Science Controversies
Generative AI is shaping the future of plant gene editing
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the fight against viral infections in crops through precision CRISPR genome editing, strengthening global food ...
Viewpoint: Tort lawyer RFK, Jr. — Trump alliance trashing Tylenol opens the door to a flood of dubious lawsuits
A lawsuit Texas filed ... against the makers of Tylenol foreshadows a wave of legal warfare enabled by the Trump ...
Happy 43rd birthday, GMO insulin. FDA approval in 1982 took 5 months. How many years would it take now?
This is the 43rd anniversary of one of biotechnology’s most significant milestones — the approval by the Food and Drug ...
‘Not sufficient evidence’: RFK, Jr. now rejects his claim that Tylenol is linked to autism, one day after Texas claimed it in a lawsuit
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said October 29 that he does not have “sufficient” evidence to link Tylenol to ...
GLP podcast: ‘Health freedom’—a human right or MAHA propaganda tool?
RFK, Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition has built its platform on the concept of health freedom, a belief ...
Why scare stories about crop chemicals outlive the science
For years, glyphosate has been the world’s most litigated molecule. The herbicide, first brought to market in 1974 under the ...
Viewpoint: The biggest winners of RFK, Jr.’s junk science push
Two advisers to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat on a stage in California this ...
‘‘It could determine the future of the world’: Putin morphs from ethical opponent of gene editing humans to support for creating CRISPR-edited soldiers “without fear, without compassion, without regret or even pain.” It could happen soon
While known experiments with Crispr—to improve crops, modify malaria-carrying mosquitoes, treat cancer—are constantly expanding, no government has approved wielding the tool to ...
Rejecting consensus science and following RFK, Jr.’s playbook, Texas sues Tylenol, claiming it knew the painkiller causes autism
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit ... against Tylenol-maker Kenvue and its former parent company, Johnson & Johnson, ...
Viewpoint: While overall cancer rates remain steady, it’s rising in Midwest farm country. Are pesticides to blame?
Cancer rates among young adults in the Corn Belt, a patchwork of golden fields and straight-line highways stretching across the ...
Human differences: The concept of ‘race’ is infused with historical prejudice but ‘genetic populations’ are real. What’s the difference?
In the recent flurry of executive orders from President Donald Trump, one warned of “a distorted narrative” about race “driven ...
Vaccines, raw milk, fluoride, Tylenol: MAHA right-wing alliance floods state houses with hundreds of science-rejectionist bills
More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections – vaccines, milk safety and fluoride – have been introduced ...
Republican states win case striking down rule protecting transgender health care rights
A federal judge has ruled that federal anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in health care are unconstitutional, allowing legal discrimination ...
Can we expect a wave of corporate breakups as seed industries liberate themselves from litigation-laden pesticide businesses
Companies involved in both the seed and pesticide sectors see a pipeline of pesticide-related class action lawsuits, MDLs and unlimited ...
Should we use CRISPR gene editing to remake humanity?
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it,” Stewart Brand, the free-thinking philosopher of technology, wrote in ...
A new therapy has been developed that promoters claim can remove microplastics from the body. Is it safe? Does it work?
There is mounting evidence that microplastics and “forever chemicals” are infiltrating human bodies and endangering people’s health. ... Interventions to ...
The EU passes landmark legislation to curb plastic nurdles threatening ocean ecosystems. It’s not enough. Genetically engineered bacteria could help
Spain’s northern coast has been fighting a months-long assault from a ‘white tide’ of plastic pellets dumped by a Dutch-registered ship ...
Viewpoint: Indigenous groups and their Western NGO allies line up to block the genetic engineering revolution
[Members] of the International Union of Conservation of Nature, one of the world’s largest conservation groups, voted against a moratorium on the ...
RFK, Jr. and his vaccine-skeptical acolytes at the CDC are recommending that we split childhood vaccines to allegedly prevent autism. That’s a scientifically dangerous idea
As anti-vaccine sentiment rises nationally, prominent people have proposed splitting combination vaccines into individual shots. For example, the new acting ...
mRNA Covid vaccines rejected as dangerous by RFK, Jr. shown to spark an immune response that could aid cancer survival
The mRNA covid-19 vaccines seem to have an unexpected benefit: extending the lives of people being treated for cancers by boosting the ...
GLP podcast: Are science journals corrupt? Dr. Kevin Folta examines the ‘replication crisis’
The science community faces an existential crisis as thousands of studies are retracted and dozens of peer-reviewed journals are forced ...
Mexican scientists call for quick approvals of gene-edited crops even as restrictions persist on GMO agriculture
Researchers in Mexico are urging the government to develop clear regulations that distinguish gene-editing technologies, such as CRISPR, from genetically ...
Vaccine rejectionist activists got Idaho to ban shot mandates. They’re now targeting the rest of the country
The Idaho Medical Freedom Act makes it illegal to require anyone to take a vaccine or receive “medical intervention.” Leslie ...
Viewpoint: How cancer cultists and health justice vigilantes politicize science
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
Based on only eleven rain collections, researchers from Tokyo and Hokkaido Universities detected five neonicotinoids in Japanese rainwater at sub-nanogram-per-liter ...
Viewpoint: Dissecting HHS Secretary and tort lawyer RFK, Jr.’s Tylenol-autism scam: Billions of dollars of class action lawsuits
RFK Jr. is relying on select studies and questionable experts for his autism claims, using the bully pulpit of federal power to ...
Viewpoint: Glyphosate is agriculture’s scapegoat
Glyphosate has played a central role in modern agriculture’s ability to increase yields, reduce labour costs and conserve soil through ...
