Science Facts & Fallacies

Politics has infiltrated every facet of modern life, including medicine. And some Americans seem increasingly inclined to make important health decisions based on their ideological commitments rather than the best evidence. That’s the implication of a recent paper published in Nature Human Behaviour.

The study, based on the long-running Add Health cohort (born roughly between 1974–1983), found that in the late 2000s there was no meaningful difference in objective health biomarkers (e.g., blood pressure) between self-identified liberals and conservatives. By 2016–2018, however, conservatives (especially “very conservative”) had significantly worse biomarker profiles and comorbidity scores than liberals. This health gap translated into slightly higher mortality for conservatives—six additional deaths—particularly from internal/disease causes like heart disease and cancer.

By 2020–2022, “very conservative” individuals had roughly a 1.1–1.4 percentage point higher probability of internal-cause death than “very liberal” peers. About half the gap was explained by demographic and socioeconomic sorting, while the other half remained unexplained by standard factors. Survey data also showed conservatives reported lower trust in medical advice, lower medication adherence and greater reluctance to seek care. The COVID pandemic response, characterized by confusing, contradictory and often politicized guidance, very likely drove this declining trust in medicine among conservatives.

The authors concluded that political identity may be emerging as a social determinant of health as the public check their beliefs about medicine against their existing ideological filters. Although this idea isn’t implausible and the influence of politics on scientific discourse is undeniable, it remains to be seen whether that incendiary partisan sparring is fueling worse health outcomes for one side of the political spectrum at the population level.

Does being a conservative put you in harm’s way? Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts & Fallacies as they scrutinize the study’s results.

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the executive vice president at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

E-cigarettes burst onto the scene nearly 20 years, disrupting the cigarette industry and leaving anti-smoking advocates uncertain about how to respond. The devices, now more commonly called “vapes,” looked and functioned like cigarettes, yet they contained no tobacco—supplying users with a low-risk source of vaporized nicotine. A growing body of research has since shown that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking and can help adult smokers quit their deadly habit. But this conclusion wasn’t obvious at the time.

On the latest episode of the Facts and Fallacies podcast, Cam English and Dr. Liza Lockwood welcome veteran tobacco control advocate Cliff Douglas for a thoughtful discussion on nicotine, vaping and the future of tobacco harm reduction.

With nearly four decades in the field — from helping ban smoking on airplanes to advising the U.S. Surgeon General — Douglas brings a unique perspective. Once deeply embedded in traditional tobacco control, he now champions a science-based, pragmatic approach that recognizes the vast continuum of risk between combustible cigarettes and newer nicotine products.

Douglas highlights dramatic progress: high school smoking rates have plummeted from 36% in the late 1990s to about 1.5% today. Yet he argues that knee-jerk hostility toward vaping and nicotine pouches stems from fear, historical distrust of the tobacco industry and outdated views conflating nicotine with the deadly chemicals in cigarette smoke. He stresses that separating nicotine from combustion creates far safer options.

A powerful theme emerges from a careful survey of the science: harm reduction is both a public health imperative and a social justice issue. Douglas urges meeting smokers where they are, noting that traditional cessation methods fail most people (quit rates hover around 6%). He encourages older smokers especially — whose rates have stagnated — that it’s never too late to switch and improve quality of life.

Cliff Douglas is a public health expert and legal scholar dedicated to reducing death and disease from combustible tobacco use. He was president and CEO of Global Action to End Smoking and director of the Tobacco Research Network at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He held senior roles at the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Surgeon General’s office. Follow him on X @cdoug

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the executive vice president at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

Information, much of it false, spreads at lightning speed in today’s digital age. The problem is more troubling than it may seem at first glance. Many people make important medical decisions, sometimes with fatal consequences, based on claims they see on social media. This raises a question that Americans don’t like to ask: How do we protect open discourse while curbing the flood of dangerous falsehoods? For some scientists, global regulation of internet speech is the most viable solution. “We suggest international law as a potential strategy for bringing about systems-level changes to prevent misinformation,” the authors of a 2025 study on health misinfo concluded.

But critics aren’t convinced. They note that government-coordinated efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic frequently suppressed not just blatant falsehoods but accurate information, such as stories of real vaccine side effects, data on natural immunity, or discussions of breakthrough infections, because officials feared users might “misinterpret” it.

Worse, authorities themselves spread misinformation. Two presidential administrations oversaw a Pentagon operation to deliberately promote anti-vaccine propaganda in developing countries, proving they are unqualified to serve as impartial arbiters of scientific truth. Handing regulatory power to governments and their chosen scientists risks turning debate into dogma: platforms and academics have already mislabeled legitimate research as “misinformation,” chilled scientific inquiry and driven dissent underground.

True scientific progress demands open scrutiny, not top-down control by self-appointed experts who prioritize narrative over evidence, critics add. Censorship erodes public trust far more than imperfect speech ever could.

So who has the upper hand in this incendiary debate? Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts & Fallacies as they examine one of the most important censorship debates of our time.

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the executive vice president at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

Fossil fuels, pesticides and food processing have dramatically improved living standards around the globe. This may be a controversial claim, but it’s difficult to dispute. Inexpensive energy and abundant food are two essential components of the unprecedented economic growth the world experienced over the last century. Yet this is not the message that comes through when certain academic voices talk about these innovations or the industries that produced them. Instead of considering the risks and the benefits of, say, pesticides—e.g., crop yield increases, reduced disease spread—these figures speak exclusively of their potential to cause harm.

Consider this curious New England Journal of Medicine perspective from the University of California, San Francisco’s Center to End Corporate Harm. The article erroneously brands fossil fuels, processed foods, synthetic chemicals and prescription opioids—a diverse array of useful tools when reasonably used—as “corporate vectors” of disease, no different than cigarettes. It urges researchers to weaponize “internal industry documents,” much like the tobacco lawsuits of the 1990s, to facilitate litigation to cripple the companies that make these products.

The framing is overly simplistic and ideological, collapsing distinct tools and risks into a cartoonish conspiracy of corporate villainy. Tobacco’s decades-long denial of nicotine addiction and cancer risk was uniquely deceptive. Fossil fuels have driven the large gains in global life expectancy by replacing deadly biomass cooking fires and enabling modern agriculture and medicine—benefits the NEJM article largely ignores.

Selective document-mining amounts to hindsight bias and cherry-picking. Every industry keeps internal memos, but when you read the allegedly scandalous documents, they usually don’t reveal nefarious behavior. GLP has reported on multiple cases in recent years confirming this fact (see here and here).

Instead of blanket litigation, proper regulation and evidence-based education continue to offer a more sensible alternative. Demonizing “corporate vectors” is a distraction from the actual causes of our public health challenges.

Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts & Fallacies as they examine so-called “health harming industries.”

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the executive vice president at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

With illicit opioids still killing thousands of Americans each year, some public health advocates are pushing a radical solution to blunt the overdose crisis: safe injection sites. Also known as supervised consumption facilities, these sites allow users to bring their own drugs to consume in a clean, monitored space staffed by medical professionals equipped to reverse overdoses. The sites aim to cut needle-sharing that spreads HIV and hepatitis C, reduce discarded syringes and serve as entry points to counseling and recovery services.

Critics argue the label “safe” is misleading, in part because the facilities normalize illegal drug use instead of confronting addiction. They point to low treatment-referral rates in some studies, which undermine a key justification for safe injection sites, and question whether the facilities reduce overall community overdose deaths. They also highlight studies reporting increases in neighborhood disorder and crime.

In the U.S., federal statutes and local opposition have blocked or delayed many proposals, with skeptics insisting taxpayer resources would be better spent expanding evidence-based treatment, prevention and supply-side enforcement rather than government-sanctioned drug consumption.

Meanwhile, supporters cite data from individual facilities in Canada and Europe, where research shows zero deaths inside facilities and measurable drops in local disease transmission. While some advocates acknowledge the evidence for safe injection sites is preliminary and inconclusive, they contend this uncertainty should drive governments to adequately fund pilot programs and research the efficacy of this controversial harm-reduction technique.

The debate pits compassion against accountability, leaving policymakers and voters divided on whether these sites are worth the risk they may pose to the communities where they’re established.

Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts & Fallacies as they dissect the science surrounding the safe injection debate.

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the executive vice president at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

Ever notice how the environmental movement’s doomsday predictions arrive like clockwork, each one as urgent as the last? Mass starvation, poisoned skies, civilization’s collapse: all imminent unless we repent and degrow right now. Yet here we are, decades later, and the apocalypse still hasn’t come.

From Paul Ehrlich’s 1960s population-bomb panic that promised billions would starve to the endless claims that we’d poison the air and run out of arable land, the track record is one long string of busted forecasts. But it’s not just that the predictions were wrong—they were falsified by major technological innovations and economic growth Ehrlich and his compatriots couldn’t have anticipated. This is the raw material for a very uplifting story.

Since 1970, combined emissions of the six major air pollutants have dropped nearly 80 percent. We’re feeding more people than ever while using relatively less land, thanks to yield explosions in maize (+196 percent), wheat (+218 percent), and rice (+147 percent) since 1961, gains that spared an area the size of India from the plow. Global hunger is ticking downward. And deaths from weather-related disasters have plunged more than 90 percent per capita since the 1920s.

None of this happened by heeding calls to turn back the clock. It happened because richer societies invest in better technology, cleaner chemistry and smarter stewardship. Oddly, these are the very developments alarmists reflexively demonize. And that prompts an important question: why does the modern environmental movement oppose the tools that enable sustainability?

Join Cam English on this episode of Facts & Fallacies to examine why the green movement has been so spectacularly wrong about the disasters that never come.

Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

As is often the case with Kennedy’s narrative, the real story is far more complicated. His “transformative” proposal will not only fail to improve medical education, it could prevent future doctors from learning vital information they need to properly care for their patients.

The simple fact is that medical students already receive an intensive scientific education that equips them to evaluate nutrition far more rigorously than most people—including Kennedy. From the first year of medical school, students immerse themselves in biochemistry, molecular biology, physiology, anatomy and much more. These disciplines do not treat nutrition as a vague lifestyle topic; they dissect it at the molecular level.

This foundation allows physicians to perform evidence-based risk-benefit calculations that go beyond vague platitudes about the benefits of “real food.” Far from being nutrition-illiterate, today’s doctors are well prepared to translate complex science into personalized guidance. RFK Jr.’s plan romanticizes a gap that hard science has already closed.

Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts & Fallacies as they scrutinize Kennedy’s proposal to transform medical school.

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

A perfect example of why this skepticism is justified went viral late last month: a single inhaled dose of the potent psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT sent almost 60% of treatment-resistant depression patients into remission in just one week, according to a March 25 paper in JAMA Psychiatry. It sounds like a game-changer — until you read the study, warts and all.

As it turns out, the psychedelic bros tweeting from Silicon Valley exaggerated the paper’s results, overlooking some critically important limitations in the research along the way.

Impressive results?

There’s no denying the short-term results look dramatic: a massive drop in depression severity versus placebo. But read past the abstract and bright red flags begin to appear. The original placebo group, 41 patients who got zero active drug in the week-long clinical trial, entered the 6-month follow-up period eligible for up to five doses of 5-MeO-DMT if their depressive symptoms worsened. In other words, the researchers gave their control group access to the very drug they were trying to test.

Not only does that undermine the study’s headline-grabbing results, the authors didn’t report any of the outcomes for this placebo group. “A detailed analysis of part 2, including … treatment outcomes of patients who received placebo in part 1, will be presented in a subsequent report,” they noted in passing.

Instead, the paper focused only on the 23 patients (out of 40) whose symptoms improved on the active drug in week one. Of those, just 13% stayed in remission for six months without any redosing. The rest needed 1–4 doses and 87% were back in remission at month six. Again, these are impressive numbers—but how much of that result is truly from the psychedelic versus natural fluctuation or study effects? There’s no way to know, because the researchers excluded the data that would answer that question.

Headlines v. reality

Perhaps more importantly, the study was hailed as evidence that 5-MeO-DMT is effective against treatment-resistant depression, a severe mental health disorder that doesn’t respond to antidepressants or other therapies. Yet buried deep in the study was this surprising admission:

“[R]elatively few patients had extensive histories of treatment resistance or prolonged, chronic illness courses. In subsequent research, it will be important to include patients with more advanced levels of treatment resistance and longer-standing symptoms.”

The pressing question: why was this drug promoted as a powerful therapy for treatment-resistant depression if few of the study participants actually had the condition? Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts & Fallacies as they dissect the JAMA Psychiatry study.

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

The analogy works like this: law enforcement applies the same kind of selective pressure to the illicit drug market that antibiotics apply to bacteria. When we crack down on illegal drugs—seizing precursors, shutting down labs, tightening borders—the black market doesn’t surrender. Instead, it adapts. Clandestine chemists rapidly pivot to entirely new molecular scaffolds that are harder to detect and regulate. The latest example: an opioid called cychlorphine, first flagged in Europe in 2024 and now showing up in Toronto, southwest Ohio, eastern Tennessee, central Kentucky, and Chicago.

On this understanding, the underground market functions as “a vast chemical Petri dish,” says one expert, where an almost unlimited menu of new, powerful molecules is synthesized and distributed to drug users around the world. Moral of the story? Prohibition doesn’t end the arms race—it accelerates it.

Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts and Fallacies as they explain the science, trace the evolution of illicit opioid use and confront an uncomfortable policy question: is America’s prohibitionist approach to drug policy actually making the opioid crisis worse? If so, what do we do about it?

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish

The fallacy is clear to anyone paying attention. A claim is true if it corresponds to reality, not because of the person making the claim. As the economist Ludwig von Mises observed many years ago, “Arguments from authority are invalid; the proof of a theory is in its reasoning, not in its sponsorship.”

Isaac Newton had patrons; today’s researchers secure grants from governments, universities, foundations or corporations. All carry potential biases, and singling out private industry reveals inconsistency: taxpayer-funded studies often align with regulatory agendas, while billionaire-funded NGOs bankroll research advancing predetermined conclusions on a wide variety of political issues. Why is industry money uniquely disqualifying but Greenpeace or NIH grants virtuous?

Beyond the hypocrisy, the shill gambit’s real-world consequences can be dire. Dismissing industry experts impoverishes debate. Pharmaceutical breakthroughs—from antibiotics to HIV therapies—emerged from company labs. Tech giants fund AI and computing advances we all benefit from. The solution isn’t blanket disqualification but scrutiny of methods and replication of research.

Bottom line? The shill gambit stifles innovation and empowers charlatans who claim “independence” while peddling dogma—often with opulent support from competing industries or billionaire donors. In our polarized public square, rejecting this fallacy fosters genuine scientific progress by prioritizing facts over personal insults.

Join Dr. Liza Lockwood and Cam English on this episode of Facts and Fallacies as they break down the “shill gambit.”

Dr. Liza Lockwood is a medical toxicologist and the medical affairs lead at Bayer Crop Science. Follow her on X @DrLizaMD

Cameron J. English is the director of bio-sciences at the American Council on Science and Health. Follow him on X @camjenglish