Just days ago we reported on a study led by ACSH advisor Dr. John Morgan showing that cancer rates in the town of Hinkley, California were — rather than being elevated — actually a tad below the expected rate. This contradicts the claims of presshound Erin Brockovich. Ms. Brockovich gained wealth and fame from a lawsuit she initiated based on the idea that the town’s residents had been poisoned by trace levels of chromium (VI) (hexavalent chromium), a chemical that was leaked there by Pacific Gas & Electric. Dr.
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For women diagnosed with the localized form of breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a new study in The Lancet Oncology finds that treatment with radiotherapy and tamoxifen after surgery significantly reduces the development of the invasive disease and cuts the likelihood of local cancer resurgence.
Students in Minnesota’s second-largest school district have limited time to tame their sweet tooth during regular school hours since all public schools in the St. Paul district will be “sweet free zones” by the end of this academic year. Once implemented, the St. Paul district will join a handful of other districts nationwide.
ACSH staffers were disappointed with the science writing in a Los Angeles Times article claiming that the treatment of livestock with antibiotics threatens both animal and human health. Melissa Healy reported yesterday that the FDA found that U.S.-livestock consumed 29 million pounds of antibiotics last year.
Getting people aged 50 and older to adhere to colorectal cancer screening guidelines can be just as arduous a task as getting sugar-crazed kids to eat their Brussels sprouts, but a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine finds that mailing patients a letter from a physician in addition to an informational brochure and DVD can increase screening rates at three months and keep the difference sustained for up to six months.
As we begin a new year, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) would first like to try and slay the demons and hobgoblins of the past year. We do this each New Year s Eve by making a list of the top unfounded health scares of the outgoing year. These bouts of hysteria are prompted by many different things. But what they have in common is that there s no scientific evidence to back up the alarms being sounded.
Here s our top ten:
Triple-negative breast cancer is typically difficult to treat because these cancer cells lack estrogen and progesterone receptors as well as large quantities of HER-2/neu protein, all of which are targets of existing drugs. This type of cancer affects approximately 15 percent of all breast cancer patients.
Pregnant women who smoke are ashamed to admit it. That’s the conclusion of a study using data from a recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which was conducted from 1999 to 2006. According to the results, 23 percent of pregnant women claimed they don’t smoke even though they had high blood levels of cotinine, a tobacco metabolite and biomarker of tobacco exposure.
Following up on a 2009 law which gave it the power to regulate tobacco products, the FDA announced yesterday that manufacturers must report to the agency by March 22 on whether their products are in any way more dangerous or more addictive than items which were on the market by February 15, 2007. ACSH's Dr.
Newer antipsychotic drugs currently approved to treat schizophrenia are being increasingly prescribed for off-label indications, according to a study published in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety.
An outlandish study from professors at the University of California, San Francisco, published today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, reports that almost all pregnant women harbor at least one out of 163 different “potentially harmful” chemicals in their blood, urine or serum.
Since routine chickenpox vaccinations were implemented in 1995, yearly rates of chickenpox infections in the U.S. decreased by 80 to 90 percent while the proportion of Americans hospitalized due to the infection has fallen by over two-thirds, a new study by the CDC finds. The vaccine prevented approximately 50,000 hospitalizations between 2000 and 2006. During this period, one in 100,000 Americans was hospitalized for chickenpox complications compared to four per every 100,000 people between 1988 and 1995.
As the FDA prepares for a March hearing to assess whether synthetic food dyes cause hyperactivity in children, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is asking that they be banned altogether. Last year, the European Parliament banned synthetic food dyes — used to improve the appearance of packaged foods — in products geared towards babies and young children.
Yesterday’s Science section of The New York Times included an intriguing article by columnist John Tierney on whether the government has a proper role in regulating commercial sales of DNA analysis tests to the general public.
Talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed — results of a new study suggest that the popular sleep aid Ambien, sold generically as zolpidem, can leave folks over 60 temporarily groggy and clumsy when awakened abruptly.
A study of 6,322 post-menopausal women undertaken by the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Allegheny Center, in Pittsburgh, shows that while family history is a strong indicator of breast cancer risk, other factors taken together may be equally strong predictors.
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals refused to reevaluate an appellate court’s December 2010 decision to not grant the FDA the authority to regulate e-cigarettes as medical devices. The FDA has lost another battle in the effort to require e-cigarette manufacturers to conduct expensive clinical trials to prove their devices are safe. These regulations are required of other smoking cessation products such as nicotine patches.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) announced new guidelines for the assessment of lower back pain that call for fewer imaging scans. According to the ACP “best practice advice,” routine, imaging such as X-rays and CT or MRI scans often reveal abnormalities that are not, in fact, life-threatening.
There’s good news for women worried about their annual mammogram — the FDA has just approved a new 3-D mammography device that may help doctors more accurately detect breast cancer.
Environmental Health News reports on a new study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology alleging that exposure to the phthalate DINP (di-isononylphthalate) causes developmental abnormalities in rats. To get their results, researchers had to inject the rodents with phthalate levels that were from 300 to 90,000 times greater than the exposure level found in humans.
Late last week brought news that the World Health Organization (WHO) has been working to facilitate a worldwide ban on ads for foods high in sugar, fat and salt intended for children. To that end, the WHO has arranged for a meeting of heads of state to discuss restrictions on ads for foods the WHO considers unhealthy.
ACSH recently identified actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s unhealthy fad dieting as the likely culprit behind her diagnosis of early onset osteopenia, a risk factor for osteoporosis. Perhaps the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) had her in mind when it updated the guidelines for assessing osteoporosis to recommend screening younger women who present the same risk factors as 65 year-old white women.
Sometimes the first time’s a charm, at least when it comes to breast cancer biopsies. According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, extensive lymph node dissections, used to detect breast cancer cells following an initial sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy, may not be necessary if the SLN biopsy is found to be negative.
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