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We may seem more progressive today than we were fifty years ago, and we are in a lot of ways, but on some issues such as sex we are still old-fashioned at heart. Vital information about the human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer is probably missing from most sex education classes. In addition, kids surely haven't been told about the latest information about HPV. People young or old may have the false impression that oral sex is a relatively safe form of sex, but the truth is that in addition to familiar sexually transmitted diseases, it could be a risk factor for oral cancer.

Everywhere you look in the news this week, there seems to be something about sex. Whether it’s the Spitzer scandal, HPV and oral cancer connection, or the frighteningly high rate of sexually-transmitted disease (STD) among America's teenage girls, sex is on the minds of many. One thing that should be eminently clear is that sex (in all forms) can lead to STD infections, some forms of cancer, and loss of job as governor.

Enjoy a flavorful snack and lose weight at the same time? It may seem too good to be true, but according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, chewing gum might be the weight loss aid that dieters are looking for in a sea of weight loss gimmicks. For some, it may be considered a bad habit, but for the first time, it is being promoted by a gum manufacturer (Wrigley's) as a tool for managing weight.

Is multiple chemical sensitivity real? Some claim it is and that they are crippled by encounters with routine chemicals such as pesticides, perfume, paint, air fresheners and car exhaust. One person afflicted told the Denver Post she had to live in her car to get away from it.
Her car has no chemicals?
Nonetheless, people who believe they have it think they are proof of how toxic the world has gotten. The Denver Post called on ACSH for help in separating science fact from environmental fiction.

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)

The Consumerist relays the accounts of two Apple computer owners who were refused service on their machines because the company claimed that residues from cigarette smoke in their house created unsafe working conditions for Apple employees, and therefore voided the computers' warranties.
"This has to do with nicotine being listed as a hazardous substance," says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. "Obviously, the home of a smoker is going to have some kind of residue."

After ten years of prominently posting nutritional information in its dining halls, Harvard University recently decided to remove the displays of each dish's calorie count.

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.

Scientists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) published a study in the Journal of American Medical Association documenting a correlation between elevated blood levels of vitamin B6 and methionine, an amino acid, and a reduced risk of lung cancer in smokers, former smokers and never-smokers.

ACSH expects to post on our webpage later today video from an interview Dr. Elizabeth Whelan did with CNN Sunday evening, discussing last week's scaremongering report from the President's Cancer Panel linking cancer to environmental chemicals.

An FDA advisory panel surprised observers Thursday by voting 10-to-6 to reject Vivus Inc.’s anti-obesity drug Qnexa, citing concerns of adverse side effects and unknown safety risks associated with its long-term use. The panel’s rejection is not final, and the FDA will make a decision on the drug’s market approval in a few months.

Originally published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
When an FDA panel voted to reject a new weight-loss drug this fall, many observers were outraged.

Thanks in large part to FDA over-regulation, there is a paucity of new antibiotics. Yet antibiotic-resistant bacteria run rampant worldwide, ACSH’s Drs. Josh Bloom and Gilbert Ross write in an op-ed published in National Review Online. The number of new antibiotics being approved is negligible, and currently only four companies manufacture 80 percent of the world’s vaccines. Dr. Bloom and Dr. Ross point out that the FDA is mostly to blame for this predicament:

Physicians should exercise extra caution when prescribing antidepressants for older patients since they could negatively react with or cause adverse side effects when combined with other drugs, finds a new study by Thomson Reuters, the University of Southern California, Sanofi Aventis and others, published in the American Journal for Geriatric Psychiatry.

ACSH would like to commend James S. Fell’s Los Angeles Times article yesterday revealing and debunking the pseudoscience of “holistic nutrition.” Fell points to the lack of valid credentials held by holistic nutritionists and their obvious goal to sell supplements.

Introduction
As the year draws to a close, some of us will be reminded that olde acquaintance should not be forgot. So, before we can officially commence the New Year, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) would like to reflect upon this year past. We'd especially like to spend an extra moment considering what we hope the world will eventually learn to forget the most unfounded health scares of 2010.

While New Yorkers occupied themselves with digging out from a foot and a half of freshly fallen snow, City Council Member Peter Vallone, Jr. found time yesterday to hold a press conference to denounce the perils of water fluoridation. The Councilman, son of the late Council Speaker Peter Vallone, Sr., says that he will put forward legislation to end the city s practice of fluoridating its tap water.

A troubling denial of academic freedom at the University of California, Los Angeles: ACSH trustee Dr. James Enstrom has been terminated by a secret vote of the faculty after serving for 34 years as a faculty member at the UCLA School of Public Health.

President Biden is proposing that hearing aids be a covered expense under Medicare. Some Medicare Advantage policies cover it. It's time to pull some information together, my fellow citizen-scientists, to help inform our thinking.

The MMR vaccine isn’t the only shot under fire: The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) is investigating GlaxoSmithKline’s “swine flu” (H1N1) vaccine Pandemrix to determine if it’s linked to a higher risk of developing narcolepsy after 27 cases of the sleep disorder were reported in Sweden and Finland. While the reported narcolepsy cases occurred soon after the patients received the Pandemrix shot, the EMEA emphasizes that the cause of narcolepsy is still unknown.

In the largest and most comprehensive survey of eating disorders yet, a sample consisting of more than 10,000 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 yielded surprising and disturbing information: over half a million U.S. adolescents have an eating disorder.

An alarmist TIME article presents yet another dubious Environmental Health Perspectives study as factual. This time, researchers purport that even BPA-free plastics can leach so-called “endocrine disruptors” into the human body.

Though today’s oral contraceptives are less likely to cause weight gain because of a lower estrogen dose, many young women are still hesitant to use the pill for fear of packing on extra pounds. Nearly one-third of women on birth control pills stop using them within a few months because of undesirable side-effects, especially perceived weight gain.

While sitting at the physician’s office, some people may become anxious as they await their looming encounter with The Doctor. The phenomenon is common enough that health care professionals have even coined a term for it — white-coat syndrome — since it may manifest as an increase in blood pressure (BP) or heart rate.

On average Americans live several years fewer than people in a number of other developed countries like France and Japan. This may seem puzzling as Americans spend more on health care, and American patients do, in fact, live longer following diagnosis of cancer and a number of other serious diseases. Well, a report from the National Research Council released yesterday presents a theory why this might be.