Your Dec. 8 articles "Health Officials Say Flu Shots Should Go to the Most Vulnerable" and "Lack of Vaccines Goes Beyond Flu Inoculations," dealing with the shortages in influenza (flu) vaccine as well as others, re-inforce two important points:
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New York's mayor Mike Bloomberg has joined the list of public officials seeking to import drugs from Canada where even American-made pharmaceuticals are subject to price controls in a quest to provide cheaper drugs for New Yorkers. And not just for government employees, as other civic leaders have planned, but potentially for the millions treated within the huge NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation system.
Chefs at some of New York's finest restaurants including Blue Water Grill, Atlantic Grill and Blue Fin are practicing the latest form of culinary political correctness: banning farmed salmons from their menus, to supposedly protect their patrons' health.
The cause? A flurry of media reports that an environmental advocacy organization, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), found unusually high levels of PCBs the long-banned industrial chemicals that news reports claimed "caused cancer" in farmed salmon.
Dear Dr. Whelan,
As a member of the ACSH Board of Science and Policy Advisors, I read with great interest the recent A Citizen's Guide to Terrorism and Response book. I found the publication filled with a great deal of good information, well thought out, and comprehensive. Although I think the publication did a good job addressing responses to WMDs, I also believe that the publication may have slighted other aspects of terrorism that might contribute significantly to instilling fear and creating significant health risks for Americans.
As the American Council on Science and Health prepares to mark its twenty-fifth anniversary with a celebratory dinner on Dec. 4, here's a quick look back at how things have changed over the years.
The world was different but not all that different in 1978, the year that a plucky pro-science non-profit opened its doors, headed by epidemiologist Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and dedicated to informing the public and opinion-makers about the real health science that is so often obscured by scare stories, activists, con artists, and quacks.
In its ninth survey of nutrition coverage by popular magazines, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) found that magazines directed towards homemaking and consumer interests once again provided the most reliable information. The survey, which covered magazines published in 2000, 2001, and 2002, ranked 16 of 20 magazines as "good" sources of nutrition information, two magazines were rated "fair," and two earned a rating of "poor."
Beef is a wholesome, safe food that makes nutritious contributions to the American diet. This is the conclusion of a literature review recently conducted by physicians and scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).
The scientific facts on beef and health are detailed in a new ACSH publication, The Role of Beef in the Diet.
This year has seen whooping cough outbreaks in New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, and elsewhere. Whooping cough is a serious disease that, in the past, killed many children and caused considerable suffering for many others. A program of immunization had just about eliminated whooping cough in the United States, but this year the disease is making a comeback: the number of reported cases has greatly exceeded those reported in recent years, a scary reminder of another era.
Last month, a company called Freedom Tobacco International, Inc. offered celebrities lifetime supplies of their cigarettes and paid women to smoke the brand in hip Manhattan bars and nightclubs in an effort to draw attention to the brand.
It is that time of the year: parties, presents, family gatherings - and dining-room tables laden with a tempting array of mouthwatering, delicious, seasonal chemicals.
Chemicals? Yes.
We live in an intensely chemical-phobic society, one where food labels and menus brag of being "all-natural" and "purely organic." Poultry sections offer fryers from "happy, free range chickens." "Chemical-free" cuisine is in.
When does it become fair to say that offbeat, unscientific ideas are not just harmless intellectual errors but dangerous? Well, to take a few examples, maybe...
when a trainer at hip Crunch Gym, according to a lawsuit, gives a woman with high blood pressure supplements that were meant to enhance her performance but instead caused a stroke (one of several cases prompting recent regulatory action against ephedra)...
The Jan. 20 article in the Health Journal, "Toxins in Breast Milk," conveys unscientific assumptions that will needlessly alarm many members of the public, especially women who plan to breast feed. The assertion that a study subject's body "carried 105 chemicals in measurable levels" is meaningless on its face. We all have thousands of "chemicals" in our bodies, both natural and synthetic. Why was the discussion centered on synthetic, to the exclusion of natural chemicals?
For the past four or five years a clarion call to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains has been heard throughout the U. S. Often it is coupled with "and avoid saturated fat" or "avoid dairy and meat because of saturated fat." All versions of the call, one way or another, are urging us to reduce meat and milk products in our diets. No doubt one purpose of the fruit-and-vegetable cry is to help deal with the obesity epidemic, a very worthy objective, but it doesn't seem to be working. Americans are reported to be getting fatter all the time.
The belief that some foods are better than others indeed that some foods are inherently good while others are inherently bad has become a well-accepted underpinning of current nutrition lore. What does it mean to speak of a food as being good or bad? How can you tell if the food you are eating is good or bad? Is it helpful or even possible to think about foods as being good or bad?
The Good, the Bad, and the Confusing
Morgan Spurlock wanted to be in a movie. And he was in a movie one he made himself which he then presented to the world at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. The subject of the movie was the fattening of Morgan himself he managed to gain 25 pounds in a month by overeating at McDonald's restaurants. The name of his documentary, "Supersize Me," should serve as a warning to the rest of us that eating too much will make us fat (which we might have heard before).
"I cannot explain to my mother any longer why she should pay twice or two-thirds more than what is paid in Canada and Mexico. I'm switching my position." United States Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.), March 11th, 2004.
Dear Sen. Lott:
It pains me to hear that your concern for your aged mom has caused some confusion on your part about the risks and benefits of importing drugs from Canada and elsewhere. You suggest that your inability to explain your earlier position to your aged mother is justification for your change in position
How in the world did so many people get so fearful of the very science and technology that have lifted humanity out of malaria and mud huts? That's the fundamental question asked and discussed at length in the new book by ACSH's Thomas DeGregori, Origins of The Organic Agriculture Debate.
Morgan Spurlock, the moviemaker whose claim to fame is that he ate his way to obesity at McDonald's, seems to have padded his ego in addition to his midsection. In an interview with The Today Show's Katie Couric, Mr. Spurlock said, in part "I think that this film had a tremendous impact on their decision to eliminate supersized portions." Leaving egos aside for a moment, Mr. Spurlock is basically exhibiting his ignorance of the world of food service. Any change, whether in portion size or in menu choices, takes months of planning and figuring of costs and procedures.
An April 16, 2004 article by Arnold Kling on regulation notes an article from Reason magazine by ACSH's Todd Seavey:
The animal rights radicals who used Dr. Atkins' private medical records to out him as a fat guy, the PETA-affiliated Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, don't really care about human diets too much. They just want to make sure animals are not part of those diets. But animal rights are a tough sell, so PCRM feigns concern over the deadly dangers of meat consumption instead.
There's something odd about the photo of the man PETA just declared the "sexiest vegetarian alive," as ACSH's Jeff Stier noticed. Twenty-one year-old Zachery from Yale is a vegan and thus probably thinks himself purer than thou for avoiding meat but what's that impure thing in his mouth...?
http://www.peta.org/feat/sexiestVegVote/
Yesterday, I received a cloning update newsletter that contained the title "Hollywood clunker spreads fear and misconception." At first, I was confused as to how a film as God-awful as the new sci-fi film Godsend could spread anything other than contempt among those who paid to sit through it. But after exploring the movie's elaborate marketing, the confusion was easier to understand. A website for the Godsend Institute, which looks as real as Ebay, offers that fictional organization's cloning services.
Once again it seems Hollywood "scientists" and so-called environmentalists (tied closely to advocacy groups) are trying to sell a bill of goods to a gullible public, in the guise of science fiction. Hollywood, of course, uses fiction to get huge audiences and big-buck bottom lines. The motives of the activists are far more devious. We all enjoy science fiction movies (except, I suppose, for certain scaredy-cats like my wife who hide under their seats when monsters threaten).
Pagination
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