On the eastern front, we have yet another example of Mayor Bloomberg s overreaching food bans this time, he s targeting vending machines and concession stands in municipal buildings. His health police gave orders this week to nine vendors, stipulating that they have six months to ensure that beverages containing over 25 calories per eight-ounce serving occupy no more than two slots on any vending machine.
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The Safe Cosmetics Act, now in a 2011 edition, is back in Congress and its claims about cosmetics ingredient safety are about as superficial as the pro
Should the cancer drug Avastin be approved as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer? The FDA has been considering this question since the emotionally charged debate began last December, when the agency first proposed revoking the drug s indication for that use. As expected, on Wednesday, an FDA advisory panel voted unanimously to recommend the revocation, citing follow-up studies by the manufacturer, Roche, that showed that the drug did not significantly increase survival time.
Quick, run for cover: junk food ads are out to get your children and make them fat. Or at least that s what the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is now preaching. As described in a new policy statement published in the journal Pediatrics, the AAP s Dr. Victor Strasburger asserted, It s time for the food industry to clean up its act and not advertise junk food to young children.
ACSH has been skeptical about the recent move by various school districts (about 30 percent nationwide since 2006) to reduce the toll of childhood obesity by sending overweight or obese children home with letters reporting their body-mass index (BMI), which is a crude measure of weight relative to height.
Anyone who s had chicken pox (varicella zoster, a member of the herpes family of viruses) has a one-in-three chance of developing shingles many years later, and the risk only increases with age. Yet although the FDA approved a vaccine (Zostavax) for the virus in 2006 and, this March, approved its use for those age 50 and over, very few at-risk adults have been vaccinated. Adults over 60 are most vulnerable to shingles, but in 2009, only 10 percent of this population was vaccinated.
Pfizer s smoking cessation drug Chantix continues to be problematic since its 2006 appearance in U.S. pharmacies. The prescription drug, which works by blocking nicotine receptors, has already been associated with psychiatric side effects and it now appears to lead to some cardiovascular problems in patients who have a history of heart disease.
The Supreme Court handed down a decision yesterday that represents a significant victory for the pharmaceutical industry. The court s 5-to-4 ruling shields generic drug makers from failure-to-warn lawsuits as long as their product labels are identical to those of brand-name manufacturers. Generic pharmaceutical companies Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Mylan Inc.
In Tuesday s Wall Street Journal, Melinda Beck investigates the efficacy of the ubiquitous multivitamin. What she uncovers, in fact, is that the majority of us don t need one at all. Beck points to a 2007 National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel, which concluded that the present evidence is insufficient to recommend either for or against the use of [multivitamins and minerals] by the American public to prevent chronic disease.
The results of a new study should provide ample relief for coffee-loving women who are worried about heart disease.
A study just published in Clinical Cancer Research has confirmed that treating HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer with the drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) is as effective as chemotherapy or surgery. Of particular interest is that the drug can treat metastases involving the brain, often a problem with chemotherapy, since many drugs cannot penetrate the blood-brain barrier.
Tuberculosis (TB) test-kit manufacturers were castigated by the World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday, while their sales in developing countries were placed under immediate ban due to unacceptable levels of wrong results and perverse financial incentives to boost sales, according to a WHO statement.
Speaking of how the media is prone to broadcasting flawed observational studies, an article in yesterday s The New York Times reports on research claiming that eating even a little daily meat may increase a person s risk of Type 2 diabetes.
In yesterday s Huffington Post, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) writes how she was shocked to learn that regulators have been prevented from testing all of the 70,000 chemicals found in everyday home products.
Generic drugs should be manufactured to look exactly like their name brand counterparts, write Dr. Jeremy Greene and Dr. Aaron Kesselheim in an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine. But under a current federal regulation known as trade dress, generics cannot be produced to resemble branded medications already on the market.
The findings of the newest study on the link between childhood brain cancer and cell phone use will be a dropped call to those convinced that heavy cell phone users are a few minutes away from developing cancer.
It would seem that the chest pain many patients fear to be a heart attack in the making does not accurately predict one s risk of having acute coronary syndrome or a heart attack (acute myocardial infarction, AMI), says a new study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
The medical community has gradually become aware of a difference between the care that black and white women with invasive breast cancer receive. It had been typically assumed that the discrepancy was due largely to reduced access to care. Now, however, a new study shows that, even when both groups have equal access to health care, the disparity remains.
A study from the Georgetown School of Medicine confirms what most of us already know: so-called colon cleansing is not only worthless, but can be dangerous as well. Also called colonic hydrotherapy, the procedure consists of inserting a tube into the rectum and flushing the large intestine with volumes of water that may or may not be mixed with various chemicals, including laxatives.
Where does a chemical go to get its reputation back? an editorial in Wednesday s The Wall Street Journal asks. The question is posed amid the recent release of credible scientific reports that have all determined that bisphenol A (BPA) the chemical that lines cans to prevent food-borne illness and is found in certain plastics is safe, despite inflammatory anti-BPA campaigns initiated by chemophobic activist groups and eagerly spread by complicit media and demagogic politicians.
We ve said it before, and we ll say it again: consumers, not the government, will ultimately dictate the recipes used by food manufacturers, and in this case, the public has spoken: Campbell Soup Co. will now be adding some salt back into its 31 Select Harvest soups in order to improve their taste and increase sales. After reducing the soup s salt levels to approximately 480 mg from 700 to 800 mg per serving, the levels will now increase back up to 650 mg.
Resistance to acknowledging one s age may be what s keeping many elderly folk from heeding heat warnings meant for older populations. According to a Kent State University study of those over the age of 65, 90 percent were aware of heat warnings issued for the elderly, yet only 15 percent took them personally.
When it comes to following food safety guidelines, master chef Michael Ruhlman is a bit of a culinary maverick. In an article for The New York Times, journalist Harold McGee chronicles the steps Ruhlman takes as he prepares his chicken stock which seems ordinary enough, except when he gets to the part where Ruhlman lets his stock sit on the stovetop all week, ladling out portions to make soups and sauces daily.
There is an odor wafting from the University of Washington very like the one we discussed last October and once again, the source is Dr. Anne Steinemann s claims that commercial fragrances are hazardous to our health. Dr. Steinemann s most recent research, published in this month s Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health, alleges that scented laundry and dryer sheets can cause cancer.
As Hurricane Irene approaches the Eastern Seaboard, a little commonsense advice:
First, if you ve been told to evacuate, you need to get to higher ground as soon as possible. If you don t plan to evacuate, there s still the chance that you ll face flooding and wind damage, so make sure to prepare yourself with flashlights and batteries, as well as stores of food and water that will last a minimum of five days.
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