News & Comment

April 11, 2025

French Academy of Medicine Says COVID-19 Likely Resulted from Lab Accident

The French National Academy of Medicine has now come out officially to back the theory that COVID-19 was likely caused by a lab leak in Wuhan, China.
April 11, 2025

Bayer Renews Bid for United States Supreme Court to Curb Glyphosate Cases

Seeking to avoid potentially billions of dollars in damages, Bayer says it is again petitioning the United States Supreme Court to sharply limit legal claims that its glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.
April 11, 2025

Study Exposes Huge Levels of Untargeted Antibiotic Prescribing in England

Doctors in England are prescribing antibiotics for tens of thousands of patients with infections, with little or no consideration of prognosis and the risk of the infection worsening, according to a new study led by University of Manchester epidemiologists.
April 11, 2025

Western Diet Causes Inflammation While Traditional African Foods Protect, New Study Finds

A new study shows that a switch of just two weeks from a traditional African diet to a Western diet causes inflammation, reduces the immune response to pathogens, and activates processes associated with lifestyle diseases. Conversely, an African diet rich in vegetables, fiber, and fermented foods has positive effects.
April 11, 2025

Use of Antidepressant Medication Linked to Substantial Increase in Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death

In new research presented at EHRA 2025, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology, researchers show that individuals with a history of antidepressant use have an increased risk of sudden cardiac death.
April 4, 2025

World Health Organization Proposing to Cut Jobs and Slash Budget by a Fifth, Memo Shows

The World Health Organization (WHO) is proposing to significantly reduce staff numbers and the scale of its work due to the impact of U.S. funding cuts, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
April 4, 2025

Air Pollution Kills Around 5.7 Million People Every Year

The World Bank reports that air pollution claims the lives of around 5.7 million people each year, with 95 percent of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
April 4, 2025

Exposure to Combination of Pesticides Increases Childhood Cancer Risk

Exposure to multiple pesticides significantly increases the risk of childhood cancers compared with exposures to just one pesticide, first-of-its-kind research finds, raising new fears that children are more at risk to the substances’ harmful effects than previously thought.
April 4, 2025

Investigation Accuses Pfizer of ‘Tax-Dodging Scheme’

Four years into a United States Congressional probe into Big Pharma’s potential abuse of a 2017 tax break, lawmakers have homed in on Pfizer, accusing the New York drugmaker of some of the most egregious financial maneuvering they’ve uncovered.
April 4, 2025

Mexico Officially Bans the Planting of GM Corn

Mexico's lower house of Congress has approved a constitutional reform to ban the planting of genetically modified (GM) corn.