The Slave Who Helped Boston Battle Smallpox
The erasure of black and African contributions to medicine is frustratingly common in American culture. Thankfully, there are signs that Onesimus, the enslaved African who brought a lifesaving smallpox...
View ArticleWith Taliban Help, Afghanistan Girds for a Virus
The Taliban are cooperating with the Afghan government to bring health care and prevention to local residents to minimize the spread of disease. But the government says these efforts will not work so...
View ArticleBook Review: How Big Pharma Flooded Coal Country with Opioids
In “Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic,” Eric Eyre uncovers corporate avarice, corruption, and official neglect on a massive scale as...
View ArticleCiting Virus Misinformation, South Africa Tests Speech Limits
South Africa has made it illegal to spread disinformation about the new coronavirus and Covid-19. If found guilty, a person could face a fine, jail time, or both. But whether curbing people’s freedoms...
View ArticleFed by Confusion and Denial, a Slow-Motion Disaster Accelerates
Amid rising infections, increasing deaths, and exploding unemployment, the Covid-19 crisis highlighted how unevenly reliable information moves through American society. At times, the problem stems from...
View ArticleHealth Care Workers Face Anti-Science Abuse. This Has to Stop.
We need to stand with the doctors, nurses, public health specialists, and others who are leading efforts to address the pandemic. And that requires ensuring that medical science, public health best...
View ArticleIn Collecting Indigenous Feces, A Slew of Sticky Ethics
To understand the bacteria in human guts, researchers are sampling feces from around the world, including from populations that still practice hunter-gatherer lifestyles. But the history of these...
View ArticleCovid-19 Has Hit African Americans Especially Hard
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention keeps mum about the race of Covid-19 patients, African Americans appear to be contracting and dying from the disease at higher rates — a disparity...
View ArticleIn One Georgia County, an Early Vote to Shelter-in-Place
Carroll County’s leaders struggled with whether to lock down their region before the rest of Georgia. Their final decision may have saved lives — but it was also hampered by a varied and uncertain...
View ArticleA Lack of Evidence for Baby-Friendly Hospitals
In 1991, the World Health Organization and Unicef launched a combined initiative to increase breastfeeding rates around the world. Now, critics say the one-size-fits-all approach hasn’t worked in the...
View ArticleThe 19th Century Roots of Modern Medical Denialism
For decades, Samuel Thomson peddled his dubious system of alternative medicine to Americans by playing to their cultural, political, and religious identities. Today, Thomson’s claims continue to...
View ArticleAs Facilities Close for Covid-19, Stranded Animals Could Suffer
In 2005, when the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans went into an emergency shutdown during Hurricane Katrina, thousands of animals that were left behind perished. It’s not a stretch to...
View ArticleSidelined by Scandal, a Top Disease Modeler Watches and Worries
In the world of epidemiological modeling, Eva Lee is a star. But grant-related fraud charges have upended her career and left her mostly sidelined at a time when, supporters say, her talents are sorely...
View ArticleTo Ventilate or Not to Ventilate? Taking Your Covid-19 Questions.
If mechanical ventilators have such low levels of efficacy, should we be deploying resources elsewhere? What about newer, cheaper designs for ventilators? And am I in danger of giving my cat the...
View ArticleIs Hydroxychloroquine Making Covid-19 Clinical Trials Harder?
With so much off-label, ad hoc, and informal experimentation underway, including widespread use of the drug hydroxychloroquine, researchers worry that the baseline conditions — and patient volunteers —...
View ArticleBook Review: A Self-Help Guide to Solving the Climate Crisis
In “The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis,” Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, two of the chief architects of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, combine solutions-driven optimism...
View ArticleMarking Grim Milestones, the World Takes Stock of a New Normal
It has been 100 days since the World Health Organization was first notified of a new contagion in China. Over the subsequent three months, the world has received grim lessons in zoonotic transfer,...
View ArticleA Covid-19 Data Lag Might Be Giving Americans False Hope
Science is unquestionably the best tool we have for trying to understand the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, all the numbers — all the data — about the novel coronavirus are tainted with uncertainty in some...
View ArticleWith Legislation Looming, Chiropractors Get Political on Vaccines
The involvement of certain vocal chiropractors highlights the new coalitions that are now using political action committees (PACs), advertising campaigns, and grassroots organizing to try to protect...
View ArticleThe Mysterious Demise of Freshwater Mussels
In North America, home to one-third of the world’s freshwater mussel species, more than 70 percent of the mussels have long been imperiled or driven to extinction by pollution, habitat destruction, and...
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