5
If You Swallow Poison, Don't Force Yourself To Puke
The logical reaction when somebody swallows a toxic substance is to try to get that shit straight back out as soon as possible. For years, pediatricians recommended that parents keep ipecac syrup on hand in order to induce vomiting in cases of accidental poisoning.
But more recent studies have concluded that by inducing vomiting, you actually risk dehydrating the subject on top of the poisoning. Plus, you're far from guaranteeing that all of the harmful substance has been evacuated from their system, and in the case of a victim falling unconscious, you're introducing the very real possibility of them suffocating to death on their own vomit. That's got to be, like, the third-worst way to die.
R&H
It doesn't bode well when the stuff meant to cure poisoning has its own entry with Poison Control.
As for ipecac, a study of 750,000 poisoned children found that its use resulted in "no reduction in resource utilization or improvement in patient outcome." Not only that, but (perhaps unsurprisingly for a substance so noxious that its sole purpose is to make you launch your lunch into the next room) too much ipecac syrup can damage your heart or outright kill you. It's so unhelpful, in fact, that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you toss that shit straight out. But that's the kind of talk Big Vomit doesn't like to hear.
4
You Need Some Time Outdoors Without Sunscreen
Sun exposure increases your risk of skin cancer. Statements don't get much simpler than that. Use sunscreen all the time, or the sky will eat you. Your call.
The problem comes when we overcorrect our behavior to ward off the skin cancer boogeyman and completely neglect the fact that our bodies require sun exposure in order to produce vitamin D. And not only is vitamin D crucial to a healthy immune system and necessary for proper tooth and bone development, but low vitamin D levels are strongly correlated with higher rates of asthma, various cancers, heart-related ailments (including dangerously low blood pressure in pregnant women), and dramatically higher incidences of multiple sclerosis in northern U.S. states. Hell, even melanoma -- the very bad guy we're trying to ward off by bathing in sunscreen -- occurs less in people who get regular doses of sunlight. That's why in places like Australia (where more than a third of the population suffers from vitamin D deficiency), medical experts are backpedaling on decades of preaching against the sun and are instead encouraging people to spend a healthy amount of sunscreen-free time outdoors.