Threats Real, Possible, Fake, and Science-Fictional
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Friday, June 20, 2008
Our job here is ranking risks, and here's a little exercise in doing so: (1) A Real Risk: Marilyn Larkin provides a balanced New York Academy of Sciences overview of foodborne illnesses: "Health Threats from Domestic and Imported Produce."  (2) A Small But Discussion-Worthy Risk: Ryan Evans looks at Read Full >>

ACSH Morning Dispatch Round-Up: 200th Dispatch and More
By Krystal Ford, Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Monday, June 9, 2008
DISPATCH: Hunger, Mercury, Alcohol, Smoke, and ToenailsNorman Borlaug's op-ed on the fight against hungerACSH trustee Dr. Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and professor of international agriculture at Texas A&M University, co-wrote an op-ed addressing the issue of world hunger.  In the article, Dr. Borlaug and Peter McPherson acknowledge that   Read Full >>

Dr. Daniel Koshland, RIP
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Thursday, July 26, 2007
ACSH was saddened to hear of the death, earlier this week at age eighty-seven after a stroke, of Dr. Daniel Koshland.  Beyond being a colleague of and donor to ACSH, Koshland was a veteran of the Manhattan Project, of enzyme and early biotech research at Brookhaven and Berkeley, and of the journal Science, where he was the editor in chief from 1985 to 1995.  At Berkeley, he oversaw the reorganization and streamlining of the biology department, and his model of departmental   Read Full >>

Michael Moore's "Sicko" Is Both Prescription and Overdose
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Friday, June 29, 2007
For history buffs, the most amazing moment of the new Michael Moore documentary Sicko (his plea for socialized medicine) may be getting to hear the actual moment when most of our current healthcare problems began: Nixon, on tape in the Oval Office, deciding to regulatorily mandate a system of employer-provided health insurance packages in 1971, around the same time that he (a supposed "conservative") decided to freeze wages and prices -- something, thankfully, that is   Read Full >>

Go Hungry Here to Fight Malaria in Africa
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Monday, May 7, 2007
This Thursday, May 10, 2007, is Fast Against Malaria Day, when, in an effort that grew out of an idea from investment banker Lance Laifer (who started Hedge Funds vs. Malaria), people around the world have pledged to give up one meal in order to donate the money to buying bed nets to ward off malarial mosquitoes in Africa (you'll find ACSH's Executive Director, Dr. Gilbert Ross, listed among those taking the pledge). The group promises   Read Full >>

Scottish Enlightenment, U.S. Stone Age?
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Monday, May 7, 2007
Despite the occasional exciting biotech newsflash out of Asia, most of the science research and development money on this planet is still in two places, roughly speaking: the U.S. and Europe.  So, much of the near-future progress of science is likely to depend on which of these two regions seems most hospitable to such inquiry.  For most of the twentieth century, the U.S. had an edge conferred, I would argue, more by its wealth and relative absence of regulations than by our love of   Read Full >>

Malaria Awareness Day, Many Still Unaware of DDT Benefits
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Wednesday, April 25, 2007
April 25 is Malaria Awareness Day and a good time to look back at some of ACSH's oft-repeated warnings (see below) that malaria is one of the world's biggest killers.  Unfortunately, the environmental movement must also take its place as one of the world's biggest killers, since it has long supported the ban on DDT, the insecticide that can most efficiently and cost-effectively kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes.  That error by the greens, inspired by the anti-chemical   Read Full >>

World Is Improving and/or Doomed, Signs (and These Links) Suggest
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Tuesday, January 30, 2007
As many commonsensical acquaintances of mine say -- especially if I ramble on too long about some current scientific controversy -- "Yeah, you find one study that says one thing, and then there's some other study that says the opposite." That summary may leave out some of the nuances of the scientific process, but it's not such a bad description of the way media coverage of science lurches back and forth between utopian and apocalyptic announcements. The overall truth about   Read Full >>

Congress Votes Gold Medal for ACSH Trustee Dr. Norman Borlaug
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Nobel Peace Prize recipient and ACSH Trustee Dr. Norman Borlaug, age ninety-two, will receive a new honor because of today's House of Representatives vote to award him a Congressional Gold Medal, the U.S.'s highest civilian honor. An agricultural scientist, Borlaug fostered innovative crop-yield-increasing techniques that sparked the so-called "green revolution" in agriculture in the 1960s. "Dr. Borlaug is responsible for saving a billion lives around the world,"   Read Full >>

Notions for a Fast Food Nation
By Todd Seavey
Publication Date : Friday, November 17, 2006
Fast Food Nation -- in which (as noted earlier this year on HealthFactsAndFears) journalist Eric Schlosser argues that America is having its health and environment ruined by a sinister system of fast food mass-marketing and animal cruelty, all in the name of evil food manufacturers' profits -- has now become a slightly dull film from director Richard Linklater.  Linklater and Schlosser answered   Read Full >>