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In addition to AstraZeneca’s self-inflicted injuries in misreporting its vaccine efficacy and conducting the initial Phase III trials, it’s now contending with off-again, on-again concerns about clotting. Can we talk?

Tinnitus (aka ringing in the ears) is a problem that affects tens of millions of Americans. It's a strange affliction in several ways. First, many people have it but don't notice it. When they do, it can become deeply disturbing. Second, the ringing or whistling you hear is coming from your brain. Dr. Craig Kasper, a New York audiologist, tells us about this condition. See if it rings true.

Space is a harsh environment. We’re all familiar with the big risks from television – asteroids, solar flares, lack of air, extreme temperatures, and the occasional testy alien ships. What we don’t think about quite as much is the radiation. With trips to the Moon and Mars, in the planning stages, we are once again about to send people into that harsh universe. In addition to the engineering, logistics, and everything else that goes into such trips, NASA is looking at revising the limits for radiation exposure its astronauts can receive. 

Mainstream news outlets have gone after COVID-19 conspiracy theorists with a passion. But when it comes to equally important science topics, they have no problem ignoring evidence and promoting conspiratorial nonsense. This blatant hypocrisy causes confusion and fuels the public's skepticism of science more broadly.

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.

Last week, it was colonoscopy time again. Oh, joy! But it gave me an excuse to look up alternate bowel preps – and it's a damn good thing I did. Which prep is the one to have? Which is best to avoid? It's not so easy to tell. As a bonus, here are some hilarious quotes.

It has been a tough year for the CDC, with missteps and mixed messaging. The end result, as a new RAND study shows, is declining trust.

Urgent care centers offer more than first aid, but less than a full-service Emergency Department. It was hoped that they would reduce the number of expensive ED visits, and save money. Well, at least half of that hope has been met.

Like a number of our friends, my wife and I are switching to a more plant-based diet but still find a steak or fish a good occasional choice. That got us to talking about why some people choose to restrict their diet. In looking for an answer I ran across a plausible explanation, that generalizes to other issues.

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?

Conflicted interests in Boston healthcare, gene sequences powering a change in medicine, inheriting more than genes from our parents, and the cancel culture comes to medicine.

Funding a pull incentive for antibiotic R&D in the United States would be more attractive to our representatives in Congress if we required that all manufacturing and supply chains for the beneficiary product be physically located in this country. Dr. David Shlaes (pictured), ACSH advisor and infectious disease expert, explains.

Whether you call it pandemic waves or surges, there’s little doubt that we’re in the midst of one. It’s not necessarily as virulent as the initial wave, but it's problematic nonetheless. Are we opening up too soon, over-relaxing our vigilance? A new study suggests the surges are linked to behavior – not ours, but the virus’.

It’s been a year since we've focused on the greying of hair. The pandemic may have caused you to lose more of it than normal, either by pulling it out in frustration or because of stress. Yes, stress can cause hair loss (at least in mice).

Plumbum is the Latin word for lead. It’s also the root of the term, plumber. Part of President Biden’s infrastructure bill proposes to remove the last of our country’s lead pipes. But why do we have lead pipes anyway?   

For many of us, over the past year we’ve read like never before. In addition to many more articles, we read from many more sources. Here is a bit of information from a new research letter in the JAMA Network.

COVID-19 continues to dominate the nightly news and play upon the global stage. While the probability of personal infection remains low at about 10%, the consequences are dire and there is a need to place these continually recurring statistics into context.

The alternative health advocates at Natural News recommend you spend an additional $83,000 on organic food to avoid cancer and the cost of expensive treatments for the disease. You should save your money because eating conventional food, even if it's genetically modified, won't up your cancer risk. 

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.

Much of our behavioral changes during the COVID-19 pandemic are driven by fear, a primal survival instinct, subsequently re-enforced by state mandates. It is proving difficult for some to unwind their fear even having been vaccinated. Is fear the best means of influencing our behavior? 

It remains a mystery to me why workers in “the business” of healthcare would be hesitant to be vaccinated. After all, they have high-risk exposure daily. 

ABC News really pulled a stinker when it published an online article entitled "Over 100 fully vaccinated people contract COVID-19 in Washington state, officials say." Sounds scary, right? No. The results paint a very different picture. Cheap scare tactics are the last thing we need right now.

It took only a few days for the American Federation of Teachers, their second-largest union, to say “not so fast” to the CDC’s recommendation for opening schools by reducing pupils' distance from six to three feet. What is the science behind their concerns?

Much of the literature in the softer sciences, and here we need to include studies of public health issues, like nutrition, exercise, or even COVID-19, seem irreproducible. One group's work does not seem to be easily reproduced by another, giving rise to concerns about bias and veracity. As always, there is far more to the story.

The pandemic is not a monolithic event; it is a dance of the virus and our behavior. What we have learned about pandemics from the mistakes in our models. What about “long” COVID? Why does “if it bleeds, it leads” make sense?