America's technological prowess and enviable high standard of living are now under unprecedented assault by an array of self-appointed "consumer advocates" who claim our food, water, air, and consumer products are making us sick.
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The brain hungers to place things in simple categories: good for you, bad for you...safe, risky. But the stomach hungers for French fries, salmon, meat substitutes, and other things that have been hastily labeled "bad" by activists, so the brain has some work to do: putting the activists' warnings (about food and other things) in context, weighing those tiny or imagined risks against other risks from everyday life. Ten lessons for the discriminating risk-assessor:
Research shows that while European consumers are getting drug prices up to a third below U.S. levels, their nations are paying a cost by losing research and development jobs to countries where better profits are being made. Price controls and slow approval processes are viewed by drug companies as hurting Europe's ability to compete with the U.S., and in the long term, the study shows, Europe will pay an economic price for lower drug prices.
Financial Times (London), April 28
Recently, I attended a meeting in Trinidad dealing with counterfeiting not of currency, which is what most of us associate with the word "counterfeit." This conference dealt with counterfeit drugs fake pharmaceuticals and I was one of the speakers. I was supposed to speak about "consumer aspects" of drug counterfeiting, but in truth I spoke mainly about the wild and wooly world of the Internet, and its relationship with drugs real, counterfeit, and in-between.
ACSH's Whelan v. CSPI's Wootan over vending machines on CNBC
Last Thursday, there was wide coverage of the fact that cancer rates have fallen according to a new report. There was extensive coverage in many news and TV broadcasts but not in America's newspaper of record.
There were actually two stories about cancer death and incidence rates, and perceptions about these important items, contained in the New York Times' coverage: one about health statistics and one about how little some in the press care about stories that can't be spun as scary.
New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has accused the British-based drug giant Glaxo-SmithKline of consumer fraud because of the manner in which GSK promoted Paxil, an anti-depressant, for children and adolescents. He has accused GSK of misleading consumers by suppressing studies which did not support the drug's efficacy, especially for teenagers with depression.
From the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel (http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/8841087.htm):
June 4, 2004
A Super Size Distortion
It's amazing how many people feel comfortable blaming the food industry for the obesity epidemic in the United States. Less surprising is that having blamed industry, people seek to regulate what types of food can be marketed toward children. But refusal to take personal responsibility for eating misleads us into thinking that Americans are fat because of junk food. It also perpetuates the nonsensical claim that food can be separated into two categories: good and bad.
Economists told a Department of Health and Human Services panel on April 27 that allowing reimportation from Canada of pharmaceuticals so that they can be purchased by Americans at the low prices mandated by Canadian would hurt the research and development of new drugs in the lung run.
The juxtaposition of two recent items in the New York Times was striking.
First, there was the Sunday, June 13th frontpage photo of Presidential candidate John Kerry, helmetless, riding a motorcycle (accompanying the article "Behind the Scenes, a Restless and Relentless Kerry").
An August 31, 1992 National Review piece by Peter Samuel was reprinted by http://nationalreview.com on June 10, 2004 and contains the following ACSH reference:
These are good times for those who grow and sell organic foods. But there may be trouble in paradise.
Former President Bill Clinton's heart disease and its treatment have been in the headlines of late, and no wonder: heart disease due to atherosclerosis (fatty deposits also containing cholesterol) is the leading killer of Americans, with a death toll of over one-million annually. But for many of us in his age range, the reasons we are so interested are complex: aside from humane concern for his health, we also think: if heart disease can sneak up on an apparently healthy and robust ex-president, who among us is immune?
The Senate is currently considering a piece of legislation, already approved by the House, to legalize the importation to the U.S. of pharmaceuticals from dozens of countries around the world. Like some pharmaceutical bill from hell, it would undermine the foundations of modern pharmaceuticals -- the safety and efficacy that have made the U.S. drug industry the envy of the world and the source of the majority of the world's new pharmaceuticals for decades.
We spend the summer weekends on a barrier island off the southern coast of New Jersey. Our eighteen-mile long island is extremely vulnerable to the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes. Thus, this weekend we kept a close eye on Charley, wondering if the hurricane would re-energize as it swept northward.
As we checked the weather forecast on 1010WINS.com and other sites, we came across this advertisement:
Scientists at a private fertility clinic in Chicago isolated twelve new embryonic stem cell lines from genetically flawed human embryos, the Associated Press recently reported. The embryos, which had a total of seven mutations related to genetic diseases, were donated by couples who underwent prenatal genetic screening at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago. The embryos likely would never have been chosen for implantation given their genetic conditions.
Calcium-fortified orange juice, special fortified margarine, nutrient enhanced salad dressings, and other "functional foods" are advertised everywhere these days. Is there a scientific basis for the claims made on these products -- and should they be used by everyone? There is no across-the-board answer to this question; whether these foods are beneficial depends on several factors.
Members of the ACSH staff this week attended a continuing education seminar for health professionals on the subject of preparedness for biological, chemical, and nuclear emergencies. The seminar was based on an excellent publication prepared for the Medical Society of the State of New York, which reviewed salient facts about a full spectrum of potential terrorism agents including smallpox, anthrax, ricin, plague, and sarin.
Yesterday the Pentagon announced plans to up its anthrax and smallpox vaccination efforts for American forces and essential civilian contractors in the Middle East. Officials at the Pentagon explained that the decision was motivated by an increase in vaccination supplies, not an increased threat level though their concerns about a biological or chemical attack persist.
A recent study comparing x-ray analyses of asbestos-related lung damage revealed some troublesome results.
Yesterday's warning from acting FDA director Lester Crawford about the possibility of terrorists using contaminated pharmaceuticals as a weapon against us should cause everyone to reflect on the real risks associated with our nation's latest obsession: importing less expensive prescription drugs from Canada.
Specifically, Dr. Crawford noted that "cues from chatter" gathered around the world are raising concerns that terrorists might use the drug supply, particularly illegally imported prescription drugs, to hurt and kill Americans.
Irradiated foods dangerous? Here we go again. And this time, it isn't the media sounding the health (scare) alarm but members of the science community. Which just goes to show, having a medical degree does not guarantee a degree of rationality.
Those Americans who crave being taken care of by the government will be comforted by the latest from Medicare: Obesity is no longer banned from the list of illnesses covered by our national health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. The "disease-ification" of America continues its march...
Click here to read the rest of Dr. Gilbert Ross's counterpoint column from the Daily News.
A July 26 Los Angeles Times article by Johanna Neuman about the Center for Science in the Public Interest notes ACSH's take on them:
Pagination
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