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The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has in the parlance of public relations, "sucked all the oxygen out of the room." And while the evidence shows that it is probably 5 times as lethal to its susceptible victims as seasonal flu, it is not the treatable disease that quietly takes 50% more lives every day

As more and better data are collected, it's becoming increasingly apparent that many of COVID-19’s deaths -- if not the majority -- are to be found in nursing homes. That should be no surprise. After all, this is where we house the increasingly frail elderly. The politics of blame and shame have begun to focus on those facilities. But before piling on, what are we really talking about?

In order for restaurants in Washington State to reopen for dining in, they will be required to keep a log of customer names and contact information in case contact tracing is necessary. This is smart, not only to fight the coronavirus but foodborne infectious disease outbreaks as well.

You know the admonition to drink eight glasses of water a day to remain hydrated. But the truth is when you consider the water needed to produce what we eat -- think of it as virtual water -- we consume a lot more.

As we move towards social mingling, the official mantra is the three T’s, testing, track, and tracing. There are two bottlenecks, first having enough reliable tests; second, having the labor force, human or technological, to do the tracking. While the process of track and trace remains under development, testing is increasing and is frequently now a daily metric by government officials.

If the spread of COVID-19 is unstoppable, infectious disease epidemiologist Dr. Johan Giesecke says that we must shift our public health strategy away from a futile attempt to prevent its spread and toward providing optimal care for the sickest patients.

COVID-19 is bad enough, so the last thing we need is to add other dangerous infectious diseases in the mix. Yet, that is precisely what will happen if the trend of lower vaccination rates continues. Here's the take of Dr. Jeff Singer (pictured) on the secondary public health crisis now in the works.

The singer Adele, and her significant slim down, has been credited to a combination of exercise and eating so-called “sirtfoods.” So what is the sirt diet -- and could it work for you? Let's take a look.

Anti-GMO groups present themselves to the public as independent truth seekers fighting to build a healthy food system and counter the machinations of "powerful" corporations. A detailed investigation of who funds these groups, and how they spend their massive donations, paints a very different picture.

Given that PBS, in its recent documentary, “The Man Who Tried to Feed the World,” found it necessary to disparage Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, we believe it is important for our readers, and the world, to know what a thoughtful and truly benevolent man he actually was. Here is an article about Dr. Borlaug, a co-founder of the American Council on Science and Health, shortly after his passing. It was published on our site on September 13, 2009.

Given that PBS, in its recent documentary, “The Man Who Tried to Feed the World,” found it necessary to disparage Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, we believe it is important for our readers, and the world, to know what a thoughtful and truly benevolent man he actually was. Here is an article about Dr. Borlaug, a co-founder of the American Council on Science and Health, that we published on July 18, 2007 after first appearing in the Washington Times earlier that day.

Given that PBS, in its recent documentary, “The Man Who Tried to Feed the World,” found it necessary to disparage Nobel Laureate Dr. Norman Borlaug, we believe it is important for our readers, and the world, to know what a thoughtful and truly benevolent man he actually was. Here is an article about Dr. Borlaug, a co-founder of the American Council on Science and Health, that we published on March 22, 2004.

Americans have developed a social pathology in which we pin our collective hope and hatred on a single person, the President of the United States. This began long before Donald Trump took office, but the coronavirus pandemic has greatly worsened the problem.

Remdesivir arrived with great hope and even greater expectations. Would this drug finally awake us from the 2-plus-month long nightmare that has the U.S. tossing and turning in its sleep? As things stand now that answer is no. Here's why.

Do genetics play a role in COVID-19's outcomes, does the herd know better than the experts, Chinese censorship, regulations can hamper even if well intended, and finally why many of us are gardening and what might a careful listener hear from plants?

Remdesivir appears to be our first promising treatment for COVID-19. It is certainly neither a cure nor a preventative. But it seems to reduce the length of hospital stays, and thus, increases the health systems’ capacity by about a third. So if you were in charge of selling this drug, what price would you set?

Media headlines are almost exclusively about the coronavirus death toll and the debate over whether it's too early to begin lifting lockdown restrictions. However, there are several other observations about COVID-19 that are important, but are getting very little attention.

Open carry means that you may legally carry a loaded weapon visibly on your person. The top photo is over fifty years old, depicting the "Black Panthers"; the bottom picture from last week depicting citizens protesting continued stay-in-place orders.

Once again, from the frontline of COVID-19's war on the elderly, a follow-up diary covering recent thoughts of two of our seniors. They are heroes in their own way.

With only one truly critical story constantly on everyone's mind -- what might that be? -- ACSH's health and scientific experts were singularly focused on getting timely, accurate information to the screens of the American public. The masses of the media took note. Our work on the pandemic was cited in major newspapers, by radio show hosts and disseminated across the internet (along with some other more pedestrian topics). Here are just a few of the top media hits for April.

For the most part, supplements are a waste of money at best and harmful at worst. But could vitamin D be a notable exception – now more than ever? Let's take a look.

Sometime, hopefully in the not too distant future, we will need to look at how this tragedy unfolded and come to grips with what we could have done to make it, at least, somewhat less tragic. The fact that several countries and societies were able to escape the worst of the pandemic provides us with opportunities to learn and to act.

"Track and Trace" is the latest COVID-19 catchphrase. It describes the process of identifying the ill and exposed, which then can make it safer for us to mingle socially once again. As a program gets underway in the U.S., what lessons can we learn from Asia?

Drugs that don't work when taken orally are the bane of drug discovery chemists. Now it's the bane of the world. But there are techniques that can convert orally inactive drugs, like remdesivir, into pills. Here's how they work.

Niche; it can be described as a comfortable, suitable position in life, the equipoise of resources and competition. Having one’s niche, it sounds so comforting; having a special place in the world. COVID-19 may have temporarily disrupted our niche, but climate change could drastically re-alter it.