The dreaded mad cow disease has finally arrived. How worried should we be? Should you avoid the range cattle you come across on hikes in Montana or skip that steak when you visit Bozeman?
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An article on the website of the Sierra Club has given new life to the Internet rumor that plastic water bottles are a health hazard, possibly the cause of birth defects such as Down Syndrome. Years of studies on the purported culprit chemical, bisphenol-A (BPA), have not shown any health effects on humans, but one study showing minor effects on mouse egg cells, led by Dr. Patricia Hunt at Case Western Reserve University, has provided the grain of truth leading to the latest excessive fear.
The nation's supermarkets and restaurants seem to have been transformed overnight into one immense promotional campaign for the (scientifically unproven) Atkins diet plan: cutting carbohydrates. The truth is that virtually any plan to cut calories while maintaining or increasing exercise will cause weight loss, not just one magical mix of food types. But there may be a worse problem with Atkins than the annoying hype and the distraction from calorie-cutting: It may diminish the amount of folic acid women get.
When tests on a cow slaughtered near Yakima, Washington, tested positive earlier this week for what is known in lay terms as "Mad Cow Disease," consumers were understandably bewildered and anxious. What did this mean for their food selection and health?
Is it safe to eat beef? Is the USDA falling down on the job and allowing an infectious agent into our food supply?
A new study finds that cholesterol-lowering statins can lower the risk of breast cancer by up to 30% for women who were on the drugs for more than five years. (See http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared-auto/healthnews/drug/518552.ht….) Surely, these findings are preliminary; it is only one study and surely there are holes that can be poked in the methodology.
Two preliminary studies suggest that eating foods containing acrylamide, recently discovered to be common in fried foods rich in carbohydrates, does not increase the risk for several types of cancer, a scientist said Monday.
The City Council of Aliso Viejo, CA was scheduled to consider a law banning foam cups and containers this week in part, reports the Los Angeles Times, because they contain a potentially deadly chemical some call "dihydrogen monoxide." It is more commonly called water, notes the Times, and city officials say that a paralegal drafting the proposed legislation was duped by Internet sites repeating the nerdy joke that something ought to be done about the dihydrogen monoxide problem.
Tremendous publicity was given recently to a new study that found farmed salmon has significantly more pollutants than wild caught salmon. However, the impact of the findings is less than clear.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest's flagship publication, Nutrition Action Health Letter is a prime fundraising tool for the Food Police. On its face, it looks like a well-written and visually appealing newsletter with health tips and recipes. But to the trained eye, it's not so pretty, at least from a scientific perspective.
Let's break down just a few things from their May 2004 feature "Sweet Nothings: Not All Sweeteners Are Equal." (Cute title. If only they did such a "Splenda-d" job with their science.)
If ACSH had a nickel for every time an activist railed against the "cancer epidemic," well, we wouldn't have to ask you to contribute to our work.
Look no further than the Teresa Heinz-funded anti-chemical documentary, Rachael's Daughters: Searching for the Causes of Breast Cancer, "the story of seven women, all breast-cancer victims or survivors, working to unearth the causes of the breast-cancer epidemic."
ACSH congratulates the New York Times (and health columnist Jane E. Brody) for putting the health risks faced by children in perspective.
A large-scale study published this month in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy warns us about the dangers of a product sold in stores throughout the country. The U.S.-based trade association promoting the sale of this significant food allergen even has an entire section on their webpage promoting its health benefits.
Most frightening, they seem to be promoting their product to children!
The movie "Supersize Me" is misleading and a perversion of healthful nutritional practices, according to physicians and scientists at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). The documentary follows star and director Morgan Spurlock as he overeats at McDonald's restaurants every day for one month.
An important new piece of evidence may explain some of the controversy surrounding antioxidants and heart disease. A protein called haptoglobin may modify the effect of antioxidants. Only people with one form of the gene for that protein benefited, while those with another form got worse, and the other group showed no real effect.
Get your VCR set, and don't miss the other side in the debate over fast food and obesity. Soso Whaley and Chazz Weaver (thirty-day McDieters) were interviewed by John Stossel of ABC's 20/20. The show is scheduled to be broadcast this Friday, June 18 at 10pm (and Madonna's on the show as well, if that helps). In the not-too-distant future, ACSH's director of nutrition, Dr. Ruth Kava, will present a nutritional analysis of Soso's and Chazz's McDiets. So watch 20/20 this week, and watch this site for further insights.
This letter to the editor appeared in the Orlando Sentinel on June 16, 2004:
To the editor:
Roger Moore's review in Friday's Calendar section of the movie Super Size Me calls director/star Morgan Spurlock's downward spiral compelling. But what Spurlock demonstrated in his movie was just plain gluttony, compounded by an intentional lack of physical activity.
A June 9 article by Elizabeth Millard notes ACSH's Stier and Whelan:
The presence of protests at gatherings like Bio 2004 has become fairly standard, said Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health. In an interview with the E-Commerce Times, Stier said that although most demonstrators carry signs about the health effects of genetically modified foods, most often it is the presence of large corporations that really bothers them...
When ACSH writes about bloodsucking creatures, you might expect to read an article about plaintiff's attorneys suing over multiple chemical sensitivity. But this time, we are writing about the actual aquatic animal, the leech, which is almost synonymous with pre-modern medicine.
We've said it before, and we'll keep saying it: The fact that a food or supplement is "natural," i.e., non-synthetic, doesn't necessarily mean that it is always safe. Such beliefs underlie at least some of the popularity of herbal supplements the market for such products reached an estimated $20 billion plus last year, according to the Wall Street Journal.1 Unfortunately, along with the increasing popularity of these products comes the potential for increasing health risks.
This letter was published on examiner.net
To the editor:
Morgan Spurlock's new movie, "Super Size Me," has led some in the media to call him a glutton for punishment. But what he demonstrated was just plain gluttony, compounded by an intentional lack of physical activity.
Last week we cheered the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for challenging the makers of quack weight loss supplements for children.
This week, the FTC's chairman deserves another honorable mention, this time, for standing up to the Center for Science and the Public Interest and its allies who seek to ban television commercials for "junk food" directed at children.
Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review wrote a September 24 TechCentralStation.com piece, "Delusions of Moderation," attacking embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. He criticized ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and ACSH Director Dr.
An August 1 AP article by J.M. Hirsch quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava and notes that fruits and vegetables aren't all that expensive, despite people frequently claiming that cost prevents them from consuming these items (and as ACSH's Jeff Stier has said, the low cost of fruits and vegetables undermines NYU nutrition activist Marion Nestle's argument that obesity is caused by the dangerously low price of fast food):
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