Science communicators are routinely harassed and threatened, not just by the Twitter mob but sometimes by allegedly reputable professors, journalists, and even other science communicators.
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The study by Didier Raoult et. al., the one partly responsible for the massive, unwarranted use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID, has been picked to bits by a review panel hired by the journal that published it. It's now clear that the Raoult study was a methodological mess. How did it get published at all? Should it be retracted? Let's take a look.
What exactly do we mean, scientifically, when we talk about individuals? ... Can a model of surgical care costing a small fraction of care in the U.S. teach us anything? ... Nassim Taleb writes about the use of masks. Some habits are hard to break, especially when we see them as the norm and not a habit at all.
A few weeks ago the EPA approved specific anti-coronavirus labeling for two Lysol products. But the two are part of a larger list of 470 other disinfectant products that "meet EPA's criteria for use against SARS-CoV-2." In other words, you can use them to kill the virus. I promise that this isn't nearly as boring as it sounds. But, just in case, have the NoDoz handy.
Attendees of last month's virtual AMR conference learned about advances in reimbursement programs in Europe for antibiotics. However, no one should believe that these baby steps represent significant progress in the effort to fix the antibiotic marketplace. ACSH advisor Dr. David Shlaes explains.
What happens when politics and science mix? Scary stuff. Dr. Henry Miller examines the considerable downside of releasing any COVID vaccine prior to the completion of Phase 3 trials. The founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology, Dr. Miller argues that precise science, not the date of an election, is critical at this time.
Four stories: Phylogenetic analysis suggests that coronavirus arrived in the U.S. between late January and early February. The coronavirus has resulted in more than 1.2 million years of life lost (YLLs) in the U.S. The coronavirus isn't the only game in town. And some people who are most likely to be affected by coronavirus are also refusing to go to the hospital.
For everything, there is a time and place. Emergency Use Authorizations by the FDA were necessary for COVID-19's recent past; they are not necessary and will be harmful when applied to a COVID-19 vaccine.
Some of you screwballs out there have been complaining that I'm not giving enough chemistry lessons. Be careful what you ask for. Here are a chemistry AND a biochemistry lesson about aspirin and heroin. Don't blame me. Consumer demand rules.
A large study just found that there was little, or no, evidence of cancer linked to the use of hair dye. But one of the most common dyes, para-phenylenediamine, could be reasonably expected by a chemist to be carcinogenic because of the conditions used in the dying process. Even though it's not. Here's why.
GHB, one of the "date-rape drugs," is being increasingly abused after two decades of low usage. Here's a lesson on the chemistry, biochemistry, and nomenclature of the drug. Admittedly, this sounds deadly boring. But there's more. Juvenile puke humor! Enjoy.
Obesity remains a significant health problem, especially when it increases one's susceptibility to COVID-19. While better eating habits and exercise have long been the mainstays of weight reduction, in the last 10-to-15 years surgical rearrangements of the gastrointestinal tract have come to the fore. Not only do they reduce weight, but they've improved hypertension and diabetes mellitus. A new study compares surgical and medical management for diabetes.
If artificial intelligence can replace some highly specialized medical doctors, is any job safe? It appears the biomedical profession is ripe for an overhaul.
Bari Weiss, a New York Times opinion writer, quit her job following relentless defamatory, bigoted, anti-Semitic, workplace bullying from her super-woke colleagues. And workplace bullying is a lot more common than one might think.
Incompetence, waffling, moving the goalposts, disregarding unintended consequences, and being political have hurt Americans' confidence in their public health institutions.
Dutch journalist Jannes van Roermund sent an embarrassing, unprofessional, and accusatory email to epidemiologist and ACSH advisor Geoffrey Kabat. Dr. Kabat's response is pure gold.
The term "opioid" has become a dirty word. "Synthetic" is also dirty. When putting them together you get something that is dirty but also confusing -- and probably intentionally so. There's no scientific reason to categorize a drug as a "synthetic opioid" or a "synthetic anything," as you will read here. To see how silly it is, let's perform the same exercise with antibiotics and see how that works out.
Gene drive technology is powerful and slightly frightening. But the coronavirus pandemic reminds us that we want to have multiple weapons in the public health arsenal, should we be confronted with another life-threatening microbe.
A group of researchers reports an association between low vitamin D levels and COVID-19 infection. Is this a true cause-and-effect relationship? Or are we seeing an excellent example of selection bias? Let's take a look.
As I watch the current debacle of our children preparing to return to school, I more and more feel it is time to take a moment to talk about the errors we have made. My original thoughts turned to responsibility and accountability, words that have occupied my professional life as a surgeon, words molding my thinking just as they molded my character.
A fact-checking site called PolitiFact weighs in on the validity of the claim that opioid deaths decreased in 2018, thus supposedly marking the first time we are getting control of the "opioid epidemic." Let's fact-check the fact-checkers. Plus, Andrew Kolodny dines on his own words.
Should you happen to be in the vicinity of Albuquerque don't miss the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. It is fascinating. It's also bewildering to see what people were putting in, and on, their bodies in the 1920s and 30s. The exhibits in this New Mexico museum make today's quackery look like peer-reviewed studies in JAMA. Here are some of them.
The RAND Corporation recently released a study of hospital pricing for commercial insurance vs. Medicare, the de facto standard. It's no surprise that commercial insurance pays more than double Medicare. And those payments are not evenly distributed nationally, within states, or even health systems.
Social distancing reduces the possibility of becoming infected with COVID-19. A new study suggests that social distancing also applies to facilities -- in this case -- nursing homes. But how can these particular facilities do that? Read on.
Here's the lineup: Our immune system has lots of moving parts and they do not always make sense, at least on the first read. ... While the truth may set you free, learning the truth is often hampered by paywalls. ... And a beautiful interactive on a woodblock print that shows: (1) How a picture is worth a thousand words and (2) How culturally interconnected we have been for a lot longer than the past few years.
Pagination
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