Daily Human Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of human genetics issues, including gene editing, regulations and bioethics, gene therapy, epigenetics, personal genomics, evolution, ancestry and artificial intelligence. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
Anti-vax Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton alleges conspiracy by doctors, drugmakers, and insurers to push childhood vaccination for profit
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, has launched a sweeping investigation accusing pediatricians, vaccine ...
Hooked on kratom: The unregulated, natural, alcohol-free “social tonic” that is destroying lives
Feel Free, a tiny blue bottle of kratom-laced “social tonic” sold at more than 30,000 U.S. stores, is leaving a ...
Rural revival or corporate windfall? Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill tax law opens the door to big breaks for data centers—but tech giants aren’t cashing in
Starting January 1, data centers built on rural land could qualify for a generous set of federal tax breaks, courtesy ...
Patches for sleep, weight, NAD+, energy, focus, periods. No evidence to support the latest social media wellness scams
Stick-on patches promising better sleep, weight loss, more energy, sharper focus and easier periods are the wellness trend du jour ...
Jump-starting global warming: Rising temperatures are driving up emissions from wildfires, fermenting wetlands, and melting permafrost
As the planet heats up, tundras are thawing, wetlands are fermenting, and forests are succumbing to larger and more frequent ...
Court links patient’s death to anti-vaccine doctor promoted by Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense
A doctor deployed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former anti-vaccine advocacy group to cast doubt on recent measles deaths was ...
‘Why do we keep falling for this stuff?’ America’s love affair with snake oil salesmen and scams
America’s boundless faith that anything is possible helped build the world’s largest economy. It has also made the country a ...
The genetics of personality
Personality isn’t written in a handful of genes — it’s scribbled across more than a thousand of them. A massive ...
Trump finalizes Medicare drug price cuts, drawing Big Pharma’s fury and a legal challenge
Medicare will soon start paying for some pricey cancer and autoimmune drugs based on what other wealthy nations pay — ...
Jay Clayton controversy: The divisive history of Trump’s newly-appointed AI czar
Jay Clayton, the former SEC chairman whose agency helped write the playbook for policing crypto through lawsuits, is reportedly on ...
Combating ‘narrative distortion’: Will pharma companies step up to challenge health misinformation?
Doctors want drugmakers to do more than stay quiet when health misinformation spreads, and companies that keep silent may pay ...
At anti-vaccine MAHA conference, RFK Jr. pledges to unify federal health information and combat vaccine safety ‘misinformation’
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants Americans’ medical records, insurance claims and lifestyle data stitched together, ...
Viewpoint: Died “with measles” vs. died “from measles”: RFK, Jr.’s dangerously subversive word games
The pandemic-era line “died with COVID, not from it” has come back, and this time it’s being used to leave ...
Vaccine hesitancy, like malaria, surges globally, topping 35% in some countries
As trust in vaccines weakens worldwide, it has been found that in some countries, more than one in three adults ...
Blood tests for Alzheimer’s? The latest grifter, social media scam.
Social media is selling Alzheimer’s blood tests as a crystal ball for healthy people, and the evidence doesn’t back it ...
How U.S. teamed with Russia to block global human AI weapons oversight
When diplomats gathered in Geneva to finalize the first international rules on lethal autonomous weapons, the United States and Russia ...
Defying public perceptions, U.S. cancer deaths plunged 35% since 1991
The U.S. is winning more ground against cancer than many people realize. The overall cancer death rate fell 35% between ...
Viewpoint: Kennedy’s ‘bad science’: MAGA embrace bolsters HHS secretary’s influence and popularity
Pennsylvania has recorded four measles deaths this year — the state’s first in 35 years — yet the federal government’s ...
Astrology, homeopathy, vaccine rejectionism, creationism: Why pseudoscience thrives as science advances
Science has never known more, yet pseudoscience keeps gaining ground. Astrology, homeopathy, creationism and vaccine rejectionism all make scientific-sounding claims ...
Viewpoint: After firing the entire National Science Board, Trump reshapes funding initiatives. Here’s the good and the bad.
The National Science Foundation is steering most of its money away from grants for individual researchers’ best ideas and toward ...
Energy-sucking data centers are unpopular across the political spectrum. Could moving them into space change the equation?
Google plans to launch a satellite on Oct. 1 that can run its artificial intelligence technologies in orbit, an early ...
What constitutes a measles death? RFK, Jr. maneuvers to restrict definition to make pandemic seem less dire
The CDC's decision to scrub two Pennsylvania measles deaths from its public tally, replacing them with an asterisk, has experts ...
Viewpoint: 7-OH controversy: An opioid is available over-the-counter–even at gas stations. Should we be concerned?
A potent opioid is sitting on gas station shelves next to the beef jerky, and anyone with $20 can buy ...
RFK, Jr. likely violated federal ethics guidelines in accepting more than $4,275,000 in gifts and book advances from MAHA allies
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accepted $4 million in book advances and more than $270,000 in gifts over the ...
New federal autism committee head has financial ties to leucovorin
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has handed the reins of federal autism research to a doctor with a commercial stake in ...
Current and future RFK Jr. aides criticize his science-rejectionist vaccine views
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent years casting doubt on vaccines, but the people lined up to work ...
Now AI almost started a war with China
This spring, at the height of the war with Iran, US forces came within moments of boarding a Chinese ship ...
