controls.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support  our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Again, the response was familiar.Officials argued the work was safe. Officials argued the work was necessary. Officials argued the critics simply did not understand the science.We have heard this before.What makes the Munster case so significant is not that it involves mpox.It demonstrates how little had changed under the Biden administration.The same federal agencies remain committed to overseas pathogen collection. The same laboratories continue pursuing increasingly sophisticated experiments on dangerous viruses. The same experts who assured the public that everything was under control before COVID remain responsible for deciding what risks are acceptable today.That is the real significance of the Munster case.Vincent Munster is not merely a scientist facing criminal charges. He represents the continuity of a system that never truly changed after COVID. He sits within the same virus-hunting culture, the same pandemic preparedness mindset, and the same scientific establishment that insisted that dangerous pathogens must be collected, transported, manipulated, and studied to “protect humanity.”The problem is not Bernard Moss. The problem is not Vincent Munster. The problem is not Peter Daszak. The problem is not even Anthony Fauci.The problem is the worldview that produced all of them.It is the belief that collecting more pathogens, manipulating more pathogens, sequencing more pathogens, and experimenting with more pathogens will somehow make society safer. It is the belief that scientists should be trusted to regulate themselves. It is the belief that public skepticism represents ignorance rather than wisdom born from experience.That worldview gave us EcoHealth Alliance. It gave us the Wuhan collaborations. It gave us DEFUSE. It gave us COVID. It gave us years of congressional investigations revealing missing records, withheld information, reporting violations, and institutional obstruction. It gave us the mpox gain-of-function controversy. And now the government is finally responding. There are criminal charges involving one of the federal government’s leading virus hunters.To be clear, Vincent Munster and Claude Kwe are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.But that is not the point.The issue is trust.The entire gain-of-function enterprise depends on trust. The public does not have access to the laboratories. Citizens cannot inspect the facilities. Taxpayers do not sit on the review committees. Americans are asked to trust that the experts are following the rules.After Wuhan, after EcoHealth Alliance, after DEFUSE, after the mpox gain-of-function controversy, and now after the allegations against Munster and Kwe, that trust has been squandered.The burden of proof has shifted.It is no longer the responsibility of citizens to prove that gain-of-function research and overseas pathogen collection programs are dangerous.It was the responsibility of NIAID, NIH, and the biodefense establishment to prove that these activities are necessary, transparent, enforceable, and safe. They failed.The federal government should permanently prohibit taxpayer funding for gain-of-function research, whether conducted domestically or outsourced overseas. International pathogen collection programs that place Americans at risk should be terminated. Independent oversight must replace institutional self-policing. Every grant, every collaboration, and every pathogen enhancement experiment should be publicly disclosed.Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareThe lesson of the past decade is painfully clear.That philosophy has now produced the worst pandemic in a century, years of congressional investigations, the collapse of public trust in public health institutions, and now criminal charges involving one of its own practitioners.The issue is no longer whether the system failed.The issue is whether the people who built it will continue to run it.For the first time since COVID, there are signs that the answer may be no.According to a statement provided by NIH to Malone News, agency leadership was notified of the Detroit airport incident in January 2026 and immediately activated emergency protocols. NIH secured the relevant laboratory spaces, restricted access, conducted a comprehensive audit and inventory of biological materials, verified compliance with biosafety requirements, and took personnel actions. The agency further stated that it took all necessary steps to ensure there was no risk to staff or the surrounding community.That response stands in sharp contrast to what Americans witnessed during the COVID era.For years, critics of gain-of-function research, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Wuhan collaborations encountered resistance, delay, denial, and institutional self-protection. Questions were treated as threats. Oversight was treated as an inconvenience. The public was expected to trust that the experts would police themselves.The Munster case suggests that era may finally be ending.Whether by necessity or by choice, NIH leadership is now doing something that should have happened years ago: treating biosafety failures as oversight failures rather than public-relations problems.The significance of the Munster case is therefore larger than one scientist, one laboratory, or one shipment of undeclared samples.It marks a turning point.The scientific establishment that built the virus-hunting enterprise is being forced to answer questions it long avoided. The assumptions that justified gain-of-function research are being challenged. The institutions that once operated with minimal public scrutiny are facing unprecedented oversight.Whether this becomes a genuine reform movement remains to be seen.But for the first time since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2, there is evidence that the people now running NIH understand what their predecessors refused to acknowledge:Trust is not granted by credentials.It is earned through transparency, accountability, respect for rules and boundaries, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths.The virus hunters have had their chance.Now comes the reckoning.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.“In January 2026, NIH leadership were made aware of the incident at the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport involving NIH staff members. Upon notification, NIH leadership immediately activated established agency protocols to safeguard related laboratory facilities, research materials, and biological samples. These actions included securing relevant laboratory spaces, restricting access to affected areas, and conducting a comprehensive audit and inventory assessment to verify that all materials were appropriately accounted for, documented, and maintained in accordance with all relevant biosafety policies, requirements, and procedures. NIH also took appropriate personnel actions and took all relevant steps to confirm that there was no risk at any time to the staff or public in or around the RML facility.This matter is currently under investigation, and NIH is cooperating fully with law enforcement and appropriate authorities. Because this is an ongoing investigation and personnel matter, we are limited in what additional information we can provide at this time.NIH is committed to maintaining the highest standards of biosafety, biosecurity, and stewardship of research materials. NIH leadership continues to prioritize biosafety across the agency and to promote a strong culture of accountability, compliance, and responsible scientific research throughout the biomedical research enterprise.”-NIH statement to Malone NewsReferencesPrimary SourcesU.S. Department of Justice.Feds Charge Foreign Nationals Working at National Institutes of Health with Smuggling Monkeypox into the United States.https://www.justice.gov/usao-edmi/pr/feds-charge-foreign-nationals-working-national-institutes-health-smuggling-monkeypoxMajor Joseph Murphy Memorandum to the DARPA Inspector General regarding EcoHealth Alliance’s DEFUSE proposal and SARS-CoV-2 origins (2021).https://assets.ctfassets.net/syq3snmxclc9/2mVob3c1aDd8CNvVnyei6n/95af7dbfd2958d4c2b8494048b4889b5/JAG_Docs_pt1_Og_WATERMARK_OVER_Redacted.pdfNIH Intramural Research Program.Vincent J. Munster, PhD.https://irp.nih.gov/pi/vincent-munsterNational Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).Vincent J. Munster, PhD.https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vincent-j-munster-phdCongressional Investigations and Government ReportsSenator Rand Paul.Letter to NIH Regarding DEFUSE Proposal and Federal Agency Knowledge of Risky Coronavirus Research(April 9, 2024).https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024.04.09_SRP-letter-to-NIH.pdfSenator Rand Paul.Press Release: Dr. Paul Sends Letters to Fifteen Federal Agencies After Discovering Their Knowledge of Risky DEFUSE Project.https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/media/reps/dr-paul-sends-letters-to-fifteen-federal-agencies-after-discovering-their-knowledge-of-risky-defuse-project/U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce.Interim Staff Report on NIH Misconduct and Inadequate Oversight Involving Taxpayer-Funded Risky Mpox Research.https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/e-and-c-republicans-release-interim-staff-report-on-nih-misconduct-and-inadequate-oversight-involving-taxpayer-funded-risky-mpxv-research-that-jeopardizes-public-health-securityU.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward.https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SSCP-FINAL-REPORT.pdfU.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee.Mpox Memo Report.https://d1dth6e84htgma.cloudfront.net/Mpox_Memo_Rpt_correction_18e95e3204.pdfScientific and Background SourcesMunster VJ, Yinda CK, et al. Mpox outbreak investigations and genomic surveillance studies in the Republic of Congo.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39426387/Yinda CK, Munster VJ, et al.Introduction of Clade Ib Mpox Virus into the Republic of the Congo.https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMc2504089CDC.Environmental Stability of Monkeypox Virus.https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29/10/23-0824_articleNIH Catalyst.An Old Virus Gets New Attention: Bernard Moss and Mpox Research.https://irp.nih.gov/catalyst/30/6/an-old-virus-gets-new-attentionVanity Fair.The Virus-Hunting Nonprofit at the Center of the Lab-Leak Controversy.https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/03/the-virus-hunting-nonprofit-at-the-center-of-the-lab-leak-controversyRecommended Additional ReadingU.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen Research Oversight.https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105455White House.Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research(Executive Order).https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/improving-the-safety-and-security-of-biological-research/NIH Notice.Framework for Oversight of Certain Categories of Life Sciences Research.https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-127.html

Summary: Why the charges against an NIH virologist expose the failure of gain-of-function research.


Friday Funnies: Dog Whistle

For those who don’t understand or remember the image above, it is seared into my memory because Robert and I lived near Charlottesville when the far-right protests there occurred in 2017. And yes, there were some pretty nasty neo-Nazis; truly white supremacist, KKK members at those rallies. Then, near the end of that tension-filled weekend, where the police were told to stand down and not arrest anyone, some far-right psychopath took his car and rammed it into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing a woman. It was horrific.Then we learn from the DoJ, almost a decade later, that the Southern Poverty Law Center was PAYING those KKK and neo-Nazi types a monthly stipend to recruit new members.  People who were probably at that Charlottesville protest/riot -  to be there, to rile up hate and act out - to the point where an innocent young woman’s life was cut short - murdered.The SPLC paid overfour million dollars topeople to join the KKK, in hopes of stirring enough hate to get liberals to donate to their cause. The idea that a non-profit, non-governmental agency was hiring people to do this is abhorrent. They have no legal authority to hire people to recruit others to do illegal acts, so that the SPLC can report on it. Just think about it.If I went out and paid someone who was a drug dealer to buy drugs so I could track and record for the media, would that be legal? Of course not. Yet that is the argument the liberal news is making. That the SPLC's behavior was justified because they were tracking racists, paying informants. Sorry, but that interpretation is just wrong. Paying people to be involved in illegal activities is illegal - that is called being an accessory to a crime.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Under U.S. law,private citizens and private organizations do not have the same legal protections that law enforcement has when using confidential informants.If a private person knowingly funds, encourages, or materially assists criminal activity, that creates criminal liability.The SPLC crossed the line from observation into financial support of ongoing activities by paying individuals to remain active and allegedly reimbursing them for activities that helped sustain the organization.Now we know all about it… that these SPLC-paid KKK protestors stirred up so much hate, that some crazy person rammed their car into a crowd. Does that make the SPLC an accessory to murder?For me, the fact that the SPLC was complicit in enabling these protests/riots completely changes the lens through which I view this sordid bit of history.Postscript on this story, that I found shocking:There was not a single story written by progressive mainstream media on the KKK being paid 4 million bucks by the SPLC.For instance, Ground News, an aggregator of both left and right news, found only numerous articles from media outlets on the "right" to source. No left-wing mainstream media news site could be bothered to write a story on this development - except about how the SPLC is being persecuted for hiring “paid informants.”I wonder why (insert sarcasm)?Finally, the New York Times did a recent story on the SPLC - and this is what they went with:The NYT maintains that the DoJ is engaged in vindictive prosecution ofthe SPLC.  The NYTs doesn’t write a peep about Klan members being paid.Honestly, this stuff writes itself…Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Yes, the below image is a sick joke and probably untrue - but still… funnyRon Paul is still right…Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareMalone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Summary: versus dog wisdom


Treating the Wound, Not the Textbook

Adjunct Professor Robert W. Malone, MD, MS.Chief Medical Officer, Curativa Bay - www.curativabay.comFor most of my career, I have studied (and taught hundreds of medical students) pathology, infectious disease, immunology, and how cells respond to injury. One lesson keeps returning, and it is simple enough to sound obvious: the environment in which you treat an infection changes, which treatments succeed and which fail. A medicine that performs beautifully in one setting can underperform badly in another, not because the medicine is bad, but because the biology around it has changed.Nowhere is this clearer than in the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers and other low-circulation wounds. These wounds are common, they cause enormous suffering, and they lead to amputation at rates we should find unacceptable. For decades, we have treated them, in large part, with tools designed for a very different kind of wound. The story of how that happened says something useful about how medicine actually changes and points toward an approach available today but still uncommon.The Pathophysiology That Changes EverythingA diabetic foot ulcer is not a simple cut that happens to be infected. It is a chronic infection sitting inside tissue that has lost much of its ability to defend and repair itself. Several problems arrive at once. Blood flow is reduced by disease in the small and large vessels, so the tissue is starved of oxygen. High blood sugar weakens the immune response directly, blunting the cells that would normally clear an infection. Nerve damage means a person often cannot feel the wound forming until it is advanced. And the inflammation of diabetes tends to smolder rather than resolve.[3,4]Into this weakened environment, bacteria settle in. They rarely remain as free-floating cells that antibiotics can easily reach. Instead, they build biofilms, communities of microbes wrapped in a self-made matrix of sugars, proteins, and DNA. Inside a biofilm, bacteria become far harder to kill. Laboratory studies have shown biofilm populations tolerating antibiotic concentrations up to a thousand times higher than their free-floating counterparts.[5]The matrix shields them from the immune system, and a fraction of the population drops into a dormant, persister state that most antimicrobials cannot touch. When treatment stops, those survivors regrow.[6]This is the engine of a chronic wound.Why Silver Was Built for a Different WoundFor decades, the front-line dressings for these wounds have relied on silver, usually as silver sulfadiazine or a silver-impregnated dressing. Silver works, and there is a good reason it became standard. But it is worth remembering what it was built for. Silver sulfadiazine was introduced in 1968 as a treatment for burns.[7]The burn was an ideal proving ground: common, severe, with a defined course and quick, measurable outcomes.A burn and a diabetic ulcer, though, are almost opposites. The burn patient usually has an intact immune system and reasonable circulation, and the wound is acute, expected to resolve over days to weeks. The aim is fast sterilization while the body’s own healing machinery is still running. A diabetic foot ulcer reverses nearly every one of those conditions: the immune system is impaired, the circulation is poor, and the wound is chronic.[3,4]Reaching for a burn-era tool here is not unreasonable on its face. It is simply a different problem.Why Silver Struggles in Chronic WoundsSilver kills microbes through oxidation: it disrupts their membranes, binds essential proteins, and interferes with respiration.[8]The difficulty is that this chemistry is not selective. The same reactions that harm bacteria can also harm human cells, and in laboratory studies the cells most affected are the ones a chronic wound needs most. Fibroblasts build the collagen scaffold of new tissue, and keratinocytes resurface it. In cell culture, silver is toxic to both, with fibroblasts especially sensitive, impairing their survival and their ability to migrate and lay down collagen.[9,10]This sets up a real tension: the concentration that controls infection may also slow the repair you are trying to support.Candor requires a caveat. What happens in a culture dish does not always predict what happens in a living wound. In at least one careful comparison, several silver dressings were clearly toxic to fibroblasts in the laboratory yet still accelerated healing in an animal model, because a living wound is a far more complex place than a layer of cells in a dish.[10]Silver is not useless. The argument is narrower and more interesting: in the particular setting of a chronic, biofilm-laden, poorly perfused wound, the balance of benefit and harm can tip the wrong way.A second problem matters especially for biofilm. To kill bacteria, an antimicrobial first has to reach them, and the biofilm matrix is good at preventing that. The matrix can bind and hold antimicrobial agents near its surface, and how well an agent penetrates depends heavily on its size and electrical charge.[11,12]When the surface bacteria die while the deeper, protected cells survive, a wound can look better for a few weeks and then relapse, a pattern familiar to anyone who treats these ulcers.[6]A third concern is the blood supply itself. Diabetic wounds, especially those with poor circulation, depend on growing new blood vessels to restore oxygen. That process runs through endothelial cells, which line blood vessels and must multiply and migrate to form new capillaries. The oxidative chemistry that troubles fibroblasts can affect endothelial cells as well, and impaired new-vessel formation is among the best-documented reasons diabetic wounds fail to heal.[13,14]Povidone-iodine and chlorhexidine, the other common antiseptics, carry their own versions of this tradeoff between killing power and tissue tolerance.[17]Why the Practice PersistsIf the case against silver in chronic wounds is reasonable, why does it remain standard? The honest answer is mostly inertia, not conspiracy. Silver earned its place in burn care in the 1970s and 1980s on solid evidence. Regulatory clearances, reimbursement, clinician training, and whole product lines were built around it. When diabetic foot ulcers grew into a major problem, the natural move was to reach for the dressings already on the shelf.Changing a standard of care is difficult. It takes well-designed trials, updated guidelines, retraining, and a willingness among payers to cover something new. Incentives also matter. Large, independent, head-to-head trials are expensive, and there tends to be more commercial enthusiasm for premium products than for simple, inexpensive ones. None of this requires bad intent. It only requires a system that changes slowly, which every medical system does.Why Low-Circulation Wounds Are DifferentIt is worth pausing on why poor circulation changes the whole equation. In a normally perfused wound, the immune system can do much of the work: white blood cells reach the site, clear bacteria, and the repair cascade proceeds, even if slowly. In a low-circulation wound, the blood cannot deliver enough oxygen, nutrients, or immune cells. You cannot rely on the body to contain the infection on its own, and you cannot wait for a healing cascade that is starved of what it needs.[13]That leaves a demanding wish list for any treatment. It should penetrate biofilm rather than be turned away at the surface. It should kill a broad range of microbes quickly. It should spare fibroblasts, keratinocytes, and endothelial cells rather than damage them. It should not build up in tissue with repeated use, and it should not breed resistance. Silver and the older antiseptics meet only some of these. One option meets most of them, and it is not a new invention at all. It is a molecule the body already makes.Hypochlorous Acid: A Molecule the Body Already MakesWhen a white blood cell engulfs a microbe, it mounts a chemical attack. An enzyme called myeloperoxidase combines hydrogen peroxide with chloride to produce hypochlorous acid, written HOCl.[15,18]This is one of the body’s own front-line antimicrobial weapons, refined by evolution to kill pathogens inside tissue that still needs to survive and heal. Stabilized HOCl solutions take that same molecule and make it shelf-stable for use on wounds.[15]This pedigree is not only biological. It is also clinical, and surprisingly old. During the First World War, long before antibiotics existed, the chemist Henry Drysdale Dakin developed a dilute, buffered sodium hypochlorite solution to cleanse the heavily contaminated wounds of the battlefield, delivered by the continuous irrigation approach known as the Carrel-Dakin method.[23,24]The active antimicrobial species that solution releases in tissue is hypochlorous acid itself.[23]A chlorine-based oxidant chemistry, with HOCl at its heart, was therefore already saving limbs and lives a century ago. Its use faded after penicillin became established in the 1940s, not because it had failed, but because a systemic antibiotic taken by mouth or injection was simply more convenient than a solution that had to be freshly prepared and applied again and again.[24]Those early solutions were also chemically unstable and lost their potency within days.[24]What modern stabilization adds is the part the wartime chemists could not solve: it delivers the same active molecule in a shelf-stable, pH-balanced, and far less irritating form.This is not a fringe or experimental idea. Stabilized hypochlorous acid is cleared by the United States Food and Drug Administration for cleansing, irrigating, and debriding both acute and chronic wounds, including diabetic ulcers and burns.[19]Its relative obscurity in everyday practice owes more to habit and marketing than to any real question about whether it is permitted or safe.20% off with code WOUNDHow It Works Against Bacteria and BiofilmHOCl is a small, uncharged molecule, and that turns out to matter. Carrying no charge, it is not repelled by the biofilm matrix the way some agents are, so it can diffuse into the biofilm rather than being held at the surface.[12,17]Once inside, it attacks microbes on several fronts at once: it oxidizes their membranes, inactivates essential enzymes, and damages their nucleic acids.[15]This many-targets-at-once quality is the key to a claim worth stating carefully. Because HOCl strikes so many essential systems simultaneously, the evolutionary path to resistance is far narrower than for a medicine that hits a single target, and clinically meaningful resistance has not emerged in practice.[15,16]That is a strong statement, but it is not the same as saying resistance is impossible; it is saying the odds are stacked heavily against it. In practical terms, HOCl acts quickly against bacteria, viruses, and fungi, and it can disrupt biofilm, which is precisely the obstacle that defeats so many other agents in these wounds.[16,17]How It Spares Healing TissueThe more elegant part is what HOCl does not do. Because the body produces it, human tissue has evolved defenses against it. Our cells carry antioxidant systems that neutralize HOCl at the concentrations used in wound care, so it can lower the bacterial burden without crippling the cells that rebuild tissue.[16]Laboratory and clinical work supports this difference: where harsher antiseptics suppress fibroblasts and keratinocytes, HOCl is comparatively gentle on them and has been associated with re-epithelialization, the resurfacing of the wound.[16,18]The same logic extends to endothelial cells, and therefore to the formation of new blood vessels.[16]Why This Matters for New Blood VesselsHere is the heart of why chronic diabetic wounds are their own category. When tissue runs short of oxygen, it switches on a signaling protein called HIF-1 alpha, which drives the release of vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. VEGF tells endothelial cells to multiply and build new capillaries. Those vessels deliver oxygen, oxygen lets fibroblasts lay down collagen, and the wound can finally close. In diabetes, this cascade is already impaired, which is a major reason these wounds stall.[13,14]Any treatment that further damages endothelial cells works against the one process the wound most needs. A treatment that leaves them intact gives the cascade a chance to proceed.[16]How It Is UsedIn practice, HOCl is usually applied by irrigating the wound with the solution, allowing it to remain in contact with the wound bed, and then covering the wound with an appropriate dressing. The appeal is its simplicity. It needs no specialized equipment or complex supply chain, and because it does not accumulate in tissue, it can be used frequently without the buildup seen with some other agents. Prolonged use of silver, by contrast, can deposit silver in the skin and produce a blue-gray discoloration known as argyria. The specifics of how often and exactly how a given wound should be treated are clinical judgments that belong to a person’s own care team, not to an essay.What the Evidence Shows, and What It Does NotIt is important to be candid about the strength of the evidence, because that candor is part of the argument. The mechanistic case for HOCl is strong and well understood. The clinical case is promising but still maturing. Small, randomized studies, observational studies, and case reports in diabetic and chronic wounds have reported reduced bacterial burden, less pain and odor, and improved healing compared with conventional antiseptics.[20,21,22]Several of these studies are small, and some appear in lower-tier journals, so they are best read as encouraging rather than conclusive.What is missing is the large, independent, multicenter randomized trial that would settle the question beyond a reasonable doubt, ideally a direct comparison against silver in chronic diabetic wounds. The absence of that one landmark study is not the same as an absence of evidence. The biology is coherent, the smaller studies point in a consistent direction, and the safety profile is favorable. Intellectual honesty simply means saying plainly that the definitive trial has not yet been done. Despite this lack of large, randomized clinical trials, many cutting-edge burn and wound clinics routinely use HOCl in the clinical treatment of these ulcers. Strangely, this adoption appears to be more widespread in Canada than in the United States.Malone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Why It MattersDiabetic foot ulcers are common. In the United States alone, there are over a million active diabetic foot ulcers at any given time. Globally, the prevalence is far higher.These ulcers cause suffering. They lead to infection. They lead to amputation. A diabetic patient who loses a foot faces a profoundly altered life. The mortality risk increases. The disability is permanent.We have better tools available now. Not perfect tools. Nothing is perfect. But better tools, based on a more accurate understanding of the pathophysiology of chronic diabetic wounds. Yet these tools remain uncommon in practice.The stakes here are not abstract. Each year in the United States roughly 1.6 million people develop a diabetic foot ulcer, and these wounds precede the large majority of diabetes-related amputations.[1]The figures that follow a major amputation are sobering: five-year mortality estimates commonly fall between 50 and 70 percent, worse than for many cancers, and recurrence is common even after a wound heals.[1,2]American Physicians, Medical practitioners, and Nurses are not short on compassion for these patients. We may, in some cases, be short on matching the tool to the biology. The argument of this essay is narrow and, I hope, fair. The chronic, poorly perfused, biofilm-laden diabetic wound is a clinically important problem, and there is a strong physiological case, supported by a growing body of clinical work, for an approach centered on a molecule that the immune system already uses. The remaining barrier is neither safety nor permission. It is the slow pace at which good ideas become common practice, and the trials still needed to push them there.Why have we not seen more rapid uptake of HOCl into clinical practice in the USA?Because institutions are slow to change. Because financial incentives point the wrong direction. Because clinical inertia is powerful.This is not a scandal of malice. It is a scandal of neglect. Nobody set out to use suboptimal treatments for diabetic wounds. It is simply that better treatments exist but have not been widely adopted because the pathway for adoption is hard.Look north, however, and the picture changes. In Canada, stabilized hypochlorous acid has moved further into routine wound care than it has in the United States. Several HOCl wound products are licensed by Health Canada as medical devices, some of them manufactured domestically in Ontario, and they are stocked and distributed through the same hospital supply channels that carry conventional dressings.[25,26]The national wound-care community has taken them up as well. Wounds Canada, the country’s professional wound-care organization, has featured pure hypochlorous acid cleansers in its educational materials, and the approach is in use at centers such as the Limb Preservation Clinic at The Ottawa Hospital.[27]This does not mean Canadian practice is uniform, and some of the most enthusiastic language comes from manufacturers rather than from independent audits. But the lesson is hard to miss. A comparable health system, facing the same biology and the same patients, has folded this molecule into ordinary care. And on the international front, the WHO now lists HOCl as an essential medicine.  The American lag is therefore a choice, not a law of nature, and choices can be revisited.But the better treatment is there. It works. It is less toxic. It is cheaper. It causes less pain. It enables healing of these types of wounds in a way that silver cannot.For any clinician treating diabetic foot ulcers, the question is not whether to use HOCl. It is whether to continue using silver when the evidence and the physiology both point toward a better choice.For any patient with a diabetic foot ulcer that is not healing, the question is worth asking: has my clinician considered HOCl? Or are we stuck with protocols designed for acute burns because that is how we have always done it?The physiology of chronic diabetic wounds is distinct. The treatment should be distinct. The tool exists. The evidence supports it. The barrier is only inertia.That barrier can be overcome. It needs to be overcome. The cost of not overcoming it is measured in lost limbs and shortened lives.20% off with code WOUNDThanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareReferences1. McDermott K, Fang M, Boulton AJM, Selvin E, Hicks CW. Etiology, epidemiology, and disparities in the burden of diabetic foot ulcers.Diabetes Care. 2023;46(1):209-221.2. Armstrong DG, Boulton AJM, Bus SA. Diabetic foot ulcers and their recurrence.New England Journal of Medicine. 2017;376(24):2367-2375.3. Pouget C, Dunyach-Remy C, Pantel A, Schuldiner S, Sotto A, Lavigne JP. Biofilms in diabetic foot ulcers: significance and clinical relevance.Microorganisms. 2020;8(10):1580.4. Afonso AC, Oliveira D, Saavedra MJ, Borges A, Simoes M. Biofilms in diabetic foot ulcers: impact, risk factors and control strategies.International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 2021;22(15):8278.5. Hall CW, Mah TF. Molecular mechanisms of biofilm-based antibiotic resistance and tolerance in pathogenic bacteria.FEMS Microbiology Reviews. 2017;41(3):276-301.6. Yan J, Bassler BL. Surviving as a community: antibiotic tolerance and persistence in bacterial biofilms.Cell Host and Microbe. 2019;26(1):15-21.7. Fox CL Jr. Silver sulfadiazine, a new topical therapy for Pseudomonas in burns.Archives of Surgery. 1968;96(2):184-188.8. Fox CL Jr, Modak SM. Mechanism of silver sulfadiazine action on burn wound infections.Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. 1974;5(6):582-588.9. Poon VKM, Burd A. In vitro cytotoxicity of silver: implication for clinical wound care.Burns. 2004;30(2):140-147.10. Burd A, Kwok CH, Hung SC, et al. A comparative study of the cytotoxicity of silver-based dressings in monolayer cell, tissue explant, and animal models.Wound Repair and Regeneration. 2007;15(1):94-104.11. Sequestration of nanoparticles by an EPS matrix reduces the particle-specific bactericidal activity.Scientific Reports. 2016;6:21379.12. pH-responsive, charge-reversing layer-by-layer nanoparticle surfaces enhance biofilm penetration and eradication. 2024. PMC11117027.13. Bitar MS, Al-Mulla F. Upregulation of CREM/ICER suppresses wound endothelial CRE-HIF-1 alpha-VEGF-dependent signaling and impairs angiogenesis in type 2 diabetes.Disease Models and Mechanisms. 2014;7(12). doi:10.1242/dmm.017145.14. Angiogenesis during diabetic wound repair: from mechanism to therapy opportunity.Burns and Trauma. 2024. doi:10.1093/burnst/tkae052.15. Wang L, Bassiri M, Najafi R, et al. Hypochlorous acid as a potential wound care agent: part I.Journal of Burns and Wounds. 2007;6:e5.16. Robson MC, Payne WG, Ko F, et al. Hypochlorous acid as a potential wound care agent: part II. Its role in decreasing tissue bacterial bioburden and overcoming the inhibition of infection on wound healing.Journal of Burns and Wounds. 2007;6:e6.17. Antimicrobial efficacy of a very stable hypochlorous acid formula compared with other antiseptics used in treating wounds: in-vitro study on micro-organisms with or without biofilm.Journal of Hospital Infection. 2020.18. Hypochlorous acid: applications in dermatology.Journal of Integrative Dermatology.19. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 510(k) premarket notification K123072: Vashe Wound Therapy Solution. 2013.20. The effectiveness of hypochlorous acid solution on healing of infected diabetic foot ulcers (randomized comparison versus hydrogen peroxide and povidone-iodine).Journal of Education and Practice. 2017. ERIC EJ1139092.21. A retrospective health economic analysis of a stable hypochlorous acid preserved wound cleanser versus 0.9 percent saline as instillation for negative-pressure wound therapy in severe and infected wounds. 2022. PMC9123387.22. The use of hypochlorous acid in the healing of a diabetic foot ulcer (case studies).International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Science. 2022.23. Dakin solution. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; updated 2023. NCBI Bookshelf NBK507916.24. Dakin HD. On the use of certain antiseptic substances in the treatment of infected wounds.British Medical Journal. 1915.25. Medline Canada. Vashe Hypochlorous Acid (HOCl) Wound Solution and BIHOCL PureCleanse Wound Cleanser (product listings). medline.ca.26. Biomiq Inc. BIHOCL and PureGel hypochlorous acid wound products (Health Canada Class II licensed medical devices). Kitchener, Ontario; 2025.27. Presentation digests on pure hypochlorous acid wound cleansers.Wound Care Canada(Wounds Canada). 2022-2023. woundscanada.ca.Medical DisclaimerThis essay is provided for general educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for diagnosis or treatment by a qualified health professional. Wound care decisions, including the choice of any dressing or antiseptic, depend on the individual and should be made together with a licensed clinician who can examine the wound and weigh the full medical picture. If you or someone you care for has a wound that is not healing, that shows signs of infection, or that is associated with diabetes or poor circulation, please seek care from your own medical provider. Do not delay or disregard professional medical advice because of something you have read here.

Summary: Why chronic diabetic and low-circulation wounds call for a different approach


Sunday Strip: "Like Sun, but Small"

Watch OUT!The climate-con time of year is upon us again!“Tens of billions of dollars in World Bank climate finance cannot be independently traced to specific climate-related expenditures.” -CHAT-GPTHint- that means the money was spent on “something other” than the intended purpose…But not exactly missing“Like sun, but small”Matt Walsh nails both the absurdity and abusive nature of outrage farming, otherwise known as cyberbullying in a single post.OK - I laughed out loud at this one!Thanks for reading Malone News! This post is public so feel free to share it.ShareMalone News is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Storchennest Live Webcam in Bad Salzungen, ThüringenJGM

Summary: It's that climate-con time of year!