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Animal research’s benefits are clear – but public awareness of what it involves is not.

Swearing – defined as speaking “specific, negatively charged, and often emotionally loaded terms” – violates our norms of both the sacred and profane. While polite society often reflects on swearing’s negatives, it turns out that there are some health benefits for the sender (but not the receiver).

With the growing concern – especially in the Northeast – about the air pollution now coming from the Canadian forest fires, we thought it would be worthwhile to address the potential health effects, especially the difference between acute and chronic.
Most of the daily air pollution studies on health have focused on statistical significance to establish the existence of the phenomenon, which has already been shown by the Great London Fog of 1952, during which black smoke levels increased about 10-fold, and thousands died over several days. The scientific community would be better served by addressing epidemiological and physiological questions.

Medice, cura te ipsum. Physician, heal thyself. That is just what the CDC is beginning to do based on a recently published in-house structural review. Leave aside the shame and blame game of amnesty. What does the CDC believe it did wrong and could do better?

The Kaiser Family Foundation recently wrote a summary of what you actually get when you enroll in a Medicare Advantage (Part C) program.

Active immunity means your body’s immune system gets revved up and primed by previous infection or exposure to vaccine antigens, whether it’s the real thing, i.e., getting sick with COVID, or via exposure to a human-made varietal from a vaccine (mRNA or conventional). Yet, somehow there’s this hue and cry that getting the real thing just isn’t as good as getting jabbed. Is it true? 

Banning menthol heats up.
Is it a conspiracy? A ten-point checklist
Debunking pumpkins – say it ain’t so!
The Decline and Fall of Eating together

Just as healthcare systems seek to maintain their tax-exempt status by providing “community services,” health insurers seek to dispense their largesse on the corporate term for those community services – the social determinants of health. A new study suggests that, like those not-for-profit, tax-exempt healthcare systems, the money flowing to social determinants is more for appearances. How surprising.

Illicit fentanyl continues to kill tens of thousands of people annually in the U.S. In fact, this number may very well be increasing as the "fentanyl epidemic" continues unabated. But now a fentanyl vaccine – which could be of some use in mitigating damage – appears to protect mice from the drug. Will it succeed in humans and, if so, how might it be used?

As a toxicologist, I love writing about toxic substances, so I thought I would look for one associated with Thanksgiving. I failed. Many of our traditional Thanksgiving foods are not only non-toxic, but they are also healthy for you!

A disease produces specific signs or symptoms. Symptoms are reported by patients and are largely subjective, while signs are elicited by physicians and have a more objective quality. Meanwhile, a syndrome is a set of symptoms suggesting the presence of an underlying disease or condition. And while COVID is a disease, long COVID remains an often-ill-defined syndrome.

On November 26, 1959, "Mamie Eisenhower served applesauce with dinner." … America had been waiting with more-than-usual interest to see what the Eisenhowers would eat as Thanksgiving relish. The news came Friday, courtesy of the Associated Press: “No Cranberries for President.” Here's ACSH's take from our archives, in what was perhaps the first episode of chemophobia in the United States.

I almost drove off the road listening to an ad from a law firm urging parents with children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to be part of a lawsuit suing baby food manufacturers for causing their child’s condition. According to the ad, the question of what causes ASD has been settled and what remains is for parents to get what is owed them from baby food manufacturers that have been hiding the truth from the public for years.   

“In a new analysis of medical records, cannabis smokers had higher rates of a certain type of emphysema than tobacco smokers.” It's another attention-grabbing headline that fails to tell the whole story. Let’s skip the public relations version and consider the study's findings.

As the days become shorter and colder, our thoughts turn to the holidays, a time for baking and sharing homemade treats. Cookies and bars, peppermint bark, and gingerbread houses are all delightful to eat cooked and to “test” before cooking as raw batter. Don’t lick that spoon! Recent outbreaks from raw and uncooked flour products should cause us to reexamine the safety of these ingredients.

Reporters, fact-checkers, and academics routinely urge us to avoid "misinformation." The problem is, these trusted sources often spread the very nonsense they warn us about. I make the case over at BigThink.

If you're worried about Monkeypox, school shootings, car accidents, or any other possible threat to your health, stop this instant. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has identified a greater risk for you to fret about—frozen pizza.

"Climate-anxious" college students are pushing to have low-risk pesticides banned from their campuses. Meanwhile, states that have legalized recreational marijuana use are concerned that their new policy may cause more car accidents. We examine the science behind both stories on episode 14 of the Science Dispatch podcast.

What is being called "Paxlovid rebound" is not uncommon. In fact, President Biden experienced just this after a course of the drug. What should be done? Drs. Henry Miller and Josh Bloom discuss just this.

The real value of coffee
The public square must be not only civil but open to grace
The hidden life of avocados
The Sound of Movies

Regulatory capture refers to a type of “corruption,” in which a member of a regulatory body goes on to join those they once regulated. It's best thought of as having the fox guard the hen house. Last week, the FDA’s “top” tobacco scientist left for ... Philip Morris International (PMI), the makers of, among other brands, Marlboro cigarettes.

This week we found that we had lost a member of the ACSH family to ocular melanoma, the wife of our past President Hank Campbell. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Hank and his family. We thought we would take a moment to review some information about this exceedingly rare disease.

What's worse? Getting health advice from an alternative medicine website advertising in a golf magazine or Dr. Oz? At ACSH these questions are par for the course.

We hear a lot about the tons of plastic that pollute our oceans, but the solution to this troubling problem gets much less airtime. Let's take a closer look at the answer. Hint: it isn't paper straws.

How are politicians similar to bacteria? ACSH advisor Dr. Henry Miller explains.