Science Controversies
US appears ill-prepared to support COVID vaccine rollout
In a four-page memo this summer, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told health departments across the country to draft ...
China gives unapproved experimental COVID-19 vaccine to hundreds of thousands of citizens
China National Biotec Group Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people ...
Why China’s ‘crack’ disease control agency failed to contain COVID
“I can very confidently say there won’t be another ‘SARS incident,” [China CDC director George] Gao said in a speech ...
Biotech experts push back after week-long protest to block Philippines Golden Rice approval
Golden Rice is any rice variety that has been genetically modified to include two genes (from maize and soil bacteria) ...
Death by COVID: 5 immune response markers that predict whether an infected person is likely to survive
[Researchers] have identified five immune response markers that, collectively, were able to distinguish between those COVID-19 patients who convalesced from ...
Relaxed gene-edited crop rules will give farmers more chemical-free pest control tools, EPA says
Developers of genetically engineered crops would have an easier time getting their products onto the US market under a proposed ...
Timeline: The evolution of vaccines
Some diseases never infect the same person twice thanks to immunity. Artificial immunity is the idea behind vaccines and people ...
What if the first COVID vaccines are rushed, not guaranteed to be safe, and limited in effectiveness?
[A] surprising number of research groups are placing bets on some [COVID-19 vaccines] that have not yet been given to ...
Science not yet ready for CRISPR gene-edited babies, US-UK commission concludes
[T]he science [behind gene edited babies] isn't advanced enough to ensure safety, says an international panel of experts who also ...
As Trump administration retreats, Germany poised to replace US as main supporter of world health initiatives
In the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s confirmation that the U.S. will exit the World Health Organization — leaving ...
Rival COVID vaccine developers issue joint pledge they will not seek government approval until immunizations proven ‘safe and effective’
Nine drugmakers said Tuesday their chief executives signed a pledge promising to not file for regulatory approval or authorization of ...
Why is it so difficult to battle antibiotic resistance?
Before COVID-19, antibiotic resistance was estimated to kill at least 700,000 people each year worldwide. That number could now climb ...
‘Overwhelmingly positive’: Fauci says ‘independent board’ has authority to end vaccine trials early and roll out immunizations
Although two ongoing clinical trials of 30,000 volunteers are expected to conclude by the end of the year, [Anthony] Fauci ...
China dangling access to COVID vaccines to other countries in diplomatic power plays
Beijing’s top officials and some of its drugmakers have begun promising early access to countries of strategic interest as it ...
Trump won’t join cooperative global effort to develop and distribute COVID vaccines because of his opposition to WHO
More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which aims to speed vaccine ...
How long will protective antibodies generated by a vaccine likely work?
Only a handful of vaccines generate lifetime immunity for most people, such as the ones for measles, a viral infection ...
What’s it like when mental effects of COVID-19 fester?
Even people who were never sick enough to go to a hospital, much less lie in an ICU bed with ...
Under pressure from Trump administration, FDA ignores lack of evidence to expand use of remdesivir to all patients
[August 28, the FDA] allowed the drug remdesivir to be used on all patients hospitalized with COVID-19, although no published research ...
FDA wars: Former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb challenges current head Stephen Hahn on fast-tracking COVID vaccine, predicts mid-2021 rollout
[Former FDA] Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is questioning FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn’s comments about fast-tracking a coronavirus vaccine, stating that a full approval of a ...
Even if widely embraced, vaccines are not a ‘silver bullet’ to containing COVID
Americans looking to a vaccine as the way out of the coronavirus pandemic should consider a more comprehensive approach, a ...
Stress on pregnant women from COVID will lead to smaller newborn babies
The impact of chronic emotional stress on human growth has been investigated by scientists for decades, with many studies specifically ...
Testing irony: Explosion in new COVID-19 infections could speed up vaccine development
More than 20 coronavirus vaccines are in human testing, according to the World Health Organization. So far, small, early studies of most ...
Despite anti-vax fears, vaccines are safe
A review of 58 different changes to labels on vaccines made between 1996 and 2015 has shown very few dangers ...
Flu season threatens to overwhelm doctors and hospitals swamped by COVID
Both the new coronavirus and the seasonal flu virus are likely to spread in the fall and winter, and send ...
Mask wars: History repeats itself more than a century after the Spanish flu
In the United States, where [the Spanish flu] ultimately killed around 675,000 people, local governments rolled out initiatives to try ...
Race detector: AI’s ability to categorize us raises fears of bias
Today, more than a dozen companies offer some form of race or ethnicity detection, according to a review of websites, ...
COVID vaccine rollout should draw on lessons of malaria and polio shot campaigns
The polio vaccine was one of the few the public greeted eagerly. Diseases like measles and whooping cough were familiar ...
