Dr. Norman Borlaug, Noble Peace Prize Laureate and one of ACSH s founding trustees, was a renowned agronomist and humanitarian. For his pioneering work in plant breeding, he was known as the Father of the Green Revolution. And for his work that brought desperately needed crops to developing countries, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Our Daily Bread, a new biography of Dr. Borlaug, was published this fall, and former ACSH trustee Dr. Henry I. Miller, now a Hoover Institute fellow, praises this account of Dr.

A plethora of age-related health conditions might, in fact, be a question of declining vision, Laurie Tarkin reports in this week s health and science section of The New York Times. Tarkin looks specifically at groundbreaking research by two ophthalmologists at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, as well as a researcher at Brown University.

Women, more often than men, experience atypical chest pain, or none at all, when having a heart attack a disparity that significantly increases their risk of dying while in the hospital, reports a new, large study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In October, we discussed the first test to analyze an expectant mother's blood early in pregnancy to detect Down syndrome. This was a boon, since older, invasive tests, such as the conventional methods of amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling, carry a slight risk of premature labor or miscarriage.

How can we help level the playing field in the game of regulatory approvals between upstart biotech firms and Big Pharma? By supporting a new bill that would expand the FDA s accelerated approval process to a broader range of diseases. At least that s what Avik Roy, a Senior Fellow in health care policy at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, is suggesting in a recent Forbes op-ed.

It is known that barrier methods, especially condoms, are the most effective means of preventing the spread of HIV. However, in developing countries, regular condom use is difficult for a variety of reasons; thus, for contraceptive purposes, an injection of birth control hormones, which lasts for months, can be more feasible.

A review and meta-analysis published in the Annals of Internal Medicine finds that extra calories, not fructose itself, are most likely responsible for weight gain. It s a noteworthy analysis, given fructose s current, notorious association with obesity.

Helping smokers quit has been ACSH s longstanding mission, so we were honored to have our very own Dr. Gilbert Ross organize and moderate a panel on tobacco harm reduction at the annual meeting of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on Saturday.

ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross is off to Vancouver, where he'll speak at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on Saturday, February 18. He'll discuss the importance of using tobacco harm reduction methods to save smokers’ lives. By encouraging smokers to switch from cigarettes to much less harmful sources of nicotine, such as certain forms of smokeless tobacco or electronic cigarettes, we can help greatly reduce the over 400,000 tobacco-related deaths that occur each year in the U.S.

Dr. Gilbert Ross in Forbes, February 17, 2012
How Health Regulators Are Killing American Smokers