Glaucoma is a threat to vision caused by elevated fluid pressure in the eye. The most common type, open-angle glaucoma, affects more than two million people annually and can lead to optic nerve damage. Now, a study just published in the Archives of Ophthalmology has found that more frequent visual tests result in earlier discovery thus allowing earlier treatment of the progression of glaucoma.

And, speaking of mistruths in advertising, soy supplements are another product whose health claims have not panned out.

Antioxidants are the panacea that has never quite panned out. Pom Wonderful (the pomegranate juice in the funny bottle), for instance, made its name with claims of its extraordinary antioxidant content. Tell people a product has antioxidants and many are eager to lap it up, eager for the benefits to their immune system, complexion, mental health, heart, joints, and just about everything else.

The widespread West Nile virus epidemic could have been easily prevented if more rigorous insecticide spraying had been implemented in the summer of 1999, when the virus was first detected in birds in the NY region, said ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross, in yesterday s Dispatch. But ACSH advisor Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, would like to clarify Dr.

In a special article for the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Steve Dudley reminds parents that, since their kids don t live in a vacuum, there should be no delay in getting them immunized. For those who avoid vaccinating their children out of fear of Big Pharma conspiracy theories or because they still think that vaccines cause autism, Dr.

Though they often gain widespread media attention, genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Crohn s disease are actually considered rare. In fact, since they afflict fewer than 200,000 individuals in the U.S., they re classified as orphan diseases by the National Institutes of Health. However, at least 7,000 such rare diseases exist, and though they cumulatively affect over 30 million Americans and 250 million people worldwide, there is a paucity of approved drugs for the majority of these ailments.

Speaking of smokers, ACSH would like to applaud famed actress Catherine Zeta-Jones for her recent efforts to quit smoking by using electronic cigarettes. According to OK magazine, she s been using this method of clean nicotine delivery for three months now. Our only hope is that more smokers are made aware of the potential benefits of using e-cigarettes to quit their habit of deadly cigarettes.

For those smokers who don t feel the need to light up first thing in the morning, a new study published in the journal Cancer provides some seemingly good news. Researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine compared the behavior of nearly 5,000 smokers with lung cancer to that of almost 3,000 smokers without cancer.

We d like to take a moment to remember former New York Governor Hugh Carey. In addition to accomplishing a great deal during his two terms as governor (1974-1982), Carey was an enduring supporter and friend of ACSH. Here, you can read a 2004 interview ACSH conducted with the former governor, a discussion that touches on the Love Canal controversy and on chemophobia in general.

Pack-a-day smokers are increasingly rare in the average U.S. high school; however, a study just published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine has found that teenagers are more likely to be casual, or social, smokers.