The Clean Air Act of 1970 and subsequent Amendments have long been interpreted as applying only to outdoor air. But most of us spend up to 85% of our time indoors – especially the very young and old- more susceptible to air pollution’s health effects. Should we care about this?
Disease
To what degree does a patient’s belief that treatment will succeed influence care outcome? Can a study of treating appendicitis with antibiotics shed some light on the role of faith in our care?
You can’t miss the headlines. As we enter the fall, we now face the combined forces of influenza, COVID, and RSV – respiratory syncytial virus. Are the continued drumbeats of fear necessary?
I was supportive when governmental institutions told me to social distance and mask up. I bristle when they tell me that there should be no medical or surgical management for gender dysphoria for those under 18, even with parental consent. The science for both is unclear and unsettled. Are my feelings driven by politics or something else?
Between 2019 and 2021, our national life expectancy, which is a measure of our overall health and lifespan, decreased by two years. It was the first such decline in over 50 years – and linked to COVID. As with all things COVID, those life losses were unevenly distributed.
Last week I stopped breathing. If it was not for my wife, who gave me some breaths, and the village of people who subsequently cared for me, we would be speaking through a Ouija Board.
It’s now been established that vaccination may be the last best hope of stemming the tide of increasing COVID-19 infections. We are currently in the 5th round of vaccinations, all of which performed as expected in the laboratory, hence their FDA certifications. However, vaccine effectiveness in the field depends on human elements that are not controllable in a free society.
TV medical dramas tell compelling, heartfelt stories about doctors and their patients. They're also chock-full of inaccuracies that distort our understanding of science and medicine.
Cancer from radioactive gold? Like there isn't enough to worry about. But during the 1930s and 40s, it happened. A small number of rings were illegally manufactured from radioactive gold and there were consequences to ring fingers decades later.
A new study looks at that age-old question. Is our lifespan based more on our genes or our habits? Nature Medicine offers some perspective. Spoiler alert – it is not because you are “big-boned.”
“…the pandemic is over.” – President Biden.
Really? It clearly depends on how, where, and when you look. Overall, we see trends of increasing daily cases, stable death rates, and decreasing case fatality rates. There are significant peaks in these outcomes, up to 100-fold in cases and 10-fold in deaths.
Once in a while, a light bulb goes on, and a theory that turns medical knowledge on its head is born. Could this be one of those times? A group at Cambridge just published a study on the mechanism of cancer metastasis, which could fundamentally change how the spread of cancer is viewed. Here's what they discovered.