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Are bald men more likely to get severe COVID-19? There are more than 30,000 news stories about this, almost all of which without question, accept the findings of a flawed epidemiological study from Spain. Is this a valid conclusion? Let's ask a biostatistician.

Faced with a life-changing decision and a great deal of uncertainty, do patients prefer to decide for themselves after being given all the facts? Or do they prefer a nudge in “the right direction” by their physician?

Making life or death decisions has been brought into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic. For the estimated 500,000 people on dialysis in the U.S., that is a bridge already crossed. Having chosen a life requiring continuous life support, do any of them have second thoughts?

Discredited journalist and conspiracy theorist Paul Thacker, who became infamous for spreading disinformation about GMOs and biotech scientists, is back. This time, he's ranting about 5G. But it seems he could only get his most recent work published in a foreign language with the help of a collaborator, Dutch journalist Jannes van Roermund.

From Washington DC to Washington's Puget Sound, from Chicago to North Carolina, Great Britain and even India, the American Council has been making its mark, bringing science-based reasoning to important conversations the world over. While COVID-19 has dominated the healthcare headlines, our experts weighed in on that essential subject as well as several others.

Now that the paper published in The Lancet, on the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, has been retracted, we need to look at how eminence continues to trump evidence. When we talk about humans and their behavior, everything is political.

We tend to overlook how natural disasters like the coronavirus pandemic shape human behavior. Maybe that should change.

We're social animals, and we want to socialize. We're also lazy, and we want to do whatever is easiest or most convenient. Those two facts about human nature, far more than the coronavirus, will shape our future.

As an anti-coronavirus therapy, Remdesivir has been rather disappointing. That's primarily because the drug is given intravenously to those who are already very ill with COVID-19. But what would happen if the drug could be delivered directly to the lungs, to prevent severe disease? Gilead is giving it a shot. Here are some of the pros and cons of that approach.

Universal healthcare, which is touted as a solution to all of America's healthcare woes, is not necessarily a cure. Universal healthcare can be universally bad, as it is in Poland.

A “counterintuitive” view of ice sheet melts and sea level rises, the comfort of mac and cheese, often wrong, never in doubt, ignoring the marshmallow experiment, and an in-depth look at a painting of surgical care.

SDOH, the social determinants of health, have gotten significant press during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have been much discussed in medical and healthcare circles for the last few years. And some feel that like similarly positioned telemedicine, SDOH is about to have its moment.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has made brutally clear the need for further research into many aspects of viruses. In this article, we compile data about the basic properties of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and about how it interacts with the body." Image from Science Forum: SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) by the numbers eLIfe

One thing that we know for sure is that the “you use it, you lose it” law of antimicrobial resistance rules. This means that the use of antibiotics -- whether appropriate or not -- will select for the emergence of resistant pathogens. Therefore, we can expect an increase in bacterial resistance in our hospitals – globally.

While sadly, ACSH founder Dr. Elizabeth Whelan passed away in 2014, she left plenty of herself behind. After you read what Christine, her daughter, and now Eleanor, her granddaughter, have done, you'll have to pinch yourself. But this story is real. And really something. And just plain amazing. Read it and you'll see why.

Last week, The Lancet presented a peer-reviewed paper [1] on hydroxychloroquine, indicating in an observational study that the risk of cardiac arrhythmias outweighed its beneficial use. In addition to the scientific interest, the article was seized upon by those political talking heads that have been concerned with President Trump’s advocacy of what was felt to be an untested and ineffective treatment.

Perhaps you've noticed: Hospitals are asking you to come back for your routine care. Amongst the surge in caring for COVID-19 patients, elective care, especially remunerative procedural care, was pushed to the sidelines. One source suggests that overall cancer care has decreased by 37% during the pandemic.

Infectious disease models can also describe riots. The spread of coronavirus and violent protests share many features in common, shedding at least some light on the coming summer of discontent.

People are hungry for information about the coronavirus. But are some media outlets exploiting the situation to promote themselves?

EIDD-2801, one of the most promising coronavirus antiviral drugs, just lept ahead of the pack. Merck has partnered with Ridgeback Biologics to develop the drug. It has a lot going for it. Here's why.

The satisfaction of handwork; as we reconsider our economy, is there still a place for small, rather than large; a musing on addiction's social component, and can the outliers of the herd teach us about how to return to social mingling.

The COVID-19 lockdown is responsible for both the loss of economic activity and human lives. Two independent groups of researchers concluded that the lockdown may be costing more lives than it saves.

Currently, COVID-19 vaccines are all the rage. Expectations are not only high, they are too high. ACSH friend, and former trustee, Dr. Paul Offit gives us a much-needed reality check. A vaccine, especially a very effective one, is unlikely to be in the cards anytime soon. Although it is always better to prevent an infection than treat one, antiviral drugs are likely to be the tools to control coronavirus well before a vaccine appears.Here's how Dr. Offit sees this playing out.

As new breeding techniques create new ethical debates over food, we think the ethical toolbox needs updating. Talking about crossing species lines simply isn’t enough. If Darwin had known about gene editing, we think he would have agreed.

Like many inveterate news junkies, I’ve had it with COVID-19 case and death counts and flattening of curves. The U.S. has seven times as many COVID-19 cases as European countries but five times the population. The relevant figures are thus 0.5% and about 0.3% of the population, respectively. New cases are dropping in the Eastern U.S. but not in the west. What’s going on?