West Virginia communities and officials were honoring two members of the state’s National Guard who were shot in Washington, D.C., this week, lauding their dedication to serving their country. U.S. […]

The post West Virginians Gather to Honor National Guard Slain By Afghan Refugee appeared first on The Western Journal.

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—A top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official called for introspection, humility and transformation at the agency in an email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) following a report by career staff that the deaths of 10 children may be attributed to the COVID-19 vaccine.

“At least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination,” FDA Chief Medical Officer and Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad said in an email sent to staff Friday afternoon.

“For the first time, the US FDA will acknowledge that COVID-19 vaccines have killed American children,” Prasad said. “Healthy young children who faced tremendously low risk of death were coerced, at the behest of the Biden administration, via school and work mandates, to receive a vaccine that could result in death. In many cases, such mandates were harmful. It is difficult to read cases where kids aged 7 to 16 may be dead as a result of covid vaccines.”

The finding—and the fact it would not have been uncovered without President Donald Trump’s appointee, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, at the helm—provokes important questions about the direction and culture of the agency, wrote Prasad, Makary’s handpicked deputy.

“Why did it take until 2025 to perform this analysis, and take necessary further actions? Deaths were reported between 2021 and 2024, and ignored for years,” he wrote.

The report on suspected COVID vaccine deaths in children has not been released. An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a DCNF request for comment.

The report amounts to a wake-up call, Prasad said. He called for a transformation of his own center’s mission, a crusade likely to face severe counterwinds from the pharmaceutical industry and some of the agency’s longtime vaccine reviewers. He, in turn, issued an ultimatum to these staffers.

“Never again will the US FDA commissioner have to himself find deaths in children for staff to identify it,” he wrote. “Some staff may not agree with these core principles and operating principles. Please submit your resignation letters to your supervisor.”

Earlier this year Prasad assigned career staff at the FDA Office of Biostatistics and Pharmacovigilance (OBPV) to assess reports to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a surveillance program tracing vaccine side effects, according to the email. Prior to joining the FDA, Makary and Prasad tracked reports of vaccine-induced myocarditis—inflammation of the heart muscle—which occurs most frequently in young, healthy boys and men.

FDA officials assessed whether the COVID vaccine caused the deaths reported in VAERS against a subjective scale ranging from certain to unlikely, Prasad wrote. The 10 detected deaths had “likely, probable or possible” attribution. Only highly motivated physicians complete the tedious process to submit VAERS reports, thus the figure is likely an underestimate, Prasad said. The COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers were due to conduct more safety studies, but FDA has not enforced its own requirements.

The FDA cannot answer the question of whether the COVID-19 vaccine killed more healthy kids than it saved because it lacks reliable data on the absolute risk reduction in severe disease and death in healthy children, Prasad said.

“The truth is we do not know if we saved lives on balance,” he wrote. “It is horrifying to consider that the US vaccine regulation, including our actions, may have harmed more children than we saved. This requires humility and introspection.”

“I suspect the answer is cultural and systemic,” he continued. “I have no doubt that many vaccines have saved millions of lives globally, and many have benefits that far exceed risks, but vaccines are like any other medical product. The right drug given to the right patient at the right time is great, but the same drug can be inappropriately given, causing harm. The same is true for vaccines.”

Prasad said the FDA should not lower its standards with the goal of further incentivizing the growth of the $30 billion vaccine market, pointing to the enormous profits of the COVID-19 vaccines and the fact that vaccines do not face generic competition.

Other forthcoming changes at CBER include changes to vaccine approvals in pregnant women, requiring more clinical trials rather than relying on laboratory studies testing antibody levels, revamping the annual flu vaccine rollout and studying the impact of administering multiple vaccines at the same time.

Prasad’s email amounts to a scathing critique of his predecessor, former CBER Director Peter Marks, who in 2021 pushed the agency to approve annual COVID boosters even for the young and healthy and to issue a full approval of the COVID vaccines, paving the way for higher-ups in the Biden White House to issue vaccine mandates, according to a 2024 congressional investigation. Marks’ push prompted the resignations of the agency’s two top vaccine reviewers, Marion Gruber and Philip Krause, who later told congressional investigators that they felt pressure to cut corners.

“Some have felt the CBER director should override reviewers to approve gene therapies that do not work because of patient demand. When these products later result in post market deaths, it is difficult to take corrective action. I favor approving products with benefits that exceed risks,” Prasad wrote.

Prasad’s changes tackle the post-pandemic plummet in public confidence in the FDA. Just 37% of Americans trust the FDA to act independently without outside influence, according to an August 2025 Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Just 27% of Americans rated the work of the FDA as “excellent” or “good” in an October 2025 Gallup poll.

Still, the mission has been rocky for Prasad, who faces opposition both from career staff who bristle at his criticism of the status quo and biotech investors wary of stricter standards.

His tenure was disrupted and prematurely ended when the White House fired him following a smear campaign by The Wall Street Journal editorial board and right-wing influencer Laura Loomer. That smear campaign coincided with the FDA temporarily halting shipments of Elevidys, a Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene therapy made by Sarepta Therapeutics. Prasad resumed his position after Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lobbied the White House to reinstate him, according to press reports.

The FDA did not pull Elevidys from the market but added a black boxed warning to the drug limiting the therapy to ambulatory patients four years of age and older on Nov. 14.

Prasad has been routinely undermined by leaks.

In the summer of 2025, Tracy Beth Hoeg, a senior advisor for clinical sciences to Makary and Prasad, began investigating the VAERS reports. She soon concluded the deaths attributable to COVID vaccination were real, according to Prasad’s email. Hoeg organized a meeting to discuss her research with the FDA’s OBPV and Office of Vaccines Research and Review; however, details were soon leaked to the press.

“Some staff present who leaked portrayed the incident as Dr. Hoeg attempting to create a false fear regarding vaccines,” Prasad wrote.

Prasad lambasted the leaks in the email.

“I have no doubt that individuals who are providing media outlets with slides, emails and personal anecdotes believe they are doing the right thing,” he said. “Unfortunately, this behavior is both unethical, illegal, and, as this case illustrates, factually incorrect.”

Originally published by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

The post FDA Chief Medical Officer Demands ‘Introspection’ by Staff After Report Tracing 10 Children’s Deaths to COVID Vaccine appeared first on The Daily Signal.

DEI will not just DIE. Despite the efforts of President Donald Trump and the Supreme Court, diversity, equity, and inclusion practices are still in vogue for the bluest parts of […]

The post Chicago Police Department Hit with Civil Rights Complaint for Race-Based Hiring Practices Meant to Address 'Systemic Inequities' appeared first on The Western Journal.

An Afghan national admitted to the United States under President Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome resettlement program was arrested this week after posting a TikTok video in which he appeared to be building a bomb and referenced Fort Worth as a target, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The post Afghan National Freed Under Biden Program Arrested After TikTok Bomb Threat in Fort Worth appeared first on Breitbart.

An Afghan national who came to America under former President Joe Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome program has been arrested on a terrorism charge. Mohammad Dawood Alokozay allegedly said in a […]

The post Only 1 Day Before DC Shooting, Another Biden-Era Afghan National Arrested on Terrorism Charges appeared first on The Western Journal.

Virginia high school football coach Travis Turner grabbed a gun from his home and disappeared into the woods while under investigation for child pornography and solicitation of a minor, his family revealed on Friday.

The post REPORT: Missing Virginia High School Football Coach Disappeared into Woods with Gun After Child-Sex Allegations appeared first on Breitbart.

The Trump administration’s negotiation with Northwestern University has resulted in the school agreeing to fork over $75 million to the U.S. government to resolve a series of investigations into campus antisemitism.

The post Art of the Deal: Another University Pays Up for Campus Antisemitism appeared first on Breitbart.

Before the House and Senate voted nearly unanimously—with just one “nay” in the House—to unseal the Jeffrey Epstein investigative records, the Epstein estate released 20,000 pages of unseen Epstein files to the House Oversight Committee. Following that, Democrats began their tour of publicizing a handpicked set of documents from that newly obtained trove of files. Notably, nearly all their selections reference one person only: President Donald Trump. One such set includes three email exchanges, out of the trove of over 20,000 pages, that were used to cast Trump in a suspicious light.

For example, in one 2011 email from Epstein to his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, he referred to Trump as “the dog that hasn’t barked” and noted that a young woman, an alleged victim of Epstein, had “spent hours at my house with him,” yet “he has never once been mentioned.” In another email from 2019, Epstein outright claimed, “of course Trump knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop.” House Democrats predictably touted these snippets to show that there was some White House coverup of the full Epstein files.

Yet the context behind these emails was notably thin. Even media outlets observed that the full context of the emails in the exchanges are not clear from the portions that were released by the Democrats. And they also provided no additional documents. For example, leaving important details such as who the victim was and what prompted the comments—or how Trump actually behaved at all. But that didn’t stop Democrats and their left-wing cheerleaders from igniting sensational headlines about Trumps’ apparently close relationship with Epstein.

Republicans in the Oversight Committee had to react swiftly, and so they did. Within hours of the selective leak, the Republican majority released the entirety of the Epstein estate documents to the public. They didn’t curate or filter the documents but instead dumped everything online to allow the public to examine the full truth rather than only the Democrat narrative. In fact, not only did the Republicans warn the public that the Democrat leak was “not grounded in the facts,” but in fact they claimed that the Democrats deliberately ignored exculpatory information.

When one steps back from a Democrat’s narrow presentation of the documents, the actual evidence in the Epstein files does not at all implicate Trump in any crimes or misconduct. First and foremost, in the voluminous records and prior legal cases, Trump is nowhere accused of participating in obscene sexual crimes. And tellingly, the victim that was referenced in the 2011 email, the one who allegedly spent hours with Trump at Epstein’s home, has herself never even accused Trump of any wrongdoing. That young woman was Virginia Giuffre, perhaps Epstein’s most famous accuser, who in the early 2000s was a teenage staffer at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club before being lured into Epstein’s ring. In fact, Giuffre repeatedly stated that Trump never did anything improper toward her, and according to her memoir, published posthumously in October, when Giuffre met Trump around 2000, she stated that he “couldn’t have been friendlier” to her. Even in interviews, she praised Trump’s demeanor in their limited interactions.

And of course, let’s not forget that years before Epstein’s 2019 arrest, Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. And multiple accounts, including from Epstein’s accusers and Trump himself, confirmed that Trump expelled Epstein from his Palm Beach property in 2007 after Epstein allegedly harassed an underage girl at the club.

In fact, the newly released files even include Trump’s July statement that Epstein was kicked out because he had “stolen” young female staffers, including Giuffre, from a Mar-a-Lago spa, which was part of his reason for barring Epstein from the club.

In a July interview that the Justice Department conducted with Maxwell, she stated that she unequivocally never saw Trump engage in inappropriate behavior. She said, “I never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

And let’s not forget a crucial point of the Republican criticism of the Democrats’ cherry-picking of the Epstein files: The files implicate numerous powerful people across the political spectrum, yet Democrats oddly showed a laser focus on Trump’s name alone.

With the new records from the DOJ soon to be unsealed, we will no doubt gain even more context and a deeper understanding of Epstein’s actions and web of allies.

Yet Democrats are continuing to publicize cherry-picked portions of the evidence, such as obscene, unverified emails sent during Trump’s first term that make sensational claims about Trump performing fellatio on former President Bill Clinton. The emails also show that Epstein had a clear disdain for Trump. He wanted to “take him down.” He said that Trump had “not one decent cell in his body.”

According to Democrats, it must follow, Epstein is a hero.

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The post Jeffrey Epstein: A Hero to Democrats appeared first on The Daily Signal.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., this week, FBI Director Kash Patel made a point of noting how National Guard members […]

The post Patel: Heroic National Guard Soldiers Captured Shooter, Prevented Further Tragedy After Troops Ambushed, Shot appeared first on The Western Journal.

Custom & Collectable Firearms has released a limited, two-tone edition of the Daniel Defense MK18, marking the first time this platform has been chambered in .300 Blackout exclusively for CNC Firearms. Distributed through Orion Wholesale, the run consists of just 200 pistols, each sequentially numbered. Built around a 10.3-inch barrel and finished in FDE, the ... Read more

The post Daniel Defense MK18 in .300 Blackout Debuts as Limited Two-Tone Run of 200 appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

The White House launched a website on Friday exposing left-wing media bias, complete with a "Media Offender of the Week" and an "Offender Hall of Shame."

The post White House Launches Website Exposing Media Bias appeared first on Breitbart.

The boyfriend of the late Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death in Charlotte, North Carolina, is speaking out after another young woman was lit on fire by a deranged man now […]

The post Iryna Zarutska's Boyfriend Rips Judge Who Let Chicago Burning Suspect Go After He Had Being Arrested 72 Times appeared first on The Western Journal.