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Americans should remain calm in the face of the anthrax exposures reported in Florida, New York, Washington, and other areas, advised the American Council on Science and Health(ACSH), a public-health group directed by more than 350 leading scientists and physicians.
"This is not to say that we should let our vigilance lapse. Indeed, all we should maintain a heightened sense of awareness to possible biological threats," said Gilbert Ross, M.D., ACSH's medical director.

You have a healthy, balanced diet, are blessed with good metabolism, and are not at all overweight. And you certainly don't smoke. So who cares that you're a couch potato? Like most Americans, you don't think you're at risk for heart disease.
But new research published in the January issue of the American Journal of Hypertension suggests that being thin alone is not enough to protect your heart. You need to be active too. The benefits of being physically active go well beyond burning calories.

Last week's Journal of the America Medical Association reported that air pollution, particularly pollution characterized by combustion-related fine particulate matter, causes lung cancer.

Supporters of organic agricultural systems promote their exclusive use for a variety of reasons. These include: a dislike of large agribusiness; fear of health effects from traces of synthetic pesticides, bioengineered material, or irradiated products; concern about the environmental effects of conventional agricultural systems; and finally a belief that organic products are nutritionally superior to conventionally-produced ones.

The activist writers from TomPaine.com, in one of their bimonthly ads in the New York Times, asserted that President Bush "would rather protect the profits of his political patrons than protect public health or the nation's natural heritage," accused Bush of gutting government program, and said he must hope "voters don't catch on."

A HealthFactsAndFears.com Interview
HealthFactsAndFears.com: What was the occasion that led you to testify to the Senate Committee on Government Affairs?

Based on a Technical Paper by Clare Hasler, Ph.D.
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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

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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By Todd Seavey

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