Search results

If Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine is successful, it will be the first-ever mRNA vaccine on the market. How is the vaccine made and how does it work?

Americans -- so desperate to end the need for masks, social distancing, and limited access to restaurants, salons, concerts, and schools -- will surely be clamoring for a vaccine as soon as it’s available. Or will they?  Recent polls suggest that only about 40% of Americans would take the vaccine. It is vital that this number be increased. But how? Let's explore this issue.

Our friendly neighbors to the north are fibbing about the coronavirus in their country, justifying a border closure with the United States that no longer makes sense.

How's your stomach lately? If it's not so good, you have plenty of company. New York gastroenterologist Dr. Michael Glick explains how the stress and anxiety caused by the COVID pandemic is screwing up America's collective stomachs. And lungs, too.

What do the firebombing of Dresden and the fires on the West Coast have in common? Embedded science, the Fall as a tonic, and a different history of packing the Supreme Court

Here are some of the most relevant COVID-19 developments in recent days: Europe's infections are out of control; COVID reinfection is rare; all treatments probably have serious but rare side effects; the WHO offers a misguided policy; and America's northern neighbor isn't telling the truth.

A new study in JAMA Ophthalmology considers whether eyeglasses confer protection from COVID-19. What it really demonstrates is how a variable -- in this case, eyeglasses -- can point in so many directions as to be useless. (But it will get you published in a peer-reviewed journal.)

I have long been a fan of Danny Meyer's restaurants, including Shake Shack and the Union Square Café. He's a man who understands food, organization, and hospitality. One of the great lessons the restauranteur teaches involves “service recovery” – fixing mistakes with food and food service. The take-away message remains that a customer's bad experience is often corrected and rewarded by how things conclude; in other words, the end counts more than the blip in the middle. And, turns out, that Meyer's observations reflect the way our brain is wired.

Of course, COVID-19 has been disruptive to our lives, both at home and at work. The effect across industry varies. For instance, the fortunes of Amazon and Jeff Bezos soar, while the deaths of mom and pop retail stores have accelerated.

The short answer is "no," but how that lab value is interpreted appears to have been based upon unintentional bias and may have resulted in harm. It is time to unpack a critical, overlooked discussion in medicine.

Dr. Mark Hyman, who pushes alternative medicine and nutrition pseudoscience, compares processed food to the Holocaust, fabricates statistics, and takes a swipe at the American Council on Science and Health. That was inadvisable.

Natural vs artificial, John Brown's smoldering memory, and school is not a super-spreader event.

We're a decade into the "opioid crisis" and some people still cannot understand that prescription pain pills are, at worst, minor contributors. Yet the war against prescription analgesics goes on. This time it's Elizabeth Warren (and colleagues) who just don't get it. The Massachusetts Senator is pushing the DEA to allow partial refills of pills to reduce overdose deaths. What a ridiculous idea.

In this month's round-up, you'll find that we've been writing about and discussing a range of topics, from the ever-present dangers and complexities of the coronavirus to the need for accurate scientific journalism. And not only are we laser-focused on the deadly force of the tiny microbe, we've also got our eye on that big, wandering moose. What do we mean by that? Read on.

In 2020, empirically determined knowledge is only considered true if it first passes a litmus test -- not the geeky pH variety but the obnoxious political one. The results are as absurd and dangerous as you'd imagine, particularly when it involves COVID and cable news.

I've been thinking about herd immunity in the last few weeks and took a moment to look at the concept's historical roots. As is more often the case than I would like, my understanding needed refreshing and refashioning.

There is something uniquely human about blaming someone else for our problems – so much the better if you can sue someone for causing them. COVID-19 doesn't change the calculus. 
Since the epidemic began, we've already seen four breeds of lawsuits emerge:

In 1938 the FDA was given regulatory authority over experimental drugs. But it wasn't until 1961 that it regulated clinical trials and their methods. In 1954, a foundation performed a methodologically controversial trial with 1.6 million children, ages 6 to 8. It was called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis's Salk Vaccine Trial. As we hurdle at "warp speed" to a COVID-19 vaccine, perhaps we can reflect on how much has changed, or not, in our search for safe, effective vaccines.

In these uncertain times, the annual celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a welcomed tradition. While it's true that many of our in-person gatherings have converted to virtual ones, this has not dampened the power of pink in our lives.

It's no secret that football players of all ages regularly experience head impacts and are at elevated risk for a concussion. Concern over the long-term consequences of multiple sub-concussive hits has increased public interest in new products to keep athletes safe from brain damage. However, this market space is filled with products rooted in pseudoscience. Let's take a look.

While there is much back and forth around how aerosols may impact the "correct" social distance, this has been a great concern to anesthesiologists, nurses, and technicians who have to place breathing tubes into patients (intubation) requiring mechanical ventilators. After all, they are only a few inches away from those respiratory aerosols, and they have no other way to be more socially or professionally distant. A new study should bring them, and us, some ease of mind. 

It’s flu season in the US, but seasonal flu’s cousin, COVID-19, and its variants are getting all the press. It might be worth considering whether all those precautions we are taking concerning COVID-19 are spilling over into other health issues.

An Australian group has examined how long coronavirus can exist on different surfaces and at different temperatures. What does this really mean?

Even innovative-sounding equipment cannot stop concussions in contact sports. Unfortunately, we may not know if long-term brain damage can actually be limited by new technologies until it is too late.

There was never much evidence in favor of using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for COVID. Now, a trial involving over 4,700 patients definitively proves that HCQ does not work.