HFO-1234yf, a climate-friendly alternative refrigerant for car air conditioning systems touted by environmental activists, may instead be a greater problem than the products they insisted was causing pollution.
A new paper in Canadian Medical Association Journal has linked irregular heartbeats in 322 Chinese cities to small-micron particulate matter, invisible pollution that needs an electron microscope to visualize. Given its minute size, PM2.5 is one-fourth the size of real pollution, PM10, there is four times as much of it, so the paper could have used PM10 and achieved the same statistical significance. It just would have been less dramatic
Prior to natural gas hydraulic fracturing making played out gas wells viable again, America was in a real climate emissions pickle. In 1994, Democrats finally won their war of extinction on nuclear energy, they cheered as President Bill Clinton and Senator John Kerry(1) created regulations that act as bans and eventually forced through a series of anti-nuclear activists at the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Many women eat healthier during pregnancy, but that may mean whatever version of 'healthy' is trending in any given year. Sugar-free, low-fat, gluten-free, paleo, organic, it all has proponents, it all has suspect epidemiology papers claiming it should be a reason to buy some New York Times bestselling diet book built around it.
In 2016, The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amended the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and created a mandatory requirement for EPA to evaluate existing chemicals using transparent methodology and risk-based assessment. Not simplistic epidemiology.This was actually a good thing. We want to make sure people are still safe as new data arrive and since they were using science and not statistical correlation, we could have confidence in the results.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a United Nations epidemiology group headquartered in France, could be in ethical hot water again over the claim by a Ramazzini Institute leader that seems to know in advance that IARC will consider aspartame a carcinogen - a designation which leads to automatic warning labels or even bans in places like California, which under Proposition 65 turned over its science to IARC last century.
Alcohol is a legitimate class 1 carcinogen that is prized by most of the world. While claims of health benefits were always suspect epidemiology, so were claims that even a glass of wine during pregnancy would cause birth defects. The dose still makes the poison but as modern science journalism became more advocacy-driven, claims that any dose is probably a poison became common.
America doesn't have a science literacy problem, at least in a relative sense. Though only 29 percent of American adults can demonstrate good science literacy, that is still enough to be number one in the world.(1)
A new paper notes that they can detect per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances - deemed by environmental activists as "forever" chemicals because they persist from to eight years - in 42 samples of food packaging. Like food bowls that are compostable and sustainable and better for the environment than plastic.Ironically, this new detection, and resulting scare, happened because consumers demanded alternatives to plastic after environmental public relations campaigns saying all the fish were dying. Most foods will not be safe in paper(1) unless you eat them right away. And yet the alternative is now claimed to be worse than the thing they wanted replaced.
When smog was prevalent, it was easy to see. Particulate matter 10 microns in size hover in the air, the famous London Fog was not natural moisture, it was PM10 pollution. In one event, nature combined with smog in London to kill 12,000 people.After that, wealthier nations engaged in pollution control, and then PM10 and its health issues began to dissipate. In the 1990s and with much cleaner air, pollution activists and allied epidemiologists began to 'define pollution down.' PM2.5 was suddenly the new goalpost, they said, and showed air quality maps with red and orange to prove it.
The anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety says someone is fatally shot or injured in a road rage incident every 16 hours. Is that number real? Yes and no. The Gun Violence Archive they drew their claim from lumps criminals doing drive-by shootings and criminals being shot by police committing violent acts in with innocent victims. Even if it's only over half of the 500 they claim that is still over 300 per year.
If you buy TheraFlu or some other product and swear it helps, you may be right. The placebo effect is real and while OTC "remedies" and supplements can be sold with no proof needed, to be called actual medicine it can't simply work as poorly as a sugar pill.Yet about 30 percent of the time, people who take a placebo do feel better, the same way people who eat food labeled Non-GMO feel better taking a nocebo. Neither is improving health but a lot of things can sound like science or health if you look at statistics and create correlation.That's epidemiology, an entry point to science, and epidemiology findings led to continued interest in various off-label treatments for COVID-19, such as ivermectin.(1)
President Biden issued another slap to those oil-guzzling Republicans intent on ruining Gaia, or he enraged environmentalists by letting oil-guzzling Republicans ruin bucolic Alaska, all in one day.Even in the same minute.Which was it? Neither, and that is a problem with corporate media. To get you to see an ad and get them paid they have to write a headline that is most appealing to you - and if you are someone in the middle, you quickly receive both.
