As talking heads blabbered about Will Smith this spring, it brings to mind a broader concept about this nation's unhealthy fixation on celebrity.

Twenty years ago this month, the eyes of the nation's lawmakers were focused on a witness at an otherwise bland hearing.  As CNN's Jonathan Karl reported, "I've never seen so many people crowd into an appropriations subcommittee hearing."

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The Covid-19 pandemic should be a wakeup call that there is something very wrong—irreparable, even—at the World Health Organization. This revelation shouldn't come as a surprise. After all, the WHO is a constituent of the relentlessly incompetent and politicized United Nations.

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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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