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1. Nutella scare redux. After we criticized the EU food safety in USA Today for its badly-reasoned claim that nutella was going to give people cancer, they have promised to reexamine palm oil health risks.

Peer review is a failure
Methane rising
The Trolley Problem has multicultural answers
Heating with Nukes

A recent CDC report documented a case of HIV infection in three women who received cosmetic injections in 2018. Although disturbing, this news is not catastrophic, like it would have been three decades ago. AIDS is now largely a forgotten disease in the United States. How did we get here?

Taking advantage of today's toxic, confrontational mindset are outlets like SourceWatch. The website is like a politicized, unscientific version of Wikipedia. Volunteers – rather than qualified experts – write smear articles about people and groups they don't like (one of them being us).

Buying from your nearby farmer's market offers a number of important benefits. Environmental sustainability and local economic growth are not among them, according to a new review of the evidence.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest started its campaign against trans fats six years ago, and ACSH warned back then that the folks at CSPI are a bunch of irresponsible scare-mongers, always claiming in the fine print that they don't mean to alarm anyone but always knowing that their periodic anti-food pronouncements do just that. (Trans fats, like any fats, can be bad for the heart if eaten in excess, but there is nothing strange or toxic or especially insidious about them.)

Here's what we have for you: When does skepticism become denial? In a world seemingly driven by fleeting moments, can humans truly understand Earth's time? ... Was Jules Verne right? Are there rivers miles beneath our feet? ... And finally, a new form of fasting: avoiding stimuli to lower your dopamine levels.

Are there roles for others – those creatively or empathetically inclined to contribute to the field of medicine – that don't involve participating in the arduous, traditional medical school track? The answer: An emphatic yes!

Some activist "watchdogs" are again attempting to manipulate parents' natural concerns about their babies, without medical or scientific evidence. A few days ago, the uproar was over baby powder and lotions alleged to be delivering toxic phthalates; today, it's baby bottles and plastic water bottles leaching supposedly-toxic bisphenol-A (BPA). Both of these attacks are false.

Consumer Reports (CR) promotes itself as an unbiased source of a wide variety of product ratings. It also publishes Should I Eat This? Simple ways to know what to eat and what to avoid. I recently received the updated 4th edition. Let's see how much of the content we should swallow.

1. Focus your efforts on things that matter; inform yourself about possible risks.

Many of our national leaders appear to suffer from some sort of cognitive impairment or other mental disorder. Should they undergo periodic intelligence and mental status testing?

Earlier this week, the New York Times editorial page opined about the effectiveness of banning smoking in public places as a means of cutting down heart disease risk. Citing a very small, six-month study of heart attack admissions to a hospital in Helena, Montana, the Times editors concluded that "a six-month ban on smoking in public places...appears to have sharply reduced the number of heart attacks."

February 13, 2009
Victories for Vaccines, Soda, Smokers, Cold Sufferers, Eggs, and Vacationers
Elizabeth Wade
Court rules in favor of vaccine safety

What went wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic? A team of public health researchers recently outlined some of the crucial policy mistakes we made and explained how we might avoid them in the future.

December 10, 2007: A Nice Note of Support, a Less Than Nice Flu Season
- Quote to Note: "I've been a constant reader of [ACSH's website], loving every minute, learning valuable information, finally agreeing with something I read about science/health, and rolling my eyes at the rabid misinformation out there with the knowledge of how much this costs me and ignorant or scared people everywhere." --Anthony, a fan of ACSH.

It's impossible not to notice the exponential rise in people, posting on social media, plunging into ice-filled bathtubs or extremely cold waters. It's not because they are masochistic, but rather because of the supposed “benefits” that the practice supposedly offers.

Despite claims that organic furniture is less likely to kill you in a house fire, chemicals have a track record of making your safer.

Is it possible that patient advocates have hidden conflicts of interest? That they accept funding from Big Pharma, the du jour villains of healthcare? Further, was the ever-cynical Television Doc right in his assessment of patients' ability to tell the truth?

October 22, 2009
ACS, NY Post, ACIP, DioxinBy Curtis Porter
Brawley and JAMA Against The World
Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS), is catching some heat after his recent statement in an interview with the New York Times conceding that breast and prostate cancer screenings have historically been oversold by physicians and misunderstood by patients and the media.

The FDA needs to step up and fix the definition of strength. "Business as usual” under the existing language of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 means continued disincentives to promote a more aggressive uptake of biosimilars.

Peer review has long been considered the gold standard guarantor of good science and medicine. It is also a rubric upon which legal standards of scientific admissibility are based. When the process fails – which is becoming increasingly common – medical practitioners and scientists alike are led astray, as is the law.  But while the scientific establishment is becoming aware of the concerns, such awareness is glaringly absent in the law.  

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court will determine the extent of permissible federal interactions with private-party decision-making – namely, by social media platforms. The issue is portrayed as a clash between First Amendment rights and public health. This is not a new conundrum, but the involvement of social media is upping the ante. Further complicating the issue is the fact that the platforms acquiesced and voluntarily cooperated with governmental involvement, and while they are the object of the federal “incursions,” the social media platforms are not the aggrieved parties in the case.

Low levels of toxic aldehydes have been detected in a significant number of flavored vapors from e-cigarettes. Although there is no evidence yet that these levels are dangerous, there is no reason for their presence and they should be eliminated.

The often-claimed "right to know" -- now being espoused by anti-biotech activists seeking the location of biotech testing areas -- cannot be fully understood without the related principle, the "need to know."