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It's not often that a politician is openly pro-GMO, particularly in Europe. But the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom just praised genetic modification in his first speech to Parliament.

Surgery can be risky business. A new study looks at how complications can result in patient death. It doesn't add new information, but it was peer-reviewed. Replication is fine, but is it always necessary?

In the never-ending campaign to demonize any drug that could possibly be abused, a physicians group at the University of Pennsylvania claims that music is a viable alternative to Versed (a benzodiazepine) in calming patients before outpatient surgery. But it is not. All you have to do is read the paper and this becomes obvious. Better orthodoxy, worse medicine.

The problem of high drug prices is multifaceted and complex. Referring to the pharmaceutical industry employing "crooks" might be good for some cheap applause, but it's demoralizing to the thousands of scientists who work in it. Senator Sanders should apologize.

A new study looks at how eating habits are passed along generation to generation, and species to species. Humans are the rare exception, eating from both the meat and plant side of the buffet.

Unless he has a miraculous change of mind and heart, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be remembered as a scourge on public health. He'll also be the Kennedy whose words and actions encouraged the spread of not only measles, mumps, and rubella but influenza and cervical cancer as well. What a legacy.

A recent survey shows that Americans despise the pharmaceutical industry not only more than ever before, but also more than any other business sector. Dr. Chris Gerry closely examines the factors -- both sensible and nonsensical -- that have contributed to Big Pharma's rock-bottom reputation.

There is wide divergence on the safety assessment of these chemicals, thus making communication with the public extremely difficult.

Given the uncertainty and risk of wrong interpretation, should you have your telomeres measured? Maybe, if the results motivate healthy lifestyle changes. For now, a surer bet for healthy aging would be to spend the money on exercise programs and nutritious foods instead.

We all make mistakes, but errors by physicians can lead to significant harm to patients. Can we learn from our mistakes? A new study looks for common threads in one area: misdiagnosis.

Various forms of calorie-restricted diets are all the rage. A study in The Lancet takes a detailed look at one version. It changes our biomarkers, but does it alter our health?

Last month, we discussed the risks associated with traveling to the Dominican Republic, where nine Americans died under mysterious circumstances. Now, a recent development should point investigators in a particular direction: a huge number of deaths in Costa Rica, linked to consuming alcohol adulterated with methanol, or wood alcohol.

Fasting for a full day, or any part of it, will certainly reduce one's caloric intake. But can food avoidance, which mimics the activity of our hunter-gatherer forebears, be safe? And can it improve our health? Let's take a look.

An alarmist article by NPR wants us to believe that we're in grave danger. That's because some deli meats have labels that are inaccurate, regarding the presence (or absence) of nitrate, a preservative. Here's the science that explains why the whole thing is nothing but a silly scare.

While indoor air pollution in the U.S. involves cleaning or hygiene products, as well as cosmetics, for most of the world's population the source of indoor air pollution is cooking. India tries to move to a more sustainable fuel source, but with unintended consequences.

This hypothesis suggests that pregnancy may protect women from auto-immune diseases, and further, that not being constantly pregnant and breastfeeding dysregulates the immune system.

Many of those who want to shove their kids into a lead-lined, basement safe room when someone walks by with a can of Raid or diet soda, are unknowingly feeding them multiple, unknown chemicals by giving them dietary supplements. And virtually none of those are useful -- and some are actually dangerous.

The science of discovering and developing new antibiotics is difficult enough. But antibiotics present an additional, unique problem: economics. It is very difficult for a pharmaceutical company to even recoup its R&D costs because of a small market, which is mostly hospital use. Some kind of subsidy is necessary. ACSH advisor Dr. David Shlaes examines whether Medicare can help, and to what degree.

Just when you think "alternative medicine" can't get any worse, an article in The Week will prove you wrong. It's about leech therapy. You will learn that there is an approved use for these creatures, and also something so ghastly that you may regret reading about it. But you will anyhow. Morbid curiosity is very powerful. Just don't say we didn't warn you.

Scientific facts and pleas for personal responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us. Those are the immunocompromised and children too young to be vaccinated. They apparently don't matter to the selfish fools who continue to reject vaccines. These selfish people have blood on their hands, and society has not chosen to hold them accountable.

Homebirths, formerly the norm, have been replaced by hospital births. Some say it needlessly medicalizes a normal human activity. A new study looks at whether home births in low-risk situations result in harm.

Here's what's in store this time: A bit of beautiful writing (really a meditation) on working with your hands. A possible explanation for why some objects become tainted, i.e. wrapped in the shadows of its origins, like "blood diamonds." Wealth work in the gig economy. And finally, another rapidly diminishing resource: sand.

The protection of intellectual property is vital to innovation. If anyone can just take something you created -- be it a song or a drug -- without proper compensation, there would be little reason to develop anything new. That, however, is predicated upon innovators playing fairly. In other words, they cannot seek patent protection for things that are not patentable. Yet, some pharmaceutical companies are doing just that.

Some migraine sufferers are easily treated with triptans or opioids. Other migraine sufferers, however, aren't so lucky. Perhaps immunotherapy will provide relief. Several companies are working on injections of anti-migraine antibodies.

There's more tree cover on Earth now than there was 35 years ago. Why? Because of technology and wealth. If we want to save the planet we should encourage more of both.