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A June 19, 2007 article by Joyce Miller notes ACSH's recommendations on alcohol and water safety:
According to the Missouri Water Patrol, alcohol greatly increases a person's chances of drowning when swimming. Alcohol consumption is associated with a wide range of accidents and injuries resulting from the impaired performance of complex mental and motor functions, such as driving.

A June 26, 2007 item noted ACSH's recommendations on alcohol and water safety:
At the Lake of the Ozarks, seven fatalities have already been recorded this year. Six were drowning victims while the other fatality was the result of a boating accident. According to the Missouri State Water Patrol, a common thread linked all the deaths -- alcohol. And according to a Water Patrol spokesman, most, if not all those deaths could have been prevented had those involved worn life jackets and not been consuming alcohol.

A June 26, 2007 item by Tom Dennis notes ACSH's reassurance that pesticides don't kill people and cites our Holiday Dinner Menu:

A feature posted in September by ProCon.org on arguments for and against milk consumption notes the positive view of ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava from ACSH's 2001 publication on The Role of Milk in Your Diet:

A July 19, 2007 piece by Lisa Jo Rudy notes ACSH's take on the dubious Dr. Wakefield who has championed the idea of vaccine-induced autism:
Dr. Andrew Wakefield is the British doctor whose work first presented the idea that the MMR vaccine could be linked to autism. Wakefield's work has been questioned for many years; now he is under investigation for alleged unethical behavior. According to the American Council on Science and Health...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) make a big deal about how they want public input -- and the law requires public comment -- so ACSH Advisors Dr. James Enstrom, Dr. Stan Young, and I presented our concerns about EPA toxicology and epidemiology to a meeting of the Human Health Risk Assessment (HHRA) subcommittee of the BOSC by phone (in the case of Enstrom and Young) and in person (me), on November 15 in Bethesda, MD.

This item, which includes Dr.

November 15th marks the thirty-first annual "Great American Smokeout," a campaign initially undertaken by the American Cancer Society, whose goal was to encourage smokers to quit -- even if only for one day -- hoping this would lead to prolonged abstinence from cigarettes.

This piece first appeared in the New York Post and was noted on NY1 Itch for that day.

The days of deception on the health risks of cigarettes aren't over after all -- although now the distortion's coming from the "good guys."

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) sent out an important warning this week: we all must keep safety in mind as we enjoy our holidays, which often include decorating with candles, holiday lights, and Christmas trees. As beautiful as these decorations are, when not used properly they can lead to fires, injuries, and in the worst cases death.

Okay, let's be clear, smoking is still the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. Obesity, though, seems to be claiming much more attention from the media and the public health establishment -- perhaps because there has been recent controversy about exactly what the health effects of extra pounds might be. Two new studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) should help put this question into perspective.

At last, there is a reliable source of information to help us differentiate real health threats from alarmist nonsense. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) has researched and published a reliable reference to help the consumer discern the comparative risk of dying from various illnesses, behaviors and exposures. On our new website, Riskometer.org, a simple graphic-illustration diagram of relative threat magnitudes is accompanied by clear text and references to source material.

New York, NY -- December 19, 2007. Americans are constantly bombarded with alarming news about the dangers of the everyday products they encounter as consumers. In order to shine light on the health fear frenzy portrayed by the media, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) has published The Top Ten Unfounded Health Scares of 2007, a roundup of the most frightening and prominent -- but groundless -- health scares in the media this year.

An October 9, 2007 article by Becky Bell on the website of Southern Arkansas University describes a visit by ACSH's Jeff Stier to participate in a panel on smokeless tobacco as a means of harm reduction:

Reuters' wire service does a good job of finding and reporting on health stories -- perhaps too good. This morning, for example, I received a short story about a New Zealand study on older women, which found that those who took calcium supplements for five years were more likely to experience a heart attack than those who did not. What the story didn't say, though, is where this study was published -- or even if it was. Perhaps it was just a report presented at a scientific meeting -- which would mean it hadn't been peer-reviewed, and thus could be considered preliminary.

This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.
A new scientific McCarthyism is alive and well in America today. Nowadays, the inquiring mantras come from journal editors and government panel chairmen. It goes like this:

This piece first appeared on January 8, 2008 on TCSDaily.com.
Patients will benefit if the Supreme Court sides with pharmaceutical companies in two cases this session, establishing the general principle that drug makers can't be sued for unforeseen side effects that emerge after drugs have received Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. The alternative is to let pharma slowly be sued into abandoning the introduction of new lifesaving drugs, since new drugs always carry some risk.

The New York City Department of Health wants to increase the odds of people getting their flu and pneumonia shots by permitting pharmacists, not just doctors, to administer the inoculations. And the public could use the help: results from the Centers for Disease Control's new National Immunization Survey show that adult Americans arise woefully ignorant of the benefits -- and even of the availability -- of many of the vaccines recommended for them.

Various facets of modern life (e.g., snack foods, television, unbalanced school food selections, etc.) have been blamed for the increasing prevalence of obesity and obesity-linked diseases in the young. A recent study by Leonard H. Epstein and colleagues in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (vol. 162:239-245) lends credence to the relevance of sedentary activities -- TV and computer use -- in contributing to youthful obesity.

It's rather obvious that people are not rats, but there must be some confusion as many news outlets are trumpeting the results of a rat feeding study as though they could be applied directly to humans. Major newspapers and TV stations, as well as various Internet outlets have posted headlines stating or suggesting that the non-caloric sweetener saccharin can lead to weight gain. What gives? Are there really data substantiating such a conclusion, or was it just a slow news day?

China cannot get a break -- just when talk about how polluted the summer Olympics may be in Bejing is dying down, the New York Times publishes a story on steroids in China's chickens. These steroids would show up in athletes' urine drug tests -- meaning if athletes consume such steroid-contaminated poultry in the weeks or days prior to the games they may be unable to compete.
The article reported that Tyson's is flying in 15,000 pounds of chicken for U.S. athletes, but we wonder what this means for athletes whose countries are unable to fly in their own food source.

Matching the flu vaccine with the exact strain of influenza that is hitting the United States in a particular year is difficult -- and it's amazing how accurate the process usually is. But this year there is a fear the matching isn't entirely accurate, meaning there could be an outbreak of flu even among those who were vaccinated. "It's scary," Dr. Whelan noted. "Especially when we're talking about 30,000 deaths from the flu each year."

Along with today's frigid cold throughout the country, fear is also in the air. "High" lead levels have been found in baby products, such as a cooler for storing breast milk and a pacifier carrier. ACSH staffers find this a bit outrageous. It's one thing to ban toys that contain lead and can be easily consumed by children, such as jewelry and painted plastic figurines. But it's another story altogether if the products you seek to ban are impossible to bite down on.

Legislators all over the country are rightfully concerned that more and more citizens are becoming obese, and they're not sitting still for it! New York City, for one, has demanded that chain restaurants post the calorie content of their foods on menu boards. But Mississippi legislators are going even further. They are rightfully concerned that residents of their state have about the highest proportion of obesity in the whole country. So, what do they want to do about it? Prevent the fatties from dining out, that's what.

In an apartment building on the Upper West Side of New York, 74th and Broadway, there is yet another controversy surrounding smoking and non-smoking residents.
While most of these issues involve smelling cigarette smoke from one apartment in another adjacent apartment, the debate this time is about the common area by the elevator. A couple doesn't want its four-year-old child to be exposed to the second-hand smoke and wants the smoking residents to stop smoking.