Cooking – work you can eat, and enjoy
Writing a novel
Being an apprentice
Add a smidge, perhaps even a pinch.
Following reports of infant illness last year, the FDA investigated and subsequently issued a warning not to use products manufactured at the Abbott baby food plant. Abbott responded by voluntarily shutting the facility resulting in an acute shortage of baby formula in the US – and rampant hysteria. Given Abbott’s strenuous denial that its products caused harm, one cannot help wondering if this closure was an overreaction or a calculated ploy.
It should come as no surprise to anyone trying to get or fill a prescription for a controlled substance that our drug laws are nuts. But you probably don't fully appreciate how nutty they really are. This article just scratches the surface of the nut. But that's still plenty.
To reduce swab testing for COVID, the ultimate goal is to have dogs able to perform rapid, large-scale, non-invasive screening, with antigen testing necessary only for confirmation after positive dog screening results.
The Sixth Amendment states, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial….” In 2019, felony charges required a median of 424 days “to reach some final resolution.” Fourteen months in pretrial custody is not speedy. Bail “reform” seeks to end cash bail for certain crimes in the hopes of reducing pretrial jail populations. A new study tries to get past the sound bites of the media.
The EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) was founded in 1985 to assure scientific integrity and present intra-Agency consensus on health effects information on environmental chemicals. It is an excellent example of how a government agency can misuse a well-intentioned idea to meet a political agenda resulting in flawed public policy decisions with significant implications.
Last week an article in City Journal wrote about a “scoping review” of the physical harms of masks. It is time for a bit of debunking. A note to the tl:dr – the too long, didn't read among us, it takes more words to correct a mistruth than to propagate one.
Long COVID burdens tens of millions of Americans and the nation's healthcare system, but our response to it has been fragmented and chaotic. We need to address it without delay, with more research and better access to treatment.
Using the criteria contained within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the diagnostic standard, almost 1 in 5 individuals smoking weed for medical therapeutic reasons develop cannabis use disorder within three months of initiating therapy. Yet there is no cry to greatly restrict medical marijuana in the same way we over-control opioids. Whether marijuana or opioids are that addictive depends on your definition of a substance use disorder. Is our current definition the best?
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) cited a new toxicology study that linked PM2.5 air pollution with the growth of lung cells having “pre-existing oncogenic variants” that could promote lung cancer in mice. Because “the light is better underneath the lamppost,” there is an epidemiologic predilection for ascribing blame to the pollutants for which we have the most data, like PM2.5
