Medicine

Big Pharma is NOT hiding the cure to type 1 diabetes

Here is another conspiracy or myth that I need to debunk — some corners of the internet claim that Big Pharma is hiding the cure for type 1 diabetes. Trust me on this, they’re not.

I know it’s hard to believe this considering all the news about the high price of insulin in the USA, but finding a cure for type 1 diabetes is difficult, and it might be impossible. Big Pharma isn’t hiding the cure, it doesn’t have one. No one does, it doesn’t exist.

This article will discuss type 1 diabetes and why it’s so difficult to find this elusive cure. It’s a complex disease, which I bet most don’t quite understand unless they have the disease.

USDA announced new guidelines for the organic food label

I just wrote an article about organic foods, and then the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced new guidelines for organic food labeling. I do not claim causality, but it certainly is a correlation. Or maybe just a coincidence.

Anyway, one of the comments I kept seeing about my article was that the USDA didn’t regulate what is or is not organic food very well. Suddenly, not because I wrote about it, the USDA has decided to set new and transparent standards for what constitutes an organic food product.

I thought this would be of interest to those who are curious about organic food labeling and regulation, at least, concerning the USA. I believe that Europe has always had stricter requirements for the organic food label, so this may seem like a “catch-up” for the USA.

Coffee is linked to reduced cardiovascular disease and mortality

A new peer-reviewed paper has been published that seems to indicate that coffee consumption is linked to reduced risks of cardiovascular disease and mortality. As I am writing this article while drinking a large cup of coffee, I can only say, “awesome!”

I have written previously about the benefits of coffee to health, but this new article is one of the better ones that examine the effect of coffee on the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality.

But those of you who read my articles demand more than “awesome,” but you want me to take a look at the article and determine if it meets the standards of good science. I think it does, but let’s take a better look.

Organic foods — are they safer and healthier?

Organic foods have been increasingly popular these days moving from local co-ops and farmer’s markets to large retail chains that specialize in organic foods (such as Whole Foods) to general large retail chains. More and more stores dedicate portions of their produce sections to organic produce, usually at significantly higher prices.

Even dairy and meat sections of most supermarket chains have sections that contain organic products. Again, at significantly higher prices (so, you’ll see a trend here).

But there is a simple question that needs to be asked — are organic foods worth the extra cost? Are they healthier? Are they safer?

US cancer mortality rate dropped by 33% since 1991

A new peer-reviewed article provides data that shows that the cancer mortality rate in the US has dropped by 33% since 1991. This is definitely good news in a world where we are getting hit by bad medical news. And it seems like we’re winning the war on cancer.

This also goes against the claims by Joe Mercola and Robert F Kennedy Jr that the mass COVID-19 vaccination has caused a large increase in cancer deaths. Obviously, using real data, it hasn’t, but when are Mercola and RFK Jr ever right about anything?

Although I am not a cancer scientist nor do I play one on the internet, I like to keep abreast of new technologies and new pseudoscience about cancer. Since I am no David Gorski, MD, a real cancer scientist, I can’t tell you the best way to treat breast cancer, but I can generally tell you what’s a scam because I know how to read science articles.

But, most of all, I love to discuss meta-level data like cancer mortality rates because they tell more of the story of how successful we are in fighting the war on cancer. I know people are more afraid of dying of cancer than almost any disease. If COVID-19 were cancer, there would be NOBODY refusing the vaccine, even among the most ardent anti-vaxxers. I haven’t seen polling on this, but I’ll bet that people are scared of cancer more than any other disease out there.

So, we’re going to dig into this new research on cancer death rates, so that maybe the reader will feel less afraid of cancer as a group of diseases (there are over 200 different cancers, at least). Let’s go.

Joe Mercola falsely claims COVID vaccine boosters cause cancer

by Michael Simpson
2023-01-19
Cancer, COVID-19 vaccine, Joe Mercola, Robert F Kennedy Jr

On Robert F Kennedy Jr’s awful website, The Defender, the quack Joe Mercola writes that the COVID-19 vaccine boosters cause cancer. Seriously, he wrote that.

The article is filled with a metric tonne of false claims, but I want to just focus on cancer since that’s the basic claim made by Mercola. If I spent all of my typing skills writing a 25,000-word post about every false claim made by this quack, I would be exhausted.

So, let me get to it.

XBB.1.5 COVID-19 variant — here comes the Kraken FAQ

The pandemic that keeps on giving has given us a new COVID-19 variant to worry about — XBB.1.5, also known as the Kraken.

As we approach the third anniversary of the pandemic (remember when we thought it would be done by Summer, 2020?), many people are weary of reading anything new about the disease. It’s like our brains have become “immune” to new information about this disease. But XBB.1.5 should be a variant that you should follow because it has evolved in a way that might make it more dangerous for the population.

This post will just try to give you the best information we have about the variant, some of it concerning, and some of it just newsworthy.

Damar Hamlin suffers cardiac arrest on field — anti-vaxxers go nuts

Yesterday, I was watching the Monday Night NFL game between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, when I saw a player, Damar Hamlin, stand up after a tackle, then apparently collapse. He suffered a cardiovascular event, and he had to be resuscitated on the field in front of his teammates, opponents, fans at the stadium, and the TV audience. Eventually, the game was postponed, with the NFL doing the right thing for its player, something that it doesn’t frequently do.

As of the time of this writing, Hamlin is still in critical condition and is being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center (where the game was being played). There is little information coming from the NFL, the Buffalo Bills (the team he was playing for), or the hospital about his condition or prognosis, so everyone is hopeful.

Within seconds of Hamlin’s injury, anti-vaxxers were on Twitter claiming that the injury was a direct result of the COVID-19 vaccine. Ignoring real medical science and making conclusions based on a total lack of evidence, which is typical for the anti-vaccine crowd.

I’m going to first discuss what probably happened to Damar Hamlin, based on the best available science, and then talk about the disgusting anti-vaccine cretins.

Pediatric flu-related deaths — highest since before COVID pandemic

With our focus on COVID-19, we forget about diseases like the flu and RSV. During this 2022-23 season, flu-related pediatric deaths have reached the highest level since before the pandemic started.

I know that there is a chunk of the population who thinks that flu is a minor disease not worthy of attention, but it kills. In years before the COVID-19 pandemic, in which masks, social distancing, and social isolation reduced the flu virus transmission, influenza regularly kills around 50,000 people annually in the USA alone.