Medical care is expensive and continues to get more costly. Many people in Arizona only become aware of this after they get a bill for their care.

According to the Arizona Public Interest Research Group Education Fund one in 10 adults in the U.S. carry medical debt, including nearly 11 million people who owe more than $2,000.

Patricia Kelmar, health care director for the group, said whether you have insurance or not, medical bills can quickly become a financial headache. It is why she helped create a medical guide to help navigate medical bills and know your patient rights to avoid unnecessary charges.

"Bills come in dribs and drabs and it is hard to keep track of what you owe and what you don't owe," Kelmar observed. "Particularly in a situation where you might have been hospitalized for a week or a few days, ask for an itemized list of all the services that you got with the prices."

Kelmar noted regular people are putting your bill together, and there is a good chance billing mistakes are being made. She encouraged people not to assume your bill is accurate. She added hospitals are required to now post the prices of their top 300 most "shoppable services," which means knowing their cash or insurer prices can help you negotiate your bill down.

Under the No Surprises Act, those who are not insured have the right to ask for what Kelmar called a good-faith estimate for the needed care. She encouraged everyone to hold on to the estimate because if your final bill's total is $400 or more over the initial estimate, you can hold the provider accountable.

If you do have health insurance, Kelmar advised the most important thing you can do is use an in-network doctor or hospital to keep out-of-pocket costs down. The No Surprises Act protects you from "surprise medical bills" when you receive emergency care in an out-of-network emergency room, but not an urgent care center.

"One important thing to do in advance for emergency situations is to understand where your in-network urgent care center is, even when you go on vacation," Kelmar recommended. "'Where can I go where I can be in-network and get the treatment that I need?'"

Kelmar also warned Arizonans about credit cards being offered in medical settings. She pointed out they often promise zero interest for a number of months, but will then charge much higher interest than a regular credit card, up to 30%.

She emphasized unless you're sure you can pay off the debt in the short time allotted, she does not recommend taking the offer.

Mainers are encouraged to be on the lookout for increasingly sophisticated scams during the holiday season.

Fake emails appearing to be from companies like UPS or PayPal will offer a link they claim is needed to correct a package delivery or payment error, only to gain access to the user's banking information on their phone or computer.

Jane Margesson, communications director for AARP Maine, said if people believe their personal data has been compromised, they should put a freeze on their credit report.

"It's the best proactive step you can take and will greatly minimize the damage from the theft of other personal information," Margesson explained.

Margesson advised not to click any links before checking with the company itself. She emphasized scammers are relentless, so it is important to remain alert. A recent AARP survey found more than 80% of Americans have experienced or been targeted by at least one form of holiday-related fraud.

Police departments across the state are also warning people to be on the lookout for so-called "brushing" scams, when an unexpected package shows up from Amazon with a fake QR code, which allows access to the recipient's phone and any information on it when scanned.

Margesson noted scammers are also tampering with popular gift cards found on store kiosks or online.

"The scammer may already have a record of it and once you load it up with the cash through the cashier, they can just spend it," Margesson outlined. "Before you even give it to the person intended, the money may already be gone."

Margesson stressed anyone looking to donate to a charity this holiday season should check first with the IRS or Charity Navigator online to ensure it's a registered 501(c)3 organization. She added scammers are developing increasingly sophisticated methods and there is no shame in falling for their tricks.

She recommended anyone who believes they have been targeted to contact the AARP Fraud Watch Network.

The National Retail Federation expects people will spend nearly $989 billion by the end of the year on holiday shopping but the costs cannot compare to an injury or death due to unknowingly buying a faulty product.

Many children's toys are manufactured in countries like China and India. In their haste to avoid possible Trump administration tariffs, a few safety steps may have been skipped before sending them to the States, according to one product liability attorney.

Don Fountain, with the law firm Clark Fountain, believes consumers' assumptions about toy reliability are not always accurate.

"The general public has this notion that the government checks and tests all the products that we buy: 'Surely somebody has tested all these things and they're safe for my children or my family,'" Fountain explained. "But in reality, that's not how it works. The government doesn't have the resources or the ability, or I don't think even the interest in doing that."

The Consumer Product Safety Commission website lists thousands of unsafe or problematic items. Fountain noted complaints listed on the site are due to public grievances, not government detection. He recommended the commission's website to report or search for information about unsafe products.

The Commission's November 2024 report showed last year, hospital emergency rooms treated children ages seven months to 14 years for nearly 232,000 toy-related incidents linked to choking, chemical burns or poisoning.

Fountain also identified sharp or pointed objects, small pieces and moving parts on toys as hazards which could be fatal.

"Pinch points are a real problem," Fountain emphasized. "Things where two pieces come together that can cut or pinch or trap somebody, or choke somebody. Anything that gets hot, anything that involves fire or spark or fireworks, those types of things."

Taking photographs and keeping the defective product and its packaging, and a purchase receipt, is helpful to support your case should legal action occur. Without this evidence, Fountain stressed proving your complaint and the damage it caused could be difficult.


get more stories like this via email

By Jessica Scott-Reid for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for Arkansas News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

The all-natural beauty world has a new darling. In an effort to turn away from “toxic” cleansers and “chemical-filled” moisturizers, some celebrities and content creators are now touting the wonders of a new and unlikely skincare product. It’s beef tallow, also known as rendered cow fat.

But what does slathering cow fat on your skin really do? And is it worth the cost to the environment and animals? Unfortunately, this seemingly natural and wholesome skincare solution is just another facet of factory farming. And on top of that, it isn’t particularly effective as skincare.

What Beef Tallow Is and Why It’s Marketed As Wholesome

For centuries, people have rendered fat from animals for a variety of uses, from cooking to making candles to skincare, like balms and soaps. Beef tallow is simply rendered beef fat, made by cooking down cow fat slowly into a liquid. Tallow’s first use dates all the way back to the Bronze Age.

Today, tallow promoters often reference its long history, associating the product with traditional farming methods. Some tallow products are also marketed as ethical or sustainable. But as Pamela Vesilind, associate professor of law at Vermont Law, explains to Sentient, “‘sustainable’ and ‘ethical’ remain [legally] unregulated terms” in the United States. Practically speaking, she adds, the term “ethical” in advertising “is so subjective it is meaningless.”

The tactic of marketing tallow as wholesome and natural is presented in contrast to other products made in labs. It’s a rhetorical strategy you might recognize, also used to market “natural” animal meat in opposition to “processed” plant-based alternatives. This tactic can be traced back to the meat industry, and conveniently ignores the fact that animal products, whether meat or skincare, must also go through substantial (and grisly) processing in order to become usable.

How Beef Tallow Is Made

Many tallow skin products today are labeled and marketed as “grass-fed,” or “handmade in small batches.” Some tallow producers promote, and even label, their products as specifically “not vegan” — in some cases as part of the broader “trad wife” and/or homesteading trend. While some tallow beauty products sold online may originate from a maker’s own cows, this is not the norm across the market. After all, 99 percent of livestock farmed in the U.S. are raised on factory farms.

Beef tallow is made from parts of the cow that are not sold as meat, and are transported instead to rendering plants. It’s made by melting the fat to separate it from impurities, proteins or water. As a result, tallow is often touted as an eco-friendly byproduct of the meat industry.

In reality, however, sales of rendered animal fat actually bolster the meat industry, which is anything but eco-friendly.

The U.S. market for rendering and meat byproduct processing is worth $7.3 billion. Not only does the sale of the rendered fat bring in additional revenue, it also cuts the additional costs of having to otherwise safely dispose of the leftover fat as biowaste. In other words, the rendering industry props up the business of factory farming.

To dispel the wholesome tallow myth even further: nearly 95 percent of the U.S. rendering market is collectively controlled by two massive corporations, Tyson Foods and Darling Ingredients. Tyson claims to control 20 percent of meat production in the U.S., with 38 percent of revenue derived from beef production. An investigation by the Guardian earlier this year also found that Tyson Foods’ slaughterhouses dumped 371 million pounds of pollutants into U.S. waterways between 2018 and 2022.

Beef production is one of the worst types of farming for the planet, thanks to methane-spewing cow burps, and massive land use for pasture and feed crops. In this way, buying tallow from factory-farmed cows contributes to environmental degradation, just like buying factory-farmed beef to eat does.

Does Beef Tallow Skincare Even Work?

On top of tallow’s connection to factory farming, it turns out that the benefits of slathering cow fat on your skin are largely unremarkable.

Beef tallow skincare is more fad than fact, Desiree Stordahl, director of applied research and education at research-based skincare brand Paula’s Choice, told Elle magazine. “While it’s true that beef tallow contains some antioxidants and omega fatty acids that could have potential benefits for skin, there are much better ways to get those kinds of ingredients that were developed and tested specifically for skin.”

Board-certified dermatologist Dr. Raja Sivamani agrees. He tells Sentient that while tallow does have some vitamin A, which contains retinol, the amount of retinol is not standardized, and is not likely to be as concentrated as it is in conventional products.

Standard retinol has far more evidence to back it up than tallow. In one of many studies, for example, a clinical trial of women between 40 and 55 years old who applied retinol every day for a year found it reduced the appearance of crow’s feet by 44 percent and skin discoloration by 84 percent.

While tallow’s high saturated fat content may work with some skin types, for issues such as acne, Sivamani says, “it could make it worse. It’s not one size fits all.”

Cruelty-Free Alternatives to Beef Tallow

According to Sivamani, the skincare industry is now “overwhelmingly moving toward cruelty-free” products. Consumers are demanding it, and “there is a huge push for vegan products.” There are many vegan alternatives to tallow-based moisturizers, even for consumers seeking natural, one-ingredient products. Sivamani suggests cold-pressed pumpkin seed oil, virgin olive oil, coconut oil and jojoba oil. And for those looking for an effective alternative to retinol, he suggests bakuchiol-based serums.

The Bottom Line

Though for some online influencers, beef tallow may seem like an easy sell,, from a dermatological perspective, Sivamani says tallow is “just moisture.”

Ultimately, tallow beauty products are largely produced using unsustainable farming practices, and offer little in terms of proven effectiveness.


Jessica Scott-Reid wrote this article for Sentient.


get more stories like this via email