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In its ninth survey of nutrition coverage by popular magazines, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) found that magazines directed towards homemaking and consumer interests once again provided the most reliable information. The survey, which covered magazines published in 2000, 2001, and 2002, ranked 16 of 20 magazines as "good" sources of nutrition information, two magazines were rated "fair," and two earned a rating of "poor."
There's something odd about the photo of the man PETA just declared the "sexiest vegetarian alive," as ACSH's Jeff Stier noticed. Twenty-one year-old Zachery from Yale is a vegan and thus probably thinks himself purer than thou for avoiding meat but what's that impure thing in his mouth...?
http://www.peta.org/feat/sexiestVegVote/
Economists told a Department of Health and Human Services panel on April 27 that allowing reimportation from Canada of pharmaceuticals so that they can be purchased by Americans at the low prices mandated by Canadian would hurt the research and development of new drugs in the lung run.
Research shows that while European consumers are getting drug prices up to a third below U.S. levels, their nations are paying a cost by losing research and development jobs to countries where better profits are being made. Price controls and slow approval processes are viewed by drug companies as hurting Europe's ability to compete with the U.S., and in the long term, the study shows, Europe will pay an economic price for lower drug prices.
Financial Times (London), April 28
Recently, I attended a meeting in Trinidad dealing with counterfeiting not of currency, which is what most of us associate with the word "counterfeit." This conference dealt with counterfeit drugs fake pharmaceuticals and I was one of the speakers. I was supposed to speak about "consumer aspects" of drug counterfeiting, but in truth I spoke mainly about the wild and wooly world of the Internet, and its relationship with drugs real, counterfeit, and in-between.
Yesterday, I received a cloning update newsletter that contained the title "Hollywood clunker spreads fear and misconception." At first, I was confused as to how a film as God-awful as the new sci-fi film Godsend could spread anything other than contempt among those who paid to sit through it. But after exploring the movie's elaborate marketing, the confusion was easier to understand. A website for the Godsend Institute, which looks as real as Ebay, offers that fictional organization's cloning services.
America's technological prowess and enviable high standard of living are now under unprecedented assault by an array of self-appointed "consumer advocates" who claim our food, water, air, and consumer products are making us sick.
The brain hungers to place things in simple categories: good for you, bad for you...safe, risky. But the stomach hungers for French fries, salmon, meat substitutes, and other things that have been hastily labeled "bad" by activists, so the brain has some work to do: putting the activists' warnings (about food and other things) in context, weighing those tiny or imagined risks against other risks from everyday life. Ten lessons for the discriminating risk-assessor:
The juxtaposition of two recent items in the New York Times was striking.
First, there was the Sunday, June 13th frontpage photo of Presidential candidate John Kerry, helmetless, riding a motorcycle (accompanying the article "Behind the Scenes, a Restless and Relentless Kerry").
For the past four or five years a clarion call to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains has been heard throughout the U. S. Often it is coupled with "and avoid saturated fat" or "avoid dairy and meat because of saturated fat." All versions of the call, one way or another, are urging us to reduce meat and milk products in our diets. No doubt one purpose of the fruit-and-vegetable cry is to help deal with the obesity epidemic, a very worthy objective, but it doesn't seem to be working. Americans are reported to be getting fatter all the time.
It's amazing how many people feel comfortable blaming the food industry for the obesity epidemic in the United States. Less surprising is that having blamed industry, people seek to regulate what types of food can be marketed toward children. But refusal to take personal responsibility for eating misleads us into thinking that Americans are fat because of junk food. It also perpetuates the nonsensical claim that food can be separated into two categories: good and bad.
ACSH's Whelan v. CSPI's Wootan over vending machines on CNBC
"I cannot explain to my mother any longer why she should pay twice or two-thirds more than what is paid in Canada and Mexico. I'm switching my position." United States Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.), March 11th, 2004.
Dear Sen. Lott:
It pains me to hear that your concern for your aged mom has caused some confusion on your part about the risks and benefits of importing drugs from Canada and elsewhere. You suggest that your inability to explain your earlier position to your aged mother is justification for your change in position
An April 16, 2004 article by Arnold Kling on regulation notes an article from Reason magazine by ACSH's Todd Seavey:
An August 31, 1992 National Review piece by Peter Samuel was reprinted by http://nationalreview.com on June 10, 2004 and contains the following ACSH reference:
Scientists at a private fertility clinic in Chicago isolated twelve new embryonic stem cell lines from genetically flawed human embryos, the Associated Press recently reported. The embryos, which had a total of seven mutations related to genetic diseases, were donated by couples who underwent prenatal genetic screening at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago. The embryos likely would never have been chosen for implantation given their genetic conditions.
Calcium-fortified orange juice, special fortified margarine, nutrient enhanced salad dressings, and other "functional foods" are advertised everywhere these days. Is there a scientific basis for the claims made on these products -- and should they be used by everyone? There is no across-the-board answer to this question; whether these foods are beneficial depends on several factors.
Members of the ACSH staff this week attended a continuing education seminar for health professionals on the subject of preparedness for biological, chemical, and nuclear emergencies. The seminar was based on an excellent publication prepared for the Medical Society of the State of New York, which reviewed salient facts about a full spectrum of potential terrorism agents including smallpox, anthrax, ricin, plague, and sarin.
Yesterday the Pentagon announced plans to up its anthrax and smallpox vaccination efforts for American forces and essential civilian contractors in the Middle East. Officials at the Pentagon explained that the decision was motivated by an increase in vaccination supplies, not an increased threat level though their concerns about a biological or chemical attack persist.
The Senate is currently considering a piece of legislation, already approved by the House, to legalize the importation to the U.S. of pharmaceuticals from dozens of countries around the world. Like some pharmaceutical bill from hell, it would undermine the foundations of modern pharmaceuticals -- the safety and efficacy that have made the U.S. drug industry the envy of the world and the source of the majority of the world's new pharmaceuticals for decades.
We spend the summer weekends on a barrier island off the southern coast of New Jersey. Our eighteen-mile long island is extremely vulnerable to the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes. Thus, this weekend we kept a close eye on Charley, wondering if the hurricane would re-energize as it swept northward.
As we checked the weather forecast on 1010WINS.com and other sites, we came across this advertisement:
A recent study comparing x-ray analyses of asbestos-related lung damage revealed some troublesome results.
Yesterday's warning from acting FDA director Lester Crawford about the possibility of terrorists using contaminated pharmaceuticals as a weapon against us should cause everyone to reflect on the real risks associated with our nation's latest obsession: importing less expensive prescription drugs from Canada.
Specifically, Dr. Crawford noted that "cues from chatter" gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might use the drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, to hurt and kill Americans.
Irradiated foods dangerous? Here we go again. And this time, it isn't the media sounding the health (scare) alarm but members of the science community. Which just goes to show, having a medical degree does not guarantee a degree of rationality.
Pagination
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