food and nutrition

We've gotten some encouraging responses to the ACSH report on Scrutinizing Industry-Funded Science:

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We seem to agree on the major issues.

My commentaries on this subject add one essential point: focusing on experimenters and analysts rather than on data and methods subverts the very foundations of the scientific process, destroying the single distinguishing factor that has allowed science to achieve progress that no other human endeavor can boast. This misguided focus actually destroys, rather than enhances the quest for objectivity, bringing science down to the level of politics, where subjectivity rules. And we thought the "dark ages" could not occur again in a technological...

Originally devised to help hypertensive patients lower their blood pressure, the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) dietary pattern includes relatively large amounts of plant-derived foods, moderate amounts of low-fat dairy foods, and low amounts of animal protein. A new study by Dr. Teresa Fung and colleagues (Arch Intern Med 2008; 168:713) indicates that women who adhere to such a dietary pattern may lower their risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke as well.

Approximately 88,000 middle-aged female nurses in the Harvard Nurses' Health Study completed food frequency questionnaires every two years for twenty-four years. Using data from these questionnaires, the researchers developed a "DASH score" to indicate how closely the women's diets adhered to the DASH...

It may be hard to believe, but apparently there really are officials in both the UK and France who are not afraid of the use of biotechnology to improve and expand the food supply.

In the UK, a bastion of pro-organic and anti-biotechnolgy sentiment, Prime Minister Brown called for the use of genetically modified crops. In a letter to the G-8 leaders, he encouraged taking "the initiative to further develop higher-yielding and climate-resilient varieties" of food crops.

Similarly, at least some French lawmakers are starting to see the light about bioengineered foods. By a slim margin, the lower house of the French parliament passed a law that...

This morning, the folks who produce NBC's Today show allowed me six seconds (out of a six-minute segment) to comment on an astoundingly alarmist and unscientific "report" on the alleged dangers of plastic water bottles.

The precise target of this junk-science assault was bisphenol A (BPA), a component of some types of polycarbonate plastic bottles. In fact, BPA is near-ubiquitous in our environment, and we all have tiny amounts of this (and many, many other) synthetic chemicals in our bodies. These trace amounts do not pose any health threat -- but try telling that to those who want to scare us all into a tizzy with such (untrue) "science and health" stories. My brief appearance...

This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.

A new scientific McCarthyism is alive and well in America today. Nowadays, the inquiring mantras come from journal editors and government panel chairmen. It goes like this:

Are you now, or have you ever been, the recipient of funds from a profitmaking institution? Have you consulted for a pharmaceutical company? Have you received research funds from a chemical company? Were you ever a paid speaker at an industry event?

If the answer is yes -- even if your work and scientific reputation are stellar --...

For about a century, industry has played an important role in creating new technology and funding scientific research.

Recently, though, the collaboration between science and industry has been threatened by the development of a movement that proposes to end or drastically limit such cooperation on the grounds that it involves unacceptable conflicts of interest.

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FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For approximately a century, industry has been a powerful motivating force in the creation of new technology and the underwriting of scientific research.

Yet the last two decades have seen the development of a sweeping conflicts of interest movement aimed squarely at curtailing academic/industry biomedical research collaborations and restricting membership on government scientific advisory boards to researchers associated within dustry....

April 2, 2008 -- New York, NY. scientists' ties to industry and point to a Scientific progress has long benefited from collaboration between science and business -- so concludes a new report from the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a non-...

¢A March 23, 2008 piece by Denise Mann on WebMD quoted Dr. Ruth Kava on ACSH's review of articial sweeteners: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=56064.

¢A brief letter from Dr. Gilbert Ross about the FDA's finding of no danger from 1,4-dioxane appeared in the March 23, 2008 Los Angeles Times under the title "Toxicant Finding No Basis for Worry."

¢Family-Medical.blogspot.com mentioned ACSH as a counterpoint to CSPI in its March 2008 list of useful nutrition resources.

¢The March 2008 issue of Reason contained Todd Seavey's cover article on exaggerations about nanotech, "Neither Gods nor Goo."

¢The ShopFloor.org blog piece "Fifty AGs, 50 State Standards"...

For many people, the concept of drinking unpasteurized milk may seem foreign. After all, you cannot legally purchase raw milk in eighteen states, and in four others it can only be purchased as pet food. Even if you could purchase raw milk in your local grocery store, would you want to? Hasn't raw milk been recognized as a microbial hazard since pasteurization began in the 1920s? Apparently not, since there seems to be a growing interest in drinking raw milk, as noted in a recent Boston Globe article.

What is drawing people to raw dairy products? If you have ever had the opportunity to sample fresh milk straight from the cow or unpasteurized cheese from Europe, you...