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It is that time of year when we present listicles of our top 5 or 10. Here are our most popular articles based on your page views. On behalf of myself and all of our wonderful writers, thank you for all 400,000 reads.

We know that Omicron is more contagious than Delta. Those 30 mutations on the spike protein alter its activities in ways we are just uncovering. A new study suggests that those nasal swabs may be so last year.

Yay! We have another variant. But this time, the scientists who isolated it named it after themselves. Shameless? I say yes.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) required large food chains to post the calories along with the prices for their food. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest [1], this costs food chains roughly $45,000 each to create that information; producing the changes in menus is an additional cost. A new study shows what we got, calorie-wise, for all that fuss and bother. 

Even before the time of COVID, urgent care centers (those in the trade call them docs in a box) were the go-to alternative to a long Emergency Department wait or having to see your primary care physician (PCP in the jargon) during your work hours, or in a week or so. I get it; your time is just as valuable as mine. But I wonder if something is lost in patients treating physicians as commodities and physicians treating patients as consumers. A new study looks at how the length of time seeing the same doctor influences your care.

Sometimes a picture or, in what follows, a video is worth so many words. Let’s consider the COVID variants; how could there possibly be so many so quickly. The answer, of course, lies in the work of Darwin.

Given the proliferation of claims about the health benefits of marijuana – especially following its decriminalization – it should come as no surprise that cannabis-based chemicals are being evaluated as potential COVID therapies. Two of them, CBGA and CBDA, have been found to bind to the infamous viral spikes and inhibit the replication of COVID. Do these drugs have what it takes to make a useful drug? Read on.

Reconsidering zoos, the most famous of monkeys, the symbolism of masks and a goldfish drives their aquarium.

Way too many people have experienced the discomfort of food-borne illness: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and fever. These illnesses are usually mild, but occasionally they can lead to hospitalization, even death. It may surprise you to know that fresh fruits or vegetables can be the source of these illnesses.

California is poised to empower children as young as 12 to receive COVID vaccines without parental consent. The Golden State is on the wrong path.

A recent study suggests that vaping may be linked to erectile dysfunction. The results are alarming if they're valid, though there are several critical reasons to doubt their validity.

With Thanksgiving dinner safely in the rearview mirror, we still have several more holiday feasts ahead of us. In the age of COVID-19, we also have disruptions in the supply chain – including shelves that have toilet paper, but not some holiday food items. And the rising price of turkey presages rises in the price of beef, fruits, and vegetables.

The media is beginning to run the autopsy on our pandemic responses. (Although to be fair, outlets have been Monday morning quarterbacking from Day 1.) What exactly is the plan for the next pandemic? Of course, the real problem is that in dealing with the future, there's no plan at all.

To discuss the Draft CASAC Report on EPA’s Draft Supplement to the 2019 Integrated Science Assessment (ISA) for PM and the Draft CASAC Report on EPA’s Draft PM Policy Assessment (PA).

A new paper from Johns Hopkins suggests that lockdowns had minimal impact on our health based on a meta-analysis of the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19. With blood in the water, partisan lines were quickly drawn. “Fox News has charged that there's been a ‘full-on media blackout,’" and the medical media, while not quite as hyperbolic, were dismissive because it was a pre-print, by economists, using a poor sample of studies. One more important note, the paper is 64 pages long, so who among all those reporters and experts actually read the paper? I did. [1]

A surprisingly large percentage of physicians have recommended vaping as a safer alternative to their smoking patients, a new study shows. The results suggest that many doctors have parted ways with the abstinence-only approach to smoking cessation championed by tobacco-control activists.

Ukrainians are being urged to get their hands on a supply of potassium iodide for radiation sickness in case Vladimir Putin uses a nuclear weapon. Does iodide work? The short answer is yes – but for only one cancer.

As I get older, increasingly grumpier, and less tolerant of blatant stupidity, it is far too difficult to stomach listening to or reading anything about our current culture unless I am nearly exhausted. So, if and when I read the news, it is generally after a workout. This morning, and after a workout, I unfortunately glanced at the news on the way to my emails. Here I found more of the continuous media-driven celebrity advice on how to eat and age well. Troy Aikman and Martha Stewart provided today's contrasting advice.

Imagine running long enough to get out of breath, long enough to be winded for a minute or two. Now imagine that same need for air after walking from your bedroom to the kitchen. That is the lived experience of individuals with severe respiratory illness, like the on-the-job illness we call black lung disease.

Just when there are signs that people, elected officials, in particular, are starting to understand that what we've heard about the opioid epidemic is largely a myth (one that does little more than harm pain patients) along comes an anti-opioid hit piece in Forbes. It's based on an interview with an anti-opioid zealot, the chairman of an anti-opioid commission at an anti-opioid university. Let's take it apart.

Consumer Reports (CR) promotes itself as an unbiased source of a wide variety of product ratings. It also publishes Should I Eat This? Simple ways to know what to eat and what to avoid. I recently received the updated 4th edition. Let's see how much of the content we should swallow.

Communication is a two-way street – what the speaker is sharing and what the listener hears. Twitter keeps our communications brief, sharing thoughts, not fully formed ideas. I’ve written about what we hear on several occasions, but a new study looks at what is being said by journalists and how that differs greatly from what they write.

“Compared with white men, African American men are more likely to develop prostate cancer and are twice as likely to die from the disease.” National Cancer Institute [1]
The underlying “reasons” are biological, cultural, and societal. A new JAMA Oncology study looks at societal causes.

While the concerns from Flint, Michigan about contaminated water has renewed interest in how lead pollutes our environment, lead pollutants go back many decades. A new study tries to calculate the IQ points the population has lost because of lead. A more careful read does point out some of lead’s history – the good and the bad.

Many obesity experts argue that changing the public's "food environment" is the key to promoting widespread weight loss. This proposed solution is not backed by solid evidence.