As we start 4th of July weekend, we have many concerns--terrorism threats, unsafe fireworks, risks of fatalities on the highway. But one concern should be subject to scientific monitoring: the weather. And we should get accurate information.
Severe weather can threaten life and health. Risks of tornadoes, intense rain, flood, thunderstorms, and hurricanes are of concern to all of us.
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A May 25 article by Star Lawrence (with Charlotte Grayson, M.D.) of WebMD Medical News about a device designed to make overeaters take smaller bites includes an ACSH reference (see http://my.webmd.com/content/Article/87/99579.htm?printing=true):
Dust on computers from flame retardants is called a health risk, explains a June 4 article by Benjamin Pimantel of the San Francisco Chronicle:
But Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health, criticized the report's authors for exaggerating the dangers from brominated flame retardants.
We noted in May that antioxidant vitamins may sometimes be harmful for the heart. In June, we reported that vitamin C use was linked to arthritis.
Letter published in San Luis Obispo (CA) Tribune http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/8712182.htm
The article that ran in The Tribune titled "Exposé or con job? 'SuperSize Me' takes a bite out of McDonald's," calls director-star Morgan Spurlock a glutton for punishment. But what he demonstrated in his movie, "Super Size Me," was just plain gluttony, compounded by an intentional lack of physical activity.
This mention of ACSH's survey of magazines' health reporting appeared in the New York Daily News:
From a June 14 Mercury News editorial:
''There are just four words for weight control: calories in, calories out,'' said Dr. Ruth Kava, director of nutrition for the American Council on Science and Health.
The full article can be found at:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/8918380.htm?1c
Recently two items of interest to medical providers and consumers appeared in the press:
I should be receiving a massive salary from Greenpeace and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. But let me explain.
I've been a Mets fan all my life (and that's something, considering I was born in 1947), so I reacted to the news about ace pitcher Tom Glavine's recent auto accident with alarm. Not that I expect great things from the team this year that dream faded away like a highway mirage in July. But even though Tom is at an advanced age for a pitcher, he may well have a few more good years in him, and there's no doubt the team will be better next year (I always say that!). So I was upset to hear of his injuries and then relieved to learn of their minor nature he lost his two front teeth.
Center for Science in the Public Interest, which does not disclose its political donors and let's any number of corporations launder money through foundations, ironically chose to criticize the American Council on Science and Health for being transparent about disclosing corporate donors.
While the attacks on the World Trade Center have had incalculable effects on Americans, a recently released and widely publicized study gives hope that at least one of the effects of the disaster the release into the air of a substance known, at high doses, to be a carcinogen is not a long-term health concern even for those who spent a lot of time near the site.1
Health advice abounds these days, instructions on what to eat, what to wear (or not), what pills to take or avoid, and how much sun to expose oneself to all supposedly based on scientific research. Reliance on reports of scientific evidence can sometimes be tricky, however, especially when those reports come from preliminary or otherwise unsubstantiated experiments and observations. In addition to these, though, several examples of supposedly solid, "everyone knows" advice come to mind, advice that may not be as solid as once thought.
Farmed salmon is getting yet another grilling this summer. Reports in an environmental journal once again suggest that contamination with "chemicals" (this time including fire-retardant chemicals) makes salmon a less than healthy food.
There are many, however, who beg to differ.
Today is my mother's 90th birthday. She has the dubious distinction of being born the very day World War I began -- July 28, 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia after it failed to meet the conditions of an ultimatum it sent on July 23 following the Sarajevo assassination. Wife, mother, "career woman" (she served as pioneer self-help book author Dale Carnegie's personal secretary in the early 1940s) , she has seen a lot of life and a substantial amount of societal change -- almost all for the better.
In the midst of unfounded health scares claiming that fish consumption is hazardous to your health, a recent study actually encourages increased fish intake. On July 19, 2004, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian of the Harvard School of Public Health and his colleagues published a study in the journal Circulation that attributes reduced risks of atrial fibrillation* to increased consumption of broiled or baked fish.
A reaction to Dr. Elizabeth Whelan's piece on importing drugs from Canada (to add your own comments on this or other pieces, sign up at right):
Dr. Whelan:
An excellent and persuasive op-ed!
"British Study Sees Scant Value in Alzehimer's Drug Aricept," according the New York Times headline. Indeed, the latest study, which asked whether Aricept is a cost-efficient treatment in the British government-sponsored system, confirms what we already knew: we need better Alzheimer's medicines.
The following letter to the editor appeared in the August 5, 2004 Wall Street Journal:
Tragedies are great teachers, but unfortunately too many people draw the wrong lessons from them. Not too long ago, major tragedies were interpreted as some form of divine retribution for our sins. Now, geology (plate tectonics and volcanology), meteorology, other sciences offer hope for preventative and ameliorative actions.
An October 21 article in the Star-Ledger Washington Bureau by J. Scott Orr quoted ACSH's President Dr. Elizabeth Whelan:
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health, a nonprofit consumer group, said she expects the flu vaccine issue to pass quickly from the nation's political consciousness.
The Novemeber 3-9, 2004 column "Political Potpourri" by Becky Fenger from SonoranNews.com quoted ACSH's Rivka Weiser:
One can always count on scalawags to exploit the health fear of the hour.
Outside View: Flu Vaccine Crisis or Not?
By Elizabeth M. Whelan
Outside View commentator
Published 10/27/2004 2:08 AM
WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson last week declared the sudden shortage of influenza vaccine in the United States is "not a health crisis." He argued that anxious people should be patient while the government works to reallocate the nation's limited supply of vaccines.
A September 27 article from UPI by Lidia Wasowicz quoted ACSH Nutrition Director Dr. Ruth Kava:
"Parents' most important contribution is probably setting a good example," said Ruth Kava, director of nutrition for the American Council on Science and Health in New York City. "Parents either should make themselves knowledgeable about appropriate nutrition for their kids' ages, or get access to people who are."
A September 28, 2004 column by James K. Glassman of http://TechCentralStation.com in the New York Post criticizes Marcia Angell's new anti-pharmaceuticals book and quotes ACSH Director Henry I. Miller, M.D.:
"Her diagnoses are wrong," writes Henry Miller of Stanford's Hoover Institution, "and her remedies...are reminiscent of the government controls and centralized planning of the old Soviet Union."
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