Alarmism is harmful at any dose. Just as political mudslinging can unfairly sully reputations, sensational news about health dangers can rattle public confidence -- whether or not the sensational report turns out to be true.
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This article originally appeared in TechCentralStation.com:
This week, General Mills announced its intent to launch a national ad campaign which will be targeted at children and tout the health benefits of eating breakfast especially a breakfast of cereal that the company produces. Among the General Mills cereals being promoted to kids are several brands that are pre-sweetened with added sugar.
Because of improvements in the ability of scientists to measure exceedingly low concentrations of chemicals, it is now possible todetect thousands of substances in human blood, urine, and other bio-logical samples.
You're being suckered about a certain central science question, all the time. Even my best-educated non-scientist friends haven't a clue. And who can blame them? You can't turn on the TV, open a newspaper, or go into a supermarket without being bombarded with misinformation on this topic. It also happens to be my pet peeve.
Question: In general, are natural substances (isolated from living sources) any better, safer, or healthier than man-made substances?
The Ralph Nader-inspired nutrition-nanny organization, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), this week proclaimed that sodas -- sugar-sweetened and diet versions -- pose a health hazard, particularly to children, and warrant cigarette-style warning labels. The report, "Liquid Candy: How Soft Drinks Are Harming America's Health," charges that soda consumption increases the risks of ailments ranging from heart disease to tooth decay, osteoporosis, cancer, obesity, and poor nutrition.
H.L. Mencken once said that "the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." Apparently, here in New York, where the American Council on Science and Health is headquartered, Democrats and Republicans alike are well-versed in this philosophy, since this year we have been subjected to one health scare after another -- all bogus -- accompanied by slick, unscientific, purported "solutions":
Today, in the weekend section of the Wall Street Journal, Elizabeth Bernstein dubbed a donation of $10 million to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine "the Gift of the Week." The funds, presented by Leon D. Black, a founding partner of Apollo Management, L.P., were provided with the express purpose of supporting six new scientists, equipment for a stem cell lab, and a seminar series, all of which will constitute the Black Family Stem Cell Institute.
A July 16, 2005 article by Jeff Montgomery on DelawareOnline.com touted the Environmental Working Group's alarmist report about chemicals in our blood but noted ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan's response:
Elizabeth M. Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, said that EWG had been "trying for years to scare us" about chemicals in the environment. The group provided nothing to show that the levels detected were harmful, Whelan said.
This letter appeared in the New York Times on May 31, 2005:
To the Editor:
Perhaps we should anticipate dedicated couch potatoes' pointing to information that genetic predisposition influences one's tendency to sit still or fidget ("New Weight-Loss Focus: The Lean and the Restless," May 24) as a rationale for being overweight. ("I can't help it; it's genetic.")
A June 9, 2005 editorial in the Free Lance-Star, about DDT's usefulness in fighting malaria and the tragedy of the deadly ban on DDT, quotes ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan on the matter:
The self-appointed nutrition-nanny organization, the Ralph Nader-inspired Center for Science in the Public Interest, this week proclaimed that sodas -- both sugar-sweetened and diet versions -- pose a health hazard, particularly to children. The report "Liquid Candy: How Soft Drinks Are Harming America's Health" charges that soda consumption increases the risks of diseases ranging from heart disease to tooth decay, osteoporosis, cancer, obesity, and poor nutrition.
Broccoli and cauliflower help prevent cancer, right? So you might think, if you relied on much of the nutrition news in the popular press. But the reliability of such information has been questioned -- most recently in an article in the New York Times by veteran science reporter Gina Kolata.
This article appeared August 1, 2005 on the Heartland Institute's Heartland.org, and an earlier version appeared on NationalReview.com:
September 2005 -- New York, New York. The regulation of mercury emissions from coal-fired electric power plants is not likely to have a significant impact on public health, according to a new report by scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a non-profit public health organization.
At a time when Americans are basking in the summer sun, a study published in this week s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports some sobering news: the incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancer seems to be on the rise in people under the age of forty.
A new study suggests that HIV infections among men having sex with men in San Francisco may be occurring at about half the rate previously calculated (1.2% per year, down from 2.2%). While speculations abound about what accounts for this great success (and about whether the data are conclusive), an excellent article in today's New York Times points out one possible contributor: a new form of Internet dating known as sero-sorting.
Anti-nuclear activist Jay M. Gould Died at age ninety, Friday one week ago. I was surprised, in a good way, that the New York Times obituatry gave attention to the criticism his work attracted. Obituaries, the first draft of the history of a person's life, usually offer generous views on the recently deceased. But New York Times science writer Anahad O'Connor appropriately addressed the flaws in Dr. Gould's work.
Kudos to Gov. Schwarzenegger, and state senators Escutia and Maldonado, who obviously are concerned about the epidemic of childhood obesity in California and who are trying to decrease its prevalence via legislation. But will the laws authored by the senators and signed by the governor (SBs 12, 281, and 965) really help? It's doubtful.
An August 9, 2005 article by John Tabin on TechCentralStation.com criticizes ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and ACSH co-founder Dr. Henry I. Miller for encouraging government spending on stem cell research:
Does empirical reality matter? Or, to borrow a term from the title of a folklore journal, do modern minds live in a sort of "mythosphere," concerned only with their own perceptions?
Biodiversity -- the variety of life, ecosystems, species, populations, and genes -- may at first seem like an issue merely for the environmentalists and hippies, far removed from the medical community. But if you think that the recent flurry of deadly emergent diseases such as SARS, Ebola, bird flu, West Nile, and even AIDS are unrelated to environmental issues -- think again.
The loss of biodiversity changes patterns of infectious disease.
Stephen S. Hecht, Ph.D., co-director of the University of Minnesota s Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center, has issued the claim -- based on preliminary data he has yet to publish in a peer-reviewed journal -- that smokeless tobacco is worse than the standard nicotine replacement therapies as a smoking-cessation aid. His reason seems to be simply his (unsurprising) finding that use of smokeless tobacco leaves carcinogen traces in users' urine.
According to Kevin Trudeau, in Natural Cures "They" Don t Want You to Know About -- which has been America's best-selling advice book for some three months now -- the government, in the guise of the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration, is in cahoots with the drug industry and medical establishment to keep Americans sick and dependent on patented pharmaceuticals. Further, pork is poison, we should eat only organic and kosher meat, and tap water'll kill us all and is dangerous whether we drink it or bathe in it.
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