This piece appeared in the Washington Times and on Spiked-Online.
Search
Much has been written in the past two weeks on editorial pages and blogs -- including this one -- about the travesty of the upcoming presentation of the Harvard School of Public Health's highest award, the Julius Richmond Award, to environmental activist Erin Brockovich. But no commentator to date has identified the real victim of this ill-suited award: the credibility of all public health scientists.
A new report in the current Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) indicates that vaccinating infants and toddlers against a group of pneumonia-causing bacteria has had the unintended effect of reducing the toll of "invasive pneumococcal disease" (IPD) among older Americans as well ("pneumococcus" is the commonly used name for the bacteria whose infections are prevented by the vaccine, which is called PCV-7; the serious diseases caused by the pneumococcus are pneumonia, bacteremia, and meningitis).
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (A.L.S.), a fatal neurodegenerative disease for which there is no effective treatment, is something of an orphan disease in America despite the approximately 5,600 cases that are diagnosed each year. But A.L.S., also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, has been garnering some long-overdue attention lately. Project A.L.S., a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding A.L.S.
Six children have been hospitalized with E. coli O157:H7 infections, acquired from drinking unpasteurized (raw) milk. As of this writing, three are reported to still be in the hospital in Oregon -- two in critical condition.
"Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." While the author of that quote, philosopher George Santayana, probably wasn't talking about the history of public health and food safety, he might well have been.
Efforts to link environmental factors to cancer have foundered recently, as highlighted in an article by New York Times science reporter, Gina Kolata.
Thursday, November 17, 2005 is the Great American Smokeout -- but many not-so-great American doctors are neglecting to tell their patients to quit smoking.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control released the latest statistics on smoking rates. The tone was generally self-congratulatory, and indeed, when matched against the marketing might of Big Tobacco, a decline in smoking from 21.6% in 2003 to last year's 20.9% is an accomplishment, even if some 44 million Americans remain smokers.
We have known and worked with Dr. Gil Ross for various periods of time during his almost eight years at the American Council on Science and Health. Some of us have worked with Gil during his entire tenure, others for shorter periods. We are unanimous in our support for him personally and in our enthusiasm about his performance at ACSH.
A September 22, 2005 editorial in the Lincoln Journal Star echoes skepticism voiced on ACSH's HealthFactsAndFears blog about California's anti-fat legislation:
A Sunday, November 27, 2005 article by Jennifer D'Angelo describes books touting French and Japanese diets but notes the skepticism of Dr. Ruth Kava:
But Dr. Ruth Kava, [nutrition] director of the American Council on Science and Health Nutrition, is skeptical.
Ted Balaker, editor of the Reason Foundation's Privatization Watch newsletter, interviewed HealthFactsAndFears contributor Dr. John Dunn, physician and toxicology expert, in Vol. 29, No. 3, 2005, on the topic of exaggerated air pollution fears:
What do you think of the public's understanding of environmental health risks?
How much do we really know about the origin and spread of the 1918 flu pandemic? Comparisons with other pandemics reveal patterns and lingering mysteries.
Watching the Animals
"The horses growing better, a cough and sore throat seized mankind." This was the news from Dublin toward the end of 1727, reported in Charles Creighton's monumental History of Epidemics in Britain -- Volume II -- From the Extinction of the Plague to the Present Time, Creighton's "present time" being 1894.
The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently won a case against Eli Lilly & Co. when the company agreed to plead guilty and pay $36 million in connection with illegal promotion of its pharmaceutical drug Evista. What did the company do to earn such a penalty?
For years, Americans have been bombarded with dietary advice -- much of it conflicting -- that asserts that diet composition per se has a major impact on health. Claims that high-fiber diets protect against colon cancer haven't been supported by scientific research, for example. Nor have low-carbohydrate diets been shown to be better for weight loss than low-fat diets.
1. Focus your efforts on things that matter; inform yourself about possible risks.
Last summer, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer moved to "protect" Californians from the supposed threat of acrylamide found in foods. He has brought a suit to force producers of foods such as French fries to put warning labels on their products. May we respectfully suggest that the AG update himself on some scientific research?
A new Archives of Internal Medicine report estimating the prevalence of milder forms of bird flu in Vietnam ("Is Exposure to Sick or Dead Poultry Associated with Flulike Illness?" by Thorson, Petzold, Thi Kim Chuc, and Ekdahl in the Jan. 9, 2006 issue) raises several important questions that have not been widely contemplated before.
The old faithful of alarmist "consumer" organizations, the Environmental Working Group, just issued another in a long string of frightening but baseless "studies." This one notes that there are 260 different chemicals in the water supplied to 230 million Americans from 40,000 water supplies.
Oh no, not again. The alarms keep on sounding, day in and day out. This one is so spectacularly ludicrous that it must be addressed.
Let's try picking the biggest "Whiny Whistleblower" for 2005: the person who most outrageously defied his or her employer, regardless of loyalty, science, or even common sense, by launching attacks from within. Recent battles over pharmaceuticals provide multiple candidates.
A December 20, 2005 article by Megan Scott quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava on crash dieting:
No more cake, cookies, or egg nog. We're not trying to be cruel. But if you watch what you eat, you have some room to indulge.
But don't starve yourself: Fasting until Christmas dinner is a no-no. Ruth Kava, director of nutrition for the American Council on Science and Health, suggests eating breakfast, lunch and even a snack. ''It's when you're starving that you really tend to go for it and overeat,'' she says.
Re the Dec. 1 article "Antipsychotic drugs raise wider concerns for elderly": The new report from researchers at Harvard Medical School showing that newer anti-psychotic drugs are no more dangerous for seniors than older ones -- and may actually be safer -- illustrates the complexities of assessing the risks of medications.
Perhaps you're health but are told by your doctor, after a routine blood test, that you should take statins to combat high cholesterol. Fine. But then you start wondering what else you should be testing for in your blood. After all, you've been reading about all those toxic chemicals that invade our daily lives -- nasty-sounding things ranging from pesticides and PCBs to heavy metals and flame retardants.
The fourth-quarter 2005 issue of Balance, the newsletter of the Civil Justice Association of California, described the controversy over Harvard's award to Erin Brockovich and quoted ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan:
This piece appeared in the National Review Online and the Washington Times.
More darts than laurels should be distributed in 2005 in the fields of public health and health journalism. Here are the year's Top Ten health absurdities:
The British technology news site The Register reports that the president of Canada's Lakehead University has restricted the creation of Wi-Fi networks (which allow people to access the Internet through the air without wires) on campus, out of concern that the networks' radio transmissions might cause leukemia and brain tumors.
Pagination
ACSH relies on donors like you. If you enjoy our work, please contribute.
Make your tax-deductible gift today!