Bring on the tanning lotion and cigarettes! No? Well, coronavirus has made the past cool again so it could be a matter of time. 

The American Gastroenterology Association is paid to advocate for its members, so it's reasonable to assume they'll endorse anything that will make gastroenterologists more relevant.  But there are limits; they won't endorse fraud.

Attorney Timothy Litzenburg, a collaborator of discredited former journalist Carey Gillam, who now runs "research" for the organic food PR group US Right To Know, was arrested last week on extortion charges related to a common weedkiller which US Right To Know and other groups helping attorneys insist can cause human cancer.

Perchlorate can harm infant brain development, say environmental lawyers. It is a rocket fuel ingredient in your water, say their marketing teams.Both of those are true. Yet meaningless. There hasn't been a single instance of a child getting brain damage from perchlorate in water, it can only even be detected in water because in modern times we can detect anything in anything. Perchlorate is one compound in rocket fuel, but we share 50 percent of our DNA in common with bananas. That does not make you a fruit.

No homeopathic products have been approved by the FDA for any use but they can still be sold, thanks to President Clinton removing supplements and "alternative" medicine from FDA oversight with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.So people can sell water with a molecule of something in it and claim it has medical properties, as long as the package states that FDA has not agreed that magic is real. 

Surgisphere, a company that bills itself as having one of the largest and fastest hospital databases in the world, was riding high a few days ago. Their data had led to papers in both New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet, they moved WHO to stop clinical trials because their data showed no benefit but some risks of hydroxychloroquine.Not bad for a company with three employees and 170 Twitter followers.

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to test hydroxychloroquine as post-exposure prophylaxis found that it does not prevent illness. Enrollment began on March 17th, 2020. To be eligible, people had be enrolled within 3 days after confirmed exposure. 821 asymptomatic participants, 719 who had reported a high-risk exposure to a confirmed Covid-19 contact, were enrolled.

Due to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, lots of people don't want to travel anywhere. Even to the doctor. But prevention in this case may be worse than the disease. The World Health Organisation warns that 80,000,000 kids under age 1 are at greater risk of diphtheria, measles and polio because immunization is being hindered in 70 countries.Of the 129 countries where data are available, 54 percent reported disruptions or a total suspension of vaccination services during March-April 2020. 

Clinical trials are an arduous, costly process in the United States, primarily because every time a drug has side effects or harm not predicted by clinical trials, lawyers sue and then Congress tells FDA to make clinical trials needed for approval more costly and expensive.

An observational study - statistical correlation, no clinical trial was involved - does not show a link between the antimalarial drug chloroquine (or its analogue hydroxychloroquine) and benefit in patients with COVID-19. The pool was nearly 15,000, presumably patients with COVID-19, receiving a combination of any of the four drug regimens, compared with 81,000 who did not. They did find a statistical link to risk of more heart issues.What does that really mean? Despite what you read in the media about how it does not work, and that it "causes" heart attacks, it really only means the drugs need to go into clinical trials.