Search results

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.

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.

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?

To halt a perceived gateway to smoking, San Francisco recently banned all flavored tobacco products. The science is complex, which is why there's so much room for each side to claim harm, or no harm. 

First fallacy: the mere existence of an opioid pill is why there is a crisis. Finding solutions requires proper identification of a problem. The time is now for the public narrative to follow suit.

Take one article that shows sitting may be bad for you, although it is not clinically or statistically significant; multiply by very large numbers, and you have the beginning of a health meme. Spoiler alert, sitting is not the new cancer. 

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.

Ebola has returned to Africa, specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unlike 2014, we now have a vaccine.

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.

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 our postmodern society – where truth is relative, "fake news" is prevalent, and scientific facts are just an opinion – it shouldn't come as a surprise that modern medicine is facing a backlash.

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.

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.

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.

Drug co-payments are meant to share costs. But for many drugs, they cover not just the entire cost but a "little something" for pharmacy benefits managers, who structure the deals.

Lovers of escargot, you have company. But they eat a bit differently than you do; they suck snails out of their shells using their special jaw. However, these slithery creatures may not be around too much longer, as they're on the verge of extinction. 
 

Ironically, from the bacterium's perspective, the very enzyme that it uses to protect itself from antibiotics becomes complicit in its own demise.

Ebola is the most famous of the hemorrhagic fever viruses, but it’s not the only one. Another killer has caused outbreaks throughout the Middle East and Asia, infecting more than 1,000 people every year since 2002.

A new trial to assess the benefits and safety of stem cell transplantation for treatment-resistant Crohn’s disease has started. The researchers will use stem cells to “reboot” the immune system so that it is more responsive to existing drugs used to treat the disease.
Crohn’s disease is a long-term condition that results in inflammation of the lining of the digestive system. It affects as many as two people per 1,000 and is becoming more common.

Companies left and right are banning plastic straws because ocean critters are important - with no evidence getting rid of plastic straws is really helping marine critters at all. While I shake my head at that, I am not surprised. The free market has spoken, companies respond to what consumers think they want.

Our bodies break down carbohydrates and starches you eat into a simple sugar called glucose, which is transported from the bloodstream into our cells by the hormone insulin where it can be used for energy. Insulin also signals the liver to stop producing sugar.

The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and was signed into law June 22, 2016. It created a mandatory requirement for EPA to evaluate existing chemicals with clear and enforceable deadlines, to do so in a transparent fashion, and to do so using risk-based chemical assessments rather than rely on simple epidemiological correlations. 

There is finally a workable plan to address the frightening (and growing) problem of antibiotic resistance. It's called REVAMP, or re-valuing antimicrobial products. ACSH advisor Dr. David Shlaes explains. 

Ethologists, videographers and economists have all studied the behavior of surgeons in the operating room. Their revelations will not surprise surgeons, and they do not require the trappings of p-values and statistics. 

In a world where we can no longer distinguish truth from lies and science itself has been redefined, non-scientists can claim to be scientists. And our writer is the Queen of England.