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An ACSH.org reader wrote to us, asking if we would investigate a controversy surrounding Apeel, a protective coating that's applied to some fruits and vegetables. Cucumbers and apples help us sort through the issues and determine whether consumers should be concerned.

The FDA’s assault on vaping has yielded devastating consequences. Not only have millions of adults been denied legal access to low-risk vaping products they rely on to stay smoke-free, federal regulations are rapidly destroying thousands of jobs and billions of dollars worth of income, depriving ordinary Americans of their livelihoods. 

One of the judgments made by scientists is how to aggregate or segregate data – especially when it comes to changing a continuous variable like age – into separate bins (10 to 18, 19 to 34, etc.). Race/ethnicity as a category has come in for some well-deserved criticism. Leave aside the argument that it is a social construct, race/ethnicity contains too many confounding features. A study in Nature points to a new way to break the category into meaningful segments.

Good dental hygiene is extremely important to overall health. Even simple and inexpensive interventions, such as brushing, flossing and chewing sugar-free gum, can be highly effective.

My background is in public health, and I love the idea of making healthcare accessible for everyone, but health coaching, exemplified by the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN), in its current state, is not healthcare. It’s the Wild West of healthcare, and we need a sheriff.

To handshake or not to handshake, that is the question. As COVID-19 has moved from a pandemic to an endemic disease, should we greet each other with a shake of hands, fist bump, or just eye contact and walk quickly away?  Handshaking has devolved into a cultural debate rather than the scientific issue of disease transmission. Is handshaking, a form of surface transmission, something to fear?

Today, there is simply too much known in far too many diverse fields for any person to hold it all in their brain. This means that, no matter how smart one might be, there are times when we have to push the “I believe” button and simply accept the statements of others. The problem is that these others are too often wrong, the topic is too often very important, and the statements made are too wildly disparate. We feel we must choose, yet we don’t know how.

Regulators are supposed to abide by the “bargain” that society has made with them: Civil servants are granted lifetime tenure and are protected from political pressure and retaliation, in return for which they are supposed to make decisions based solely on the public interest. But, often, they do not. 

Exactly 10 years ago -December 2, 2013 - my first-ever published opinion piece about the erosion of pain control appeared in The New York Post. It was titled "New painful casualties of the drug war" and was written three years before the CDC's formal declaration of war on pain patients. It is frightening to look back a decade and see how much of this has come true. Plus much worse. Here is the article from the Post opinion page.

The British broadcaster has become part of a cynical anti-science collaboration.

Hospitals and health systems are not immune from concerns about their environmental impact. Most studies surround the discharge of anesthetic gases or single-use plastics. A new study provides different concerns.

Cato Institute's Dr. Jeffrey Singer, in an opinion piece in USA Today, writes that for years we've been buying and using an ineffective, potentially dangerous decongestant. Why? Just another futile attempt to restrict access to illegal drugs, in this case, methamphetamine. With phenylephrine off pharmacy shelves, the ACSH advisor explores what this means.

Answer: It could be. Stress kills. Rarely, but not never. And then there is anxiety, which subsumes a host of related diagnoses. The terms are often co-mingled, with the latter tending to diffuse the dangers of the former. Let’s take a deeper look.

I have previously authored many articles about per- and polyfluroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals,” and the misinformation and lack of scientific credibility surrounding them. However, Europe has outdone the U.S. on the absurdity of their proposed regulations on these chemicals. On February 7, 2023, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) proposed to ban all PFAS, which would affect more than 12,000 chemicals. To do this, they used a definition of PFAS so broad that it includes almost any chemical that contains fluorine [1]. What is going on?

Anuses are like martinis. Some like 'em dry and some don't. And in the bathroom, a similar debate continues. Hardly a day goes by when the bidet vs. toilet paper war fails to rear its ugly head. This is only one more reason why ACSH – flush with newsworthy articles – is the place to go to learn about this and similarly vital issues. Buckle up.

According to the CDC, heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the U.S., taking roughly 700,000 lives in 2021. For cardiologists who treat these patients, the supply and demand are endless. Those market conditions attract private equity because caring for those patients means big money.

The drug, Leqembi, does not reverse symptoms. In patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, it slowed cognitive and functional decline somewhat compared with placebo. The FDA’s approval of Leqembi is not the end of the Alzheimer’s journey, but it could be a way station. 

“Oregonians voted in November 2020 to stop incarcerating people for using drugs unapproved by the federal government and instead direct resources to harm reduction programs. The pandemic got in the way. Now, while this project is still in its infancy, a group of Oregonians wants to replace something that hasn’t had a chance to work with something that we KNOW hasn’t and won’t work.”

Contrary to a poorly researched Wall Street Journal commentary, the new COVID vaccines have been tested appropriately and, like their predecessors, will likely prevent serious illness, death, and undue stress on the U.S. healthcare system.

In this radio conversation, Lars Larson and I discuss his concerns about the testing and approval process for new drugs and medical procedures in the United States.

The level of respiratory illnesses in the U.S. is high and increasing. We are again experiencing a "tripledemic" of COVID-19, flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). As the peak incidence of those infections approaches, we should be vigilant and take appropriate precautions.

In a CBS Eye on the World interview, host John Batchelor and I discussed myriad pressing concerns regarding data security in the healthcare sector.

The wellness world loves science washing. By using technical-sounding jargon, it’s easy to add a sheen of legitimacy to an otherwise nonsensical product or offering. One of the most recent examples is Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis, or FBCA.

A vacation is a tough time to get sick or hurt. It's even tougher when you might have a perfectly legitimate need for a controlled substance, but can't get it from any urgent care facility. The result? Instead of getting an effective drug for what ails you you get tossed out with something nearly worthless. This just happened to my wife. Here's the story. It's infuriating.

In Part 1 of this series, we presented evidence that a not insignificant amount of published science and the “knowledge” resulting from it is wrong. There are many reasons, including experimental carelessness, differences in how researchers approach statistical analyses, journals’ bias against publishing negative results, and outright dishonesty by investigators. Part 2 describes how activist scientists can use meta-analyses to manipulate data to reach a predetermined, but flawed, conclusion.