<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Junk Science]]> https://www.scivillage.com/ Tue, 04 Aug 2026 16:57:56 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Are artificial sweeteners really worse for your brain than sugar? An epidemiologis...]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21016.html Mon, 03 Aug 2026 13:55:06 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21016.html https://www.sciencealert.com/are-artific...t-explains

EXCERPTS: Artificial sweeteners are in the news almost constantly. If you believe the headlines, they are terrible blights on our health that are far worse than the sugar they replace. This isn't always supported by the evidence, but it's something that we love to hear, and so it gets reported on almost weekly regardless of what the data actually shows.

The most recent furor over artificial sweeteners is a perfect example. The headlines have been claiming for months that artificial sweeteners speed up cognitive decline. According to a recent study, there are six of these 'dangerous chemicals', including common ones like xylitol and aspartame, that may be causing our brains to rot more quickly.

[...] This is all made especially remarkable given that it doesn't really show any issues from artificial sweeteners at all. The study itself is a very simple piece of observational research. ... This research suffers from the normal issues that such observational studies do. One big thing is that food frequency questionnaires don't really measure intake of food. They measure what people THINK they eat, but we know that we are often unreliable historians.

[...] As letters to the journal have noted, there are also serious questions about the biological plausibility of the claim. ... This particular research therefore proves very little about artificial sweeteners and brain health. At worst, the study shows that there may be some negative impacts, although it depends on which analysis you choose to believe.

[...] Despite decades of fearmongering when it comes to artificial sweeteners, the reality is that they are very well-tested and generally not harmful... (MORE - missing details)]]> https://www.sciencealert.com/are-artific...t-explains

EXCERPTS: Artificial sweeteners are in the news almost constantly. If you believe the headlines, they are terrible blights on our health that are far worse than the sugar they replace. This isn't always supported by the evidence, but it's something that we love to hear, and so it gets reported on almost weekly regardless of what the data actually shows.

The most recent furor over artificial sweeteners is a perfect example. The headlines have been claiming for months that artificial sweeteners speed up cognitive decline. According to a recent study, there are six of these 'dangerous chemicals', including common ones like xylitol and aspartame, that may be causing our brains to rot more quickly.

[...] This is all made especially remarkable given that it doesn't really show any issues from artificial sweeteners at all. The study itself is a very simple piece of observational research. ... This research suffers from the normal issues that such observational studies do. One big thing is that food frequency questionnaires don't really measure intake of food. They measure what people THINK they eat, but we know that we are often unreliable historians.

[...] As letters to the journal have noted, there are also serious questions about the biological plausibility of the claim. ... This particular research therefore proves very little about artificial sweeteners and brain health. At worst, the study shows that there may be some negative impacts, although it depends on which analysis you choose to believe.

[...] Despite decades of fearmongering when it comes to artificial sweeteners, the reality is that they are very well-tested and generally not harmful... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[The revealing diaries of Dr. Fauci]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20968.html Wed, 29 Jul 2026 01:04:37 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20968.html https://www.wsj.com/opinion/anthony-fauc..._permalink

INTRO: Anthony Fauci made himself the public face of pandemic lockdowns in 2020, and now we have a glimpse of what was going on behind his eyes. Newly released diaries paint an unflattering portrait of a self-obsessed and not entirely honest bureaucrat, in contrast to the image of the careful scientist he cultivated in public.

The documents were released by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who for years has dug into the Covid story to understand why the government response to the health crisis was so destructive. The excerpts Sen. Paul has published, which run to more than 1,100 pages, cover December 2019 just before the first reports of an outbreak in Wuhan, China, through Dr. Fauci’s retirement from government in December 2022.

The diary reads as if it was intended to be an aide-mémoire for an autobiography Dr. Fauci might write one day, so it pays to read with care. He might have shaded the truth with an eye (or two) on history. Yet that possibility makes what’s in it all the more remarkable.

One conclusion is that on important points Dr. Fauci was both wrong and dishonest. For instance, he and allies in the government-science industrial complex still cling to the theory that Covid-19 evolved naturally in animal populations before spreading to humans.

Yet on Feb. 1, 2020, his diary records a meeting with a dozen prominent virologists in which only two credited this “natural origins” theory. The rest suspected the virus might have been created artificially, not least because a leading scientist in Wuhan, Shi Zhengli, was known to engage in the sort of gain-of-function research that could produce such a result.

The diary suggests that by Jan. 26, 2020, Dr. Fauci believed the virus hadn’t originated in the Wuhan wet market, often identified as the source by natural-origin advocates. This didn’t stop him and allies from painting skeptics of the natural-origin theory as politicized cranks and conspiracy theorists. Previously released documents shed light on how Dr. Fauci orchestrated publication of a scientific paper to suppress the theory that Covid leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The diary also brags on Dr. Fauci’s influence persuading the likes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to shut schools and lock down large parts of the economy. Yet he later claimed in public that he never argued for locking anything down.

Liberals lionize Dr. Fauci now for his antagonism toward President Trump. But early in the pandemic the diary suggests the doctor was besotted with Mr. Trump—mainly, it appears, because Mr. Trump said nice things about him. He’s similarly susceptible to the flattery of celebrities.

Conversely, Dr. Fauci gloated to himself about his viciousness toward critics... (MORE - details)]]> https://www.wsj.com/opinion/anthony-fauc..._permalink

INTRO: Anthony Fauci made himself the public face of pandemic lockdowns in 2020, and now we have a glimpse of what was going on behind his eyes. Newly released diaries paint an unflattering portrait of a self-obsessed and not entirely honest bureaucrat, in contrast to the image of the careful scientist he cultivated in public.

The documents were released by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who for years has dug into the Covid story to understand why the government response to the health crisis was so destructive. The excerpts Sen. Paul has published, which run to more than 1,100 pages, cover December 2019 just before the first reports of an outbreak in Wuhan, China, through Dr. Fauci’s retirement from government in December 2022.

The diary reads as if it was intended to be an aide-mémoire for an autobiography Dr. Fauci might write one day, so it pays to read with care. He might have shaded the truth with an eye (or two) on history. Yet that possibility makes what’s in it all the more remarkable.

One conclusion is that on important points Dr. Fauci was both wrong and dishonest. For instance, he and allies in the government-science industrial complex still cling to the theory that Covid-19 evolved naturally in animal populations before spreading to humans.

Yet on Feb. 1, 2020, his diary records a meeting with a dozen prominent virologists in which only two credited this “natural origins” theory. The rest suspected the virus might have been created artificially, not least because a leading scientist in Wuhan, Shi Zhengli, was known to engage in the sort of gain-of-function research that could produce such a result.

The diary suggests that by Jan. 26, 2020, Dr. Fauci believed the virus hadn’t originated in the Wuhan wet market, often identified as the source by natural-origin advocates. This didn’t stop him and allies from painting skeptics of the natural-origin theory as politicized cranks and conspiracy theorists. Previously released documents shed light on how Dr. Fauci orchestrated publication of a scientific paper to suppress the theory that Covid leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The diary also brags on Dr. Fauci’s influence persuading the likes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and then-New York Mayor Bill de Blasio to shut schools and lock down large parts of the economy. Yet he later claimed in public that he never argued for locking anything down.

Liberals lionize Dr. Fauci now for his antagonism toward President Trump. But early in the pandemic the diary suggests the doctor was besotted with Mr. Trump—mainly, it appears, because Mr. Trump said nice things about him. He’s similarly susceptible to the flattery of celebrities.

Conversely, Dr. Fauci gloated to himself about his viciousness toward critics... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Clinical failure rates over the decades: Yikes]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20947.html Sun, 26 Jul 2026 22:21:13 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20947.html Clinical failure rates over the decades: Yikes
https://www.science.org/content/blog-pos...ades-yikes

EXCERPTS: I’m fond of saying that the most important single statistic about the drug industry is the clinical failure rate [...] Here we go: in the 1960s, the clinical failure rate was 90%. In the 1970s, 81%. In the 1980s, it was 80%, and in the 1990s it was 88%. In the 2000s, 91% of all clinical candidates failed, and in the 2010s, it was 91% as well.

[...] But let’s think about that 91% failure rate for a moment. When I bring this up in presentations, I invite the audience to consider what the auto industry would look like of 91% of new car designs proved unable to roll out of the factory, or if 91% of new airliner models were unable to leave the ground - and if you only found that out after spending all the R&D money to build them at full size and trying to fly them.

No cutting-edge restaurant could survive if 91% of its innovative dishes proved inedible or outright poisonous. What other industries operate under these bizarre conditions? (MORE - details)]]> Clinical failure rates over the decades: Yikes
https://www.science.org/content/blog-pos...ades-yikes

EXCERPTS: I’m fond of saying that the most important single statistic about the drug industry is the clinical failure rate [...] Here we go: in the 1960s, the clinical failure rate was 90%. In the 1970s, 81%. In the 1980s, it was 80%, and in the 1990s it was 88%. In the 2000s, 91% of all clinical candidates failed, and in the 2010s, it was 91% as well.

[...] But let’s think about that 91% failure rate for a moment. When I bring this up in presentations, I invite the audience to consider what the auto industry would look like of 91% of new car designs proved unable to roll out of the factory, or if 91% of new airliner models were unable to leave the ground - and if you only found that out after spending all the R&D money to build them at full size and trying to fly them.

No cutting-edge restaurant could survive if 91% of its innovative dishes proved inedible or outright poisonous. What other industries operate under these bizarre conditions? (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Physicist says splashy new cosmology study made ‘elemental’ mistake]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20923.html Wed, 22 Jul 2026 22:39:42 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20923.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/artic...00655.html

EXCERPTS: . . . the paper was published in Nature, one of the world's most authoritative and influential scientific journals. Upon closer inspection, however, Sawala found problems with how the authors calculated the scale of the DESI data. He argues that they measured the distances of galaxies with a unit called "luminosity distance" when they should have used a different unit called the "comoving distance." They also neglected to scale these distances to account for how fast the universe is growing.

After correcting for these issues, his independent analysis suggests the DESI data are consistent with the prevailing consensus: no mysterious mega-alignments of filaments; no violation of the cherished cosmological principle. [...] "It is disappointing that this made it past the reviewers," says David Spergel, an astrophysicist and president of the Simons Foundation. "Nature's editors need to be more careful in the future." (MORE - details)]]> https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/artic...00655.html

EXCERPTS: . . . the paper was published in Nature, one of the world's most authoritative and influential scientific journals. Upon closer inspection, however, Sawala found problems with how the authors calculated the scale of the DESI data. He argues that they measured the distances of galaxies with a unit called "luminosity distance" when they should have used a different unit called the "comoving distance." They also neglected to scale these distances to account for how fast the universe is growing.

After correcting for these issues, his independent analysis suggests the DESI data are consistent with the prevailing consensus: no mysterious mega-alignments of filaments; no violation of the cherished cosmological principle. [...] "It is disappointing that this made it past the reviewers," says David Spergel, an astrophysicist and president of the Simons Foundation. "Nature's editors need to be more careful in the future." (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Avi Loeb may have a new alien spaceship or hidden space station candidate]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20881.html Sat, 18 Jul 2026 17:35:32 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20881.html An ‘asteroid’ tracked since 1998 made an unexplained orbital shift—now astronomers say it’s something far more mysterious
https://thedebrief.org/an-asteroid-track...ysterious/

EXCERPTS: Last summer, astronomers were observing the near approach of a space object believed to be an asteroid that had been tracked since its discovery in 1998. However, in a surprising development, the object failed to appear where it was predicted to be after decades of observations.

Now, a team of researchers reports in a new study that this mysterious orbital body is no asteroid at all, but instead may be an elusive class of space objects that scientists are still working to fully understand.

[...] Now, according to Jet Propulsion Lab and CalTech researcher Davide Farnocchia and colleagues, 1998 SH2 was likely steered off course as a result of jets of gas escaping from beneath the object’s surface—a phenomenon known as weak cometary outgassing—meaning that the suspected asteroid is actually probably a type of comet.

However, unlike most comets, this one showed none of the typical characteristics astronomers associate with them, including a glowing tail or coma. This helped to explain the confusion over its initial classification, and additional observations of layered composite imagery did finally reveal these features, albeit faintly.

This confirmation that the object was indeed releasing material meant that 1998 SH2 was a rare variety of space objects known as dark comets, enigmatic bodies whose subtle behavior falls somewhere between comets and asteroids... (MORE - missing details)]]> An ‘asteroid’ tracked since 1998 made an unexplained orbital shift—now astronomers say it’s something far more mysterious
https://thedebrief.org/an-asteroid-track...ysterious/

EXCERPTS: Last summer, astronomers were observing the near approach of a space object believed to be an asteroid that had been tracked since its discovery in 1998. However, in a surprising development, the object failed to appear where it was predicted to be after decades of observations.

Now, a team of researchers reports in a new study that this mysterious orbital body is no asteroid at all, but instead may be an elusive class of space objects that scientists are still working to fully understand.

[...] Now, according to Jet Propulsion Lab and CalTech researcher Davide Farnocchia and colleagues, 1998 SH2 was likely steered off course as a result of jets of gas escaping from beneath the object’s surface—a phenomenon known as weak cometary outgassing—meaning that the suspected asteroid is actually probably a type of comet.

However, unlike most comets, this one showed none of the typical characteristics astronomers associate with them, including a glowing tail or coma. This helped to explain the confusion over its initial classification, and additional observations of layered composite imagery did finally reveal these features, albeit faintly.

This confirmation that the object was indeed releasing material meant that 1998 SH2 was a rare variety of space objects known as dark comets, enigmatic bodies whose subtle behavior falls somewhere between comets and asteroids... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Creatine is a supplement with a rare commodity: Evidence]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20842.html Sat, 11 Jul 2026 16:00:02 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20842.html https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medica...y-evidence

INTRO: I have always been a fan of the Olympics, particularly the 100-metre sprint to decide “the world’s fastest human.” Like all Canadians, I was elated when Ben Johnson won the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, then devastated when we learned that he had cheated by doping with stanozolol, a muscle-building synthetic steroid.

Then in 1992, at the Barcelona Olympics, British sprinter Linford Christie was crowned “the fastest human” and passed his urine test for any banned drugs. But he did admit to using a dietary supplement of creatine, which was then, and is now, allowed in athletic competitions.

Since Christie’s victory, creatine has raced from the track into hockey arenas, swimming pools, football fields and baseball diamonds with athletes looking to it for a quick burst of energy. The white powder has even made it into kitchens where people dissolve it in water and consume it with hopes of improving the results they obtain in the gym from resistance training.

And there is more. Preliminary evidence has surfaced indicating that creatine can not only provide energy to muscles, it can even energize the brain and improve cognition.

My first encounter with creatine was long before it garnered attention after Christie’s win. I had always referred to the compound in my organic chemistry lectures because it was first isolated by French chemist Michel Chevreul, one of the fathers of organic chemistry... (MORE - details)]]> https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/medica...y-evidence

INTRO: I have always been a fan of the Olympics, particularly the 100-metre sprint to decide “the world’s fastest human.” Like all Canadians, I was elated when Ben Johnson won the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, then devastated when we learned that he had cheated by doping with stanozolol, a muscle-building synthetic steroid.

Then in 1992, at the Barcelona Olympics, British sprinter Linford Christie was crowned “the fastest human” and passed his urine test for any banned drugs. But he did admit to using a dietary supplement of creatine, which was then, and is now, allowed in athletic competitions.

Since Christie’s victory, creatine has raced from the track into hockey arenas, swimming pools, football fields and baseball diamonds with athletes looking to it for a quick burst of energy. The white powder has even made it into kitchens where people dissolve it in water and consume it with hopes of improving the results they obtain in the gym from resistance training.

And there is more. Preliminary evidence has surfaced indicating that creatine can not only provide energy to muscles, it can even energize the brain and improve cognition.

My first encounter with creatine was long before it garnered attention after Christie’s win. I had always referred to the compound in my organic chemistry lectures because it was first isolated by French chemist Michel Chevreul, one of the fathers of organic chemistry... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[A 25-year-old Air Force recruit died from the flu. Blood is on Pete Hegseth’s hands]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20789.html Sat, 04 Jul 2026 15:34:26 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20789.html https://www.jezebel.com/air-force-recrui...k-mcdaniel

EXCERPT: For those wondering why the Department of Defense and DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth would suddenly pull a complete 180 and reinstate the mandated flu vaccine for new recruits at the end of last month, we now suddenly have what certainly looks like a plausible answer: All it took was a pointlessly dead U.S. citizen... (MORE - details)]]> https://www.jezebel.com/air-force-recrui...k-mcdaniel

EXCERPT: For those wondering why the Department of Defense and DOD Secretary Pete Hegseth would suddenly pull a complete 180 and reinstate the mandated flu vaccine for new recruits at the end of last month, we now suddenly have what certainly looks like a plausible answer: All it took was a pointlessly dead U.S. citizen... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[WHO and the death of evidence-based medicine]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20775.html Thu, 02 Jul 2026 17:11:34 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20775.html Just part of post-Westernism or the decolonization of knowledge. Going back to pre-colonial, indigenous routines and beliefs of the regions.
- - - - - - - - - - -

WHO and the death of evidence-based medicine
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/who-and...-medicine/

EXCERPTS: I have long been critical of the World Health Organization’s promotion of dubious treatment methods under the banner of “traditional medicine”. It now has a global strategy to promote what is calls “traditional, complementary and integrative medicine” (TCIM). In my opinion (shared by at least some others) the document is a master class in how to promote medical pseudoscience with the language of evidence-based medicine.

It is very similar to RFK’s use of “gold standard science”. Superficially, it sounds fine, but in context, it is a weaponization of the weaknesses and misunderstandings of evidence-based medicine.

The goals sound reasonable, such as this paragraph [...] But the document gives the game away in several critical ways, including what it says and what it doesn’t say...

[...] the unstated major premise of the entire document is that there are safe and effective treatments that are not being used by mainstream medicine systems for some reason. This is unlikely because how would we have rigorous evidence of safety and effectiveness if a modality were not already incorporated into mainstream medicine? Who did this research, and why? Are doctors leaving effective treatments on the table? (MORE - details)]]> Just part of post-Westernism or the decolonization of knowledge. Going back to pre-colonial, indigenous routines and beliefs of the regions.
- - - - - - - - - - -

WHO and the death of evidence-based medicine
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/who-and...-medicine/

EXCERPTS: I have long been critical of the World Health Organization’s promotion of dubious treatment methods under the banner of “traditional medicine”. It now has a global strategy to promote what is calls “traditional, complementary and integrative medicine” (TCIM). In my opinion (shared by at least some others) the document is a master class in how to promote medical pseudoscience with the language of evidence-based medicine.

It is very similar to RFK’s use of “gold standard science”. Superficially, it sounds fine, but in context, it is a weaponization of the weaknesses and misunderstandings of evidence-based medicine.

The goals sound reasonable, such as this paragraph [...] But the document gives the game away in several critical ways, including what it says and what it doesn’t say...

[...] the unstated major premise of the entire document is that there are safe and effective treatments that are not being used by mainstream medicine systems for some reason. This is unlikely because how would we have rigorous evidence of safety and effectiveness if a modality were not already incorporated into mainstream medicine? Who did this research, and why? Are doctors leaving effective treatments on the table? (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Causation: the confusing difference between the law and science versions]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20748.html Mon, 29 Jun 2026 18:18:30 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20748.html Supreme Court ruling on Roundup points to a confusing difference between the law and science
https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/27/roun...eme-court/

EXCERPTS: When the Supreme Court handed Monsanto a major win in Roundup litigation on Thursday, the headlines sounded like a scientific event: a case about whether Roundup causes cancer. But Monsanto v. Durnell did not settle that question. The court held that federal pesticide law preempts a state failure-to-warn claim when the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning on the product label.

That is an important legal ruling. It is not the same thing as a scientific finding that glyphosate is safe or unsafe. The ruling is just the most recent example of a serious problem: Science and law use the same word — causation — while asking different questions.

My own work has moved between clinical care, population-health research, and law, and that border is where this confusion becomes most visible. In epidemiology, causation is usually a population-level inference. Researchers ask whether an exposure reliably changes disease risk across groups of people. That requires replication, statistical association, dose-response evidence, biological plausibility, and efforts to rule out confounding. Even then, conclusions remain probabilistic. A risk factor can increase disease likelihood without proving why one person became ill.

[...] Talc litigation shows the same problem in another form. Johnson & Johnson and other defendants have faced claims that talc-based products contributed to ovarian cancer or mesothelioma. Some claims focus on talc itself. Others focus on alleged asbestos contamination, a different issue because asbestos is a well-established carcinogen. In 2024, IARC classified talc as probably carcinogenic to humans, based on limited evidence in humans, sufficient evidence in experimental animals, and strong mechanistic evidence.

That classification matters. But it still does not mean every cancer occurring after talc use was caused by talc.

The scientific question is specific: Does talc, asbestos-contaminated talc, or perineal talc use reliably increase cancer risk across populations, under what exposure conditions, and with what level of confidence? The courtroom question is different: Would this plaintiff’s injury have occurred but for the product exposure, and was that causal link legally sufficient to assign responsibility?

Talc litigation also shows why juries do not evaluate causation in a sterile scientific vacuum. Plaintiffs may argue not only epidemiology, but corporate knowledge, internal documents, inadequate warnings, disputed testing practices, and alleged concealment. If jurors believe a company acted deceptively, they may interpret ambiguous scientific evidence more aggressively.

The problem is intensified because people are uncomfortable with randomness. Cancer feels too consequential to attribute to background risk, chance, or multifactorial vulnerability, so jurors and the public naturally search for a concrete cause. These same dynamics are now playing out in litigation over social media and youth mental health.

[...] Science is designed to estimate risk, test hypotheses, identify patterns, and reduce the likelihood of false causal inference. Law is designed to resolve disputes, assign responsibility, compensate injury, deter misconduct, and impose duties. Those functions are related, but not the same.

This distinction matters for public trust. If people believe a jury verdict proves scientific consensus, later scientific caution may look corrupt. If people believe regulatory caution invalidates every legal claim, courts may look irrational. If people believe a settlement proves causation, the absence of admitted liability may look like evasion.

So what should be done? First, courts and lawyers should be more explicit about which causal question is being answered: general causation, specific causation, regulatory risk, failure to warn, product design, foreseeability, or legal preemption.

Second, expert testimony and public reporting should keep those categories separate. A hazard classification is not the same thing as proof that a product caused one plaintiff’s injury. A settlement is not the same thing as admitted causation. A regulatory decision is not the same thing as a jury verdict. A Supreme Court preemption ruling is not the same thing as a scientific exoneration.

Journalists have a role here, too. Coverage of cases involving Roundup, social media, talc, and other tricky topics should tell readers not only who won, but what question the court actually answered. Monsanto v. Durnell was a landmark ruling about federal pesticide labeling and state tort law. It was not a final scientific verdict on glyphosate.

Public trust will keep eroding if every legal outcome is treated as though it were a scientific finding. A courtroom can assign responsibility without settling science. Science can remain cautious without denying harm. And courts can limit liability without proving that a product is harmless... (MORE - missing details)]]> Supreme Court ruling on Roundup points to a confusing difference between the law and science
https://www.statnews.com/2026/06/27/roun...eme-court/

EXCERPTS: When the Supreme Court handed Monsanto a major win in Roundup litigation on Thursday, the headlines sounded like a scientific event: a case about whether Roundup causes cancer. But Monsanto v. Durnell did not settle that question. The court held that federal pesticide law preempts a state failure-to-warn claim when the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a cancer warning on the product label.

That is an important legal ruling. It is not the same thing as a scientific finding that glyphosate is safe or unsafe. The ruling is just the most recent example of a serious problem: Science and law use the same word — causation — while asking different questions.

My own work has moved between clinical care, population-health research, and law, and that border is where this confusion becomes most visible. In epidemiology, causation is usually a population-level inference. Researchers ask whether an exposure reliably changes disease risk across groups of people. That requires replication, statistical association, dose-response evidence, biological plausibility, and efforts to rule out confounding. Even then, conclusions remain probabilistic. A risk factor can increase disease likelihood without proving why one person became ill.

[...] Talc litigation shows the same problem in another form. Johnson & Johnson and other defendants have faced claims that talc-based products contributed to ovarian cancer or mesothelioma. Some claims focus on talc itself. Others focus on alleged asbestos contamination, a different issue because asbestos is a well-established carcinogen. In 2024, IARC classified talc as probably carcinogenic to humans, based on limited evidence in humans, sufficient evidence in experimental animals, and strong mechanistic evidence.

That classification matters. But it still does not mean every cancer occurring after talc use was caused by talc.

The scientific question is specific: Does talc, asbestos-contaminated talc, or perineal talc use reliably increase cancer risk across populations, under what exposure conditions, and with what level of confidence? The courtroom question is different: Would this plaintiff’s injury have occurred but for the product exposure, and was that causal link legally sufficient to assign responsibility?

Talc litigation also shows why juries do not evaluate causation in a sterile scientific vacuum. Plaintiffs may argue not only epidemiology, but corporate knowledge, internal documents, inadequate warnings, disputed testing practices, and alleged concealment. If jurors believe a company acted deceptively, they may interpret ambiguous scientific evidence more aggressively.

The problem is intensified because people are uncomfortable with randomness. Cancer feels too consequential to attribute to background risk, chance, or multifactorial vulnerability, so jurors and the public naturally search for a concrete cause. These same dynamics are now playing out in litigation over social media and youth mental health.

[...] Science is designed to estimate risk, test hypotheses, identify patterns, and reduce the likelihood of false causal inference. Law is designed to resolve disputes, assign responsibility, compensate injury, deter misconduct, and impose duties. Those functions are related, but not the same.

This distinction matters for public trust. If people believe a jury verdict proves scientific consensus, later scientific caution may look corrupt. If people believe regulatory caution invalidates every legal claim, courts may look irrational. If people believe a settlement proves causation, the absence of admitted liability may look like evasion.

So what should be done? First, courts and lawyers should be more explicit about which causal question is being answered: general causation, specific causation, regulatory risk, failure to warn, product design, foreseeability, or legal preemption.

Second, expert testimony and public reporting should keep those categories separate. A hazard classification is not the same thing as proof that a product caused one plaintiff’s injury. A settlement is not the same thing as admitted causation. A regulatory decision is not the same thing as a jury verdict. A Supreme Court preemption ruling is not the same thing as a scientific exoneration.

Journalists have a role here, too. Coverage of cases involving Roundup, social media, talc, and other tricky topics should tell readers not only who won, but what question the court actually answered. Monsanto v. Durnell was a landmark ruling about federal pesticide labeling and state tort law. It was not a final scientific verdict on glyphosate.

Public trust will keep eroding if every legal outcome is treated as though it were a scientific finding. A courtroom can assign responsibility without settling science. Science can remain cautious without denying harm. And courts can limit liability without proving that a product is harmless... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Quackery in Quebec: The trojan horse bill to worry about]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20736.html Sat, 27 Jun 2026 16:55:06 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20736.html https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critic...orry-about

INTRO: A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec, and while it may look like it will benefit our health, there is a lot going on under the surface. It is an excellent example of how the rebranding of pseudoscience gives it legitimacy, and this Trojan horse is now knocking on our legislative door.

The bill proposes a number of things around the nebulous phrase “complementary and integrative approaches to health.” The member who introduced it wants to identify knowledge gaps and recommendations in that field; to get research into integrative health funded by our provincial health research body; and for the government to finance university-level education in this field.

If you have never heard of “integrative health” or if you are a fan of it, it all sounds good. Many Quebecers are already using these complementary therapies. Why not invest money in finding out which ones work particularly well and ensure that more therapists can benefit from a higher education so as to ease the burden of illness in our province? After all, the bill does not mention replacing medicine but rather complementing it.

But complementing it with what? Because when we scratch the surface of this Trojan horse, we discover that it is full of nonsense.

[...] In 2026, these practices are not serious. They check all the boxes of a pseudoscience: they are based on a primitive, overly simplistic understanding of how the body works; they may rely on the spiritual idea that a mysterious life force exists which can be manipulated; they fail to progress and change; they often lack a plausible mechanism of action; and their promising, preliminary studies are commonly contradicted by rigorous clinical trials.

You would think this would stop their appeal dead in its track. But many of the people who make use of these therapies report feeling better—not because they work as advertised but because of things like receiving the care of a genial practitioner for a whole hour, getting to relax a bit, and sinking money into a series of appointments and thus being inclined to think that this was money well spent.

And unfortunately, the World Health Organization has added a layer of legitimacy to this whole enterprise. [...] The key to marketing this Trojan horse of integrative health is the vagueness. Never clearly define what is meant by “integrative medicine.” Simply mention that medicine is insufficient; that people are already using and loving complementary practices; and that even the WHO sings of its merits. The doors open and the horse is wheeled in.

[...] If this bill is adopted into law, we will see tax money being wasted and pseudoscience being legitimized. The idea that we need to fund more grants to study homeopathy and aromatherapy reeks of the square one fallacy. It’s the argument that, year after year, we still do not know which of these therapies work—we are starting from scratch, from square one—so we need to finance their study, and when the results are negative, we repeat that we just don’t know if this works or not, so we need more money. It’s not unlike a fan of slot machines, except this slot machine will never pay out... (MORE - missing details)]]> https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/critic...orry-about

INTRO: A new bill has been proposed at the National Assembly of Quebec, and while it may look like it will benefit our health, there is a lot going on under the surface. It is an excellent example of how the rebranding of pseudoscience gives it legitimacy, and this Trojan horse is now knocking on our legislative door.

The bill proposes a number of things around the nebulous phrase “complementary and integrative approaches to health.” The member who introduced it wants to identify knowledge gaps and recommendations in that field; to get research into integrative health funded by our provincial health research body; and for the government to finance university-level education in this field.

If you have never heard of “integrative health” or if you are a fan of it, it all sounds good. Many Quebecers are already using these complementary therapies. Why not invest money in finding out which ones work particularly well and ensure that more therapists can benefit from a higher education so as to ease the burden of illness in our province? After all, the bill does not mention replacing medicine but rather complementing it.

But complementing it with what? Because when we scratch the surface of this Trojan horse, we discover that it is full of nonsense.

[...] In 2026, these practices are not serious. They check all the boxes of a pseudoscience: they are based on a primitive, overly simplistic understanding of how the body works; they may rely on the spiritual idea that a mysterious life force exists which can be manipulated; they fail to progress and change; they often lack a plausible mechanism of action; and their promising, preliminary studies are commonly contradicted by rigorous clinical trials.

You would think this would stop their appeal dead in its track. But many of the people who make use of these therapies report feeling better—not because they work as advertised but because of things like receiving the care of a genial practitioner for a whole hour, getting to relax a bit, and sinking money into a series of appointments and thus being inclined to think that this was money well spent.

And unfortunately, the World Health Organization has added a layer of legitimacy to this whole enterprise. [...] The key to marketing this Trojan horse of integrative health is the vagueness. Never clearly define what is meant by “integrative medicine.” Simply mention that medicine is insufficient; that people are already using and loving complementary practices; and that even the WHO sings of its merits. The doors open and the horse is wheeled in.

[...] If this bill is adopted into law, we will see tax money being wasted and pseudoscience being legitimized. The idea that we need to fund more grants to study homeopathy and aromatherapy reeks of the square one fallacy. It’s the argument that, year after year, we still do not know which of these therapies work—we are starting from scratch, from square one—so we need to finance their study, and when the results are negative, we repeat that we just don’t know if this works or not, so we need more money. It’s not unlike a fan of slot machines, except this slot machine will never pay out... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Sociology’s reckoning has arrived]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20673.html Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:56:58 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20673.html https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/rigor-or-ruin

EXCERPT: Sociology confronts an epistemological reckoning that threatens to exhaust whatever credibility the discipline retains. This article-a condensed version of which Eppard gave as a plenary address at the North Central Sociological Association’s (NCSA) 2026 Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh-argues that the social sciences, and sociology most acutely, have normalized a systematic asymmetry in evidentiary standards: permissive toward ideologically congenial claims, stringent toward inconvenient ones.

The result is a discipline in which overclaiming, causal overreach, idea laundering, and the conflation of advocacy with empirical inquiry have become endemic. Compounding these epistemological failures are precipitous enrollment declines and the imminent disruption posed by artificial intelligence, which promises to collapse the informational asymmetries that have insulated imprecise academic claims from proper scrutiny... (MORE - details)]]> https://unsafescience.substack.com/p/rigor-or-ruin

EXCERPT: Sociology confronts an epistemological reckoning that threatens to exhaust whatever credibility the discipline retains. This article-a condensed version of which Eppard gave as a plenary address at the North Central Sociological Association’s (NCSA) 2026 Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh-argues that the social sciences, and sociology most acutely, have normalized a systematic asymmetry in evidentiary standards: permissive toward ideologically congenial claims, stringent toward inconvenient ones.

The result is a discipline in which overclaiming, causal overreach, idea laundering, and the conflation of advocacy with empirical inquiry have become endemic. Compounding these epistemological failures are precipitous enrollment declines and the imminent disruption posed by artificial intelligence, which promises to collapse the informational asymmetries that have insulated imprecise academic claims from proper scrutiny... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Most duh, dumbest, useless research paper of the year?]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20661.html Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:45:26 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20661.html Teen contact with the legal system is associated with mental health symptoms
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131667

PRESS RELEASE: Youth who have contact with the US legal system may be at increased risk of mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression, hostility, and psychoticism, according to a study published in the open access journal PLOS One by Raquel V. Oliveira and Elizabeth Culatta from Augusta University, US.

Prior research indicates that both adults and youth with mental health issues are overrepresented in the criminal legal system. For example, while 15-22 percent of all US youths are estimated to have a diagnosable mental health condition, between 40 and 80 percent of incarcerated youths do.

To better understand how contact with the criminal legal system is associated with mental health, the authors of this study analyzed data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which followed 1,354 youths who had faced an adjudication from a judge in Phoenix, AZ and Philadelphia, PA. The participants were first interviewed between November 2000 and January 2003, when the teens were between 14 and 18 years old, and follow-up interviews were then conducted over a seven-year period. The authors explore if different types of contact with the legal system, including arrest, court appearances, and institutionalization were associated with anxiety, depression, hostility, and psychoticism symptoms.

The experience of being arrested was associated with worse short-term mental health, including more symptoms of anxiety, depression, and psychoticism. Being institutionalized was also associated with increased symptoms of depression, hostility, and psychoticism in the short-term. While court appearances only had a short-term association with decreased anxiety (perhaps indicating relief from the uncertainty of the build-up to the appearance), they had significant long-term associations with increases in anxiety, depression, and psychoticism.

The authors found in their analyses that having two or more concurrent contacts with the legal system is associated with more consistent long-term effects on mental health symptoms. They also note that, unsurprisingly, other factors associated with worse mental health symptoms included substance use and participating in crime, as well as taking mental health medication (likely prescribed to help treat these symptoms).

The Pathways to Desistance study limited the number of male drug offenses it included, making it less representative of all offenses nationwide. Additionally, the study can only identify associations rather than any causative factors. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that contact with the criminal legal system might be a stressor for youth, that can affect mental health symptoms, which can persist years into the future.

The authors add: “Our findings are aligned with prior research and highlight the importance of continued focus on diversion programming and adequate mental health support of youth coming into to contact with the criminal legal system”.]]> Teen contact with the legal system is associated with mental health symptoms
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131667

PRESS RELEASE: Youth who have contact with the US legal system may be at increased risk of mental health symptoms including anxiety, depression, hostility, and psychoticism, according to a study published in the open access journal PLOS One by Raquel V. Oliveira and Elizabeth Culatta from Augusta University, US.

Prior research indicates that both adults and youth with mental health issues are overrepresented in the criminal legal system. For example, while 15-22 percent of all US youths are estimated to have a diagnosable mental health condition, between 40 and 80 percent of incarcerated youths do.

To better understand how contact with the criminal legal system is associated with mental health, the authors of this study analyzed data from the Pathways to Desistance study, which followed 1,354 youths who had faced an adjudication from a judge in Phoenix, AZ and Philadelphia, PA. The participants were first interviewed between November 2000 and January 2003, when the teens were between 14 and 18 years old, and follow-up interviews were then conducted over a seven-year period. The authors explore if different types of contact with the legal system, including arrest, court appearances, and institutionalization were associated with anxiety, depression, hostility, and psychoticism symptoms.

The experience of being arrested was associated with worse short-term mental health, including more symptoms of anxiety, depression, and psychoticism. Being institutionalized was also associated with increased symptoms of depression, hostility, and psychoticism in the short-term. While court appearances only had a short-term association with decreased anxiety (perhaps indicating relief from the uncertainty of the build-up to the appearance), they had significant long-term associations with increases in anxiety, depression, and psychoticism.

The authors found in their analyses that having two or more concurrent contacts with the legal system is associated with more consistent long-term effects on mental health symptoms. They also note that, unsurprisingly, other factors associated with worse mental health symptoms included substance use and participating in crime, as well as taking mental health medication (likely prescribed to help treat these symptoms).

The Pathways to Desistance study limited the number of male drug offenses it included, making it less representative of all offenses nationwide. Additionally, the study can only identify associations rather than any causative factors. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that contact with the criminal legal system might be a stressor for youth, that can affect mental health symptoms, which can persist years into the future.

The authors add: “Our findings are aligned with prior research and highlight the importance of continued focus on diversion programming and adequate mental health support of youth coming into to contact with the criminal legal system”.]]> <![CDATA[How Scientific American went from fighting pseudoscience to platforming it]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20618.html Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:18:23 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20618.html https://beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p...-went-from

EXCERPTS: Much as I don’t go to POLITICO to learn about black holes, or Sports Illustrated for movie reviews, I didn’t subscribe to Scientific American to be told what conclusions I should reach on political issues. [...] I stumbled upon a hard copy of the October 2025 issue in a waiting room and began reading. Inside it, I found a piece that highlighted a study claiming that tongue photographs, analyzed by machine learning, could diagnose diseases.

Inside it, I found a piece that highlighted a study claiming that tongue photographs, analyzed by machine learning, could diagnose diseases. My immediate reaction was: This can’t be serious. Tongue-reading has a long history in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and while it can be culturally meaningful, its scientific basis has never passed basic clinical scrutiny... (MORE - details)]]> https://beyondtheabstract.substack.com/p...-went-from

EXCERPTS: Much as I don’t go to POLITICO to learn about black holes, or Sports Illustrated for movie reviews, I didn’t subscribe to Scientific American to be told what conclusions I should reach on political issues. [...] I stumbled upon a hard copy of the October 2025 issue in a waiting room and began reading. Inside it, I found a piece that highlighted a study claiming that tongue photographs, analyzed by machine learning, could diagnose diseases.

Inside it, I found a piece that highlighted a study claiming that tongue photographs, analyzed by machine learning, could diagnose diseases. My immediate reaction was: This can’t be serious. Tongue-reading has a long history in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and while it can be culturally meaningful, its scientific basis has never passed basic clinical scrutiny... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Why women vote for their own demise?]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20597.html Sun, 07 Jun 2026 23:44:27 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20597.html In spring 2017, a protest group announced plans to "shut down" Mac Donald's speech ... at a college campus in California. ... Claremont McKenna College president Hiram Chodosh said that "the effort to silence her voice effectively amplified it to a much larger audience." The college subsequently suspended seven students.
- - - - - - - - - - -

WINSTON MARSHALL
https://youtu.be/hKf2UYUTruo

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Heather Mac Donald, great pleasure to speak with you.

Fabulous being here, Winston.

I've been reading you for years. As I was just telling you, you've been calling out the diversity delusion, writing very dangerous literature along the [laughter] way. [...] That's a compliment, by the way. You want literature to be dangerous.

The thing I want to talk to you about is another thing you've been talking about for a long time. Not just the top diversity delusion, but the feminization of society. Something you've called out for a long time....

[...] Now, we had in 2016 a very emblematic and prophetic instance of a poor computer scientist working for Google who wrote a 10-page letter that he circulated to the Google workforce. Pushing back against the assumption that was universal, not just at Google but also across Silicon Valley, that the lack of a 50/50 representation in high-tech has got to be due to discrimination against competitively qualified female engineers.

So Google was going around, you know, doing its diversity initiatives and hiring on double standards, because that's the only [ideologically] allowable explanation. If there isn't proportional representation of any given allegedly oppressed groups, whether it's females or blacks or Hispanics, it's got to be due to discrimination because we can't acknowledge group differences.

This Google engineer wrote a memo that said, "Well, maybe females on average are interested in other types of fields. [...] They would rather be doing other things," and to his eternal perdition, mentioned the higher rate of females on the scale of neuroticism.

People freaked out. You're calling females neurotic. But neuroticism is one of those traits. It means risk aversion, a greater sense of vulnerability, a greater fragility. Something that for decades females have scored much higher than males on.

[...] Only 50% of young women hold a positive view of men. Fewer and fewer women having children. They're waiting later and later. The so-called feminization of society. Is this what you had thought might happen?

Females go around with this chip on their shoulder all the time. They value the alleged creation of community and allies and empathy far more than they do the pursuit of truth.

You'd have thought the feminists would be standing up against illegal immigration. Young women are still voting for the party like the Green Party that would increase that. That's the thing I don't quite get.

It's the masculization of females, because females are told to be like a male and have competitive spirit. A lot of females feel like they have to go around looking for reasons to feel offended and oppressed. Cardinal sin in Western societies now is alleged racism. It trumps everything else.

And it doesn't help that so-called centrist Democrats, are doing photo shoots with Saram Mamani. They seem to be winning actually on tickets that are pretty radical. Fortunately, younger people don't yet vote in the numbers that older people do, but if they start to, we're really screwed...

Why women vote for their own demise? ... https://youtu.be/hKf2UYUTruo

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/hKf2UYUTruo]]> In spring 2017, a protest group announced plans to "shut down" Mac Donald's speech ... at a college campus in California. ... Claremont McKenna College president Hiram Chodosh said that "the effort to silence her voice effectively amplified it to a much larger audience." The college subsequently suspended seven students.
- - - - - - - - - - -

WINSTON MARSHALL
https://youtu.be/hKf2UYUTruo

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Heather Mac Donald, great pleasure to speak with you.

Fabulous being here, Winston.

I've been reading you for years. As I was just telling you, you've been calling out the diversity delusion, writing very dangerous literature along the [laughter] way. [...] That's a compliment, by the way. You want literature to be dangerous.

The thing I want to talk to you about is another thing you've been talking about for a long time. Not just the top diversity delusion, but the feminization of society. Something you've called out for a long time....

[...] Now, we had in 2016 a very emblematic and prophetic instance of a poor computer scientist working for Google who wrote a 10-page letter that he circulated to the Google workforce. Pushing back against the assumption that was universal, not just at Google but also across Silicon Valley, that the lack of a 50/50 representation in high-tech has got to be due to discrimination against competitively qualified female engineers.

So Google was going around, you know, doing its diversity initiatives and hiring on double standards, because that's the only [ideologically] allowable explanation. If there isn't proportional representation of any given allegedly oppressed groups, whether it's females or blacks or Hispanics, it's got to be due to discrimination because we can't acknowledge group differences.

This Google engineer wrote a memo that said, "Well, maybe females on average are interested in other types of fields. [...] They would rather be doing other things," and to his eternal perdition, mentioned the higher rate of females on the scale of neuroticism.

People freaked out. You're calling females neurotic. But neuroticism is one of those traits. It means risk aversion, a greater sense of vulnerability, a greater fragility. Something that for decades females have scored much higher than males on.

[...] Only 50% of young women hold a positive view of men. Fewer and fewer women having children. They're waiting later and later. The so-called feminization of society. Is this what you had thought might happen?

Females go around with this chip on their shoulder all the time. They value the alleged creation of community and allies and empathy far more than they do the pursuit of truth.

You'd have thought the feminists would be standing up against illegal immigration. Young women are still voting for the party like the Green Party that would increase that. That's the thing I don't quite get.

It's the masculization of females, because females are told to be like a male and have competitive spirit. A lot of females feel like they have to go around looking for reasons to feel offended and oppressed. Cardinal sin in Western societies now is alleged racism. It trumps everything else.

And it doesn't help that so-called centrist Democrats, are doing photo shoots with Saram Mamani. They seem to be winning actually on tickets that are pretty radical. Fortunately, younger people don't yet vote in the numbers that older people do, but if they start to, we're really screwed...

Why women vote for their own demise? ... https://youtu.be/hKf2UYUTruo

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/hKf2UYUTruo]]> <![CDATA[New Trump vaccine order based on “no credible scientific evidence,” doctors say]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20563.html Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:53:04 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20563.html https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/06/d...r-denmark/

EXCERPTS: “There is no credible scientific evidence to support,” such a change, AMA President Bobby Mukkamala said in a statement. The current vaccine schedule “is built on decades of rigorous research and real-world data, and it is designed to protect children in the US when they are most vulnerable based on our nation’s disease burden,” he said.

[...] While the federal government is appealing that injunction, the new executive order on Friday reaffirms Kennedy’s plans to adopt Denmark’s strategy, calling for “realigning” US vaccine policy with “best practices from peer, developed countries."It states that the scientific assessment written by Høeg and Kulldorff is a “guiding resource for the Federal Government” and that the CDC shall ” take any appropriate steps to update the United States childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule.”

As before, the AMA is strongly against the unilateral change made without backing from scientific evidence.

“Altering [the vaccine schedule] without clear, evidence-based justification risks continued confusion for parents and patients, undermining trust in vaccines, and ultimately lowering vaccination rates,” Mukkamala said. “That would put more children and communities at risk of preventable illness.”

On Monday, the American College of Physicians also released a statement, saying it was “deeply concerned” by Trump’s order. “This is the second time the administration has attempted to unilaterally substitute vaccine guidance from other countries to replace the US vaccine schedule which was developed for the specific needs of the US population,” ACP President Jan Carney said. “The changes that this executive order directs cannot be allowed to move forward.”

Even researchers in Denmark find the move bizarre. Anders Hviid, who leads research on vaccine safety and effectiveness at the Statens Serum Institut, Denmark’s equivalent of the CDC, told The New York Times in December that it did not make sense to compare the US to Denmark. “It’s not at all fair to say look at Denmark unless you can match the other characteristics of Denmark,” he said.

Hviid also told the Times that the US public health policies under Kennedy “get crazier and crazier” by the month. “It is surreal, and it is difficult, from a Danish perspective, to understand what’s going on.” (MORE - missing details)]]> https://arstechnica.com/health/2026/06/d...r-denmark/

EXCERPTS: “There is no credible scientific evidence to support,” such a change, AMA President Bobby Mukkamala said in a statement. The current vaccine schedule “is built on decades of rigorous research and real-world data, and it is designed to protect children in the US when they are most vulnerable based on our nation’s disease burden,” he said.

[...] While the federal government is appealing that injunction, the new executive order on Friday reaffirms Kennedy’s plans to adopt Denmark’s strategy, calling for “realigning” US vaccine policy with “best practices from peer, developed countries."It states that the scientific assessment written by Høeg and Kulldorff is a “guiding resource for the Federal Government” and that the CDC shall ” take any appropriate steps to update the United States childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule.”

As before, the AMA is strongly against the unilateral change made without backing from scientific evidence.

“Altering [the vaccine schedule] without clear, evidence-based justification risks continued confusion for parents and patients, undermining trust in vaccines, and ultimately lowering vaccination rates,” Mukkamala said. “That would put more children and communities at risk of preventable illness.”

On Monday, the American College of Physicians also released a statement, saying it was “deeply concerned” by Trump’s order. “This is the second time the administration has attempted to unilaterally substitute vaccine guidance from other countries to replace the US vaccine schedule which was developed for the specific needs of the US population,” ACP President Jan Carney said. “The changes that this executive order directs cannot be allowed to move forward.”

Even researchers in Denmark find the move bizarre. Anders Hviid, who leads research on vaccine safety and effectiveness at the Statens Serum Institut, Denmark’s equivalent of the CDC, told The New York Times in December that it did not make sense to compare the US to Denmark. “It’s not at all fair to say look at Denmark unless you can match the other characteristics of Denmark,” he said.

Hviid also told the Times that the US public health policies under Kennedy “get crazier and crazier” by the month. “It is surreal, and it is difficult, from a Danish perspective, to understand what’s going on.” (MORE - missing details)]]>