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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?

America is facing a critical shortage of many medically important drugs. The good news? There's a simple solution if we're willing to implement it. The Biden Administration is poised to invest billions of dollars in America's "bioeconomy." Will this really boost the US biotech sector, or just waste valuable resources that should be spent elsewhere?

Media coverage of the Ohio train derailment focused, understandably, on the personal tragedies of the town’s citizens. There was also considerable confusion about the chemicals' impact on the community's health. Yet there has been virtually no focus on the regulations already in place and why they weren’t more effective.

Millions of stars surround us, but every year our skies brighten from the lights we use to keep the dark at bay. As skyglow – the term for that brightening – increases, the number of stars we can see with our eyes is reduced. Let’s talk about light pollution. 

“Humans are taking colossal risks with the future of civilization and everything that lives on Earth.” So begins a report in Nature attempting to quantify Safe and Just Earth boundaries. The findings “are meant as a transparent proposal for further debate and refinement by scholars and wider society.” I took them at their word; let’s consider and then debate their proposals.

Russia's decades-old propaganda machine is vast and vicious. Its goal is to damage the health and prosperity of the country's adversaries, especially the United States.

“As the field of transgender health care has transitioned from pathologizing patients to a gender-affirming and patient-centered model and from an understanding of gender as binary to a fuller picture of gender as a spectrum, its associated diagnoses have similarly evolved.” An article in JAMA’s newest spinoff, Journal of Ethics, tries to explore the benefits and problems of a medical diagnosis.

The EPA recently completed a draft health assessment on Chromium-VI that is causing controversy in the scientific community because it concludes that Chromium-VI is likely to cause cancer through drinking water. This conclusion is at odds with EPA’s previous assessments, much of the scientific literature, and assessments by other countries, including Canada.

Kimchi, initially a household staple of Korea, has increasingly found its complex flavors of vegetables, garlic, ginger, and fish sauce being accepted as a global star. Long before refrigeration, fermented foods were a winter staple. A new study looks at the physics underlying the of making Kimchi.

The mind-body problem is fake science
Zombie pathogens have taken over my brain
There is more to figs than the Newton
Superstition, Enthusiasm, and Politics

Former President Trump said, “we have learned to live with it [COVID-19], just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!” before he recanted that statement with Bob Woodward, saying he knew it was "more deadly than even your strenuous flu." The morbidity and mortality of COVID have indeed changed over time; a recent study helps define whether COVID is becoming a new seasonal influenza.

Lost in the debate over how Medicare will negotiate drug prices, there's a concern by federal agencies about a metric used in determining a drug’s value. It's known as the Quality-Adjusted Life Year. There's bipartisan agreement in not using the term QALY, and “not even Medicare officials have signaled they want to use that approach.” What exactly are they talking about?

The agency's primary functions are ensuring food safety, regulating tobacco products rationally, and expeditiously approving new drugs and medical devices. It's failing. Instead, we're getting increasingly complex organizational structures and the commissioning of endless reports.

"... [I]nfluenza A, SARS-CoV-2, endemic coronaviruses, RSV, and many other 'common cold' viruses ... have not to date been effectively controlled by licensed or experimental vaccines." So wrote Dr. Tony Fauci, former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. What can policymakers learn from this controversial analysis? California is poised to ban five commonly used chemicals under the guise of protecting children. There's no science to justify the legislation.

Our drug laws are almost supernaturally stupid. Part of this, aside from that they're largely made by morons, is the lack of knowledge of even basic chemistry, which could, at least, introduce a little sanity to the process. Here's a bit.