Government
Governments in the US and EU have generally different attitudes about governments and the public interest. The balance of power is also different. In the EU, the public interest generally comes before special interests. People on the political left in the EU tend to claim the power balance is tipped too far in favor of special commercial interests. People on the right tend to claim the opposite. By contrast in the US, the balance of power under djt and MAGA elites has shifted greatly toward special commercial and religious interests at the expense of the public interest. It wasn't great before MAGA after 2016, but it's a lot worse now. Power had wealth are flowing from us to them.
One example of EU protection for the public interest is in chemicals used in food and other commerce. In the EU, the burden is on the chemical producer to show a chemical is reasonably safe for its intended use. In the US, a new chemical is usually just assumed to be safe and sold. The burden of proof that a compound is not safe is on the US EPA, not the chemical makers. If solid evidence it is not safe comes out years or decades later, maybe it will be taken off the market sometime down the road, if ever. The US is a land of caveat emptor. Under one US law (TSCA), over 62,000 chemicals were grandfathered in without any safety testing.
Yeah, the FDA approval process for new pharmaceutical drugs is an exception in the US. For FDA marketing approval, a drug maker has to show both sufficient safety and efficacy for a drug's intended use. If data later comes up that undermines the safety or efficacy originally found, the drug will get taken off the market sooner or latter, but that usually takes years or decades. Sometimes never. That's just another indication of special interests served before the public interest.
Magnesium
Some recent reporting indicated that a lot of Americans don't get enough magnesium (Mg) in their daily diet. Apparently that's been going on for years, maybe decades. One has to wonder what a daily "requirement" means, but that's off topic. Based on my daily diet, my estimate was that I was short ~100-120 mg/day** of Mg. The recommended daily amount for an adult male is ~420 mg/day.
** mg = milligram, Mg = magnesium
~100 mg/day short? No big deal. I bought a Mg supplement at the local grocery store. It cost $7.00 for 200 tablets of MgO (magnesium oxide). Cheap. The label said 250 mg of Mg "as MgO". Great, I'd get 250 mg Mg/day, about 150 mg/day more than I needed. No big deal.
But coming from decades of biomedical research and pharmaceutical industry experience, and in a moment of being sick of disgusting MAGA politics, I got curious about MgO. A quick Pxy search of things like Tmax, time of peak blood or plasma level, and AUC, area under concentration-time curve, to get a feel for speed of absorption and total bioavailability of orally taken MgO.
To my surprise, MgO is not orally bioavailable. It is mostly insoluble. Once taken, it mostly stays in the GI tract. ~85% passes out in poo and ~11% passes in pee. About 4% gets in the body. That amounts to a paltry ~10 mg of the 250 mg of the Mg in MgO is actually available to the whole body as a nutritional supplement. MgO is a bogus consumer product. A fraud.
So, $7.00 got wasted on a product of basically no nutritional value. The MgO tablets got tossed in the yard, in the hope it wouldn't kill the plants out there. Maybe they could figure some way to get the Mg for themselves. Probably should have Pxy-ed that. My bad. Lazy butt.
Anyway, Pxy was quick to point out that Mg glycinate is the Mg supplement with the highest AUC. I bought some of that. It's not as cheap, but at least I'd be assured of getting a real Mg supplement instead of roughage for my intestines to get rid of.
This bit about a worthless consumer product is just another aspect of life under a caveat emptor government. We get nickeled, dimed and ripped off all kinds of ways. Our MAGAfied government doesn't care. It was bad before MAGA. Now it's a lot worse. And, it is gonna get a whole lot worse yet.
Whatnot
It's gonna get a whole lot worse. An example is djt's recent suspension and then firings of EPA employees. They were fired for criticized him for turning the EPA from an agency whose core mission was to protect public health and the environment to one whose core mission was the opposite. Now the EPA's core mission is to protect polluters, stop enforcement of environmental laws and regulations, and hide commercial polluting for profit activities. The employees got fired for honestly saying the new EPA mission is to endanger public health and erode scientific climate and environmental science progress. They warned that the EPA under MAGA leadership will not protect communities from hazardous chemicals or unsafe drinking water. Instead the EPA will increase risks to public health and safety. Polluters and MAGA elites love it.
The fired employees wrote in their open letter[1] arguing that that Americans should be able to drink their water and breathe their air without being poisoned, and if they cannot, then government is failing. Well, isn't government failure in the beholder's eye? In MAGA eyes, poisoned water and air is successful government, not failed government. To MAGA and the special interests it now serves, a caveat emptor government is the very best kind of government-- no laws, no regulations, and no public accountability, but lost of lies and hiding behind secrecy and plausible deniability.
As MAGA elites like to believe, if you don't like it or get hurt or killed, tough. Pull yourself (or your corpse) up by your bootstraps and get over it. You were warned and you voted for it anyway. Now you're gonna get it good and hard.
Footnote:
1. Part of the former EPA employees' letter of complaint is this:
Our Five Primary Concerns
Under your leadership, Administrator Zeldin, this administration is recklessly undermining the EPA mission including in these five critical areas:
1. Undermining public trust. EPA's non-partisan nature ensures that all Americans—regardless of political affiliation—are served by an agency guided by scientific expertise, professional integrity, and an unwavering commitment to the public good. For over five decades, EPA's strength has come from its commitment to science-based decision-making. However, under this administration, the Agency's communication platforms have been used to promote misinformation and overtly partisan rhetoric. For example, EPA press releases and the "Call it a Comeback" newsletter have referred to EPA grants as “green slush funds” and praised “clean coal” as “beautiful.” The Office of the Administrator has used official EPA channels to liken climate science to a religion, issue attacks against individual members of Congress, and criticize former presidents. These communications are partisan and scientifically unsound. The Office of the Administrator may have violated the Hatch Act by using EPA’s official website and social media to promote political initiatives such as President Trump’s tariffs and the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” This politicized messaging distracts from EPA’s core responsibility: to protect human health and the environment through objective, science-based policy.
2. Ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters. This administration's actions directly contradict EPA's own scientific assessments on human health risks, most notably regarding asbestos, mercury, and greenhouse gases. Health-based regulatory standards are being repealed or reconsidered, including drinking water limits for four PFAS "forever chemicals" that cause cancer. Under your leadership, Administrator Zeldin, EPA is promoting the fossil fuel-powered auto industry while simultaneously stripping away support for cleaner electric vehicles. You are supporting new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), without addressing AI's intense consumption of environmental resources. The decisions of the current administration frequently contradict the peer-reviewed research and recommendations of Agency experts. Such contradiction undermines EPA's reputation as a trusted scientific authority. Make no mistake: your actions endanger public health and erode scientific progress--not only in America--but around the world.
4. Dismantling the Office of Research and Development. EPA's research provides the scientific basis for its rulemaking, stakeholder needs, and other key decisions. U.S. Law (42 U.S.C. § 4363) states that the EPA Administrator shall "establish a separately identified program of continuing, long-term environmental research and development," which is currently led by the Office of Research and Development, or ORD. Your administration has proposed a reorganization that moves EPA's foundational research to the Administrator's Office and reassigns ORD's research staff to the program offices. A move that places ORD scientists in regulatory program offices will make EPA science more vulnerable to political interference. In addition, the gutting of staff and science and your proposed budget cuts for the coming year will leave ORD unable to meet the science needs of the EPA and its partners and will threaten the health of all Americans.
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