In the past, you may have seen various 'we detected X in urine' papers endorsed by suspect names like homeopathy believer Phil Landrigan and endorsed by organic industry apologist Chuck Benbrook.What do such claims even mean? In science, nothing. We can detect anything in anything now, but groups like Heartland Health Research Alliance Ltd are prized by litigators who sue "at the drop of a rat"...
read moreMost opioid addicts are recreational users, not those who started on prescription pain medication and continued to have pain and migrated to illegal routes when doctors behaved ethically and shut them off. It just makes people feel good. It is no surprise that opioids are involved in far more deaths each year than guns. If opiods were legally available without a prescription, they'd be in the...
read morePrior to 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic, American Democrats led the anti-vaccine movement. They couched it in anti-corporate terminology and that let politically allied academics and journalists turn a blind eye to the harm their thinking caused. In 2015, after a decade of effort by Science 2.0 and many others, California passed a law banning 'philosophical' objections, a haven that had only been...
read moreIf you believed Monsanto controlled 500,000 biologists who accepted GMOs and weedkillers worldwide while Whole Foods, with more revenue, was standing alone selling organic food that made you healthier, you are a conspiracy theorist. You're not alone, even if the demographics changed. A few years ago, conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his claims that cell phones cause cancer and...
read moreIn the 1990s, culture seemed to truly get that cigarettes and the damage they cause are the leading preventable lifestyle killer. Tobacco companies got penalized to the tune of tens of billions of dollars for their part in suppressing data showing the harms of smoking but instead of celebrating the win and using that money to promote smoking cessation and harm reduction, much of it went to trial...
read moreA decade ago, automated telephone menus were what everyone hated. It was common to press 0 or yell 'Agent' at the phone because you knew that after inputting everything it wanted, when you got to an agent they were going to ask you for everything all over again.Today, you probably ignore the chat window that opens up on a website, especially if you think it is a bot. A Verizon bot is going to be...
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