Lead in drinking water became a political and media cause celebre in 2014 when there were reports of child “lead poisoning” in Flint, Michigan, after the notorious and unfortunate water supply blunders. The Flint problem could easily have been avoided with some common sense and legally required water management procedures.
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The “hard problem” – nuclear waste
Our bookshelves speak to our inner nature.
A sustainable diet is not a choice of meat or plants; it is meat and plants.
China is 'seeding' clouds to increase rainfall and fight a severe drought. Will it work? A large body of research shows that soda taxes are ineffective, so why do public health experts continue to endorse them? Finally, has climate change increased the number of heart attacks we suffer? No.
Medice, cura te ipsum. Physician, heal thyself. That is just what the CDC is beginning to do based on a recently published in-house structural review. Leave aside the shame and blame game of amnesty. What does the CDC believe it did wrong and could do better?
To what degree does a patient’s belief that treatment will succeed influence care outcome? Can a study of treating appendicitis with antibiotics shed some light on the role of faith in our care?
Making books
A Forest bath’s physiologic effects
Animals in the business zoo
Moynihan was right – It’s time to talk about absent fathers
Steal like an artist, Bob Dylan edition
India, Big Pharma to the World
Has tipping reached a tipping point?
Truffles or the magic of chemistry?
How physicians communicate with their peers and their patients has come under more scrutiny of late. Patient access to “open” notes has raised concern about physicians using hurtful terms. A new paper considers the problem of physicians communicating with their patients unconsciously using jargon that obstructs rather than facilitates understanding.
Lessons from the immune system
The silent Award Season is upon us
How music touches us
For Thom, saving coffee from warming, global warming
It was “Wall Street,” the movie released 36 years ago, that popularized thoughts about greed. But of course, greed has been a driver in politics and society for far longer. A new study looks at how U.S. senators speak of greed in their 280-character utterances that we call Tweets.
Recycle or reuse?
Body Rituals in Nacirema
The Real Tools of War
Killing Roald Dahl's "Little Darlings"
Sy Syms was right "An educated consumer is our best customer."
Growing Old
Tainted Money
On January 11, the CPSC issued a statement of concern about emissions from gas stoves while stating that it had no plans to ban them. Here are the comments I have submitted to the Commission during its public comment period. It’s time for the larger issue of indoor air pollution to get its due.
The shortage of Adderall, an important medication used to treat ADHD – attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder – is a story of supply, demand, the invisible hand of market forces. It’s also about a bureaucracy focused on regulation rather than outcome. It has all the hallmarks of the opioid crisis. We have learned nothing.
The Chicken Economy
Ode to an IBM Selectric
Can a patient advocate make a difference?
Do plants think?
Europe’s proposed pull incentive for antibiotic R&D is a mixed bag ...
A Fish Tale
The Ancients on Public Life
Hester Prynne, cancel culture’s first victim?
Should I get a COVID booster?
Wegovy and Ozempic, both GLP-1 agonists, have taken the world by storm, providing a simple way to lose weight without changing our lifestyle. A new report in Science helps us understand what we do not know: the known unknowns of obesity. Let me summarize.
Can being one with nature harm nature?
For Climate Change - Having your meat and eating it too.
“VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
Advice from a bad mother
The COVID-19 pandemic has virtually – but not entirely – disappeared from public concerns. Nevertheless, new variants are being examined, as are new vaccines intended to counter them.
The U.S. Government doesn't want to hear the message: The Centers for Disease Control and the Veterans Administration published practice guidelines on the prescription of opioid pain relievers in 2022 that they knew were unsupported by science and harmful to public health. The Department of Health and Human Services is stone-walling repeated demands for a senior staff review of these issues.
Yours truly, Kris Kringle, has been informed that my fans are truly miffed because they haven’t seen me around lately. Truth be told, I am hiding out from the paparazzi, an occupational hazard of all the great and famous. But because you, my loyal ACSH fans, deserve to know. Truth be told, I am being sued.
In 2019, I joined ACSH's contributing writers group because I admire the mission, and sought an outlet for some long-held dilemmas concerning the health effects of air pollution. Since then, my interests, along with those of my long-time colleague Sheldon Lipsky, have morphed along three tracks: air pollution, climate change, and original research on COVID-19. Here are a few articles on those topics.
Let’s Eat Grandma – more than just an error in punctuation
Take-out pizza
Hospitals as Hotels
Candy Land’s origin story
Are you better off now than before? It depends
Illegal markets in sand
A Beginner’s Mind Looks at Immunology
The political philosophy of Silicon Valley
Pagination
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