“A spoonful of sucrose helps the medicine go down,” as Mary Poppins told us. But she neglected to say that it also increases our risk of cardiovascular disease. Actually, Mary didn’t say sucrose,...
At one time it was used as an aftershave because of its sweet smell. It was even used to decaffeinate coffee. Oh my, how times change! Today we worry about a few parts per billion of benzene in...
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated many preexisting problems. One of them is how to vet the avalanche of information flowing down at us on a daily basis. Another is how to properly assess the risks...
There is an old saying that if you play with fire, eventually you will get burned. The same can be said for certain chemicals. Of course, I don’t mean “play” in the literal sense. What I mean is...
Such warnings have become ubiquitous as a result of California’s Proposition 65, a well-intentioned law that has gone haywire and has caused undue anxiety among consumers. The intent was to protect...
Amidst the cacophony of jingoist, vacuous blather at the Republican Convention there were some noteworthy phrases that probably slipped by most viewers. A number of speakers talked about the need...
We all want to be healthy and live as long as possible. So we think about popping vitamin pills, a daily dose of aspirin, eating foods with probiotics and taking statin drugs. And we puzzle over...
It always pays to read the study! It really does, because popular accounts often misinterpret what researchers actually found and end up raising undue alarm. Of course it is raising the red flag of...
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