WASHINGTON: The US federal agency tasked with protecting the environment has deleted facts from its website about how human activity drives climate change, media outlets reported Tuesday.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tweaked its pages to focus on the “natural processes” driving climate change — like volcano eruptions and variation in solar activity — in October, the Washington Post reported.
A webpage titled “Causes of Climate Change” and another that tracks global warming impacts in the US were also altered, the New York Times reported.
And a page describing rising seas and shrinking Arctic ice — both key indicators of a changing climate — was also deleted, the Post reported.
President Donald Trump regularly rails against wind power and sustainable energy, calling for more drilling on US lands, and has slashed research and development to track and mitigate the effects of climate change.
In a statement to the Washington Post, EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch distanced the Trump administration from predecessor Joe Biden’s “left wing political agendas,” adding: “As such, this agency no longer takes marching orders from the climate cult.”
Fossil fuel interests and extraction industries have lavished Trump with campaign donations and contributions, according to the Brennan Center.
The 79-year-old Republican has already made their policy wishes come true by rolling back electric vehicle rules, fuel-economy standards and other green domestic policies enacted by the Biden administration.
Trump’s climate denialism has also gone global, with his refusal to send a US representative to the COP meeting in Brazil, echoing his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement earlier this year.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California, called the website deletions “one of the most dramatic scrubbings we’ve seen so far in the climate space,” the Post reported.
“More and more pages have either been completely removed from the public Internet — or perhaps worse, have been replaced with inaccurate information.”
US environmental agency wipes climate change facts from website: reports
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US environmental agency wipes climate change facts from website: reports
- The Environmental Protection Agency tweaked its pages to focus on the ‘natural processes’ driving climate change, like volcano eruptions and variation in solar activity
EU regulator backs approval for Moderna’s combined COVID and flu vaccine
- Currently people need two separate shots to protect them against COVID-19 and influenza
- Moderna is banking on the COVID-flu combination shot
BRUSSELS: Europe’s medicines regulator recommended approval for Moderna’s COVID and flu combination vaccine on Friday, putting it on track to become the first single shot to protect people aged 50 and older against both illnesses.
Currently people need two separate shots to protect them against COVID-19 and influenza and the vaccines are updated regularly to match the viral strains in circulation.
Moderna is banking on the COVID-flu combination shot and also an mRNA-based flu shot to help it return to revenue growth as demand for COVID vaccines has collapsed in the years after the pandemic.
It hopes international markets will drive revenue growth this year, as anti-vaccine activist US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr has disrupted the domestic market.
MODERNA SHARES HAVE PLUNGED FROM 2021 HIGHS
Shares of the biotech, which were flat in US premarket hours on Friday, have declined by nearly 90 percent from 2021 highs.
Last year, Moderna withdrew its US application for its COVID-flu combination shot to wait for efficacy data from a late-stage trial of its influenza vaccine.
Earlier this month, the company said it was waiting for guidance from the Food and Drug Administration on refiling the application.
US regulators initially refused to review a separate mRNA-based flu vaccine from the company, then reversed course a week later after Moderna amended its application.
EMA’s recommendation on Friday was based on data from a study of 8,000 participants that showed those who received mCombriax generated more antibodies than those who received separate shots against the viruses.
The study compared mCombriax with a combination of Moderna’s COVID-19 shot Spikevax and traditional flu shots from GSK and Sanofi.
EMA also considered data from a study of a similar mRNA flu vaccine, in which mCombriax triggered an adequate immune response. The shot contains messenger RNA with instructions for making proteins found on some strains of the influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2.
EMA’s recommendation will be reviewed by the European Commission, which will give the final sign off for marketing in the European Union. It was not clear how long that decision would take.
