Last week's withdrawal of Warner-Lambert's diabetes drug Rezulin has provoked a predictable outcry from "consumer groups" who charge that the Food and Drug Administration's laxity and haste permits unsafe drugs into the marketplace. Actually, Rezulin's withdrawal shows that the FDA works exactly as intended. Just because a drug is withdrawn does not mean it should not have been approved in the first place.
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To the Editor:
As a public-health scientist, I applaud Andrew Revkin for his perspicacity in pointing out that malathion poses "no health threat to people" (news story, May 12). In its new report, the Environmental Protection Agency, generally no friend to pesticides, agrees with the overwhelming body of scientific evidence. While possibly a "health threat" to mice at very high doses, the trace levels to which New Yorkers would be exposed via spraying should cause no alarm.
Continuing an almost five-century old British tradition of mixing Church and State, the Prince of Wales has again tried to reverse the tide of scientific inquiry and exploration a move many will equate with King Canute's futile attempt to hold back the ocean tides 1,000 or so years ago.
Predicting the future is always in fashion but particularly so as we enter a new millennium.
Two of the most difficult issues we as consumers of health information confront are who to trust and how much to trust them. There is a lot of misinformation on the Web and even reporters in the mainstream media sometimes get the story wrong.
In a full page ad in the New York Times this week, the Coalition for a Smoke-Free New York called on the New York City Council to pass legislation requiring that all workplaces, including small restaurants, restaurant bars and stand-alone bars and nightclubs become l00% smokefree. New York City already has expansive smoke-free laws, but still allows smoking in bars and in eateries that seat under 30.
LOST IN ALL OF THE HULLABALOO surrounding the FDA s reversal last week of its 1962 ban on Thalidomide, the drug that was linked to horrific birth defects, was perhaps an even greater story: what essentially amounts to the very refocussing of the FDA s raison d etre.
When the FDA reversed itself and approved Thalidomide, there was no suggestion that the teratogenic results of Thalidomide would no longer occur. Rather, the move signals a changing of the paradigm that guides the agency.
Development of the hair-removal method called "electrolysis" began in 1869. By 1875 St. Louis ophthalmologist Charles Michel effectively used a very thin wire attached to a battery to remove ingrown eyelashes (which can cause blindness) permanently.
This report represents a work in progress. ACSH realizes that research in the areas of health impacts of alcoholic beverages is continuing, and we will update this paper as new research and insights are received. We welcome input from readers.
Executive Summary
"Eating closer to nature" has become the latest imperative of the food faddist. To some, this means eating food raw (and not irradiated) whenever possible, which carries considerable risks. Raw can be dangerous, since the largest source of salmonella in the United States is uncooked sprouts, which cannot be rendered safe by any means (including being washed with chlorine). And irradiation probably wouldn't be popular with the raw foods crowd.
For the last couple years, Michael Jacobson, head of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and Kelly Brownell, Yale psychology professor, have been promoting the idea of a "Twinkie tax." According to their reasoning, a small tax on so-called "junk foods" soft drinks and snack foods could be used to fund nutrition and exercise education programs to fight the national obesity epidemic. Their ideas were published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2000 (vol. 90, pg. 854).
By Todd Seavey
Neither ACSH's assistant director of public health Ashlee Dunston nor our medical director Dr. Gilbert Ross think the new nicotine-laced (or "nico") water is a particularly useful or desirable product, but they disagree on whether the FDA followed its own regulatory logic in deciding to ban the product. Whether the FDA should be in the business of regulating at all is a debate that will have to be left for another time.
Its time to differentiate between good and bad diets rather than simply good or bad foods.
As a public health professional, I was appalled by the intensity of the antagonism over the damages in a Californian's lawsuit against Philip Morris U.S.A., decided last June. Sure, the damages $3.5 billion may seem immense. But this record award will barely dent the tobacco giant's profits.
For years researchers have been investigating the hypothesis that trace levels of such industrial chemicals as pesticides, chlorinated compounds, and heavy metals are hazardous to human health.
Although studies have failed to establish a causal relationship, some scientists and activist groups continue to emphasize the role of trace levels of synthetic chemicals in human illness.
To the Editor:
I applaud Holman Jenkins' attempt to shed some light on the so-called "Biotech. controversy" ("Fun Facts to Know...", Nov.17). He seems to clearly understand that those who propagate this scare care nothing for scientific facts, and will brook no interference with their Luddite goals.
British conservative journalist Roger Scruton came under fire in recent weeks after admitting that he has taken money to write positive articles about the tobacco industry.
For free-marketeers, who defend the right of individuals to make free choices in a marketplace, constrained only by property rights, it is tempting to say that Scruton's error calls into question only his journalistic integrity, not his philosophical principles. But is it that simple?
Executive Summary
Beef is a highly nutritious food. It is particularly valuable as a source of zinc, iron, and other minerals; B vitamins and choline; and protein. Beef also contains components that may have health benefits, such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA).
"For practical purposes, the supply of...plaintiffs claiming workplace exposure to asbestos but no injury is essentially infinite. Asbestos litigation will go on until the last dollar is extracted from an ever-widening group of defendants."
Lester Brickman, N. Cardozo School of Law,writing in the January 6 Wall Street Journal
The website TomPaine.com seems to exist mainly to place large ads on the op-ed page of the New York Times, usually denouncing corporate greed in such cartoonish and oversimplified terms that one almost expects to see the pieces decorated with top hat-wearing Snidely Whiplash figures, chomping on cigars and carrying big bags of money.
That is standard left-wing politics, but TomPaine.com recently took up a new cause: attacking vaccine manufacturers.
To the Editor:
As a physician and public health educator, I say it's self-evident that parents' rights to evade vaccinations for their school-age children stop at classmates' respiratory tracts ("Worship Optional")
Parents seeking "religious" exemptions from vaccinations for their kids should be made aware of recent epidemics of whooping cough and other rare communicable diseases. When vaccination rates drop below 80 percent or so, community ("herd") immunity falters and even vaccinated youngsters become vulnerable.
You know, I've been feeling awfully tired lately. I haven't been sleeping well, and when I do sleep, I grind my teeth. Also, I'm feeling slightly nervous, forgetting minor details, and eating more than usual but not gaining weight. Should I be worried? According to the November 2002 issue of Secrets of Robust Health promoted as a "health newsletter for the thinking person," I should. Divulging information "you will probably never hear from your family doctor"(with good reason, as we'll see), the newsletter claims that all of my symptoms point to the same culprit: a parasite.
Pagination
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