The current issue of Newsweek chronicles the history of influenza with pictures and illustrations dating back to the eigheenth century. The slideshow of images is available online. "It really puts things in perspective," says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. "The flu is serious stuff and something we still need to worry about."
The flu kills 30,000 to 40,000 Americans every year, and as ACSH's Jeff Stier points out, "Most of those deaths are preventable through widespread use of the flu vaccine."
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Yesterday was World Toilet Day , inspiring the Los Angeles Times to pose an interesting question: "If you had to live without toilets or electricity, which would you choose?" While ACSH staffers find the idea of life without electricity to be a dim prospect, we would certainly forgo its convenience in favor of all the public health benefits of toilets.
While it has been known for decades that people with HIV have an increased risk for certain types of cancers (such as Kaposi's sarcoma), a new study suggests that they are also more likely to develop cancers that haven't been traditionally associated with AIDS.
•"The Scariest Health Threat You've Never Heard Of: Autoimmune Disease," from the September 2008 issue of Glamour, quoted Jeff Stier saying, "People want to blame chemicals where they don't have another explanation for the cause of a disease. I think we need more psychologists rather than more toxicologists."
•The September 29, 2008 New York Sun piece "Salt Is Next on City's Hit List" quoted Dr. Gilbert Ross likening New York City's anti-salt plans to the trans fat ban.
This piece first appeared on September 8, 2008 in the New York Post:
If the city Health Department gets its way, government officials -- local, state and federal -- will soon be deciding what you can and can't eat.
France is trying to sell surplus doses of H1N1 vaccine that they purchased under the impression that everyone would need two doses for full immunity.
"They have 65 million citizens, and they ordered 94 million doses," says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. "It turns out only 5 million of them were vaccinated. I'd say they overestimated."
The notorious anti-vaccine activist Barbara Loe Fisher filed a lawsuit against pediatric immunologist and vaccine developer Dr. Paul Offit, writer Amy Wallace, and Wired magazine publisher Condé Nast for an article in Wired wherein Wallace quoted Dr. Offit saying of Fischer, "She lies."
Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview blog duly criticizes the NBC Today "Eat This, Cure That" segment that advised people to eat certain foods in order to cure what ails them, regardless of whether their claims have any basis in reality. "The segment stated that eating one cup of black beans can help ease migraine pain," writes Schwitzer. "Viewers should be given some data to back that up."
According to a new study, Finland's national screening program for colon cancer has been successful -- to some extent. Doctors screened 106,000 people between the ages of sixty and sixty-four for the disease by analyzing fecal samples for blood and were able to identify four out of ten cases of colon cancer.
A January 2, 2009 piece by Timothy W. Martin on labeling intended to indicate healthier food choices quotes ACSH's Jeff Stier:
•In March 2009, venues noting ACSH included TCSDaily, Marie Claire, Washington Times, Visalia Times-Delta, WKRC-TV, Bajo el Sol, Internal Medicine News, CongressNow, Wall Street Journal ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123724885435549329.html ), Calgary Herald ( http://www.calgaryherald.com/want+trans+fats+fascism+with+your+fries/139... ), Bipartisan Alliance, Heartland Institute, Paradigms and Demographics, the Vicki Mc
The following statement was submitted on February 2, 2009 by ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava to New York State's Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Committee on Ways and Means during discussions of 2009-2010 budget plans for health and Medicaid.
New York, NY -- March 13, 2009. Modern food technology provides numerous means of lowering the calories in foods while preserving flavor, according to a new report -- Obesity and Food Technology -- by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).
This piece first appeared in the New York Post.
If Congress doesn't act quickly, tens of thousands of Americans will lose their jobs -- and several hundred New York businesses will get hit particularly hard.
The satire program "The Daily Show" hosted by comedian Jon Stewart recently turned its laser beam of humor on people who were critical of First Lady Michelle Obama idealizing her gardener. Ironically, they make the case nicely while hoping to defend her.
The new strain of the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, has officially made an appearance in all fifty of the United States, but the more immediate concern is the rapidly inflating number of cases in southern hemisphere countries where the winter flu season is setting in. Australia and Chile are both posting record numbers of flu cases that may prompt a response from the World Health Organization.
Researchers in Colombia have reported that the Gardasil vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV) may be effective for women between the ages of twenty-six and forty-five. The FDA has not approved the vaccination of women over twenty-six, nor is the practice addressed in CDC guidelines.
Those who follow our work are well aware that ACSH experts have been dreading the imminent approval of a bill in the Senate which would establish FDA regulation of tobacco products. The bill is a result of an unfortunate effort by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids conspiring with Phillip Morris/Altria to "regulate" tobacco.
Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee have proposed an excise tax on sugar-filled drinks as an initiative to curb childhood obesity, and flavored milk has been caught in the crossfire.
When most people hear about this idea they only think of sugared sodas, so it seems plausible, says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. But having the tax extended to include chocolate milk is undesirable collateral damage.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the new FDA commissioner, has eagerly joined the debate on how to correct food safety problems. Food safety legislation is something we ve been following closely, says ACSH s Jeff Stier, and there s no doubt that the country needs improvement in food safety. The question is: how do we do it? Some of the proposed provisions are problematic.
Dr. Anne Hoch of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee reported on a study of ballerinas that indicated they are especially vulnerable to the female athlete tetrad, a medical syndrome involving combinations of premature heart disease, osteoporosis, disordered eating, and menstrual dysfunction.
For almost 100 years, industry has been a powerful motivating force in the creation of new technology and the underwriting of scientific research. But in the last two decades, there has been a campaign to decry industry funding, claiming that such funding is tainting research.
It is not who funds the research; it is the quality of the research that counts. This rush to judgment against industry-funded science is problematic.
ACSH staffers are encouraged by some letters published in the New York Times in response to its coverage of the proposed tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Those who make the case against the tax are succinct, right to the point, and they can tell that this is a bad idea, says ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.
The letters are very much on target, adds ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross. They make the case that there are better ways to ensure the health of our children, including accurate nutrition education and well-funded physical education programs in schools.
Diet, exercise, and eat right. This is the guiding tenet by which many health-conscious people live and one of the driving forces behind the popularity of functional foods. Despite their immense popularity, there is no universally accepted definition of functional foods.
Remember the commotion last year about radioactive granite in our kitchen counters?
That story's just one of 10 health stories from 2008 identified as "hoaxes" by the American Council on Science and Health, a nonprofit group of scientists and physicians that advocates a common-sense approach to maintaining good health, writes the Washington Post.
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