Search results

The President just canceled the educational debt of 350,000 disabled students, a minuscule $7 billion of the $1.7 trillion in student debt. Who is leading the push here, the politicians or the public? The Brookings Institute offers up some answers.

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.

The debate over when to lift mask mandates continues. The CDC extended mask guidance on airplanes, among other forms of mass transit, for an additional two weeks. The war over masks in elementary school continues to be waged. A new model attempts to provide more data on the interaction of the three horsemen of non-pharmaceutical intervention, face masks, room ventilation, and distance in short and long-range airborne transmission.

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.

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.

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.

Epidemiological studies have reported statistically significant relationships between long-term air pollution and mortality over the past 50 years, frequently without controlling for smoking. Smoking is perhaps the strongest actionable risk factor in our longevity, and despite dramatic declines, it remains so in modern society. Smoking more than one pack per day can double the risk of all-cause mortality and increase lung cancer risk at least 10-fold.

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.

Ocean? Pool? Ocean? Pool? Perhaps this will help you decide.

Socioeconomic risk factors have gotten much attention as they relate to disparities in health outcomes. Lower income, lower educational attainment, and so-called lifestyle issues – drinking, smoking, eating, and exercise – seem to be fellow travelers. A new mediation analysis seeks to disentangle them and point us toward the real drivers of health disparity.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) has produced some eight million children since its inception in 1978 with the birth of Louise Brown. But, like many novel technologies, problems abound - including errors and malfeasance on the part of the very lucrative IVF industry, which in the US is virtually unregulated. The novel technology, its problems, related lawsuits, and lack of legal redress in some cases raise essential questions about the value of a human life.

As earth day approaches, activist groups have amplified their predictions of an impending environmental disaster. A brief survey of the evidence shows that the situation isn't nearly as dire as they claim.

How exactly do we think, the great migration – of our medications, freeing speech, and monkey minds.

When discussing Hospital systems, non-profit is a tax status, not a revenue statement. In exchange for providing a range of “community” services, these institutions are tax-exempt. The Lown Foundation dishes the dirt on the profits and losses of some of our most prominent institutions.

Every day of the week, surgeons stand before their peers to discuss and explain the most recent bad outcomes. It is part of our training and our work. As we continue to discuss and explain the public health, behavioral, and political choices during the pandemic, those weekly surgical conversations about morbidity and mortality can give us some insight into how we respond to what went right and what went wrong.

The controversy surrounding ivermectin as a therapy for COVID has been longstanding and fierce. A recent paper in NEJM may or may not settle the ongoing debate. But the paper is full of data. Here is a condensed look at the key numbers.

Miracle foods that keep you "focused and sharp" as you age probably don't exist. Popular news reports claim otherwise, though they're based on flimsy evidence.

We know from many studies that there is an inverse association between our intake of dietary fiber and the development of cardiovascular disease. The mechanism joining fiber to cardiovascular disease is thought to be mediated by INFLAMMATION! A new study strongly suggests that it is time to give that hypothesis a rest – as always, it is more complicated and unclear.

Disparities in healthcare are increasingly a hot topic in the journals. Two recent studies demonstrate disparity but identify very different actionable causes. As with all healthcare, it is more complicated and entangled than a single narrative or lens can explain. The data dots are correct, but there is more than one way to connect and explain them.

As we get older, our bodies change. This means our nutrient requirements for healthy living change too. People over 60 years-old need to eat more protein to help maintain muscle mass which atrophies due to the ravages of time and lack of exercise. Diets rich in vitamins, minerals, and fiber help reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases. Unfortunately, seniors tend to eat poorer as they age. A recent report found that diet quality decreased among older U.S. adults from 2001 to 2018.

To thousands of women gifted with childbirth through assisted reproductive technologies (ART) and their children - the practice can only be described as a godsend. The industry, including IVF facilities, with global revenues in the billions, I am sure, agrees. But perhaps technology has run away with itself before we’ve considered the full ramifications of the risks and conjured solutions for the abuses, some of which have come to light just this week.

Monopolies in pharmaceutical (think pharmacy benefit management), a different view of Twitter (still negative though), and Microsoft reports we have three peak areas of work every day; the last is at 10 PM – what up with that?

Vice News endorses all the currently fashionable opinions—including activist bromides about modern agriculture. The magazine recently took exception to children's books meant to teach elementary-school students about pesticides. I take exception to Vice's sorry excuse for science reporting.

Hear about the German guy who got arrested for getting selling forged vaccine cards to anti-vaxxers? That should be funny enough, right? Nope. ACSH goes the extra kilometer, as usual.

Antibiotic R&D is hard. Getting to approval is harder. Surviving the commercialization step today is almost impossible. Government-based funding to fix the broken antibiotic market is essential to stop this march of the lemmings. Private investment will follow a government incentive and amplify its effect.