Search

Obamacare was always about health coverage, not health care. Whatever destiny awaits its future iteration —albeit repeal, replace, repair, what have you, Trumpcoverage would be a better suited name than Trumpcare

If the highest quality of medical care persists in being of unequal consideration to access where continuity of care is permitted to fragment further and individual choice of physician be ever limited, then we all lose no matter the new enactments.   

Whatever your political affiliation, all we hear about from both sides of the aisle are the two aspects of Obamacare that we all desire to keep: not penalizing those with pre-existing conditions and covering young adults under their parents plans until age 26. Bravo to those who...

After a successful Women's March to protest statements made by President Donald Trump about women in 2005, and other issues, a group of science advocates got the idea for a similar "Science March" to protest the President's restriction on use of social media by the Environmental Protection Agency. And ostensibly to support science.

More on supporting science in a moment, but first the EPA. It is a special animal. While we have often applauded the work of career scientists there, it has become increasingly known in the last two decades that there are "two EPAs." One has been doing solid, methodical work behind the scenes while another has been used to create laws circumventing Congress - by implementing regulations that act as laws - and in violation of President Clinton's ...

Like most, my initial reaction to such a challenge is “umm, no thanks.” But, I admit I am not much like the long distance running extreme endurance athlete set. A unique club. One I simultaneously admire and am perpetually surprised by as the stakes in these wild endeavors seem to be getting higher and higher from ultra marathons in the Serengeti to the imminent World Marathon Challenge of 7 marathons on 7 Continents in 7 days.

Whereas I used to think there was a level of insanity that must accompany such extreme sport, a dear friend taught me invaluable lessons that enabled me to reframe these triumphs and feats of physical prowess. She had a life goal to run a marathon on every continent as just the United States would have...

Epigenetics is everywhere. Nary a day goes by without some news story or press release telling us something it explains.

Why does autism run in families?  Epigenetics.
Why do you have trouble losing weight? Epigenetics.
Why are vaccines dangerous? Epigenetics.
Why is cancer so hard to fight? Epigenetics.
Why a cure for cancer is around the corner? Epigenetics.
Why your parenting choices might affect your great-grandchildren? Epigenetics.

Epigenetics is used as shorthand in the popular press for any of a loosely-connected set of phenomenon purported to result in experience being imprinted in DNA and transmitted across time and generations. Its place in our lexicon has grown as biochemical discoveries have given ideas of extra-genetic...

Avoiding stress could help stave off the flu. Sick woman via www.shutterstock.com. Avoiding stress could help stave off the flu. Sick woman via www.shutterstock.com.

By Alexander Chaitoff and Joshua Daniel Niforatos, medical students at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine,...

Peter Shumlin, the Governor of Vermont, has a lot to say about narcotic abuse and addiction in his state. So much, in fact, that he is apparently willing to use half the story to make his point. Throw in a bit of irrelevant and incorrect information, and he makes his point rather convincingly. Or does he?

Here's an annotated breakdown of Shumlin's own words from an op-ed that appeared in the New York Times on Sept. 21:

Shumlin:"A [year] and a half ago, I stood up before Vermonters and devoted my State of the State address to speaking about the opiate and heroin crisis affecting my state. Despite our best efforts since, this is...

In February, a blogger at journal publisher Public Library of Science (PLOS), issued a random, unsubstantiated smear against the organization I now run - she claimed, bizarrely, that we lost our credibility decades ago by being shills for Big Tobacco. Ironically, she is an award-winning journalist. The American Council on Science and Health is famous for being anti-smoking - any journalist who was worth a darn would spend five seconds researching and know that. The walls are quite literally adorned with...

From the early days of Greenpeace when its members were dodging harpoons and Japanese whalers in outboard motor boats – remember “Save the Whales!” — it has leveraged media savvy and an aptitude for political theater to become a $400 million-plus per year behemoth with 26 regional offices operating in 55 countries. Greenpeace claims its goals are to “ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity.”  However, it seems that humans are excluded from those good intentions. Dr. Patrick Moore, a cofounder of Greenpeace, said it “no longer cares about people and that it had become more interested in politics than science.” The organization has relinquished...

The case concerns the FDA-approved drug Exparel (liposomal bupivacaine), a long-acting local anesthetic used to control post-surgical pain manufactured by Pacira Biosciences, Inc. The February 2021 edition of the ASA Journal contained a clinical review of 76 studies and a meta-analysis of nine studies, concluding that the drug is “not superior to standard anesthetics.” The results were echoed in the editorial. At the time, Pacira’s stock was trading at over $75.00 a share; by October, it had tanked to  $48.00 a share.  As of 2020, Exparel represented nearly all of Pacira’s total revenue.

Pacira might have had reason to be miffed. The “offending”...