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Some chemicals are nasty. Some are plain evil. Then, there's methyl fluorosulfonate, aka "Magic Methyl." It's so bad that you have to be out of your mind to use it. Unless you want to dissolve a chicken breast.

Chronic pain is a major public health challenge. The reason is that the treatment of chronic pain has become, in part, a political issue. And that's to the detriment of 20 million high-impact chronic patients, who are disproportionately women or poor people.

Surviving and thriving after penetrating traumas depends on two key factors.

Superhyped: superfoods. The concept is ridiculous, yet wealthy Americans are buying into it -- big time. Depending on how you define them, superfoods either don't exist at all ... or we're surrounded by them. One ACSH advisor, the Director of Medical Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center, weighs in.

The European Union has decided to burn more wood to offset the increases in emissions that will be caused by closing nuclear plants. It's doing so because wood is renewable. While that sounds great, the problem is that burning wood is still combustion, which in this case is more harmful than CO2 emissions from coal.

Not all vices are equally bad. In a perfect world, our kids never do anything stupid or rebellious. But we don't live in that kind of world, do we? The principle of harm reduction acknowledges that reality, which means that teen vapers are preferable to teen smokers.

A new review from regulatory experts at the National Health Service reveals a workforce shortage crisis. Officials paint a "bleak picture" about the state of the government-run health system.

While the exact reason is elusive, the facts are pointing towards the collaborative efforts of a local healthcare group, Be There San Diego, which in 2011 began aggressive follow-up treatment for at-risk patients. Coincidentally, there was a startling, 22 percent decrease in local heart attack hospitalizations beginning that year and extending through 2016.

FDA has been far more supportive of smoking cessation and harm reduction than in the past. So it's right to crack down on retailers who the agency found illegally sold e-cigarette products to minors.

Over the past decade, Americans' trust in the news media has collapsed. However, it can be restored, if the media dedicates itself to accuracy and correcting its mistakes. As we are learning Americans care less about a media outlet's political slant than its dedication to the truth.

The anti-chemical movement just keeps chugging along. This time it's the media webiste Vox in the caboose. Chemicals in plastics. Blah blah blah. But at least they cite GQ, that well-respected science magazine!

There are precedents in healthcare to tethering financial compensation to body parts, as in the case with egg or sperm donation, and surrogacy. Are organs any different?

If you're a wise adult of many years, you may have already sensed this. But now you have some supporting evidence to lean on, courtesy of the findings from a recent meta-analysis. Researchers determined that an individual's self-esteem peaks at roughly age 60 and remains at that high level until 70.

For being outspent 1,000 to 1 by anti-science groups, we once again had them in a panic this past week. And here are all the places we pushed reason and thinking to the fore again.

Unlike human skin or electronic gadgets, aging makes red wine better. While the reasons are complex, they all boil down to chemistry.

Here's an example of how a kernel of insight from a study evolves into a news item, which can then become a health concept that people can unwittingly incorporate into their personal exercise routines. And all for no good reason.

Probiotics are one of the recent darlings of the supplement world. But do they do anything? A small human study says yes. But what they do isn't good.

The British tabloids are running wild with the story of a 20-year-old woman who had her thumb amputated because of a rare form of cancer. The cause, we are told, was her incessant nail-biting. Believe it or not, this story could very well be true.

Buying a single ticket, the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million. You are never going to win this fortune. Before you launch into an argument with our author, read this.

In seeking to nail down an exact day when chemophobia – an irrational fear of harmless trace chemicals – came into existence, one must consider a singular government act that occurred on Sept. 6, 1958.

Plastic waste is a worldwide environmental problem. So is the generation of clean energy. Two British groups have come up with a method that, at least in the lab, can degrade plastic and simultaneously generate hydrogen. Light is used as an inexpensive catalyst. That's some very interesting chemistry.

In a recent study, criminals, to no surprise, acted the opposite of law-abiding citizens. However, their reasoning was found to be more rational.

According to pharmacologist Ray Dingledine, good science is hard to do because of (1) "our drive to create a coherent narrative from new data, regardless of its quality or relevance"; (2) "our inclination to seek patterns in data whether they exist or not"; and (3) our negligence to "always consider how likely a result is regardless of its P-value." The good news is that this can be fixed.

By and large high schools and colleges, and the organizations that govern them, haven't mandated that cooling tubs be readily available for athletes whose body temperatures climb dangerously high. Recent incidents have shown that teens who could have been saved by having access to ice baths instead die without them.

A male physician disparages female doctors. Things don't go well for him. However, we now can have an honest discussion about the issue.