Health
Canadians face longest waits for health care on record
From the Fraser Institute
By Bacchus Barua and Mackenzie Moir
Just when you thought Canadian health care had hit rock bottom, wait times in 2024 have hit an all-time high.
According to the latest version of our annual report published by the Fraser Institute, the median wait from referral by a family doctor to treatment (averaged across 10 provinces and 12 medical specialties including surgeries) is now 30 weeks—the longest wait in the report’s history and more than three times longer than the 9.3-week median wait in 1993.
Of course, wait times vary by province, and some provinces are worse than others. In New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, the median wait is more than one year. And even in Ontario, which reported the shortest wait times in Canada this year, patients faced a 23.6-week wait, the longest in the province’s history.
In fact, compared to last year, wait times grew in every province (except Nova Scotia where patients still faced a median wait just shy of 40 weeks this year).
There’s also considerable variation in wait times depending on the type of care. For example, patients faced the longest waits for orthopedic surgeries (57.5 weeks) and neurosurgery (46.2 weeks) and shorter waits for chemotherapy (4.7 weeks), and radiological cancer treatments (4.5 weeks). In total, the study estimated that Canadian patients were waiting for more than 1.5 million procedures in 2024.
These waits for care are not benign inconveniences. Patients may experience physical pain, psychological distress and worsening physical condition while awaiting care. This year, the 15-week median wait for treatment after seeing a specialist was more than a month and a half longer than what physicians consider a reasonable wait (8.6 weeks). And this doesn’t even include the median 15-week wait to see a specialist in the first place.
Moreover, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a U.S.-based health-care research organization, among nine universal health-care systems worldwide, last year patients in Canada were the second-most likely to report waiting longer than one month for a specialist consultation, and the most likely to report waiting more than two months for surgery. In other words, although long wait times remain a staple of Canadian health care, they are not a necessary trade-off for having universal coverage.
And to be clear, wait times are only one manifestation of the strain on Canada’s health-care system. It’s now also normal to see emergency room closures, health-care worker burnout, and data suggesting millions of Canadians are without access to a regular health-care provider.
What’s the solution to Canada’s crippling health-care wait times?
There are many options for reform. But put simply, if policymakers in Canada want to reduce wait times for patients across the country, they should learn from better-performing universal health-care countries where patients receive more timely care. With wait times this year reaching an all-time high, relief can’t come soon enough.
Bacchus Barua
Director, Health Policy Studies, Fraser Institute
Mackenzie Moir
Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
From LifeSiteNews
Dr. Marty Makary took aim at the transgender-medical-industrial complex that has exploded in recent years during a recent press conference.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Dr. Marty Makary has sternly warned companies manufacturing “breast binders” to cease marketing and supplying their product to gender-confused girls seeking to make their bodies appear masculine.
“Today the FDA is taking action,” said Makary in a press conference. “We are sending warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers for illegal marketing of breast binders for children, for the purposes of treating gender dysphoria.”
“Breast binders are a class one medical device with legitimate medical users, such as being used by women after breast cancer surgery,” but “these binders are not benign,” he cautioned. “Long-term usage has been associated with pain, compromised lung function, and even difficulty breast feeding later in life.”
“The warning letters will formally notify the companies of their significant regulatory violations and require prompt corrective action,” said the FDA head.
.@DrMakaryFDA: “Today the FDA is taking action. We are sending warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers for illegal marketing of breast binders for children, for the purposes of treating gender dysphoria.” pic.twitter.com/6JNAy36223
— HHS Rapid Response (@HHSResponse) December 18, 2025
The warning letter addressed to California manufacturer, GenderBender, notes that the company’s website states that “[c]hest binding is the practice of compressing breast mass into a more masculine shape, often done in the LGBTQ community for gender euphoria.”
“Your firm should take prompt action to address any violations identified in this letter. Failure to adequately address this matter may result in regulatory action being initiated by the FDA without further notice. These actions include, but are not limited to, seizure and injunction,” advised the FDA.
During his presentation, Makary took aim at the transgender-medical-industrial complex that has exploded in recent years.
“One of the most barbaric features of a society is the genital mutilation of its children,” observed Makary.
“Pushing transgender ideology in children is predatory, it’s wrong, and it needs to stop,” he declared.
“This ideology is a belief system that some teachers, some pediatricians, and others are selling to children without their parents knowing sometimes, or with a deliberate attempt to remove parents from the decision making,” Makary explained.
To witness society “putting kids on a path of chest binders, drugs, castration, mastectomies, and other procedures is a path that now many kids regret,” he lamented, as he pointed to Chloe Cole, who has reverted to her God-given femininity after undergoing so-called “gender-affirming” surgery as a teen.
Cole is a leading voice for young people who have “detransitioned” after having medically, surgically, and socially attempted to “transition” to a member of the opposite sex.
.@DrMakaryFDA: “Pushing transgender ideology in children is predatory, it's wrong, and it needs to stop.” pic.twitter.com/TXxWNEtNZk
— HHS Rapid Response (@HHSResponse) December 18, 2025
Health
All 12 Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Studies Found the Same Thing: Unvaccinated Children Are Far Healthier
I joined Del Bigtree in studio on The HighWire to discuss what the data now make unavoidable: the CDC’s 81-dose hyper-vaccination schedule is driving the modern epidemics of chronic disease and autism.
This was not a philosophical debate or a clash of opinions. We walked through irrefutable, peer-reviewed evidence showing that whenever vaccinated and unvaccinated children are compared directly, the unvaccinated group is far healthier—every single time.
Reanalyzing the Largest Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Birth-Cohort Study Ever Conducted
At the center of our discussion was our peer-reviewed reanalysis of the Henry Ford Health System vaccinated vs. unvaccinated birth-cohort study (Lamerato et al.)—the largest and most rigorous comparison of its kind ever conducted.
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The original authors relied heavily on Cox proportional hazards models, a time-adjusted approach that can soften absolute disease burden. Even so, nearly all chronic disease outcomes were higher in vaccinated children.
Our reanalysis used direct proportional comparisons, stripping away the smoothing and revealing the full magnitude of the signal.
- All 22 chronic disease categories favored the unvaccinated cohort when proportional disease burden was examined
- Cancer incidence was 54% higher in vaccinated children (0.0102 vs. 0.0066)
- When autism-associated conditions were grouped appropriately—including autism, ADHD, developmental delay, learning disability, speech disorder, neurologic impairment, seizures, and related diagnoses—the vaccinated cohort showed a 549% higher odds of autism-spectrum–associated clinical outcomes
The findings are internally consistent, biologically coherent, and concordant with every prior vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study, all of which show drastically poorer health outcomes among vaccinated children
The 12 Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Studies Regulators Ignore
In the McCullough Foundation Autism Report, we compiled all 12 vaccinated vs. unvaccinated pediatric studies currently available. These studies span different populations, countries, study designs, and data sources.
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Every single one reports the same overall pattern. Across all 12 studies, unvaccinated children consistently exhibit substantially lower rates of chronic disease, including:
- Autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders
- ADHD, tics, learning and speech disorders
- Asthma, allergies, eczema, and autoimmune conditions
- Chronic ear infections, skin disorders, and gastrointestinal illness
This level of consistency across independent datasets is precisely what epidemiology looks for when assessing causality. It also explains why no federal agency has ever conducted—or endorsed—a fully vaccinated vs. fully unvaccinated safety study.
Flu Shot Failure
We also addressed the persistent failure of seasonal influenza vaccination.
A large Cleveland Clinic cohort study of 53,402 employees followed participants during the 2024–2025 respiratory viral season and found:
- 82.1% of employees were vaccinated against influenza
- Vaccinated individuals had a 27% higher adjusted risk of influenza compared with the unvaccinated state (HR 1.27; 95% CI 1.07–1.51; p = 0.007)
- This corresponded to a negative vaccine effectiveness of −26.9% (95% CI −55.0 to −6.6%), meaning vaccination was associated with increased—not reduced—risk of influenza
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When vaccination exposure increases, chronic disease, neurodevelopmental disorders, and inflammatory illness increase with it. When children are unvaccinated, they are measurably healthier across virtually every outcome that matters.
The science needed to confront the chronic disease and autism epidemics already exists. What remains is the willingness to acknowledge it.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
Support our mission: mcculloughfnd.org
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