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Nearly a third of Americans over age 65 fall each year, resulting in almost 20,000 deaths, over two million emergency room visits, and medical costs exceeding $28 billion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And, as we ve discussed before, the loss of mobility following such falls can lead to a significant decline in an older person s overall health.

We've seen it before reports of reports of near-immediate reductions in heart attacks after smoking bans were enacted indoors. Now a new report in the Archives of Internal Medicine repeats the same errors of statistical analysis in an even more egregious manner.

Although the danger from salmonella-contaminated mangoes appears to be over, the Food and Drug Administration has labeled them a high risk fruit. Last summer a total of 143 people in 15 states were sickened by two strains of salmonella, and more than 30 were sick enough to require hospitalization. Both the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the FDA found that the source of the problem was Mexico.

ACSH sends kudos to the Los Angeles Times editorial board for their common-sense analysis and rejection of two proposed taxes on sodas. They rightfully state that when it comes to so-called sin taxes, tobacco is simple. Food and drink are complicated.

Just as all of us here at ACSH were taking our regular seats at today s morning meeting, we became aware of two new studies on the dangers of sitting which made us all consider resuming the meeting in a slightly different way standing.

It s enough to make us sick to our stomachs all the shoddy food-related public health articles and pseudo-science we see sometimes. And we re not the only ones in Reason.com, Baylen Linnekin, president of a Washington-based issue organization called Keep Food Legal, has a very thorough expose citing articles and naming names. In one example, California was praised by USA Today for perhaps bringing us to the turning point in combating childhood obesity.

The tide seems to be finally turning in California.

A decade after a huge federal study called the Women s Health Initiative (WHI) linked hormone replacement therapy (HRT) with higher rates of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke, new data are accumulating to suggest that the treatment actually

Restricted-calorie diets of various types are known to be effective for accomplishing weight loss. Unfortunately, these results are often not maintained, as participants adherence tends to diminish over time.

We d like to draw your attention to two recent articles that have shed light on the drastic increase in propaganda and junk science surrounding genetically modified organisms, such as an embarrassing scientific study from a team of French researchers who purported to find that GMO corn fed to rats caused them to develop tumors and die prematurely.

Last month, in his blog on Medical Progress Today, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom expressed his surprise over a provocative new study suggesting that beta-blockers less effective than previously thought or maybe even useless.
He s expanded on those thoughts in a more comprehensive article for New Scientist magazine, entitled Beta blockers are busted what happens next?

The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 the largest systematic effort to quantify world health levels and trends has released its comprehensive review of life expectancy and global health threats.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the World Health Organization agree that thimerosal should be used in vaccines, countering the ban contained in a draft treaty from the United Nations Environment Program.

A new smartphone app has been developed that allows patients to detect an irregular pulse caused by atrial fibrillation (AF). Lead investigator Dr. David McManus of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, explained that patients with AF often wear Holter monitors, portable devices used to continuously monitor electrical activity of the cardiovascular system, for up to 30 days to capture an AF event, but physicians may often choose not to use the monitors due to the infrequency of paroxysmal events.

Last week, the respected scientific journal Nature published a superb editorial castigating the Breast Cancer Coalition, a nonprofit ostensibly devoted to reducing the toll of breast cancer. The editorial pointed out that the goal put forward by the BCC, to cure breast cancer by 2020 was irresponsible, given the complexity of cancer in general and breast cancer specifically.

The U.S. flu season is off to the earliest start in a decade, reports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With higher-than-normal reports of flu coming in from Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas, this flu season could be a bad one.

It s enough to make us crave our favorite In-And-Out burger. All future Mondays in the City of Angels are going to be officially meatless, the Los Angeles City Council has decided by a 12-0 vote, making it the biggest city in the nation to embrace the Meatless Mondays campaign, an initiative associated with John Hopkins University s public health school.

According to a new report from several public health organizations, including the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association, and the American Cancer Society, in 2013 states will spend less than two percent of their annual tobacco tax and revenues from the Master Settlement Agreement to combat smoking. The report states that from the approximately 25.7 billion dollars states collected from the 1998 MSA, only 460 million dollars will go to smoking prevention and treatment programs.

Although the legal age for purchasing tobacco products is 18, everyday more than 3,800 pre-teens and adolescents ages 12 to 17 smoke their first cigarette, among whom 1,000 go on to become addicted smokers. In response to these disturbing figures, researchers explored the effect of behavior-based interventions on preventing smoking initiation among young people who have not become regular smokers, as well as behavior-based interventions aimed at promoting cessation.

Who is really behind the articles published in the New England Journal of Medicine? A review by the Washington Post attempted to find out, and they decided to assess each study s funding sources to get an idea.

Just in time for the approaching flu season, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the first seasonal vaccine from Novartis manufactured by using animal cell cultures. All previous flu vaccines were produced by growing the virus in chicken eggs.

Maybe public health researchers should have to apply for a permit before spouting bad ideas? A professor in Australia has proposed requiring smoking licenses that would force addicted smokers to seek permission from the government and get educated about the dangers of smoking before they could legally buy cigarettes no more than 50 sticks a day.

You may want to think twice before you drink that glass of grapefruit juice with your morning medications. A new study appearing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal noted that there has been an increase in the number of medications being sold that may cause serious side effects when combined with grapefruit juice. ACSH s Dr.

As the year comes to an end, the scares keep coming, today as often before in the form of pesticides and cosmetics. These alarmist stories are simply baseless and raise needless consumer concerns based only on the precautionary principle.

As we reported last month, a recent federal appeals court decision may have a dramatic impact on the Food and Drug Administration's complex drug approval process. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan ruled (by a 2-to-1 vote) that pharmaceutical companies have a free-speech right to promote approved drugs for uses that are "off-label," such as using an anti-epilepsy drug to control appetite and weight.