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I became most interested in the two reports on lead we ran in Dispatch last week. I had looked at this topic a few years ago, and at the time I was concerned that ACSH had on its website some older commentaries that seemed to downplay the danger of lower blood levels. Now, let me share some of my thoughts.

The World Health Organization is poised to reject emergency approval for Medicago's COVID vaccine because one of its ingredients is grown in tobacco plants. There's absolutely no justification for this decision.

Ordering diet soda significantly reduces the number of calories customers eat when they visit fast food restaurants, according to a recent study. The paper is an example of scientists reaching the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.

New York City, not exactly the sanest place in the galaxy, has done little to change its reputation by maintaining its private-sector employer vaccine mandate for sports teams, even though it is scientifically laughable. New York athletes are banned from playing home games unless they are vaccinated but allowed to play road games. And players who can't play are allowed to sit there and watch. Welcome to Crazyville.

A new systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that drinks sweetened with sugar substitutes may promote weight loss. Could these results end the dispute over the benefits of diet soda? Let's take a closer look.

A new randomized controlled study pits the oft-maligned potato against the virtuous almond. Which of the two causes weight gain? Should we eat this, not that? What does the research say?

A contrarian view of microplastic in our oceans, upcoming elections seem to be settled at primaries, not the general, and China clamps down on algorithms. Will that become our law too?

Recently Dr. Jeffrey Singer wrote about the one hiccup in the COVID-19 plan to “test and treat.” Pharmacists are not allowed to prescribe Paxlovid. He makes a compelling argument, but there are some downstream consequences that we should also consider.

In part two of our series on the Lancet's descent into ideological activism, we look at the journal's proposal to "transform" global dietary habits and protect the planet from the ravages of animal agriculture. Is there any evidence to justify this campaign against meat production and consumption?

Sports fans will never forget the day in 1991 when L.A. Lakers star Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced that he was infected with HIV. Johnson was lucky; he survived long enough to see the advent of the first effective AIDS drugs. But not everyone was so lucky.

“For a man's house is his castle, and each man's home is his safest refuge.” With that phrasing, English common law reinvented the Castle Doctrine, the concept that one may be safe and protect one’s home. With time, the definition of our “home” expanded into the space around us, morphing from the Castle Doctrine to Stand Your Ground. A new study looks at how those laws have changed our behavior.

Nurses, more so than physicians, are joining the Great Resignation. 32% say they are heading for the exits, up from 22% just a few months ago.

You receive a phone call that one of your parents, no longer at “the top of their game,” has fallen in a nursing home. Not only fallen but broken their leg. Without surgery, they will be confined to a bed or chair; with surgery comes an increased risk of dying in the immediate “aftermath” of the procedure. What should you do? A new study considers those issues, which unfortunately are more common than we like to believe.

It seems that COVID-19 is, finally and hopefully, waning from the American scene. Before we face another wave or a new threat, it might make sense to review some of the legal fallout, notably the interplay between freedom of religion, the obligation of the state to protect public health, and the prevalence of changing attitudes championing solidarity versus those advocating autonomy.

Should the COVID drug Paxlovid be available without a prescription? Some argue that pharmacists should be able to distribute the drug to people who have tested positive for COVID while others, including the AMA, believe that only physicians should be able to prescribe the drug because of some potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions. Cato Institute's Dr. Jeffrey Singer weighs in.

Upon first glance, the revision of the atrocious 2016 CDC opioid prescribing guidelines would seem to be an improvement – a low bar by any measure. But it doesn't take long to see that the 2022 version still leaves much to be desired.

A recent study found that moderate alcohol consumption — even one drink a day — could shrink your brain. The explosion of context-free headlines predictably followed. Let's dive a little deeper and examine what most reporters missed.

This article, which complements the one by my colleague Chuck Dinerstein, discusses the broad findings of a provocative study that ties IQ loss directly with childhood lead exposure. The study estimates that 90% of the children born between 1950 and 1980 had clinical concerning blood lead levels, resulting in decreased IQ levels. Certainly, these results will cause great concern among us baby boomers, and some might even say that this finding helps explain many of the world’s problems.

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.

Another day, another bad vaping study makes headlines. This time researchers speculate that e-cigarette use may increase your risk for prediabetes.

MIT’s first female student and professor, why nutritional studies go awry, a Carl Sagan Moment, and “clandestine” Chinese scientists and our northern neighbor.

“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.

What chemicals, specifically, pose a danger as a potential human carcinogen? To address this issue two competing approaches, which use scientific data to evaluate chemicals for this danger, are at odds. Can we tease out which of these two may be “better”?

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.

It is indeed another day and time to complete my deeper look at the origin and uses of Morphine Milligram Equivalents (MME). It is time to consider the uncertainty introduced in how MMEs are calculated and how that makes the research on MME a minefield of unintended errors and variation.