Writing
Essays and explainers
Longer-form writing translating research (the ERAJ autism work in Jamaica, stroke outcomes across borders, and methodological questions that shape what a study can actually answer) into language for readers outside the field.
- 8 min readpediatric research · gut health · research methods
How researchers define functional GI disorders in children
How the Rome IV criteria define functional GI disorders in children, and why prevalence shifts with the criteria, the questionnaire and who answers.
- 8 min readstroke · clinical trials · research methods
Thrombolysis for minor nondisabling stroke: the evidence
What the PRISMS, ARAMIS and TEMPO-2 trials found on clot-dissolving treatment for mild, nondisabling stroke, and why 'minor' is hard to define.
- 8 min readstroke · clinical trials · research methods
Mobile stroke units: what the trials show
Mobile stroke units bring a CT scanner to the patient. What the trials found, how they were designed without classic randomization, and what is unsettled.
- 8 min readpediatric research · clinical trials · research methods
Pediatric extrapolation explained: evidence for children
How regulators let adult trial evidence support a medicine's use in children, what the ICH E11A framework changed, and what extrapolation still cannot settle.
- 8 min readstroke · clinical trials · research methods
Tenecteplase versus alteplase: what the trials show
Tenecteplase versus alteplase in ischemic stroke: what the major trials found, how non-inferiority margins work, and what the evidence cannot settle.
- 8 min readpediatric research · gut health · evidence review
Probiotics in children: what the research shows
What research shows on probiotics in children: large trials found no benefit in gastroenteritis, while pooled trials suggest less antibiotic diarrhea.
- 8 min readstroke · neuroimaging · research methods
The ischemic penumbra: what it is and why trials select on it
The ischemic penumbra explained: brain tissue starved of blood but not yet dead after a stroke, how imaging estimates it, and why trials select on it.
- 8 min readresearch methods · reproducibility · evidence
Why replication matters: what the 2026 projects measured
Why replication matters in science: what three 2026 Nature projects found, how reproducing a result differs from replicating it, and how to read one study.
- 8 min readresearch methods · epidemiology · study design
Selection bias: when who gets studied changes the answer
Selection bias explained with examples: how the way people enter a study can create or reverse an association, and what careful researchers do about it.
- 7 min readenvironment · pediatric · methods
Cadmium exposure in children: the sources, and what the evidence shows
Cadmium reaches children mainly through food. What FDA monitoring and observational studies establish about the kidney, bone, and the developing brain.
- 7 min readpediatric health · autism research · measurement
Why GI symptom estimates in autism vary so widely
Estimates of gastrointestinal symptoms in autism run from about 4 percent to 97 percent across studies. What that spread reveals about measurement itself.
- 8 min readstudy design · clinical trials · research methods
What intention-to-treat analysis actually means
Intention-to-treat explained: what the principle protects, why it is not simply analyzing everyone, and how the estimand framework sharpened the question.
- 8 min readstroke · health disparities · systems of care
Why geography still shapes who gets stroke treatment
Disparities in access to stroke care persist between rural and urban hospitals. What the evidence shows about thrombolysis, thrombectomy, and outcomes.
- 7 min readresearch methods · biomarkers · clinical trials
Validation and qualification: what a biomarker has to earn
Biomarker validation and qualification answer different questions. What context of use means, and why a reliable measurement can still be the wrong endpoint.
- 7 min readepidemiology · causal inference · research methods
Bradford Hill viewpoints: what they can and cannot settle
The Bradford Hill criteria explained: what Hill's nine viewpoints were for, why he warned against checklist use, and how they are applied today.
- 9 min readpediatric research · clinical trials · research methods
How safety trials in children are designed
Pediatric trials are not adult trials with smaller doses. How federal risk categories, assent rules, and pediatric extrapolation shape what gets studied.
- 8 min readstroke · evidence · research methods
Why time still matters in acute stroke care
The 2026 stroke guideline widened treatment windows using advanced imaging. Why elapsed time still shapes outcomes, and what the trials measured.
- 8 min readepidemiology · study design · research methods
Case-control or cohort: how design shapes the answer
Case-control and cohort studies sample in opposite directions, and that single choice decides what each design can measure. A plain explanation of both.
- 7 min readenvironmental health · metabolomics · methods
What metabolomics can show about environmental exposure
Metabolomics measures the small molecules exposure leaves behind. What the method can reveal about environmental exposure, and where it falls short.
- 8 min readenvironmental health · child development · methods
Mercury in fish and child development: the evidence
Fish carries methylmercury, a neurotoxicant, and nutrients tied to better child development. Here is what the research shows, and why studies disagree.
- 7 min readgut-brain axis · microbiome · evidence
The gut-brain axis: what the evidence supports, and what it does not
The gut-brain axis links the microbiome to the brain through nerves, immunity, and metabolites. What research establishes, and what stays unproven.
- 7 min readenvironment · epidemiology · methods
The exposome explained: measuring a lifetime of exposures
The exposome is the sum of a person's lifetime exposures. What the concept means, how researchers measure it, and why it is reshaping environmental health.
- 7 min readstroke · outcomes · methods
How do we measure stroke recovery? The modified Rankin Scale, and what it can and cannot capture
The modified Rankin Scale is the most common outcome measure in stroke trials. What its 0 to 6 grades mean, why reliability is hard, and what it misses.
- 8 min readresearch methods · epidemiology · scientific literacy
Relative risk versus absolute risk: how to read a scary health headline
Relative risk vs absolute risk: why a headline that says a risk doubled can still mean almost nothing, and the questions to ask of any health study.
- 8 min readenvironmental health · prenatal exposure · epidemiology
Prenatal exposure to environmental contaminants: what the evidence supports, and what it does not
How researchers study environmental exposures in pregnancy, why the fetus is vulnerable, and how to read the evidence on lead, mercury, and air pollution.
- 8 min readenvironmental health · gene-environment interaction · methods
Detoxification genes and toxic metals: what gene-environment research can and cannot show
Two children can face the same environmental exposure and carry very different internal doses. Detoxification genes are part of why, without overclaiming.
- 8 min readresearch methods · biostatistics · scientific literacy
What a p-value actually tells you, and what it does not
A p-value is one of the most misread numbers in science. Here is what it actually measures, what it does not, and how to read it without overclaiming.
- 8 min readenvironmental health · child neurodevelopment · epidemiology
Autism and the environment: what studies can and cannot show
Autism and environmental exposures: what epidemiology can and cannot establish, why association is not causation, and how genes and environment interact.
- 7 min readenvironmental health · child neurodevelopment · heavy metals
Manganese and the developing brain: an essential nutrient that can also harm
Manganese is a nutrient the body needs and a neurotoxin in excess. What the evidence shows about manganese exposure and child brain development, explained.
- 7 min readenvironmental health · biomarkers · methods
How do you measure a metal in a child's body? What biomarkers can and cannot tell us
Blood, urine, hair, and even teeth each keep a different record of metal exposure. A look at how researchers measure exposure in children and how they read it.
- 8 min readepidemiology · methods · causation
Why correlation is not causation: confounding and how epidemiologists actually decide
What confounding means in epidemiology, why correlation is not causation, and how researchers use study design and Bradford Hill viewpoints to weigh evidence.
- 8 min readstroke · methods · evidence
Thrombectomy for large-core stroke: what the recent trials actually show
For years a large stroke core ruled out thrombectomy. A wave of randomized trials overturned that. Here is what the evidence shows, and what it does not.
- 8 min readenvironment · pediatric · methods
Arsenic in drinking water: what the evidence says about children and health risk
An evidence-based explainer on arsenic in drinking water: where it comes from, the 10 ppb standard, and what the carcinogen and child-development evidence shows.
- 7 min readenvironment · pediatric · methods
Lead exposure in children: the sources, and what the evidence shows
How researchers measure childhood lead exposure, where children encounter it, and what the evidence does and does not establish about effects on development.
- 8 min readautism · environment · methods
The mercury in the fish
What fifteen years studying Jamaican children with and without autism taught us about how to measure an environmental exposure, and know it's measured well.