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Months ago, the government began Operation Warp Speed to quickly find and distribute a vaccine for COVID-19. As that day approaches, our concern has turned to which groups will be first to be protected. And more recently, a Pew study found that instead of a fight to reach the front of the line, only half of us would get the vaccine at all. Why would that be? Let's take a look.

Europe is "catching up" to the U.S. in terms of new COVID cases. Besides the "farewell party" that Czechia threw for the pandemic, what else went wrong?

Plastic bottles litter most of the world. There have been ongoing efforts to find methods to biodegrade PET, a very common plastic used for bottled water. British scientists have discovered an efficient way to get bacteria to "eat" PET plastic. Here's how it works.

Early on in the pandemic, the call was to flatten the curve, in order to reduce the number of cases and not overwhelm our healthcare systems. Over time, some say that has morphed into an attempt to eliminate or suppress the viral spread. A new study looks at the tradeoff.

Given that more than 200,000 Americans have died (at least in part) due to COVID-19, there seems little to lose and much to gain by green-lighting human challenge trials in which volunteers are vaccinated and then deliberately infected with coronavirus. The U.S. should follow the UK's lead.

Thirty-seven years ago, at the end of September, the world faced another global crisis. Just three weeks earlier, Korean Air Lines Flight 007 inadvertently entered prohibited Soviet airspace and was shot down by a Soviet air-to-air missile, killing all 269 passengers and the crew of a Boeing 747.

Although pain patients in the U.S. continue to struggle mightily to get the prescription opioids they need, at least they -- finally -- have the American Medical Association behind them. But in Canada, patient advocacy groups are also fighting the Canadian Medical Association, something that can be seen in an open letter to the CMA from the Chronic Pain Association of Canada. Here are some of the letter's highlights, especially those involving contributions from ACSH.

On tap this time 'round: Is Science magazine political? ... Do you suffer from Lesesucht? ... If life is a gift, are we sharing it? ... and shaming in the time of COVID-19 distributing vaccines, the 18th Century perspective.

Just as COVID-19 is a global problem, the search for a vaccine is a global effort. Sometimes, to get clarity, especially in the run-up to a presidential election, it is better to get an outsider's view.

Bad behavior has consequences, except when you're a social media platform. But the number of peer-reviewed articles subsequently retracted raises the question of whether medical journals believe that they, too, are "platforms" without responsibility for what they publish and disseminate.

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.

The media reports of national COVID-19 statistics mask the substantial and continuing variations among regions. The virus doesn't care about geography, but we need to understand geographic differences if it is to be contained. 

Perhaps it is my longstanding interest in my professional failures (or how understanding failure makes my work better and my actions more resilient) but I was drawn, much like a moth to the flame, to the recent full Congressional report on the model that Boeing badly bungled. In a week of important news, it was mentioned and then overlooked. That was a mistake. Let's take another look.

It's now more than seven months into the pandemic in the U.S. and doctors and scientists have been trying pretty much everything -- with little to show for their efforts. Perhaps the most effort has gone into finding drugs to prevent the immune system meltdown caused by the virus. Here's another: Can a simple, safe, approved drug called phenylbutyric acid tread the line between under- and over-treatment of the immune system by reducing cell stress?

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. 

Here's another example of the difference between statistical correlation and causation. Maybe it's best to agree on a plausible path of causation before looking for the correlation. That way it avoids fishing expeditions.

There is a lack of good clinical research on the advantages of blue-light filtering lenses.

While things continue to change here at home, the Hubble Space Telescope, a joint project of the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, continues its work.

Brucellosis is a bacterial infection often associated with the consumption of raw food. Apparently, another source of infection is Chinese pharmaceutical companies. Who wants a Chinese COVID vaccine?

As the possibility of a vaccine for COVID-19 draws nearer, so does the consideration of who is "first" in line to receive it. Should we protect the vulnerable, like the elderly, or reduce the spread by prioritizing "superspreaders"? More importantly, beyond this utilitarian consideration are there additional ethical concerns? Let's take a look.

Scientific American, a once preeminent magazine that thoughtful and curious people read (or at least respected), has become an outlet for pseudoscience and politics. What a shame.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just updated its COVID-19 statistics on kids. You can find the full report referenced at the end of this article. But here's what the agency found. 

What we can learn from ice cores, is there a climate migration already underway, a healthy behavior that costs little and is oh so restful, and a bit of relevant science history about vaccinations and epidemics.

A new paper claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was genetically engineered in a laboratory has several red flags. It should not be taken seriously.

Things pretty much suck. Three states are on fire. There are five tropical cyclones in the Atlantic for the first time ever. Our social fabric is hardly intact. And there is this annoying little virus blowing up people's lungs -- and it isn't going away anytime soon. But, thanks to the CPSC at least we can sleep at night. Dr. Duck's lead buttons will threaten us no more.