Science vs HIV
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a global pandemic, with 39 million cases worldwide, and over 1 million new infections each year. While it rose to epidemic and then pandemic levels in the 1980s, the first case goes back to 1959. HIV is a retrovirus that inserts its genetic material into the DNA of host cells, and targets the immune system as...
Microplastics and Global Health
What is a science-based medicine approach to potential public health risks? We write a lot about such risks here, trying to put them into perspective and cut through the hype and sensational headlines. We all have more than enough to worry about without adding unnecessarily to this burden. At the same time, humans have transformed our environment with industry, potentially introducing new...
Firearms as a Public Health Crisis
The US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, recently put out a 40 page report titled: “Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America.” The report is entirely informational, without any policy force, but Murthy is hoping it will have the same long term cultural effect as the Surgeon General’s warning about the health risks of tobacco. I wrote about this exact issue in...
The Decaf Wars
We can add decaffeinated (decaf) products to the list of things you probably shouldn’t worry about but someone wants to make you worry anyway. You may have read recently that some decaf coffee and tea brands have “chemicals” in them that may be a health risk. The real story, as you might imagine, is more complicated. The cause of the recent headlines...
Ultraprocessed Foods
What are “ultraprocessed foods” and are they a health risk? One would think there is reason for concern, given all the hyped headlines, but as is often the case the data is somewhat complicated. The complexity begins with the fact that there is no agreed-upon operational definition of “ultraprocessed food” (UPF). Processed food generally refers to food products that are already prepared...
What are “Adaptogens”?
The multi-billion dollar “snake oil” industry is nothing if not good at marketing. This is probably because this is not one or even a small number of companies, but likely thousands of companies and millions of individuals crowdsourcing many different marketing strategies. Those that work tend to prosper and proliferate, spawning variations. The rhetoric has been evolving in this way for at...
Khat and Muguka Use in East Africa
Many countries (such as Kenya’s recent regulatory changes regarding Muguka use) are struggling with the dilemma of how to regulate drug use by its citizens. There are many psychoactive drugs (we seem to be good at discovering them) with a variety of effects. Often there may be subjectively desirable effects in the short term, but long term addiction, the potential for withdrawal,...
The Health Costs of Fossil Fuel
Imagine if we could save over 8 million lives per year globally through public policy. Many of these preventable deaths are in younger people and fall disproportionately on the poor and disadvantaged. This is the estimate of a recent observational and modelling study on the effects of air pollution (fine particulate and ozone pollution). Of these death, over 5 million could be...
Male and Female Brains are Different
Neuroanatomical research has long established that there are statistical differences at the macroscopic level in male and female brains. There are also functional differences in terms of memory and cognition. However, these differences are largely statistical, and exist in a mosaic of different traits. This means that, if we look at specific features (whether anatomical or functional) there are male-female differences, but...
Conspiracy Medicine
Was COVID cooked up in a lab? Do “they” have a cure for cancer and are hiding it from the public? Do pharmaceutical companies make up diseases to market otherwise failed drugs? Did insurance companies scheme with infectious disease professional organizations to suppress treatments for chronic Lyme disease? Did the supplement industry lobby congress to weaken regulations of their own products? OK,...