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A Review of the Greatest Unfounded Health Scares of Recent Times
FOURTH EDITION First published May 1997 Revised September 1997 Revised June 1998 Revised September 2004
Introduction
H. L. Mencken once said that the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety), by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. Unfounded health scares, for instance.

ACSH Scientific Advisor Dr. Stan Young has been appointed to EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. This is a great move for making sure we implement evidence-based improvements in air quality.

ACSH has gotten into it (again) with Carey Gilliam, a self-inflated journalist who just won't shut up about glyphosate, even though no one cares what she has to say. This time my buddy Cameron English was the "target." Not that he needs it, but I come to his defense!

From the “French baby death linked to vitamin dose” headline, you'd think that the vitamin treatment was responsible.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has been caught manipulating reports, and even images inside reports. At what point should the United Nations step in and fix this?

The Tampa Bay Times recently ran a story that would have been unsurprising to many of you. It found that much of the locally-sourced organic food being served in one restaurant was actually nothing of the kind. There's a simple reason for that: Organic is just a process, or marketing, or both, since there is no real difference in the food.

Here's a new study that answered a question for which no answer was needed. Do people pee in pools? How about bears? To find out, you'll have to waste three minutes of your time.

In response to the the latest press release from the advocacy group called the Center for Science in the Public Interest, below are some facts about the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH):
· ACSH is a not for profit organization led by a voluntary board of more than 350 leading physicians and scientists from prominent hospitals and universities.

Anyone want to be smarter? Clearly, there's a need; otherwise, I wouldn't have written an article called "Drowning in Morons" in 2020. Perhaps there's a solution. A company is selling a dietary supplement called Smart Drops, which don't just make you smarter but also increase your libido, treat your arthritis, and improve your athletic performance. Believable? Not so much. And let's not forget a Bigfoot spotting - in an MRI facility.

1. The BBC was into poop - the still-ongoing trend of public serial poopers - and linked to work by Dr. Jamie Wells on it. That wasn't the only place this fad was noted. 

This year the American Council on Science Health turned 45. That's a long time for a non-profit to be around. But ACSH has persevered because we continue to offer something no other organization provides: quick and easy-to-read, always factual – and thorough – science.

Why is everyone always above average? Hint-we are poor judges of our ability. Chemophobia is challenging to discuss, but it does drive 100% natural marketing. Are hospital administrators and their salaries growing at such a high rate that they are the cause of high prices? The graph says yes, the truth is a bit more nuanced. Finally, with all the concern about a replication crisis and the integrity of science, you would think that writing a paper debunking other research would be easy; you would be wrong.

Would you pay a premium for a product that would prevent your family from getting the food-borne illnesses that sicken 48 million Americans and kill 3,000 more each year? And if it was endorsed by the USDA, the CDC and the WHO, wouldn't you find that safety appetizing?

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Facebook may be overtly partisan and secretly conspiratorial, but companies have the freedom to do that. The only thing that will absolve Facebook of blame is if government seeks to regulate them.

Climate change is real; we contribute to it. But warmer temperatures aren't driving unprecedented increases in the number of heart attacks we suffer.

1. Medicare Part D was controversial during its passage yet now is regarded as a success - and it may be the future of Obamacare. Making that case was no less than a Senator who was against Medicare Part D at the time, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whom I met at the American Action Forum meeting.

A 2018 Washington Post article addressed the methods we use to breed food crops. But it suffered from a common shortcoming -- “pseudo-balance” -- or the seeking out of clueless commentators to contradict advocates of superior modern genetic modification techniques.  We hate to break it to the author, but in spite of what they teach you in journalism classes, not every issue benefits from point-counterpoint.

The New Face of the New McCarthyism ACSH’s Jeff Stier got the last word in the Los Angeles Times’ report on PLoS Medicine’s recent announcement that they will no longer review studies that are funded by the tobacco industry.

The Guardian axed its science blog in August 2018. Then, apparently, it found a new moneymaker in spreading chemophobia and more with a new series titled "Toxic America."

Many activists and reporters claim we should eat little or no meat to prevent climate change. But instead of presenting arguments, proponents of this radical proposal seek to disqualify their critics with personal attacks.

Recently The Lancet posted a correspondence titled, "Lupin flour anaphylaxis (http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol365/iss9467/abs/llan.365.9467.revie…)." It was followed the next day with a BBC posting titled, "Lupin flour 'poses allergy risk'" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4419709.stm). Since then, there has been a deathly media silence.

When folks here at ACSH hear the term cancer phobia, we instinctively assume it means the pervasive fear that exposure to certain chemicals or environmental factors will undoubtedly increase one s risk of cancer. Yet in a recent op-ed for The New York Times, science journalist David Ropeik uses the label in quite a different way: He describes the sense of doom that many patients experience upon receiving a cancer diagnosis, or simply when they hear the word cancer.

Two separate research groups have reportedly developed strains of bird flu (avian influenza type A [H5N1]) that may be transmissible between humans. However, just as the studies were set to appear in the journals Nature and Science, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) asked that the journals omit key research data from the publication.

Íris Erlingsdóttir, a journalist and chronic pain patient, has experienced first-hand the war against pain patients, which has been dressed up as a war against opioid addiction. She points out some of the problems with flawed opioid strategies.