While we at ACSH have long been working to promote increased immunization rates, lawmakers in many states are contemplating a move in the opposite direction. Seven states are currently considering bills that would make it easier for parents to have their kids skip important childhood vaccinations.

When many people see a label that says organic, they tend to interpret this as a clear sign that the food is both safer and more nutritious than a conventional product. But an organic label doesn t guarantee safety or greater nutritional value, as the results of a new Dartmouth study emphasize. The study focused on organic brown rice syrup a sweetener found in some foods, including certain infant formulas, cereal and energy bars, and high-energy foods consumed by athletes.

It seems like a problem that would exist only in the developing world counterfeit drugs making it into the mainstream market. But American consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about counterfeit medications ending up in their own pharmacies: The FDA has confirmed that a fake version of the cancer drug Avastin was sold to at least 19 doctors and clinics.

Sinus infections are miserable. Anyone suffering from one wants relief as soon as possible. The tricky thing is, the overwhelming majority of such infections are caused by viruses; only about 2 percent of sinus infections are bacterial. Since viral infections do not respond to antibiotics, having your doctor prescribe an antibiotic is unlikely to help.

The basic idea is conventional wisdom: Children who spend more time physically active than their sedentary peers will generally be healthier. Now a new study in the current Journal of the American Medical Association has refined this common understanding, looking specifically at the amount of time spent physically active and sedentary as it relates to certain risk factors in otherwise healthy children.

Is disclosure of conflict of interest always a good thing? A new analysis suggests that the answer is more complex than a simple yes or no. The 2010 health care reform legislation contains a provision requiring drug and medical device manufacturers to publicly report gifts and payments made to physicians and teaching hospitals. Poised to go into effect this year, the provision will subject manufacturers to penalties ranging from $10,000 to $100,000 for each violation.

Stopping just short of declaring lipstick the kiss of death, an activist group devoted to scaring us about cosmetics is claiming that minuscule levels of lead found in lipsticks may cause lead poisoning.

Though we re already halfway through February, this year s influenza season is just starting to pick up steam. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this is the slowest start to the flu season in almost thirty years. Normally the virus prevails in January, though it can hit as early as October and can continue as late as May.

It s the scare that keeps on scaring: The dry cleaning chemical PERC (perchloroethylene, also known as tetrachloroethylene) has been a target of activists and the EPA for most of the past decade. In fact, the EPA first began to investigate the solvent s purported adverse health effects in the 1980s. Just last week, an updated health assessment released by the agency categorized PERC as a likely human carcinogen; now environmental activist groups are sounding the alarms with renewed force.

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) was among the first organizations in the United States to formally endorse tobacco harm reduction (THR) as a way to get smokers to be less risky with their behavior, and when smoking cessation was not s