A shorter article derived from this "e-monograph" appears in the September/October 2003 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, with the title "Energy, Homeopathy, and Hypnosis in Santa Fe."
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From: ACSH President Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
Re: Decisions Related to Distribution of the Smallpox Vaccine
Dear President Bush,
Recent press reports indicate that your administration is on the verge of making a determination about which Americans, if any, should be vaccinated against smallpox.
As a public health professional, I understand the complexity and gravity of the decision you are facing, and I wanted to offer some perspective and advice.
With so much news and discussion focused on obesity in America, not much attention is being given to the 2% of the population who are underweight. Underweight is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5. Health problems are associated with this weight status, though different problems from the ones facing the obese.
"...it's literally true that something like a thousand people will not die each year that would have otherwise died..."
New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, annoucing a sweeping ban on smoking in bars and restaurants, as quoted by the New York Times December 12, 2002
Some people are deeply moved by the idea that there is a more holistic way of viewing human health, that there is a warm, friendly alternative to cold, institutionalized medicine as I learned while conducting interviews for a new "e-monograph" about unconventional medical practices.
To the Editor:
While the debate continues on when to begin smallpox vaccinations, there is no public discussion at all about our state of readiness to deal with a large-scale bioterrorist assault using weaponized anthrax ("New Plan to Meet Smallpox Threat," front page, Sept. 24).
This is illogical, as the threat of smallpox is still hypothetical, while not that long ago we sustained a real attack using anthrax spores.
Scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health once again have analyzed the natural foods that make up a traditional holiday dinner and once again have found that they are loaded with "carcinogens": chemicals that in large doses cause cancer in laboratory animals. None of these chemicals are made by man or added to the foods. Indeed, all of these "carcinogens" occur naturally in foods. But ACSH scientists have good news: these natural carcinogens pose no hazard to human health.
Sometimes to keep things organized, it's best to jot down a list. So, faced with a flurry of news items and e-mails about unscientific goings-on, I find myself filing them according to the political philosophies of the people responsible for the goings-on. All of them are in some sense "greens," but I discern seven distinct types or subspecies, if you will. It's worth noting how their priorities differ. (I suspect this list will come in handy in the future.)
The Bill Moyers PBS show NOW got one important thing right about genetically-modified crops. "There's no scientific evidence that eating these ingredients hurts our health," says narrator Mark Schapiro in the segment "Seeds of Conflict," which aired earlier this month. Even Moyers' introduction muted the usual "Frankenstein foods" tone of such stories, contrasting "the surprises of nature" with "the precision of science."
The advance of scientific inquiry over the past two centuries has not gone unchallenged. In his 1976 book, The Occult Establishment, James Webb uses the apt phrase "rejected knowledge" for the ideas that, at a given point in history, prevailed, then were opposed by science, and finally were rejected as false. Though vitalism (the belief in some form of "energy" or "lifeforce" at work in all things) has been rejected by the mainstream of science over the last two centuries, this "rejected knowledge" became central to beliefs such as organic agriculture and alternative medicine.
Breast cancer is the number one diagnosed cancer for women in the United States and second only to lung cancer in cancer-related deaths. There is much uncertainty surrounding the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer: Are mammography and breast self-examination effective methods of detection? Should treatment include lumpectomy or mastectomy? Chemotherapy, radiation, or both?
From an October 21 MSNBC.com article about an appetite suppressant drug that had the side effect of causing erections:
"The [body] tends to use the same signals over and over" for different jobs, said Philip F. Smith of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.
Today's topic: natural pesticides.
At Nutrition News Focus, we were recently questioned about a statement in NNF that 99.99 percent of the pesticides we eat are natural. This has been known by scientists for many years, but some activists try to give the impression that man-made chemicals must be bad while natural ones must be good. Well, chemicals are chemicals. In fact, all of us are just big bags of chemicals held in by skin.
Judges have ruled that a man cannot claim a religious exemption from an employer's rule that required him to get a vaccination. The man had argued that being ordered to get a mumps vaccination would illegally violate his vegan beliefs, since chicken embryos are used in the production of the vaccine.
Yet another young man has fallen victim to the American quest for a "magic bullet." A couple of weeks ago twenty-three-year-old Steve Bechler, a Baltimore Orioles pitcher, collapsed and died of heatstroke during spring training. The weather was warm eighty-one degrees but not outstandingly hot. Why would a young, strong, athletic man succumb like that? It is quite likely that at least part of the answer is Bechler's use of an herbal weight loss/energizing product containing the herbal stimulant ephedra.
Friday the Thirteenth is a fitting time to remind ourselves that there's no evidence risks and probabilities in the external universe the brute, physical facts of reality change in response to human attitudes. Your optimism or pessimism may alter your own behavior, but it doesn't change the odds of you winning the lottery, getting hit by a meteor, or having your picnic rained upon (any more than the number thirteen does). It will rain or it will not rain, and the odds are in no way tied to whether you remembered your umbrella, despite the common belief in "fate."
When I wrote a skeptical article about the alleged benefits of the fruit juice POM earlier in the year, some people thought I was being pretty radical. After all, it was one of the most popular beverages of 2005 -- and it's full of antioxidants.
Recent research from the Harvard School of Public Health and Sweden's Karolinska Institute found no link between consumption of acrylamide from foods and the occurrence of colon, bladder or kidney cancers. These results are in line with expectations of physicians and scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) (see Acrylamide in Food: Is It a Real Threat to Public Health?).
The authors of the short volume Misconceptions about the Causes of Cancer (UC Berkeley scientists Lois Swirsky Gold, Thomas H. Slone, Neela B. Manley, and Bruce N. Ames) deserve a great deal of credit for having the courage to write a somewhat dry book. But let me explain.
The current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) carries a lead article and accompanying editorial that are long on advocacy, short on data. The topic: alcohol consumption in America, who is drinking how much and how much is too much.
Judge Robert Sweet of the U.S. District Court in New York dismissed a lawsuit against the McDonald's Corporation that accused the fast food giant of causing the obesity of two New York teens. Perhaps the plaintiff's supporters are outraged that McDonald's doesn't query customers about their caloric needs before selling them burgers and fries.
Executive Summary
The authors also show that concern about some risk factors, such as saccharine, reserpine, coffee, dietary fat, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dichlorodiphenyltrichloro-ethane (DDT), has fallen by the wayside.
A brief quote that speaks volumes about the anti-chemical movement's misguided priorities, from a May 15 New England Journal of Medicine review of Oxford University Press's Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology
Pagination
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