A Vaccine for Breast Cancer?
Cancer prevention is a major goal in health research, and one major milestone was the HPV vaccine, which targets a virus that is responsible for different types of cancer, mainly cervical cancer. Now we’ve got some recent excitement in the…
Did All Those Masks Help with Covid or Not?
Headlines recently blared about the new review that looked at how effective masks are at preventing the transmission of flu-like disease. Cochrane reviews are well respected, and the media coverage about the recent review has been hard to parse. So…
Did Covid-19 Evolve Naturally or Leak from a Lab? The Many Confusing US Intelligence Reports
The Covid lab escape theory! This has been in the background for a while, but it came roaring to the forefront when a prominent news source claimed that the US Department of Energy concluded that Covid was the result of…
Climate Change and Health: Heat, Rain, Storms, and Fires
Climate change is causing weather events that are a direct threat to human life. We’re not gonna lie, this is an anxiety-provoking topic, as is much of the conversation surrounding climate change. Increased heat, changing precipitation patterns, and increased wildfires…
Fraud and Dysfunction in American Healthcare: The 2022 Shkreli Awards
The 2022 Shkreli Awards have been released! Each year, the Lown Institute passes out awards as a way of reporting on dysfunction in the US health care system. Dysfunction in healthcare is one of our foundational pillars here at Healthcare…
Reforming Federal Laws that Slow Marijuana Research
Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, making it difficult for researchers to study, and difficult to understand how it may help or harm our health. A recently passed bill is aimed at making marijuana research easier to conduct,…
Climate Change Is Already Impacting Our Health
Massive storms, flooding, extreme heat, droughts, air pollution, increased rates of disease, changes to our food and water… global warming, and the changes to climate that come with it, are increasing human health risks. Our physical and mental health both…
A Fentanyl Vaccine Shows Promise
Fentanyl is many times more potent than heroin or morphine, and is responsible for a lot of overdose deaths. Recent news reports have covered a potential fentanyl vaccine – how does that work, and how far are we from human…
Beauty Products, Hair Chemicals, and Uterine Cancer
There’s a lot of buzz around beauty products and how the chemicals in them may affect hormones, and thus contribute to the development of certain cancers. How much weight should we give to studies that report these associations? Related HCT…
Are Video Games GOOD for Kids?
Many people like to argue about whether video games cause violence, but what about evidence for the positive effects games might have? The research is out there, so what do we think about it? Related HCT episodes: Video Games Don’t…