How Scammers Distort Science

So why should you care? People who are desperate for reliable information face a bewildering array of diet guidance—salt is bad, salt is good, protein is good, protein is bad, fat is bad, fat is good—that changes like the weather. But science will figure it out, right? Now that we’re calling obesity an epidemic, funding will flow to the best scientists and all of this noise will die down, leaving us with clear answers to the causes and treatments. Or maybe not. Even the well-funded...

 France's Social Programs are Behind Their Better Health

The creation of public programs to improve the health of women and babies began in nineteenth-century Europe, where governments found themselves in need of robust young men to fight their wars and expand their empires. Following a crushing defeat in the 1871 Franco-Prussian War, for example, France set up a series of programs intended to care for pregnant women, promote breastfeeding, and improve infant welfare. (David Barker has suggested, half seriously, that this early attention to materna...