New York, NY March 1998. A number of West Coast high school students have been awarded monetary prizes in the first Health in the Media essay contest sponsored by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a national nonprofit health-education consortium.
Ten exemplary schools in California, Nevada, and Washington were invited to participate in ACSH's Health in the Media: Separating Science from Sensationalism essay contest. Students were asked to write a 750-word essay answering the following questions: Does the media exaggerate or distort news about health and nutrition? Are irrational fears about health risks stirred up by the media? and, Does the media promote unnecessary scares and so-called medical breakthroughs?
The topics of the winning essays ranged from the appropriateness of extrapolating the results of cancer tests in rats to humans, to the portrayal of (and confusion concerning) issues such as cloning, mad cow disease, and other sensationalized, uncommon diseases.
Grand prize winner Marisa Yauch opined, "It is not right that the media relays unfinished experiments concerning health to consumers before they have all the facts. Until they have valid proof that a product does indeed cause cancer in humans, they have no right frightening us."
Each contest entrant received a Certificate of Participation and a copy of ACSH's landmark book, Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn't Tell You.
ACSH undertook this contest to establish a relationship with secondary schools and to counter the often one-sided view of health and environmental issues fed to young people by the media and increasingly by their textbooks.
In April 1997, after an examination of health- and environmental-education materials used widely in U.S. classrooms, the Independent Commission on Environmental Education concluded that many of the materials contained serious flaws and factual errors. Organizing its own evaluation, ACSH asked select members of its advisory board to evaluate five of the more prominent health textbooks being used in U.S. high schools today. One of the reviewers, Dr. Dade Moeller, emeritus professor of environmental health at Harvard University, summed up ACSH's findings as follows: "Make no mistake about it, the situation is far more serious than many of us realize."
According to ACSH President Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, the Council "hopes to continue projects such as the high school essay contest in order to bring scientifically balanced information to the classroom. Too often," she adds, "the field of environmental and health education in schools is dominated by those who wish to present a view of science and technology that is antigrowth, antireason, antiprogress and anti-free enterprise, and of greatest concern anti-peer-reviewed science."
The top prizes were awarded as follows:
* Grand Prize ($100), to Marisa Yauch of Bellarmine Preparatory School, Tacoma, Washington
* Second Prize ($75), to Kristina M. Leipzig of St. Mary's Academy, Portland, Oregon
* Third Prize ($50), to Kyle Warneck of Bellarmine College Preparatory, San Jose, California
* Fourth Prize ($25), to Alex Chrisman of Bellarmine College Preparatory, San Jose, California
The contest was funded by a generous grant from the E. L. Wiegand Foundation of Reno, Nevada.