The Projected Death Count from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill
Researchers projects that “big beautiful bill” cuts to public health insurance coverage may lead to upwards of 51,000 deaths a year.
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Coffee Break: Working Class Life in 17th-Century Italy, Science in Decline, AI and Scientific Understanding, and Neanderthal Art
Part the First. Tales from the Crypt. Subtitled The lives of 17th century Milan’s working poor – their health, diet, and drug habits – emerge from thousands of bodies buried under a public hospital. This article appeared in Science on 1 May 2025: In 1456, the Duke of Milan established a medical institution dedicated to […]
Read more...MAHA Influencers, the Future of Public Health, and Longings for Immortality
The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Report has dropped! The original document included phantom (hallucinated?) references, but those have been fixed apparently. Or maybe not. A graduate student who wrote a review with the same defects would get a flat “F”, but this does not seem to matter. Could AI (Algorithmic Intelligence) have had anything […]
Read more...Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Continues Assault on Obamacare
Rather than end Obamacare, which would be politically costly, the Trump Administration is working to hollow it out.
Read more...Coffee Break: Advances in Limb Regeneration & Malaria, Plus Science & Politics and a World through the Lens of Tuberculosis
Part the First. Old Experimental Models in Biology Lead to New Knowledge. Developmental Biology began as Embryology. A few of us still kicking remember the transition and miss the holistic approach required to master the material. Early embryological models included sea urchins and salamanders, tadpoles and the chicken. Much useful research was done with these […]
Read more...Little Lost Lambda: How Any Randomized Controlled Trial or Opinion Poll Could Be Misleading
How an analytical simplification, of omitting lambda, a measure of inconsistency, can serious distort randomized clinical trial results.
Read more...Public Health and Private Equity: What the Walgreens Buyout Could Mean for the Future of Pharmacy Care
Private equity makes more inroads into the health care industry, now with the buyout of the top pharmacy chain Walgreens.
Read more...A Ministroke Can Have Major Consequences
Some of the symptoms of a ministroke, and why you should go to the emergency room pronto if you think you’ve had one.
Read more...Decades On, SSRIs Remain Mired in Mystery and Debate
Experts worry MAHA could wage a war on SSRIs. But some researchers have long questioned the drugs’ efficacy.
Read more...Coffee Break: A Triumph of Gene Editing
Part the First: Gene Editing as a Cure for Genetic Disease. The recent politics of American science has been depressing in the extreme, and last week I promised to cover recent good things in basic and clinical science. I can’t think of anything better than a baby has been treated successfully for a rare, lethal […]
Read more...Thinking Being Offloaded to AI Even in Elite Medical Programs
The use of AI is severely degrading competence in advanced medical/biomedical degree programs in elite universities. Patients be warned.
Read more...Chemical Exposure from Ultra-Processed Foods May Contribute to Health Issues
Another line of thought on why consumption of ultra-processed foods is correlated with poor health outcomes.
Read more...Bobby Kennedy Jr. Makes Eugenics Great Again at Health and Human Services
RFK Jr. embrace pseudoscience and embarks on eugenicist policies that seek to identify and disempower the underprivileged.
Read more...Coffee Break: Notes on Pandemic Responses, a Human Pathogen that Eats the Plastic of Medical Devices, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services Speaks Out
Part the First: Retrospective Notes on a Pandemic. BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, has recently published two interesting pieces on COVID-19. The first is an analysis by Anthony Costello, who was previously Director of Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health at the World Heath Organization: UK decision not to suppress covid raises questions […]
Read more...Weight Loss Drugs Like Ozempic Prove the Sickness at the Heart of the NHS
Most users of GLP-1 agonists like Ozempic need to stay on them long-term to keep pound off. So is medicine promoting an addicition?
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