Search results

Yesterday the world learned that Dr. Andrew Wakefield is a fraud. British Medical Journal released the results of its investigation documenting the premeditation of Wakefield and his lawyer as co-conspirators who were attempting to extort compensation from vaccine makers. The investigators found that Dr. Wakefield concocted his findings to aid his attorney-partner’s lawsuits. He was paid $675,000 for this. The exposure of Dr.

As ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan was exposing the health hoaxes of last year, the EPA chose to end the year by initiating a campaign calling for schools across the country to replace old light fixtures containing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). Might this be another health scare based on faulty science? Among those who promptly questioned the practicality of the non-binding proposal were New York City officials.

Last week brought news through the Associated Press of the death of Ronald Lee Herrick, the first man ever to successfully provide an organ to another patient in a transplant operation. One of Herrick’s kidneys was implanted into his identical twin brother in December 1954. His brother lived for another eight years after the operation.

ACSH’s comprehensive assessment, Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn’t Tell You, offered data showing that smoking increases infertility and rates of miscarriage among women. That book was first published in 1996.

ACSH takes great pride in the distinction won by our remarkable roster of friends and advisors. Their knowledge and insight informs our work.

A report in Tuesday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal reveals that more than one-fourth of all American minors are on prescription drugs. These drugs range from hypertensive and asthma medications to anti-psychotics and drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

A triad of studies from the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium brings welcome word from the breast cancer research arena.

A just-released study about the dietary habits of American children offers a window into some of the problems of contemporary parenting.

Dissatisfied with the pace of new drug development by the pharmaceutical industry, the federal government is establishing a research center devoted to expediting drug discovery beginning this October.

On Thursday, the FDA will consider whether to downgrade the classification of the devices used to deliver electroshock therapy (or electroconvulsive therapy, ECT) to the “medium risk” category, thus waiving the need for new safety testing prior to entering the market.

Though less shocking than the prospect of electroconvulsive therapy, a new, recently FDA-approved antidepressant appears to have a significantly lower risk of sexual side effects. Sold under the brand name Viibryd and intended for major depression, vilazodone is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), plus it’s a dual mechanism medication that also affects the 5HT gene.

A meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology indicates that the world’s most widely prescribed blood pressure medication, hydrochlorothiazide, is only a little more than half as effective in treating high blood pressure as newer classes of drugs like ACE inhibitors and calcium channel blockers.While over a 24-hour period ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) inhibitors were shown to reduce patients’ systolic or “top” blood

The FDA may issue stronger health warnings about acrylamide following the release of new toxicological information about the chemical, which is found in many foods when cooked at high temperatures. Because fried potato products are the main source of acrylamide in food, the potato industry is trying to develop new spud varieties that produce lower levels of the compound.
Confused by the story, ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom asks, “How can you ban acrylamide if it’s formed naturally when you cook?”

While legislators on the East Coast were railing against the perils of teenagers guzzling caffeinated beverages, a radical environmentalist group called the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), accusing them of being lax on pesticides.The ostensible legal grounding for the suit lies in the Endangered Species Act.

Efforts to reduce health care spending should not come at the cost of fewer drug options, ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross argues in an op-ed featured in yesterday’s Des Moines Register.

The New York State Assembly health committee is about to vote on a bill to outlaw e-cigarettes. Yet both the proposed legislation and the hearings on it appear to be founded on a series of fallacies, reports ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Siegel. He writes:

The New York Times reported on Friday that an FDA advisory panel recommended the approval of an imaging test for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) which can detect plaque build-up in the brain and provide early warning of the first signs of the disease. AD currently affects five million Americans, and the figure is likely to rise rapidly as the population ages.The agency usually follows the recommendations of these panels.

In a short but punchy letter in Sunday’s USA Today, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson lauds the newspaper for its January 14 coverage of a so-called research study which actually just recycled old CDC biomonitoring data to show that pregnant women have dozens of chemicals in their bodies — at trace levels.

Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and Michelle Minton in The Daily Caller, January 28, 2011
Empire State or Nanny State: Suffolk should not ban energy drinks

Yesterday, ACSH was the scene of a press conference to announce the publication of our new book, Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health.

Shingles is an often painful and blistering skin rash caused by the varicella-zoster virus — the same virus responsible for chickenpox — and is most common in people over 50. That’s why a new study on Merck & Co.’s Zostavax shingles vaccine published in the Journal of the American Medical Association brings good news as results reveal that the shot reduces the risk of shingles in older patients by 55 percent.

ACSH staffers were pleased to read an op-ed by Michael Willrich in today’s The New York Times promoting the notion already long upheld by scientific communities that vaccines are a safe and extremely effective public health measure. Many large international studies have tried to find a link between autism and vaccines — all have shown no such effect. Scientifically, the issue is a closed book.

At a joint press conference yesterday, the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) presented a new labeling system for store-bought food.

In New York City, Queens borough Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. is introducing a bill to eliminate fluoride from the city's tap water, claiming it "amounts to forced medication by the government."

Apparently, the Huffington Post hasn’t caught up with the times. Nearly a year after The Lancet retracted Dr.