Category: Politics and Regulation

A laboratory with wooden workbenches, equipment, open drawers, bottles, and a labeled flask of clear liquid on the counter. The room appears well-lit with windows in the background.

Sabotaging America’s Future: The Catastrophic Cost of Federal Research Cuts

The gleeful efficiency of an arsonist who mistakes the blaze for proof of his power

/ June 9, 2026
Censored

Will NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya stand up for scientists censored by the American Diabetes Association?

Last Friday, the American Diabetes Association censored diabetes researchers at its annual meeting who opposed the Trump administration's NIH policies. Will "Flame of Freedom" winner Jay Bhattcharya speak up?

/ June 8, 2026

Acupuncture for Heart Attacks and more State-Sanctioned Pseudoscience

States default to a private organization run by acupuncturists and TCM practitioners to vet continuing education courses, with predictable results.

/ June 2, 2026
Trofim Lysenko

The Lysenko-ization of federal science takes a big step forward

From the beginning, Trump science policy has been Lysenko 2.0, in which ideology, not scientific promise and rigor, dictates federal grantmaking. OMB Director Russell Vought's proposed rules de-emphasizing peer review and placing political appointees in charge of final grantmaking decisions do Lysenko proud.

/ June 1, 2026
Delusion

How Unbekoming! The central delusion of MAHA

What do vitamin K shots, vaccines, MTHFR variants, and statins have in common? The answer is what I call the central delusion behind MAHA, which was inadvertently revealed by a blogger with the 'nym Unbekoming.

/ May 25, 2026
A table titled "Domain 1: Foundational Nutrition Knowledge" lists competencies with descriptions and assigned hours, such as nutrient content, absorption, deficiencies, and dietary requirements, with hours ranging from 1.5 to 3.

Can Medical Schools Really Teach 71 Nutrition ‘Competencies’?  Should They?

In recent years, nutrition has become the focus of renewed attention in medical education. Advocates argue that physicians receive too little formal training about diet and that more comprehensive nutrition education is needed to address chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers. A greater focus on the “root causes of chronic diseases” is a mantra of the Make...

/ May 12, 2026

MAHA vs. the FDA: Dredging up old anti-regulation revisionist history

Recently, I've noticed articles from outlets aligned with MAHA calling for the elimination of the FDA. It's all recycled "health freedom" revisionist history and ahistorical nonsense.

/ May 4, 2026
The front view of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., featuring tall columns, statues, steps leading to the entrance, and a clear blue sky overhead.

SCOTUS conversion therapy decision “opens a dangerous can of worms”

“We are on a slippery slope now: For the first time, the Supreme Court has interpreted the First Amendment to bless a risk of therapeutic harm to children by limiting the State’s ability to regulate medical providers who treat patients with speech.” Justice Jackson, dissenting

/ April 21, 2026
Functional medicine

KevinMD platforms criticism of MAHA by a “functional medicine” practitioner

Although some of the criticisms of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s MAHA movement are spot on, why did KevinMD platform a practitioner of functional medicine woo to make them?

/ April 20, 2026
Why can't we be friends?

MAHA and science-based public health: Can’t we all just get along?

The answer is: Very likely not, at least not as long as MAHA embraces quackery and antivax pseudoscience—not that that didn't stop STAT News from ignoring the elephant in the room, vaccines, in search of a "kumbaya" moment between MAHA and public health.

/ April 13, 2026