City Council member Peter Vallone, Jr. was not happy with ACSH’s recent response to his efforts to ban the fluoridation of New York’s tap water. Ignoring decades of evidence that the addition of fluoride, a substance that protects against cavities, has been one of the most effective public health measures of the century, Mr. Vallone insists that its continued use poses a health risk. Mr.
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A business article published yesterday by The New York Times alerts us to a profound worry: FDA over-regulation of the medical device industry is driving companies in this business overseas to countries like China, India and Brazil. The approval process for new medical devices is not only more difficult and time-consuming in the U.S.
Yesterday also brought word that the widely-read online journal Salon was deleting a 2005 story by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the purported — but actually non-existent — relationship between autism and childhood vaccination.The son of the former U.S. Attorney General, Kennedy is a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in literature and history.
ACSH has long been a leader in the fight against cigarettes, and we take pride in the work we have done to inform the public about the vast (and little-known) spectrum of real risks posed by cigarettes.At the same time, we firmly believe that educating the public on this important issue requires truth-telling and not appealing to hysteria.
In a surprise ruling, the FDA decided yesterday to reject the weight-loss drug Contrave even though an advisory panel ruled 13-to-7 to recommend its approval in December. Developed by Orexigen Therapeutics Inc., Contrave was shown to reduce body weight by 5 percent or more in at least 35 percent of patients, but the agency dismissed the drug’s potential benefits after research revealed it caused a slight increase in blood pressure and pulse rates compared to placebo.
A new report which can be found here makes a devastating and overwhelming case that DDT spraying can save hundreds of thousands of lives every year and that UN and other NGO opposition to it is, as ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross puts it, “scientific fraud, as the authors document with copious evidence.” For any readers who may still have doubts about the issue, we suggest examining the evidence.
Before the EPA could say precautionary principle, Wal-Mart sent word to its suppliers last week that starting June 1st it would test for and not sell consumer products containing the flame retardants polybrominated diphenyl ether (PDBE). Wal-Mart said that it made this decision following the example of some state regulatory agencies. These agencies have responded to data correlating the substances with health problems in lab animals.
On Wednesday the European Commission approved the use of Avastin (bevacizumab) for treatment of advanced stage breast cancer. This decision, which follows from a recommendation of a European Union advisory panel, stands in marked contrast to the policies of the FDA.
A disquieting new study published online in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes shows that research into heart devices isn’t properly considering the effects of these devices on women or employing comparable numbers of female test subjects.A research team led by Dr.
If two Senators have their way, baseball fans will no longer have to watch their favorite ball players spit in the dugout or field — at least not tobacco, that is. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-New Jersey) want the Major Leagues to ban smokeless tobacco based on a survey showing that the use of smokeless tobacco among high school boys has increased by 36 percent since 2003.
After rejecting the approval of three new weight-loss drugs in the past few months, the FDA on Wednesday implemented a change which represents a minor advance in the fight against the obesity epidemic: lowering the requirements for patients who wish to use Allergan’s Lap-Band stomach-restricting device. Now, people with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 and an associated obesity-related health condition, such as hypertension or diabetes, are eligible for the procedure.
Representatives from the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) testified yesterday before the subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee alongside representatives of various small businesses and manufacturers regarding the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) of 2008. Both congressmen and business owners argue that the regulation is burdensome and stifles job creation.
Unfounded health scares do nothing to protect the public and ultimately cause more harm than good.
A story in The New York Times about a report to be published in The American Journal of Surgery suggests that far more American women are undergoing invasive surgical biopsies for breast cancer than is warranted. Current guidelines hold that at most ten percent of all breast cancer biopsies should be surgical while the remainder should be performed simply with a needle.
A new Wisconsin bill sponsored by state Sen. Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls) and Rep. Erik Severson (R-Osceola) — who is, sorry to say, a physician — aims to repeal a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) rule requiring all municipal water systems to disinfect their drinking water by chlorination. Although 88 percent of Wisconsin municipalities already chlorinate their water, the remaining 12 percent that comprise 66 municipalities don’t.
Whether it’s in preparation for an upcoming wedding or a high school reunion, many of us find ourselves seeking a quick path to weight loss.
According to a report released yesterday by the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, the overall rate of new breast cancer cases diagnosed among white women did not significantly change between 2003 and 2007. This contrasts with a sharp decline of 7 percent which took place between 2002 and 2003, according to an analysis of data published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.
A new study published in the journal Gastroenterology contains some unexpected and seemingly highly significant findings: the data indicate that those patients who have gallstones or who have had their gallbladder removed are at an increased risk of death over an 18-year period than people without the disease.In fact, researchers examining the medical records of more than 14,000 people found that patients with gallbladder disease (eit
If the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the American Academy of Dermatology have their way, minors under the age of 18 will be banned from indoor tanning. Such a ban would apply even if their parents sign a permission slip.
Three different heart groups — the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology and the Heart Rhythm Society — all have just announced that the recently approved anticoagulant dabigatran (Pradaxa) should be considered as an alternative to warfarin (Coumadin) as treatment for patients suffering from atrial fibrillation.Researchers have concluded that Pradaxa offers some significant advantages to Coumadin.
Some may start scouring their cupboards to dig into a fiber-rich meal after a study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, which reveals that eating more fiber may help people live longer. Using data from the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, researchers asked people between the ages of 50 and 71 what they ate and how frequently they ate it over the last year and then followed them for an average of nine years.
President Barack Obama acknowledged last week that the current FDA infrastructure is not capable of assessing recent advances in medicine and biotechnology. He calls for a modernization of the FDA that balances safety with economic interests in the creation of drug and medical device regulations:
It’s time to hit the seafood buffet as a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine confirms what we knew all along: exposure to mercury in fish has no clinically adverse effect on cardiovascular disease. After analyzing data from two U.S. cohorts comprised of over 170,000 participants, researchers selected 3,427 patients who were identified as having new onset of cardiovascular disease.
Though not an endemic problem in the U.S., diarrhea remains a common life-threatening event in third-world countries, killing about 1.4 million children under the age of five every year. But there are preventive measures and treatments that can reduce this number, and a new study by Christa Fischer Walker of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health used a computer program to model how some of these methods can impact diarrhea incidence in 68 target countries.
Ten days after a devastating 9.0 earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on Japan, engineers worked around the clock to successfully restore power to the cooling pumps in reactors No. 5 and 6 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The partial restoration of electricity caused many to heave a sigh of relief as the threat of a nuclear meltdown became less and less likely.
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