Cutting the dose of Tylenol in opioids makes the drugs safer. Why? Pharma company Johnson & Johnson is developing a drug that could reduce liver damage caused by Tylenol — which J&J also sells.
CDC
A ferocious debate ensued over Emily Oster's recent call in The Atlantic for COVID "amnesty." Everybody in the dispute is wrong. Should you drink Smart Water? Only if you're dumb, says our resident chemist.
Medice, cura te ipsum. Physician, heal thyself. That is just what the CDC is beginning to do based on a recently published in-house structural review. Leave aside the shame and blame game of amnesty. What does the CDC believe it did wrong and could do better?
If you've ever tried to figure out which drugs are causing overdose deaths the CDC site doesn't offer much help. Why? Because the way that the agency categorizes drug classes is scientifically flawed at best or deliberately misleading at worst. Either way, it's a mess. But NIST, a subsidiary of the Department of Commerce has taken CDC's own graph and relabeled it so that the answers are clear and accurate. The difference is striking.
Yet another study shows that Neurontin is a poor substitute for prescription opioids, so why do physicians continue to prescribe it? Twitter recently put a warning on an ACSH obesity story. Is social-media censorship here to stay?
A new CDC survey shows that teen vaping is still declining. Oddly, the agency maintains that e-cigarette use among adolescents is an "epidemic."
Minnesota has become the leader in restoring the rights of patients to receive necessary pain medications as well as the doctors who prescribe them. It's a huge step. One down, 49 to go. Drs. Bloom and Singer in Newsweek.
Recent news reports alleged that new research has found a link between "forever chemicals" and liver cancer. This was an exaggeration of the results, to say the very least.
How are politicians similar to bacteria? ACSH advisor Dr. Henry Miller explains.
Cato Institute's Dr. Jeff Singer (also a member of the ACSH Scientific Advisory Board) is none too pleased with both the CDC and FDA and the way they've handled monkeypox. It seems lessons from COVID-19 have gone unlearned.
You can be blindfolded, throw a stone, and probably hit a writer who gets the opioid crisis all wrong. Today, let's throw one at German Lopez of The New York Times.
Recent coverage in the Washington Post illustrates how the media (and even some in the scientific community) have exaggerated the risk COVID-19 poses to the elderly and downplayed the efficacy of vaccination in this age group.