And speaking of junk science legislation, a Connecticut state environmental committee is considering a bill that would require a label on all genetically engineered foods. Yet Gregory J. Costa, director of state affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, counters fears that such biotech products are somehow harmful.
Search
There may be an unexpected culprit contributing to the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, suggests new research in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The latest study found that the bacterium H. pylori(Helicobacter pylori) the cause of most stomach ulcers was also linked to higher levels of blood sugar, the diagnostic hallmark of diabetes.
Is It Safe to Play Yet? asks a New York Times feature on the increasing paranoia of a certain demographic of parents when it comes to the perceived threat of household toxins. A photo image of a toddler in a tiny hazmat suit illustrates numerous anecdotes of concerned mothers and fathers, who all but dismantle their homes in an effort to purge the nursery and beyond of anything remotely chemical.
The folks at Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) have apparently run out of poisons to scare us with because they are now recycling some oldies. Their scare du jour is called 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI). Yawn.
Old, like in 1951--the earliest paper I could find in which the compound was studied for toxicity in rats. The rats are most likely no longer alive, but it wasn't because of the 4-MEI. Nothing happened to them during the experiment.
How can we help level the playing field in the game of regulatory approvals between upstart biotech firms and Big Pharma? By supporting a new bill that would expand the FDA s accelerated approval process to a broader range of diseases. At least that s what Avik Roy, a Senior Fellow in health care policy at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, is suggesting in a recent Forbes op-ed.
Even as the public is becoming more aware of the risks of hospital-acquired infections, and health providers are working to improve sanitary practices to prevent disease transmission, there is still a worrying trend: Infections with C. difficile (Clostridium difficile) are actually on the rise. C. difficile is a bacterial infection that can cause severe diarrhea and even death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that, over the past 10 years, the number of Americans who have been hospitalized for C.
The basic idea is conventional wisdom: Children who spend more time physically active than their sedentary peers will generally be healthier. Now a new study in the current Journal of the American Medical Association has refined this common understanding, looking specifically at the amount of time spent physically active and sedentary as it relates to certain risk factors in otherwise healthy children.
Do trans fats increase stroke risk? A new study in the Annals of Neurology seems to suggest that they do, at least among postmenopausal women. But ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava thinks that the data just don t hold up. Food frequency questionnaires, the method used in this study to assess participants diets, are not the most accurate way to figure out what people eat, she notes. It would be difficult to determine trans fat consumption from this type of survey.
In his latest blog post, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom takes a look at what he calls the two faces of cancer that is, the discovery of a few amazing breakthroughs in the treatment of certain cancers, compared to the disappointing reality that the current generation of super drugs has not lived up to expectations. Tumor heterogeneity the wide range of genetic variations among cancer cells is turning out to be a bigger hurdle than expected. At Medical Progress Today, read Dr.
In recent years, abuse of prescription painkillers has reached staggering heights, with oxycodone and hydrocodone overdose claiming over 14,000 lives in 2008 alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even more alarming still, the toll of these drugs may be rising, as popular opioid pain relievers like OxyContin, Percocet (oxycodone), and Vicodin (hydrocodone) have seen sales increase by as much as sixteen-fold in some states between 2000 and 2010.
A commonly used class of antibiotics called fluroquinolones may raise a patient s risk of retinal detachment, suggests a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. These drugs, which include ciprofloxacin (Cipro) and levofloxacin (Levaquin), have previously been known to cause damage to connective tissue and to cartilage.
Although not nearly as well-known as AIDS, hepatitis C affects about 200 million people worldwide about four times the number of HIV cases. In the U.S. alone, about 4 million people are infected. Hepatitis C, which is usually transmitted through contact with infected blood, causes a slow but progressive deterioration of liver function, leading to cirrhosis and sometimes liver cancer. There were no satisfactory therapies for the infection until last year, when Merck and Vertex each launched a protease inhibitor-type drug an anti-viral analogous to those used successfully in taming HIV.
According to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while only about 10 percent of Americans suffer from any nutritional deficiency, nearly one in ten women between the ages of 12 and 50 have low iron levels, and many others have such low iodine levels that they border on deficiency.
Bariatric surgery is gaining prevalence in the U.S., as more severely obese patients choose to go under the knife to improve their chances of losing excess weight.
There are a lot of substances we may think of as toxic. Bleach, paint thinner, or gasoline might come to mind the image of a child ingesting one of these products immediately strikes fear. Yet some purveyors of junk science want to add a new substance to the list of toxic products: sugar.
While we ve long advised that moderate alcohol consumption provides a protective benefit against heart disease, a recent study has found that having one to two drinks daily may also decrease mortality rates among heart attack survivors.
For over a decade, the American consumer has been bombarded with ads lauding the supposed beneficial health effects of dozens of antioxidants. A typical claim is that these compounds protect against free radicals that may be responsible for causing cancer or that they prevent cellular damage and thereby slow the aging process. Many of these claims have become popularly accepted without question. And as ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava notes, Since many of these supposed miracle compounds are vitamins, people assume that loading up on them won t hurt even if they re not effective antioxidants.
The results of two observational studies by the same group at the Harvard School of Public Health have made headlines, spurring claims that red meat increases mortality risk and sugar-sweetened drinks raise the risk of heart disease. While these observational studies cannot show causation, it s clear that many in the public are interpreting the studies in exactly this way.
In its tenth anniversary edition, the latest Tobacco Atlas report by the World Lung Foundation (WLF) had some bad news to share: Tobacco-related deaths have nearly tripled in the past decade. If current trends continue, tobacco use and exposure will be responsible for the death of one person every six seconds which adds up to a billion deaths this century.
ACSH is happy to note, yet again, that both U.S. cancer incidence and death rates continue to fall. The latest report, issued annually since 1998 and published in the journal Cancer, is compiled by various health agencies including the CDC and the American Cancer Society and includes nearly every cancer case reported through 2008.
Further evidence that, even if you can t quit smoking, you should try your damnedest not to smoke around your kids: A new study has found that children exposed to second-hand smoke had almost double the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) as adults, compared to those who were not exposed. The findings come from a Norwegian study just published in the journal Respirology.
Doctors consider it their responsibility to encourage their patients to follow their recommendations; now they have to convince insurance providers to follow their orders as well. Dr. Stewart Segal is all too familiar with such scenarios, which he recounts in an op-ed for MedPage Today.
Typically, when a pregnant woman s water breaks prematurely, doctors will induce labor in order to avoid the increased risk of a uterine infection that could harm the fetus. Yet because there are also risks to delivering a baby pre-term, Dutch researchers have more closely investigated this practice.
ACSH would like to applaud Dr. John Pierce and his colleagues from the University of California San Diego Cancer Center for their latest article, featured in the Annual Review of Public Health. The review article points out the discrepancy between science and public policy as it relates to smoking cessation strategies.
Pagination
ACSH relies on donors like you. If you enjoy our work, please contribute.
Make your tax-deductible gift today!