"There is always going to be greasy, fried, salty, sugary food...It is up to the individual to walk in and say 'I don't want those fries'...anyone who's trying to sue the fast food places needs a therapist, not an attorney."
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), paraphrasing diet guru Richard Simmons, as noted by the July 23 Wall Street Journal
Each additional attempt to reformulate food or add another label to existing food in response to government mandates or public fears increases food production costs.
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Consumers are often inundated by studies touted in the media, promoting certain foods and disparaging others, sometimes frustrating people with credible-sounding but contradictory advice. Often the culprit creating these contradictory bits of wisdom is a flawed method of data interpretation dubbed "data dredging" by its critics.
Biotech boosters have sometimes used the practical argument that if the U.S. imposes heavy regulations on biotech the cloning of human cells or the genetic modification (g.m.) of plants companies and scientists might flee to other nations. That may yet prove true, but it looks like those companies and scientists will have to flee to somewhere less glamorous than Europe.
There have been reminders over the past two months that Europe does not have a laissez-faire attitude toward biotech, whether of the human or plant variety.
Editor's note:
Victor Herbert, M.D., an ACSH Advisor, passed away on November 19, just a few days after we posted this item about an amusing stunt Dr. Herbert once pulled. We intend no disrespect by leaving the item up and trust that Dr. Herbert would have been delighted to know that new readers are learning about one of his many efforts to lampoon quackery and pseudo-science.
"I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner," [Secretary of Agriculture Ann M.] Veneman said, "and we remain confident in the safety of our food supply."
Responded [former USDA veterinarian Lester] Friedlander: "She might as well kiss her (behind) goodbye, then."
From an article by Steve Mitchell of UPI, December 23, 2003
One cow known to be infected with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a.k.a. mad cow disease) has set-off such a blizzard of comment that one hates to imagine what the response would have been had there been the 100,000 to 200,000 infected cows, which was the experience in the United Kingdom. A Rip Van Winkle who took a brief month or two snooze before Thanksgiving and awoke amidst the extended media response would have wondered what public health catastrophe had blighted our fair land, driving some people away from meat consumption and mainstream agriculture.
A San Francisco Chronicle article by Peter Fimrite noted one of the stranger ballot measures to pass on Nov. 4, in the town of Bolinas, CA:
Remarks delivered at the American Council on Science and Health's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration on the evening of December 4, 2003 in New York City.
Some random thoughts from a food-focused academic:
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Humane Vegecide
New York's mayor Mike Bloomberg has joined the list of public officials seeking to import drugs from Canada where even American-made pharmaceuticals are subject to price controls in a quest to provide cheaper drugs for New Yorkers. And not just for government employees, as other civic leaders have planned, but potentially for the millions treated within the huge NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation system.
Proposition 65 is the California law that requires a label on any product containing "known carcinogens" or chemicals that could be a reproductive hazard. Multitudes of warning labels litter the California landscape, since virtually any chemical, natural or synthetic, can probably be either toxic or carcinogenic. But now, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) wants even more labeling.
Ah, if only ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross could edit all the nation's health headlines! Below, he offers examples of the sorts of tweaks he might make, using some recent real headlines and article summaries from the Food and Drug Law Institute's SmartBrief newsletter as his raw material:
Lecithin May Help Lower Cholesterol [Then Again, It May Not]
"...Although no large-scale study has been conducted, some say it may be useful in the fight against Alzheimer's..."
I must interrupt your usual HealthFactsAndFears.com programming just briefly to note that its editor me will be on one of those fashion makeover TV shows that are all the rage lately, specifically Style Court on the Style Network, at the following (Eastern) times:
Thursday, Jan 8: 8pm and 11pm Friday, Jan 9: 9am and 4pm
(If you have digital cable, you may well have the Style Network.)
The Natural Resources Defense Council report cited in your March 9 article "The Old Yellow School Bus as a Threat" is an unreliable source. The report was not reviewed by peers for accuracy and does not offer sufficient data or details to support its assertion that exposure to diesel fumes on school buses increases childhood risk of cancer.
If it's difficult to deal successfully with overweight and obesity in adults, it can be even harder to help overweight children attain and maintain age-appropriate, healthful body weight. Is a given child really at risk for unhealthy weight gain, or is he or she simply putting on a few extra pounds in anticipation of a growth spurt? Is the family prone to obesity and related diseases? Are family members willing to change their lifestyle if necessary to help the child attain and maintain an appropriate weight?
Some of you may recall my battle with Whole Foods Market, the poster child for the "health food" movement. I threatened to sue them for violating California's ill-advised Proposition 65, which requires warning labels on just about anything that might harbor, even in an infinitesimal amount, a substance that can cause cancer at high doses when given to lab rats. (For more on that, please see: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,58760,00.html.) The company claimed I was picking on them unfairly.
A 2001 Democratic National Committee commercial attacked George W. Bush's policy on arsenic levels in water: a young child asking, "Can I please have some more arsenic in my water, Mommy?" The underlying premises of the ad were that current environmental standards tolerated dangerous levels of naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water and that was just fine by President Bush.
Editor's note: What follows is a speech delivered to attendees of the Hayek Lecture Series in Brussels earlier this month.
The title of today's discussion is "Did the EU Get the Chemicals Regulation Right?" A title like that makes the job of a panelist pretty easy, when you can clearly and unequivocally answer the question with a one-word answer: NO!
I won't pretend to be objective about ABC News anchor John Stossel. I worked for him from 1995-2001, as an associate producer on one-hour specials very much like the one airing tonight (10pm Eastern), called Lies, Myths, and Downright Stupidity.
Morgan Spurlock wanted to be in a movie. And he was in a movie one he made himself which he then presented to the world at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. The subject of the movie was the fattening of Morgan himself he managed to gain twenty-five pounds in a month by overeating at McDonald's restaurants. The name of his documentary, Supersize Me, should serve as a warning to the rest of us that eating too much will make us fat (which we might have heard before).
For years now, purveyors of various foods and supplements have pitched their products as being better for health because of the so-called "antioxidant" properties of their constituents. The theory is that highly reactive molecules, called oxygen free radicals or just free radicals, can stimulate the occurrence of diseases like arthritis, atherosclerosis, and various types of cancer.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." So states the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution a statement widely interpreted as specifying the "separation of church and state." Perhaps we need an amendment mandating the separation of church and diet, too. Some advocates of certain vegan and/or "raw" diets claim to garner their authority from the Bible presumably one can gain brownie points in heaven by eating according to "God's plan" (but no brownies would be allowed, unfortunately).
Yesterday's report that the United States Federal Trade Commission is going after the maker of Pedia Loss and Pedia Lean is good news, no doubt.
Is New York City s new deal with Snapple hypocrisy, nutritional naivete, or just a financial a boost to the educational system? Perhaps all of the above.
Pagination
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