Science Controversies
Fear, science, and the law: If talc powder is unlikely to cause cancer and J&J was winning in court, why did it pay more than $5.5 billion to settle?
It is one of the strangest corporate stories in recent history. Johnson & Johnson won most of the major talc ...
Two food fads that have some merit: Chia seeds in almost everything and protein added to water
"Proteinmaxxing" and "fibermaxxing," the trendy concepts of loading up on these nutrients for health benefits, are having a moment. But ...
Facts & Fallacies podcast: Organic food myths make a comeback on Instagram, with Dr. Kevin Folta
Long-debunked myths about organic farming and food safety are surging again on social media, fueled by selective studies and fear-driven ...
Hiroshima at 81: America’s new nuclear bomb, a buried Iranian target, and a question no one wants to ask
August 6 is one of the most consequential and emotional anniversaries for Americans, our World War II allies, and Japan—each for ...
Anti-vaccine myths rattle health care
KFF’s latest Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust shows that larger shares of the public express uncertainty over common ...
Viewpoint: How AI supercharges conspiracy theories and oversimplifications to distort online health information
Sudipta Sengupta, Founder-CEO of The Healthy India Project, one of India's leading health fact-checking platforms that has been flagging health ...
Prioritizing AI, robotics, and nuclear energy: Trump administration is guiding research funding away from independent universities to private companies
President Trump’s science adviser told lawmakers on [July 22, 2026] that the Trump administration intended to drastically overhaul the country’s ...
Europe’s tentative embrace of agricultural gene editing could revolutionize food production and health in Asia
On June 17, 2026, the European Parliament reached a historic milestone by endorsing New Genomic Techniques (NGTs), sending a powerful ...
FDA takes up peptide therapies as hype outpaces science
A slate of popular peptide therapies has won the backing of a key advisory panel to the federal government – ...
Poll: Younger people more open to using genetics to increase fertility and reduce chances of inherited diseases
Our report Fertility, Embryo Research and Genome Editing: Public Attitudes in Europe explores public attitudes to fertility treatment, embryo research, genome editing, donor conception, surrogacy and ...
Peptides, patient autonomy, and the limits of medical freedom
John Stossel’s case for medical freedom is emotionally and philosophically powerful: if we own our bodies, why should the government ...
We are entering a new era of personalized medicine—if you’re white
The National Institutes of Health recently announced a remarkable achievement: the world’s largest database of human genomes, a repository of ...
Is the longevity obsession a new form of ageism?
It wasn’t always like this. In the 1600s and 1700s, when people aged 65-plus made up just 2% of the ...
Facts & Fallacies podcast: Organic food cuts pesticide exposure? A response to Dr. Rhonda Patrick
Even credentialed scientists are susceptible to the pressures of social media virality, sometimes venturing well beyond their expertise to promote ...
Viewpoint: Kratom ‘supplement’ crisis: DEA sits on its hands while patient addictions to this ineffective drug rise
Earlier this month, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced a plan to ban a class of kratom products known as 7-OH, ...
Embryo gene editing is on the horizon, stirring mixed emotions
All Posts As Edward Donnell Ivy remembers it, many of the sickle cell episodes he endured in his 20s were ...
Viewpoint: A practical guide to evaluating social media wellness hype
Evaluating a health claim often comes down to a few questions that most people were never taught to ask. The ...
Are we edging closer to precisely, and safely, editing human embryos?
On June 1, an international group of industry and academic collaborators, led by geneticist Dieter Egli at Columbia University, released a preprint ...
Dr. TikTok and male fertility: Viral claims tout GLP-1 drugs as fertility boosters. What does the science say?
The "TikTok Medical Group" has stirred the viral waters around biohacking male infertility. GLP-1 receptor agonists are proving to be ...
‘It’s time to have a conversation’: Once adamantly opposed to human gene editing, UK’s The Guardian acknowledges likely benefits
Ever since Crispr-Cas9 gene-editing technology emerged in the early 2010s, ethical questions around genetically altered humans, so-called designer babies, have ...
Viewpoint: What’s the impact of the U.S. abandoning support for global health?
Worsening fiscal constraints and changing policy priorities have resulted in significant funding cuts to global health and development programs. While ...
Viewpoint: Trump appoints climate change hoax promoter to head influential government policy project
The Trump administration has appointed a critic of mainstream climate science to oversee the federal government’s flagship report on how ...
Viewpoint: With trust in doctors and mainstream medicine collapsing, medical professionals need a new communications strategy
Institutional trust has been in decline since the late 1950s, Stephanie Baker, PhD, professor of sociology at City St George’s, ...
Facts & Fallacies Podcast: Europe’s AC debacle underscores fatal flaw in green activism
Is Europe’s ideological aversion to air conditioning quietly killing thousands of people? A surprising body of evidence suggests that the ...
Pete Hegseth’s bizarre Viagra commercial as Trump administration endorses ‘hormone replacement therapy’
Pete Hegseth announced [on July 15, 2026] that the Department of Defense will offer testosterone deficiency screening for soldiers 30 and ...
Viewpoint: Polyphenols or NAD+ supplements to combat aging: No, Gwenyth Paltrow and followers, don’t waste your money.
“No, I don’t.” That’s my answer to the increasingly frequent questions I’ve been asked about whether I take anti-aging supplements ...
Across Eastern Europe, science disinformation has spread far beyond COVID and vaccine denialism. Here’s the grim list.
Medical misinformation in Poland has become in 2025 a much larger ecosystem than the old anti-vaccination narratives. A NASK report, ...
