Science Controversies
There was an opioid epidemic 130 years ago. Can it teach us anything about today’s crisis?
The 1890s and 1990s were both characterized by unopposed amplification of the benefits of opioids, the transformation of physicians into ...
Russia strikes deal to accelerate development of 30 gene-edited crops, animals by 2027
Russia’s oil giant Rosneft and the Russian government will join forces to develop gene-editing technology, according to a government decree ...
35 drugs in the race for a coronavirus treatment
As the world scrambles to monitor and contain the COVID-19 outbreak, drug companies are racing to develop or repurpose treatments ...
FDA Feed Your Mind project offers ‘science-based’ answers to questions about GMO safety, regulation
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched a new education initiative called “Feed Your Mind” to help consumers better ...
Viewpoint: 4 ways the FDA must evolve to deal with fast-moving technologies and health threats
As we look toward the FDA of the 2020s that can achieve further progress in addressing urgent health threats and ...
We have standards in place to keep junk science out of criminal trials: ‘They aren’t working’
While it’s now widely accepted that some forensic disciplines, like microscopic hair comparison, are junk science, evidence from similarly subjective ...
Bipartisan Accurate Labels Act takes aim at ‘misleading, unnecessary and confusing’ food marketing, authors say
Legislation introduced by Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R., Ill.) and Kurt Schrader (D., Ore.), the Accurate Labels Act, would provide clear, ...
‘Disaster for public trust in vaccines’: African malaria study conducted without patient consent
A scathing opinion piece in the BMJ is accusing the World Health Organization of conducting a pilot program in Africa ...
Is the quest for profits getting in the way of ending the HIV epidemic?
Four decades after the HIV epidemic began, there’s finally hope it might end. Indeed, “Getting to Zero” — meaning zero ...
Once promising autism drug Abilify linked to heart problems, substantial weight gains
It has been 11 years since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved aripiprazole for children with autism. The ...
Bill Gates: AI, gene editing could help us reach global health goals ‘exponentially’ faster
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has been working to improve the state of global health through his nonprofit foundation for 20 ...
Better tracking of coronavirus infections could be possible through experimental antibody test from Singapore
In what appears to be a first, disease trackers in Singapore have used an experimental antibody test for COVID-19 to ...
Stealth technology could offer ‘secure, selective and precise’ delivery system for cancer drugs
Earlier this year, researchers assembled an intelligent and autonomous nanostructure entirely out of DNA that delivered and released a cancer drug. Cancer ...
Viewpoint: Someone created a synthetic cousin of smallpox: Where are the alarm bells?
In 2017, the virologist David Evans made headlines when he used synthetic biology to recreate the extinct horsepox virus, which ...
Those childhood vaccinations for tetanus and diphtheria should cover you for life, study says
People who got all their vaccinations against tetanus and diphtheria in childhood don’t need booster shots to remain protected against ...
Do you want to live or die? ‘Mind reading’ could help patients with severe brain injuries answer the question
When a person sustains a severe brain injury that leaves them unable to communicate, their families and doctors often have ...
Appearance of ‘ground glass’ in the lungs could be key to diagnosing coronavirus using CT scans
A team of Mount Sinai doctors became the first in the U.S. to analyze CT scans of patients diagnosed with ...
EU Food safety officials reject activist group Testbiotech’s challenge of glyphosate-tolerant GMO soy approval
Following a request of the European Commission, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reviewed the scientific arguments raised by the ...
‘A real mystery’: Why hasn’t anyone attempted to make a cloned human baby?
For nearly seven years, then, the scientific community has had solid proof that human embryos can be cloned. ... So ...
Bangladesh will mandate GMO labeling to quell consumer ‘distrust’ of crop biotechnology
Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) is planning on making declaration of genetically-modified (GM) [crops] in food products mandatory, said its ...
Experiments on living brain tissue unearth ‘ethical quandaries’
Live bits of brain look like any other piece of meat — pinkish, solid chunks of neural tissue. But unlike ...
First experimental vaccine for coronavirus ready for human testing
Moderna has become the first company to release a potential coronavirus vaccine, with the Boston-based biotech start-up announcing on Monday ...
Viewpoint: US spends huge on cancer medicine but doesn’t have a lot to show for it
The aggressive, can-do American approach to health care isn’t working when it comes to medicine in general and cancer medicine ...
Video: Why labs are printing synthetic copies of the coronavirus genome
Advancements in genetic technology are making it easier, faster, and less expensive for public health experts to understand how the ...
Gene editing ‘rice revolution’: CRISPR could be used to grow one of the world’s most important crops in salt water
Traditional agriculture requires many inputs; fertilizer, specific chemicals, manual labor and water. Most of the water used in agriculture is ...
‘Expanding the capabilities of the human body’: Russian biohackers turn to implants, supplements and extreme exercise
Gripping a scalpel, Vladislav Zaitsev makes an incision in the fold of skin between his client's thumb and index finger ...
Why debunking coronavirus conspiracy theories might be counterproductive
Was it a bioweapon from a virology institute? Had it been known before and already patented? Could homeopathic remedies help? ...
