Genetic Literacy Project
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 ...
GLP podcast: Overdose crisis—Illicit opioids spread like drug-resistant bacteria?
The harder the government cracks down on a drug, the more deadly its illicit replacement that emerges from the black ...
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) ...
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 ...
Ultra-processed food: The term UPF is less than 20 years old. Here’s its social justice origins
Ultra-processed foods now make up more than 50% of the American diet. They are also less expensive and better tasting ...
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 ...
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 ...
A longer leash on life: The no longer quixotic quest to extend our dogs’ golden years
Dog owners do many things to keep our canine companions happy and healthy, and I’m no exception. I flew from ...
‘No fury like scorned MAHA moms’: Will RFK, Jr.’s anti-vaccine policies tear coalition apart?
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is fielding pressure from the White House to relax his controversial ...
Viewpoint — Glyphosate: Ecological villain or environmental scapegoat?
Glyphosate may just be the most polarizing chemical in modern agriculture, if not modern society. Since the World Health Organization’s ...
Viewpoint: There are dangerous consequences to firing credible scientists and gutting U.S. health agencies
In the past year, more than half of the leaders of the Institutes and Centers (IC) at the National Institutes ...
Congress created a mechanism to address rare vaccine injuries. RFK, Jr. is poised to tear it apart
For nearly four decades, Americans who believe they have been harmed by a vaccine have had access to a little-known ...
Viewpoint: In defense of plastics (and a rebuttal of ideology-infused misinterpretations of risk science)
Close observers will note that journalists in the legacy press have a perplexing habit of engaging in outright activism for ...
Send women to jail for decades for having an abortion? Extremist Republicans get pushback, even from some in their own party
When a trio of Republican state lawmakers introduced a bill last year that would subject women who obtain abortions to ...
GLP podcast: Does industry funding corrupt science? The ‘shill gambit,’ debunked
It's a charge many scientists face: they post a factual tweet refuting common misinfo about vaccines, pesticides or some other ...
RFK, Jr. and the Trump administration’s political purge of scientists echoes the darkest days of the McCarthy period
Something sinister and yet vaguely familiar has been happening in American public health policy. This week’s federal court decision reversing ...
Viewpoint: RFK, Jr.’s unethical plan to run a Tuskegee-like syphilis experiment in West Africa to ‘prove’ hepatitis B vaccines cause neurological damage
Every generation needs to learn about what is commonly known as the Tuskegee syphilis study, which ran from 1932 to ...
Viewpoint—After the vaccine policy wrecking ball: Taking stock one year after RFK, Jr. abandoned science
This past month, my kids’ small-town school has been in crisis mode. Budget shortfalls, emergency meetings, parents scrambling to understand ...
Viewpoint: The extremist right degraded the public conversation after its massive infiltration of the internet and social media. AI is their next target
How can society police the global spread of online far-right extremism while still protecting free speech? That’s a question policymakers ...
Viewpoint: Check on scare “science”—Claims about the human health dangers of microplastics are collapsing
Since the rise of MAHA in US policy, journalists have been starting to question the findings of activist scientists, and ...
Viewpoint: International Association for Research on Cancer and U.S. tort industry extortion racket revs up after release of IARC’s misleading cancer hysteria claims
[A World Health Organization scientific body], the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), published Monograph 140, releasing its initial ...
Don’t take over-the-counter fish oil supplements for your heart, joints or depression, science says
Fish oil, also known as omega-3, is among the most popular dietary supplements. It’s often promoted to protect the heart, boost ...
Viewpoint: What do organic, agroecology and regenerative agriculture have in common? They don’t work and aren’t sustainable
A farmer drastically reduces fertilizer applications, trusting soil biology to provide the needed nutrients. A crop consultant recommends a 10-species ...
Microplastics as a blueprint for health scares: How the “panic pipeline” of activists and academics partners with tort lawyers to manufacture chemical crises
We’ve seen this fear-to-filing pipeline repeatedly in other contested controversies — most recently involving Tylenol and food additives — where ...
Nine deadly vaccine myths that RFK, Jr. and MAHA promote
In consulting rooms across America, physicians face a challenge that no medical school prepared them for. A parent arrives with ...
Sleeping for centuries: Unpacking the mystery of the survival of animals
What can plants or animals do when faced with harsh conditions? Two options for survival seem most obvious: move elsewhere ...
