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  • How health problems after COVID-19 vaccination are sometimes used to feed misinformation narratives

    While illness can occur shortly after vaccination, it doesn’t mean that the vaccine must be the cause. Illness can also occur simply by coincidence, since diseases have existed long before vaccines arrived. Part of evaluating whether a vaccine is the cause of an illness requires determining if vaccinated people are at a higher risk of the illness compared to unvaccinated people—something that anecdotes alone cannot provide.

  • Of the many factors that cause wildfires, the influence of climate change and human activities is growing

    Although there are multiple things at play when it comes to wildfires, climate change is becoming increasingly important. Wildfires are the result of complex interactions between biophysical and human factors, and it only takes one poorly managed campfire to cause a serious, widespread wildfire disaster. Many wildfires are indeed the direct result of human activities. However, many more and much worse wildfires are now possible because of climate change, leading to greater environmental and economic negative impacts.

  • What do we know about the safety of COVID-19 vaccine mRNA in breast milk?

    The mRNA inCOVID-19 mRNA vaccines can enter breast milk. However, research only detected small amounts of it, which were mostly degraded and non-functional form. COVID-19 vaccines are beneficial to pregnant women because they are particularly at risk of severe disease and poorer pregnancy outcomes. Furthermore, breast milk from lactating women contains antibodies able to neutralize the COVID-19 virus, meaning that vaccinated women can pass on some protection against COVID-19 to their babies.

  • What’s in a number? The significance of the 1.5°C warming threshold and reporting on its possible breach in popular media

    These findings were widely covered by popular media outlets, including in articles published by The Guardian, CNN, and BBC, which all reported that this temperature increase would represent a breach of the key IPCC threshold. However, this is missing some important context. 
    “A single year above 1.5°C does not mean the world has passed that particular warming level”, said Zeke Hausfather. Such nuance was better captured by articles published in Reuters and Axios, which both correctly did not report that these new temperature projections, if realized, would constitute a breach of the threshold.

  • Can mistletoe cure cancer?

    Introduction Cancer is a leading cause of mortality worldwide. In 2020, an estimated 19.3 million new cancers were diagnosed and…