/oss/taxonomy/term/434/all en /oss/article/medical-history/why-measles-so-contagious <p>Even if he had been aware of what was happening inside the girl’s body, the man likely would not have been worried. She was, after all, sitting quite a long ways away.</p> <p>The girl was 11 years old. She was a refugee from Malawi, a narrow African country surrounded by Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique. She had flown from Malawi to South Africa earlier that day and was now on a 12-hour flight to Australia. The day before the trip began, she had started to feel a bit sick.</p> Fri, 19 Apr 2024 15:13:40 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9918 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/gene-therapied-pork-or-fear-rna-vaccines-livestock <p>“How long have you been consuming gene therapied pork?” That’s the question Joe Mercola, snake oil salesman supreme and <a href="/oss/article/covid-19-health-pseudoscience/upside-down-doctor">one of the world’s richest doctors</a>, recently asked on his website. (His article has now been moved to <a href="https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/eating-pork-treated-with-gene-therapy">his paid Substack blog</a>).</p> Fri, 21 Apr 2023 17:55:44 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9487 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health-and-nutrition/mens-genitals-meet-coronavirus <p>Maybe we should focus on the penis.</p> <p>I have seen this suggestion proposed by science communicators many times during the pandemic. That the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective doesn’t seem to matter to some men: they see the illness itself as nothing worse than a bad cold.</p> <p>Maybe we should focus on the penis.</p> Fri, 04 Mar 2022 20:53:54 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9043 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/dna-teleportation-really <p>French virologist Dr. Luc Montagnier, who was awarded a share of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, passed away on February 8. The Prize, awarded for his 1983 discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), was richly deserved but was not without controversy. Without doubt, the identification of the virus was certainly a landmark event, but the discovery was disputed by American biomedical researcher Robert Gallo who claimed that he had detected the virus before Montagnier. This led to a long and acrimonious dispute that was finally settled with the intervention of U.S.</p> Thu, 24 Feb 2022 19:07:32 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9035 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health-and-nutrition/why-children-shouldnt-just-be-left-get-covid <hr /> <p><em>This article was originally published in the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-why-children-shouldnt-just-be-left-to-get-covid">Montreal Gazette</a></em></p> Sat, 12 Feb 2022 03:11:59 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 9024 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition-pseudoscience/djokovic-endorsed-who-why <p>I started losing respect for Novak Djokovic when I read about how he had concluded that he should adopt a gluten-free diet, long before the fiasco in Australia. Dr. Igor Cetojovic, a fellow Serb, asked Novak to hold a slice of bread against his stomach with his left hand and stretch out his right arm, which the doctor then attempted to push down. Since he was now able to push it down more easily than in the absence of the bread, he diagnosed gluten sensitivity. Ever since then Djokovic has followed a gluten-free diet and has also eliminated dairy.</p> Thu, 27 Jan 2022 20:23:07 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 9007 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19/ruminations-rapid-tests <p>To test or not to test, that is the question, to steal a line from Shakespeare. Actually, when to test is a more important query because there is no doubt that appropriate testing of the population can cut down infections by identifying people who may be a threat to others and advising them to self-isolate. The gold standard for detecting the presence of the virus in secretions is the so-called polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test which identifies genetic material from the virus. It does this very well, capable of picking up infection just a couple of days after exposure to the virus.</p> Thu, 23 Dec 2021 23:53:20 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 8962 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19/do-bad-viruses-always-become-good-guys-end <p>In our social media age, talk of virulence has gone viral, with most of us atwitter about the course the new coronavirus is taking. As novel variants move up the ladder of concern, we are left asking the same questions: is this one more transmissible? is it more dangerous to us? will our vaccines stop it?</p> Sat, 18 Dec 2021 09:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8951 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health-and-nutrition/great-covid-19-immunity-test-kit <p>The kit arrives in the mail. You swab the inside of your cheek and mail it back. Two weeks later, the company emails you a report. You are told you have a 2% risk of getting COVID-19 and a 5% chance of passing the virus on to another person. The report claims these risks will never change. You decide that the risk is low enough and return to your pre-pandemic lifestyle.</p> Sat, 23 Oct 2021 08:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8907 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-critical-thinking-health/exaggerated-villainy-epstein-barr-virus <p>What causes a disease? We saw this important medical question get raised during the pandemic. Some people refused to accept that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was causing COVID-19 because<a href="/oss/article/covid-19-pseudoscience/psychiatrist-who-calmly-denies-reality"> </a><a href="/oss/article/covid-19-pseudoscience/psychiatrist-who-calmly-denies-reality">it failed to meet antiquated criteria for proving a microorganism causes an infectious disease</a>.</p> Fri, 16 Jul 2021 21:50:32 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8786 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/ginkgo-has-not-been-shown-treat-covid-19 <p>There is a word more and more popular in science communication circles: pre-bunking. There is so much bunk out there—misinformation, lies and unwarranted hype—that it always feels like we are playing catch-up. The idea of pre-bunking is to get in front of the bunk and warn people in advance so they can recognize the signs of rubbish when they see them. A sort of vaccine for the mind, if you will.</p> Wed, 05 May 2021 17:21:33 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8721 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-general-science/do-curfews-work <p>I often recommend people set their mental compass to search for the scientific consensus on an issue. This is great in theory but this consensus is often an intangible idea. Where do you find it when it exists? How do you recognize it? You may trust that respectable media outlets will choose to interview the right scientists to give voice to this consensus. On the issue of curfews, however, those scientific voices are all over the place.</p> Fri, 23 Apr 2021 20:14:13 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8713 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/two-masks-are-better-one <p> </p> <hr /> <p><em>This article was first published in</em><span> </span><a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-two-masks-are-better-than-one">The Montreal Gazette<span>.</span></a></p> Wed, 17 Feb 2021 22:56:21 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8622 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking-pseudoscience/droning-preacher-mitochondrial-ecstasy <p>Sometimes a highly credentialed person steeped in the sciences has a misleading epiphany and makes a 90-degree course correction, building a large following of people who resonate with their new guru’s pseudoscientific ideas. Social media and our collective hunger for easy solutions allow these charismatic leaders to thrive.</p> Fri, 05 Feb 2021 15:00:00 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 8604 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/have-no-fear-vaccine-here <p>No, we will not become genetic mutants when we finally get to roll up our sleeves and agree to be jabbed with a vaccine containing modified messenger RNA (mod-mRNA). That scare is making the rounds as the vaccine rollout begins, a culmination of a spectacular nine-month research effort. The term “modified” triggers alarm bells for some people, especially those who have bought into the often-misleading information about genetically modified organisms (GMOs) spread by activist groups.</p> Tue, 15 Dec 2020 20:23:15 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 8537 at /oss