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HISTORICAL FACTS: Faye flam | History Defined

Faye Flam: Political polarization fuels medical misinformation

FDA commissioner Robert Califf said in an interview that aired this week that misinformation is killing Americans — contributing to the fact that our life expectancy is 3 to 5 years worse than that of people in comparably wealthy countries. He called for better regulation to crack down on misinformation.…

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Faye Flam: CDC’s top priority has to be rebuilding public trust

COVID-19 was already spreading widely around the world in February and early March of 2020 — well before many Americans had gotten the message that the disease was something to take seriously. Now, the New York Times has reported that staffers at the disease intelligence service at the Centers for…

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Faye Flam: We shouldn’t need body bags to learn from Ohio’s train disaster

If things had gone a bit differently, the chemicals on the train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, could have exploded, killing people on the spot, maybe hundreds. That’s the unacceptable risk thrust on communities across the country by the transportation of hazardous materials. Fixing the problem won’t be easy.

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Faye Flam: Another sign of inequality: minutes spent waiting

We’ve waited far too long for a scientific study of waiting. From queues to telephone holds to waiting rooms, delays are all around us and they’re miserable. And according to new research just published in Nature Human Behavior, lower income people and Black people of all income levels get stuck…

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Faye Flam: Older Americans need more protection from COVID

COVID is still killing about 500 Americans every day — picking off the oldest, frailest members of our society. About 9 in 10 COVID deaths are now among people over 65.

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Faye Flam: Evidence is mounting that COVID is bad for the brain

The possibility that a COVID infection could damage your brain is terrifying. Scientists have established that long COVID often manifests itself with neurological changes — brain fog, memory problems, fatigue. And some researchers have found changes in the brain after even mild cases of the virus. Every time I go…

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Faye Flam: Ring in the new year with a rapid COVID test

For many people, this holiday season feels like a return to 2019, with crowded stores, holiday parties and travel plans. But one COVID concession we should retain at the end of 2022 — and well into 2023 — is the use of rapid antigen tests, especially before attending large gatherings…

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Faye Flam: Let's leave the oil — and the ‘zombie viruses’ — under the permafrost

Vast stretches of permafrost are melting as the Earth’s polar regions warm, thawing ancient viruses and bacteria that had remained frozen for tens of thousands of years. Behind the lurid headlines about “zombie viruses,” there’s some fascinating science — and a warning.

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Faye Flam: Even a small nuclear war would mean mass famine

This century’s worst-case climate scenario isn’t global warming of 4 or even 5 degrees Celsius. It’s a nuclear winter that would trigger global cooling up to 12 or 13 degrees C.

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Faye Flam: If you’ve had COVID, watch out for stroke symptoms

Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at the Yale School of Medicine, says he worries about two kinds of long COVID. There’s the obvious version where people suffer prolonged virus symptoms like fatigue, and a stealthier version in which people recover yet carry an added risk of blood clots and strokes.

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Faye Flam: Better cancer screenings are coming. Can we afford them?

Patients and their doctors count on cancer screening tests to save lives, and yet a number of large, controlled studies are showing disappointing results for mammography and other mass screening tests. This month, the New England Journal of Medicine published a controversial study that cast doubt on the widely accepted…

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Faye Flam: An NYU professor got fired. Then everyone missed the point

The disruption associated with the COVID-19 pandemic is loosening society’s grip on some stubborn assumptions about different facets of life, especially work and education. The latest: that the hardest college classes are the most rigorous, as exemplified in last week’s hullabaloo over the case of an New York University professor…

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Faye Flam: Hunger and obesity are the same problem in the US

Scientific understanding is challenging the conventional wisdom about hunger — now framing it as a scourge that afflicts not only people who get too few calories, but also those who consume mostly sugar and refined starch. Under this new understanding, people eating the wrong kind of diet can suffer from…

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Faye Flam: Here’s who really needs the new COVID booster

The new U.S. COVID booster campaign needs a dose of clarity about its goals and limitations. The latest “bivalent” vaccine — retooled to protect against the currently circulating BA.5 variant — will benefit some more than others. The oldest and most vulnerable citizens are likely to benefit most. Public health…

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Faye Flam: Scientists love issuing warnings. Here's one for them

Climate-change activists should take some lessons from the mismanagement and miscommunication surrounding the pandemic. In both cases, people across the political spectrum feel helpless in the face of the problem. In both cases, experts need to figure out how to get people to overcome these feelings and act.

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Faye Flam: Pharma overpromised on antidepressants

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Faye Flam: People, get your booster shots already

Fewer than half of eligible Americans have received a third COVID vaccine shot despite clear evidence of its benefit. That booster shot improves your odds of avoiding even mild omicron. So why haven’t more people gotten it?

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