From the deceptive marketing behind "natural flavors" to junk science fueling anti-plastics campaigns, we continue to drive the national science and health discussion. Here's a look at recent media pickups and features highlighting ACSH coverage across the digital landscape.
US Magazine featured an in-depth breakdown of food labeling regulations, drawing heavily on ACSH’s long-standing guidance regarding "natural" versus "artificial" flavors. The piece notes that consumers often view "natural flavor" as a health halo, while we point out the inconvenient reality: the label describes the source of a chemical, not its safety. We reminded readers that lab-synthesized flavors are often 100 percent pure, whereas plant-derived versions sometimes are not, and cautioned that shoppers shouldn't treat "natural" as a health claim.
The Daily Caller highlighted Dr. Josh Bloom’s expert analysis regarding CNN’s recent, alarmist report on plastics. Dr. Bloom dismantled the study’s central claim—that over 90 percent of household items contain hazardous chemicals—by noting that the report relied on a highly selective subset of data. He explained that the report mistakenly equates the mere presence of a substance with a high-risk exposure, ignoring the critical toxicological reality that "presence isn't exposure, exposure isn't absorption, absorption isn't dose, and dose isn't harm."
Ground News featured Dr. Barbara Billauer's explanation of why the trial bar is increasingly targeting autonomous vehicle technology. In an era where human error accounts for the vast majority of traffic accidents, she highlighted how litigious interests are attempting to stymie the deployment of life-saving self-driving technology. By framing rare, non-fatal software glitches as existential threats, these legal interests are effectively lobbying to preserve a status quo where human negligence continues to claim thousands of lives every year.
RealClearHealth showcased Dr. Chuck Dinerstein’s recent analysis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) research. In Autism’s Fellow Travelers: The trouble with finding a cause, Dr. Dinerstein explored the difficulty of distinguishing genuine biological risk factors from the social and environmental "fellow travelers" that accompany them. By analyzing a massive retrospective observational study, he underscored the urgent need for initiatives to separate potentially causal exposures from the complex web of comorbidities—such as maternal health conditions and social determinants—that currently confound our understanding of rising ASD diagnoses.
WLW’s Saturday Morning w/ Gary Jeff Walker featured a dedicated segment breaking down ACSH’s recent review of a two-year clinical trial comparing diet soda to water for weight loss. The hosts highlighted the study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, pointing out that non-nutritive sweetened beverages performed just as well as water in helping participants shed pounds and keep them off. Echoing our signature Science Dispatch sign-off, the team reminded listeners that while there are no magical health elixirs, swapping sugary drinks for diet options is a genuinely useful, practical tool for weight management.
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