A Scientifically Baseless Attack On Phthalates
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Friday, February 18, 2011
Unfounded health scares do nothing to protect the public and ultimately cause more harm than good. For example, an article posted recently on the Mother Nature Network attacks everyday chemicals called phthalates. This group of plasticizing chemicals can be found in a many common products, ranging from children’s toys to medical equipment   Read Full >>

McNonsense: Blaming McDonald's Happy Meal for Our Obesity Crisis
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Monday, September 13, 2010
It’s enough to give you heartburn. San Francisco legislators — apparently having solved all of the city’s other problems — have decided to target Happy Meals. The Board of Supervisors is debating a proposal to ban toys from the entrées — unless the meal includes a half a cup of fresh fruit or three quarters of a cup of fresh vegetables, and doesn’t contain more than 600 calories. It’s not just unhappy San Francisco politicians who   Read Full >>

Toxic Terror: The Ongoing Environmentalists’ Battle Against Atrazine
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Friday, June 11, 2010
America seems in the grip of chemophobia, the unfounded fear of chemicals. CNN recently served up “specials” entitled “Toxic America” and “Toxic Childhood.” The New Yorker had a piece fretting about the “Plastic Panic”. The President’s Cancer Panel anguished about all the untested environmental chemicals — many designated by them as “carcinogens” — in our air, water and food. And there are more frightening (but   Read Full >>

The Harvard School of (Unscientific) Public Health (Activism)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has now firmly established itself not as an institution for higher learning, devoted to educating students about the science of preventing premature disease and death, but instead as a hotbed of pseudoscience and political agitation.I received two degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health in the late 1960s and early 1970s and am chagrined that it has transmogrified itself from a top-notch teaching facility to a cult of environmental activists.   Read Full >>

Testimony: "Food Policy in New York State"
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Friday, January 22, 2010
Testimony delivered January 22, 2010 at a Public Hearing before the New York Senate Committee on Health.I'm Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, President and Founder of the American Council on Science and Health. I hold advanced degrees in public health from the Yale School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Public Health and founded the American Council in 1978. The American Council--or ACSH--a nonprofit, tax-exempt (501(c)3) organization, is a consumer education and advocacy group directed   Read Full >>

Remembering Dr. Norman Borlaug
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Sunday, September 13, 2009
Norman Borlaug, Nobel Laureate, Green Revolution pioneer, and a founding Director of the American Council on Science and Health in 1978, died this weekend, at age ninety-five. Norman, by dramatically increasing the world's food supply, is credited with saving over one billion lives. His early work in Mexico on developing and cultivating high-yielding wheat, resistant to weather conditions and other external threats, turned that country from a wheat importer to a wheat exporter in just a   Read Full >>

Julia Child vs. Meryl Streep
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Saturday, August 29, 2009
In a recent, totally outrageous interview published in the UK paper The Telegraph, actress Meryl Streep, star of Julie & Julia, maligns and misrepresents the real-life version of the character she plays, famed chef Julia Child.And in the process she defames the organization I head up, the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).Ms. Streep actually calls Julia Child "a pawn of big business." You can hardly get more outrageous than that.I knew Julia Child.   Read Full >>

Atrazine: NYT Terrifies Over "Weed Killers" in Water
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Saturday, August 22, 2009
All the news that's fit to scare. That was the thrust of this weekend's New York Times article by Charles Duhigg entitled "Toxic Waters: Debating Just How Much Weed Killer Is Safe in Your Water Glass." As president of the American Council on Science and Health, I have been following environmental and health media articles for some three decades -- seeing how they measure up in terms of   Read Full >>

Mount Sinai's Scare Campaign (and John Stossel's reaction)
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Wednesday, August 19, 2009
ACSH's view on this issue was noted by John Stossel on his blog today:It is nothing new for junk science to make it onto the New York Times op-ed page. But some agendas are so far outside the mainstream they have to buy their way onto the page. That's what the Mount Sinai School of Medicine did in buying a platform for their Dr. Philip Landrigan, an activist who has   Read Full >>

NY Soda Tax: All Politics, No Science
By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Publication Date : Thursday, January 29, 2009
Aiming to combat the obesity epidemic in New York, Gov. David Paterson has recommended an 18% tax on sugar-sweetened soft drinks and a few other sweetened beverages. Unfortunately, the proposed tax is inconsistent with the facts about what causes obesity. It also sets an alarming precedent for taxing foods deemed "bad" by government officials -- further increasing the cost of living in the state -- particularly for the least affluent citizens.•First, there is no scientific basis   Read Full >>