Activist group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is known for confusing the notion of being kind to animals (which most people I know support) with animal rights extremism (which most people find absurd).
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A May 4, 2005 column by dietician Cinda Williams Chima in the Cleveland Plain Dealer notes ACSH among voices cautioning that "functional foods" are overhyped:
Celebrate. Celebrate. No, that's not the return of the Celebrex TV ad with its aerobic arthritics. That's the euphoria of physicians delighted with a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel's recommendation earlier this year that Vioxx and its cousins Bextra and Celebrex (all medicines known as Cox-2 inhibitors) should remain on the market, despite evidence they increase heart disease risk in some people. The panelists reached their decision after weighing all the data and concluding the benefits of these pain-relieving drugs outweighed the risks.
A June 14, 2005 article by Jeanne Whalen in the Wall Street Journal describes an ad campaign by the Lung Cancer Alliance designed to draw attention to lung cancer sufferers who were never smokers -- a strange and possibly misleading tactic given that virtually all lung cancer is attributable to smoking; the article mentions ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan:
Fears welcomes aboard cartoonist Marvin Winter, who'll regularly put a thousand words worth of ACSH-related ideas on science and scares into one funny image...
This cartoon may be freely reproduced, so long as Marvin Winter and ACSH.org are credited.
For anyone that cherishes good health and values straight facts, the oft-cited statistics of 630,000 American babies born every year with elevated levels of mercury in their blood and potentially damaged brains, if true, ought to be mind-boggling. These American babies are said to have been poisoned before birth when their pregnant mothers consumed fish with trace levels of mercury, and after birth when they were breastfeeding.
In January 2005, New York governor George Pataki issued an executive order mandating the use of so-called "green" cleaning products in all state agencies and authorities; he later extended his order to New York schools. According to an Associated Press notice, the governor signed legislation putting his orders into law, effective September 1, 2006. So now we can all breathe a sigh of relief when standing for hours in a queue at the Department of Motor Vehicles or any other state offices, right?
A five-year-old autistic boy died Tuesday after receiving chelation treatment, a controversial therapy approved only for cases of acute heavy metal poisoning -- but a treatment sought with increasing frequency by parents who think it will help their autistic children. While the cause of death will not be known until after an autopsy, the tragedy is a reminder that doctors providing chelation therapy are acting irresponsibly and in a manner inconsistent with their role as healthcare providers.
On March 29, 2005, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a revised set of Guidelines for Carcinogenic Risk Assessment to replace those adopted in 1986. The revisions reflect a gradual evolution of the process by which EPA performs risk assessment for possible cancer-causing agents.
For over a year, the FDA has held adamantly to its stance that repeated delays in deciding whether to approve the over-the-counter sales of the "morning after" pill, Plan B, have nothing to do with abortion politics. Much of the science community, however, is finding this harder and harder to believe.
An August 25, 2005 dispatch from ChemWeek.com describes ACSH's petition to stop the EPA from using high-dose rodent tests alone to dub things "carcinogens" (and a longer version of the piece appears in the August 24/30, 2005 issue of the affiliated print magazine Chemical Week):
While the ongoing tension between Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields as well as a book by the latter have recently drawn attention to postpartum depression, the issue of depression during pregnancy is often neglected. Roughly the same percentage of women (14.5%) experience depression during pregnancy as after giving birth.
Ideology scored another victory over public health and sound science last week when seven New Jersey legislators obtained a court order barring needle exchange programs in the state. The crusading seven, led by Sen. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Union) claim that such programs, which allow drug users to exchange their dirty needles for new sterile equipment, encourage the use of illicit drugs and do nothing to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan wrote an article for TechCentralStation.com criticizing attacks on breakfast cereal. That in turn inspired comments from two dentists, below (and remember you can easily add your own comments, to this or any other Fears item, by signing in at the right margin):
Dr. Whelan,
A study on prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests released in yesterday's Journal of the American Medical Association confirms what ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan has been saying since 1992 -- PSA tests promise more than they can deliver. For years, men have been conditioned to think that if their PSA result is below 4.0 ng/mL, they do not have to be concerned about prostate cancer. But in fact, there is no cutoff PSA value that is reliable for accurately ruling out cancer in some patients and detecting it in others.
It's no secret that crystal methamphetamine is oozing eastward, into urban areas, and up the socioeconomic ladder. But with all the recent media coverage, one has to wonder...is the meth epidemic something novel, or is it just the same old story with a new drug playing the lead role? Skeptics and critics of the "War on Drugs" point out that as long as demand exists for a drug, law enforcement is practically powerless to prevent its use.
Maybe you're a smoker. Maybe you used to smoke a pack a day but quit twenty years ago (congratulations!). Maybe you're not a smoker but you've lived with one for many years. Maybe you've never touched a cigarette, but you're alarmed that Dana Reeve, a never-smoker with a healthy diet, was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. Should you get screened?
This booklet, based on a more technical report, examines the scientific evidence underlying claims of those for and against the regulation of mercury emissions, with the aim of determining the impact, if any, such regulation will have on public health.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has come under fire recently over a study it published that reported that fetuses probably cannot feel pain before the 29th week of pregnancy. It is not the science itself that is being called into question. Rather, it is the employment history of the study authors. One of the authors, Dr. Eleanor Drey, performs abortions and is the medical director of an abortion clinic. Another author, Susan Lee, is a medical student who worked at one time in the NARAL Pro-Choice Legal Department.
Cholesterol-lowering drugs, circumcision, and growth hormones seem like unlikely heroes in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but three new studies (1) suggest that they may be just that.
When reading the medical news, you might want to start asking for a second opinion. A report in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that it is not unusual for medical studies to contradict one another: 16% of highly-cited original clinical studies were contradicted by subsequent ones, and another 16% were shown by later trials to have overstated results.
An article in the November 12, 2005 Boca Raton News by John Johnston summarizes bird flu points made by ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan:
"Public awareness about the possibility of a pandemic of avian flu has soared, but so has misinformation," according to Dr. Elizabeth Whelan president of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).
Dr. Whelan listed the top 10 things the ACSH believes everyone should know about avian flu:
This letter appeared on November 13, 2005:
Alec van Gelder's Oct. 31 op-ed article on issues swirling around preparing for a possible pandemic of bird flu makes some excellent points about the need for public-private cooperation and the disastrous consequences for public health that would likely ensue if patents on antivirals were violated for expediency's sake.
This article appeared on NationalReview.com.
President Bush unveiled the administration's new plan Tuesday in preparation for a possible onslaught of the dreaded "bird flu" pandemic in America. He and Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt seem to be bending over backward, allocating at least $1.2 billion for stockpiling millions of doses of new vaccine. But what are we going to get for that money?
New York, NY -- November 14, 2005. Scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) once again present an analysis of the natural foods that make up a traditional holiday dinner. Results indicate that our favorite foods are loaded with chemicals that can cause cancer in laboratory animals when administered in very high doses -- but none of these "carcinogens" are manmade or added to the foods. Instead, they occur naturally. But ACSH scientists have good news: these natural "carcinogens" pose no hazard to human health -- nor, for that matter, do manmade ones.
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