This is a bit of a rhetorical question. It's based on the simple fact that the percentage of the population wearing a mask in public in July 2022 was; 86% in Japan; 43% in the U.S.; 21% in the U.K., and 5% in Denmark. Japan was not alone among the Asian nations, all wearing masks in the 80% or greater range. Why might that be?

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Photographing Art
The Legacy of Neutron Jack Welch

In this radio conversation, Lars Larson and I discuss his concerns about the testing and approval process for new drugs and medical procedures in the United States.

If you need further evidence that politicians don't understand the fentanyl crisis they helped to create, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has you covered. Meanwhile, we already sell some body fluids in select circumstances; will the day come when we sell body parts to the highest bidder?

The weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic portend a massive impact on the “obesity epidemic.”  Users may even be able to get insurance coverage, as the FDA just approved a third drug specifically for weight loss treatment, signaling greater coverage for all drugs in the class. Sounds promising, right? But, alas, there are unintended consequences.

Once we became aware of our mortality, we wanted to know when death was upon us. While we have forsaken predictions by chicken bones or auguries, today we attempt the same predictive magic. That's at least at the population level, using new chicken bones like our co-morbidities or a frailty index. It should be no surprise that we have enlisted our latest oracle: A.I.

Those buildings we call supermarkets are laid out to encourage us to buy. It is not a coincidence that magazines and candy are displayed at the register, nor the fact that the food you really want is in the back, so you have to transverse the whole store to find it. Are our online purchases, without that physical organization, the same? Short answer: no.

Exa-cel, a new CRISPR-based treatment, modifies the genes of the patient's stem cells to induce them to produce fetal hemoglobin.

Sleazy manufacturing and marketing practices are hardly news when it comes to the dietary supplements industry. But a company called Evig, which makes Balance of Nature supplements, seems to want to take it a step further. Actually, several steps …

What is our most important organ? Every time there was a new lecturer in medical school, they began by pointing out why their organ of interest was the most important. After all: