Fundamental Elements: Science basics for a world drowning in misinformation

A new section of ImmunoLogic: Chemistry, biology, toxicology, and immunology—minus the fearmongering.

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Introducing Fundamental Elements: Science Concepts Without the Fearmongering

I know that everyone has been feeling overwhelmed and powerless. How do I know? Because I feel that way too.

Right now, we are all watching our health and safety slip away because anti-science activists and medical conspiracists have taken over our governmental health agencies and podcasters with wellness company funding are viewed as sources of ground truth.

There is a growing measles outbreak in Texas. H5N1 influenza is spreading through domestic and wild birds, other animals, even domestic pets. Scientific research infrastructure is being eroded or outright destroyed. Our food and medicine safety is being compromised. Global health is at risk, and the people in leadership who should be addressing these crises are actually fueling the problem with misinformation and pseudoscience.

It’s too much to keep track of — much less process the short- and long-term consequences of it all. As always, I will continue to discuss how anti-science rhetoric shapes policy and how media disinformation and influencers contribute to the erosion of trust in public health, science, and propagation of wellness profiteering.

But I am going to do something more.

Many of you have expressed a desire to learn more “underneath the hood” science—so this is my solution to that.

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A primary reason that pseudoscience and disinformation sticks is because of low science literacy.

• Low science literacy is why journalists misrepresent in vitro studies and spread unfounded fears about things that have no relevance to our daily lives.

• It’s why politicians push performative bans on “chemicals” that won’t actually improve public health and ignore things that will.

• It’s why people fear mRNA vaccines, vaccine ingredients, pesticide residues, genetic engineering, and other life-saving scientific innovations.

• And low science literacy is exploited by bad actors like RFK Jr., Moms Across America, Mark Hyman, the Environmental Working Group—groups that thrive and profit off misinformation, fear, and manipulation of science.

So today, I’m launching a section of ImmunoLogic called Fundamental Elements

This section will focus on science basics—key concepts in chemistry, toxicology, biology, immunology and genetics that get misrepresented or twisted by pseudoscience and disinformation campaigns.

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Science isn’t scary—but misinformation makes it seem that way.

Fundamental Elements will explain science in a way that makes sense. The goal? Equip you with the foundational knowledge to better navigate health and science claims you read online—or hear from your friends and family.

You might not know but I’m also a runner—marathon is my favorite distance.

So let’s use a marathon training analogy here (yes, I know the “life is a marathon, not a sprint” cliché is tired, but I promise I’ll make it less annoying):

When you’re training for a marathon, you can’t just go out and run your long runs and think race day will be fine. You need all the easy pace runs, all the base mileage, the strength training. In short—you need all the fundamental components to fitness in order to actually execute your plan.

That’s the purpose of this section.

If we don’t understand the science concepts that relate to topics in the public discourse, we can’t participate in decision-making in an active and informed manner.

By adding in the base miles, we will be better trained when these science topics come up in our day-to-day lives…like choosing what type of fruits and vegetables to buy—should you believe the people screaming about pesticides, or should you trust in your newfound understanding of toxicology?

With improved science literacy, you’ll be able to better tell fact from fear, help others do the same, and make truly informed decisions about your health and other science topics that impact you.

We’ll tackle topics like:

• Why “everything is a chemical” (and why that’s not scary)

• Why the dose makes the poison (and how toxicity is misrepresented)

• How vaccines actually work (and why they don’t “permanently reprogram your immune system”)

• Why mRNA vaccines aren’t gene therapy—and how molecular biology works

• Why chemical compounds are not the same as their individual elements (reminder: your table salt isn’t going to explode in water like sodium will)

• Why genetic engineering and biotechnology tools are safe (and why the anti-GMO movement is based on pseudoscience)

• Why your immune system isn’t a muscle you can flex

This section will be all science: fun, factual, and fearmongering-free.

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How this changes things for you as a reader

Well, you have more control over what you get delivered to your inbox. You get to choose what of my content you see, based on your interests. You can:

• Subscribe ONLY to Fundamental Elements if you just want to get some science education and learn more about science concepts.

• Subscribe to ALL of ImmunoLogic if you are here for the health disinformation fact-checking, the snarky discussions about wellness charlatans and the harmful consequences of anti-science rhetoric, AND the science basics.

• Or unsubscribe from Fundamental Elements if you don’t want to listen to me ramble about molecular biology, chemical reactions, and toxicology principles and you’d rather just see the main section articles I write.

The goal here is to knock down those barriers and gaps in science knowledge so you feel like science and health topics are no longer intimidating or scary—because a scientifically-literate society is one that makes good decisions for everyone.

My plan moving forward is to have one traditional ImmunoLogic-style newsletter and one Fundamental Elements newsletter published each week (time permitting—currently my schedule is pretty chaotic!)

I hope to make it engaging, interesting, and allow you to feel confident to go up to someone sharing misinformation falsehoods and say: “you know what? this is wrong, and I’m going to explain to you why”

Welcome to Fundamental Elements—where science makes sense, and fearmongering goes to die.

And let me know your thoughts in the below poll—will this be beneficial for you, personally?

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Now, more than ever, we all must join in the fight for science.

Thank you for supporting evidence-based science communication. With outbreaks of preventable diseases, refusal of evidence-based medical interventions, propagation of pseudoscience by prominent public “personalities”, it’s needed now more than ever.

More science education, less disinformation.

- Andrea

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ImmunoLogic is written by Dr. Andrea Love, PhD - immunologist and microbiologist. She works full-time in life sciences biotech and has had a lifelong passion for closing the science literacy gap and combating pseudoscience and health misinformation as far back as her childhood. This newsletter and her science communication on her social media pages are born from that passion. Follow on Instagram, Threads, Twitter, and Facebook, or support the newsletter by subscribing below: