Fraudulently Doctored Images and “Suspect Data” in Many Leading Cancer Research Papers

Charles Piller in his Doctored paints a damning picture of doctored images and suspect data rampant in the leading scientific literature on Alzheimer’s disease. Not only were leading scientists guilty of fraud, but the key institutions of scientific research (journals, universities, and government grant-making agencies) failing their oversight duty, and when outsiders stepped in to provide oversight, delayed and minimized their responses. Practicing and turning a blind eye to fraud matters, since Alzheimer’s patients are depending on this research. And researchers who do not commit fraud suffer because they appear to have worse research records than those compiled by the fraudsters. So the honest get worse academic appointments and fewer grants.

After reading Doctored I was depressed, but I at least hoped that this pathology was limited to this one (albeit an important one) area of medical research. But in the article quoted below, evidence is presented that there is substantial similar doctored images and suspect data in the field of cancer research.

A side issue in the quoted article is worth highlighting. In the absence of credible oversight from the institutions tasked with oversight, oversight is being done by competent volunteers, with the aid of A.I. These volunteers do not receive compensation for their work, and in fact are probably pay a price for it, since they alienate powerful scientists and scientific institutions. But if science is a search for truth, and truth matters for cures, they are doing a service to us all, and especially to those who suffer from major diseases such as Alsheimer’s and cancer.

On the connection with the Doctored book, it is worth noting that the article quotes Dr. Matthew Schrag, who is the most important source in Doctored. The article also quoted Elisabeth Bik, who does not have an MD like Schrag but has a PhD in microbiology, and who is another important source in Doctored.

(p. A1) The stomach cancer study was shot through with suspicious data. Identical constellations of cells were said to depict separate experiments on wholly different biological lineages. Photos of tumor-stricken mice, used to show that a drug reduced cancer growth, had been featured in two previous papers describing other treatments.

Problems with the study were severe enough that its publisher, after finding that the paper violated ethics guidelines, formally withdrew it within a few months of its publication in 2021. The study was then wiped from the internet, leaving behind a barren web page that said nothing about the reasons for its removal.

As it turned out, the flawed study was part of a pattern. Since 2008, two of its authors — Dr. Sam S. Yoon, chief of a cancer surgery division at Columbia University’s medical center, and a more junior cancer biologist — have collaborated with a rotating cast of researchers on a combined 26 articles that a British scientific sleuth has publicly flagged for containing suspect data. A medical journal retracted one of them this month after inquiries from The New York Times.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where Dr. Yoon worked when much of the research was done, is now investigating the studies. Columbia’s medical center declined to comment on specific allegations, saying only that it reviews “any concerns about scientific integrity brought to our attention.”

Dr. Yoon, who has said his research could lead to better cancer treatments, did not answer repeated questions. Attempts to speak to the other researcher, Changhwan Yoon, an associate research scientist at Columbia, were also unsuccessful.

The allegations were aired in recent months in online comments on a science forum and in a blog post by Sholto David, an independent molecular biologist. He has ferreted out problems in a raft of high-profile cancer research, including dozens of papers at a Harvard cancer center that were subsequently referred for retractions or corrections.

From his flat in Wales, Dr. David pores over published images of cells, tumors and mice in his spare (p. A17) time and then reports slip-ups, trying to close the gap between people’s regard for academic research and the sometimes shoddier realities of the profession.

. . .

Armed with A.I.-powered detection tools, scientists and bloggers have recently exposed a growing body of such questionable research, like the faulty papers at Harvard’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and studies by Stanford’s president that led to his resignation last year.

But those high-profile cases were merely the tip of the iceberg, experts said. A deeper pool of unreliable research has gone unaddressed for years, shielded in part by powerful scientific publishers driven to put out huge volumes of studies while avoiding the reputational damage of retracting them publicly.

The quiet removal of the 2021 stomach cancer study from Dr. Yoon’s lab, a copy of which was reviewed by The Times, illustrates how that system of scientific publishing has helped enable faulty research, experts said. In some cases, critical medical fields have remained seeded with erroneous studies.

“The journals do the bare minimum,” said Elisabeth Bik, a microbiologist and image expert who described Dr. Yoon’s papers as showing a worrisome pattern of copied or doctored data. “There’s no oversight.”

. . .

Dr. Yoon, a stomach cancer specialist and a proponent of robotic surgery, kept climbing the academic ranks, bringing his junior researcher along with him. In September 2021, around the time the study was published, he joined Columbia, which celebrated his prolific research output in a news release. His work was financed in part by half a million dollars in federal research money that year, adding to a career haul of nearly $5 million in federal funds.

. . .

The researchers’ suspicious publications stretch back 16 years. Over time, relatively minor image copies in papers by Dr. Yoon gave way to more serious discrepancies in studies he collaborated on with Changhwan Yoon, Dr. David said. The pair, who are not related, began publishing articles together around 2013.

But neither their employers nor their publishers seemed to start investigating their work until this past fall, when Dr. David published his initial findings on For Better Science, a blog, and notified Memorial Sloan Kettering, Columbia and the journals. Memorial Sloan Kettering said it began its investigation then.

. . .

A proliferation of medical journals, they said, has helped fuel demand for ever more research articles. But those same journals, many of them operated by multibillion-dollar publishing companies, often respond slowly or do nothing at all once one of those articles is shown to contain copied data. Journals retract papers at a fraction of the rate at which they publish ones with problems.

. . .

“There are examples in this set that raise pretty serious red flags for the possibility of misconduct,” said Dr. Matthew Schrag, a Vanderbilt University neurologist who commented as part of his outside work on research integrity.

. . .

Experts said the handling of the article was symptomatic of a tendency on the part of scientific publishers to obscure reports of lapses.

“This is typical, sweeping-things-under-the-rug kind of nonsense,” said Dr. Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch, which keeps a database of 47,000-plus retracted papers. “This is not good for the scientific record, to put it mildly.”

For the full story, see:

Benjamin Mueller. “Cancer Doctor Is in Spotlight Over Bad Data.” The New York Times. (Fri., February 16, 2024): A1 & A17.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version has the date Feb. 15, 2024 [sic], and has the title “A Columbia Surgeon’s Study Was Pulled. He Kept Publishing Flawed Data.”)

Piller’s book mentioned in my initial comments is:

Piller, Charles. Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s. New York: Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2025.

If Corn Syrup Hurts Health Then Government Should Stop Subsidizing Corn Farming and Stop Quotas on Sugar Imports

Every semester for many years I would conclude my micro principles class discussing the ill effects of the U.S. government imposing quotas on the importation of sugar. I would point out that the quotas increase the price of sugar for American consumers. Since corn syrup is a substitute for sugar, the increase in the price of sugar will increase the demand for corn syrup.

To support the ill effects of corn syrup, I used to cite a commentary by Michael Waldholz:

In a speech to the International Congress on Obesity last summer, George Bray, a recognized expert on weight gain, said high fructose corn syrup is a “ticking bomb” in our diet because it is more readily converted into fat than other sugars. Unlike other sugars, fructose doesn’t trigger the release of insulin, which controls sugar consumption by telling the brain to send out a feeling of fullness. (Waldholz 2003, p. D3)

It would be interesting to check the current state of the evidence on whether Bray’s claim is true. But if so, then it provides support for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s current initiative against corn syrup, which was discussed in a full-page article in the NYT in December 2024.

Paradoxically, the U.S. government increases the consumption of corn syrup in multiple ways. In my principles classes I pointed out the indirect effect of sugar quotas. The NYT article also points out the subsidies for corn production.

Kennedy wants to ban the use of corn syrup products in federally subsidized school lunches and ban their purchase using federal food stamps. He should also lobby his boss to end federal subsidies for corn production and end the federal quota program on sugar.

The WSJ commentary on corn syrup is:

Waldholz, Michael “Let’s Subtract ‘Added Sugar’ from Our Diets.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Feb. 20, 2003): D3.

(Note: the online version of the Waldholz commentary has the same date as the print version and has the title “Let’s Ditch ‘Added Sugar’ From Our Regular Diets.”)

The NYT article on corn syrup is:

Jonathan Weisman. “Kennedy’s Crusade Comes to Trump Country.” The New York Times (Weds., December 11, 2024): A11.

(Note: the online version of the NYT article has the date Dec. 10, 2024, and has the title “Kennedy’s War on Corn Syrup Brings a Health Crusade to Trump Country.”)

“A.I.s Are Overly Complicated, Patched-Together Rube Goldberg Machines Full of Ad-Hoc Solutions”

A.I. can be a useful tool for searching and summarizing the current state of consensus knowledge. But I am highly dubious that it will ever be able to make the breakthrough leaps that some humans are sometimes able to make. And I am somewhat dubious that it will ever be able to make the resilient pivots that all of us must sometimes make in the face of new and unexpected challenges.

(p. B2) In a series of recent essays, [Melanie] Mitchell argued that a growing body of work shows that it seems possible models develop gigantic “bags of heuristics,” rather than create more efficient mental models of situations and then reasoning through the tasks at hand. (“Heuristic” is a fancy word for a problem-solving shortcut.)

When Keyon Vafa, an AI researcher at Harvard University, first heard the “bag of heuristics” theory, “I feel like it unlocked something for me,” he says. “This is exactly the thing that we’re trying to describe.”

Vafa’s own research was an effort to see what kind of mental map an AI builds when it’s trained on millions of turn-by-turn directions like what you would see on Google Maps. Vafa and his colleagues used as source material Manhattan’s dense network of streets and avenues.

The result did not look anything like a street map of Manhattan. Close inspection revealed the AI had inferred all kinds of impossible maneuvers—routes that leapt over Central Park, or traveled diagonally for many blocks. Yet the resulting model managed to give usable turn-by-turn directions between any two points in the borough with 99% accuracy.

Even though its topsy-turvy map would drive any motorist mad, the model had essentially learned separate rules for navigating in a multitude of situations, from every possible starting point, Vafa says.

The vast “brains” of AIs, paired with unprecedented processing power, allow them to learn how to solve problems in a messy way which would be impossible for a person.

. . .

. . ., today’s AIs are overly complicated, patched-together Rube Goldberg machines full of ad-hoc solutions for answering our prompts. Understanding that these systems are long lists of cobbled-together rules of thumb could go a long way to explaining why they struggle when they’re asked to do things even a little bit outside their training, says Vafa. When his team blocked just 1% of the virtual Manhattan’s roads, forcing the AI to navigate around detours, its performance plummeted.

This illustrates a big difference between today’s AIs and people, he adds. A person might not be able to recite turn-by-turn directions around New York City with 99% accuracy, but they’d be mentally flexible enough to avoid a bit of roadwork.

For the full commentary see:

Christopher Mims. “We Now Know How AI ‘Thinks.’ It Isn’t Thinking at All.” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, April 26, 2025): B2.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 25, 2025, and has the title “We Now Know How AI ‘Thinks’—and It’s Barely Thinking at All.”)

A conference draft of the paper that Vafa co-authored on A.I.’s mental map of Manhattan is:

Vafa, Keyon, Justin Y. Chen, Ashesh Rambachan, Jon Kleinberg, and Sendhil Mullainathan. “Evaluating the World Model Implicit in a Generative Model.” In 38th Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). Vancouver, BC, Canada, Dec. 2024.

Croatian Government Does Not Learn from Distant Past (or Recent Past) That Price Controls Do Not Work

In Croatia, as in the United States, inflation resulted when each government “flooded the country with cash” to buy votes during the Covid pandemic.

(p. 4) In 301 A.D., the Emperor Diocletian made a bold but ultimately unsuccessful bid to address the inflation that was rampaging across the eastern half of the divided Roman Empire.

Prices of everything from purple thread and feathers to slaves and cattle were dictated by his Edict on Maximum Prices. Violators faced the death penalty. Diocletian gave up power about four years after issuing his edict, watching his measure fail from his sprawling retirement palace in the heart of what became the city of Split in Croatia.

Now Croatia’s government is trying a similar tactic to rein in prices that have soared in recent years and sparked protests and retail boycotts by the country’s beleaguered consumers.

. . .

The rules that came into effect this month are the Croatian government’s third attempt at controlling prices by fiat since September 2022. The first two efforts were largely ineffective, with retailers simply refusing to stock most price-controlled goods.

. . .

Economists blame the increases on a three-headed hydra of pandemic-era economic rescue packages that flooded the country with cash, increases in public sector wages and retailers rounding up prices after Croatia adopted the euro in 2023.

. . .

John H. Cochrane, an economist and fellow at the Hoover Institution, a research center, pointed to the role Diocletian’s edict played in causing shortages and fueling a black market.

“It’s like trying to stem the symptoms rather than treating the underlying disease,” Mr. Cochrane said of price controls. “It offers people the appearance of help for a while, and then it takes a few weeks or, a month or two, for all the problems to break out.”

For the full story, see:

Joe Orovic. “A Croatian Plan to Rein In Prices Echoes the Tack of an Emperor.” The New York Times, First Section. (Sun., March 9, 2025): 4.

(Note: ellipses added.)

(Note: the online version was updated March 10, 2025, and has the title “Echoing a Roman Emperor, Croatia Tries to Cap Soaring Prices.” Where there is a slight difference in wording, the passages quoted above follow the online version.)

Girls Who Are Skilled in Both STEM and Non-STEM Fields, Usually Prefer Non-STEM Fields

Gender discrimination is not the only explanation for there being more men than women in STEM jobs, according to the research summarized in the passages quoted below.

(p. C3) Scores of surveys over the last 50 years show that women tend to be more interested in careers that involve working with other people while men prefer jobs that involve manipulating objects, whether it is a hammer or a computer. These leanings can be seen in the lab, too. Studies published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 2016, for example, found that women were more responsive to pictures of people, while men were more responsive to pictures of things.

Consistent with what men and women say they want, the STEM fields with more men, such as engineering and computer science, focus on objects while those with more women, such as psychology and biomedicine, focus on people.

Given the push to get more people—and especially more girls—interested in STEM, it is worth noting that talented students of both sexes tend to avoid a career in math or science if they can pursue something else. STEM jobs aren’t for everyone, regardless of how lucrative they may be.

A study of more than 70,000 high-school students in Greece, published in the Journal of Human Resources in 2024, found that girls on average outperformed boys in both STEM and non-STEM subjects but rarely pursued STEM in college if they were just as strong in other things. A study of middle-aged adults who had been precocious in math as teens, published in the journal Psychological Science in 2014, found that only around a quarter of the men were working in STEM and IT.

Large-scale studies around the world show that women are generally more likely than men to have skills in non-STEM areas, while men who are strong in math and science are often less skilled elsewhere. But while everyone seems to be concerned about whether girls are performing well in STEM classes, no one seems all that troubled by the fact that boys are consistently underperforming in reading and writing.

For the full essay see:

Hippel, William von. “Why Are Girls Less Likely to Become Scientists?” The Wall Street Journal (Saturday, March 8, 2025): C3.

(Note: the online version of the essay has the date March 6, 2025, and has the same title as the print version.)

Hippel’s essay, quoted above, is adapted from his book:

Hippel, William von. The Social Paradox: Autonomy, Connection, and Why We Need Both to Find Happiness. New York: Harper, 2025.

The academic study published in the Journal of Human Resources and mentioned above is:

Goulas, Sofoklis, Silvia Griselda, and Rigissa Megalokonomou. “Comparative Advantage and Gender Gap in Stem.” Journal of Human Resources 59, no. 6 (Nov. 2024): 1937-80.

Vinyl LP Records Have Been Mostly Replaced, but in Kansas Not Completely Destroyed

In my Openness book, I argue that Schumpeter’s phrase “creative destruction” misleads by overemphasizing the extent of destruction in the process of breakthrough innovation, so I prefer to call the process “innovative dynamism.” A new innovation is often better than the old in many, but not all, traits. A minority of people who put heavy weight on the traits where the old product is better, will still prefer the old product. If the minority is large enough, and willing to pay enough for their preference, then there will be enough demand for the old product to remain in production, rather than be fully replaced (i.e., destroyed).

Illustrating my point, The New York Times ran two full pages on Chad Kassem, a Kansas entrepreneur who is working hard, with some success, at making higher quality vinyl LP records. He has 114 employees and annual revenue of over $1 million.

He is even introducing incremental innovations to the old product: (p. 6) “Kassem hired veterans of the record-making business and indulged their ideas for modernizing a process that (p. 7) had barely changed since the 1970s. Among other innovations, they introduced computerized controls and found ways to regulate the fluctuating temperature of vinyl in the presses.”

The New York Times article is:

Ben Sisario. “In a Digital World, Pursuing an Ideal Of Perfect Vinyl.” The New York Times, Arts&Leisure Section (Sun., March 9, 2025): 6-7.

(Note: the online version of The New York Times article on the resilience of vinyl was updated March 7, 2025, and has the title “The Wizard of Vinyl Is in Kansas.”)

My book mentioned in my initial comments is:

Diamond, Arthur M., Jr. Openness to Creative Destruction: Sustaining Innovative Dynamism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Democratic Donor Warren Buffett Praises DOGE

(p. A1) . . . at the end of Saturday’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, the Oracle of Omaha dropped a bonbshell before a gathering of some 17,000 shareholders: that he’s set to step aside as Berkshire CEO, with vice chairman Abel taking his place.

. . .

(p. A4) It was little surprise that the very first question from moderator Becky Quick of CNBC in the Saturday [May 3, 2025] Q&A had to do with tariffs.

. . .

While critical of Trump’s tariffs, Buffett had little bad to say about Trump’s budget and program-slashing Department of Government Efficiency.

He called the current 7% gap between the federal government’s revenues and expenditures unsustainable. Whether that’s two or 20 years “it’s something that cannot go on forever,” he said. And if it isn’t brought under control, he said, it risks rampant inflation.

“I think it’s a job I don’t want, but it’s a job I think should be done, and Congress doesn’t seem to be doing it,” Buffett said.

For the full story, see:

Cordes, Henry J. “Buffett to Step Down as CEO of Berkshire.” Omaha World-Herald (Sunday, May 4, 2025): A1 & A4.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)

(Note: the online version of the article has the title “Warren Buffett stepping down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO at end of year; shareholders react.”)

A World with No Tariffs, No Barriers, No Subsidies

Art Laffer and Stephen Moore had an op-ed a few weeks ago in which they encouraged Donald Trump to be the best version of himself on the tariff and trade issue. Trump has made inconsistent statements on tariffs and trade. Sometimes his goal seems to be to seek long-term tariffs that bring in substantial revenue. But his best version seeks a mutual reduction in tariffs to zero–a world of free trade, which when combined with deregulation and downsizing of government will allow entrepreneurs to innovate and trade so that we all flourish.

The best version of Trump is the one who spoke the following words in 2018 at a meeting of the Group of Seven in Quebec:

“No tariffs, no barriers. That’s the way it should be. And no subsidies. I even said, ‘no tariffs.’ . . . Ultimately, that’s what you want. You want tariff-free, no barriers and you want no subsidies.” (Trump as quoted in Laffer and Moore 2023, p. A17)

Source of quote:

Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore. “A Win-Win Exit Strategy For Trump on Tariffs.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., April 8, 2025): A17.

(Note: ellipsis in original.)

(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date April 7, 2025, and has the same title as the print version.)

(Note: Stephen Moore wrote a nice blurb for my Openness book.

“If She Ever Had a Clever Thought, It Died Alone and Afraid”

I still smile whenever I see a Tesla Cybertruck. Boldly audacious–its mere existence gives me hope for the future. If I could charge its battery as fast as I can fill a tank of gas, I would buy one tomorrow. I still worry that Musk will implode or cave. But right now he looks like a genuine hero, defending free speech by buying Twitter, taking on the deep state by creating DOGE, solving the engineering challenges to make the dream of Mars a reality!

(p. B1) When Jennifer Trebb first pulled into her driveway two years ago with her sleek Tesla Model Y, it was — as she put it — “kind of like a ‘Back to the Future’ moment.”

She was helping the environment, she said, but driving a Tesla also had cachet. “It was definitely a little bit of a cool moment to have something that was innovative and different,” she said.

But Ms. Trebb recently made a U-turn, joining the ranks of Tesla owners in the United States and overseas — some well known, including the singer Sheryl Crow — who are selling their vehicles because the values and politics of the company’s billionaire chief executive, Elon Musk, are alienating them, they say.

. . .

(p. B6) In the United States, perhaps the most notable rebuke of the car brand was lodged by Ms. Crow, the singer-songwriter, who posted an Instagram video in February [2025] showing her waving goodbye as her electric vehicle was driven away on a flatbed truck.

. . .

In an appearance with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, mocked Ms. Crow’s protest.

“I think she means well, but if she ever had a clever thought, it died alone and afraid,” Mr. Kennedy said.

For the full story see:

Neil Vigdor. “Tesla for Sale: Buyer’s Remorse Sets In For E.V. Owners Who’ve Soured on Musk.” The New York Times (Friday, March 7, 2025): B1 & B6.

(Note: ellipses, and bracketed year, added.)

(Note: the online version of the story was updated March 5, 2025, and has the title “Tesla for Sale: Buyer’s Remorse Sinks In for Elon Musk’s E.V.-Owning Critics.”)

Covid Handouts Raised Government Debt, Leading to Higher Inflation

During Covid, Democrats in Congress pushed for ever-greater government handouts to voters, that often were handed out to fraudsters, and substantially increased the U.S. debt. Former Democratic Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers predicted that this would fuel inflation. Recent research by Ernie Tedeschi, the former Chief Economist at President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors, confirms that increased debt results in higher prices.

The New York Times article summarizing Tedeschi’s research is:

Colby Smith. “Research Shows Link Between High Government Debt and Rising Prices.” The New York Times (Thurs., March 13, 2025): B3.

(Note: the online version of the article has the date March 12, 2024, and has the title “High Government Debt Is Seen as Stoking Inflation, Research Shows.”)

Colby Smith identifies Tedeschi as the author of the following research paper. The Budget Lab web site, where the paper is posted, does not identify the author:

“The Inflationary Risks of Rising Federal Deficits and Debt.” The Budget Lab at Yale. March 12, 2025.

Trump Hits ‘New High Water Mark’ for Deregulation

In my friendly debate with fellow libertarians, the passages quoted below support my claim/hope that Trump’s deregulation and downsizing efforts will prove to be substantial.

(p. A2) WASHINGTON—President Trump is following through on his pledge to usher in one of the most sweeping deregulatory drives in modern U.S. history, moving swiftly to slash environmental rules and bank oversight, remove barriers to cryptocurrencies, and reverse the Biden administration’s restrictions on energy production.

The most aggressive plans for a red-tape rollback have come from the Environmental Protection Agency, which in a single day announced 31 actions to deregulate U.S. environmental policies, including rules for power plants, the oil-and-gas industry, electric vehicles and wastewater.

Venture Global, a liquefied natural gas exporter, in early March announced an $18 billion investment in a Louisiana project, following the administration’s reversal of President Joe Biden’s freeze on approvals for LNG gas export plants, which has yielded plans for new projects and expansions. The Trump administration is “getting the red tape, getting the federal government off the back of the worker, off the back of companies,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in an address to workers at the Louisiana facility.

. . .

Trump’s deregulatory moves are widespread: The Securities and Exchange Commission is backing away from Biden’s climate-related disclosure rules; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rolled back a Biden-era policy that had stepped up scrutiny of large bank mergers; and the Interior and Housing and Urban Development departments are aiming to streamline regulations to spur the construction of housing on millions of acres of federal land.

Taken together, Trump’s moves are setting “the new high water mark in terms of the deregulatory agenda,” said Travis Fisher, who served in the first Trump administration and is now the director of energy and environmental policy studies at the Cato Institute, the libertarian think tank. He added that Trump is “moving more boldly than Ronald Reagan.”

Investors, bullish about Trump’s deregulatory agenda, sent stocks soaring after the election.

For the full story see:

Scott Patterson and Amrith Ramkumar. “Deregulation Hits ‘New High Water Mark’.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., March 29, 2025): A2.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 28, 2025, and has the title “Trump Ushers In ‘New High Water Mark’ for Deregulation.” The passages quoted include a couple of sentences that appear in the online, but not the printed, version of the article.)