Fortunately, Julia Child was honored in life as she is now being honored in death. She was rightly known for her TV cooking shows, her fabulous cookbooks, and her magnificent sense of humor. To some, mass culture is an oxymoron, to which we can add another, equally threatening, oxymoron: democratic elitism. For that is a defining characteristic of Julia Child's life; she democratized what had been the historic province and exclusive privilege of a tiny elite. In fact, today in our cuisine as well as our daily life, we enjoy much that even elites of prior times never experienced.
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Two stories appeared in the news recently that tried create alarm about modern therapeutic methods -- but had the opposite effect on me, and should on you too.
That's the paradox noted in a June 30 article by J.M. Hirsch, but he also notes:
Ruth Kava of the American Council of Science and Health said recently that data such as these indicate that despite a flood of nutrition advice, people may actually understand very little about healthy eating.
CBS 2's Cindy Hsu reports many dentists are now selling a retainer that helps people eat less and quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava:
"This device, if it slows people down, makes them take smaller bites. It could help," says Dr. Ruth Kava from the American Council on Science and Health.
But Dr. Kava says you don't need to spend big bucks on wiring your mouth shut.
Readers of ACSH's website know that we have been skeptical for years about the value of antioxidant supplements for the treatment or prevention of various diseases like cancer or heart disease (see pieces here, here, and here).
August 9, 2004 marked the third anniversary of President Bush's decision to limit federal funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research to cell lines created before August 2001. On this anniversary, First Lady Laura Bush defended her husband's policy and suggested that his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and members of former President Reagan's family, have overstated the benefits of such research.
For years now, scaremongers have been trying to frighten consumers with the specter of so-called "Frankenfoods," especially food plants altered by gene-splicing to include pesticide resistance or higher levels of particular nutrients. Several years ago, for example, alarmist groups raised the fear that a protein added to StarLink corn would cause fatal allergic reactions in consumers. It didn't happen. But that hasn't stopped such accusations from getting much media play and causing some consumers to mistrust the latest methodologies.
You may recall hearing recently that the scare about French fries and cancer was nothing to worry about after all. This March 11 article explains why we shouldn't worry about the low levels of acrylamide we consume in foods. Not bad, given that ACSH's peer-reviewed report saying the same came out in February 2002.
Here at the American Council on Science and Health, we're releasing the fourth edition of our handy tome Facts Versus Fears (which inspired the name of our website, FactsAndFears). The booklet surveys the greatest unfounded health scares of the past five decades, from the "Cranberry Scare" of 1959 to current paranoia over PCBs in farmed salmon and thimerosal in vaccines. In between, scares have occurred with great regularity -- and precious little scientific evidence to justify them.
Dr. Siegel has given permission for us to reprint this important letter he posted to the Tp-Talk discussion group about tensions within the anti-smoking movement and apparent tensions among the stated goals of the American Legacy Foundation, which was created with money from the Master Settlement Agreement between government and tobacco companies, to educate the public about the dangers of cigarettes:
An October 4, 2004 article in Brandweek by Sonia Reyes (mis)quoted (and misspelled) Dr. Ruth Kava from ACSH, but we appreciate the attention anyway. The piece noted that cereal makers are including more fiber in their products and aren't yet sure if kids will take to it:
Nonetheless, Ruth Cava, director of nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health, a non-profit public health group in New York, was impressed with the switch. "Whole grains has been a niche that Big G is now bringing mainstream," she said.
"Take a deep breath: this is not an emergency," Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans Wednesday. She was, of course, referring to the stunning announcement Tuesday that United Kingdom regulators had suspended operations at a Liverpool plant, halting production of some 50 million doses of influenza vaccine that were to provide protection for Americans during the upcoming flu season.
The recent withdrawal of Merck's blockbuster COX-2 inhibitor, the anti-arthritis pain reliever Vioxx (rofecoxib), was a major blow to a number of interested parties. Merck, of course, took the biggest hit. But the millions of arthritis sufferers who depended on reliable and safe relief from pain since Vioxx's approval in 1999 are also confused and upset, and the federal drug regulators at the FDA are in the midst of a losing streak of unprecedented proportions.
This letter in Nature 432, 15 (November 4, 2004) was a response to one from Consumers Union employees that criticized a symposium on organic foods organized by ACSH Advisor and Rutgers professor Joseph Rosen. ACSH Nutrition Director Dr. Ruth Kava was one of the presenters at the symposium. As usual, the critics couldn't fault the science, so they attacked ACSH's funding.
Industry Funding Doesn't Influence Our Reports
Sir--
Fox News network's The Big Story with John Gibson interviewed ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan on October 12, 2004:
HEATHER NAUERT, FOX NEWS: It looks like about as many as 35 million people are unlikely to get a flu shot this season. The government is now rationing the vaccine, trying to get shots to those who are considered to be most vulnerable: those are children and the elderly primarily.
"Despite all the controversy about diet...a calorie is a calorie is a calorie."
--Dr. Ernst Schaefer of Tufts University in Boston, who led a study that found that restricting certain food groups is not an effective weight loss approach, as quoted November 9 by Reuters.
"It's the world's first significant health treaty. It's a moment we hope will change global health."
Denis Aitken, World Health Organization1
Americans learned yesterday that cancer has surpassed heart disease as the leading killer of Americans under age eighty-five. So says Cancer Facts & Figures 2005 by the American Cancer Society.
Men s Fitness magazine recently released a report listing the fittest and fattest of the fifty most populous U.S. cities.(1) There doesn't seem to be anything too useful in ranking fattest and fittest cities, but I'll admit that I was curious. Is my current city fatter than my hometown? How do the residents of my college city compare in size to their neighbors a few cities over?
Parents and teachers (as well as public health professionals) are understandably concerned about the recent rise in obesity among young Americans. Just as understandable is the desire to do something to stem the tide. One action, embraced by a number of schools across the nation (including the New York City school system), is substituting supposedly "healthier" foods for so-called "junk" foods and beverages in school vending machines.
A commentary by Linda Gasparello in White House Weekly on February 2, 2005, described ACSH's release of our book America's War on "Carcinogens": Reassessing The Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk:
Despite nearly two million injury-causing car crashes each year, Congress and environmentalists apparently have made safety a lower priority than their (largely futile) efforts to reduce auto gas prices and carbon dioxide emissions. Despite years of government dictates, based largely on guesswork, the attempts of bureaucrats and politicians to raise auto fuel-economy standards have been a proven failure -- and a dangerous one for the public's safety.
A March 8 Reuters article entitled "Milk Alone Not Best for Bones" reported on a study that concluded that milk and other dairy products do not promote bone health in children over age seven. What Reuters neglected to note was the fact that the study's sponsoring organization, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), has a blatant anti-dairy agenda. That doesn't mean their study shouldn't be evaluated on its merits, but such potential conflicts of interest would probably be quickly noted in the case of, say, a study that came to "pro-industry" conclusions.
The Roanoke Times set off a unexpected scandal when it ran a photo of a Virginia woman who has (unwarranted) worries about the effect jackhammering on her street might have on her unborn baby -- but is, as seen in the photo (below), a smoker, a far more serious health threat.
For nearly three years, consumers have been warned about potential health risks from acrylamide, a chemical formed when foods containing high levels of carbohydrate are cooked at high temperatures (frying or baking, for example). Since its discovery in food by Swedish scientists, acrylamide has provided alarmist groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) with a new focus for their bogus health scares.
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