Tertiary Article

Before COVID, an NIH lab chief proposed making a SARS-like bat virus more infectious

Newly released records show Vincent Munster suggested inserting a furin cleavage site and that his lab obtained unpublished SARS-related sequences. Nothing links the research to SARS-CoV-2.

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Vincent Munster and Michael Letko

On a Sunday morning in October 2019, the chief of the virus ecology unit at the National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories emailed a postdoctoral scientist in his lab with an idea.

Drug company gifts, meals, and payments to doctors lead to worse prescribing, review of 93 studies finds

Findings span drug types, promotional activities, and primary care and specialist physicians

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Gifts, payments, free meals, and other marketing ploys by pharmaceutical companies heavily influence doctors to prescribe more drugs, choose less appropriate treatments, and drive up prescription costs, according to a systematic review of 93 studies.

Hormone-disrupting chemical mixtures linked to excess childhood weight 

Early-life exposure to PFAS, pesticides and other chemicals may increase obesity risk into adolescence

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Children exposed during pregnancy and early life to combinations of chemicals that disrupt hormones and metabolism may face a greater risk of excess weight that persists into adolescence, a new study suggests.

Ralph Baric warned COVID statement could be used for ‘nefarious purposes to shift blame,’ email shows

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As scientists and U.S. intelligence officials scrambled to understand the origins of the emerging coronavirus, prominent virologist Ralph Baric was asked to make a public statement knocking down claims that a chimeric coronavirus created in his UNC lab using genetic material supplied by a Wuhan scientist was the virus causing the outbreak.

Bill Gates promised Africa a farm productivity revolution. The data show sluggish yield growth and rising hunger.

When philanthropists get it wrong, where is the accountability?

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Twenty years ago, the Gates and Rockefeller foundations launched the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), promising agricultural transformation from improved seeds, synthetic fertilizers, mechanization, and commercial markets.