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A new article in the journal Clinical Toxicology reports on prohibited stimulants, found in significant amounts, in several sports and weight-loss supplements. Don’t let the long (and maybe scary) title of the research fool you. It presents sound science and deserves a broader audience than just toxicologists.

COVID-19 has brought racial and gender disparities in healthcare to the forefront, although they have been present for many years. A new article captures the gap in research participation.

Indisputable evidence shows the absence of a correlation between the number of opioid prescriptions and opioid abuse or addiction. This has not, however, dissuaded practicing physicians from buying into the false narrative that prescribing opioids for pain is fueling the overdose crisis.

When it comes to medications and advertising, the FDA has a host of regulations designed “to better inform us,” helping to separate fact from hype. The evidence for food labels helping nudge better choices is plus-minus. How about preventative care, like sunscreen? A new study shows that labeling regulation is failing.

There has been no shortage of COVID-19 vaccine doubters. One (of the infinite number) of criticisms of the mRNA vaccines is that clinical trial data is somehow unreliable, or that the vaccine won't work in the “real world." But a study at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has slammed the brakes on that theory. The Pfizer/Moderna vaccines almost entirely prevented infection in first-line medical workers.

Are you being overcharged for aspirin in the hospital? Is it cheaper to pay for drugs in cash rather than go through your insurance plan? How can you find out? Robert Popovian and Wayne Winegarden argue that healthcare cost transparency will bring down healthcare costs.

AstraZeneca just cannot get out of its own way. The latest confusion over the company's data is the second unintentional, self-inflicted misstep, and all told it continues to generate concern.

There has for some time been a schism in medicine between the doers and the thinkers. I’m a doer, a surgeon. My friends include a lot of thinkers, oncologists, infectious disease, primary care, pediatrics. I also have “thinker-friends” that are often more like me than their thinker brothers and sisters. They are often referred to as interventionalists – cardiologists in the catheterization laboratory or gastroenterologists with their scopes. 

What is trust? Did whales learn to avoid whalers? The dangerous self-fulfillment of ludic loops

The more protective our immunity is after being infected by COVID-19, the less likely we will be reinfected. A recent study from Denmark shows that our immune system does a pretty good job, but the vaccination might be a wee-bit better.

You would think that healthcare workers, those in “the business,” would be jumping at getting a COVID-19 vaccine – you would be wrong. Here are a few of the facts.

It costs considerably more to live in an assisted-living setting than to remain at home. But our healthcare system frequently doesn’t address the changes to the “infrastructure” necessary to allow individuals to access that option. We are, at best, being “penny wise, pound foolish.” And, at worst, we're placing the elderly in less hospitable environments.

If junk science were a competition, the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) annual reported “Dirty Dozen” would routinely make the finals. As expected, in 2021, EWG has again demonized conventional agriculture practices with their Dirty Dozen list, and there are no shortages of naïve reporters in the media willing to accommodate their nonsense. 

In today's "just when you think it can't get any worse" feature, DEA agents are now seizing counterfeit Adderall pills that contain pure methamphetamine. Although Mexican drug cartels are blamed for making these pills to get young people addicted to meth, the ultimate blame falls on DEA policies. What a mess.

We will almost certainly never know the origins of COVID-19. But we can make an informed, by science, guess when it jumped to humans and the early chain of events that followed. A new paper in Science makes the case.

As biotech firm AquaBounty prepares to harvest its GE AquAdvantage salmon for sale in the US, activist groups have trotted out long-refuted arguments in a bid to stir up consumer opposition. Here's everything you need to know.

The CDC just revised its guidance to K-12 schools on the social-distancing guidelines for keeping students and staff safe, from six to three feet. Is the agency following the science? Bending to a new political will? Here's what led to that decision.

Do you have questions about the COVID-19 vaccines, and wonder how safe and effective they are? Of course, you do. We all have them, so you've come to the right place. In his latest video presentation of A Dose of Science, Dr. Joe Schwarcz, the Director of McGill University's Office for Science and Society, clearly and simply explains how the vaccines were tested, and why they are all both safe and effective. Overall "we are very happy with what we are seeing," he says, so "go get the vaccine" because the health "benefits greatly outweigh the risks."

Ever heard of the Hotze Health & Wellness Center in Houston? If not, you're better off. Its founder, Dr. Steven Hotze, has plenty to say about COVID, almost all of it completely wrong.

Is it too early to try and summarize what we have learned about the pandemic? Pompeii's lessons on recovering from disaster. Rules to live by?

According to Sen. Rand Paul – an ophthalmologist, not an infectious disease specialist – natural immunity is better. While not being an infectious disease expert myself, I at least know enough to fact-check before speaking. So the answer, as is frequently the case, is: it depends.

Most individuals simply have a very unrealistic expectation as to how many calories they burn during exercise and what they can achieve in weight loss through exercise alone, even though they may have expended a great deal of effort to do so.

Science should always be open to new approaches and ideas. Perhaps this seems self-evident, but although this may sound good in theory, many scientists view new approaches challenging their long-held beliefs with skepticism or downright hostility. Rather than rationally examining ideas that cause discomfort, ideas are off-handedly dismissed, and the people advancing them are attacked. This is the scientific version of “cancel culture.”

What is it about science that has allowed our knowledge to advance so rapidly? And why wasn’t science invented long before that pivotal figure, Issac Newton? These are some of the questions that Michael Strevens, a professor of the philosophy of science, attempts to answer in a book called The Knowledge Machine. 

Farewell articles are tough to write, which is one reason why I try not to write them very often.