Faye Flam

The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021.

Op-ed: Facebook, YouTube erred in censoring COVID-19 ‘misinformation’

June 9, 2021 at 8:34 p.m.

Labeling misinformation online is doing more harm than good. The possibility that COVID-19 came from a lab accident is just the latest example. Social media companies tried to suppress any...

A man presents his vaccine "passport" on opening night at the Khan Theater in Jerusalem on Feb. 23, 2021. All guests at the performance were required to show proof of coronavirus vaccination or full recovery from COVID-19.

Op-ed: How to get back to normal faster? Vaccination passports.

March 24, 2021 at 8:31 p.m.

There's some scientific justification for using vaccine passports to allow vaccinated people — and only vaccinated people — back into restaurants, movie theaters and other indoor spaces. But so far,...

Englewood resident Fannie Peeples gets a Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine from Friend Health nurse Syreetta Stinson at the Peace House of I Grow Chicago, March 26, 2021. I Grow Chicago teamed with Friend Health to provide 150 vaccines, coffee and doughnuts at the event.

Op-ed: The COVID-19 vaccine is our path to being together again

January 24, 2021 at 10:39 p.m.

Once again, the COVID-19 health message is getting muddled. Even as officials and scientists urge the public to get vaccinated, they warn that after vaccination, we'll still have to go...

Imports | The start of summer saw a jump in import prices. According to the BLS, prices for U.S. imports increased 1.4% during the month of June.

Faye Flam column: Every American should be tested for COVID-19 once a week

November 24, 2020 at 4:02 p.m.

Americans are still doing COVID-19 testing wrong. The kind of testing and contact tracing that scientists advocated in the spring to combat the virus isn't working in the U.S. And...

Joggers along the lakefront near Monroe Harbor in Chicago at sunrise Sept. 15, 2020. Scientists are learning is that airborne particles carrying the virus are dispersed outside, where the risk is low.

Commentary: The CDC is losing credibility with each messaging flip

September 25, 2020 at 10:12 p.m.

The CDC posted and then retracted a statement on Sept. 21 about COVID-19 being an "airborne" disease. While the switch generated tons of attention, infectious disease experts say it's not...

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks outside the Delaware Museum of Natural History in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sept. 14, 2020.

Commentary: ‘Follow the science’ isn’t a COVID-19 strategy

September 15, 2020 at 9:45 p.m.

Anyone observing President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. would have good reason to wonder if his administration ever had much of a strategy for handling...

Dr. James Goldenberg shows the secure room where COVID-19 vaccines are stored Monday, Aug. 17, 2020, at the JFK Medical Center in Atlantis. Trials of the drug will begin Tuesday at the clinic.

Commentary: Give the COVID vaccine to healthy young people first

August 19, 2020 at 4:22 p.m.

Who should be at the front of the line if an effective COVID-19 vaccine emerges from testing? The answer depends on what we learn from the kind of field trials...

A Groupon employee uses a standing desk in Chicago.

Sitting is not worse than smoking

May 31, 2019 at 9:22 p.m.

Some health messages such as "sitting is the new smoking" spread not because they're true, but because they're catchy and tweetable. And when promoting a new health scare, comparisons are...

Maybe most of us really are smarter than we think

May 31, 2019 at 9:24 p.m.

The Wall Street Journal recently served readers this slap-in-the-face headline: "You're Not as Smart as You Think." The piece was written by two psychologists, Christopher Chabris and Patrick Heck, detailing...

A man in Mumbai, India, collects plastic and other recyclable material from the litter on the shores of the Arabian Sea on June 4, 2018. An American engineering professor has estimated the world has produced more than 8 billion metric tons of plastic since the 1950s.

The recycling game is rigged against consumers

May 31, 2019 at 9:22 p.m.

Americans were not set up for success in recycling plastics. Even before China stopped accepting plastic refuse from abroad, 91 percent of potentially recyclable plastic in the U.S. ended up...

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