Fruitcake aficionados, my apologies in advance. It's holiday time and some of you will receive a re-gifted fruitcake that is ??? years old. But how old? You learn how to figure this out (it's the same way fossils are dated) when you read the Christmas Special “Dreaded Chemistry Lesson From Hell” below. We will also explore whether the fruitcake is the worst gift ever. From all of us at ACSH, have a happy and fruitcake-less holiday season.
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“The opioid epidemic” has triggered an extreme governmental reaction. While blaming legitimate manufacturers, curbing pain meds is the government’s go-to approach -- to the horror of those who legitimately need pain relief. Could the government have curtailed the problem from the get-go, and were they just asleep at the helm? Could present measures be a diversionary tactic?
“Drinking eight glasses of water every day can prolong your life for up to 15 YEARS and slash the risk of heart attacks, strokes and dementia, study suggests” Can that be true? The study was all over the media, but even a cursory read shows that drinking water was never measured, and eight glasses a day was never discussed.
The most recent scare by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) over PFAS in freshwater fish was picked up by CNN and all the major news organizations and presented as fact. But the EWG models skew the results. There are other ways that EWG uses deceptive means to reach its conclusions and deliver the scariest outcomes possible.
No matter how you slice it "Jamaican vomiting sickness" is something you want to avoid. You can do so by not eating the ackee fruit, a staple of that Caribbean nation – or at least waiting until it's ripe. Here's a lesson about metabolic toxicity wrapped in a mini-travelogue.
Adderall, one of the primary drugs to treat ADHD, has been in the news lately because of a shortage. But there are a number of different ADHD drugs that contain amphetamine – the active ingredient in Adderall. Perhaps this will help clarify what's going on.
The combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI), chatbots, and deep fakes is going to make life interesting in the near future. It won't all be smooth sailing.
A not-so-recent paper estimated that for every £ spent on cardiovascular research, there was a continuing 9% savings in health costs 17 years later. If the time from the research bench to the bedside was reduced to 10 years, those continuing savings rose to 13%. Why does it take so long to translate medical science into medical care?
It's a commonly held belief that a full moon brings out the crazies and the craziness. The word "lunatic" – derived from the combination of "luna," or moon, and "atic," meaning “of the kind of” – was first mentioned in a fourth-century Bible. A new study looks at the influence of the moon and some circadian genes on the incidence of suicide.
Twenty years ago, Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug wrote about agricultural biotechnology – its promise, importance, over-regulation, and the mindless opposition to it from activists. His words ring true today.
The spread of SARS-CoV-2 infections through many mammal species in the wild raises the specter of deer becoming a SARS-CoV-2 reservoir — a permanent home for the virus and a regular source of outbreaks in other animals, including humans.
Borlaug was a brilliant scientist and plant breeder, but the other secrets of his success were his perseverance and persuasiveness.
The recent Office of Science and Technology Policy report demonstrates that the federal government is not serious about feeding the country or developing a strong bioeconomy. The White House’s assessment contains decades-old unworkable initiatives. So we ask: Is the administration moving a ‘bold’ and ‘innovative’ agenda – or one simply focusing on climate initiatives, while China advances its bioeconomy?
The FDA is responsible for the approval of medications in the U.S. Many similar agencies are doing the same work in other countries. But unlike the U.S. – where cost is not a consideration – several countries including the UK, Canada, and Australia, apply a Health Technology Assessment to consider a new medication’s clinical and economic cost and benefits. A recent study shows they disagree with the FDA’s decision about 20% of the time.
Traditionalism, a synonym for conservatism, is defined as “the tendency to embrace what are perceived to be the longstanding norms and values of one’s group, while rejecting changes to them.” During COVID, much of the writing on human behavior revolved around the actions of the conservatives vs. liberals. An anthropologic study looks at the role of traditionalism during COVID more globally.
Johnson & Johnson is working on a drug to repair liver damage caused by Tylenol, which has made the company billions since it was launched in 1955. Isn't this a bit like having a dentist's office in the back of a candy store?
He invented the thermos and smokeless gunpowder.
Rising angst
Right to repair
What are we drinking
With much fanfare, the EPA announced the proposed drinking water regulations for two “forever chemicals,” PFOA and PFOS. EPA Administrator Michael Regan said, “Communities across the country have suffered far too long from the ever-present threat of PFAS pollution. That is why President Biden launched a whole-of-government approach to aggressively confront these harmful chemicals, and EPA is leading the way forward.”
Long COVID will take a toll on the nation's healthcare system for the foreseeable future, but we can reduce new cases by treating acute COVID infections with a commonly prescribed, inexpensive medicine.
If you're susceptible to motion sickness, traveling can be a nightmare. Fortunately, there are drugs that can help, maybe a lot. And there are also drugs that people take that do little or nothing. Here's an article in which I "bring up" the classes of motion sickness drugs and "regurgitate" some knowledge about which ones are helpful and also the ones that are "wretch(ed)." This is no "gag." It's serious info that could be the "nemesis of emesis."
Senators Michael Bennet and Susan Collins co-sponsored the bill passed last December to combat the overdose crisis. While the bill had some good features, some will make matters worse. That’s because lawmakers refuse to accept the evidence and still cling to erroneous beliefs about the root causes of the crisis.
A belated Valentine’s day thought
Work vs. labor
Mass killings are not all the same; consider the Lost Boys
Two Idaho state legislators have introduced a bill that would criminalize providing or administering a vaccine produced with mRNA technology to any person or other mammal. It represents the apotheosis of elected officials' irresponsibility and stupidity.
I was struck by this large heading on an EPA website, “Rebuilding the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program.” This program does not need to be rebuilt; it should be eliminated and consolidated with existing programs within the EPA.
Can we agree that whatever of the multifactorial causes of obesity you emphasize, obesity results in other health-related problems? Can we also agree that many of those multifactorial causes are present in childhood? Then doesn’t screening for obesity and early intervention make sense; that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?
Pagination
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