Category: Public Health
Stanford University will host a conference on pandemic planning featuring the usual (COVID-19) suspects
This week, Stanford University announced a conference on pandemic policy that features several of the usual suspects who spread misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Truly, Stanford has become the "respectable" academic face of efforts to undermine public health.
Are dietary sugar alcohol sweeteners safe?
Should we be concerned about new research linking sugar alcohols like xylitol and erythritol?
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...
“Panel stacking”: John Ioannidis versus a Delphi consensus statement on COVID-19
My former science idol John Ioannidis has published a paper citing a Delphi consensus statement on COVID-19 as evidence that the scientific community is "biased" against his anti-"lockdown" pro-virus views. His descent continues apace.
Why is The New York Times now promoting an anti-science agenda?
This essay stems from concerns about two editorials published in The New York Times recently. We felt that they were problematic in that the past is viewed through a blurred prism to produce revisionist history. By John P. Moore and Gregg Gonsalves.
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...
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,...
Heritage Covid Commission Wants China Accountable… What About Trump?
The Heritage Foundation’s COVID-19 Commission Calls for Chinese “Accountability” for US Pandemic Damage