We hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving feasts last week. For those concerned about the safety of their meals, the National Review Online’s The Corner publicized ACSH’s Holiday Dinner Menu — now in its 28th year of circulation — in an op-ed by ACSH’s Dr.
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The efficacy of India’s anti-malaria efforts are being called into question following the publication of a recent study showing that malaria kills 13 times more Indians than previously estimated by the WHO. Published in The Lancet last month, the study, co-funded by the Center for Global Health Research and U.S.
Dendreon’s pricey metastatic prostate cancer drug Provenge has won the approval of a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services advisory panel, which says the drug should be covered by Medicare. Cleared for U.S.
If pharmaceutical drugs were able to compete in a high school popularity contest, then Merck & Co.’s new experimental cholesterol medication anacetrapib would be voted “most likely to reduce the risk of stroke, cardiovascular (CV) events and death.” The novel drug is able to increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the “good” cholesterol, while simultaneously lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol.
Here’s a story that you probably didn’t read in your morning newspaper: An international panel of experts meeting in Canada has rebuked the numerous bodies in recent years that have restricted the common plastic hardening chemical bisphenol A (BPA). The panel has concluded that the levels of BPA circulating in the human body “are very low, indicating that BPA is not accumulated in the body and is rapidly eliminated through urine.”
The panel went on to say:
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is on yet another health crusade — this time against salty soups. Hizzoner is spending $370,000 in city and federal funds on subway ads featuring salt spewing from a can of chicken and rice soup.
DDT was banned in the United States since 1972 as part of a worldwide campaign against the pesticide a crusade that has perversely (and we presume unintentionally) been responsible for the loss of millions of African children from preventable malaria deaths. But the excellent powder is now being blamed for thinning condor eggs in California well, one or two eggs, anyway.
Interesting juxtaposition in the pages of Yale Public Health. Page 6 of the fall 2010 issue reports on a study by Yale’s Jason M. Fletcher, Ph.D., that found increased taxes on soda and restricting sugary drinks from school vending machines are having a “negligible effect” on childhood obesity. Kids just find substitutes or buy soft drinks elsewhere, thestudy found.
There’s good news when it comes to treating tuberculosis. New therapies are on their way to treat patients with hard-to-treat drug-resistant forms of the infectious lung disease, the director of the World Health Organization’s Stop TB Department says.
ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross has been a busy man. Yesterday he presented ACSH’s position paper on the mentholation of cigarettes to an FDA panel considering a ban on the products. He also had an op-ed in Forbes.com on how the U.S.
ACSH staffers were troubled — again — by a Los Angeles Times article covering a new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives that claims children born to mothers who live “near freeways” have twice the risk of autism. The association only held between autism and freeways — not major roads.
If enacted, a new proposed policy by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) would restrict where and how genetically modified (GM) crops may be grown. This would be a significant and troubling shift for the agency. The USDA appears to be responding to protests from anti-biotech activists and organic farmers.
Just 24 hours after New York Times editors launched their attack on Happy Meals as irresponsible corporate activity, the paper’s Science section printed an article implicitly endorsing a range of ideas which can best be described as based on magical thinking. The article depicts the travails of radiologist and breast cancer specialist Dr. Marisa Weiss. Some years ago, Dr.
Josh Bloom, National Review Online 12/21/10
New Antibiotics, Stat!
Two opinions set forward in the last few days by Consumer Reports magazine suggest that, as ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan puts it, they should stick to testing cars.
The last few days have also seen the announcement of two major breakthroughs with regard to the identification and prevention of infectious diseases with major impact in the third world, especially Africa. We refer to a new, low-cost meningitis vaccine being made available in the developing world, and approval of a new and better test for tuberculosis (TB).
Might there be a relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and levels within the body of the good cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL)?Today’s edition of the Archives of Neurology includes a study performed at Columbia Univers
Five years ago, environmental activist Erin Brockovich was awarded the Harvard School of Public Health’s Julius B. Richmond Award — their highest honor for the promotion of public health — for her legal efforts to expose the undisclosed leaking of chromium (VI) (hexavalent chromium) by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) into the water supply of the California desert town of Hinkley. Allegedly, this was the cause of a spike in cancer cases among the town’s residents.
Many people may find it surprising to learn that China s 300 million smokers consume a third of the world s cigarettes. But then 60 percent of Chinese men smoke an average of 15 cigarettes per day. The result, according to the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung disease, is that smoking-related diseases cause one million Chinese deaths each year, and this number is projected to double by the 2020.
Based on phase III data from a recent study, the FDA has expanded the indication for Actemra, the rheumatoid arthritis (RA) drug tocilizumab. The Actemra label now includes inhibition and slowing of structural joint damage and improvement of physical function in adult patients with moderately to severely active RA, when given in combination with methotrexate.
RA is a debilitating disease afflicting almost two million Americans.
A new study lessens concerns that radiation exposure from diagnostic CT scans — a medical procedure that has become more common in the past decade — has substantially increased cancer incidence.
ACSH would like to induct a recent study seeking to link increased red meat consumption to a higher risk of stroke in women into our very own Data Dredging Hall of Fame/Shame. In an analysis of 34,670 Swedish women between the ages of 39 and 73, researchers found that those in the top tenth for red meat consumption — eating about 3.6 ounces daily — had a 42 percent higher chance of suffering from an ischemic stroke (from a blocked artery) than women who ate just under an ounce of red meat daily.
A study released on Thursday in Menopause: The Journal of the North American Menopause Society revealed that most women taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are still receiving high dose treatments of the female hormones estrogen plus progesterone.
A story in yesterday’s Health Day News points out a worrisome trend: increasing rates of head and neck cancer among the middle-aged and even among the young. The article notes that researchers believe this is a direct result of the more common practice of oral sex in the U.S. Through oral sex, the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause these cancers, is transmitted from the genitals to the mouth and larynx.
Due to inclement weather in New York City, ACSH was closed yesterday and was unable to distribute our daily Dispatch. We’re happy to be back on the anti-junk science crusade today with this lineup of great stories.
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