An article by Sara Solovitch in the December 19, 2005 Los Angeles Times on California's lawsuit against foods containing acrylamide included a quote from ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan -- and followed it with what may the public health overstatement of the year:
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Skepticism is hard. As a recent best-selling book noted, doubletalk is a pervasive part of an attention-driven, media-dominated economy. But we can't just choose to doubt everything all the time, or we'd never be able to get out of bed in the morning for fear of the floorboards inexplicably collapsing. So we each come up with our little rubrics for deciding what to discount.
A new report from Norway, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, presents stark new data on the lethal effects of cigarettes. The Norwegian scientists accumulated smoking and mortality data from almost 50,000 people over the course of twenty-five years -- the largest study ever to include women, who comprised half of the study subjects. The subjects were in the forty- to seventy-year age range.
“It is wise to be prepared for the small but real possibility...of such a pandemic.”—Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, ACSH
March 15, 2006 -- New York, New York. The toll in human lives from avian influenza (or “bird flu”) is so far relatively small, and a global pandemic probably will not occur -- but the potential consequences of such a pandemic are so devastating that preparations are nonetheless a high priority.
A March 23, 2006 article by Jill Gardiner described reactions to a federal report saying New York has the nation's dirtiest air, including a reaction from ACSH's Jeff Stier:
A spokesman for the American Council on Science and Health, Jeff Stier, said that while exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals over a long period of time was something to worry about, it is not credible to suggest that the level of those toxins in the air is cancer-causing.
The potential for an avian flu pandemic is something we're constantly asked about at the American Council on Science and Health. It doesn't help that headlines constantly blare about "deadly" outbreaks in Asia and Europe without troubling to clarify whether the outbreaks are deadly to humans or birds. Still, unlike so many health scare stories we analyze, bird flu is not just hype but a real potential threat -- the tricky part is determining how big that potential is.
A May 1, 2006 article on ConsumerAffairs.com quotes ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan reacting to the Institute of Medicine report that noted that facemasks would offer little protection in an avian flu outbreak:
This piece appeared on April 28, 2006 on the site MedicalProgressToday.com.
New York, New York, May 2006 Summer means more outdoor sports, more traveling, barbeques and picnics galore. Summer can also bring insect bites, boating and swimming accidents, and an increased risk of food poisoning but it doesn t have to. Physicians and scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) released an updated list of Health and Safety Tips for Your Summer Vacation that will help people avoid the negative aspects of summer fun and travel.
This piece appeared on NationalReview.com.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Thursday that it has agreed to let General Electric delay the dredging of the Hudson River -- which the agency had ordered several years ago in order to further lower the trace levels there of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The delay would allow the company to complete work on a "sediment processing facility" by 2007.
This article appeared July 12, 2006 on the website of the Business & Media Institute:
Dr. Sylvester Graham -- who was born in 1794 and died in 1851 -- has been re-incarnated. His new name is Michael Jacobson, founder and director of the Washington-based "food police," operating under the name the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
This article appeared in the June 26, 2006 New York Sun:
In the latest episode in New York City's war against obesity, we have a standoff between Big Government and Big Macs.
New York City has hundreds of bustling fast-food outlets, but if one leading politician has his way, there may soon be fewer of them on the block. Worried by soaring levels of obesity and the health problems that go with it, the city council's health committee chairman says the time has come to challenge the rampant growth of fast-food chains.
Will it work? If it were that simple, people would not be fat in the first place.
News has just broken of a man, apparently a drummer in a band, contracting inhalation anthrax, not from a terror attack (as happened in 2001 shortly after 9/11) but from touching an animal hide, or so initial reports suggest.
For more information on anthrax, from the mundane encounters to nightmare scenarios, please read ACSH's full report on the topic, Anthrax: What You Need to Know.
Talk about recycling! Not only do we recycle our bottles, paper, and aluminum foil, we're also poised to recycle our health scares. Like the mythical snake that swallows its own tail, fear of benzene has come around again, since it has been found in very tiny amounts (we're talking parts per billion) in some soft drinks.
Imperiled Perrier Parallels
A February 8, 2006 article by Temba Nolutshungu denounces regulations that keep biotech crops from hungry Africans, and ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is mentioned:
A May 22, 2006 article by Emily Krone in the Chicago Daily Herald quoted ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava:
"People can say what they want about the sweeteners, but this thing has been reviewed and reviewed and reviewed," said Ruth Kava, director of nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health, a consumer education consortium.
This piece appeared on the site washingtontimes.com.
This week the Food and Drug Administration approved the first vaccine specifically designed to prevent cancer. Merck's Gardasil thwarts cervical cancer by blocking infection by the human papilloma virus, which is spread through sexual contact. Gardasil also blocks precancerous lesions that can cause infertility.
This article appeared in the Washington Times.
A commission of the World Trade Organization has held the European Union's 1998-2004 moratorium on planting and importing genetically-modified food and cotton was not based on science. Hooray.
A recent study appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the results of which implicated coffee drinking in the causation of heart attacks.
This letter appeared on January 5, 2006 in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
To the Editor:
A December 5, 2006 piece by Dan Childs on the ABC News site notes reactions to the trans fat hysteria from ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross and recently-deceased ACSH Advisor Dr. David Kritchevsky:
The American Council on Science and Health also questioned the decision.
A November 22, 2006 piece by S. Fred Singer in the Financial Post notes the author's ACSH Advisor status and his impatience with the misuse of science, even in a good cause:
Impoverished Africans should be grateful to philanthropist Lance Laifer for his effective outreach to reduce the tragic, needless toll of malaria in sub-Saharan Africa ("Malaria's Toll" by Jason Riley, editorial page, Aug. 21). For his attempt to focus complacent Americans, Mr. Riley also deserves thanks -- such clarity is obviously desperately needed, as even with all the publicity accorded to the ravages of malaria, someone as educated and intelligent as Mr. Laifer remained blithely unaware of this scourge until last year.
Pagination
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