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For do-gooders, the ends justify the means. Do-gooders believe they are saving the world, therefore any tactic is completely defensible. In Santa Barbara, selling a drink with a plastic straw could result in a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. 

Complementary medicine ranges from authentic stress-relieving massage to well-meaning (but expensive) placebo, to outright spurious healing claims. Researchers decided to study its impact on patients with curable cancers.

1. Jamie Wells, MD, testified at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week in favor of more transparency in science. The debate over putting an end to "secret science" and "sue-and-settle" agreements is solely a political one, but that has not prevented some scientists from circling the wagons defending a lack of transparency at the agency.

For every 1o C increase in temperature, the risk of suicide also increases by 1 percent to 37 percent. In general, heat tends to exacerbate previously existing mental illness and drug misuse.

Some activists are claiming that a "cocktail" of harmless chemicals is somehow doing something greater than the individual harmless chemicals can. These people don't just deny chemistry, toxicology and biology. They deny simple arithmetic.

While aspirin has been shown to be effective in reducing the risk of cardiovascular events, there have previously been no dosage recommendations tailored to a person's weight. But a new study indicates that a weight needs to be considered to improve helpful outcomes and prevent any harmful effects from occurring.

More American drivers are dying in drug-related car crashes than they are from collisions involving just alcohol.

In the 60-and-older category, 50 percent of men and 38 percent of women are on cholesterol-lowering drugs. Is that really necessary?

While a new study highlighted the detrimental effects of isolation in an older Chinese population, it also noted that being connected to one's community and being more socially active were mitigating factors. The study also took a closer look at Asian-Americans, in general, being considered the U.S.'s so-called "model minority."

Asbestos is used in many building construction materials and vehicle products, due to its strength and ability to resist heat, fire and chemical and biological degradation. But as thousands of New York City residents are now aware, those who live near last week's steam-pipe explosion that sent a geyser of asbestos particles airborne, there's so much more to know about it.

Scribes inputting data into electronic medical records are supposed to free-up time for physicians, letting them care for their patients. But surprisingly, it may actually make care worse. Is this another example of unintended consequences? 

Funding science through the National Institute of Health is a highly competitive process. It is also highly skewed towards those who have been "successful" in the past. But does past performance predict future performance?

When business models drive medical systems, low-value care ensues. The concern is compounded by the tremendous growth in urgent-care and retail clinics. These facilities are now contributing to 40 percent of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions.

This law firm shows no concern for the truth. It fits comfortably and profitably into our postmodern world, in which truth and lies are no longer distinguishable. Unscrupulous people can make a lot of money by exploiting the public's confusion over vaccines, chemicals and pharmaceutical products.

Rather than be critical of a study that produced unsurprising results, they can instead be leveraged to help address the problem. That can be done by family members using the findings to engage hospital personnel, in order to get their assistance in making sleep more of a priority for loved-ones under their care.

Bundled payments, paying one fee for hospitalization and the next 90 days of care, reduces the cost of surgical care. But for a medical hospitalization there's no evidence of cost savings. Why?

Infectious disease remains a national and global security threat. With the ease in which people can travel around the world, we should expect other exotic diseases to arrive in America. Ebola, Lassa, and Zika have already done so, and yet-to-be-identified microbes are also likely to be imported.

Disgust is an emotional cue, and it helps us avoid situations fraught with disease. Are we responding to how infectious diseases are transmitted, or how they appear?

Germany serves as a wonderful example of how to do everything – everything wrong, that is – when it comes to energy policy.

The strategy that our government is employing is ridiculous; we are fighting the wrong enemy. Pain medications, like Percocet and Vicodin, on their own, kill few relatively few people while illicit fentanyl and its monster analogs like carfentanil are responsible for the carnage we see daily on the news.

In a world where we can no longer distinguish truth from lies and science itself has been redefined, non-scientists can claim to be scientists. And our writer is the Queen of England.

Lake Okeechobee, in South Florida, is being plagued by an enormous algae bloom. But what's causing the problem is not algae: it's a plant-like pathogen called cyanobacteria. Blooms from this type of bacteria are dangerous because they release a variety of deadly neurotoxins, which can kill humans and animals. 

Given that Andrew Zimmern, host of Bizarre Foods on the Travel Channel, has crisscrossed the world and then some, eating some of the craziest things you can imagine for more than a decade, the main question is: Has he ever gotten terribly ill? "No, I’ve had no 'digestive issues,' he said while laughing. "And I keep waiting for it to happen!"

Risks change in healthcare when imminent life or death are your alternatives.

Ethologists, videographers and economists have all studied the behavior of surgeons in the operating room. Their revelations will not surprise surgeons, and they do not require the trappings of p-values and statistics.