After reading the headline, Weighing Cancer Risks, From Cellphones To Coffee, ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross was ready to sink his teeth into what he perceived to be yet another anti-chemical news story.
The FDA has all but approved a genetically modified salmon for human consumption, but the politics of the fish s introduction to the open market is proving tricky. On Wednesday, the House voted to prohibit the FDA from approving the salmon, which was engineered by the Massachusetts company Aquabounty to reach market size in half the time of conventional salmon.
It is a common complaint among American doctors, researchers, and investors that the FDA takes much longer than its European counterpart to approve new drugs. However, a seven-year study just published in Health Affairs contradicts the assumption, having found that 23 out of 35 new cancer drugs debuted on the U.S. market before being cleared in Europe.
Pfizer s smoking cessation drug Chantix continues to be problematic since its 2006 appearance in U.S. pharmacies. The prescription drug, which works by blocking nicotine receptors, has already been associated with psychiatric side effects and it now appears to lead to some cardiovascular problems in patients who have a history of heart disease.
Smokers with children should be aware of a new study linking both ear infections and asthma to secondhand smoke in the home. In their study, just published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, Dr. Summer S. Hawkins and Dr. Lisa Berkman of the Harvard Center for Population and Developmental Studies looked at data collected from over 90,000 parents of children up to 17 years of age in the 2007 National Survey of Children s Health.
A newly published study in the Lancet lends more support to the CDC s recommendation that girls as young as 11 and 12 should be vaccinated for human papillomavirus (HPV). In their study, Dr. Julia Brotherton and colleagues reported a nearly 50 percent decrease in precancerous cervical lesions in girls age 12 to 17, two years after Australia introduced a nation-wide HPV vaccination program.
Too much time in front of the tube as little as two hours a day may increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes or heart disease, according to a new meta-analysis (an analysis of previous studies) published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. For the study, a team of Harvard University School of Public Health researchers reviewed eight studies comprised of 200,000 study subjects who were followed for an average of seven to ten years.
The CDC s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) seems to be delaying its decision on whether to approve a new meningococcal (meningitis) vaccine for infants younger than nine months.
On the eastern front, we have yet another example of Mayor Bloomberg s overreaching food bans this time, he s targeting vending machines and concession stands in municipal buildings. His health police gave orders this week to nine vendors, stipulating that they have six months to ensure that beverages containing over 25 calories per eight-ounce serving occupy no more than two slots on any vending machine.
When the Environmental Working Group this week declared much of American produce to be tainted with pesticides, ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross found more than a trace of irony in their latest, much publicized food scare. In his op-ed featured in yesterday s National Post, Dr. Ross observes that the source of a real public health threat the E. coli outbreak in Europe happened to come from an organic farm.
