In his TobaccoAnalysis blog, ACSH advisor Dr. Mike Siegel, professor at Boston University s School of Public Health, reports on the FDA s Center for Tobacco Products latest initiative to compile a list of the ingredients found in cigarettes and cigarette smoke. This endeavor, he says, is a pointless waste of time and resources, since there is nothing the agency can actually do with the list that would benefit public health.
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Last week, we watched incredulously as the very popular TV personality, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former physician, continued to insist that there may be unsafe levels of arsenic in the apple juice parents are serving to their children. Despite the FDA and other experts stepping in to clarify that Dr.
In keeping with the unimpressive success rate of conventional smoking cessation aids, cytosine, an anti-smoking drug first marketed in 1964, has only an 8.4 percent success rate among smokers, according to the first large modern study of the drug published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers in Poland analyzed data from 740 volunteers who were accustomed to smoking 10 or more cigarettes a day.
Exciting results from a final stage clinical trial of an experimental malaria vaccine reveal that African children s risk of contracting malaria after being vaccinated was reduced by half.
Called RTS,S or Mosquirix, the GlaxoSmithKline-developed shot was administered in three doses to half of a group of 6,000 five-to-17-month-olds in seven sub-Saharan African countries, while a control group received other vaccines and not the malaria vaccine.
Radiation following breast conserving surgery for women with smaller cancerous lesions is beneficial in terms of both recurrence and mortality, according to the results of a large meta-analyis of 17 studies published in The Lancet. The analysis was performed by researchers from the Early Breast Cancer Trialists Collaborative Group.
Alyssa Pelish in Science Magazine, October 28, 2011
For the Democracy of Science
ACSH staffers have long known that the adverse health effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), according to the 2002 Women s Health Initiative study, were dramatically overstated. Despite this, the public response to this report was drastic: Based on the widely publicized results of that research, 93 percent of U.S. women ceased using HRT or did not obtain a new prescription.
New Vaccine May Give Norovirus the Heave Ho
By Josh Bloom, December 9, 2011
LigoCyte, a small biotech based in Montana has been working for years on a vaccine for norovirus (the so-called stomach flu, or cruise ship virus). And it looks like they may really have something.
Fibromyalgia is a syndrome that has long been shrouded in misunderstanding, and sufferers of this syndrome experience symptoms particularly chronic pain that can make daily life difficult. To shed some light on the nature of this disorder, a new, large study suggests that sleep problems are associated with developing fibromyalgia.
Some good news for residents of the Big Apple: New Yorkers can expect to live longer than ever before, and longer even than our fellow Americans, on average. The life expectancy for a baby born in 2009 has risen to an impressive 80.6 years, while the national average is 78.2-years.
Publishers and marketers of most children s books are finally being spared the headache that the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) caused U.S. manufacturers of children s products.
Upending a lower court s 2010 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled in favor of the biotechnology industry and determined that genes and DNA can indeed be patented.
Though it claimed the lives of more than 50,000 Americans in 2010 alone, colon cancer is actually a largely preventable disease when people adhere to the recommended screening guidelines. According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, there are three methods to choose from: either a colonoscopy performed about every ten years, a flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years, or an annual fecal occult blood test (FOBT) which can be performed at home.
After first learning of the adverse health outcomes associated with early elective Cesarean sections, we were pleased to hear that some OBGYNS put their foot down on such procedures.
Readers who turn to ABC as their source of news will get a very skewed impression of distinguished professor Dr. David Allison, head of the Section on Statistical Genetics at the University of Alabama and director of the National Institutes of Health-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center. An ABC News article by Dan Harris and Maggy Patrick which was apparently pulled from the national TV newscast at the last moment accuses Dr.
Those suffering from blood clotting disorders will find welcome relief in the FDA s approval of a new anticoagulant, rivaroxaban, co-developed by Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG.
How do you combat obesity in low-income neighborhoods? Increase access to grocery stores that sell fresh fruits and vegetables, many public health experts have long advised. It turns out, however, that this policy may actually have less credibility than previously believed.
In a bizarre turn of events, some American parents are not only refusing to vaccinate their children against dangerous diseases, but they re actually actively trying to get their kids sick. Parents across various states are sending and receiving live viruses in the mail, often from complete strangers, in a misguided attempt to give their children immunity via actual infection, without vaccinations.
In a typically misguided effort, the organization Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), which purportedly advocates for public health, testified to the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that there should be more stringent regulation of the supposedly dangerous chemicals in our environment.
Treatment for HIV-infected patients is more effective than ever before, the United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS) has just reported. Thus, while the number of new HIV infections worldwide is over 20 percent lower than during the peak of the epidemic, as countries become more successful at keeping these patients alive, more people than ever are living with the virus: 34 million in 2010.
Though most of her recent article for the online magazine Fast Company is dedicated to criticizing genetically modified (GM) foods, writer Ariel Schwartz does bring up some poignant facts. For instance, she draws attention to the dire agricultural situation in sub-Saharan Africa, a region continuously on the brink of famine. As Schwartz explains, over 200 million residents in this area rely on the staple food cassava.
Although there was some concern that taking medications, such as Ritalin, for ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) might increase cardiovascular risks for adults, the results of a new study should help to allay these fears. Researchers from Kaiser Permanente Northern California found that there is no increased cardiovascular risk among adults who take these medications.
Recent research is raising questions about the benefits of regular aspirin for the prevention of cardiovascular problems in people who have never had such problems. Yet new research is suggesting that, when considering the benefits of daily aspirin, maybe it s not only cardiovascular disease that we should be looking at.
As crop growers endeavor to meet the increasing global demand for food, fuel, and livestock feed, a longstanding debate has intensified: Do the higher levels of herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizers used in agriculture today pose an environmental hazard? Groups ranging from the Union of Concerned Scientists to the Natural Resources Defense Council are lobbying both Congress and the EPA to address these concerns.
While it s long been clear that there are strong genetic components to autism, it has remained, for the most part, a mystery as to what exactly these genetic components might be. And with new numbers showing that one in every 88 American children will be diagnosed with autism, it has become an even more urgent priority to identify the causes of this condition.
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