How do you get the public’s attention these days? Just come up with yet another scare about some consumer item. The best is a scare about some item that we thought was safe and wholesome. Like...
Siobahn O’Connor and Alexandra Spunt are two very pleasant ladies who came to see me when they were doing research for their recently published book, No More Dirty Looks. I was a little...
Hippocrates used a powder made from the skeletons of mice. Pliny the Elder used burnt eggshells, and the ancient Arabs resorted to twigs from the Arak shrub. What were they trying to do? Clean...
Just looking at the list of ingredients on an antiperspirant or deodorant makes some people sweat. That’s because they’ve heard about how some of the components have been linked with breast cancer...
Only in Hollywood would birds ever be given a form of birth control. According to the Argyle Civic Association, the group leading the contraceptive initiative, the birds are just too numerous. Not...
Repeat after me: “Repetition does not confer truth.” If you go by the frequency with which media reports scream about us poor souls walking the proverbial plank, prodded by the sword of...
Homeopathy is a controversial “alternative” practice. In 2012, Dr. Joe expressed his views in a series of columns in The Montreal Gazette - Homeopathy: Delusion through Dilution - which triggered a...
Is it true that eating blue cheese causes cancer? That is what one of our correspondents wanted to know. Mercifully, the answer is: no. But I think I know how this story got started. Blue cheese is...
If you buy a chemical-free product, you’re not getting a good deal. You’re buying nothing. A vacuum. What’s a vacuum? A space empty of all matter. And what is matter? Anything that has mass and...
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