Investigations
111 stories · Page 2 of 5
A Memphis Team Linked Tap-Water Fluoride to Kids' Testosterone, Sodium, and Uric Acid
In 4,470 American children, each unit of predicted plasma fluoride from tap water tracked with a testosterone geometric mean ratio of 0.49, plus higher serum sodium and uric acid. The authors declared no external funding.
InvestigationsKennedy's Ultra-Processed Food Rule Leaves Open the Loophole He Promised to Close
In February he vowed to act on the petition that demanded real safety review of food additives. In August his FDA proposed a rule that still lets companies certify their own chemicals as safe, and sell them before anyone at the agency looks.
InvestigationsBritain Is Building a National Genetic Screening Service on Scores That Miss Nine of Every Ten Cases
In 2019 the same company's test convinced a health secretary he might die of prostate cancer. He was near average. Now its scores are heading into a biobank of five million Britons and the NHS's new prevention service.
InvestigationsThe Fibroid Procedure That Spares the Uterus: Its Best Head-to-Head Evidence Was Paid For by the Device Maker
Radiofrequency ablation matched myomectomy on two-year symptom relief in a randomized trial. The device maker paid for that trial, and the durability question it cannot answer is the one that matters most.
InvestigationsA Warehouse Stored Infant Formula Among 26 Rodents. After 32 Inspections, No One Was Charged.
The FDA found infant formula stored among 26 rodents at a Minneapolis warehouse the state had inspected 26 times since 2013. The remedy was a cleanup order and no charges, the same month the Justice Department let Abbott pay nearly $385 million and close its own formula criminal case with no one cha
InvestigationsThe WHO Halted a Global Drug Trial on Data a Tiny Company Would Not Let Auditors See
Ninety-six thousand patients across six continents, supplied by a Chicago firm that would not open its database to independent auditors, and the WHO changed course in days.
InvestigationsThe Study Being Used to Close the Vaccine-Death Question Can't Rule Out Zero Excess Deaths in New Zealand
New Zealand's headline pandemic death study was co-authored by one of the country's most visible COVID modellers, and its four-year estimate runs from 1,134 fewer deaths than expected to 2,927 more. The modellers are calling it settled.
InvestigationsBrain on Fire: Ottawa's Vaccine-Injury Program Spent More on Its Contractor Than on the Injured
Fifty injured Canadians testified in Ottawa over four days, and Health Canada did not show. The compensation program has spent more on its contractor's overhead than on the people it was built to pay.
InvestigationsThe Ebola Vaccine 2,000 Congolese Frontline Workers Received Isn't Known to Work on the Strain Killing Them
Bundibugyo Ebola has no licensed vaccine, so the response is dosing frontline workers with Ervebo, approved only against a different strain, while the State Department fast-tracks $50 million to CEPI and a four-candidate portfolio that includes Moderna, in an outbreak the surveillance system missed
InvestigationsThey Called It GoodBrother: Four Years of Teaching the Elderly to Accept Cameras in Their Homes
The project's own charter says the aim is to 'increase user acceptance' of audio and video monitoring in the homes of older and frail people. On World Patient Safety Day, they call that safety.
InvestigationsFifty Sworn Witnesses, 1,400 Who Applied, and Not One Official From Health Canada
A sitting MP put Canadians who say the COVID shots injured them under oath on Parliament Hill. Health Canada, which authorized the products and tracks their harms, sent no one.
InvestigationsAn 'A' for the Air Outside, Nearly Three Times Dirtier Inside
The EPA rated one Virginia region's outdoor air a clean 'A.' Inside the public-housing apartments of elderly and disabled residents, fine-particle pollution ran nearly three times higher, the air most long-term pollution studies miss.
InvestigationsThe Last Time Moderna's Stock Soared on Vaccine News, Insiders Sold $400 Million. It's Happening Again.
Moderna's stock has run up 137 percent in a month on a melanoma-vaccine trial that has not released its detailed data or reported overall survival. As retail chased the rally, the CEO sold $28.7 million in shares two weeks before the readout, and the rest of the C-suite cashed out after the stock tr
InvestigationsThe Sixteen Drug Companies Funding Britain's Biggest Health Study Can Mine Data Its Own Scientists Say Skews Rich and Healthy
Our Future Health signed up 1.9 million volunteers on £354 million of public money and £180 million from 16 drug companies. Its own scientists now warn the sample skews wealthy and healthy, and cannot yet say how common any disease actually is.
InvestigationsThe Government Is Keeping Almost All of Abbott's $385 Million Formula Settlement. The Families of the Dead Infants Get Nothing.
Abbott will pay $385 million over the plant tied to two infant deaths. Almost every dollar reimburses Washington's own nutrition programs, three whistleblowers split $69 million, and the families get nothing. The DOJ dropped the criminal case after Abbott gave $500,000 to the president's inaugural f
InvestigationsThe Escape Hatch in Trump's Drug Deal: 26 Companies Signed Their Way Out of the Price Cuts
Twenty-six drugmakers have signed voluntary White House agreements that exempt them from the proposed mandatory Medicare price cuts, and an analysis finds the deals could erase as much as 80 percent of the projected savings.
InvestigationsThe Zombie Papers: Retracted Stem-Cell Studies Still Feeding the Unproven-Cure Marketplace
A stem-cell paper retracted in November 2021 kept collecting citations for years, 72 by mid-2026, 27 of them after the notice went up, 15 since 2023 that never mention it. Two researchers counted, and named who is supposed to be cleaning up.
InvestigationsA Journal Built to Critique Capitalism Sold for €360,000. Its Fifteen Editors Read the New Fees and Quit.
A €360,000 sale, a €1,350 charge to publish, and a 25 percent fee to withdraw your own paper: the board of a journal built to critique capitalism read the new terms and resigned en masse.
InvestigationsThe Startup Selling 'Optimized' Babies Just Paid to Gene-Edit Human Embryos
Columbia scientists rewrote cholesterol and sickle-cell genes in human embryos, reaching 100 percent in embryos edited before their first division. The funder sells parents 'optimized' babies, and a germline edit like this could be inherited by every generation that follows.
Investigations97,000 Sibling Sets Later: Standard Air-Pollution Birth Studies Overshot One Risk and Buried Another
Comparing brothers and sisters born to the same mother stripped out many of the family-level confounders, and the scary preterm-birth links shrank while the growth-restriction link the conventional models kept underselling got stronger.
InvestigationsAn AI Read 4.4 Million Mother-and-Baby Records and Says It Can Predict Illness. It Has Yet to Meet a Living Patient.
MoChiAgent forecasts maternal and infant disease from hospital records at a scale no clinician could read. A cautionary predecessor, Epic's sepsis tool, caught only a third of the cases it promised to catch.
InvestigationsThe Government Calls the AMA's Codes a 'Monopoly.' The Government Made Them Mandatory.
Royalties bring the American Medical Association more than half its revenue, $301.4 million in 2024, and the code set behind them is one federal rules make mandatory. This summer, CMS asked the public what that arrangement costs.
InvestigationsThe FDA Erased Its Ivermectin Posts and Admitted Nothing. The Doctors' Records Kept the Punishment.
The agency deleted its 'you are not a horse' posts to end a lawsuit, but by then Bowden had lost hospital privileges, Marik had resigned his university chair, and Apter had been referred to two state boards.
InvestigationsOn the Study's Cleanest Test, the Doctors' $12 Billion AI Only Tied Google's Free Search Box
In June a Nature Medicine paper crowned general chatbots over the specialized AI that 40 percent of U.S. doctors use. Its biggest margins came from a public exam and a benchmark OpenAI built. On the one test made for the comparison, the expensive tool only matched a free Google box.