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A new study shows that obese women who become pregnant after losing weight with the help of bariatric surgery have easier pregnancies and healthier babies than women who remain obese during pregnancy. But ACSH's Dr.

This letter first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on July 28, 2008:
Re: "Panel OKs fast-food curbs," July 23

This piece first appeared on the Wall Street Journal's site OpinionJournal.com.
The news is a-chatter about swine flu. Is a pandemic pending--where all of us are at risk of disease and death? There are more questions than answers right now. Here are a few of them:

This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.
The U.S. pharmaceutical industry has replaced the tobacco cartel as the favorite punching bag of Congress and litigators over the last few years. The pipeline of new drugs has slowed to a crawl as the risk-averse Food and Drug Administration becomes more cautious by the day.

In 2000, African leaders vowed to reduce malaria deaths by 50% in ten years. Tomorrow marks the ninth anniversary of the vow, and though it hasn't been fulfilled, we are drawing very close to another marker of malaria's toll: 100 million dead from malaria since the Environmental Protection Agency's 1972 ban on DDT, the insecticide best suited to combat malarial mosquitoes.

The rate of diagnosed autism in the country today has increased from 1 in 10,000 in 1995 to 1 in 150 today. However, this likely reflects increased information and awareness about autism, the expansion of diagnostic criteria, more thorough and accurate diagnoses, and the classification of many cases as autism that would previously have been recorded as mental retardation. Autism is a lifelong condition that has a devastating effect on individuals and on their families. It is understandable that those involved with the autism spectrum can be desperate for help, for any hope of help.

This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.
Next week, the European Parliament will debate stringent regulation of a number of effective pesticides. It is apparently too much to expect a sense of shame from European public health officials and their activist "environmental" collaborators when the subject of chemical pesticides is raised.

Whether you are traveling around the world or relaxing at home, a safe, healthy vacation will add to your enjoyment. Here are some health and safety tips to keep in mind when planning your summer vacation.

Here at ACSH we’ve complained for years that health-related stories in the popular media often pay scant attention to the scientific accuracy and importance of the studies they report on. For example, we’ve seen preliminary studies reported at scientific meetings given equal weight with studies that have undergone peer review and are published in respected scientific journals.

This piece first appeared on TCSDaily.com.
When all three branches of the federal government target an industry, you know it's in big trouble. The hapless companies under the gun are our pharmaceutical manufacturers, but we will all be victims in this crusade.

This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.

ACSH staffers noticed that today s issues of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal both address the increasingly contentious issue of e-cigarettes, smokeless nicotine vaporizers that simulate a cigarette in order to circumvent smoking bans and aid cessation. Ironically, various anti-smoking groups are calling for e-cigarettes to be removed from the market, citing a lack of information about the safety of the product, but the ACSH staff believes that such an action would be a mistake. The key issue is that nicotine is not the dangerous part of smoking, says ACSH s Dr.

On a related note, the National Cancer Institute declared that computed tomography (CT) lung cancer screenings have a disturbingly high rate of false positives. This comes as no surprise to the staff at ACSH. "The data is obvious," says Dr. Ross, "we've known this to be an unreliable test when it comes to false positives. Of even greater concern is false negatives."

In an article with the headline "Philip Morris Pushes Smokeless," today's Wall Street Journal reports "Tobacco giant Philip Morris USA Inc. is urging the Food and Drug Administration to adopt a regulatory plan that would encourage smokers who can't or won't quit tobacco to switch to less-harmful smokeless tobacco."

In an article that seems like a joke, the UK's Daily Mail reports on a study published in the journal Death Studies, which suggests that the first initial of a child's name might affect their longevity by as much as ten years.

ACSH staffers are interested in how the Obama administration might advise the U.S. Supreme Court concerning a Georgia family s lawsuit against Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline. The Georgia Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed for a determination of whether the parents claim that the use of the preservative thimerosal in several vaccines is to blame for their son s neurological disorders has any merit. Wyeth and GSK contend that federal law protects vaccine manufacturers from liability.

he American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging released guidelines yesterday asserting that mammograms should begin at forty for women with an average risk of breast cancer and by thirty for high-risk women. These recommendations contradict those recently submitted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which concluded that screening mammograms for women under fifty cause more harm than good.

One provision of the tobacco bill signed into law with much pomp and circumstance on Monday is the prohibition of flavored cigarettes that supposedly appeal to younger smokers with the notable exception of menthol, which continues to enjoy its 28 percent market share of the cigarette industry and 80 percent preferred status among African-American smokers.
With irony befitting this week s celebration of the law, Philip Morris simultaneously released its latest Marlboro Blend No. 54, a menthol-flavored cigarette, with perfect impunity under the law.

This piece first appeared on the site of American Spectator.

Yesterday, Mintel Menu Insights revealed in a press release that people overwhelmingly disregard the health quality of food when dining out, opting instead for certain menu items based on taste, hunger satisfaction, and price.
This revelation comes as no surprise to ACSH s Todd Seavey: America loves donuts. The rest of this public health haranguing is as irrelevant and futile as confessing to a priest once a month about impure thoughts and serves much the same guilt-acknowledging social function.

On a related note, Swedish researchers published a study in today s Lancet Oncology medical journal that seemed to indicate that women who had their stomachs stapled were at a reduced risk for cancer, though the same results were not obtained for men.
In a way, that would make sense, since being overweight is a risk factor for many cancers, says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. However, so many journalists fall into the trap of treating cancer like one disease, and this article does the same.

Census data suggests that the number of people aged sixty-five or more will triple by 2050. That age group has already expanded by more than double the growth rate for the general population since 2000, and the trend is expected to continue with more Baby Boomers and China s Red Guard generation. Likely with these demographic data in mind, President Obama has said that overhauling Medicare and Social Security is critical.

According to a report released yesterday by the EPA, two million Americans face increased cancer risks from exposure to toxic air pollution. The statistics here are just bizarre, says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. They re making gross estimates based on gross estimates and so on until they turn out this absurdly precise number and all these figures about specific threats.

Duff Wilson reports in today s New York Times that advertising restrictions imposed on tobacco companies by the latest FDA regulation law are likely to be challenged as infringements on free speech. ACSH staffers noticed one particular defense of the law, made by Matthew L. Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the group that teamed up with Altria to draft the legislation: In this case, great care was taken to permit black-and-white text advertising that permits them to communicate whatever truthful information they have.

Italian researchers reported on Tuesday that virtual colonoscopies performed with computed tomography scans might be a viable alternative to traditional, invasive methods that use a tiny camera threaded through the colon.