Month: January 2025

Close-up of assorted red gummy candies with various textures and shapes, resembling berries and fruit.

Why Did the FDA Ban Red Dye #3

The FDA recently removed FD&C Red No. 3 from the list of approved food additives. This was not based on any new data or interpretation of the data, but rather was a response to a petition from food safety and environmental groups. Their argument was in turn based on the Delaney Clause, a 1960 law saying that the FDA must ban any...

/ January 22, 2025

Old Doctor Yells At Clouds

I’m at that age, 67 going in 68, where it is reasonable to yell at the clouds. Which, come to think of it, may be a good title for another collection of my SBM essays. Aging does indeed suck, but it is, usually, better than the alternative. As we, and by we I mean my family and me, age we get the...

/ January 21, 2025
Trouble in Paradise

Trouble in (MAHA) paradise?

Even as President Donald Trump is inaugurated today and his pick for HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. prepares to face confirmation hearings, there is trouble in "make America healthy" paradise.

/ January 20, 2025

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Was Nice to Someone During a Debate. That Doesn’t Erase the Consequences of His Misinformation.

This is what it looks like when doctors treat the pandemic as an intellectual parlor game.

/ January 17, 2025
A stylized illustration of a virus particle with three overlapping circular halos, each colored differently: red, green, and white. The background is a solid dark blue.

COVID Is Still Here, But Changing

My hospital just reinstituted mask mandates for all staff working with patients. They also advise patients to wear masks while in the hospital, but have not made it a requirement. I still have a stash of N95 masks so it was easy, and all too familiar, for me to comply, but I admit it created an unpleasant flash-back. All things considered, I...

/ January 15, 2025

Is watchful waiting for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) safe? Preliminary results of the COMET trial

Ductal carcinoma in situ is a precursor of breast cancer that is usually treated with surgery, radiation therapy, and estrogen blockade. A new study suggests that watchful waiting might be safe for some women with DCIS.

/ January 13, 2025

Science-Based Satire: My Patients are Refusing the MMR Because the CDC Added the COVID Vaccine to the Routine Vaccine Schedule

If only they had let more unvaccinated children suffer and die from COVID, we wouldn't be in this position today.

/ January 12, 2025
Line graph showing views on alcohol consumption's health impact from 2002 to 2024. The percentage who think it's bad increases sharply to 45% in 2024, while those thinking it's good or makes no difference decrease steadily to 8% and 43%, respectively.

Surgeon General Alcohol Warning

In 1964 the US Surgeon General released its first report on the health risks of smoking and tobacco use. This turned out to be a landmark move, paving the way for the following decades of progressively more restrictive regulation of public tobacco use and marketing. In 1964 smoking was at its peak in the US, when 42% of Americans smoked. Today the...

/ January 8, 2025
Ignaz Semmelweis washing his hands in chlorine.

The Semmelweis gambit: A red flag for defending bad science and quackery

A proponent of the Great Barrington Declaration is comparing rejection of its "natural herd immunity" approach to the pandemic to the rejection of Ignaz Semmelweis and his findings. It's a deceptive comparison beloved of all manner of scientific cranks.

/ January 6, 2025