A ferocious debate ensued over Emily Oster's recent call in the Atlantic for COVID "amnesty." Everybody in the dispute is wrong. Should you drink Smart Water? Only if you're "dumb," says our resident chemist. 

Join host Cameron English as he sits down Dr. Chuck Dinerstein and Dr. Josh Bloom to break down these stories on episode 28 of the Science Dispatch podcast:

Emily Oster, an economist and popular author on the real facts of parenting, suggested that it was time for a COVID amnesty. There was a quick, demonstrative, and at times, angry response from many sources. I have studied acknowledging, correcting, and atoning for medical mistakes, including my own, for decades. Here is what I am thinking.

If you watch TV, ads for Coca-Cola's Smart Water are inescapable. Also inescapable is that the ads suggest that the stuff will make you smart or perhaps offer some other health benefit. But the only thing smart about Smart Water is Coca-Cola's ability to make you shell out money to buy something you could pretty much get from a fire hydrant in Newark.