Category: Politics and Regulation
Vaccines Don’t Save Lives
Fostering basic critical thinking skills and countering medical misinformation is a vital undertaking.
Columbia University finally cuts ties with America’s Quack Dr. Oz
Decades after Dr. Oz pioneered "integrating" quackery into medicine and after many years of promoting diet scams and quackery on a nationally syndicated daily television show, Columbia University appears finally to have had enough and has quietly downgraded his status. What took so long?
Federal employment rights agency inundated with thousands of COVID-related discrimination claims
Thousands of workers have filed complaints with the EEOC alleging COVID-related employment discrimination. It may take years of litigation to sort out the application of federal anti-bias laws to these claims.
State Attorneys General pursue consumer protection law claims against stem cell clinics
State Attorneys General are pursuing stem cell clinics offering unproven therapies and engaging in fake clinical trials using state consumer protection and false advertising laws, seeking monetary penalties and injunctive relief. Until there is rational, comprehensive stem cell regulation, these actions can help fill the regulatory gap.
Old antivax tropes never die: “COVID theater,” “Urgency of Normal,” and the Great Barrington Declaration
Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a roundtable calling to "end COVID-19 theater" that brought together the Great Barrington Declaration and "Urgency of Normal," a movement to end mask mandates and other COVID-19 mitigations in schools. The arguments used long predate the pandemic and echo a dark side of the history of American medicine.
Good faith doctoring or greedy drug dealing? SCOTUS hears opioid prescribing cases
Physicians running opioid "pill mills" were convicted of violating the Controlled Substances Act and given substantial prison sentences. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether they were entitled to a "good faith" defense at trial.
Dr. Vinay Prasad: “Public Health’s (Mis)Truth Problem”
Dr. Vinay Prasad continues to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the government response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
FTC targets physicians’ COVID claims with cease-and-desist letters
The FTC recently announced it had issued 20 more cease-and-desist demands to physicians and others claiming their products and services prevent or treat COVID-19 without sufficient scientific backing. Unfortunately, this has not stopped many of the targets from making other bogus health claims.
Which is best, vaccine-induced immunity, “natural immunity,” or “super immunity” to COVID-19?
Those opposed to public health interventions to slow the spread of COVID-19, including masks, "lockdowns," and vaccine mandates, are hyping "natural" immunity again as somehow "superior" to vaccine-acquired immunity. It's a deceptive simplification of a complex issue.
State legislators dispense with standard of care for COVID treatment and encourage medical misinformation
State legislatures are considering bills that protect doctors and other health care providers from being held accountable for using unproven COVID-19 treatments and spreading medical misinformation.