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“Organic” might be the most abused word in the English language. Chemists, farmers, and marketers all use it—and none of them mean the same thing. The result is a label that can make Oreos, cigarettes, and even bottled water sound like health food. Tampons too.

For more than half a century, US regulatory policy on chemical and radiation risks has rested on a deeply flawed scientific foundation. Researchers such as Dr. Ed Calabrese and whistleblower Dr. Paul Selby have spent decades documenting how a pivotal scientific misrepresentation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1950s misled regulatory agencies and distorted risk assessment for generations. The ripple effect of this error persists, influencing regulations, shaping policy, and framing cancer risk in ways that may not accurately reflect reality.

We like to think that our successes are earned and our failures are due to bad luck — but chance plays a far bigger role than we admit. A new study of simple coin tosses reveals how even in transparently random events, people perceive streaks of wins and losses as meaningful signals, demonstrating that small stories often outweigh big data in shaping what we believe.

With the Supreme Court’s ratifying Tennessee’s ban on trans-care for youth despite conflicting science and international discord over their safety, society is faced with a broader concern: who decides these morally-fraught issues: politicians or physicians– especially when science hasn’t accumulated enough evidence to provide an answer.

Blood sugar spikes have become the latest villain in wellness culture, thanks to influencers peddling hacks to “flatten your curve.” But here’s the thing: for healthy people, glucose rising after a meal isn’t a crisis—it’s biology doing exactly what it’s supposed to. Before you panic over a perfectly normal blip on a fancy sensor, remember that your body already has the system figured out.

This week, Antoni Gaudí’s curvy cathedrals remind us that straight lines are for mortals, while curves belong to God (and occasionally zoning boards). Then we tackle the trolley problem—imagining whether you’d rather kill one person or five, all in the name of AI ethics. The Vatican’s star-gazing reminds us that the Catholic Church and science weren’t always sworn enemies. At the same time, New York’s original gambling kingpin, Arnold Rothstein, shows us that organized crime and casinos were cozy long before corporate licensing boards showed up.

Eating more calories earlier in the day may improve your insulin sensitivity, boosting your metabolic health and aiding weight management. Was "breakfast like a king, dinner like a pauper" right all along? Maybe. Recent genetics research might help validate this age-old nutritional wisdom.

Americans are regularly exposed to low levels of radiation during CT scans, fueling media speculation that this routine medical procedure is driving an epidemic of cancers. Is there any truth to the CT scan-cancer association? Let's look at the data.

A new study reveals that when formulated to meet healthy guidelines, even UPFs can support weight loss and enhance key health markers. The real story isn’t just about “processing” — it’s about context, composition, and whether people can stick with the diet in the long run.

Never let it be said that we at ACSH don't drop everything (including our pants) to get you the biggest, juiciest stories. Here's one. Dude Wipes, the maker of a male-oriented product designed to give guys sparkling sphincters, has changed its logo. Have a seat.

What drugs does the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) block patients and doctors from accessing that Canadian patients and doctors can get? To address the question, we compared the contents of the American Drugs@FDA database and the Canadian Drug Product Database. These government-run databases provide the most current information on the approval status of most drug products in these two countries. We identified 69 drugs that have received market approval in Canada but not in the US. It’s easy to imagine that removing barriers to drugs approved in other comparator countries like Australia, Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, and Switzerland could improve access to dozens, if not hundreds, of additional medicines.”

Have you heard of fibermaxxing? It's all the rage on TikTok, or HealthTok, as influencers literally "max out" on their daily fiber intake for wellness-- and undoubtedly views. But introducing your body to fiber it hasn't seen before comes with some unpleasant side effects.

History tends to spotlight the giants of science, while the quiet architects of community health slip into obscurity. Dr. Eva Salber’s work transformed maternal and child health, empowered underserved communities, and reshaped public health education—yet her name rarely surfaces alongside medicine’s most celebrated figures. It’s time to bring her voice, and her vision, back into focus.

The current assault on science, research, and academia is calculated. Pulling federal funding from universities, labs, and entire agencies may allow the Trump Administration to claim they are “saving money,” but it also has another side effect that I suspect is the real reason: scientists, researchers, and academics are arbiters of truth and reality, and if you can remove them then you can control what you want reality to be.

Seventeen experts out, a “clean slate” in. Secretary Kennedy sold the purge of ACIP as a “clean sweep” of conflicted interests. But the data suggest the real conflicts of interest were largely cleaned up years ago. Is this progress or smoke and mirrors?

While surgical education has always relied on mentorship, the rise of artificial intelligence offers a new way to measure and refine skills; however, data alone can’t teach mastery. It takes a human, with empathy and nuance that no algorithm can fake, to turn metrics into meaningful lessons. The best learning didn’t come from smooth sailing but from frustration and mental sweat, suggesting that a bit of discomfort may be the sharpest “scalpel in the training room.”

A growing body of research suggests that your gut microbiome can influence your health in a variety of subtle but important ways, and the foods you consume can have an upstream effect on the health of these trillions of microbes residing in your digestive system. An ACSH reader asks whether the widely used sweetener high fructose corn syrup should be avoided for that reason. Let's take a look.

In just three months, ChatGPT will turn three, and it’s already reshaping the way we work, think, and even imagine the future. Today, AI systems can generate images, mimic human behavior, and tackle tasks that once seemed uniquely human — feats that evoke awe, a sense of dystopia, and raise uncomfortable questions: “Will my job survive the rise of machines?”

American health policy has long grappled with the same question: do we change behavior by changing individuals, or by modifying the environments in which they live? From tobacco warnings to pandemic lockdowns, history shows that slogans fade but structures endure. The coming MAHA initiative will be judged not by its rhetoric, but by whether it builds the scaffolding that makes healthy choices unavoidable.

Before you toss every packaged food into the trash, consider that the line between“healthy” and “ultra-processed” is blurrier than wellness gurus would like you to believe. A fortified wholegrain loaf can be branded a dietary villain, while bacon and puffed rice sail through unscathed. The real story isn’t about purity versus poison; it’s about convenience, nutrition, and whether we’re confusing classification with common sense.

Earlier this month, Wall Street Journal columnist Charles Fain Lehman highlighted a new working paper on drug decriminalization in Oregon and Washington. The study linked reforms to higher violent and property crime rates, but left unanswered whether decriminalization itself was to blame—or if fentanyl, the pandemic, and policing shifts were the real drivers.

Have you seen the viral video of an influencer telling us to ditch the sunscreen and drink watermelon juice instead? We’re not joshing you— watch our video, and how we respond!

After warning for years—to policymakers’ deaf ears—that doubling down on failed drug war policies will only cause more dangerous drugs, like nitazenes, to emerge, we see it happening in real time.

What goes viral online isn’t just about what’s said—it’s about how it feels. Choose the right emotional spark and a post becomes a wildfire, while others sputter out before they’ve left your immediate circle. What up with that?

Smoking kills hundreds of thousands of Americans annually. As this death toll mounts, studies continue to show that nicotine vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking and far more effective than FDA-approved cessation therapies like nicotine gum. Why, then, do so many public health experts malign vaping as a threat? Let's take a closer look.