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.
Viewpoint—Protecting baloney science: Far right senators move to protect the phony homeopathy industry
Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tommy Tuberville (R- AL) have recently introduced a bill that would limit the FDA’s ability ...
Can illegal social media content be stopped before it goes viral? UK is going to try.
Social media companies have been ordered to have emergency measures in place to stop illegal content going viral, as regulators ...
Activist organization accuses Trump of protecting methane-generating stripper wells to benefit billionaire and donor Jeffrey Hildebrand
This story was originally published by ProPublica. It was before dawn on a Friday in January when a Gulfstream G600 ...
Viewpoint—Recursive self-improvement: AI leader Anthropic calls for AI slowdown
For most of AI’s history, humans drove every step in its development cycle. But at Anthropic, we are delegating a ...
What’s behind Anthropic’s warning about the accelerating development of AI
Recursive self-improvement is when an AI system designs, builds, and trains a better version of itself without humans involved. Put ...
Trump-appointed cancer panel head backed by supplement and anti-vaccine companies promotes discredited support for ivermectin as a potential cure
The chair of the President’s Cancer Panel is a co-author on a new paper promoting ivermectin as a cancer treatment ...
In a rebuke to RFK, Jr.’s anti-vax crusade, journal retracts study claiming hepatitis B vaccine–autism link
A 2010 paper that linked the hepatitis B vaccine in infant boys to an increased risk of autism diagnosis was ...
Kennedy accused of trying to ‘bully’ science journal that retracted study linking vaccines to infant deaths
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, is demanding answers from a medical journal that recently removed a paper ...
Who’s responsible when AI lies? Google challenging court ruling that search results are not protected from legal liability
Google said it will appeal a German court ruling that holds the company directly liable for false statements produced by ...
Viewpoint: “Dead Wrong”—Understanding healthcare’s misinformation epidemic
Misinformation in healthcare isn’t slowing down, and Dr. Geeta Nayyar says it’s causing more problems. Nayyar is the author of ...
Glucosamine alert: Alzheimer’s progresses faster among those taking the popular supplement
Glucosamine -- a popular supplement used for joint pain -- was associated with faster progression to Alzheimer's disease and worse ...
Viewpoint: ‘Steroid Olympics’ marketing stunt: ‘It seemed less like a sporting event and more like a loss leader to peddle testosterone injections, GLP-1s, and peptides’
Testosterone. Methenolone. Nandrolone. Human growth hormone and EPO. Meldonium, modafinil, and mixed amphetamine salts. Clomiphene, anastrozole, levothyroxine, and liothyronine. Patches ...
Physician warns online statin myths delay care and raise heart risk
During a presentation titled “Misunderstandings and truth about statins: From cardiovascular disease prevention to renal safety,” [Dr. Jang Min-wook] said ...
‘Humanitarian catastrophe’: Trump’s USAID shutdown could help drive nearly 23 million deaths — including 5.4 million children — by 2030, Lancet study warns
Nearly 23 million additional deaths are expected by 2030 as a result of countries like the US and UK dramatically ...
Viewpoint: COVID lab leak? Misguided backers of the lab leak theory refuse to give up
[W]hen I learned that Lord Matt Ridley had been invited to speak at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about ...
Six key health insights from taking weight-loss drugs
Tens of millions of people around the world are now taking drugs like Ozempic — a kind of real-time experiment ...
‘Have you asked your doctor?’: AMA launches campaign to counter health misinformation
The American Medical Association confirmed plans to launch a national campaign to combat health misinformation and “rebuild trust in medicine.” ...
Selective Pressure, Selective Silence
Human evolution, particularly of the brain, ended a long time ago—at least that is what many educated people, wary of ...
Will hi-tech genetic fortune-telling really help parents make healthier children?
Like high-tech fortune-telling, the screening estimates the chances that embryos will produce children at risk for thousands of illnesses, from ...
‘Toxin’ detox: A gastroenterologist weighs in on $71 billion health trend
In 2025, the detoxification industry worldwide was valued at over $71 billion, and some estimates have that number approaching $120 ...
Gen Z burned by sunscreen misinformation and tanning myths
The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) released results from its annual Practice Safe Sun Survey, revealing many Americans still engage ...
Viewpoint: Why gene-editing babies is moral and certain to happen
It may be possible to make a convincing argument that serious heritable diseases linked to a single gene should be ...
Viewpoint: Social media and fake natural health propaganda fuel surge in use of mostly useless supplements
Supplements have become a central part of wellness culture, touted by everyone from influencers who “stack” them to celebrities whose ...
Why ‘null-findings’ on Tylenol’s safety for pregnant women barely move the needle on countering misinformation
When U.S. President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted unsupported warnings last fall about acetaminophen use ...
Misinformed parents overdosing children with Vitamin A to fight measles
A recent study in JAMA Network Open has found that between January and March 2025, America's Poison Centers reported a ...
Why weight-loss drugs might be reducing cancer rates and making treatment more effective
At this year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, more than 40 studies, abstracts, oral presentations and ...
The ‘low-quality’, retracted studies RFK, Jr. and MAHA rely on for anti-vaccine claims
Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justify controversial changes to ...
