DULLES, Va. — A United Airlines flight experienced an engine failure during takeoff from Dulles International Airport on Saturday before safely returning to the airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA said United flight 803 was traveling to Tokyo when the engine failed Saturday afternoon. The plane, a Boeing 777-200, safely returned to airport around 1:20 p.m. The FAA will investigate.
The plane returned to the airport after losing power in one engine, according to the airline. There were no reported injuries among the 275 passengers and 15 crew members, and a different aircraft was scheduled to continue the flight later Saturday.
Some brush around the runway was ignited as the plane departed, said Emily McGee, a spokesperson for the airport. The fire has been extinguished.
Gastric cancer, also known as stomach cancer, remains a serious global health problem. While surgery, chemotherapy, and targeted therapies continue to play a central role, outcomes for advanced gastric cancer were historically limited. Over the past decade—and especially by 2025—immunotherapy has become an important part of treatment for selected patients, improving survival and offering durable benefit for some.
Understanding the immunotherapy success rate for gastric cancer can be challenging. Immunotherapy does not work the same way as chemotherapy, and its benefits depend strongly on tumor biology, biomarkers, and treatment setting. This article explains how immunotherapy is used in gastric cancer today, what clinical studies show, who benefits most, and what patients should realistically expect in 2025.
Read About Stomach Cancer on OncoDaily
How Immunotherapy Works in Gastric Cancer
Immunotherapy drugs used in gastric cancer are mainly immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as pembrolizumab and nivolumab. These drugs block immune “brakes” like PD-1 or PD-L1, which cancer cells use to hide from the immune system. By releasing these brakes, immunotherapy allows immune cells to recognize and attack cancer more effectively (Fuchs et al., 2018).
In gastric cancer, immunotherapy is most commonly used in advanced or metastatic disease, either alone in selected patients or, increasingly, in combination with chemotherapy as first-line treatment (Janjigian et al., 2021).
What “Success Rate” Means for Patients
When patients ask about the immunotherapy success rate for gastric cancer, doctors consider more than just tumor shrinkage. Success may include:
Tumor response (shrinkage seen on scans)
Disease control (cancer stops growing)
Longer overall survival
Durable benefit lasting months or years
Improved quality of life compared with chemotherapy alone
Because immunotherapy works through the immune system, responses may take time and are not seen in all patients.
What Clinical Trials Show About Success Rates
Later-Line Immunotherapy
Early trials established the role of immunotherapy after chemotherapy. In the ATTRACTION-2 study, nivolumab improved overall survival compared with placebo in heavily pretreated patients, with an overall response rate of about 11% and long-lasting responses in some individuals (Kang et al., 2017).
Similarly, the KEYNOTE-059 trial showed that pembrolizumab produced responses in approximately 15% of previously treated patients, with higher response rates in tumors expressing PD-L1 (Fuchs et al., 2018).
First-Line Immunotherapy Plus Chemotherapy
By 2025, the biggest impact of immunotherapy in gastric cancer has come from first-line combination therapy. The CheckMate 649 trial demonstrated that nivolumab plus chemotherapy significantly improved overall survival compared with chemotherapy alone, especially in patients with PD-L1 combined positive score (CPS) ≥5 (Janjigian et al., 2021).
In these studies, response rates exceeded 40%, compared with roughly 25–30% with chemotherapy alone. Importantly, survival improvements were seen even when tumors did not shrink dramatically, highlighting the immune-mediated benefit.
HER2-Positive Gastric Cancer
For patients with HER2-positive gastric cancer, the addition of pembrolizumab to trastuzumab and chemotherapy further improved outcomes. In KEYNOTE-811, response rates reached over 70%, leading to regulatory approvals and changing first-line standards of care (Janjigian et al., 2023).
The MATTERHORN Trial
The MATTERHORN trial is one of the most important studies influencing the immunotherapy success rate for gastric cancer in 2025. Unlike earlier trials focused on advanced disease, MATTERHORN evaluated immunotherapy in resectable stage II–III gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer, where the goal is cure.
In this Phase III study, durvalumab was added to standard perioperative FLOT chemotherapy given before and after surgery. The trial showed a significantly higher pathologic complete response rate, meaning more patients had no remaining cancer at the time of surgery compared with chemotherapy alone (Janjigian et al., 2024). Durvalumab also improved event-free survival, reducing the risk of recurrence after surgery.
While overall survival data are still maturing, these findings suggest that immunotherapy can increase the chance of long-term remission when used earlier in treatment. Benefits were seen across patient groups, with greater effects in PD-L1–positive tumors.
For patients diagnosed in 2025, MATTERHORN shows that immunotherapy success in gastric cancer is no longer limited to metastatic disease and may play an important role in curative-intent treatment strategies.
Read About MATTERHORN Trial on OncoDaily
Who Benefits Most From Immunotherapy in 2025
Not all patients benefit equally from immunotherapy. Key factors that influence success include:
PD-L1 Expression: Patients with higher PD-L1 CPS scores generally have better outcomes with immunotherapy, particularly when combined with chemotherapy (Janjigian et al., 2021).
MSI-H / dMMR Tumors: A small percentage of gastric cancers are microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H). These tumors are highly responsive to immunotherapy, with response rates often exceeding 50% and very durable benefit (Le et al., 2017).
Treatment Setting: Immunotherapy works best when used earlier in the disease course, particularly in first-line combination regimens rather than as a last resort.
Real-World Outcomes and Durability
Real-world data now support what clinical trials showed: although only a subset of patients respond, those who do may experience long-term disease control. Some patients remain progression-free for years, which was rarely seen with chemotherapy alone.
Equally important, many patients report better tolerability and preserved quality of life compared with prolonged chemotherapy, especially after the initial treatment period.
Side Effects: What Patients Should Expect
Immunotherapy is generally better tolerated than chemotherapy, but side effects can occur. These are caused by immune activation and may include fatigue, skin rash, diarrhea, thyroid changes, or inflammation of organs such as the lungs or liver. Most side effects are manageable when detected early, and oncology teams monitor patients closely throughout treatment (Postow et al., 2018).
What Patients Should Know in 2025
By 2025, immunotherapy is no longer experimental in gastric cancer—it is part of standard care for many patients. However, it is not a one-size-fits-all treatment. Biomarker testing, including PD-L1 and MSI status, is essential to guide decisions. Combination approaches are now preferred in most first-line settings, and clinical trials continue to explore new combinations and earlier use.
Patients should feel empowered to ask their oncologist how the immunotherapy success rate for gastric cancer applies to their specific diagnosis and what factors may influence their chance of benefit.
Key Takeaway for Patients
Immunotherapy has meaningfully improved outcomes for gastric cancer, particularly when combined with chemotherapy or used in biomarker-selected patients. While it is not a cure for most, it offers longer survival, durable responses, and improved quality of life for many. In 2025, immunotherapy represents one of the most important advances in gastric cancer treatment, and understanding who benefits most is key to making informed care decisions.
The consumer watchdog has been asked to look at airline fare structures after Republic of Ireland soccer fans were hit with exorbitant price increases for a World Cup play-off.
Fine Gael Senator Mark Duffy confirmed he has written to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) highlighting surges in prices for flights to Prague around the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifier play-off against Czechia on March 26th, 2026.
In the letter to the CCPC, Senator Duffy highlighted the unfairness of dynamic pricing in situations where loyal fans are trying to follow their team:
“Within hours of the draw which confirmed Ireland must travel to Czechia on March 26th, the cost of Ryanair flights surged to €900 return. I fully appreciate that Ryanair operate in a supply and demand environment but ultimately this form of dynamic pricing is grossly unfair and is just taking advantage of loyal Irish fans desperate to follow their team.”
He stressed that while dynamic pricing may not be illegal, it leaves consumers exposed to predatory practices when demand is at its peak:
“Carriers are entitled to operate profitably but there is an onus on the CCPC to ensure that adequate consumer protections are in place. Given the extent of the price inflation I am calling on the CCPC to undertake a full review of these pricing practices to ensure that Irish consumers are not being exposed to unfair price gouging.”
Senator Duffy also acknowledged Ryanair’s long-standing role in supporting Irish sport but insisted protections must be strengthened:
“Ryanair is a fantastic company that has benefitted the sporting public hugely over many years, but it is crucial proper protections are in place to ensure that passengers are not left exposed.”
In the economic gloom of Labour’s first year in power, Rachel Reeves has had a reliable shred of comfort to cling to: five times since the general election, the Bank of England has cut interest rates.
This week, in all likelihood, the chancellor will get a sixth to shout about, as Threadneedle Street prepares to reduce borrowing costs in an early Christmas present that will be seized upon by the Treasury.
The view in the City is that a festive cut on Thursday is odds-on. After last week’s disappointing October growth figures, the jobs market and consumer prices data due out on Tuesday and Wednesday – before the rates decision – are expected to confirm that inflationary pressures in the UK economy are fading.
But while a cut will be good news for businesses, mortgage borrowers and the beleaguered occupants of Downing Street, attention will quickly shift to the prospects for 2026. How many more times could the central bank come to the chancellor’s rescue? Here things are a bit more complicated.
Reeves’s increase in employer national insurance contributions has played a part in unemployment hitting its highest level since 2021. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
That Britain’s economy is in the doldrums should hardly come as a surprise. Continual tax speculation has sapped business confidence and household spending, while Reeves’s increase in employer national insurance contributions has played a part in UK unemployment hitting the highest levels since 2021, during the height of the Covid pandemic.
Celebrating a rate cut, in this context, is akin to an arsonist cheering the arrival of the fire brigade.
There are, though, factors beyond Reeves’s control. Not least the dire state Britain’s economy was left in by the Conservative party, and Donald Trump’s damaging tariff war.
The Bank has also played a role. Borrowers have been singed by three years of punitively high interest rates set in deeply restrictive territory. The policy is the central banker’s main tool for combating inflation as it chokes off demand by incentivising saving and discouraging spending.
After the inflation shock triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Threadneedle Street argues it had little choice but to act. But the growth trade-off is clear. Even after successive rate cuts, the Bank’s own analysis shows the base rate continues to subtract about 2% from the level of GDP.
Bank rate chart
Anyone who has remortgaged their home since 2022 knows this first-hand. And despite progress since the Liz Truss debacle, millions of borrowers still face substantially higher loan repayments – and will continue to do so for years to come. That is hardly going to light a match under the UK’s consumption-driven economy.
This week the Bank’s policymakers are expected to be split on the appropriate way forward. Some on the nine-strong monetary policy committee (MPC) recognise the damage rates are doing at a time when inflation is cooling. Others think a tough approach is warranted to snuff out price rises.
Andrew Bailey is expected to hold the casting vote. The Bank’s governor has suggested he thinks inflation is more likely to fall back than stick at stubbornly high levels – paving the way for a quarter-point cut on Thursday.
Next year, however, it is tougher to anticipate how the MPC will respond. Policymakers are likely to remain divided on the inflation outlook and the “neutral” position for rates – the point at which they are neither stoking nor hosing down economic activity.
Reeves’s budget measures – including relief on energy bills, fuel duty, rail fares and prescription charges – could support the case for deeper cuts. The Bank predicts the policies could slash headline inflation by up to 0.5 percentage points by the middle of 2026.
All of this was part of a deliberate strategy inside the Treasury in the hope voters give credit to Labour for lower mortgage costs. Government borrowing costs could also fall back, unpicking some of the factors behind the recent years of fiscal drama in Westminster.
However, many economists warn the reprieve could be temporary.
Much of the disinflationary impulse will be in energy prices, and do little to help Britain’s issues with sticky service sector inflation. Other areas of government policy could also push in the wrong direction.
Business leaders warn a higher minimum wage, business rates, and other tax increases will drive up their costs – resulting in companies putting up prices for their customers, in turn stoking inflation.
That said, some of the factors the hawks are betting on look shaky.
Business costs are rising but hardly at breakneck speed. At 4.1%, the rise in the minimum wage from April is significantly below that in previous years – particularly when set against the context of 2022, when Jeremy Hunt ignored misplaced warnings about a wage-price spiral and increased the legal pay floor by 9.7% from April 2023.
By the time we get to spring, there should be signs that inflation is undershooting, and wage growth is slowing. The economy will probably still be lacking momentum. Household confidence may be picking up, and companies will probably lack the pricing power to push through yet more increases.
All of this means Reeves could see more rate cuts from the Bank.
Prior to the government announcement, a full council meeting last week heard local dad David Wilmot say there had been a “catastrophic failure” to deliver a new school.
“The delay means that by 2030, hundreds of children who deserve a local high-quality education will be forced to travel further, clogging our roads, disrupting family life and placing an unbearable and crushing strain on our already stretched existing schools,” he said.
The school was originally expected to open by 2024, but there had been no formal confirmation from the government on whether work could progress.
Chris Langdon, project director at Hanwood Park, said: “We are mobilised and ready to get moving.
“So alongside our new facilities coming forward such as the new David Lloyd Club, this decision is another clear vote of confidence in the sustainability and ongoing success of Hanwood Park.”
The council said it would seek further clarity on a clear timescale for the delivery of the school, which will be run by the Orbis Education Trust, external.
Wrighting said: “I will keep pushing for an opening date to be confirmed and will update constituents as soon as I have more information to share.”
Trey Sherman was traveling to work on the New York subway when he received an email from David Reiter, a CBS News executive, about an imminent meeting on 29 October. Sherman, an associate producer of CBS Evening News Plus at the time, suspected that he would be laid off. CBS News’s parent company, Paramount, had closed a merger with the Hollywood studio Skydance in August, and planned to slash more than 2,000 jobs as part of corporate restructuring.
Sherman, who is Black, and Reiter, who is white, had an amicable conversation, according to Sherman. Reiter told Sherman that he was being laid off because his show was being eliminated, Sherman said, and that Reiter was unable to assign the team to other positions. Sherman accepted the news and the two men wished each other good luck.
But when Sherman left the conference room and entered the newsroom, he said he learned that his white colleagues had been told a very different story. A white co-worker told Sherman that she found it “messed up” that the people of color on the team had been laid off. Of the nine producers who staffed CBS Evening News Plus, five white people were reassigned to other positions, while the four people of color on the team were let go, according to Sherman and another former staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. Later that day, Sherman documented his experience in a viral TikTok video. CBS did not respond to the Guardian’s multiple requests for comment.
Sherman’s role may be the latest casualty in a nationwide crackdown on diversity. Several high-ranking Black officials have been fired from the Trump administration, and thousands of jobs related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have been cut in the private and public sectors. The Guardian talked to seven recently laid off journalists at CBS, NBC and Teen Vogue who spoke of people of color on their teams being let go while their white colleagues were spared, or the chipping away at coverage focused on marginalized communities.
Newsrooms have long been less diverse than the US population, which makes these layoffs in particular especially pronounced. In 1978, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, an organization for media leaders, vowed that the racial makeup of newsrooms would reflect the US population by 2000. As the deadline neared in 1998, the society moved the date to 2025, but newsrooms still haven’t met that goal. According to a 2022 Pew Research Center survey of nearly 12,000 journalists, 76% of respondents were white, 8% were Latino/Hispanic, 6% were Black and 3% were Asian. The survey showed an overrepresentation of white journalists, since nearly 58% of the population was white, about 19% were Hispanic, 12% were Black and 6% were Asian in the 2020 US census.
Some journalists see the layoffs as capitulation to the Trump administration’s war on DEI. After Trump’s January executive orders calling for an end to DEI programs and the termination of affirmative action in the federal government, Sherman said that “one by one, we saw companies get rid of their DEI initiatives”.
CBS and NBC are subjected to regulatory scrutiny by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees radio, television, cable, satellite and wire communications. During his first week in office, Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, announced that the FCC would end its DEI efforts by, among other things, removing it as a priority from the agency’s budget, and quashing its advisory group and taskforce.
Several weeks later, Carr launched an investigation into Comcast and NBC Universal’s diversity initiatives, followed by a similar inquiry into Disney and ABC. Disney told employees in a February memo that it would stop Reimagine Tomorrow, a platform that amplified underrepresented voices, and the corporation’s 2025 annual report eschewed the word “diversity” for the first time in six years.
In July filings to the FCC before the merger, Skydance promised that it would eliminate Paramount’s DEI initiatives and workforce diversity targets. And in October, Bari Weiss, an opinion journalist who advocated to “end DEI for good”, was appointed the editor in chief of CBS News. Some CBS News employees have been on edge since Weiss’s appointment.
Then in early November, sources allege that most Teen Vogue employees – many of whom were women of color – were let go as publisher Condé Nast announced that the outlet focused on politics, fashion and news would join Vogue’s website. A Condé Nast spokesperson said it was inaccurate that most of the staff had been let go. Those reductions came several weeks after NBC News laid off 150 employees, and gutted teams on verticals that exclusively covered Black, Asian American, Latino, and LGBTQ+ communities. The equity-focused sections will continue to exist, though without a dedicated staff, drawing from content around the newsroom.
Some institutions within the journalism industry have also steered away from DEI in their company language since Trump entered office. In April, Gannett removed demographic data and mentions about diversity from its website, citing Trump’s executive order calling for an end to DEI.
The Trump administration “has used its power to exert more control over the media than maybe we’ve ever seen”, Sherman said. “It so happens that part of their agenda is to, let’s be real, not just get rid of DEI initiatives, but to get rid of diversity in and of itself.”
In a political climate that’s hostile to diversity, people of color must start their own media outlets and podcasts, said political commentator and National Association of Black Journalists board member Roland Martin: “These companies are going to learn a hard lesson: if you continue to remove Black, Latino, Muslim and Asian American voices, those consumers are going to go elsewhere.”
‘It’s not a coincidence’
After speaking to his white colleagues, Sherman went to Reiter’s office to confront him about the layoff discrepancies. Sherman said that Reiter told him that he chose to keep people he had previously worked with. After Sherman posted his video recapping the conversation with Reiter on TikTok, he said he received messages from former employees at other media outlets who had similar stories. Mary, a woman of color who is using a pseudonym out of fear of jeopardizing future job prospects, said that she was shocked when she watched Sherman’s video.
She was laid off from another CBS team on the same day as Sherman, and soon realized that out of the dozens of people on her diverse team, the only four who were laid off were people of color. “We certainly have white producers, we have white reporters who could have been laid off as well,” Mary said. They had to have “known that would not look good”.
In a memo to employees, the new Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison wrote that the cuts were necessary for the company’s longevity. “In some areas, we are addressing redundancies that have emerged across the organization,” he wrote. “In others, we are phasing out roles that are no longer aligned with our evolving priorities and the new structure designed to strengthen our focus on growth.”
Mary and Sherman, though, say it’s clear that CBS’s methodology for who they chose to lay off reflects the Trump administration’s assault on diversity. “I’m not accusing any one person of looking at my department and deciding to lay off all the people of color,” Sherman said, “but I am saying that it’s not a coincidence that the layoffs that they chose to do fell along racial lines.”
While Sherman would not comment on whether he was pursuing legal action, Mary said that she and several former CBS employees have expressed interest in filing a lawsuit: “This is very suspicious.”
In mid-October, the entire teams behind NBC BLK, NBC Asian America, NBC Latino, and NBC Out were laid off, but content from around the newsroom will continue to populate the verticals. Curtis Bunn, the only reporter at NBC BLK, a vertical that focuses on Black communities, was one of the people who was let go. Over the past two years, he said, he watched the team dwindle from four people to two until the final purge. The layoffs also come as most of Comcast’s NBCUniversal cable networks spin off into a new company called Versant Media Group, causing NBC News to streamline its operations. (Forty people were also let go from NBC in January. An NBC union representative said it does not have a demographic breakdown of the layoffs.)
Bunn said that he trusts the company’s reasoning, but he is curious about why the teams that covered marginalized communities were eliminated. “When you see what’s happening around you, and you see the nature of even the media companies capitulating to the administration,” Bunn said, “you can’t help but feel like that has some part or some role in what took place.” He said that he was told that he could apply for other roles at the company.
“The journalists behind NBC BLK, NBC Latino, NBC Asian America and NBC OUT have chronicled our communities with depth, nuance and humanity,” NABJ president and co-founder of the 19th, Errin Haines, said in a statement. “If anything, their work has strengthened our democracy and expanded our nation’s understanding of itself.” NBC did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Traci Lee, a journalist who was NBC Asian America’s digital editorial manager from 2015 to 2019, said that the vertical helped elevate Asian American and Pacific Islanders’ experiences to a national sphere. “So often we have other people telling our stories for us, whether it is being glossed over in history books, or perhaps just being excluded from the narrative,” Lee said. “This was a space where we could, on a national level, tell our own stories.” When NBC Asian America wrote stories about the concentration camps that held Japanese Americans during the second world war, readers reached out to say that they had never been taught about the topic in school.
Leaders from affinity groups including the Asian American Journalists Association, NABJ and NLGJA: the Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists met with NBC’s executives about the layoffs in late October, during which NBC promised to continue covering their communities.
It was soon after this that five women of color from Teen Vogue were let go. Condé Nast, Teen Vogue’s parent company, would not confirm the number of laid-off staff or their demographics.
Skyli Alvarez, an Asian queer woman on Teen Vogue’s editorial team who was laid off, said that she was in a state of shock when she realized that most of the laid-off employees were people of color. “In the media landscape today, a lot of people of color, a lot of people of marginalized identities, tend to be in these entry-level, associate-level positions,” Alvarez said. “And so to me, I was like: ‘This speaks to a bigger issue beyond all of us.’”
The Condé Nast spokesperson said that the restructure is designed to help the company grow, since Teen Vogue has long faced difficulties in reaching audiences. “Rather than continuing to operate independently, bringing Teen Vogue under the Vogue umbrella allows it to tap into a larger audience, stronger distribution and more resources,” the spokesperson said. “Any organizational changes the company makes are purely driven by business strategy to grow consumer engagement with our titles.”
“Teen Vogue was one of the last really outspoken publications on problems that affect young people, that young people care about,” Alvarez said. She hopes that communities of color and LGBTQ+ people will continue ensuring that their perspectives are heard nationwide despite the publication’s absorption.
In light of the mass layoffs, some Black creatives have begun gathering online to form a collective in their vision. In early November, Aniyah Freeman, a digital marketer based in New York, put a callout on LinkedIn to start a media company with recently laid-off Black journalists. So far, she said, about 200 people have joined a group chat; a core group of 15 recently laid-off Black media professionals from various companies including ABC, Rolling Stone and Condé Nast have met on Zoom several times.
For now, their media company is called Black Media Caucus, and they are working on business plans for a magazine focused on politics, fashion and culture. “It’s going to be giving us perspectives that they’re trying to take away from us,” Freeman said. “We need Black-owned-and-run establishments that are going to stay that way. This current political climate is an inspiration for all of us.”
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The man behind the Moose Jaw health centre that has claimed “a 100 per cent success rate in stopping the progression and in restoring function of people with ALS” says a recent CBC story about his company is evidence that he is seen as “a direct threat to the ALS drug industry.”
Dayan Goodenowe made the comments in a Dec. 5 email he sent out to supporters after a recent CBC investigation into his Dr. Goodenowe Restorative Health Centre.
That investigation told the story of Susie Silvestri, a 70-year-old American who sold her home so she could afford Goodenowe’s $84,000 US “biochemical engineering” program.
Silvestri was convinced Goodenowe could cure her ALS. In one text to her brother, she wrote, “He is such a sweet man. How could I not be healed?”
In late August of last year, Susie Silvestri told her brother Charles about her excitement as she prepared to go to the Dr. Goodenowe Restorative Health Center in Moose Jaw. (Charles Silvestri)
Fewer than four months after arriving at his Moose Jaw facility, Silvestri died from late-stage ALS — a disease that causes gradual muscle loss. As her health deteriorated, she was unable to get a feeding tube installed at the Moose Jaw hospital because her American insurance company wouldn’t pay the bill.
She had to rent her own ambulance, borrow some medical equipment and find an American hospital to do the surgery. She ended up dying alone in a Montana hospital, concluding she was the victim of “false hope.”
During her time at the Goodenowe health centre, Susie Silvestri made several trips to the Moose Jaw hospital for a range of health troubles. (Former Goodenowe employee)
Her story led to Saskatchewan politicians calling for a series of investigations.
Saskatchewan’s health minister asked the consumer affairs authority to investigate whether the health centre is accurately presenting the services it offers.
The provincial government called on the College of Physicians and Surgeons to investigate “what appears to be the unauthorized practice of medicine.”
The Opposition NDP asked Moose Jaw police to investigate a series of criminal allegations against the centre.
Goodenowe’s letter to supporters takes particular aim at the NDP, saying it has engaged in “grandstanding.” It also includes a link to a 30-minute video responding to CBC’s story. In the video, he touted the financial and employment benefits of his health centre, and called on the public to take political action.
“I urge all of you to contact your elected officials,” he said in his video. “It’s not acceptable behaviour from the CBC. It’s not acceptable behaviour from the NDP party.”
‘Shock and awe’ attack
Goodenowe didn’t stop there. He also alleged there’s a wider “coordinated ‘shock and awe’ attack” underway.
“It has now come to our attention that these attacks may be coordinated by the ALS drug industry and the ALS association,” he wrote in an email entitled Love Diffuses Hate, sent to “friends, practitioners, clients and residents of Moose Jaw.”
Dayan Goodenowe says the Dr. Goodenowe Restorative Health Center is facing a co-ordinated ‘shock and awe’ attack. (CBC News)
Those bodies, Goodenowe says, are trying to get the provincial government to pay for a new ALS drug in Saskatchewan “and to set up an ALS clinical trial centre” in the province. He notes that CBC Saskatchewan recently did an interview about an ongoing Canadian clinical trial.
“We have been singled out as a direct threat to the ALS drug industry,” he concludes.
Denis Simard, executive director of the ALS Society of Saskatchewan, said that while he has no direct interaction with drug companies, his organization routinely asks the Saskatchewan government to pay for all drugs approved by Health Canada that may help ALS patients here.
He said there is already a centre in Saskatoon that assesses ALS patients for their suitability for clinical trials and his organization has been lobbying the government for years to provide that centre additional resources.
As for the NDP, it said it is “incredibly concerned about this so-called health clinic,” adding that “the only people we take direction from are the people of Saskatchewan.”
Silvestri’s story is reminiscent of stories from other Goodenowe clients highlighted in a June CBC investigation. Goodenowe questioned those reports and filed a lawsuit against CBC, claiming its stories were defamatory.
In his letter to supporters, he said CBC got it wrong again with the story about Susie Silvestri.
“Please be assured that we will not allow these false accusations to go unpunished,” he wrote.
“The facts are the facts and they are ALL in our favor.”
CBC examined those factual claims in light of Silvestri’s medical records, the testimony of a former Goodenowe care worker and Silvestri’s own words.
‘She could wiggle her toes’
In its Nov. 30 story about Silvestri, CBC reported that her health deteriorated during her stay at Goodenowe’s centre, based on medical records, the testimony of former Goodenowe staff members, Silvestri’s own words and the fact that she died of her disease.
In preparing that story, CBC outlined the facts it had gathered through research and asked Goodenowe for his comment. His lawyer replied “no comment. We don’t talk to people we are in active litigation against.”
However, now Goodenowe has addressed some of the issues raised in the story in his online video.
Goodenowe, who has a PhD in medical sciences with a focus in psychiatry from the University of Alberta, disputes CBC’s story saying, Silvestri’s “condition did not deteriorate in Moose Jaw.” In fact, he says, “she was unambiguously in better health on Dec. 6 than on Sept. 6.”
In a video presentation posted online, Dayan Goodenowe defends his company’s treatment of Susie Silvestri, one of his clients suffering from ALS. (Dr. Goodenowe Restorative Health Center)
Then he offered specifics.
“By November 2024, she could wiggle her toes and ankle. She could hold her leg up in a bent position for 45 seconds and her voice was noticeably stronger,” Goodenowe said. “These facts show improvement and they are documented by staff and a licensed medical doctor.”
By email, CBC asked Goodenowe for the name of that licensed medical doctor. He did not respond. Goodenowe is not a medical doctor himself, and he has publicly said his facility does not provide medical treatment and does not employ medical staff.
A former Goodenowe employee who cared for Silvestri during her stay in Moose Jaw questioned Goodenowe’s claim that her health improved.
“While there were some good days, the bad days clearly outweighed the good ones,” wrote one former employee in a text to CBC “Claiming that her health improved is a cognitive bias and does not reflect her actual condition.”
The former Goodenowe care worker declined to be named because she’s afraid of retaliation and she’s recovering from the effects this situation has had on her.
She said Goodenowe’s claims about Susie’s voice improving are inaccurate.
“I deny the claim that her voice was noticeably stronger. This is false. Not only was Susie unable to speak, but her swallowing also worsened over time,” she said. As for the leg and toe movements, she said Goodenowe is drawing too large a conclusion from a modest change, noting that the observations were generally being made by staff like her — not Goodenowe.
The worker said she had “never seen [Goodenowe] involved in Susie’s day-to-day routine or care.”
CBC asked David Taylor, the chief scientific officer at the ALS Society of Canada, what conclusions can be drawn when an ALS patient appears to regain some function.
He said that while ALS patients do gradually lose muscle control over time, the disease does not progress in a linear fashion. He said it’s not uncommon for people to temporarily regain, or appear to regain, some function.
“People have little bumps where it will go back up, and ultimately that will be a blip if you look across a year or two where they decline to death,” he said. “So you cannot make an assessment based on a single exam that there’s any relationship between what is perceived as an improvement and a response to treatment.”
Hospital diagnoses ‘ALS progression’
Dayan Goodenowe told CBC that every ALS client who has attended his program, ‘they leave that centre better than they came in, OK? And that’s just simply a fact.’ (CBC News)
Goodenowe said in his video that Silvestri’s “health unambiguously improved during her stay” in his Moose Jaw facility.
However, hospital records seem to indicate otherwise.
After moving into the Dr. Goodenowe Restorative Health Centre in mid-September 2024, Silvestri was admitted to hospital multiple times — in one case for Covid pneumonia, in another, gall stones, and in yet another, shortness of breath.
In mid-November, she was admitted once again, this time with “difficulty expectorating phlegm due to the ALS and weakness,” according to her medical records, which her family provided to CBC.
The physician noted Silvestri was “having some trouble eating and swallowing as well.”
In the medical record, he said the “most responsible diagnosis” was “ALS progression” with the possibility of aspiration – a term for accidentally inhaling something into your lungs.
This was the first time her medical file indicated that she was asking for a feeding tube to be installed.
She also mentioned that to her brother in a mid-November text.
By mid-November, Silvestri was texting her brother Charles about her desire for a feeding tube. (Charles Silvestri)
“Seriously considering getting a feeding tube,” she told Charles Silvestri. A few days later, she added “Things are not looking good here. Can’t get feeding tube. Have to go back to States.”
The problem was, her American insurance company wouldn’t pay for a feeding tube in Canada and the Moose Jaw hospital would only do the surgery on a non-Canadian in an emergency. It determined Susie’s case was not emergent.
‘[Patient] has been declining’ said Moose Jaw hospital
About two weeks later, on Dec. 3, the anonymous Goodenowe worker arrived at the health centre to find that Silvestri had not eaten for days. She immediately brought Silvestri to hospital and alerted Goodenowe centre CEO Jana Horsnall by text. Horsnall is Dayan Goodenowe’s sister.
“On Dec. 3, Tuesday, I came in for my shift learning that Susie has not been eating for few days due to her not being able to swallow anything anymore,” the worker told Horsnall.
“As you know, Susie is grappling with the progression of her ALS and is feeling increasingly helpless,” the anonymous worker said. “The severity of the progression of her ALS has taken a toll on her to the point where she has been unable to eat and take in her supplements.”
According to her medical records and her caregivers, Silvestri was having an increasingly difficult time eating while in the Goodenowe centre. (Former Goodenowe worker)
Goodenowe acknowledges that Susie did ask for a feeding tube while still under contract with his centre.
“Prior to her December 6 discharge date, Susie expressed a desire to have a feeding tube which is, you know, her right to look into things,” he said in his video statement.
The medical records say Susie, who was in “endstage ALS,” arrived at the hospital with “a three day history of not eating or drinking due to dysphagia,” or swallowing difficulty, which the records say was caused by her ALS.
“[Patient] has been declining,” the medical records say.
At that time, the hospital installed a nasal feeding tube on an emergency basis to help stabilize her heart rate. But less than a day later, she asked to have it removed.
“Unfortunately on December 7 she determined that she could not tolerate the [nasal feeding tube]. It caused her significant anxiety,” the records say.
The care worker said that, in reflecting on Silvestri’s entire time at the centre, especially after September, “her decline appeared to accelerate rapidly, suggesting her health worsened during her time in Moose Jaw.”
Because Silvestri couldn’t tolerate the nasal feeding tube and couldn’t get a permanent one installed in Canada, she decided to go to a hospital in the U.S. for the treatment.
The former Goodenowe worker helped Silvestri arrange the trip and travelled with her to Sidney Health Center in Sidney, Mont.
On Dec. 8, Susie Silvestri was loaded into a patient transport and taken on a four-hour trip south to Sidney, Mont. (Former Goodenowe worker)
Dayan Goodenowe says in his online video that Silvestri’s decision to leave his centre and Moose Jaw, and go to the United States, is what caused her health to rapidly deteriorate.
“Susie’s health decline and subsequent death occurred after leaving Moose Jaw, not in Moose Jaw,” he said. “These are the observable, documentable facts.”
According to Goodenowe, the hospital in Moose Jaw had concluded that a feeding tube was “not medically necessary” for Susie. In addition, he said, the hospital “determined that she was able to eat.”
He went on to suggest that the Moose Jaw hospital “advised against” Silvestri getting a feeding tube.
“Her condition did deteriorate after getting a procedure that Moose Jaw advised against,” he said.
CBC asked Goodenowe to provide evidence that Moose Jaw health officials gave that advice, but he did not reply.
The former Goodenowe employee who provided care to Silvestri while she was in the Moose Jaw hospital told CBC, “regarding the feeding tube, no one was opposed to Susie obtaining one.”
The Moose Jaw hospital records seem to back up that claim. They show that rather than advising against getting a feeding tube, or concluding it wasn’t “medically necessary,” Moose Jaw health professionals actually recommended she get one in the U.S.
“I have recommended that when she is there she gets a [feeding] tube and gets a consult to cardiology and I have offered to speak with an accepting doctor,” Dr. Eric Bortolotti wrote.
Though Moose Jaw doctors recommended Susie Silvestri get a feeding tube installed, the surgery couldn’t be done in Canada because her insurance company wouldn’t pay. (Former Goodenowe worker)
Dietician Haley Oshowy, in recommending a nasal feeding tube, told Silvestri that it might help restore her ability to swallow. And if that happened, Oshowy wrote, this “writer’s recommendation is to return home to US for [feeding tube] insertion as need for same in future will continue.”
CBC was unable to find comments from any medical professional recommending against a feeding tube for Silvestri or suggesting it was unnecessary.
‘Bad food … minimal personal support’
In his online video, Goodenowe also blamed Silvestri’s declining health on the care provided by the hospital in Sidney.
“Bad food. No support supplements, minimal personal support,” he said. “This is the exact opposite of the services she received in Moose Jaw.”
CBC asked Goodenowe what was wrong with the food and support services offered by the Sidney hospital and how he knows that the food was “bad” and the support services “minimal.”
He did not reply.
The former Goodenowe care worker, who accompanied Silvestri to Montana and stayed by her side for days, told CBC the care in Montana was “was 100% better than what she had in the Goodenowe’s facility and [the Moose Jaw hospital].”
The former Goodenowe care worker accompanied Susie from Moose Jaw to Montana, staying with her for more than a week. (Former Goodenowe worker)
“They took care of Susie with great care and dignity,” she said. “Not only were the doctors and nurses professional, but they also took the time to pray for Susie and for me.”
The worker said the hospital provided her with free food while she stayed there, and allowed her to shower and do laundry in the hospital while she cared for Silvestri.
In text messages to Goodenowe CEO Jana Horsnall, the care worker said, “Susie is getting the help and care that she deserves down here. Care staffs are amazing and kind. Their care are beyond incomparable.”
Though Susie was alone at Christmas, she kept in touch with her brothers and sister, and Montana hospital staff provided some decorations. (Charles Silvestri)
Goodenowe also said Silvestri’s health declined because the Sidney hospital failed to give her the supplement protocol that he had created.
“Her care plan was changed when she left Moose Jaw. After her care plan was changed, she began to decline rapidly,” Goodenowe said.
The former Goodenowe employee said she asked the Sidney hospital to allow Silvestri to take Goodenowe’s supplements, but they declined.
The former Goodenowe worker said the doctors explained that introducing those supplements could end up causing additional medical troubles, given her state of malnutrition. By text she explained this to Jana Horsnall, adding that the doctors are “taking a gradual approach to avoid overwhelming her system.”
Horsnall urged the worker to push further, stating that Goodenowe’s supplements were crucial for Silvestri’s health.
While she was in the Goodenowe centre, Susie Silvestri was provided with this protocol of supplements. (Former Goodenowe worker)
“The doctors may not understand them but they are very good and will help,” Horsnall wrote. “She needs to be taking advice from our specialist in ALS.”
The former Goodenowe care worker said she was surprised by this last statement. She remembers wondering, “Do they even have an ALS specialist at their Moose Jaw facility? Who could Jana be referring to?”
The care worker said that on a white board in her Montana hospital room, Silvestri added up the cost of her trip to Goodenowe’s Moose Jaw health center.
AI-generated five-star reviews are tricking online shoppers; Here’s how
The year is about to end and online shopping is in full swing with exciting sales going on.
In all of the chaos ongoing, the scam write-ups pose one of the challenging problems for shopaholics.
The fake positive reviews are specifically made to enhance sales of products or to promote scam businesses online.
This practice was explicitly banned in the UK in April last year because it was continuously deceiving consumers.
The National Trading Standards (NTS) has reportedly issued a warning that criminals are rapidly using paid individuals and bots.
They have been continuously working to generate fake reviews on websites, commonly linked to high-demand products such as electronic items like air fryers and vacuum cleaners.
How does the scam work?
The scam business worked by paying people for a vast number of posts to boost a company’s rating.
The human-generated reviews normally contain typos, errors, and grammar that can be a red flag for UK consumers.
Technology has modified this business. As a result, the rapidly increasing volume of AI-generated reviews makes them difficult to distinguish from those written by legitimate customers.
It has been observed that genuine reviews will be more personal and specific to the individual’s experience of using the item, while fake reviews will be vague, using generic words and phrases such as amazing, awesome, and “buy this product.’’
What is the best way to get the perfect product without relying on fake reviews?
The first and foremost approach is to ignore the five-star reviews. It is better to check the four, three and two star ratings, as you are likely to get more honest feedback there.
Furthermore, verified reviews and purchases are better, as this verification is typically available for the retailers, marketplaces, and items bought directly through their site.
