• Smartphones aren’t making millennials grow horns. Here’s how to spot a bad study

    Smartphones aren’t making millennials grow horns. Here’s how to spot a bad study

    Jun 25, 2019 04:05 PM EST

    ... and this episode offer a reminder about the modern news cycle. History shows us -- such as with Andrew Wakefield’s retracted study on measles and autism -- that the stakes are high when reporting on science and health. Such misinformation erodes the public’s ability to comprehend what is empirically right ...

  • How sanctions, weather and a bad harvest have left North Koreans without enough to eat

    How sanctions, weather and a bad harvest have left North Koreans without enough to eat

    Jun 20, 2019 10:30 PM EST

    ... Yoon, on the right, has worked in North Korea for more than a decade and created this rehabilitation center for children with cerebral palsy and autism, children like Oo-Ein , a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy. After 11 months of therapy and treatment, she walked for the first time. Yoon says ...

  • How bad is the measles comeback? Here’s 70 years of data

    How bad is the measles comeback? Here’s 70 years of data

    Jun 18, 2019 05:04 PM EST

    1998 In a paper that was later retracted and discredited, British researcher Andrew Wakefield questions the safety of the MMR vaccine in Lancet, claiming a connection between immunization and autism. The report receives widespread media coverage. Immunization rates in the United Kingdom plummet in the years after, and the discredited ...

  • That 'wow' moment that charmed Boston's concertgoers

    That 'wow' moment that charmed Boston's concertgoers

    May 17, 2019 03:00 PM EST

    ... t mean to be disruptive, said his grandfather, Stephen Mattin, who took Ronan to the concert. His grandson, Mattin explained, has a disorder on the autism spectrum, and often expresses himself differently than other people. "I can count on one hand the number of times that [he's] spontaneously ever ...

  • There’s a measles outbreak. Do you need another shot?

    There’s a measles outbreak. Do you need another shot?

    Apr 27, 2019 02:20 PM EST

    ... they were confined to quarters on campus or sent home— and President Donald Trump, who formerly spread misinformation about vaccination and its false connection to autism, encouraged unvaccinated children to get immunized. If the U.S. loses its “measles elimination” status, it will join Venezuela as the only other country ...

  • California expands its quarantine as U.S. deals with worst measles outbreak since 2000

    California expands its quarantine as U.S. deals with worst measles outbreak since 2000

    Apr 26, 2019 10:50 PM EST

    ... even now, with the demonstration that this is a very contagious disease, the misinformation that this is a vaccine that causes serious adverse events like autism, which it definitely doesn't, and the manifestation that right now in real time we're seeing outbreaks, to still protest about getting vaccinated ...

  • U.S. measles cases hit highest mark in 25 years

    U.S. measles cases hit highest mark in 25 years

    Apr 24, 2019 08:15 PM EST

    ... comebacks since then, including 667 cases in 2014. Public health experts say some U.S. communities have low vaccination rates because of the spread of bad information — especially the now-debunked notion that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is linked to autism — through social media, pamphlets, hotlines and other means.

  • What my polio-stricken mother would tell parents today about the importance of immunization

    What my polio-stricken mother would tell parents today about the importance of immunization

    Apr 21, 2019 07:58 PM EST

    ... both gone on record stating that the evidence does not support such a link, some parents desperately searching for the cause of their child’s autism still blame vaccines. The connection seems to make sense: their child is vaccinated, and then later develops autism. But autism and other conditions also ...

  • How social media is trying to contain misinformation over vaccines

    How social media is trying to contain misinformation over vaccines

    Apr 05, 2019 03:06 PM EST

    ... online than they do in a doctor's office where they are much more likely to receive accurate information. The bogus notion that vaccines cause autism — kicked off by a now disproven study from 1998 — didn't start on social networks but it has certainly spread there. Health care officials ...

  • Why expensive, unproven stem cell treatments are a new health care trend

    Why expensive, unproven stem cell treatments are a new health care trend

    Apr 04, 2019 12:00 PM EST

    ... Federal Trade Commission fined stem cell clinics millions of dollars for deceptive advertising, noting that the companies claimed to be able to treat or cure autism, Parkinson’s disease and other serious diseases. In a recent interview Scott Gottlieb, the FDA commissioner, said the agency will continue to go after ...