Viewpoint: Europe’s precautionary principle guiding science regulations is broken. Here’s what needs to be done

Viewpoint: Europe’s precautionary principle guiding science regulations is broken. Here’s what needs to be done

David Zaruk |
Precaution is common sense. We don’t run blindly into a busy street or touch a hot flame. When a toddler ...
Treating Huntington’s

Treating Huntington’s

Henry Miller |
During my neurology rotation as a medical student, one of my first patients was in the middle stage of much-dreaded ...
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Happy 43rd birthday, GMO insulin. FDA approval in 1982 took 5 months. How many years would it take now?

Henry Miller |
This is the 43rd anniversary of one of biotechnology’s most significant milestones — the approval by the Food and Drug ...
Viewpoint: Environmentalists claim farmers can forego chemicals and genetically engineered crops and grow bumper crops with less environmental impact. If only farming was that easy

Viewpoint: Environmentalists claim farmers can forego chemicals and genetically engineered crops and grow bumper crops with less environmental impact. If only farming was that easy

Stuart Smyth |
At the end of the 20th century, the United Nations (UN) launched the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were a list of ...
Why scare stories about crop chemicals outlive the science

Why scare stories about crop chemicals outlive the science

Joseph Maina |
For years, glyphosate has been the world’s most litigated molecule. The herbicide, first brought to market in 1974 under the ...
Human differences: The concept of ‘race’ is infused with historical prejudice but ‘genetic populations’ are real. What’s the difference?

Human differences: The concept of ‘race’ is infused with historical prejudice but ‘genetic populations’ are real. What’s the difference?

John Jackson Jr. |
In the recent flurry of executive orders from President Donald Trump, one warned of “a distorted narrative” about race “driven ...
The science behind a restful night’s sleep

The science behind a restful night’s sleep

Beth Ann Malow |
We’ve all experienced this: You’re in the middle of a lovely dream. Perhaps you’re flying. As you’re soaring through the ...
Viewpoint: Frost season is nearing in Florida’s citrus-growing region. Here’s how backward science at the EPA has closed down a protective solution

Viewpoint: Frost season is nearing in Florida’s citrus-growing region. Here’s how backward science at the EPA has closed down a protective solution

Henry Miller |
“That morning I squeezed every orange and it felt like a wet sponge – I knew I lost the whole ...
RFK, Jr.’s bungled science on thimerosal and vaccines

RFK, Jr.’s bungled science on thimerosal and vaccines

Josh Bloom |
Mercury, the element, is no longer used in thermometers, but it remains at the center of a decades-long debate over ...
Viewpoint: Beyond Plastics: Here’s how 'dark money' funds activist environmental causes and keeps money flowing to tort lawyers

Viewpoint: Beyond Plastics: Here’s how ‘dark money’ funds activist environmental causes and keeps money flowing to tort lawyers

David Zaruk |
Tucked away in the quaint folds of Vermont’s Bennington College, a tiny liberal arts school with fewer students than a ...
 ‘Deficient, Unreliable, Corrupted’: Independent EU food science watchdog agency eviscerates junk studies weaponized by NGO activists to manufacture microplastic crisis and litigation

 ‘Deficient, Unreliable, Corrupted’: Independent EU food science watchdog agency eviscerates junk studies weaponized by NGO activists to manufacture microplastic crisis and litigation

David Zaruk |
Not a day goes by where some study isn’t published on some micro or nanoplastic found in the environment, humans ...
Viewpoint: Organic fantasies—Why rejecting industrial agriculture for regenerative farming would be a big mistake for food security and sustainability

Viewpoint: Organic fantasies—Why rejecting industrial agriculture for regenerative farming would be a big mistake for food security and sustainability

Alex Smith |
Last year, Scientific American published a short but ominous article titled “Only 60 Years Left of Farming if Soil Degradation ...
The EU passes landmark legislation to curb plastic nurdles threatening ocean ecosystems. It's not enough. Genetically engineered bacteria could help

The EU passes landmark legislation to curb plastic nurdles threatening ocean ecosystems. It’s not enough. Genetically engineered bacteria could help

Henry Miller, Kathleen Hefferon |
Spain’s northern coast has been fighting a months-long assault from a ‘white tide’ of plastic pellets dumped by a Dutch-registered ship ...
Farming in poorer countries suffers from poor weather forecasting. AI is poised to change that

Farming in poorer countries suffers from poor weather forecasting. AI is poised to change that

Amir Jina, Paul Winters |
For farmers, every planting decision carries risks, and many of those risks are increasing with climate change. One of the ...
Viewpoint: How cancer cultists and health justice vigilantes politicize science

Viewpoint: How cancer cultists and health justice vigilantes politicize science

David Zaruk |
A paper by Cristian Tomasetti and Bert Vogelstein, published in 2015 in Science, found that two-thirds of cancers were caused by "bad ...
“It's raining neonicotinoids in Japan!” How the French media, environmentalists, and activist scientists conspired to distort science and severely damage the farm economy

“It’s raining neonicotinoids in Japan!” How the French media, environmentalists, and activist scientists conspired to distort science and severely damage the farm economy

André Heitz |
Based on only eleven rain collections, researchers from Tokyo and Hokkaido Universities detected five neonicotinoids in Japanese rainwater at sub-nanogram-per-liter ...
Viewpoint: Why de-extinction efforts should be redirected at classical habitat conservation or improving agricultural production

Viewpoint: Why de-extinction efforts should be redirected at classical habitat conservation or improving agricultural production

Val Giddings |
“In considering the risks of recombinant DNA, we shy at kittens and cuddle tigers.” Thus James Watson, co-discoverer with Francis ...
Viewpoint: Tylenol causes autism? Diet Coke brain tumors? Ice cream shark attacks? None of the claims is true—unless you're an activist or a tort lawyer

Viewpoint: Tylenol causes autism? Diet Coke brain tumors? Ice cream shark attacks? None of the claims is true—unless you’re an activist or a tort lawyer

Andrea Love |
Every week, the headlines blare a new health apocalypse: “Diet soda causes depression!” “Tylenol in pregnancy linked to autism!” “Pesticides ...
Beyond BMI: Is obesity a disease?

Beyond BMI: Is obesity a disease?

Charles Dinerstein |
The Lancet Commission has declared obesity a disease. With enough controversy to fill a buffet table, their new definition is sparking ...
Viewpoint: MAHA’s chemophobic agriculture recommendations take a back seat to industry and science as Republican farm policy comes into focus

Viewpoint: MAHA’s chemophobic agriculture recommendations take a back seat to industry and science as Republican farm policy comes into focus

Emily Bass |
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has courted controversy his whole life. Since becoming the Trump administration’s top health official, Kennedy’s outlandish ...
Viewpoint: Wall Street and private equity—The hidden money bankrolling class action tort cases, from glyphosate to talc to Zantac

Viewpoint: Wall Street and private equity—The hidden money bankrolling class action tort cases, from glyphosate to talc to Zantac

Barbara Pfeffer Billauer |
Have you ever wondered how lawyers manage to bankroll mass toxic tort cases, which are notoriously expensive to finance? Spoiler ...
Consumer Reports is fearmongering (again). No, protein powders don’t contain ‘toxic’ levels of lead

Consumer Reports is fearmongering (again). No, protein powders don’t contain ‘toxic’ levels of lead

Andrea Love |
Consumer Reports is at it again, this time, fear-mongering about lead in protein powders. Their latest headline and “report” concludes ...
Misguided MAHA: Its vision of transforming American agriculture would increase food prices, habitat loss, and emissions

Misguided MAHA: Its vision of transforming American agriculture would increase food prices, habitat loss, and emissions

Dan Blaustein-Rejto |
Earlier this spring, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walked the rows of John Sawyer’s Texas farm, the young corn brushing against ...
Viewpoint: ‘The rise in autism rates cannot solely be attributed to more accurate diagnoses’

Viewpoint: ‘The rise in autism rates cannot solely be attributed to more accurate diagnoses’

Marte Dæhlen, Siw Ellen Jakobsen |
The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) recently presented startling figures on the increase in autism diagnoses from 2010 to ...
Chestnuts, rats, and rhinos: Can biotechnology become a key tool in conservation?

Chestnuts, rats, and rhinos: Can biotechnology become a key tool in conservation?

Emma Kovak |
What do the American Chestnut tree, the black rat, and the northern white rhinoceros have in common? They are all ...
Viewpoint: Despite environmental activist claims, bird and insect populations are not crashing in Britain

Viewpoint: Despite environmental activist claims, bird and insect populations are not crashing in Britain

The scientific evidence increasingly refutes the alarmist narrative that our farmland bird and insect populations are disappearing due to intensive ...
The next front in the U.S.–China trade war: Beijing’s control of life-saving medicines?

The next front in the U.S.–China trade war: Beijing’s control of life-saving medicines?

Henry Miller |
The U.S.–China trade conflict reignited this past week when Beijing announced it would expand export controls on rare earth minerals ...