Marcus Chen
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Histamine Was Always the Wrong Target for the Eczema Itch
Eczema itch runs on cytokines, not mainly histamine, which is why the pills in the allergy aisle keep failing the trials, and a network meta-analysis just said so one more time.
Nutrition & FoodThe FDA Revoked Two Petroleum Dyes That Industry Abandoned Before Most Americans Were Born
Orange B was last certified in 1978. Citrus Red No. 2 has painted Florida oranges since 1959. The six petroleum dyes actually in the food supply remain on a voluntary timeline no manufacturer has publicly signed.
Infectious DiseaseFive Years After COVID, Japan Is Still Dying at Pandemic Rates, and Confirmed COVID Explains Only a Tenth
Japan's excess deaths peaked at 7.55 percent in 2022 and still ran at 5.76 percent through 2023, after Tokyo downgraded COVID to a routine infectious disease, in one of the most heavily mRNA-dosed countries on earth.
Drugs & FDAThe Last Time Washington Went After Hospital Drug Markups, the Supreme Court Blocked It. This Time CMS Brought Receipts.
In 2018 the Supreme Court blocked CMS from cutting the markup 340B hospitals charge Medicare for discounted drugs, because the agency skipped a required survey. CMS ran the survey this time, and found seniors paying co-pays bigger than what the hospital paid for the drug.
Infectious DiseaseAgainst Omicron, a Second COVID Dose Added Almost Nothing for Kids Who Were Already Infected
In Austria's own registry, one dose protected previously infected people slightly better than two; in children against the omicron they actually faced, the second dose's benefit could not be told apart from zero. The guidance never moved.
InvestigationsTwo Journals That Buried the Lab-Leak Question Now Warn of a 'Gilded Age' in American Science
The Lancet and Science marked America's 250th by casting the administration's research cuts as vandalism. Both journals spent the public trust they now invoke, and the editorials never mention how.
CancerOne Protein Keeps Your T Cells in the Fight. The Same Protein Feeds Autoimmune Disease.
In mice, deleting the LEF1 gene collapsed the reserve T cells that sustain the fight against chronic infection and cancer. The same deletion protected against autoimmune diabetes.
Infectious DiseaseThe Same System Now Racing to Test a Bundibugyo Ebola Vaccine Had Nineteen Years to Build One
Bundibugyo Ebola was identified in 2007. By the time this year's outbreak passed 1,200 cases there was still no licensed vaccine and none in clinical development. Now roughly $75 million is moving to test three experimental shots on the people dying from it.
Drugs & FDAThe FDA's Fix for a $10 Billion Flood of Chinese Vapes Is a Form the Smugglers Will Ignore
Foreign manufacturers ship most of America's vapes and falsify the customs forms to do it. Washington's answer is to ask them to register with the agency they already evade.
InvestigationsEurope Called Medical AI 'High Risk' and Still Gave Patients No Right to Refuse It
An algorithm once cut the extra care flagged for Black patients by more than half, and ran for years before anyone noticed. A commentary in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine says the rules now governing medical AI would not have caught it.
Infectious DiseaseThe Gut Lining Starves Salmonella of Iron, a Trick We Thought Only Immune Cells Knew
Salmonella sickens more than a million Americans a year. University of Vermont researchers found the cells it invades fight back by withholding the iron and manganese the bacteria need, a defense the textbooks credited mainly to immune cells.
Infectious DiseaseMost of These Ebola Patients Aren't Bleeding. That's Why It's Spreading.
A Bundibugyo virus outbreak in DRC and Uganda has topped 1,100 confirmed cases, yet roughly nine in ten patients show no bleeding, the symptom everyone is trained to look for.
Infectious DiseaseA Blocked Vaccine Study, and the Statistical Method Its Own Lead Author Warned About
A CDC vaccine-effectiveness study pulled from the agency's own journal landed in JAMA, and the press called it censorship. The method it used has a documented blind spot its own lead author once published on.
Infectious DiseaseThe Ebola Vaccine We Celebrated Doesn't Touch the Strain Now Burning Through Congo
Congo's Ebola outbreak has passed 1,000 cases and is rising faster than any before it, but it is caused by Bundibugyo virus, against which the licensed Ebola vaccine and antibody drugs were never designed to work.
CancerA Cancer Algorithm Found Answers in 71 Children. The 'Quantum' Label Is the Least Interesting Thing About It.
A University of Utah team used the linear algebra of quantum mechanics to pull two survival predictors from just 71 neuroblastoma patients. The science is real. The word doing the marketing is not.
InvestigationsRetracted by Its Title: A Vaccine-SIDS Paper and a Standard That Isn't Science
A vaccine-safety paper sat in a peer-reviewed journal for five years, then was pulled in 2026 with a critic saying its title alone disqualified it. The science against the paper is strong; the retraction that followed wasn't science.
InvestigationsA Top Cancer Scientist, a Deleted Study, and the Question Washington Won't Fund
A June 2026 Senate subcommittee hearing centered on a Brown University cancer researcher's review of 333 post-vaccination cancer case reports, and on the retractions, censorship, and cyberattack that met it.
Brain & AgingA 14-Patient Hand-Exoskeleton Study Lands in Science Advances, With a Headline That Outruns the Data
A Vienna-led team published a 14-patient feasibility study of a wearable hand exoskeleton with closed-loop electrical stimulation. The mechanism is genuinely novel; the headline is doing work the data cannot.
Drugs & FDAModerna's mRNA flu shot got a 9-0 vote. The comparator question that killed its first filing did not go away.
An FDA panel voted 9-0 to back Moderna's first mRNA flu vaccine. Four months earlier, the same agency refused to even read the file over the comparator the trial used. The comparator did not change.
Infectious DiseaseDecades of Failed Diarrhea Vaccines Kept Hitting the Wrong Coat. A WashU Team Just Found the Scissors Underneath.
A WashU-led team identified a structurally conserved patch on three mucus-cleaving enzymes that ETEC, Shigella, and other gut pathogens all use to breach the intestinal barrier, offering a single antibody target the field has chased for decades.
Drugs & FDAA $200 Flu Pill Just Got a Cheaper Twin. The 10 Percent Resistance Problem Came With It.
The FDA cleared the first generic of baloxavir, the one-pill flu drug, in time for the 2026–2027 season. Cheaper is real. The mutation that turns the drug into a sugar pill is real too.
Infectious DiseaseAmerican Infant Mortality Just Hit a Record Low. The International Comparison Is Half an Accounting Trick. The Mississippi Gap Is Not.
Preliminary CDC data put the 2025 U.S. infant mortality rate at 5.4 per 1,000 live births, a record low. The international comparison the headlines lean on is partly an artifact of how countries count. The domestic gap is not.
Brain & AgingThe Shingles Vaccine Keeps Cutting Dementia Risk. The Reason May Not Be the Shingles.
Four big studies now tie the shingles vaccine to lower dementia risk. The most useful finding is that the same effect shows up with an RSV vaccine that shares its adjuvant.
Drugs & FDATestosterone Prescriptions Quadrupled. The Workups Didn't.
A Michigan Medicine chart review presented at ENDO 2026 found that only 12 percent of men prescribed testosterone got the guideline-required workup, even as the U.S. wrote 11 million testosterone prescriptions in 2024.