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In the age of "Facebook science," the weight of evidence must compete with powerful popular narratives. Can common sense help? Let's take a look.

Starting next month, many grocery store products will have to carry the USDA's bioengineered ("GMO" in the vernacular) food labels. Here's what you should know about this pointless, costly regulation.

What went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic? A team of public health researchers recently outlined some of the crucial policy mistakes we made and explained how we might avoid them in the future.

When the recent publication of a paper in Nature Methods claimed that using the CRISPR-Cas9 technique may cause unexpected mutations to occur, you might say that produced a collective gasp in the scientific community. But those who discovered CRISPR-Cas9 are not taking this criticism lightly – and they're fighting back.

As the anti-vaccine movement garnered Hollywood momentum, science stood largely silent. However, Dr. Paul Offit, inventor of the Rotavirus vaccine, took to the helm to fight for children's health and safety. Here's an informative conversation with a true expert in the field. 

The FDA needs to step up and fix the definition of strength. "Business as usual” under the existing language of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 means continued disincentives to promote a more aggressive uptake of biosimilars.

The type of cognitive strategy chosen could help protect an individual from the negative sequelae of traumatic events. A new study reveals that a technique called "concrete information processing" could be used to prevent intrusive thoughts (a hallmark of PTSD), and blunt emotional responses to subsequent distressing situations.

A new paper claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was genetically engineered in a laboratory has several red flags. It should not be taken seriously.

YouTube announced last week that it's banning a number of high-profile anti-vaccine activists from its platform. The policy shift is meant to stem the spread of misinformation, but it raises some troubling questions. Most important among them: is more censorship worth the cost it imposes on society?

At age 86, living legend Dr. Buzz Aldrin was recently medically evacuated from the South Pole. In the first of a two-part series, Dr. Jamie Wells shares an experience she had at high elevation with the former astronaut when addressing altitude illnesses, prevention and treatment.  

A recent CDC report documented a case of HIV infection in three women who received cosmetic injections in 2018. Although disturbing, this news is not catastrophic, like it would have been three decades ago. AIDS is now largely a forgotten disease in the United States. How did we get here?

Is it possible that patient advocates have hidden conflicts of interest? That they accept funding from Big Pharma, the du jour villains of healthcare? Further, was the ever-cynical Television Doc right in his assessment of patients' ability to tell the truth?

This week's announcement by Philip Morris that it plans a "global blitz" to dramatically increase the number of cigarette smokers around the world represents the ultimate public health nightmare.

Caveat Emptor. Consumers and journalists beware Anti-biotechnology activists engaged in a week of "direct action" at Starbucks Coffee shops this week aim to target you over the next few days with false and misleading information about food safety, nutrition and the environment. The same people who brought you a long list of other false health and environmental scares including the infamous Alar in apples scare, the Dow-Corning breast implant campaign and dozens of other debunked fears are at it again.

Rembrandt Foods is closed … again. It has sent their employees home and is sitting idle as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) claims the lives of over 5 million laying hens. This Iowa liquid egg producer also shut down in 2015, when waterfowl migrating up the Mississippi flyway brought the HPAI strain to their barns and flocks.

The Washington Post and an investigative journalism outlet called The Examination have partnered to investigate nutrition influencers on social media. Their investigation is ongoing, so we can expect more from them. While I think this work is important, I believe some red flags in this investigation are worthy of discussion.

The American food supply is safer and more nutritious today than at any point in history. And this decade the CDC found that 8 out of 10 Americans were not even at risk for nutritional deficiencies. Despite this, millions of Americans still fear the safety of their food. Why?

A dearth of truth in medical advertising is probably our greatest public health threat. With consumers bombarded by spurious claims, our agencies need to be proactive, not reactive in protecting the public.  

Decades ago, I became a fan of the ACSH long before becoming an occasional contributor. I was motivated by one clear point of reasoning. I found it next to impossible to locate a reliable source of health-related issues I had an interest in, as well as being able to recommend that source to students enrolled in my college course for continuing education purposes.

Researchers at Harvard's Belfer Center scoured the globe for whatever was publicly available on North Korea's biological weapons program. Referencing news articles, journal papers, expert interviews and government reports, the team assembled a comprehensive study of the knowns and unknowns. Here are the main findings.

1. Organic Consumers Association, and the groups it funds, like US Right To Know and the lawyer-run partisan attack site Sourcewatch, may be in a lot of trouble.

There seems to be some disconnect from reality when one hears strident voices dogmatically proclaiming that our food system has "failed" and must be entirely transformed, or that the "Green Revolution" (which boosted crop yields through improved fertilizer use) is a failure. People who say that must think, as Tertullian (and later St.

Now that a full year has passed since the abortive attempt by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration s Commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, to make the morning-after pill available to anyone over-the-counter (OTC), what is the status of this plan?

As the debate over the origins of SARS-COV-2 rages, the case for silencing social media users grows weaker.

As social media platforms unleash a torrent of content, the battle against inaccuracies becomes increasingly daunting. Algorithms, touted as gatekeepers, have not worked. Can crowdsourced corrections stem the tide of misinformation?