October 22, 2023 — “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” It is an ancient but fair question. It comes to mind as we read mind-numbing headlines asserting that the scientific advisory committee for the 2025 dietary guidelines is “rife with” and “plagued” by conflict of […]
August 12, 2023 — Research integrity is a hot topic these days. People want to know that they can rely upon scientific publications to be accurate reflections of an honest inquiry to find the answer to a research question. Toward this end, data sharing is an important commitment. Increasingly, researchers pledge to share their data in the interest of […]
July 24, 2022 — Institutions of public health are in a tough spot right now. COVID has so battered public trust in the CDC that it has put us into the figure-it-out-yourself phase of this pandemic. Likewise, the public health response to obesity has long been one of both moral panic and ineffective policy prescriptions. Decades of exhortations to […]
June 22, 2022 — Americans this year will spend about $35 billion on dietary supplements. All over the world, spending will add up to more than $150 billion. What will it do for us? Not much, says the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force in a new report released yesterday about the value of these supplements for preventing heart disease and […]
April 10, 2022 — Two years ago, 69 percent of Americans believed what the CDC had to say. Now, that number is 44 percent. After seven decades, CDC sat atop a pyramid of influence in public health. But today, top-down public health decrees meet with skepticism as often as with trust. We are living in an era when distrust […]
February 4, 2022 — By all traditional measures of public health, Vietnam was in a bad spot when the COVID pandemic began in 2020. It is a small country with weak health and political systems. But early in the pandemic, it succeeded in keeping infections and deaths low. By contrast, the U.S. has done rather poorly. Despite a high […]
January 23, 2022 — Increasingly, we find ourselves burdened by TMI about health, much of which we cannot trust. Such an overload of dubious information makes it hard to make good decisions. Evidence of this is everywhere we turn. People are dying needlessly from COVID after choosing to refuse vaccination. And to be sure, the subject of obesity, weight, […]
December 29, 2021 — Following the science is a catchphrase in wide circulation throughout this past year with good reason. Scientists have been warning us about a number of threats to humanity and, at times, we seem to have dismissed those threats. Of course, COVID-19 and climate change are two very prominent examples that come to mind. But many […]
December 23, 2021 — The New York Times has a wellness column called Phys Ed. Weekly it brings us factoids from mostly positive studies in kinesiology. “Staying physically active may protect the aging brain,” says one. “300 minutes a week of moderate exercise may help ward off cancer,” says another. Gretchen Reynolds feeds us quite a stream of good […]
October 31, 2021 — Many fears are plaguing us right now. A virus is still killing more than five thousand people every day around the world – more than a thousand daily in the U.S. Some people are fearful of spending time indoors with others who are unmasked or unvaccinated. Others are fearful of the masks and the vaccines. […]
