Stier vs. Environmental Working Group
ACSH Associate Director, Jeff Stier recently participated in a debate against the Environmental Working Group on National Public Radio's Justice Talking. Below is a brief summary of his remarks. The debate may be heard at: http://www.justicetalking.org/shows/show210.asp
Summary of Stier's remarks
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I once had a high school history teacher who would put Scotch tape between her eyebrows in a desperate attempt to stop frowning and prevent wrinkles. Those were the pre-Botox days. Now, she could very easily just stop by one of the growing number of Botox parties, munch on sushi, sip champagne, and be shot with a diluted-form of botulism a "natural" toxin known for causing disability and death. Everyone seems to be doing it, yet no one seems to be concerned or discussing its "toxic" nature. Should they be?
Contrary to popular wisdom, mayonnaise in your summer chicken salad is usually not the cause of food poisoning it is more likely that the source of the problem is improperly handled chicken (undercooked, unrefrigerated or both). Likewise, merely protecting yourself against UVB sunrays will not necessarily prevent skin damage or skin cancer. These tips are among many released today by a panel of scientists from the American Council on Science and Health to help people avoid some of the potential drawbacks of summertime fun.
The safety tips include:
Each square centimeter of skin harbors around 100,000 bacteria, and a single teaspoon of topsoil contains nearly one billion bacteria. The thought of these tiny creatures permeating every aspect of our daily life makes most of us uneasy, even a little queasy. Consequently, Americans spend $540 million on antibacterial soaps, hand cleaners, and detergents each year, and in the past year, more than three hundred million prescriptions for antibiotics were issued in the United States.
There are organized marches nationwide to raise money to find a "cure" for breast cancer. Each day, the volume gets turned up on the debate over the usefulness of mammography for finding and "curing" cancer. Even the United States Post Office had a stamp advocating research to "cure" breast cancer.
Ironically, however, the real progress against breast cancer is taking place in another sphere: chemoprevention of this disease.
"Obviously, we're disappointed."
Len Selfon, director of benefits programs for Vietnam Veterans of America, upon hearing that in a new study, Agent Orange was not found to have caused cancer in children (from the Associated Press, February 28, 2002).
ACSH's unflappable medical director Gilbert Ross was quoted in the May 8, 2002 New York Times article "Study Finds Far Less Pesticide Residue on Organic Produce":
"So what?" said the council's Dr. Gilbert Ross. "The health risks associated with pesticide residues on food are not at all established. I think the amount of pesticide residues to which we are exposed on our foods pose no significant health risks to human beings."
"Fast food restaurants" are "a weapon of mass destruction."
Green Party presidential candidate, lawyer, and anti-capitalist Ralph Nader, lamenting rising obesity and the devastation of French culture during a speech in Paris (as reported May 17 by AFP). Further evidence that there is no sense of proportion on the left and no aversion to inflammatory rhetoric.
In October of last year, all Americans got a crash course in bioterrorism. Anthrax-laced letters made postal workers, members of the media, and others sick. Seventeen people fell ill and five died.
"If this is a battle between thinning eggshells and human health, we stand firmly on the side of human health...Some of these activists don't pay attention to human life, especially in Third World countries where it's not in their narrow view of life and not affecting them in their backyards in the suburbs."
Jeff Stier, Esq., ACSH's associate director, on activists who banned the malaria-fighting pesticide DDT to protect birds, at a cost of millions of human lives (as quoted by the Greenwire news service, June 14, 2002).
The Center for Science in the Public Interest started its campaign against trans fats six years ago, and ACSH warned back then that the folks at CSPI are a bunch of irresponsible scare-mongers, always claiming in the fine print that they don't mean to alarm anyone but always knowing that their periodic anti-food pronouncements do just that. (Trans fats, like any fats, can be bad for the heart if eaten in excess, but there is nothing strange or toxic or especially insidious about them.)
See also:
* Are Children More Vulnerable to Environmental Chemicals?
Steve Milloy's Fox News column on ACSH's new book
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Some of the most negative and unfounded criticisms of food single out animal fats and, by inference, all products that contain them. Such criticisms typically make vague reference to heart disease, cancer, or both, and they are often repeated by nutritionists and health care specialists writing for syndicated columns that are read by thousands of people. Such communications are a disservice to readers for several reasons.
Dr. Henry Miller is a director of the American Council on Science and Health (which runs HealthFactsAndFears.com), and an angry letter writer recently told him that it is absurd for him to say ACSH acts in the "public interest" if we receive some of our funding from companies. The letter writer didn't mention how neutral, objective organizations are funded, but presumably there are grants from government and left-wing foundations involved those being pure, morally superior sources of cash.
The principle that "the dose makes the poison" in other words, that almost any substance can be toxic at high levels has been lost on Californians.
Based on a a Scientific Review Paper by John P. Blass, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, Dementia Research Service
Burke Medical Research Institute
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia (general mental deterioration) in the United States today. AD occurs primarily, though not exclusively, in the elderly. Although there currently is no established way to prevent or cure AD, a new report by the American Council on Science and Health(ACSH), Alzheimer's Disease: A Status Report For 2002, points out that the current spate of research into new diagnostic methods and pharmaceutical treatment holds hope for the future.
Plague! Run for your life!
But wait: a plague doesn't necessarily mean the end of the world. We might feel less anxiety about such things if we appreciated the strides science has made and will continue to make in fighting some horrible-sounding scourges.
MMR and Chickenpox
MEMO TO:
Producers "60 Minutes"
555 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019
From:
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
President, ACSH
RE: Your Segment on PCB's in Anniston, Alabama - 11/10/02
The CBS/60 Minutes segment which aired on November 10, 2002 - citing public health risks of environmental exposure to PCBs - was completely lacking in scientific merit.
The search for elevated rates of disease among soldiers exposed to Agent Orange is never-ending, and since diseases do not occur at a perfectly uniform rate throughout the population, occasionally there's bound to be a disease that's unusually common among the vets. (For more on the variation in disease rates, see ACSH's booklet on Cancer Clusters.)
A New York City ban on smoking in bars goes into effect this coming Sunday, and a statewide ban goes into effect four months later. Some see it as reasonable regulation. Others condemn smoking but question the rationale for the regulations. And some see it as a direct blow against liberty. The differing opinions were nicely summed up by the article "Pataki Inks Strict Smoking Law" in today's New York Sun, which quoted, among others, ACSH's own Jeff Stier:
Last week, President Bush signed a bill allocating $15 billion for AIDS drugs in Africa (and funding efforts against tuberculosis and malaria). In his State of the Union address earlier this year, Bush said of the AIDS initiative that "seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many." It's good to hear some cost-benefit analysis being employed even on a grandiose government project, one that could easily be sold with nothing more than a tug at the heartstrings. With luck, it will pay off in millions of saved lives.
Pagination
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