Science Controversies
Trump demands access to Africa’s rare minerals as price to fund efforts to battle AIDs
Since its inception in 2003, PEPFAR [U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] has helped provide anti-HIV medicine to more than 20 ...
STOMP—Scientists skeptical of RFK, Jr.’s dubious crusade on microplastics
The Trump administration is going after microplastics in drinking water. A new plan to study and regulate plastic pollution was announced ...
Viewpoint: Researchers claiming living near nuclear energy causes cancer botched their research
In December 2025, researchers led by Yazan Alwadi at Harvard’s T.H Chan School of Public Health published a paper in ...
Reviewing the evidence on the benefits and dangers of glyphosate
President Trump recently signed an Executive Order that expands U.S. production of glyphosate, a herbicide contained in commercial and domestic ...
Viewpoint: The religion of vaccine hesitancy
One of the biggest modern American medical stories has been the rise of vaccine hesitancy. From the decline in childhood ...
Viewpoint: RFK, Jr.-founded Children’s Health Defense false claims long-dead belief that wireless radiation causes health problems
Dire warnings about the dangers of wireless technology have been around for as long as the technology itself, and they ...
Viewpoint — RFK, Jr. vs. fluoride: The next big health brawl—science be damned
The EPA recently took its first step toward determining safe levels of fluoride in drinking water, publishing a "Preliminary Assessment ...
What are the consequences of agriculture misinformation—and how to fight back
Is organic farming better than non-organic farming? Should farmers feed antibiotics and steroids to their animals? Such debates about food ...
AI with human feelings? Anthropic’s Claude edges closer
... A new study from Anthropic suggests models have digital representations of human emotions like happiness, sadness, joy, and fear, ...
Bulldozing science: As America slips, China is overtaking U.S. as superpower
The Trump administration has taken a bulldozer to science funding over the last year and change, wiping out more than 7,800 research ...
‘Tech bro hype’ vs. serious science: The inside story on Colossal’s attempt to create a real-life Jurassic Park
Can and should we resurrect animal species that have been extinct for thousands of years? Such weighty, existential questions were ...
Social media sharing: Americans are caught in a health and science ‘misinformation paradox’
The Harris Poll announced the results from a landmark survey, "Science Under Siege: The Battle Between Viral Misinformation and Shared ...
Viewpoint — ‘Miracle’ peptides: Regulatory greyzone and RFK, Jr. propaganda opens the U.S. to a perilous biohacking experiment
On February 27, 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and announced that the FDA is preparing ...
Netflix plastic documentary is scare nonsense packaged as science
Netflix, which has made simplified propaganda many times before (See: Dopesick), sticks to a familiar formula in a thoroughly slanted ...
PTSD is almost incurable. Psychedelics can help — but only in three U.S. states and Australia
Over the past two years, Australia, a country long known for its strict drug laws, has been allowing psychiatrists to ...
Viewpoint: Is vaping a pathway to tobacco addiction or quitting tobacco altogether? It depends
In November, I got a LinkedIn message from a consultant who works for one of the major vape (aka e-cigarette) ...
As China’s science investment soars, U.S. cuts spending dramatically
The Chinese government is ramping up its support for science, announcing plans to boost two key budgets at the country’s ...
Microplastic scare claims take another turn—Study suggests lab gloves may be key culprit
It seems like every day a new study finds tiny plastic particles called microplastics where they should not be: in ...
Viewpoint: Worried about Big Ag and Big Pharma? They’re nothing compared to the grifting hypocrisy of the MAHA wellness movement
RFK Jr. rails endlessly against Big Pharm and Big Food. And, in many instances, for good reason. But there is ...
How liberal Paul Ehrlich’s 1970s “Population Bomb” panic helped shape today’s anti-immigration ideology
Paul Ehrlich opened his 1968 book “The Population Bomb” with a scene recounting returning to his hotel through a crowded ...
From ideology to engineering: As green opposition to nuclear energy softens, the debate shifts to what can scale
For years, the country’s major environmental groups stood shoulder to shoulder against nuclear power. That unanimity may be starting to ...
Plastic Detox documentary claims the microplastic in your brain can make a spoon. The latest science says that’s ridiculous
Last year, we wrote about how a decimal-point error and selective framing turned black plastic spatulas into a public-health scare ...
Viewpoint: Radical leftist makes the case for blocking nuclear energy
It’s been 15 years since Fukushima’s reactors experienced those meltdowns and we still don’t fully understand their long-term repercussions. Nuclear ...
Viewpoint: The activist ‘harm reduction’ movement has hit a brick wall with its targeting of food
Activists are never wrong. When their policies miss, they just move the goalposts. When their jobs (and income) are based ...
Key Republicans are abandoning Casey Means’ floundering surgeon general nomination
The nascent Make America Healthy Again movement got one of its biggest wins last spring: Casey Means was selected to be the ...
How fake AI satellite imagery is impacting Iran war coverage
An unprecedented wave of AI-generated misinformation about the US-Israel war with Iran is being monetised by online creators with growing ...
As teen suicides pile up, AI companies squirm to avert accountability
It was Amaurie’s younger sister who discovered the body. She was also the one who was looking through her brother’s ...
