Common Questions

With evermore unhoused people on the streets of our biggest cities, and publicized subway crimes in New York, mental health treatment is again in the news. Politicians speak about “caring” for the mentally ill in a new way, which turns out to be the old way—putting them away. The mention of involuntary confinement, predictably, sparks anxiety and controversy, giving rise to the question of...

California legislators are considering a bill that could potentially ban the sale of Skittles and several other popular snacks because research shows some of the chemicals in them are toxic. The bill would force companies to change the recipes of some beloved sweets, including M&Ms and Nerds candy, or to take drastic measures and pull their items from the California market. It’s unclear...

In another twist to the ongoing search for where COVID-19 originated, an international group of researchers stumbled upon new genetic material that had been posted on a public scientific database—and then abruptly deleted. As first reported in the Atlantic, in early March, Florence Debarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research, was searching the public database GISAID, where scientists...

WASHINGTON — Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill Paxlovid won another vote of confidence from U.S. health advisers Thursday, clearing the way for its full regulatory approval by the Food and Drug Administration. The medication has been used by millions of Americans since the FDA granted it emergency use authorization in late 2021. The agency has the final say on giving Pfizer’s drug full approval and...

A new study has found that not even New York City’s rats are immune to COVID-19. The study, published in mBio, the American Academy of Microbiology’s journal, found that wild rats in the city’s sewer system and elsewhere in the city have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and demonstrated that rats are susceptible to infection with Alpha, Delta, and Omicron variants of the...