Daily Human Digest
Every day, the staff of the Genetic Literacy Project scours the Web for stories on a range of human genetics issues, including gene editing, regulations and bioethics, gene therapy, epigenetics, personal genomics, evolution, ancestry and artificial intelligence. We publish excerpts of those stories and encourage our readers to visit the original publications for the complete stories.
โHumanitarian catastropheโ: Trumpโs USAID shutdown could help drive nearly 23 million deaths โ including 5.4 million children โ by 2030, Lancet study warns
Nearly 23 million additional deaths are expected by 2030 as a result of countries like the US and UK dramatically ...
Viewpoint: COVID lab leak? Misguided backers of the lab leak theory refuse to give up
[W]hen I learned that Lord Matt Ridley had been invited to speak at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) about ...
Six key health insights from taking weight-loss drugs
Tens of millions of people around the world are now taking drugs like Ozempic โ a kind of real-time experiment ...
โHave you asked your doctor?โ: AMA launches campaign to counter health misinformation
The American Medical Association confirmed plans to launch a national campaign to combat health misinformation and โrebuild trust in medicine.โ ...
Selective Pressure, Selective Silence
Human evolution, particularly of the brain, ended a long time agoโat least that is what many educated people, wary of ...
Will hi-tech genetic fortune-telling really help parents make healthier children?
Like high-tech fortune-telling, the screening estimates the chances that embryos will produce children at risk for thousands of illnesses, from ...
‘Toxin’ detox: A gastroenterologist weighs in on $71 billion health trend
In 2025, the detoxification industry worldwide was valued at over $71 billion, and some estimates have that number approaching $120 ...
Gen Z burned by sunscreen misinformation and tanning myths
The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) released results from its annual Practice Safe Sun Survey, revealing many Americans still engage ...
Viewpoint: Why gene-editing babies is moral and certain to happen
It may be possible to make a convincing argument that serious heritable diseases linked to a single gene should be ...
Viewpoint: Social media and fake natural health propaganda fuel surge in use of mostly useless supplements
Supplements have become a central part of wellness culture, touted by everyone from influencers who โstackโ them to celebrities whose ...
Why โnull-findingsโ on Tylenolโs safety for pregnant women barely move the needle on countering misinformation
When U.S. President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promoted unsupported warnings last fall about acetaminophen use ...
Misinformed parents overdosing children with Vitamin A to fight measles
A recent study in JAMA Network Open has found that between January and March 2025, America's Poison Centers reported a ...
Why weight-loss drugs might be reducing cancer rates and making treatment more effective
At this yearโs American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago, more than 40 studies, abstracts, oral presentations and ...
The โlow-qualityโ, retracted studies RFK, Jr. and MAHA rely on for anti-vaccine claims
Three scientific papers that raised questions about vaccine safety and were used by the Trump administration to justifyย controversial changes to ...
50% of AI advice on health and medical issues return inaccurate or fabricated advice
An audit of chatbot responses in health and medical fields prone to misinformation found that 49.6% of responses were problematic ...
Viewpoint: How Dr.TikTok (falsely) convinced me that cortisol was running my health
Cortisol is the internet'sย favorite wellness boogeyman. Per social media, too much of it is why you're experiencingย 3 a.m. wake-ups, have ...
โNaturalโ wellness supplements linked to liver injury
Supplement-induced liver injury is emerging as a growing global health concern as theย wellnessย industry expands and regulation struggles to keep up, ...
Can vaping lead to cancer? New โassociation studyโ raises questions of โlinks”
Nicotine-based vapes, or e-cigarettes, are likely to cause cancers of the lung and oral cavity, according to a new study ...
GLP-1 weight-loss drugs may reshape our desires and emotions
Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs were initially understood as a metabolism breakthrough: medicines that act like hormones to control hunger, ...
โNicotine-free generationโ: Should the U.S. emulate Britain and ban all nicotine products, from cigarettes to vapes?
The United Kingdom just adopted a tobacco-free generationย law. Retailers can still sell tobacco to existing customers, but they will never ...
โProtecting religious liberty and parental authorityโ: Challenging expert guidance, Trump signs off on Kennedyโs gutting of childhood vaccine schedule
President Trump is signing off on a decision from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this year ...
Cases of brain inflammation surge as U.S. measles pandemic approaches 2000
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today confirmed 31 new measles cases in a nationwide outbreak that has ...
โYou donโt understand Tolkienโ: Skeptic Pope trolls tech giants about the exaggerated, risk-less benefits of AI
[T]he Tolkien nod is particularly salient given some backward interpretations of Middle-earth mythology by right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel and ...
Viewpoint: Doctors who are battling Ebola are incredulous that U.S. government is not utilizing specially designed emergency health units meant to fight virulent disease
Doctors around the country are baffled, disturbed, and in some cases aghast at the Trump administrationโs plan for Americans who ...
ViewpointโN.A.D.+: Why Gwenyth Paltrowโs heralded anti-aging supplement doesnโt work
Gwyneth Paltrow has tried it. So have Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber. ... Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or N.A.D.+, has been ...
Viewpoint: Why the hyper-promoted doping โenhanced gamesโ pseudo Olympics flopped
Testosterone, anabolic steroids, stimulants, metabolic modulators and a grabbag of peptides were just some elements of the โstacksโ that these ...
ViewpointโThe end of โivory tower scienceโ: What does that even mean, and what comes next
We built American science like a skyscraper โ centralized, concentrated, dependent on a single foundation.ย More than halfย of university research budgets ...
