A pig flying at the Minnesota state fair. Picture by TCS. I’ve been involved in a few discussions of late on science-based sites around yon web on antibiotic resistance and agriculture–specifically, the campaign to get fast food giant Subway to stop using meat raised on antibiotics, and a graphic by CommonGround using Animal Health Institute data, suggesting...

Long-term readers of the blog know of my interest in HIV denialism, especially as it is maintained and spread via the Internet. In my online travels, I recently met John Strangis via this blog post. John has an interesting story to tell regarding his experiences with HIV denialism and subsequently, his turn to patient and science activism....

Almost a year ago, I wrote about a terrible article that was published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health. FiPH is a legitimate, peer-reviewed journal, and they had just published a manuscript that was straight-up HIV denial, titled “Questioning the HIV-AIDS hypothesis: 30 years of dissent.” At the time, it was listed as a regular review article;...

I’ve been working on livestock-associated Staphylococcus aureus and farming now for almost a decade. In that time, work from my lab has shown that, first, the “livestock-associated” strain of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) that was found originally in Europe and then in Canada, ST398, is in the United States in pigs and farmers; that it’s present...

I’ll keep this brief. My research assistant, who has worked for me for 3 years and even moved halfway across the country with my lab when I changed institutions, is from Nepal. While he is safe in the US, his family back home has been devastated by the earthquake. He is trying to raise funds to send some assistance back home. If you have a few extra...

I’ve written previously about Mayim Bialik, an actress previously on the TV show “Blossom” and currently on the “The Big Bang Theory.” She has a PhD in neuroscience and is a brand ambassador for Texas Instruments. Sounds great, right? She’s also gone on the record stating that her family is “a non-vaccinating” one, and has promoted anti-vaccine literature...