During the Obama administration, he was concerned about vaccines causing autism and it showed when it came to guidance about swine flu vaccines. His administration banned multi-use vials because of his party's insistence that preservatives caused the disorder.
In developed countries, air quality is now great. So great that true smog (PM10 - particulate matter 10 microns in diameter) is basically going extinct in countries like America so epidemiologists and demographers have taken to promoting concern about particles so small they can only be detected with an electron microscope (such as PM2.5). While claims of increased mortality due to PM2.5 have fallen flat, asthma still exists and it is well-known that asthmatics have shorter lifespans.(1) A new paper speculates that as many as 170 cases of asthma per 100,000 kids each year could be caused by traffic pollution, and specifically Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which is really common at trace levels everywhere.
In 2016, Americans seemed to have waning trust in science. Back then, only 21 percent had "a great deal of confidence" in science(1) even though American adult science literacy leads the world.Science has been doing something right in the last few years. That number is up over half, to 35 percent.(2)
People are rushing to buy supplements because of (correct) claims that the microbiome is important. While the science on helpful microbes is correct it does not mean yogurt or any other food - even organic, try as their trade groups try to claim that - is helping any more than that redox science in mitochondria means you should spend your money on antioxidant supplements.There is no compelling evidence any of that has an impact and if it did, that it would be beneficial.
A new paper in JAMA Network Open takes using epidemiological statistics to support ideological goals to the next level. It suggests that since it seems to have happened in 2016, if a Republican even campaigns for President in 2020 Latina women will have more preterm births.
A new paper in the journal Early Human Development hopes to use the infant form of the Body Mass Index(BMI) to predict future heart disease.BMI is famous by now and has been used by government guidance bodies since the 1980s. It was invented nearly 200 years ago but, like homeopathy from the same period, somehow remains dogma to a few. It's a simple math calculation that takes into account height and weight. If you want to calculate yours, multiply your weight by 703 and then divide that by your height squared - (weight x 703)/(height in inches x height in inches).(1)That is with adults. You can't do it with growing kids.
If you want to find a nexus of conspiracy theories about science (it's a vast corporate conspiracy among the anti-GMO, anti-vaccine and anti-nuclear crowd, and a deep state conspiracy among the chemtrails crowd) YouTube is a good way to go, shows a new study (open access.)
The most popular organic fertilizer is feces while the most popular pesticide is copper sulfate. Both of those don't sound great to ingest but a new study says that extra dung leads to more bacteria - and that may be a good thing, if you believe a lot more bacteria is beneficial to gut health.Yogurt marketing and supplement claims aside, there is no evidence that your body is impacted by probiotics unless you suffered a legitimate medical issue (as in you need an actual fecal transplant), yet like gluten-free diets probiotic foods have become a trend among people with extra money to spend. The same people who buy organic food.
Bisphenol S (BPS) and bisphenol F (BPF) are chemicals used in the lining of aluminum-canned food and drinks (to prevent spoilage). They were rolled out as a replacement for bisphenol A (BPA), a compound targeted by activists under claims it might statistically be an "endocrine-disrupting chemical." Exhaustive studies later found overwhelming scientific evidence that was not so.
A new paper has statistically linked depression and anxiety during pregnancy (and link preterm births due to those) to the radius of natural gas hydraulic fracturing wells in Pennsylvania. Should you be worried? The short answer is "no", this is not a very good paper.Just like "only in mice" has become a common complaint of biologists, chemists, and toxicologists about provocative claims designed to get media attention, "it's just correlation" is invoked nearly as often by the science community.
With air pollution a distant memory outside some pockets in the United States (or during wildfires), the U.S. EPA oddly embraced one paper, which they had not seen any data for(1), claiming that particles so small they could only be detected with an electron microscope, 2.5 microns in size, were killing people.Data didn't show it, but it doesn't matter and that is the great thing about modern epidemiology. In this decade, epidemiologists only need to show a statistical correlation and then they get media coverage and hand it off to scientists and tell them to prove it. It's sort of like theoretical physicists claiming they can show time travel or a multiverse and the incompetent noobs in experimental physics need to drop everything and prove them right.
If I have a choice between an emissions-belching factory near my home or clean, high-paying jobs from a diverse group of educated people 13,000 feet above where citizens live, I am siding with science.This is why while I was a successful environmental fundraiser, many of their positions made no sense to me, even when I was young and naïve. Many of the positions I was supposed to believe in weren't about the environment, they were about manufacturing hype to raise money. Hawaiʻi's Thirty Meter Telescope is another example where it is not about the environment - 13 observatories and telescopes have been there for over 40 years - and it is also not about the next tactic after the environmental argument failed - religion.
The most disgusting thing about cigarette smoking for most isn't the smoke, nor is it the prospect of toxic carcinogens causing cancer in smokers the rest of us will end up subsidizing, it is that smokers often throw their garbage on the ground afterward and expect someone else to pick it up.(1)
