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“Do your own research”: What Medicare’s annual open enrollment circus teaches us about the seductive trap of DIY health and science
A striking example of the dubiousness of that maxim is the annual rite of fall for seniors—Medicare’s Open Enrollment period, ...
Victims of their own success: As memories of killer diseases fade, vaccine rejectionism soars
Three measles-related deaths have been reported in England in 2026. One child died from an acute infection, another from the ...
RFK Jr.’s EPA capitulates to anti-abortionists, authorizes study of safe abortion pills which activists falsely claim are “poisoning” our water supply
After pressure from anti-abortion advocates, Republican lawmakers and state officials, the Environmental Protection Agency announced this month that it will ...
Viewpoint: ‘Statistical murder’: Kennedy’s expanding record of “duplicity and mendacity”
Public health disasters do not always begin with a new pathogen. Sometimes they begin with a government official who teaches ...
Anti-vaxxers’ double whammy: Exaggerated vaccine fears have fueled measles outbreaks and preventable deaths—and left survivors more vulnerable to other infections for years
Measles infections make people miserable for up to two long weeks, commonly causing dangerously high fevers, a painful sensitivity to ...
Viewpoint: Wellness patches: Most vitamin supplements are useless and sometimes even dangerous, but this craze is even worse
Promoted as high-tech nutrient delivery, over-the-counter vitamin patches are rapidly gaining popularity among consumers looking to bypass daily capsules. However, ...
Facts & Fallacies podcast: America’s health care system is broken. A doctor explains how to fix it, Part 2
America’s health care apparatus is caught in a downward spiral of bureaucratic bloat, runaway expenses and eroding patient care. On ...
Widely condemned as unethical, hepatitis B vaccine study funded by RFK Jr’s CDC gets a final greenlight
The University of Southern Denmark confirmed that it has given the green light to a controversial study in Guinea-Bissau, funded ...
31 states have passed a patchwork of laws to limit election deepfake commercials. They’re not working very well.
Imagine watching a political campaign video in which a candidate admits to taking a bribe. You recognize the face and ...
Should fossil fuel companies be shielded from lawsuits over climate change damage? The Supreme Court takes up the question
Climate change is causing billions of dollars’ worth of damage every year from floods, fires, droughts and other consequences of ...
Viewpoint: Wellness movement activists reposition nicotine from a killer addictive drug into a cure-all for brain ills
An ironic development emerging alongside the “Make America Healthy Again” movement is the portrayal of nicotine as a wellness and ...
The kooky logic behind the raft of spurious cancer claims from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health
It would shock you to know that Costco, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health methodology, caused 120,687 ...
Viewpoint: Food cults: Online ‘nutrition communities’ can pose unique dangers
Nutrition advice used to tell us what to eat. Social media increasingly tells us who we are based on what ...
Viewpoint: Even lousy scientific articles can shield authors when they hype dubious health claims and products
Peer review in reputable journals gives scientific claims an authority that commercial speech rarely enjoys. But what happens when scientists ...
Viewpoint: Chipotle-inspired lesson: 10,000 sick customers suggest that processed foods can be safer than fresh ones
The Environmental Working Group recently compared ultra-processed foods across major fast-food chains and found one conspicuous exception: Chipotle. That makes ...
Viewpoint: Why do online health lies outlive the evidence that debunks them? Read “Everyone Else Is Lying to You”
Medical misinformation has a peculiar advantage: it can outlive the evidence that disproves it, especially when yesterday’s contrarians become today’s ...
Investigative group ProPublica finds links between ectopic pregnancy deaths and abortion bans
This story was originally published by ProPublica. The number of women who died after an ectopic pregnancy has spiked in recent ...
19%: Plunging support for Trump-RFK, Jr. measles vaccine safety oversight
Two new polls reveal cracks in both US and global trust in medicine, with one showing erosion in Americans’ belief ...
Viewpoint: Dubious environmental fears: Why the AI buildout is critical to America’s ecological future
Opposition to artificial intelligence has intensified over the past year. A majority of Americans worry that AI will kill jobs, ...
Viewpoint: Childhood deaths in dispute: Why the CDC vs Pennsylvania conflict over measles vaccines matters
If you’ve been following the dispute between Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy ...
Viewpoint: Bad science—Five bogus Trump administration claims about vaccines and autism
[On August 10, 2026], the president signed an unprecedented executive order declaring the administration’s intention to massively overhaul the vaccine ...
“Hit the brakes”: Anthropic warns the race to superintelligence could spawn internet-seizing AI swarms—and empower authoritarians. Here’s how to stop it.
I have worked on AI for the last twelve years because I believe it could dramatically raise the quality of ...
Leucovorin for autism: Prescriptions surged 700% after Trump endorsed “a random drug that probably doesn’t work”
Following a White House press conference suggesting leucovorin as a treatment for autism in September 2025, and despite a lack ...
It’s not 2020, but COVID is still a health threat
A mom in my local parent group posted last week asking whether anyone else had recently had COVID. She’d just ...
Con game: What happens when people are overly concerned they may be suckered
This story was originally published by Knowable Magazine. Which would make you feel worse — losing $100 to a pickpocket ...
From smart packaging to bio-based coatings, scientists find new ways to reduce food contamination
In today’s world, food hunger and insecurity are not due to lack of food. Right now, the world produces enough ...
Viewpoint: Realpolitik environmentalism is on the horizon
When was the last time you heard someone call themselves an “environmentalist”? A decade ago, self-professed environmentalists would proudly claim ...
