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Pregnancy and pediatric "advice" comes from all directions when you're a soon-to-be parent, and most of it is scientifically dubious. In part one, I examined the potentially harmful suggestions my wife and I received from friends and family. This time, I'll cover the less deadly but still ridiculous recommendations.

When you have a baby on the way, everybody has "helpful" advice that isn't all that helpful. Most of it, in fact, is downright useless, and some of it is potentially very harmful. We'll start with the latter and revisit the useless in part two of this series.

Could your parents' social circles increase or decrease your lifespan? Are some really born with a “silver spoon” in their mouths?

New COVID-19 cases (infections) and deaths began a steep decline in January, followed by deaths and case-fatality rates a few weeks later. What are the sources of the variability we identified in our national regions?

If we want people to refuse COVID vaccines, a recent CNN segment featuring political pundit Max Boot illustrates how we can do it.

Biopharmaceutical companies, insurers, pharmacy benefit managers and the government can and must work together to keep each other accountable and embrace value-based or outcomes-based reimbursement. The guiding principle being that “IF” the new innovative medicine delivers the outcomes and value promised to patients and the U.S. economy, the therapy will be rewarded.

New data have been published on drug overdose deaths in 2020. Although you won't find it anywhere obvious, prescription opioid analgesics remain only a minor (and stable) contributor to the record 93,000 people who died from drug overdoses last year.

Scientists and farmers are taking to social media in increasing numbers to fight anti-GMO misinformation. The results so far have been promising.

For a minute, let’s suspend political views about COVID-19 vaccinations, masking, drugs; let’s put aside beliefs about vaccine acceptance, hesitancy, or refusal. Ethical considerations might help address the conflict between the forces that drive current positions: individualism and autonomy on one side versus solidarity and collectivism on the other. An ethical inquiry may promote a more equitable, practical, and effective approach. Let’s tease out the principles and see.

Mike Adams' perennially ridiculous anti-vaccine website Natural News continues to publish bad takes on the COVID vaccines. Welcome to part three of the 'Health Ranger' Chronicles.

Cows to the rescue, truthfulness vs. truth, are pescatarians more ethical than those who eat beef?

The FDA’s controversial approval of Aduhelm, the drug intended to treat Alzheimer’s Disease, has resulted in resignations from their advisory committee and now investigations, both internal and Congressional. The FDA and editors of JAMA Internal Medicine are speaking out before the investigational circus comes to town.

In part one of this series, we looked at some of the hallmarks of sloppy pesticide reporting. We round out our analysis here with a breakdown of three more themes common to this species of junk journalism.

Are open methods, open data, and access are essential requirements underlying transparency. But are they enough to establish the integrity of research? How frequent is “research misconduct,” and what factors would encourage such behavior? A new study reaches some tentative conclusions. 

New COVID-19 cases (infections) and deaths began a steep decline in January, followed by fewer deaths a few weeks later, resulting in lower case-fatality rates. Vaccination rates began to increase during this period, but not everywhere nor for everyone. Did these public health benefits result from increased vaccination rates?  

A Texas wedding this past April became an unintentional experiment in vaccine efficacy. All 92 guests were vaccinated but COVID disease broke through in six people. Four of them got one of the mRNA vaccines and developed one mild illness. Two got Covaxin, a vaccine developed in India. Both became very ill and one subsequently died. The culprit was the dangerous delta variant.

Cultivated meat refers to a “meat-like” product grown in a laboratory, not a cow or pig raised listening to Vivaldi. As the market for plant-based “meat-like” products rapidly expands, is there a place for food produced in the laboratory?

Plant-based meat alternatives are a rapidly growing market, bound to be accelerated by Beyond Meat’s recent introduction of a plant-based chicken alternative. A new study makes a nutritional comparison that significantly goes beyond the required Nutritional Facts panel.

The world, or at least the media, has been captured by the space race of two titans of industry, Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. While the amount of CO2 created by their flights is, in itself, insignificant, if space travel is truly for tourists, those amounts will surely rise.

The DEA lifted its 2007 ban on methadone clinics sending out mobile units to reach people in communities underserved by the clinics. But patients are required to take the methadone in the presence of clinic staff. A better solution is to let doctors prescribe take-home methadone, like they do in Canada, UK, Australia--and they were permitted to do as an emergency measure during the pandemic.

A new study suggests that vaccine lotteries won't boost COVID-19 immunizations. Politics and hypocrisy may help explain why these incentive-based campaigns yield disappointing results.

Usually an excellent source for science-based commentary, The Conversation recently published, to put it charitably, a questionable article about the dangers of the weedkiller glyphosate. What did the authors get wrong? Almost everything.

Those of us who are non-millennials may remember back to the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s when the hottest environmental issue was acid rain. In fact, acid rain generated as much controversy and international conflicts as the big environmental issue of today, climate change, with scientists, policymakers, and politicians engaging in heated battles over this issue.  

Pesticides can be very dangerous; they're also vital tools farmers use to produce our food. Here's a guide to help you navigate the media maze of sloppy reporting on pesticide safety.

So far, 11 different variants of COVID-19 have been identified and assigned a Greek letter for identification. Although delta (originally from India) is making all kinds of trouble worldwide, it will eventually be replaced by something worse. All the more reason to get vaccinated now.