Jeff Stier

Special to the USA TODAY Network

A few years ago, a liberal law professor friend in New York asked me to help her with a lesson. I was tasked with coming up with a public health policy that students across a wide ideological spectrum could agree upon.

I suggested a policy promoting public health education explaining how vaccines work, as part of an educational campaign to support more widespread acceptance of essential vaccinations.

This proposal met some key criteria in that it was not intrusive, it was based on science as well as common-sense, was always timely and was consistent with broad-based public health goals.

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The first Earth Day celebration was conceived by then-U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson and held in 1970 as a "symbol of environmental responsibility and stewardship." In the spirit of the time, it was a touchy-feely, consciousness-raising, New Age experience, and most activities were organized at the grassroots level.

Sadly, today's Earth Day shares something with the current political environment: It reeks of divisiveness.

Earth Day has devolved into an occasion for environmental Cassandras to prophesy apocalypse, dish antitechnology dirt, and proselytize for a "woke" agenda. Passion and zeal routinely trump science, and provability takes a back seat to plausibility.

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As the Biden administration engages the COVID-19 pandemic, a public tug-of-war has emerged over who should be nominated to run the Food and Drug Administration, a pivotal participant in the effort.

An analysis of the two perceived front-runners illustrates that neither would likely introduce the kinds of reform needed at the agency.

One candidate is acting Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock, a long-serving top FDA official with widespread institutional respect, both inside and outside the agency.

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One day into his presidency, Joe Biden made it quite clear that when he said he was going to go all-out in the war on COVID-19, he meant it.

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Over the last few months, people around the world have learned more about the global supply chain than they'd ever thought necessary.

Why couldn't we just quickly "get" more N95 masks? How long would it take to make more ventilators if needed?

One of the many factors limiting manufacturing is the limited supply of components.

Just as it is difficult to bake bread if there's a shortage of flour, it is difficult to manufacture many complex products if there is a shortage of any of their parts, many of which are themselves complex parts. And these parts are often made of synthetic products which make use of manufactured chemicals.

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