Kennedy’s Comments on Circumcision Are Only Going to Confuse and Shame Parents

…Circumcision is an instructive example, because it epitomizes the Kennedy method of undermining public health expertise. Whether this is conscious or not, he seizes on hot-button issues that already have entrenched and aggressive internet partisans, uses quasi-scientific language and bolsters his case using minor, cherry-picked studies. As a result, he muddies the water and creates more guilt and confusion among new parents who are already inundated with conflicting information online...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/opinion/kennedy-autism-circumcision-parents.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The A.I. Prompt That Could End the World

… A.I. is highly capable. Its capabilities are accelerating. And the risks those capabilities present are real. Biological life on this planet is, in fact, vulnerable to these systems. On this threat, even OpenAI seems to agree.

In this sense, we have passed the threshold that nuclear fission passed in 1939. The point of disagreement is no longer whether A.I. could wipe us out. It could. Give it a pathogen research lab, the wrong safety guidelines and enough intelligence, and it definitely could. A destructive A.I., like a nuclear bomb, is now a concrete possibility. The question is whether anyone will be reckless enough to build one.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/opinion/ai-destruction-technology-future.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

A Plea From Doctors: Cool It on the Supplements

As Americans take more gummies, pills and powders than ever, some physicians are trying to convince patients to be a bit more careful.

Earlier this year, a 49-year-old man visited Dr. Danielle Belardo, a cardiologist, with chest pain. For some time, he had been treating his high cholesterol not with the statin suggested by his doctor, but with berberine and red yeast rice supplements. He had heard they were more natural.

The supplements hadn't managed his condition — far from it. Dr. Belardo discovered that he not only still had high cholesterol, but also had elevated liver enzymes and coronary artery disease so severe that he needed open-heart surgery.

She referred him for the procedure and started him on two medications to bring down his cholesterol, including a statin. She also told him to quit the supplements. A few weeks later, the liver issues resolved.

At a time when Americans are buying and taking record amounts of supplements — well over half of adults consume one — some doctors and dietitians are trying to convince patients to take it easy...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/07/well/doctors-supplements.html?smid=em-share

"Health became a competition"

...Health became a competition, encouraged by the advent of watches that track your vital signs and biomarkerbased "clocks" that measure your aging. Podcasters converted sad-sack men into biohackers, who juiced themselves with everything from Ayurvedic herbs to electromagnetic-frequency beds. (Most biohackers are men, for the same reason that most gambling addicts are men.) In 2013, there were fewer than a hundred longevity clinics around the globe; a decade later, there were more than three thousand.

So, at the Buck Institute, Diamandis declared that he'd finally been able to establish a prize in longevity. The goal was to devise a treatment by 2030 that made patients' muscles, brains, and immune systems twenty years younger; the winning team would get as much as eighty-one million dollars... Live long and prosper, New Yorker August '25