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The current opioid addiction crisis in the U.S. is both deadly and complex. But the Charlotte Observer wants you to believe that doctors were solely responsible for the death of a young man following a tonsillectomy. The only thing simple in this case is the bias of the newspaper's headline.

Death knells are beginning to ring for poliovirus. The CDC reports that, in 2014, there were 359 new cases of wild poliovirus in nine countries. Just one year later, the number of new cases dropped to 74, a nearly 80% reduction.

A writhing mass of maggots in a wound might seem like a good reason to seek medical help. But, reports Carrie Arnold, sometimes it’s the doctors who have put them there, adopting an ancient treatment to help heal painful infected injuries.

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We've all heard the nonsense that artificial sweeteners are bad for you — they cause cancer and a variety of other diseases, according to some scare mongers. The latest scary story is a link between moms' drinking artificially sweetened beverages during pregnancy, and obesity in their offspring one year later.

Women who take dietary supplements and use multiple forms of complementary alternative medicine are less likely to initiate chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer when it's clinically indicated. And to put it mildly, that's not a good approach. Just ask the family of the late Steve Jobs.

Susannah Mushatt Jones, who passed away at the age of 116 after a brief illness, lived though an extraordinary period in American medicine, one which we should all take a moment to appreciate. Up until May 12, Ms. Jones was the very last American alive who was born in the 19th century.

Unlike draping yourself in velvet, which is not socially acceptable, silk remains perfectly fashionable. In fact, it is all the rage at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University, where a research group led by David Kaplan is literally wrapping silk around everything it can get its hands on.

A potential breakthrough in developing a vaccine against Clostridum difficile infections has been achieved by scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces. “C. diff” is the causative agent of a nasty diarrheal illness that has plagued healthcare facilities the world over.

Can where you eat determine your calorie consumption? Would a fast-food restaurant, such as McDonald's or Burger King, lead to over-consumption compared to a "fast-casual" site, like Chipotle or Panera? New research suggests the opposite.

Many people are fascinated by those who have the desire and drive to become a triathlete. Namely, what motivates them to push their bodies to extreme levels, and not only in just one sport -- but in three sports consecutively: swimming, biking and running. But since there's a trend where middle-aged men are dropping dead during competition -- and more often during the aquatic portion -- that's a cause for concern.

Public Health Ontario, in collaboration with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, have published data which reveal a 71 percent drop in hospitalizations due to rotavirus infection since the introduction of the rotavirus vaccine in 2011.

The Food and Drug Administration says it's making progress on guidelines for the use of antibiotics in animals. But according to guest writer, David Shlaes, who holds a Ph.D in Microbiology and M.D. from Case Western Reserve, it just looks like another stall tactic.

Researchers have developed a coaster-size model of the human gut, which provides valuable insight into the molecular processes taking place between the intestinal microbiome and the host.

A team at MIT and Harvard has developed a new method for testing if a person is infected with Zika virus that is more sensitive, faster, cheaper, specific, easy to read, and can even distinguish between different strains of Zika virus. This new device may be a lynchpin in the battle against Zika and future outbreaks.

In this organic-crazed world, preservatives are essentially equated with deadly cyanide in terms of human harm. But, when you examine things a little more closely, the scare doesn't match reality. And it shouldn't. Most preservatives occur naturally in your diet, or in your body.

There is a lot of false equivalence in giving the fringe 1 percent of the anti-science movement any attention at all.

Who's smarter, an 85-year-old billionaire in terrific health or a "sue and settle" activist group that undermines science?

Epigenetics is everywhere. Nary a day goes by without someone telling us something it explains. Epigenetics pops up frequently among non-scientists in all manner of discussions about heredity. And as guest writer Michael Eisen tells us, all manner of crackpots slap “epigenetics” on their fringy ideas to give them a veneer of credibility.

Two performance-enhancing drug scandals, one involving tennis players and the other the Russian Olympic sports complex, are seemingly unconnected. That is, until you consider how both relate to Maria Sharapova, the tennis star who's currently serving a suspension for using the banned substance, meldonium, which helps oxygen uptake and endurance.

Since there are so many types, cancer isn't an "it" but a "them." And the semantics of our "war on cancer" mislead us into considering cancer as just one disease. But in reality, just one type — breast cancer — is composed of 10 different sub-types, each of which might require different treatments.

Facebook may be overtly partisan and secretly conspiratorial, but companies have the freedom to do that. The only thing that will absolve Facebook of blame is if government seeks to regulate them.

The figures were down in 2015-16, and there's no question bee numbers bounce around -- but it is confirmation bias to claim the drop must be due to pesticides. Especially since so many other collapses happened before any pesticides existed.

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, has been widely attacked as a human carcinogen — although there are few data supporting that charge. A recent study was unable to demonstrate any glyphosate in the breast milk from mothers living in agricultural areas — which should make anxious parents relax. But since the chemical isn't really a threat to human health, all we can say is "So what?"

Oh, the ole sun debate: Get too much and you risk getting skin cancer; get too little and you may lack vitamin D. The struggle is real. So, how to find the balance?