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Sports fans will never forget the day in 1991 when L.A. Lakers star Earvin "Magic" Johnson announced that he was infected with HIV. Johnson was lucky; he survived long enough to see the advent of the first effective AIDS drugs. But not everyone was so lucky.

“For a man's house is his castle, and each man's home is his safest refuge.” With that phrasing, English common law reinvented the Castle Doctrine, the concept that one may be safe and protect one’s home. With time, the definition of our “home” expanded into the space around us, morphing from the Castle Doctrine to Stand Your Ground. A new study looks at how those laws have changed our behavior.

Nurses, more so than physicians, are joining the Great Resignation. 32% say they are heading for the exits, up from 22% just a few months ago.

You receive a phone call that one of your parents, no longer at “the top of their game,” has fallen in a nursing home. Not only fallen but broken their leg. Without surgery, they will be confined to a bed or chair; with surgery comes an increased risk of dying in the immediate “aftermath” of the procedure. What should you do? A new study considers those issues, which unfortunately are more common than we like to believe.

It seems that COVID-19 is, finally and hopefully, waning from the American scene. Before we face another wave or a new threat, it might make sense to review some of the legal fallout, notably the interplay between freedom of religion, the obligation of the state to protect public health, and the prevalence of changing attitudes championing solidarity versus those advocating autonomy.

Should the COVID drug Paxlovid be available without a prescription? Some argue that pharmacists should be able to distribute the drug to people who have tested positive for COVID while others, including the AMA, believe that only physicians should be able to prescribe the drug because of some potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions. Cato Institute's Dr. Jeffrey Singer weighs in.

Upon first glance, the revision of the atrocious 2016 CDC opioid prescribing guidelines would seem to be an improvement – a low bar by any measure. But it doesn't take long to see that the 2022 version still leaves much to be desired.

A recent study found that moderate alcohol consumption — even one drink a day — could shrink your brain. The explosion of context-free headlines predictably followed. Let's dive a little deeper and examine what most reporters missed.

This article, which complements the one by my colleague Chuck Dinerstein, discusses the broad findings of a provocative study that ties IQ loss directly with childhood lead exposure. The study estimates that 90% of the children born between 1950 and 1980 had clinical concerning blood lead levels, resulting in decreased IQ levels. Certainly, these results will cause great concern among us baby boomers, and some might even say that this finding helps explain many of the world’s problems.

While the concerns from Flint, Michigan about contaminated water has renewed interest in how lead pollutes our environment, lead pollutants go back many decades. A new study tries to calculate the IQ points the population has lost because of lead. A more careful read does point out some of lead’s history – the good and the bad.

Another day, another bad vaping study makes headlines. This time researchers speculate that e-cigarette use may increase your risk for prediabetes.

MIT’s first female student and professor, why nutritional studies go awry, a Carl Sagan Moment, and “clandestine” Chinese scientists and our northern neighbor.

“Compared with white men, African American men are more likely to develop prostate cancer and are twice as likely to die from the disease.” National Cancer Institute [1]
The underlying “reasons” are biological, cultural, and societal. A new JAMA Oncology study looks at societal causes.

What chemicals, specifically, pose a danger as a potential human carcinogen? To address this issue two competing approaches, which use scientific data to evaluate chemicals for this danger, are at odds. Can we tease out which of these two may be “better”?

Communication is a two-way street – what the speaker is sharing and what the listener hears. Twitter keeps our communications brief, sharing thoughts, not fully formed ideas. I’ve written about what we hear on several occasions, but a new study looks at what is being said by journalists and how that differs greatly from what they write.

It is indeed another day and time to complete my deeper look at the origin and uses of Morphine Milligram Equivalents (MME). It is time to consider the uncertainty introduced in how MMEs are calculated and how that makes the research on MME a minefield of unintended errors and variation.

An email from Dr. Kan Shao, a professor at Indiana University School of Public Health, states that EPA’s current version of Benchmark Dose Software modeling is “extremely misleading and not scientifically justified.” It is very unusual for a scientist who has been deeply involved with the EPA in developing risk assessment modeling to openly criticize the EPA. This requires a deeper dive into this issue.

I spoke recently with John Batchelor (CBS Eye on the World) and Mark Hahn (Drive Time Live, CSCJ Radio) about the recent therapeutic breakthrough in treating Sickle Cell Disease.

A new internal organ!
Why is TV news wildly profitable?
A Holiday Warning - making consumption easy
Cash is King!

Walk down the baby food aisle in your supermarket, and you'll surely run into the “Toddler Milk” display. Every parent or grandparent wants the best for their child, and a product specially geared to a toddler's needs seems enticing. Don’t be fooled.

A recent survey of pharmacists found that 75% did not have “enough time and personnel to safely perform or meet duties.” This is due, in part, to pharmacists shouldering the extra burden of providing vaccinations. And because 94% of pharmacists work for large corporations, where productivity is measured in prescriptions completed hourly. The typical solution is to increase the number of pharmacists or to turn much of the pharmacy function over to pharmacist-extenders pharmacist technicians. However, there is a simpler solution.

Bioaerosols generated by infected patients constitute a significant source of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious agents. COVID-19 epidemiology has been limited to large populations in which varying behavior, living conditions, and life views may influence exposures. As a result, it's difficult to distinguish personal characteristics from concomitant levels of viral exposure.

The recent meeting between President Biden and China's President Xi Jinping delved into the U.S. fentanyl crisis, centering on the export of fentanyl chemical precursors from China to Mexico, where they are converted into fentanyl. However, there is an inherent challenge in restricting precursor chemicals. A minimally trained organic chemist can either make them or simply use a different, unrestricted chemical. Thus, any international agreement designed to minimize fentanyl by restricting precursors is likely to fail, defeated by organic chemistry.

John Batchelor and I discuss the current state of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the emergence of the Omicron EG.5 sub-variant and its impact. Among the ongoing challenges are viral evolution, testing difficulties, and the effectiveness of masks. I am critical of irresponsible personal behaviors and legislative attempts to prohibit mask and vaccine mandates. Continued precautions are important.

In this radio interview with John Batchelor, our conversation includes (1) the approval of the latest COVID vaccines; and (2) the problem – especially for people in some occupations – with testing for the presence of marijuana and other drugs.