ACSH s Jeff Stier came across this video, which appeared on last night s Daily Show with John Stewart. The ad featured a Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) fast food commercial aimed at converting consumers to vegetarianism.
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Last month, an FDA advisory panel voted 12-to-1 to recommend the agency revoke the indication for advanced breast cancer for Avastin, a drug which two recent studies show does not significantly increase progression-free survival in patients. But over 6,500 people and counting disagree with the panel’s assessment and are petitioning the FDA to maintain Avastin’s indication for breast cancer.
A new University of Virginia study finds that alcohol-based hand sanitizers do not significantly reduce infection rates with flu or cold viruses. Study participants who used the sanitizer had 42 rhinovirus infections and 12 influenza infections per 100 volunteers, while 51 rhinovirus infections and 15 influenza infections occurred per 100 volunteers who did not take any special sanitary precautions.
Some House Democrats this week proposed giving the FDA new powers to inspect overseas drug plants, following the deaths of dozens in 2008 from the contaminated blood-thinner heparin produced in China by Baxter International.
A decline in the number of new breast cancers among postmenopausal women coincides with a decline in the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute says. Canadian researchers looked at 1,200 Canadian women between the ages of 50 to 69 and found that the number of new breast cancers fell nearly 10 percent between 2002 — the same time a large U.S.
Just a week after a Norwegian study cast doubt on the extent of the benefits of mammography, a Swedish study has found they’re more beneficial than previously thought.
In contrast to Wednesday’s lists of false or unprioritized cancer prevention tips, (from USA Today and the
Pregnant women who were near the 9/11 attacks in New York don’t have to worry that they might have put their unborn child at risk from exposure to toxic dust.
ACSH’s Dr. Josh Bloom yesterday participated in a webinar whose ostensible aim was a discussion of the efficacy of taxing sugary beverages as a weapon in the fight against obesity. But rather than discussing the pros and cons of such a tax, participants focused mostly on generating revenue through taxes on soda and sweetened juice.
ACSH staffers offer a seat at the ACSH Dispatch table to journalist Lawrence Meyers for speaking out against the alarmist cosmetic scares spread by Siobhan O Connor and Alexandra Sprunt, authors of the book No More Dirty Looks: The Truth About Your Beauty Products and the Ultimate
Most people who want to scare folks for Halloween do it with a frightening costume or elaborate yard display. Not the Environmental Working Group, alas.
A third of American mothers are unlikely to get their children flu shots, according to a survey commissioned by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Another poll by the same group finds 43 percent of Americans say they won’t get vaccinated themselves.
Statin medications such as Lipitor and Crestor are a cost-effective way of preventing heart attacks even in lower-risk populations, according to a computerized analysis published this week in Circulation.
The Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to regulate perchlorate under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Associated Press reported Thursday. The chemical has long been used in testing rockets and missiles, and therefore has been notoriously dubbed as the toxic chemical used in rocket fuel.
Sunday NFL football fans may have noticed something different amongst the hordes of their favorite gridiron defensive linemen and quarterbacks — pink cleats, wristbands, gloves, chin straps, sideline caps, helmet decals, eye shield decals, captains' patches, sideline towels and quarterback towels. In honor of breast cancer awareness month, every NFL game in October will feature this distinct pink tint, reminding all of us about the devastating disease.
An international team of Alzheimer’s disease experts have proposed a new framework for diagnosing the disease earlier in its course that doesn’t require the patient to suffer from full-blown dementia. Instead, the patients must suffer “episodic memory impairment” and have at least one positive biomarker — either found in the cerebrospinal fluid, or on special radiological tests — for the disease.
Many women who take prescription drugs that can cause birth defects aren t that vigilant about using birth control, according to a new study. After analyzing a large database of prescription drug orders, Medco Research Institute scientists found that an alarming 40 percent of reproductive-age women concurrently using an oral contraceptive and a Category X drug a medication with known teratogenic, or fetal malformation effects are not taking the contraceptive regularly and are risking pregnancy.
Dallas-area black men have been getting more than just fades, buzzcuts and something off the top while visiting their local barbershop. As part of a public health intervention study, barbers in an intervention group of eight black-owned barbershops were trained to take customers blood pressure, and offered patrons a free reading with each cut while telling them a model story about real people getting their blood pressure under control.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is ensuring that ghosts and goblins are not the only things you ll have to fear this Halloween as they send out another infamous scaremongering email. This time EWG is unhappy that the Alliance for Food and Farming (AFF), a national non-profit organization composed of farmers and farm groups, in conjunction with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and the U.S.
The frequency with which we reach for the saltshaker hasn t changed in the last five decades, a study in the November issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds.
Pregnant women whose doctors recommended the H1N1 swine flu vaccine were almost seven times more likely to get the shot than those whose doctors didn t recommend it,according to a survey of 300 women at Christiana Care Health System in Wilmington, Del. An aggressive pro-vaccine campaign at the hospital resulted in 62 percent of admitted pregnant women getting shots, researcher Marci Drees, M.D., told reporters at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
CBS 2 News reported yesterday that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been found at “alarmingly high levels” in three New York City schools, falsely reporting the chemicals were banned three decades ago after being “proven to pose serious risks to children’s immune system and brain development.” PCBs were actually banned in 1979 because they were considered carcinogenic, but — as so often is the case — they were labeled “carcinogens” based only on studies of laboratory animals.
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