At the turn of the century, if you denied global warming or believed that vaccines cause autism, it was easy to know which political party you were in. When it came to acceptance of evolution, things were muddier. Though more Democrats than Republicans accepted evolution the margin was single digits and over half of all people didn't know what to make of it or flat out denied it.(1)

I am not running for President so I don't have any need to cater to Iowa corn farmers and voters, as former Vice-President Al Gore admitted he was doing when he broke a tie in the Senate and forced ethanol mandates on Americans.

A reader sent me an email asking about chewing gum and if it was really made of plastic and my first thought was 'Why ask me? Do what scientists do and go to Google, skip the first 10 entries, which will all be gamed by SEO experts at anti-science groups like Ecowatch, and then you will find the answer' but I was hooked when I saw the article linked was in The Economist.

Subway Brand Ambassador and soccer star Megan Rapinoe kneeled during the national anthem at the Tokyo Olympics and Twitter did what Twitter was designed to do and went into spasms, despite that being about as edgy and controversial as endorsing clean water in 2021. Subway still had reason to worry. How will it affect sandwiches?  That is what they need to know, because selling sandwiches to 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans is better than selling sandwiches to 2 Democrats, no matter how you spin the math.

We have shown diseases can be eliminated, like polio and smallpox, but can you eliminate something like COVID-19?

Coronavirus was only recognized as distinct from the common cold in the 1960s so it's impossible to know what impact it had throughout history and was just called flu or something else. COVID-19 was the third coronavirus pandemic of this century and we didn't worry about eradicating SARS and MERS, it was just important than the pandemic would stop.

Yet COVID-19 and the media attention it brought has thrown out the virology rulebook; some epidemiologists are overruling scientists and declaring everyone needs to wear masks until it is eradicated, but is that even possible?

The international Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in France was once one of the most respected epidemiology groups in the world. Today, their reputation is in a shambles.

They'd like to fix that, and to humanize their group they have created one of those 'get to know us' things. It's a fine publicity stunt but it does not mask the real problem; they do not want to inform public health, they no longer find carcinogens - they manufacture them.