Bob Park’s What’s New: May 8, 2026

No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be).

What’s New, by Bob Park

Friday, May 8, 2026

1. Pete Sessions Sponsors Homeopathic Drug Bill

Congress is currently considering the bill HR 7050, the “Homeopathic Drug Product Safety, Quality, and Transparency Act.” The sponsor is Republican Representative Pete Sessions of Texas. What are homeopathic drugs? These are drugs where the active ingredient has been so diluted that none remains. In his book Voodoo Science, Bob Park wrote: “The dilution limit is reached when a single molecule of the medicine remains. Beyond that point, there is nothing left to dilute. In over-the-counter homeopathic remedies, for example, a dilution of 30X is fairly standard. The notation 30X means the substance was diluted on part in ten and shaken, and then this was repeated sequentially thirty times. The final dilution would be one part medicine to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 parts of water. That would be far beyond the dilution limit. To be precise, at a dilution of 30X you would have to drink 7,874 gallons of the solution to expect to get just one molecule of the medicine.” If you want to be “transparent” about “quality,” Bob Park’s analysis should be pasted on each container of homeopathic medicine.

[embed]Homeopathy, quackery and fraud, a TED talk by James Randi (start at 11 minutes and 30 seconds into the video for the part on homeopathy).

2. mRNA FLU VACCINE IS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE

An article titled “Efficacy and Safety of an mRNA Seasonal Influenza Vaccine in Adults” was published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. It concludes that “these findings support the role of mRNA-1010 in improving influenza prevention.” The article explains that a phase 3 clinical trial indicates that the Moderna seasonal [that is, mRNA-1010] flu vaccine provides better protection against the flu than a standard flu shot. Sign me up.

3. ALSO, ALUMINUM IN VACCINES IS SAFE

Yesterday the BMJ (British Medical Journal) published a Canadian study titled “Aluminium adjuvants in vaccines and potential health effects: systematic review.” The conclusion is “Current evidence does not support causal associations between aluminium adjuvanted vaccines and serious or long term health outcomes.” Although Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, says otherwise, the evidence shows that aluminum in vaccines is not a health hazard.

4. IN ADDITION, THE HPV VACCINE IS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE

The human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cervical cancer. On Tuesday, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), led by Michael Osterholm, released a systematic review and meta-analysis of the safety and effectiveness of the HPV vaccine. Then concluded that “The totality of evidence — including randomized trials and observational studies — continues to show no association between HPV vaccination and serious adverse events (SAEs). Effectiveness data continue to reinforce substantial protection against cervical cancer, high-grade cervical lesions, and HPV infection.” Despite the claims to the contrary by RFK Jr, HPV is safe and effective.

5. FDA BLOCKS PUBLICATION OF A STUDY SUPPORTING THE COVID VACCINE

Leaders of the Food and Drug Administration have been blocking studies by FDA scientists that indicate the safety of the covid vaccine, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed. Preprints (a version of an article submitted to a journal before undergoing peer review) indicate that these articles conclude that the vaccine is safe and effective. Angela Rasmussen, the editor of the journal Vaccine where one of the articles was submitted before being withdrawn, said this week that “the nation’s top vaccine regulator forced FDA scientists to withdraw a study from peer review because it shows that COVID vaccines still work for everyone… FDA officials are actively interfering with established scientific processes to manipulate the evidence base. They are doing this to justify unsupported ideological policies at the expense of Americans’ health and well-being.” Evidence keeps accumulating about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, yet a new KFF (a leading health policy organization) survey shows that 4 out of 10 Americans support RFK Jr’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, which opposes vaccines. It seems that to many people evidence doesn’t matter. They favor things like homeopathy instead. What are we to do?