Despite the intentionally misleading title, soaking your nuts in chlorine isn't such a bad idea in this case. If you read about the "hygienic practices" of the Orangeburg Pecan Company, chlorine sounds pretty good. Hope you have a strong stomach.
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Blood, sperm and sometimes even organs are bought and sold. And now the next human-harvested commodity appears to be DNA. Two West Coast firms are entering the so-called "bio-broker" market, looking to buy your genetic data in order to re-sell it to pharmaceutical companies. It's all in the name of scientific research and drug discovery.
There's a shortage of physicians needed to intervene in acute strokes. Cardiologists have the skills, but not the experience or judgment. Should they fill the gap? Will more patients be helped or harmed?
This week, Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, an NFL offensive lineman, graduated from McGill University’s medical school while an active player for the Kansas City Chiefs. In football's modern era, if not the NFL's entire history, his fascinating accomplishment – the first active player to hold a medical degree – appears to be unprecedented.
How can we get more parents to vaccinate their kids? New correspondence in The Lancet may bring us one step closer to an answer, using its analysis of the human papillomavirus vaccination program that began in Ireland in 2010.
In a lawsuit against the FDA, eight activist environmental groups are being represented by a bunch of lawyers from a group called Earth(in)justice. What do they want? To force the FDA to remove seven food chemicals from its "permitted" artificial flavor list. But there are the same chemicals that are naturally found in all kinds of foods. We use Nanogodzilla to demonstrate pure foolishness.
Here it is, step by step: Recycling My Own Blood, The Match, The Preparation, The Donation and The Aftermath. It's quite an experience, to say the least.
Does Geisinger Health System's latest pitch, to offer DNA sequencing as part of routine testing at the primary care visit, promise more than it can deliver?
Patients, now plaintiffs, are contending that eye drop manufacturers deliberately make eye drops too large, resulting in expensive, wasted drugs running down their cheeks. Four of these suits have been dismissed, but there's one that is moving forward in the courts.
Here's a quick review of the fraud allegations issued by the Department of Justice, levied against CVS Caremark, one of the largest providers of prescription services in the United States. But spoiler alert: It's going to cost us no matter how the case is decided.
The American food supply is safer and more nutritious today than at any point in history. And this decade the CDC found that 8 out of 10 Americans were not even at risk for nutritional deficiencies. Despite this, millions of Americans still fear the safety of their food. Why?
Three companies involved in kratom supplements have been warned by the Food and Drug Administration for illegally selling unapproved drug products. Meanwhile, these outfits have been making bogus claims saying the supplements help address opioid addiction and withdrawal, while also treating pain.
We're programmed to live and then die and some aspects of aging are caused by the combined effect of many genes that are beneficial when young. But they have adverse effects at older ages.
Few life experiences are crueler than childhood cancer, but this blatant unfairness motivates some of the best, kindest and most heartfelt medical care. In that light, clinicians in adult oncology can learn a great deal from pediatric cancer practices.
As this issue of Priorities goes to press, our New York office is closed due to a winter storm and that makes people worry about their heating bills. Meanwhile, both New York and California residents have recently been cheering because those states are determined to get rid of their nuclear power plants. That will be very bad because those states are also opposed to both natural gas and coal.
Ebola has returned to Africa, specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unlike 2014, we now have a vaccine.
A recent study, seeking to measure the impact of volunteerism on cognitive health, concluded that older adults score somewhat higher on cognitive testing when they help others. But while that might sound encouraging, given the study's limitations it's hard to take the findings as overly meaningful, or causal.
The latest guidelines in screening for prostate cancer are a win for patients and physicians. Talking with your doctor about these issues is the ultimate in personalized medicine and patient autonomy.
Only 15% of new homes utilized solar panels. The California Energy Commission now requires all homes to have them because they're good for the environment and they "save you money." But as you may have guessed, there's more to the decision than that.
The foundation was started by Henry A. Wallace, whose fortune was derived from starting pro-science endeavors. Given that legacy, it's hard to imagine Wallace not turning over in his grave given that his descendants are using money to smear science. But that is actually what's happened.
It's refreshing that the First Lady's program shines a needed light on neonatal abstinence syndrome, also known as newborn opioid withdrawal. Despite the issue's ever-escalating importance, it was mostly ignored in the media's recent coverage. So here's what it's about.
As if the government and media haven't screwed up the story of the so-called "opioid crisis" thoroughly enough, why not add some meaningless and confusing terms to the mix? That way, absolutely no one can know what the hell is going on. Let's take a look at the confusion. There's plenty of it.
The "American healthcare costs vs the rest of the world" narrative has been with us forever and this is unlikely to change. But it is not a simple problem, even though it is portrayed as just that. Pfizer's Dr. Robert Popovian takes his usual thoughtful look at thorny issues in his latest piece in Morning Consult. Don't miss.
With my old friend Dr. Oz squarely within the virtual anus of the intestinal machinations of some most recent news cycles, I just can't resist focusing on him again. Here's some really terrible art I've created over the years.
The proverbial searching for "the needle in a haystack" can help us understand science's problem with p-values, and why so many studies find contrary things.
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