Everything about COVID-19 is subject to scrutiny by informed and ill-informed media, by experts, by eminence. Booster shots are the latest in the communication apocalypse. Do we need them? Pick your data; there is a great deal to choose from.
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Public health, in much of this country, is in crisis. Hospitals are overwhelmed and understaffed, vaccination is widely resisted, state governments present mixed messages -- and COVID-19 is out of control and headed for a 4th wave. The more-contagious Delta variant has been spreading rapidly and may challenge the efficacy of our vaccines. We address this situation with population-based statistics in two modes: progression over time and geographic variation.
Storytelling in science, finding the narrative. The simultaneous rise of literacy and misogyny, heavy metal harp, the mushroom mind, and a Twitter Ivermectin thread and media bias
As was the case with other "instant therapies" for COVID, convalescent plasma showed no utility whatsoever in a well-designed randomized controlled trial, something that should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever waded in the treacherous waters of drug discovery research. Another one bites the dust.
Discussing our mortality is tricky business. Few of us jump into the discussion, even when it’s increasingly important near the end life. So it’s easily understandable why the carbon footprint from the disposal of one’s remains doesn’t always land on most people’s list of worries.
Medical imaging requires patients to be injected with or drink a radionuclide that can be “imaged” to show various organs and dysfunction. For the time that the radionuclide remains in your system (it is urinated out within a day or so), you are radioactive. According to the Health Physics Society, “our bodies are naturally radioactive, because we eat, drink, and breathe radioactive substances that are naturally present in the environment.”
Had she lived, Henrietta Lacks would have been 101 in August. Instead, she died at 31, a victim of aggressive cervical cancer. Monday marks the 70th anniversary of her death on October 4, 1951. But her cells live on, immortalized by George Gey, a cellular biologist at Johns Hopkins.
The anti-GMO movement is gradually campaigning itself into irrelevance. Unfortunately, this positive trend has been slowed by public universities that pay activists exorbitant speaking fees to promote their questionable ideas. This is but one example of taxpayers subsidizing ideological advocacy with potentially serious consequences.
The Veteran Administration's "Opioid Safety Initiative" – as fine an example of doublespeak as you'll see – succeeded in reducing opioid prescriptions by 64% in less than a decade. That's just fine if you're prepared to accept the accompanying 75% increase in rural veteran suicides. Drs. Jeffrey Singer and Josh Bloom are not. Here's their opinion piece in The Virginian-Pilot.
The constant barrage of news, cloaked in attention-getting words and images, is playing havoc with instinctual behavior that is millions of years old. There is, for me, a direct connection between fight or flee, chronic stress, and how we have chosen to use the medium of digital communication. Digital media is an out-of-control fear machine.
As a society, we are increasingly overweight. Some argue that it isn't weight; we're just big-boned. Others say that excess pounds do not equate with being either unfit or unhealthy. Can you be healthy and significantly overweight? What does "science" say?
Japanese consumers now have access to a genetically engineered -- specifically, a CRISPR-edited -- tomato that can help prevent high blood pressure. Hopefully, it's one of many gene-edited products we'll begin to see in grocery stores around the world.
We now have both mRNA (Pfizer, Moderna) and vector (AstraZeneca, J&J) vaccines. As we move to boosters, can we – should we – mix and match? Is choosing one from Column A and one from Column B better, worse, or just the same?
Some vaccines are one-and-done, like measles. Others are annual events, like the seasonal flu. There's new data as to where on that spectrum the COVID-19 vaccine lies.
The process of respiration – converting oxygen to carbon dioxide and energy – is what life is all about. This metabolic process, which humans and animals must do to live, changes the environment when we inhale air and release our breath back into the world. How does COVID-19 fit into this?
With the school year underway, teacher vaccine mandates, and mask mandates in partial or full effect, have we made our children safer? That we cannot say, at least as yet, but a new study can tell us something about how COVID-19 can and does spread.
What went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic? A team of public health researchers recently outlined some of the crucial policy mistakes we made and explained how we might avoid them in the future.
A new study suggests that electronic cigarette users may experience strokes a decade earlier than traditional smokers. But the authors have overlooked a more interesting result: smokers who switch to vaping have a lower overall stroke risk.
Hospital data show that the largest shares of COVID infections and deaths have been to the unvaccinated, about whom we have little personal information. The media has interviewed a few individuals, but large-scale demographic data are needed for a better understanding. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may provide some insight.
We're almost two years into the pandemic and there have been more than enough ups and downs to last a lifetime. But now we have a potentially big "up," because the results just came in on Pfizer's COVID drug Paxlovid—and they are nothing short of amazing. Will we finally be free of the terror of this pandemic? Maybe.
One recent article in the bioethical literature bemoaned the expense of pursuing this noble career. Worse still, is that no one really knows what qualifies one to practice bioethics. But at $80,000 for advanced certification, it’s still a lot cheaper than a law or medical degree (although perhaps not quite as expensive as a degree in theology – which some claim might be more helpful).
We hope you enjoy this – probably your last – Thanksgiving. Because, as you will see, you'll be scarfing down carcinogens with every bite. Don't believe me? Ask the Environmental Working Group. They'll be only too happy to tell you how these trace chemicals will kill you. For the rest of the ACSH staff, so long. It's been nice knowing all of you.
The CDC recently revised its blood reference value for lead in children. Will this result in better protection for kids from the adverse health effects of lead?
Over the last year, the number of immune individuals necessary to achieve herd immunity has risen from 70% to 90%. Is it even possible to achieve herd immunity? Every other disease has herd immunity; why not COVID-19? And another problem, why is COVID-19 different from its siblings SARS or MERS?
A confession, climate change, how to read a book, and it is truly Autumn in New York
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