President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the nation during the Great Depression, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Try telling that to Americans who read the media headlines in which a new or recycled health scare appears almost daily. In their latest roundup, scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) describe the genesis of 10 of the most outrageous health scares of 2008 and explain that they have little or no basis in scientific fact.
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With food allergies receiving more attention, more children are being prescribed EpiPens, single-use shots of epinephrine that can counter severe allergic reactions resulting in anaphylaxis.
A new study shows that obese women who become pregnant after losing weight with the help of bariatric surgery have easier pregnancies and healthier babies than women who remain obese during pregnancy. But ACSH's Dr.
This letter first appeared in the Los Angeles Times on July 28, 2008:
Re: "Panel OKs fast-food curbs," July 23
he American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging released guidelines yesterday asserting that mammograms should begin at forty for women with an average risk of breast cancer and by thirty for high-risk women. These recommendations contradict those recently submitted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which concluded that screening mammograms for women under fifty cause more harm than good.
This piece first appeared on TCSDaily.com.
When all three branches of the federal government target an industry, you know it's in big trouble. The hapless companies under the gun are our pharmaceutical manufacturers, but we will all be victims in this crusade.
This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.
Next week, the European Parliament will debate stringent regulation of a number of effective pesticides. It is apparently too much to expect a sense of shame from European public health officials and their activist "environmental" collaborators when the subject of chemical pesticides is raised.
This piece first appeared on the Wall Street Journal's site OpinionJournal.com.
The news is a-chatter about swine flu. Is a pandemic pending--where all of us are at risk of disease and death? There are more questions than answers right now. Here are a few of them:
This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.
The U.S. pharmaceutical industry has replaced the tobacco cartel as the favorite punching bag of Congress and litigators over the last few years. The pipeline of new drugs has slowed to a crawl as the risk-averse Food and Drug Administration becomes more cautious by the day.
In 2000, African leaders vowed to reduce malaria deaths by 50% in ten years. Tomorrow marks the ninth anniversary of the vow, and though it hasn't been fulfilled, we are drawing very close to another marker of malaria's toll: 100 million dead from malaria since the Environmental Protection Agency's 1972 ban on DDT, the insecticide best suited to combat malarial mosquitoes.
The rate of diagnosed autism in the country today has increased from 1 in 10,000 in 1995 to 1 in 150 today. However, this likely reflects increased information and awareness about autism, the expansion of diagnostic criteria, more thorough and accurate diagnoses, and the classification of many cases as autism that would previously have been recorded as mental retardation. Autism is a lifelong condition that has a devastating effect on individuals and on their families. It is understandable that those involved with the autism spectrum can be desperate for help, for any hope of help.
Duff Wilson reports in today s New York Times that advertising restrictions imposed on tobacco companies by the latest FDA regulation law are likely to be challenged as infringements on free speech. ACSH staffers noticed one particular defense of the law, made by Matthew L. Myers of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the group that teamed up with Altria to draft the legislation: In this case, great care was taken to permit black-and-white text advertising that permits them to communicate whatever truthful information they have.
Italian researchers reported on Tuesday that virtual colonoscopies performed with computed tomography scans might be a viable alternative to traditional, invasive methods that use a tiny camera threaded through the colon.
ACSH staffers noticed that today s issues of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal both address the increasingly contentious issue of e-cigarettes, smokeless nicotine vaporizers that simulate a cigarette in order to circumvent smoking bans and aid cessation. Ironically, various anti-smoking groups are calling for e-cigarettes to be removed from the market, citing a lack of information about the safety of the product, but the ACSH staff believes that such an action would be a mistake. The key issue is that nicotine is not the dangerous part of smoking, says ACSH s Dr.
On a related note, the National Cancer Institute declared that computed tomography (CT) lung cancer screenings have a disturbingly high rate of false positives. This comes as no surprise to the staff at ACSH. "The data is obvious," says Dr. Ross, "we've known this to be an unreliable test when it comes to false positives. Of even greater concern is false negatives."
The British Journal of Ophthalmology has reported that omega-3-fatty acids may slow the progression of early age-related macular degeneration to advanced disease. May is the operative word here, warns ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava.
Over the past few weeks, the World Health Organization has been claiming repeatedly that the H1N1 virus, or swine flu, will be declared a level six pandemic, the designation of highest possible concern. The virus has infected 26,563 people in seventy-three countries and caused 140 deaths. ACSH staffers believe that the WHO should take action. We see articles like this every other day, and they re always saying they re on the verge of raising H1N1 to level six. So when will they do it and get it over with so they can stop talking about it? asks ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.
Whether you are traveling around the world or relaxing at home, a safe, healthy vacation will add to your enjoyment. Here are some health and safety tips to keep in mind when planning your summer vacation.
Here at ACSH we’ve complained for years that health-related stories in the popular media often pay scant attention to the scientific accuracy and importance of the studies they report on. For example, we’ve seen preliminary studies reported at scientific meetings given equal weight with studies that have undergone peer review and are published in respected scientific journals.
Ethiopian geneticist Gebisa Ejeta of Purdue University was honored with the 2009 World Food Prize for developing strains of sorghum that are resistant to drought and the parasitic weed Striga. The prize was established in 1986 by agronomist and ACSH founding trustee Dr. Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his production of a high-yield variety of wheat, which marked the beginning of the Green Revolution and has saved some 1 billion lives to date.
ACSH staffers are interested in how the Obama administration might advise the U.S. Supreme Court concerning a Georgia family s lawsuit against Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline. The Georgia Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed for a determination of whether the parents claim that the use of the preservative thimerosal in several vaccines is to blame for their son s neurological disorders has any merit. Wyeth and GSK contend that federal law protects vaccine manufacturers from liability.
October 22, 2009
ACS, NY Post, ACIP, DioxinBy Curtis Porter
Brawley and JAMA Against The World
Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS), is catching some heat after his recent statement in an interview with the New York Times conceding that breast and prostate cancer screenings have historically been oversold by physicians and misunderstood by patients and the media.
Sweden is one of the countries at the forefront of restricting chemical use in Europe. It has a policy of making its environment ‘toxic-free’ by 2010 and the country led in the preparation of the European Commission White Paper “Strategy For a Future Chemicals Policy.” Yet as Bill Durodie notes, “Sweden has one of the highest levels of self-reported sensitivities to chemicals in the developed world. It would appear, then, that too much risk awareness can quite literally make you sick.” (1)
Gov. Paterson caved in to New York State healthcare workers’ superstitious fears of the new H1N1 vaccine. With the compliance of the State Health Commissioner Richard Daines, Paterson rescinded the mandatory vaccination program. This weekend, during my afternoon spent volunteering as a physician supervisor at one of the seven free flu vaccine locations sponsored by the New York City Health Department, I watched a similar retreat from sound science.
On a related note, Swedish researchers published a study in today s Lancet Oncology medical journal that seemed to indicate that women who had their stomachs stapled were at a reduced risk for cancer, though the same results were not obtained for men.
In a way, that would make sense, since being overweight is a risk factor for many cancers, says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. However, so many journalists fall into the trap of treating cancer like one disease, and this article does the same.
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