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On February 9, 2001, the Ehime Maru, a Japanese trawler off Diamond Head in Hawaii, was rammed and subsequently sank by the USS Greeneville with the loss of nine lives. The Naval Court of Inquiry found the captain responsible. What does any of this have to do with COVID-19, let alone swiss cheese? Let’s start with the findings of the naval inquiry that will get us to the cheese.

According to a recently released study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG): “Wireless radiation exposure for children should be hundreds of times lower than current federal limits.” It recommends stricter, lower exposure limits for all radio frequency sources, especially for children. Is there a reason for concern?

Stuart Little aside, laboratory animals aren’t people. And – yes – I know that this is pretty obvious to most of us, but it needs to be said. This is one limitation in studying the effects of…well…anything on rats and mice and applying the results to humans.

To a physicist, every moment of every day is filled with radiation.

Last week with little fanfare, the Environmental Working Group released its latest “report” on the putative harmful effects of cellphone radiation. Right from the start, it features two eye-catching words, "radiation" and "children."

Roughly 70% of Americans have gotten or plan to get vaccinated – a percentage that has not changed since June. The public remains divided between those that fear the virus and its consequences and those who fear the vaccination.

June and July saw substantial changes in the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic, essentially reflecting the competition between relief from vaccination and the spread of the more contagious delta variant of the virus. These changes varied by time and place; here we seek perspective by examining temporal trends in six regions of the US [1]

Is there *nothing* so offensive and juvenile that it's off-limits, even to me? Maybe not.

Masks offer some protection against COVID-19 infection, but not nearly as much as the authorized vaccines. By telling the public they have to continue masking after immunization, we all but guarantee skeptics will forgo both shots and masks.

I've been following (and writing about) Antibe Therapeutics' otenaproxesul, an atypical NSAID without the GI toxicity of Aleve or Advil, since early 2020. It's been nothing but good news. Until now. Otenaproxesul caused a substantial jump in liver enzymes in some clinical trial participants. Can the company overcome this? Wall Street sure doesn't think so.

Studies investigating serious side effects associated with the COVID-19 vaccines are beginning to give us a better sense of how safe the shots are. Despite what you may see on Twitter, the evidence continues to show that vaccination poses minimal risk to the vast majority of people.

Viral evolution, school lunch, soil science, and life on Mars.

EPIC is arguably THE electronic health record system in the US with the most significant market share (56% of all patient records). Countless millions of federal money have passed into their corporate coffers during our transition to digital record keeping. Artificial intelligence, which is more sizzle than steak, at least medical care has been held out as a grail where the data held in electronic health records could be fashioned to improve medical care. A study from JAMA updates us on that particular marriage.

A new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association tells us what anyone with two functioning brain cells already knows: When patients on long-term opioid therapy have their meds tapered, bad things happen. Here are the details.

Despite relatively high vaccine uptake, New York City is about to enact mandatory shots for all residents before they can visit indoor restaurants, gyms and entertainment centers. This is unhelpful at best and counterproductive at worst.

Writing for the Reason Foundation, Jacob James Rich and Robert Capodilupo tell us what we already know – that Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) may have had a purpose when first initiated but that time has passed. Now the programs, which are intrusive and possibly a HIPAA violation, serve only to drive up black-market drug use.

As the Delta variant becomes THE primary source of COVID-19 infections there’s a growing body of knowledge to explain why this is happening. Let's consider two new studies and a fact we may have forgotten.

Three well-known anti-GMO groups have attacked the New York Times for publishing a generally excellent story about crop biotechnology. Natural News, for example, called the article "pure propaganda masquerading as journalism." Unsurprisingly, Natural News is wrong.

CMS provides a twice-annual snapshot of the care and concerns of Medicare beneficiaries. They just released the latest survey that ended in April. We have time to take in a few curated highlights.

The CDC is again recommending that fully vaccinated Americans mask up in certain circumstances. This is bad advice at odds with the available evidence that will only seed more vaccine hesitancy.

The Philippines has finally approved Golden Rice, a genetically engineered crop designed to combat vitamin A deficiency. Greenpeace, never content to let evidence guide its agenda, has trotted out some mealymouthed justifications to urge regulators to reverse the decision.

New CDC recommendations say that the use of masks indoors should be governed by the level of COVID transmission in a particular area. But the agency's plan is unworkable. Here's why.

I never really got into fishing, although I have many friends and family who love it. While it’s not the reason I don’t fish, I was surprised to find out recently how hazardous it is – according to statistics, fishing accounts for about 80,000 injuries every year in the US alone, [1] and that doesn’t even get into things like drowning, electrocution, and so forth. And when we look at the dangers of commercial fishing, things get even worse. Reading that chapter made me wonder why any sane person would ever pick up a rod and reel and go anywhere near the water. 

How do you protect a baby who can't get vaccinated from relatives who won't get vaccinated? Scientific arguments don't work, but proper incentives and boundaries just might. Here's what I've discovered in my first few weeks of parenthood.

The FDA needs to step up and fix the definition of strength. "Business as usual” under the existing language of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 means continued disincentives to promote a more aggressive uptake of biosimilars.