Trench Warfare (from the New York Post)
How Plagues, Politics Nearly Sunk the Panama Canal
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Sunday, March 30, 2008
By Todd Seavey.  When people die in the course of building something, we inevitably ask, "Was it worth it?"...  Read Full >>

Neither Gods Nor Goo (from Reason magazine)
Avoiding both utopian and apocalyptic forecasts for nanotechnology
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Saturday, March 1, 2008
By Todd Seavey.  By the middle of the century, the inventor Ray Kurzweil suggests in his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near, human beings will live in perpetual clouds of nanobots...  Read Full >>

The Invention of Vaccines (from Spiked-Online)
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Friday, May 4, 2007
By Todd Seavey. Public health as we know it arose in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with improved nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, and awareness of germs. One innovation that stands out, though, is the invention of vaccines...  Read Full >>

Drug Patent Violations, Knock-Offs Harm Us All (from the Wall Street Journal)
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Monday, April 30, 2007
By Todd Seavey. Contrary to the assertions of the Thai government and Doctors Without Borders, violating drug companies' patents and making knock-offs of their drugs is not in the long-term best interest of patients  Read Full >>

Which Is Right? (from the New York Times)
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Wednesday, March 14, 2007
By Todd Seavey.  Restaurants are replacing butter with margarine (or vice versa in some cases)? Or with palm oil (which is worse, from a health perspective)?  Outlawing one option does not mean that other, better ones magically appear at the same price. It does not even mean that there will be a net gain for public health...  Read Full >>

"WTC Cough": Time to Draw Breath (from Spiked-Online)
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Friday, September 8, 2006
By Todd Seavey.  The largest study yet of workers who participated in the rescue efforts and clean-up at the site of the World Trade Center attack has been reported as evidence that a spectrum of mysterious health problems were caused by the fumes from the disaster.  In a sense that's true, in that we don’t know the precise nature and cause of all the respiratory ailments reported five years later by participants in the study.  But that is partly a   Read Full >>

Responding to the "Standard" View of Biotech
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Monday, July 29, 2002
Eric Cohen points out some tensions—though not actual contradictions—in pro-biotech arguments ("Biotech Loses Its Innocence," June 24).  Read Full >>

"Harm Reduction" Topic of ACSH Symposium
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Monday, July 1, 2002
In a world where so many things are categorized as all-good or all-bad, the concept of "harm reduction" — ameliorating certain health risks when it is impractical or undesirable to eliminate them entirely — remains controversial among public health experts, noted Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, as she introduced the group's harm reduction symposium on June 26 in New York City.  Read Full >>

THE DDT BAN TURNS 30 — Millions Dead of Malaria Because of Ban, More Deaths Likely
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Saturday, June 1, 2002
Today, the Senate is poised to enact an international treaty (the so-called POPs treaty) banning all use of DDT, despite the millions of people who have already died as a result of the U.S. EPA's ban on the chemical.  Read Full >>

There Ought to Be Clones
By Todd Seavey
Publish Date : Tuesday, July 1, 1997
This is a letter to my next "self," and maybe to multiple "selves." I've assumed that I'll be cloned eventually, that my clone will be cloned, and so on. Because such iterations are like a scientific variation of reincarnation, it's only proper that I try to pass on the accumulated knowledge of a lifetime. It would be nice if you future Todds have some idea of what the first one learned, to give you a head start (you won't, needless to say, share my memories or live in an environment identical   Read Full >>