Can being one with nature harm nature?
For Climate Change - Having your meat and eating it too.
“VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
Advice from a bad mother
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The Fourth Turning and Complexity
Can a medication change our brain’s anatomy?
Are colonoscopies helpful?
Can the value of chicken soup be quantified?
The U.S. Government doesn't want to hear the message: The Centers for Disease Control and the Veterans Administration published practice guidelines on the prescription of opioid pain relievers in 2022 that they knew were unsupported by science and harmful to public health. The Department of Health and Human Services is stone-walling repeated demands for a senior staff review of these issues.
Roadside drug tests are unreliable, so why are they so widely used in the U.S.? Meanwhile, researchers who make "health disparities" the focus of their work sometimes misrepresent their results. Here's a textbook example from a study that used pulse oximetry to measure disparities in COVID-19 treatment.
Many cancers are treated with DNA-damaging drugs. But one, testicular cancer, responds so well to the drug cisplatin that the cure rate for early-stage disease is about 100%. Even if the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes, there is a five-year survival of 74%. What makes this combination of a particular drug and cell type so unique?
The COVID-19 pandemic has virtually – but not entirely – disappeared from public concerns. Nevertheless, new variants are being examined, as are new vaccines intended to counter them.
Our behavior seems to be built by evolution, and it's sometimes paradoxical. To borrow from the hard sciences, our behavior exhibits complementarity. We are largely felicitous to our family and friends, yet stand-offish (if not aggressive) to “others” we may encounter. Willful ignorance straddles that complementarity borderline. A new study offers insight into what's really going on.
Flu shots perform inconsistently because it's hard to anticipate which strains of the virus will be circulating in a given year. So far in 2023, it appears that the latest round of vaccines are working well. The FDA has determined that Sudafed PE doesn't work. Questions and accusations are flying as a result: why were we sold a useless decongestant in the first place? And more importantly, who's to blame for this public health blunder?
Advil, aka, ibuprofen, is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. It's effective for relief of pain, inflammation, and fever. It can also wreak holy hell on your stomach. Unfortunately, the two effects go together. Grab the Rolaids. It's time for an Advil lesson.
Some people drink coffee, and the next thing you know, they're trying to climb the Empire State Building. But others feel little or nothing. What's going on?
“Last month, California lawmakers passed a bill that would decriminalize the personal possession of small amounts of a few plant-based psychedelics. This raised hopes that this could be the first of many reforms to unlock the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. Unfortunately, Governor Newsom vetoed the bill, citing reasons that can only be characterized as specious.”
The anti-GMO movement used to be a cultural juggernaut. But as time goes on, the activist groups that once held so much sway seem increasingly irrelevant.
A new poll confirms that vaccine uptake is increasing in the U.S. There are legitimate concerns about convincing the minority of immunization skeptics to get their shots as we pursue herd immunity. But risk-averse regulators and panic-prone journalists may be exacerbating the problem.
Deep in our gut, our microbiologic fellow travelers await the “manna” from heaven that we provide them, prechewed and ready for assimilation. In return, they provide nutrients and exert both pro- and anti-inflammatory influences on our well-being. In many ways, aided by the microbiome, we are what we eat – if only there were a Rosetta Sone to help us know how a particular food altered the offerings of our microbial dependents.
Until recently, little was known about the safety of COVID vaccines for pregnant women. We have much more to learn, but the preliminary evidence now coming in is reassuring.
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified calls to ban flavored e-liquids used in electronic cigarettes. One physician says there's good evidence that vaping increases the risk of infection for teenagers. Do her claims stand up to scrutiny?
To speed COVID vaccine uptake and bring the pandemic to an end, some commentators are calling on the government to mandate immunization as a condition for participating in society. This may seem like a reasonable policy, but there's compelling evidence that it could backfire.
Since the start of 2021, the media has regularly urged Americans to get their COVID shots as soon as possible. But this effort won't be very effective unless reporters begin changing how they frame their coverage.
Perhaps you remember the snail darter, a tiny endangered fish that delayed the final construction and opening of the Tellico Dam in Tennessee. It was also the proximate reason that the Supreme Court upheld the Endangered Species Act. How has our understanding of the science of ecologic habitats shifted in the past forty-eight years?
Everything today comes with ratings, from 5-star hospitals to hotels, films, and screwdrivers. Like grade inflation, the problem is that nearly everyone is “best.” For marketing, it may be that the truth lies not in our stars … but in our accompanying words.
Where does the Earth’s magnetic field come from, why do we think it’s going to reverse itself (and what in the world does that mean, anyway?), and what’s any of that got to do with me or cosmic radiation?
We are all beginning to venture out. Some of us look around, and in addition to seeing Spring’s arrival, we see pandemic pounds – 10 or more. Everyone seems to be on a diet. Is there a best?
Much of the concern regarding CDC guidelines for COVID-19 involves the perception that, at times, they are contradictory. And these perceived flip-flops can be used as political fodder. While some mix-messaging is due to our changing understanding of the deadly virus, it may often stem from the struggle between messages directed at overall public health, versus those for individuals.
COVID-19 has taken a toll on our mental health. With more and more cases of depression, the deadly virus has made us more aware of our fragile existence. Perhaps, as a result, more attention is being paid to end-of-life issues, including hospice, and more controversially, euthanasia. Are we going down a slippery slope?
As we try to reopen our domestic and global markets, as well as entertainment venues, increasingly there are voices calling for a method to ensure safe passage. That method is a so-called immunity or vaccine passport. But each comes with its own price – and ethical problems.
Pagination
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