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Hank CampbellRSS Feed of this column.

I founded Science 2.0® in 2006 and since then it has become the world's largest independent science communications site, with over 300,000,000 direct readers and reach approaching one billion. Read More »

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The American Academy of Pediatrics is a rather reflexive group much of the time, so it seems bold for Pediatrics, the in-house journal for an organization that tried to argue kids should not be allowed to even walk to school until they are age 10, to take the position that children infrequently transmit COVID-19 to each other or to adults and that most schools can and should reopen in August.
There are more women getting degrees in the life science, social science, and pre-med fields, while more men graduate in engineering and physics. Some contend that is gender bias introduced at a young age, but since education is 70 percent women it is difficult to charge them with sexism against females. 

Regardless of why, whether it is just that women prefer fields like medicine, where they can help people instead of doing theoretical physics, the data show fewer women than men get degrees in overall Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields.
Can you prevent cancer? Not really. The number one risk factor for cancer is old age, if you live long enough you are likely to get some form or another. Despite the beliefs of the Longevity crowd, we are biologically self-terminating.
The anti-vaccine and anti-GMO movements are products of the digital age. While there were always vaccine deniers, they were a tiny religious fringe until the 2000s, when it took England and the coasts of the U.S. by storm. Similarly, odd beliefs about food always existed but they were relegated to obscure stores. 

Social media changed all that. Facebook and Twitter became hotbeds of misinformation because anti-science activists mastered creating 'buzz' by getting cabals of individuals, sympathetic journalists, and groups who capitalized on it to swarm around bombastic claims. Now those tweet storms become 'and here's how Twitter reacted' articles by lazy media outlets.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were shown to be a bureaucratic mess when the coronavirus pandemic hit - refusing to send coronavirus tests unless hospitals first proved proved patients had coronavirus, then sending faulty reagents - and academic epidemiologists often seemed to be just making things up, but one area came through nicely; academic medicine.

Medicine, along with the life sciences and social sciences, are areas where women dominate in graduates but because leadership positions are often held for lengthy periods, when it comes to the top levels the numbers aren't the same. Men are in control.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, Berkeley psychologist Joel Moskowitz, and other anti-science conspiracy theorists use the language of science against it to advance their beliefs that we're all being harmed by the modern world.

So when they see a scientific statement like "very low risk" of harm from any cell phone service, including 5G, they have a ready retort to mobilize the coastal Karens and Darrens who make up their ranks; that's not no risk.