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.
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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.
A March 8, 2005 article in the Irish Times describes people who ate exclusively at McDonald's to demonstrate, contrary to the film Super-Size Me, that it is possible to do so and lose weight. The article quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava:
TechCentralStation contacted Ruth Kava, director of nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) and asked her to validate the results of Whaley and Weavers' McDiets.
An article by Peter Berry Ottaway in Vol. 10, No. 1 (January 2005) of Nutraceuticals International noted EU and U.S. controversy over defining nutritional foods and mentioned an argument made by ACSH's Jeff Stier:
A March 21, 2005 Chemical News & Intelligence article by Brian Ford summarizes the new ACSH report on the Teflon-production chemical PFOA:
A review by scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) has found "no likely risk to human health associated with the levels of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) to which the general public is exposed," the ACSH said Monday.
On May 18, the Connecticut House of Representatives followed the lead of the state Senate by passing legislation supposedly designed to reduce the prevalence of obesity in children.(1) This goal was to be accomplished by limiting students' access to so-called junk foods in school vending machines. The new bill would allow high school students continued access to diet sodas and some sports drinks but forbid regular sodas and various snack foods.
With National HIV Testing Day arriving on June 27, it's an apt time to rethink a major public policy impediment to the fight against HIV/AIDS: misguided and unscientific sex education in schools.
The Onion features a very on-target parody of how networks choose scientists and health experts to appear on television. Instead of an astute, balanced, and informed -- but dry -- professor, the network chooses a glib former football player who has written a book about "America's Coming Nuclear-Power Holocaust."
This too-close-to-home parody leaves us pondering some facts:
First, television is intrinsically a form of entertainment, not the best platform for education.
A May 1, 2005 article by Steve Wartenberg in The Morning Call mentions ACSH as a counterpoint to fears about irradiated beef:
Because of the efforts of grass-roots groups across the country, led by Public Citizen and local activists such as Szela and Stein, consumers have so far said ''no'' to irradiated beef.
ACSH Director Dr. Henry Miller wrote an article about unscientific activists for Genetic Engineering News, which you can read in its entirety and which contains many choice passages such as this one about EWG and their salmon scare:
Vitamin E has been promoted as a natural preventive or cure for several ills widespread among Americans such as heart disease, some types of cancer, and Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately, as we ve noted before, when studied in randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials, vitamin E does not live up to its reputation (see http://www.acsh.org/news/newsID.446/news_detail.asp and http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.524/news_detail.asp ).
As the public health community began digesting the much anticipated new food pyramid last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to its credit, released a new study suggesting that previous obesity-related mortality estimations were grossly overstated and that, get this, being slightly overweight actually adds to longevity.
Based on little more than trumped-up fears, activist groups say gene-spliced crops will damage the environment and harm human health. Recent research carried out in China, however, shows how baseless such concerns really are.
Helen Palmer from Public Radio International's Marketplace show interviewed ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava about EPA rules regarding kids and cancer risks, and you can download the RealMedia file of the March 30, 2005 broadcast.
An April 3, 2005 article by Randy Dotinga described possible health benefits of garlic but included this skeptical note:
Ruth Kava, director of nutrition with the American Council on Science and Health, said eating two raw cloves of garlic a day could be both physically and socially challenging.
Yes, you read it right. If you've read ACSH's report, Bridging the Ideological Divide: An Analysis of Views on Tobacco Policy, you know that normally liberals accuse conservatives of being paid fronts for the tobacco industry, unwilling to condone lawsuits against the industry, while conservatives accuse liberals of using the anti-tobacco measures as a way of increasing the role of government in our lives.
We might expect concerned parents to live by slogans like: "Love them, protect them, tell them about the dangers of smoking" or "Love them, protect them, make them wear their seatbelts" or "Love them, protect them, keep them away from guns." But love them, protect them, never get them vaccinated? Huh?
There have been many warnings of late that if A(H5N1), the avian flu strain spreading in Asian bird populations, were to mutate into a form easily transmitted between humans, a pandemic might result on the scale of the 1918-1919 flu that killed tens of millions of people.
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