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As you enter those “golden” years, what does it cost you, in out-of-pocket costs, to be chronically ill? 66% of seniors have two or more chronic conditions; 16% have six or more. When discussing the cost of being ill financially, we are not talking about “chump change,” especially for those on a fixed income.

Could anything be more terrifying than your child being seriously ill? Children have been the last group to begin to receive vaccinations. We rightly suggest they congregate daily in schools. How at risk are they in the face of the rising cases of Omicron?

Given the proliferation of claims about the health benefits of marijuana – especially following its decriminalization – it should come as no surprise that cannabis-based chemicals are being evaluated as potential COVID therapies. Two of them, CBGA and CBDA, have been found to bind to the infamous viral spikes and inhibit the replication of COVID. Do these drugs have what it takes to make a useful drug? Read on.

Four months after President Biden announced his innovative plan to compel vaccination, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on its validity. Biden’s plan had three parts; the Fifth Circuit Court struck them all down.

Sometimes a picture or, in what follows, a video is worth so many words. Let’s consider the COVID variants; how could there possibly be so many so quickly. The answer, of course, lies in the work of Darwin.

The USDA's "bioengineered" (GMO) food label is expensive and pointless, facts widely disseminated by the science community. The media has been critical of the new labeling regulations as well, though for the wrong reasons. Here's a textbook example from NBC News.

Two newly-approved antiviral drugs against COVID are now available to those who need them. But the FDA is getting in the way with unwise and counterproductive requirements. Drs. Jeffrey Singer and Josh Bloom explain in their Op Ed in the New York Daily News.

A new study suggests that e-cigarette users, known also as vapers, may harm the respiratory health of those around them via "secondhand vaping." Before we draw any conclusions, the paper has some important limitations that restrict its relevance to the real world.

Patients and their doctors have voted with their scripts. Overwhelmingly, they are choosing Pfizer's Paxlovid and rejecting Merck's molnupiravir. So much so that when Paxlovid is unavailable (which is most of the time) many don't even bother to try the other option. Surprising?

This is another retrospective observational study, this one from England looking at the transmission of COVID-19 in both its alpha and delta variants to other adults. It helped me refine how I think about vaccines, let me share the findings and my thoughts.

It's time for another installment of the "Health Ranger Chronicles," where we critically examine the strange ideas promoted by Mike Adams' wildly popular website Natural News. This time we investigate a story about Monster Energy's "Satanic" plot to poison our children with sugar and caffeine.

Even before the time of COVID, urgent care centers (those in the trade call them docs in a box) were the go-to alternative to a long Emergency Department wait or having to see your primary care physician (PCP in the jargon) during your work hours, or in a week or so. I get it; your time is just as valuable as mine. But I wonder if something is lost in patients treating physicians as commodities and physicians treating patients as consumers. A new study looks at how the length of time seeing the same doctor influences your care.

All over the U.S. the lines for COVID testing often stretch around the block. You can wait an hour or two just to be tested, before learning that the results are not available when you need them. President Biden is going to send us all two home tests. But what are the science-guided recommendations? The New England Journal of Medicine provides a very reasonable answer, beginning with a simple picture.

One of our engaged readers raised a new JAMA study on surgical outcomes based on the genders of the surgeon and patient. According to the study, everyone does better with a female surgeon, although you can consider a male surgeon if you’re a male patient. Could this be true?

The risk management of raw cookie dough, the psychic and physical energy spent in engaging misery, Don’t look up, and the supply chain, quarterly profits, and too-just-in-time.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) required large food chains to post the calories along with the prices for their food. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest [1], this costs food chains roughly $45,000 each to create that information; producing the changes in menus is an additional cost. A new study shows what we got, calorie-wise, for all that fuss and bother. 

No, denial is not the name of a river in Egypt. It has, and still is, alive and well in many of our most contentious political and scientific concerns. But in order to combat denial, one must be aware of what’s in the denialist’s toolbox. Here are the hammers, screwdrivers, and saws used to construct the denialist platform.

Finally, there are antiviral drugs that will keep people with COVID out of the hospital (and the morgue). But, good luck getting a prescription if you should need it. The FDA has pretty much guaranteed that this will be almost impossible. Here's why.

Reporters and science communicators commonly point to widespread COVID misinformation to explain why so many people are skeptical of vaccines and other infection-control measures. Bad pandemic takes clearly influence the public, but there's much more to the story.

Another study has found that lotteries didn't boost COVID vaccine uptake last year. Here's a few reasons why these giveaways probably didn't work.

Yay! We have another variant. But this time, the scientists who isolated it named it after themselves. Shameless? I say yes.

Should we end anonymity on the Internet to bring civility back? The Great Barrington Declaration, Making a Deal with the Devil, a contrarian opinion on the value of a vegan diet.

Hospitals are noisy places. What with the alarms and the interruptions to take medications or check your blood pressure, pulse, or blood sugar. It is challenging for patients to get any real rest. Short of a medically induced coma, is there anything to be done? A new study offers up a possibility.

Hello, nut cases! Have I got a book for you. Comedy writer Dennis DiClaudio's  "The Hypochondriac's Pocket Guide to Horrible Diseases" is both repugnant and hilarious. Here are three (of many) diseases you don't want to catch. Not for the squeamish. Plus some science thrown in. No extra charge.

Are GM crops a tool of "neocolonialism"? The answer is "no." I joined Dr. Kevin Folta on episode 325 of the Talking Biotech Podcast to explain why.