Commentary Is it possible the United States will lock down again? Is it possible public officials will seek to hold us captive without due process? The World Health Organization (WHO) and European Union have officially teamed up to end the freedom to travel as we know it. The EU boasts that its version of vaccine passports issued during the…

Commentary From Osaka to Ontario, Houston to Hong Kong, an increasing number of young people are retreating from society. The reasons for the mass withdrawal are as varied as they are disturbing. In Japan, the issue of social withdrawal among young individuals has become so severe that the Japanese have coined a term for it:…

Commentary Prairie voles were not meant to go through life alone. For those who have not had the privilege of meeting one, a prairie vole is a diminutive rodent autochthonous to the grasslands of the central parts of North America and best characterized as wrong-looking gerbils with rambunctious souls. A favorite snack of coyotes, hawks,…

At the time of writing this piece, the United States has already experienced more than 100 mass shootings this year. That works out at roughly 11 mass shootings—involving three or more victim fatalities in a single incident—every week. What is going on? Some, of course, will point to the ease of access to firearms. However, just…

After his wife died in a Colorado hospital in 2020 with no family present, Steve Reiter strives to see that no patient is ever left alone again. He initiated the Never Alone Project to raise awareness about the dangers of isolating patients in hospitals and to influence legislation that would require hospitals to allow families…

Commentary A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of speaking at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles alongside my friend and colleague, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. A month prior, we had also lectured together also at a conference in Rome (which, alas, was not recorded). Fortunately, the LA talks were—link below. When the COVID-19 pandemic…

There’s a “Peanuts” cartoon panel that might make you smile or—thanks to our ongoing struggle with social isolation—even cry a little. Creator Charles Schulz’s famous hero, Charlie Brown, is lying in a puffy beanbag-type seat with a thought above his head: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you…

Excess mortality rates among younger Canadians rose as the COVID-19 pandemic wore on, which may have been the result of increased substance use and missed medical appointments, according to Statistics Canada. The federal agency released the latest provisional data on April 14, which shows that overall excess mortality—meaning more deaths than expected in a given period—climbed…

SAN DIEGO—Loneliness and social isolation among older women can increase heart disease risk by as much as 27 percent, according to a University of California–San Diego (UCSD)-led study published Feb. 2. The findings of the study, published in Wednesday’s online issue of JAMA Network Open, reveal that social isolation and loneliness independently increased cardiovascular disease…