Science Controversies
Selective Pressure, Selective Silence
Human evolution, particularly of the brain, ended a long time ago—at least that is what many educated people, wary of ...
Will hi-tech genetic fortune-telling really help parents make healthier children?
Like high-tech fortune-telling, the screening estimates the chances that embryos will produce children at risk for thousands of illnesses, from ...
‘Toxin’ detox: A gastroenterologist weighs in on $71 billion health trend
In 2025, the detoxification industry worldwide was valued at over $71 billion, and some estimates have that number approaching $120 ...
Viewpoint: “Turn on, tune in, drop out”—Kennedy embraces the Timothy Leary psychedelic revolution
U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is sticking his fingers into many pies. One of these contains psychedelics that are ...
Gen Z burned by sunscreen misinformation and tanning myths
The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) released results from its annual Practice Safe Sun Survey, revealing many Americans still engage ...
Viewpoint: Why gene-editing babies is moral and certain to happen
It may be possible to make a convincing argument that serious heritable diseases linked to a single gene should be ...
Viewpoint: Social media and fake natural health propaganda fuel surge in use of mostly useless supplements
Supplements have become a central part of wellness culture, touted by everyone from influencers who “stack” them to celebrities whose ...
Why ‘null-findings’ on Tylenol’s safety for pregnant women barely move the needle on countering misinformation
When U.S. President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted unsupported warnings last fall about acetaminophen use ...
Viewpoint: Vaccine deniers are attacking a life-saving Vitamin K shot for newborns that isn’t even a vaccine
Newborns routinely receive the Vitamin K shot immediately after birth to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB), a rare but ...
Misinformed parents overdosing children with Vitamin A to fight measles
A recent study in JAMA Network Open has found that between January and March 2025, America's Poison Centers reported a ...
Why weight-loss drugs might be reducing cancer rates and making treatment more effective
At this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, more than 40 studies, abstracts, oral presentations and ...
The ‘low-quality’, retracted studies RFK, Jr. and MAHA rely on for anti-vaccine claims
Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to ...
Facts & Fallacies Podcast: Right-wing politics bad for your health? Separating speculation from science
Politics has infiltrated every facet of modern life, including medicine. And some Americans seem increasingly inclined to make important health ...
Viewpoint: Scientists have scrapped the worst-case climate scenario. Is that proof that climate change is a hoax, as Trump claims?
When major new climate change scenarios are released, there’s always strong interest. These scenarios lay out what our future climate ...
Viewpoint: Vaccines’ non-specific effects? The ‘shoddy’ Danish couple whose ‘research’ inspires RFK, Jr.’s health delusion
In 1996, Guinea-Bissau seemed like an ideal research post for budding pediatrician Lone Graff Stensballe. Her supervisor, a fellow Dane ...
Viewpoint: How Earthjustice became the poster child for the abuse of special interest activist funding
A recent US Department of the Treasury announcement that organizations claiming tax exempt status (NGOs, foundations, universities and some media groups) will ...
Can vaping lead to cancer? New ‘association study’ raises questions of “links”
Nicotine-based vapes, or e-cigarettes, are likely to cause cancers of the lung and oral cavity, according to a new study ...
‘Natural’ wellness supplements linked to liver injury
Supplement-induced liver injury is emerging as a growing global health concern as the wellness industry expands and regulation struggles to keep up, ...
GLP-1 weight-loss drugs may reshape our desires and emotions
Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs were initially understood as a metabolism breakthrough: medicines that act like hormones to control hunger, ...
‘Nicotine-free generation’: Should the U.S. emulate Britain and ban all nicotine products, from cigarettes to vapes?
The United Kingdom just adopted a tobacco-free generation law. Retailers can still sell tobacco to existing customers, but they will never ...
Some plants can poison you. So how did humans figure out what is safe to eat?
Have you ever eaten a green potato, or a bunch of rhubarb leaves? Hopefully not, because these two plant parts ...
‘Protecting religious liberty and parental authority’: Challenging expert guidance, Trump signs off on Kennedy’s gutting of childhood vaccine schedule
President Trump is signing off on a decision from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this year ...
Viewpoint: Who and what’s to blame for the surge in vaccine-preventable diseases?
What causes an epidemic to spread? Don’t underestimate the power of rhetoric and oratory by politicians. About 1,500 measles cases ...
Cases of brain inflammation surge as U.S. measles pandemic approaches 2000
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today confirmed 31 new measles cases in a nationwide outbreak that has ...
‘You don’t understand Tolkien’: Skeptic Pope trolls tech giants about the exaggerated, risk-less benefits of AI
[T]he Tolkien nod is particularly salient given some backward interpretations of Middle-earth mythology by right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel and ...
Viewpoint—N.A.D.+: Why Gwenyth Paltrow’s heralded anti-aging supplement doesn’t work
Gwyneth Paltrow has tried it. So have Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber. ... Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or N.A.D.+, has been ...
Viewpoint: Double standard—Why does the wellness industry get a free pass while Big Healthcare is treated as morally suspect?
Despite public opinion, the wellness industry is profoundly and almost absurdly commercial. It sells, among its products and services, supplements, ...
