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I've been writing about the barbaric war against pain patients since 2013. Despite the hundreds of desperate emails I've received, and the stories I've read, it has never entirely hit home. Until now. My very elderly mom is being put through the wringer, in order to get some tramadol for back pain. If this doesn't demonstrate the colossal stupidity of our drug laws, nothing does.

There are three major reasons why SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, will never be eradicated.

Should people who were given propofol be allowed to drive home? Are men drivers better or worse than women? Some ghastly chemistry poetry, and one of the funniest YouTube videos ever. Oh, to answer the original question: it's impossible to tell from this study. Here's why.

The value of hydroxychloroquine in treating COVID-19 patients continues to rise from the ashes of refutation in the medical literature. The latest iteration is a meta-analysis of utilizing the drug early in ambulatory patients' care to lessen the undesirable outcomes of infection, hospitalization, and death. Several of our readers and members of our Board of Scientific Advisors believe that this study is important and that we disregard it at our risk. We are letting a proponent of each side make their case. 

Polling is more art than science. Once again, American pollsters have shown that they aren't as good as we thought.

People with Type A blood are more susceptible to a particular kind of lung disease, which happens to be triggered by the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

On the literary menu this time: The disturbing past of statistics ... the intriguing past of textiles ... the hidden cost of flour ... and how we view dining out.

COVID-19 cases continue to increase. Public health officials continue to try and manipulate social behavior to reduce the rate of infections. So it's worthwhile to review our understanding of the disease that physicians currently confront.

The American media focuses on the failures to control the coronavirus in this country, but a larger perspective shows that the virus is out of control in much of the world, especially in Europe. Some other countries are doing worse than the U.S., at least for the time being.

It's looking like winter will arrive with rising numbers of cases in the U.S. and Europe. Hospitals are again beginning to fill up. But there's some evidence that the hard-won lessons in treating COVID-19 are beginning to improve outcomes.

America is now facing its second lockdown. Other countries are verging on a third. Repeated efforts at COVID-19 containment seem elusive. No respite seems in sight – other than hope of a vaccine. Along with concerted efforts in this direction, the vexing incidence of escalating vaccine resistance is raising its ugly head – yet again, stoked by a growlingly effective anti-vax movement and false prophets of vaccine doom. This trend seems to have hit the Black community particularly hard.  

Another product for suckers. Bulletproof-360 Coffee, brought to you by David (Avocado) Wolfe, easily one of the most annoying people on the planet. Does it really work? Will you really be bulletproof? Enough so to piss off narcoterrorists just to see what happens? Oh, and the company has had two products recalled in the past seven months. Maybe not such a good idea after all.

The current flu season is a nightmare, spreading ferociously. If that's not bad enough, there are instances where it kills within hours – just like it's 100-year-old ancestor, the Spanish Flu of 1918. What is going on here? 

Here's a case of a 13-year-old boy who pierced his skull with a 6-inch screw after an accidental fall. With unintentional injury the fourth-leading cause of death, here's how best to avoid a negative outcome.

One of the worst junk science trends in recent years is for grocery stores and restaurants to claim that they serve "clean food." Obviously, the not-so-subtle message is that everybody else is serving poison, so to be safe, you better eat their food. It's well past time to put aside the snobbish notion that eating clean, local, organic food makes you a superior, healthier human.

While obesity has been reliably linked to many serious health problems – such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers – there's a minority of obese people who are metabolically healthy. A new study points to physical fitness as being a key component in these folks' avoidance of some of the usual obesity-linked health issues.

You probably haven't had an earache or ear infection since you were a child, but adults are not immune to infections in the middle ear, especially after they've been exposed to the flu.

Bones are not inert objects, but instead living tissue that responds to a host of mechanical forces. So what if the reason some elderly fall and "break" their hip is that – similar to a bridge collapsing from mechanical fatigue – their bones just gave way? 

While Gary Hirshberg is a marketing genius, in a #MeToo world even those on his side of the political spectrum have been calling Stonyfield out for sexism. The vitriol stems from its newest anti-science commercial, one that features little girls – and the message that girls can't understand science.

In what's become an eagerly anticipated tradition, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists warns us that we're all moments away from annihilation. The international media uncritically reports this nonsense, even though the Doomsday Clock has been around since 1947. Yet we're still here. Guess there's something wrong with the clock.

Rarely does Lyme Disease manifest itself as a neuro-invasive condition known, in shorthand, as Bannwarth Syndrome. It's a complicated version of Lyme, and when a cluster of five cases surfaced late last summer, all in the upper midwest, a few red flags were raised.
 

When your doctor insists that you must exercise, that's often received as necessary drudgery. But what if that mandate was to go out and play? A new European study found that recreational soccer can lower "blood pressure, fat mass, and LDL cholesterol" regardless of age or gender, and can do so "after only 12 weeks of training." 

As if there aren't enough ridiculous things to study – and worry about. A group in Great Britain thinks that sandwiches are causing the Earth to warm. Now there's a baloney sandwich – if there ever was one.

What these two processes share is baked into the math of each. In fact, in that respect, they're nearly identical. They both involve some stuff (atoms or money) that is either growing or shrinking. And best yet, they both have a magic number. 

A new meta-analysis published in the journal Sleep Medicine found that middle-aged adults who suffered from insomnia, nightmares and regular bouts of broken sleep were more likely to face cognitive impairment in their later years.