Public Health

Whenever I write in support of animal research, some accuse me of cruelty and indifference to the suffering of animals. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am eager for the number animals used in experiments to be reduced as much as possible — but only to an extent consistent with assuring scientific progress — because I care more about reducing human suffering. If we want a science sector that can produce medicines and techniques to treat disease and ameliorate pain (which also often benefits animals), like it or not, that requires the “grim good” of animal research. Another example of this sector’s importance just hit the news. A Spanish scientist has discovered a way to significantly reduce pancreatic Read More ›

In a post-COVID world, families are asking harder questions about vaccines and those questions deserve serious, ethical answers. In this episode of Bioethics Babe, I’m joined by Jay Richards, Vice President of Social and Domestic Policy and the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, where he also chairs the Restoring American Wellness initiative. He is also a senior fellow at Discovery Institute. We explore how families can think clearly and ethically about vaccines after COVID. This conversation covers informed consent, risk-benefit analysis, parental responsibility, the updated CDC childhood immunization schedule, and the growing crisis of trust in public health institutions. This episode is for parents, healthcare professionals, policymakers, and anyone Read More ›

The editors of medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet are ruining the once venerable reputations of their publications by continually publishing hard-left-wing polemics about controversial political issues — such as race relations, gun regulation, and climate change — in the guise of deeming them matters of public health.

These woke publications also repeatedly advocate about highly contestable health issues from the progressive side — such as insisting that so-called gender-affirming care is medically necessary and the scientifically settled means of treating gender-confused children.

Political and cultural advocacy in these publications is sometimes so strident that editors seem almost more invested in ideological advocacy and promoting woke narratives than publishing scientifically enlightening papers. That’s self-destructive because it corrodes trust in the objectivity and expertise of the publications and calls into question whether well-documented papers that cut against the ideological grain would be published at all.

I am rather amazed at the hysteria within the science sector because of DOGE investigations, proposed changes in status quo funding, and the canceling of some truly crackers scientific studies, such as researching transgender hormone injections in animals. But there is definitely some wailing and gnashing of teeth. A Nature survey found that 75 percent of the journal’s readers answering the online survey are “considering leaving the country.” From the Nature story:

The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature poll — three-quarters of the total respondents — are considering leaving the United States following the disruptions prompted by Trump. Europe and Canada were among the top choices for relocation.

The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded, 548 were considering leaving; 255 of 340 PhD students said the same.

President Trump has withdrawn the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) because of its Covid failings, allegations of being soft on China, and the disproportionate share of funding borne by the United States. There is even more wrong in how WHO leaders have wielded their influence. In recent years, the organization has not just been about promoting public-health internationally, but also in using its clout to impose woke cultural agendas on the world — including areas that have traditional moral values — and in seeking to construct an international technocracy. Item: WHO sought to force a radical abortion regime on the world by allowing abortion through the ninth month and curtailing the right of conscience by doctors to Read More ›

The medical/scientific intelligentsia and the political Left seemingly want every political controversy and cultural problem transformed into a public-health threat. Let us count them: Climate change, racism, gun control, a dearth of left-wing economics policies, even war. Now, a column by Michael Luo, an executive editor at the New Yorker, urges that political violence be categorized in the same way. From, “Should Political Violence be Addressed Like a Threat to Public Health?”: The principal aim of public health is prevention. It takes its scientific cues primarily from epidemiology, which studies the prevalence of diseases and their determinants to shape control strategies. In the mid-nineteen-sixties, public-health practitioners began to incorporate these methods into a nascent discipline known as injury science, taking on problems such as children falling from windows, residential fires, childhood Read More ›