A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that screening for lung cancer with low-dose spiral computed tomography (CT) does reduce mortality; however, the screening method s high rate of false positives means that it should be used judiciously.
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Yay! Summer arrived today which means many kids are eager to cool off in a backyard pool. A new study, however, warns that even portable pools can pose a significant drowning risk.
As any regular Dispatch reader knows, vaccines save millions of lives worldwide. Now, a recent report published in the the CDC s Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report makes it clear that they also save billions of dollars and that s in the U.S. alone.
Scientifically unfounded fears of biotech innovation too often result in real harm to the countries that most stand to benefit. Richard Tren, Executive Director of Africa Fighting Malaria, knows this all too well. Tren s health advocacy group fights opposition to the judicious use of DDT to protect African populations that are consistently ravaged by mosquito-borne malaria.
One need not look any further than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to realize that science often kowtows to politics in today s policy debates. In an op-ed featured in yesterday s Daily Caller, ACSH s Dr.
After publishing a consistent stream of fear-mongering, anti-chemical stories for USA Today, we d like to finally applaud journalist Liz Szabo for her article yesterday on the importance of childhood vaccinations. We re happy to see that Ms. Szabo has resorted to using sound science as she discusses the potentially lethal consequences when parents opt not to get their children vaccinated.
In the June 24 issue of Medical Progress Today, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom considers how we will one day recognize May 2011 as a remarkable turning point in the history of the struggle against AIDS. Writing from the perspective of a former pharmaceutical research chemist, Dr.
ACSH staffers were surprised to read a New York Times piece reporting federal officials conclusion that there is not enough evidence to link cancer to the dust and smoke originating from the World Trade Center attacks of September 11th.
The 9/11 cancer report is not the only sound-science publication whose results have been met with knee-jerk dismissal. Another landmark federal study described by renowned endocrinologist Dr. Richard Sharpe as majestically scientific has found that the actual human exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), even from a BPA-rich diet, is exceedingly small.
Devoting more funds to prescription drugs for Medicare patients saves money in the long run, a study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found. In their study examining the effects of the Part D prescription drug program, Dr. J. Michael Williams, Dr. Alan M. Zalasky, and Dr. Haiden A.
A new study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) commends three major movie studios (Comcast/Universal, Disney, and Time Warner/Warner Bros.) for eliminating the depiction of smoking in youth-rated films by 96 percent since 2005.
A new study appears to headbutt the notion that only moderate or severe brain injuries can predispose people to dementia. In the largest study of brain injury and dementia risk to date, researchers found that even minor head injuries, such as concussions, may pose a threat. The study was led by by Dr.
In yesterday s Chicago Tribune, a reporter asked ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava if government anti-obesity interventions, such as taxing junk food, effectively reduce the toll of obesity. Countering the predictable opinions of groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which came down in favor of enforcing restaurant menu postings of calorie counts, Dr. Kava argues that many of these initiatives simply won t cut the fat.
After commissioning the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a widely respected part of the National Academy of Sciences, in 2009 to examine specific procedures and regulatory pathways used to approve medical devices, the FDA may not be so pleased with their findings.
Though they often gain widespread media attention, genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Crohn s disease are actually considered rare. In fact, since they afflict fewer than 200,000 individuals in the U.S., they re classified as orphan diseases by the National Institutes of Health. However, at least 7,000 such rare diseases exist, and though they cumulatively affect over 30 million Americans and 250 million people worldwide, there is a paucity of approved drugs for the majority of these ailments.
In a special article for the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Steve Dudley reminds parents that, since their kids don t live in a vacuum, there should be no delay in getting them immunized. For those who avoid vaccinating their children out of fear of Big Pharma conspiracy theories or because they still think that vaccines cause autism, Dr.
This week, ACSH s Jody Manley and Dr. Gilbert Ross sat in on the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee s (TPSAC) preliminary hearing on the safety of dissolvable tobacco products such as RJ Reynold s Camel Orbs lozenges and Altria s dissolvable tobacco sticks. While these products were pioneered by Star Scientific s Arriva and Stonewall about ten years ago, Star applied for FDA approval of their lozenges as reduced risk tobacco products earlier this year. However, the FDA does not currently have regulatory authority over dissolvable tobacco products.
A large government study has found that fewer teens and young adults view heavy smoking as a high-risk activity.
On Monday, we reported that, while heavy smoking among teenagers has dropped from 18 percent to below 8 percent between 1991 and 2009, those who smoke occasionally now comprise close to 80 percent of the teenage population a significant increase. We ourselves were stunned by not to mention a bit skeptical of the latter figure, and it turns out that the report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requires a bit of clarification.
The adverse health effects associated with smoking have been well documented, but now a new study from The Lancet suggests that the outcomes could be even worse for women. Led by researchers from the Division of Epidemiolgy at the University of Minnesota and Johns Hopkins University, the results of a meta-analysis on a total of 2.4 million subjects reveals that the risk for coronary heart disease is 25 percent higher among female smokers than among male smokers.
The FDA regulates tobacco products, but it s still determining how to categorize what are known as dissolvable tobacco products. Three different forms of these are currently manufactured by R.J. Reynolds under the Camel brand name, all made from finely ground, flavored tobacco and delivering less nicotine than a cigarette. Camel Orbs are roughly the shape and size of a breath mint, Camel Sticks resemble a toothpick, and Camel Strips fit in a strip over the tongue.
Approved in April 2010, Dendreon Corp. s prostate cancer drug Provenge is revolutionary in that it uses the patient s own cells to stimulate the immune system to fight off the disease. Despite its projected success, however, physicians are hesitant to prescribe the treatment because they are encountering too many reimbursement obstacles a particularly strong disincentive, given its cost.
We’d like to note that ACSH’s newest publication on tobacco harm reduction will be published in the current issue of Harm Reduction Journal. Authored by Dr. Brad Rodu, an ACSH advisor and Endowed Chair in Tobacco Harm Reduction Research at the University of Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center, the paper provides a review of the most recent scientific literature on tobacco harm reduction (THR) methods, such as smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes. Dr.
Fed up with the public s misperception that consuming high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is unhealthy, the corn industry launched a new ad campaign last year with a catchy tag line informing people that, when it comes to HFCS or regular sugar, Your body can t tell the difference. Sugar is sugar. In addition, the Corn Refiners Association, which produced the advertisements, began lobbying the FDA to grant it permission to rebrand HFCS as simply corn sugar a move that will now be left up to the courts to decide after a group of sugar farmers filed a lawsuit contesting the name change.
Harking back to her youth in the 1940s and 50s, New York Times columnist Jane Brody recalls a simpler time when vending machines weren t around, the presence of fast food restaurants was barely perceptible, and ads for prepared foods and sodas were few and far between.
Yeah, right, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross. Ms. Brody must have a highly rose-tinted memory; her recollections read like something out of a fairy tale.
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