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Antivaccine nonsense Cancer Clinical trials Politics Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Federal biomedical science policy under Donald Trump, nearly 100 days in

In less than two weeks, the Trump administration will have passed that magical “first 100 days” marker. Let’s check in and see how Donald Trump is shaping federal biomedical policy thus far. Hint: It’s deregulation über alles.

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Clinical trials Medicine Politics Science Skepticism/critical thinking

What if, rather than being too stringent about drug approval, the FDA is not being stringent enough?

All of the candidates being considered by President Trump for FDA Commissioner believe that the FDA is too strict in its standards for approving new drugs. In a commentary in Nature last week, two bioethicists argued that, at least in terms of preclinical data, the standard of evidence is actually too low. Which is correct?

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Antivaccine nonsense Autism Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Pseudoscience Quackery Skepticism/critical thinking

Schadenfreude: At the FDA, it looks as though Donald Trump is about to sorely disappoint his antivaccine supporters

I’ve seen it noted that our new President-Elect seems to be selecting his cabinet officers and directors of federal bureaucracies based on how much they oppose the mission of the department they are supposed to head. For instance, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, he picked an orthopedic surgeon who belongs to […]