Did the Great Recession Make Us Sick?
Mass layoffs, high unemployment, and home foreclosures resulted in declines in mental health. There may also be long-term effects that linger.
Breast Milk as Medicine
Human breast milk has been recommended as a cure-all since the 17th century.
People Who Can’t Feel Pain
While exceptionally rare, congenital analgesia, or a total insensitivity to pain, is a real condition that can be quite dangerous.
The Pros (And Cons) of Probiotics
Probiotics are a hot topic--and big business--these days. But do they really work?
Pathologizing Distress
One bioethics scholar wonders if modern medicine is in danger of pathologizing what are painful, but normal, human experiences.
The (Unproven, Deadly) Common Cure for Schizophrenia
Insulin coma and deep sleep therapies were used for years on patients with mental illness, even though there was never any evidence they worked.
When America Incarcerated “Promiscuous” Women
From WWI to the 1950s, the "American Plan" rounded up sexually-active women and quarantined them, supposedly to protect soldiers from venereal disease.
Who Chooses Not to Vaccinate Their Children?
Vaccinations have always been political. But in this day and age, why do certain subsets of well-off parents choose not to vaccinate their children?
Epidemics as Entertainment
Plagues capture the public imagination in ways that other less terrifying--but more deadly--diseases don't.