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A clinical trial of various schedules for administering the two vaccines found that when they were administered together, "the quantitative and functional antibody responses were marginally lower compared to [COVID-19] booster vaccination alone. Lower protection against COVID-19 with concurrent administration of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination cannot be excluded." Thus, the data are somewhat equivocal, but I'll opt to get the two shots at different times.

The value of limitation
The cost of speeding
What’s to eat?
How the media portrays us

In the last few weeks, there have been two articles on the benefit of supplements, specifically multivitamins and flavonols (extracted from cocoa), on improving memory. The media mentioned the multivitamins; the flavanols garnered no attention. What did the studies report?

Two decades after the advent of date rape drugs we now have something conceptually similar but worse. Gangs in New York are using fentanyl to incapacitate bar patrons and then robbing them. This is worse than it sounds. Deaths from incapacitation by date rape drugs were rare; those from fentanyl are not.

There are many shorthand rules and heuristics used in medicine. One of the classics: “When you hear hoofbeats, you don’t think of zebras.” It is a way of saying that, given a specific clinical presentation, you first look for the most common causes. A new paper in JAMA is concerned about those hoofbeats.

In March 2023, the EPA proposed controversial drinking water regulations for two “forever chemicals,” PFOA and PFOS - setting extremely low allowable levels for both. On May 30, the public comment period ended. How EPA responds to public comments could significantly shape the final rule. This article examines the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) requiring agencies to consider public comment and a few of the significant comments received on the proposed rule.

Carbon credits are tradable certificates entitling the bearer to emit one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent. In 2018, 98.4 million metric tons of CO2 (MgCO2) were marketed for a value to the seller of $296 million. A third of those credits were generated by a program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). Does this market solution reduce our carbon footprint, or are we looking at something Bernie Madoff or Sam Bankman-Fried might be offering?

On February 23, 2023, the World Health Organization released the “Zero Draft” (WHO CA+)  of their post-COVID Pandemic Preparedness Proposal, which some have categorized as a treaty. A final document is promised for 2024. Various governments and political factions have already trashed the draft, claiming it encroaches on the sovereignty of member nations. So, is it merely advisory, or is it binding?

Technology has helped to double food production in the last 50 years. We have the cheapest, safest, most abundant food supply in history, but the enemies of progress, both foreign and domestic, continue to attack the technologies that have made that possible.

The recent fires in Canada that resulted in a few days of heavy smoke-related air pollution in the Northeast have momentarily grabbed our attention. The very vocal "enviro-fearful" are concerned with more fires to come; the quieter "enviro-fearless" shrug it off as bad forest management. Each side accuses the other of bias in their interpretation of these events. There's another predictor of the future that has no such prejudice, and they're signaling their alarm by getting out.

Change your words when you speak
Ernie Pyle
Finding a Solution to Food Waste
Instant Pot explains venture capitalism

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that "the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good." Mask and vaccine mandates, therefore, are, under some circumstances, constitutional.

Pfizer has just completed phase 3 trials of a new antibiotic that's active against highly resistant Gram-negative infections. It's a real superbug fighter. But what took so long?

Masks were once confined to those celebrating Halloween or as historical notes about historic plagues. But they returned to command our awareness in the Age of COVID. There are differences of opinion on how efficacious they are: the overall benefit versus how much damage they might have done. A new study speaks to their physiologic harms.

Over the last few years, it’s become clear that using a patient’s race as a variable in some predictive models – like those involving kidney function – leads to poorer outcomes. Meanwhile, removing that variable leads to improved prediction of patient risk, more prompt treatment, and presumably better outcomes. A new study shows that by taking the race variable “out of the equation” the predictive model fares worse. Should we consider race as a determinant of health?

On May 29, the Vogtle 3 nuclear reactor was brought to 100% power for the first time. It's getting closer to adding another 1100 MW to the grid, with its sister plant, Vogtle 4, not far behind. This is significant because the Vogtle reactors are the first new nuclear power plants built in the U.S. since the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown.

When a guy is standing at a urinal in a public men’s room how do subsequent urinators choose where to stand? This vital matter is the subject of an academic paper which I will try (but fail) to explain. Who cares? We both know this is thinly-disguised juvenile (and hopefully offensive) humor. In honor of June 21st - National Urine Day!

The chemistry of global warming (GW) driven by heat-trapping air pollutants is measured and reported. Various mathematical models have been used to project future global scenarios. Since natural sources of greenhouse agents are largely beyond our control, here we focus on anthropogenic sources mainly involving combustion – typically byproducts, rather than end products. I use statistical methods to estimate the situation in 2050.

With COVID-19’s “public health emergency” barely behind us, lawyers and policymakers are taking advantage of public sensitivity and planning for the next plague. How good their solutions are remains to be seen, but novel suggestions, and attention to new technology and historical practices, are few and far between.

Remember herd immunity, the early aspirational goal of our COVID strategy? It has arrived, at least according to some recent findings of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWR).

For the past five years, the DEA has classified fentanyl-related substances as Schedule 1 drugs, hoping it will reduce fentanyl-related overdose deaths . Deaths have nearly doubled since then. But, inexplicably, some in Congress think that placing fentanyl-related substances permanently on Schedule 1 will bring the overdose rate down.“

Both political parties use misinformation
Feynman’s learning technique
Anxious carnivore?
Car Dealers “one of the most important secular forces in American conservatism”?

Can a degradation product and chemical used to make sucralose – sucralose-6-acetate – damage our DNA? As is often the case, it depends. Here, it's about your metric of DNA damage and your exposure. Leaving the scary headlines and media confabulation behind, here's a breakdown of the study. 

It is a palliative care initiative in which clinicians inquire about and implement final wishes for patients who are expected to die imminently. The staff recognize that in their final hours, most people have fears, regrets, and maybe a last, often simple wish.

Negotiating for Medicare drug pricing - will it be the end of the world for Pharma?