Search results

You've heard that quote, "The trouble is not what we know, it's what we know that isn't so?"
Well, one of the things I do at the Reason Public Policy Institute is argue for safety, health, and environmental policy that is rooted in the sound use of science, and more often than not "what we don't know" is glossed over in favor of unsupportable statements of certainty. Time after time, we hear that this policy or that policy is based on "sound science," and that the "debate over the science is done, now it's time to implement!" But it's virtually never that simple.

Interested in losing weight? Want to do it without: (1) moving, (2) counting calories, (3) restricting food intake, or (4) any change in lifestyle whatsoever, and do it without any detrimental health effects? Well, step right up there are many products designed just to help you accomplish that goal. Then I have some Enron stock to sell you.

Cancer caused by mouthwash? Lethal doses of toothpaste?

One of the nice side effects of last month's elections was the defeat of a proposal in Berkeley that would have sentenced people to jail for selling non-organic coffee beans.

We're pleased to see the esteemed British journal The Lancet noting the American Council on Science and Health in the conclusion of its February 1 article on the tumultuous debate over acrylamide in food. The Lancet emphasizes the unknown but at least recognizes that there's no evidence of harm:

Bullies would call people sissies for being afraid of swing sets, but some of those same bullies probably grow up to complain about chemicals in their environment, which are far less dangerous than swing sets. Take the case of pressure-treated wood.

Robert Palmer died suddenly of a heart attack last week at the age of fifty-four, which is a bit young to die of a heart attack -- at least for non-smokers. But Palmer, who performed "Addicted to Love" and other hit songs of the 1980s, was a smoker.

Beef is a wholesome, safe food that makes nutritious contributions to the American diet. This is the conclusion of a literature review recently conducted by physicians and scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).
The scientific facts on beef and health are detailed in a new ACSH publication, The Role of Beef in the Diet.

A new journal is needed. It should be titled The Journal of Obvious Results and Unwarranted and Spectacular Conclusions. The readers of ACSH's webpages have by now seen headlines that read "Organically grown foods higher in cancer-fighting chemicals than conventionally grown foods." Like souls in a Hollywood hell, forced to sit through a bad movie for eternity, we will undoubtedly be having this "finding" thrust at us ad infinitum, as we are in the case of this latest article meant to prove the superiority of "organic" food.

This 2005 report by the American Council on Science and Health reviews the evidence and finds that low doses of bisphenol A (BPA) aren't a threat to human health.

Michael Crichton -- Michael Crichton, M.D., to be precise -- is of course well known for his techno-thrillers The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, plus more than a dozen other novels and non-fiction works. State of Fear (HarperCollins, 603 pages, $27.95) is a little different. While constructed as a novel, it is also a guide to environmental issues and their advocates, principally the problem of climate change.

Scientists may have some hope to offer newly elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko in his efforts to combat his reported recent dioxin poisoning. It's not a freshly discovered wonder drug. It's not an all-natural diet of organic fresh fruits and vegetables. Indeed, Yushchenko's relief may come in the form of potato chips.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) recently released a set of guidelines calling for stricter control of marketing of foods and beverages to children, in an effort to address increased obesity rates in kids. The guidelines call for all companies, advertising agencies, schools, and other organizations to eliminate any sort of marketing to children that directly or indirectly endorses foods CSPI deems unhealthy.

Seeing a previously healthy baby begin to withdraw, lose language skills, and become averse to physical or social attention is a nightmare for any parent. A diagnosis of autism can then lead parents down a long road of feeling guilty, trying frustratingly unsuccessful treatments, and searching for an answer to their questions about the cause of their child's disorder. But when parents turn their quest for answers into a blind-faith crusade against public health initiatives, they may actually end up hurting more than they help.

The belief that some foods are better than others indeed that some foods are inherently good while others are inherently bad has become a well-accepted underpinning of current nutrition lore. What does it mean to speak of a food as being good or bad? How can you tell if the food you are eating is good or bad? Is it helpful or even possible to think about foods as being good or bad?
The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing

Once again it seems Hollywood "scientists" and so-called environmentalists (tied closely to advocacy groups) are trying to sell a bill of goods to a gullible public, in the guise of science fiction. Hollywood, of course, uses fiction to get huge audiences and big-buck bottom lines. The motives of the activists are far more devious. We all enjoy science fiction movies (except, I suppose, for certain scaredy-cats like my wife who hide under their seats when monsters threaten).

Shaun of the Dead, the funniest movie of the year so far (since the momentous marionette parody Team America has not yet opened), depicts a boring, underachieving British man named Shaun going on with his humdrum life, oblivious to the monstrous army of the walking dead that is taking over the world all around him.

Restaurants -- fast-food and otherwise -- can breathe a sigh of relief, at least if they're located in Michigan. According to an AP story, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed a bill that bans civil lawsuits against restaurants and other parts of the food industry for serving or preparing foods that supposedly make people fat.

It's been quite a rollercoaster six weeks for old-line pharmaceutical company Merck, based in New Jersey. As September ended, the company announced the voluntary withdrawal of its blockbuster anti-arthritis COX-2 inhibitor drug, Vioxx, due to cardiovascular toxicity. Subsequently, Merck has been embroiled in charges of a cover-up involving what they knew about Vioxx's side effects and when they knew it. The company faces legions of litigants led by tort-lawyer centurions, while TV and newspaper ads implore those "injured by Vioxx" to call for a free consultation.

Practitioners and adherents of traditional, so-called alternative medical systems often promote their practices as being more natural and safer than Western medicine. They claim that such systems have been used for thousands of years and that therefore they must be safe. But this is not necessarily the case, as reported in the December 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has accused the British-based drug giant Glaxo-SmithKline of consumer fraud because of the manner in which GSK promoted Paxil, an anti-depressant, for children and adolescents. He has accused GSK of misleading consumers by suppressing studies which did not support the drug's efficacy, especially for teenagers with depression.

Some pundits concerned about health conditions linked to dietary excess are proposing draconian fixes. The problem, though, is that these drastic fixes are broken to start with. Perhaps most wrong-headed of all is the argument made for regulating the consumption of foods with added sugars as though they were cigarettes or alcoholic beverages. Sin taxes, age restrictions, food stamp limitations: as with alcohol and tobacco, so with added sugar, goes the logic.

When it comes to fats, I call for eating a smart balance of different types rather than a complete abandonment, every three decades or so, of one type of fat.
"Everything has its pros and cons," Robert M. Reeves, president of a Washington trade group called the Institute of Shortening and Edible Oils, was quoted as saying in a Washington Post article today about food manufacturers trying to get every last ounce of trans-fats out of foods like cookies and chips.

A recent article in London's Evening Standard claimed that research completed by the Irish Doctors Environmental Association (IDEA) found the first proof that cell phones cause health problems, but is this research we can rely on? The doctors ignore the lessons learned from previous research along these lines. In September of 2004, researchers in Sweden found links between cell phone usage and acoustic neuroma. The studies were flawed but created a scare nonetheless.

An article by Colette Bouchez on WebMD.com February 16, 2005 describes fear of artificial sweeteners, with some calming and cautious words from ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava, noting the list of artificial sweeteners tested and approved as safe: