Public Health

Although I’m a trained and credentialed epidemiologist, and an ardent supporter of the professional discipline as a foundational science that underlies legitimate public health efforts, several of my past blogs (Bond 2016 and Bond 2017) have remarked on the many limitations of observational epidemiology1 research for establishing disease causation. Of course, I’m not the only such critic writing about it. Of late, observational studies have been getting a particularly bad rap in the popular press as too unreliable. This has been especially true with respect to their application to the topic…

Although I’m a trained and credentialed epidemiologist, and an ardent supporter of the professional discipline as a foundational science that underlies legitimate public health efforts, several of my past blogs (Bond 2016 and Bond 2017) have remarked on the many limitations of observational epidemiology1 research for establishing disease causation. Of course, I’m not the only such critic writing about it. Of late, observational studies have been getting a particularly bad rap in the popular press as too unreliable. This has been especially true with respect to their application to the topic…

Although I’m a trained and credentialed epidemiologist, and an ardent supporter of the professional discipline as a foundational science that underlies legitimate public health efforts, several of my past blogs (Bond 2016 and Bond 2017) have remarked on the many limitations of observational epidemiology1 research for establishing disease causation. Of course, I’m not the only such critic writing about it. Of late, observational studies have been getting a particularly bad rap in the popular press as too unreliable. This has been especially true with respect to their application to the topic…

In December, people begin to think about the new year, and that means resolutions to lose weight. Exercising is a lot of work and feeling hungry much of the time is not desirable so many will instead opt for diet plans. One popular diet is the Atkin's Diet, where natural sugars are replaced with protein, while another is the Ketogenic Diet, where sugars are replaced with fatty foods. Both seek to put your body into a metabolic state called ketosis, where elevated level of ketone bodies replace glucose. Both proceed from biological fact but just like expensive biking suits with the same…

In late November 1999, a TV producer called me about an alarming report that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans were being killed each year by preventable errors in hospitals and another 1 million were being injured. Could that be true? Based on my research, I replied, the estimate seemed low. The To Err is Human report from the Institute of Medicine has been called a “seminal moment” in the patient safety fight. The public furor sparked by the group’s assertion that medical mistakes were deadlier than breast cancer, auto accidents or AIDS prompted new laws, as well as vows to meet the Institute of…

Though activists oppose Golden Rice, essentially a vitamin-fortified food staple, on ideological and economic grounds, Vitamin A deficiency affects hundreds of thousands of kids each year, and a progressive tool that feeds people and prevents disease is welcome.  Though the supplements market in America alone is a $35 billion industry, it is primarily people who distrust science and medicine, not people who benefit from it. That is not the case in the developing world, where a recent study found a 27 percent drop in child mortality in low- and middle-income countries when they had the…

Rutgers University wants kids to be afraid this year. Not of ghosts and goblins, but Halloween itself. So they have published 7 hyperbolic risks designed to terrify parents. Allergies! Marijuana brownies! Makeup! Getting advice from a poison control center at Halloween is as demoralizing as ordering a steak with a microbiologist: they know so much about absolute risk they have forgotten what real risk is. We may also hear about some razor blade supposedly put in candy one time among 2 billion kids during their Halloween careers, because while Christmas is Secret Santa time, Halloween is…

It's no secret to anyone with even modest command of history that America has long meant freedom. Every oppressed religion moved here, to the one country that did not have a national religion, separating it from the Anglican Church (imagine if the President got to approve the Bishop of Pittsburgh!) or any of the countries in the Holy Roman Empire. That didn't stop religions that moved here from engaging in their own oppression. Though Arabia and its allied countries feel like we are way too liberal, with not stoning gay people and letting women drive, to Europeans we are way too oppressed and…

Snus, a smokeless tobacco popular in Sweden, has led to a dramatic reduction in smoking-related diseases compared to the rest of Europe. But though it has been legal for sale in the U.S. since 2015, it was not legal to claim it is less harmful than cigarettes.  After analyzing decades of evidence, FDA has agreed that these products are safer than cigarettes and has granted its first-ever modified risk orders to eight of their smokeless tobacco products. Their packages will now be able to state “Using General Snus instead of cigarettes puts you at a lower risk of mouth cancer, heart…

Google News was awash in suggestive headlines last week following the publication of a new paper purporting to show a link between occupational pesticide exposure and increased cardiovascular disease risk. The American Heart Association (AHA), which published the study, told its Newsroom readers that “Pesticide exposure may increase heart disease and stroke risk.” Echoing the AHA, US News&World Report announced, “Heavy Exposure to Pesticides May Boost Stroke Risk”: Working around high levels of pesticides may translate into a high risk for heart trouble later, a new study suggests ….…