With respect to COVID, children experience less severe disease but remain transmitters of the infection, especially within their immediate and extended households. Should we vaccinate or not? A new study looks at the demographics of NY City school children receiving the complete (2 shot) initial vaccination.
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If you're sick and tired of hearing about yet another Omicron subvariant taking over the world you're not alone. But there is one subvariant called Centaurus, aka B.27.5, that provides a fascinating example of how a seemingly-minuscule mutation can have a profound effect on the virus. And, at no extra cost, a Dreaded Chemistry Lesson From Hell! Plus a gratuitous shot at Dr. Oz.
One measure of the safety and quality of nursing home care is the presence of a pressure ulcer on its residents. CMS reports these numbers to the public as a star-ranking on Nursing Home Compares and penalizes nursing homes with more observed pressure ulcers than anticipated. The system relies on the self-reporting of pressure ulcers to CMS. A new study finds that nursing homes “substantially underreport” these events.
Tracking cookies, those bite-size snippets of code that log your internet behavior come in as many forms as recipes for chocolate-chip cookies. Let us make a few quick distinctions. Some “session” cookies are bound to your browser and expire when you close the browser. Other cookies can have “best-by” dates or may last forever, like Twinkies. More importantly to this study, some cookies are issued by the site you are visiting, first-party cookies; others, ghostwritten by obscure code, serve the need of external third parties. Those are the subject of some new research.
Climate change has now largely supplanted COVID as the main source of hand-wringing and angst in the popular press. Carbon is directly involved in climate change through carbon dioxide (CO2) and airborne elemental carbon particles (EC). COVID-19 has an indirect impact as well. Here I add some details to the fray to insert some clarity and reason.
You can file this under “those who don't know history are destined to repeat it,” according to George Santayana. At least that was part of my takeaway on a Smithsonian article on coal, which, in the early 1800s was a new-fangled fuel. Understanding the slow acceptance of this fuel source may provide some context as today’s alternative sources come online.
Sri Lanka's ban on imported synthetic fertilizers and pesticides devastated the country's farm sector, causing mass food shortages that helped drive the president out of office—and out of the country. ACSH director of bio-sciences Cameron English appeared on the Lars Larson show to explain the situation in more detail.
Regulatory capture refers to a type of “corruption,” in which a member of a regulatory body goes on to join those they once regulated. It's best thought of as having the fox guard the hen house. Last week, the FDA’s “top” tobacco scientist left for ... Philip Morris International (PMI), the makers of, among other brands, Marlboro cigarettes.
What is being called "Paxlovid rebound" is not uncommon. In fact, President Biden experienced just this after a course of the drug. What should be done? Drs. Henry Miller and Josh Bloom discuss just this.
If you're worried about Monkeypox, school shootings, car accidents, or any other possible threat to your health, stop this instant. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has identified a greater risk for you to fret about—frozen pizza.
Once in a while, a light bulb goes on, and a theory that turns medical knowledge on its head is born. Could this be one of those times? A group at Cambridge just published a study on the mechanism of cancer metastasis, which could fundamentally change how the spread of cancer is viewed. Here's what they discovered.
A new CDC survey shows that teen vaping is still declining. Oddly, the agency maintains that e-cigarette use among adolescents is an "epidemic."
We love our dogs and puppies. They are faithful, non-judgmental companions who delight in our presence. Many pet owners return this affection by feeding them treats. But some human foods and household products are poisonous to dogs. Can we kill them with kindness?
Just what we need, another dangerous street drug. It's called xylazine aka Tranq and is approved only as an animal sedative. But it's increasingly being used along with fentanyl, making both more dangerous. And there is no antidote. Our drug policy continues to result in more dangerous drugs on the street - something we should have (but did not) learn long ago. And a short DCLFH for all you masochists out there.
Swearing – defined as speaking “specific, negatively charged, and often emotionally loaded terms” – violates our norms of both the sacred and profane. While polite society often reflects on swearing’s negatives, it turns out that there are some health benefits for the sender (but not the receiver).
Animal research’s benefits are clear – but public awareness of what it involves is not.
Thirty years ago, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) launched a PR campaign against a plant-growth regulator called Alar, effectively eliminating the use of the chemical in agriculture. What's the legacy of this infamous anti-chemical scare? The New York Times continues to attack good scientists on the say-so of environmental groups. The paper is trashing its credibility.
In 2002, a scuba diver ran out of air deep inside an undersea cave near the Island of Šolta, in Croatia. To avoid a gruesome drowning death, he supposedly stabbed himself in the chest. Did it really happen?
Science is not easy. It isn’t easy to do or to write about. But some do it better than others in both instances. Consider this example concerning the massive decline in the Pacific Snow Crab population.
Every time you turn on the TV or read a news article touching on medicine, the environment, or health, chances are you'll run across a story that's impacted by toxicology. And more times than not, news consumers are left with the question: What information is essential to understanding the story's impact?
The Cleveland Clinic, one of the world's foremost academic medical centers, has jumped on the anti-vaping bandwagon, perpetuating unfiltered nonsense about the health effects of nicotine.
The first chronic low-level infection to be associated with a specific condition was Helicobacter pylori as the real cause underlying most stomach ulcers. This upended decades of medical belief and treatment. Could a newly discovered species of bacteria in the microbiome be a culprit behind rheumatoid arthritis? This reprint from The Conversation suggests it is quite possible.
“… the financial relationship between these newly independent physicians and industry begin to develop in the first year after graduation from their training programs and continued to expand in the early years of independent physician practice.” Financial relationship? A new study suggests that “gifting” physicians begins early. Still, I believe the study casts more shade than light.
The CDC's dreadful 2016 opioid prescribing guideline caused untold damage, both to pain patients and opioid addicts. Six years later we have a revised document. Is it any better? Dr. Jeffrey Singer argues no.
Ozempic, a drug indicated for Type II diabetes, has become the latest weight-loss darling. Not since ivermectin has a drug gained so much interest from its off-label uses. Let’s take a deeper look at the science and a regulatory conundrum.
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