Chemophobia cleans up (from Spiked Online)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Monday, February 21, 2005
The president of the American Council on Science and Health on how New York's governor fell for junk science...  Read Full >>

The Roots of Cancer Phobia (from New York Post)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Thursday, November 25, 2004
Forty-five years ago this week, in November, 1959, most Americans cel ebrated Thanksgiving sans cranberry sauce...  Read Full >>

Remembering a Berry Scary Thanksgiving (from Tech Central Station)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Forty-five years ago this week, in November, 1959, most Americans celebrated Thanksgiving sans cranberry sauce. Earlier that month, Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Arthur Fleming had announced that traces of the weed killer aminotriazole--a chemical that caused cancer in rodents--had been found in the cranberry crop...  Read Full >>

Real risks in city are on two wheels (from the New York Daily News)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Thursday, November 18, 2004
We New Yorkers are more obsessed, even more than other Americans, about hypothetical or phantom health risks. We are constantly anxious about trace-level exposure to the dry cleaning chemical "perc," PCBs in the Hudson River, dioxin traces in paper towels, pesticide residues in produce and whatever the other scares du jour happen to be. The city just passed laws requiring all of us to have carbon monoxide detectors, even in high-rise apartments, where the risk of injury or death is totally   Read Full >>

Why Canada isn't the answer to health care (from The Washington Times)
How to Solve America's Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn't the Answer
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Sunday, November 14, 2004
I am a great fan of publisher Wiley's series of "Dummy" books (billed as "a reference for the rest of us"). Whether the "Dummy" focus is on World War II, gardening, baking, or understanding wines, the Wiley books boil down the essence of the topic into easily understandable bits and pieces...  Read Full >>

Unpredictable Demand Also Hampers Flu Shots (from the Wall Street Journal)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Friday, October 15, 2004
Your Oct. 14 editorial "Infectious Politics" highlighted the role price controls, excessive regulation and the threat of litigation against vaccine makers played in creating our current public health nightmare: a critical shortage of influenza vaccine as we enter the annual flu season. Simply put, would-be flu vaccine makers face many disincentives and see very few incentives which would entice them into the arduous process of flu vaccine development...  Read Full >>

Fearing Pharma (from New York Post)
Angell: Don't believe this doc's dire drug diagnosis.
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Sunday, September 12, 2004
Dr. Marcia Angell does not like pharmaceutical companies. A physician and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Angell believes they are dishonest, deceptive, greedy and duplicitous, unabashedly charging Americans sky-high prices for drugs — while residents of other countries (for example, Canada) pay a fraction of those costs...  Read Full >>

Junk-Science Reporting (from NationalReview.com)
Marcia Angell does a hatchet job on Big Pharma.
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Wednesday, September 8, 2004
America's pharmaceutical industry is under scrutiny and attack more than ever before. Critics have pejoratively nicknamed the industry "Big Pharma" (to associate it with "Big Tobacco"); they characterize it as uncaring, duplicitous, profit-hungry, and manipulative; they claim that the industry excels in price-gouging while at the same time delivering very few products of any real value...  Read Full >>

Read ACSH.org, and click on our FactsAndFears *BLOG*
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Wednesday, September 1, 2004
And sign up at "My ACSH" to get regular, personalized updates on public health topics of your choice.  Read Full >>

Killing the Goose (That Lays the Rx Eggs) (from Scripps Howard News Service)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publish Date : Friday, July 9, 2004
In a prime example of election-year demagoguery, the Senate is considering legislation, already approved by the House, to legalize the importation of pharmaceuticals from dozens of countries around the world.  Read Full >>