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A new paper reports that Paxlovid-resistant Covid has been isolated, calling into question the utility of the drug as well as how it should be used. Is this cause for alarm? Not yet, but it could become just that. A look at viral resistance to drugs.

Nearly a year into the pandemic, can we begin to make some definitive statements about the transmission of COVID-19 between individuals, based on a patient’s symptoms or testing? A meta-analysis provides some answers. (Or at least it gets us into the ballpark.)

This method uses revolutionary “dipstick” technology. The protocol involves a tissue sample that's ground up and the dipstick, made of wax-coated filter paper, is inserted, almost immediately capturing the DNA and RNA.

A blood test for dementia would be great but there are limitations as to what they can tell us about our brains.

Hospital-acquired infections are a major public health concern the risk of getting an infection while in the hospital is roughly 1 in 20. They are also an especially substantial burden because they are often difficult to treat due to their antibiotic resistance (therefore being dubbed superbugs). Just a few of these bacteria include MRSA, VRE, and CRE, which the CDC refers to as nightmare bacteria.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19, is threatening to surge again. In the past few weeks alone, a recent version, XBB.1.5, the most infectious subvariant yet discovered, has quickly spread in the United States. As of the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control, this variant makes up about three-quarters of all cases in the Northeast and 27.6% nationwide. There is reason to be concerned.

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?

Almost every week there is another scientific/medical advance made using the CRISPR-Cas9 system. Of course, we will continue to bring you news about all of the great ways in which CRISPR-Cas9 can be used in the future. But before we talk about medical advances, we first need to understand how the CRISPR-Cas9 system works.

It's intuitive that a robust immune response to COVID-19 will result in a less severe, even asymptomatic infection. A new study puts some numbers to the term "robust."

Around 7,000 individuals are bitten by snakes annually in the US, with only the tiniest fractions (0.02%) dying – others suffer amputations or continuing disability. [1] Snake anti-venom is largely responsible for saving these individuals. But as with many problems, snake bites are a “neglected” disease elsewhere in our world.

At the beginning of the year, the CDC and FDA noted “a preliminary safety signal for ischemic stroke among persons aged ≥65 years” who had received the COVID bi-valent vaccine, as well as a similar but "higher" signal in individuals receiving the influenza vaccine at the same time. Now, a study has confirmed that safety signal.

For anyone who has followed the AIDS epidemic from the beginning, Anthony Fauci is a very familiar name. Dr. Fauci, an accomplished immunologist, became the director of National Institute of Allergy

Hospital-acquired infections in the U.S. have been known to affect more than 700,000 patients in a single year. A new report says some hospitals are combatting this problem by lining surfaces with copper, a practice that has ancient roots. Bacteria resistance, yet, is suspected to be an undermining factor.

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.

Phosphorous was selected by Mother Nature to be the element responsible for holding together all genetic material. As its phosphate form, it is the basis for life. But a small modification of phosphate will take that life away quite efficiently - Sarin. Oh, yes - it's time for The Dreaded Chemistry Lesson From Hell!

A virion is “the complete, infective form of a virus outside a host cell, with a core of RNA or DNA and a capsid.” It is the infectious form of the virus as it moves between cells and hosts. A year plus into the COVID-19 pandemic, and we still do not know the number of virions necessary and sufficient to cause an infection – a new study, at least, puts us into the ballpark.

Macaque monkeys are starting to overrun parts of Florida. Like humans, macaques have their own version of herpes. It doesn't bother the monkeys but is very deadly to humans. Here's why.

ACSH staffers were disappointed with the science writing in a Los Angeles Times article claiming that the treatment of livestock with antibiotics threatens both animal and human health. Melissa Healy reported yesterday that the FDA found that U.S.-livestock consumed 29 million pounds of antibiotics last year.

In the U.S., drug-resistant infections, including MRSA and C. difficile, are reaching crisis proportions, and the inappropriate use of antibiotics is at least partly to blame. In an effort to contain the problem, public health officials are encouraging doctors more strongly than ever to prescribe antibiotics with greater caution.

It was another busy month for us, as we dove into topics ranging from COVID-19 vaccines and their relative effectiveness (as compared to viral infection), to pain medication, to questions related to toxicology. Here are some of the media outlets in the U.S., on Wall Street, and even in Europe that recently featured, interviewed or referenced ACSH during the month of March.

We already offer pre-natal maternal vitamins. Should we offer pre-natal paternal ones? A study looks at the transmission of "health" from father to sons, making use of data from the U.S. Civil War and providing interesting support for sperm's acquisition of epigenetic information. Who knew they were so busy?

Is President Trump, Rudy Giuliani, or any other individual infected with COVID-19 susceptible to reinfection? While there are a few scattered reports, the real question is how much of our immune response persists. A new study provides updated information.

My conversation with Lars Larson covered some new medical breakthroughs, from desperately-needed new antibiotics to the rapidly expanding applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in medicine.

The American Council on Science and Health was founded by well-learned individuals. Our writing staff and Board of Scientific Advisors are equally well educated. This month we added a new team member to our full-time writing staff, Dr. Henry I. Miller, our first Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow.

A researcher whose work was supported by the Federal government, among others, has agreed to retract two of her papers published in 2009 in the pages of Environmental Health Perspectives and the Journal of Biological Chemistry, respectively.