Alzheimer’s disease is a condition afflicting about 26 million people worldwide, a number that is estimated to markedly increase as a greater proportion of the population ages. Unfortunately, there are very few, if any, effective treatments to counter the disease, and scientists are still trying to figure out what causes it.

As Japan struggles to recover from the crippling effects of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, workers at the Fukushima Nuclear Facility are still working around the clock to minimize the spread of radiation from the leaky reactors.

A headline in yesterday’s Los Angeles Times titled “Psoriasis linked to heart disease, diabetes, other cardiovascular conditions” had ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross grumbling. “Psoriasis is associated with metabolic syndrome and obesity, according to the reported study results, but isn’t directly linked to adverse cardiovascular events,” he clarifies.

Why so many drug companies are failing is the question ACSH’s Dr. Josh Bloom examines in his op-ed published yesterday by Medical Progress Today. Following the “golden years” of pharmaceutical research in the 1990s, many blockbuster drugs, such as Pfizer’s cholesterol drug Lipitor, are facing patent expiration; and with few promising products in the pipeline, big pharma is starting to source their R&D departments abroad to cut costs.

Anti-vaccine hysteria is coming to Times Square. CBS has sold ad space to the so-called National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) on its Times Square JumboTron. That group — whose mission is to spread anti-vaccine hysteria far and wide — will, if CBS allows it, run a video clip sponsored by known anti-vaccine activist Joe Mercola.

The CDC reports that the rate of supplement use — including multivitamins — hovered around 40 percent of the U.S. adult population between 2003 and 2008. The latest results suggest that most vitamin and supplement users are educated and maintain a healthy diet. Unlike many of the prior surveys, though, the most recent ones, which have included more than 2,000 participants each year, asked respondents why they take the vitamins.

Monsanto is one step away from receiving FDA approval for their genetically modified soybeans that will produce omega-3 fatty acids. The new soybeans will be used to produce Monsanto’s brand “steridonic acid (SDA) soybean oil” to fortify consumer food products, such as cereals and baked goods. “This could be a beneficial, genetically improved product,” says ACSH's Dr.

Given the current trends in health media, it seems that anyone can say anything is toxic these days. Such is the case with the lengthy piece in yesterday’s The New York Times by Gary Taubes that describes the anti-sugar lecture, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” by Robert Lustig, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Yesterday Forbes.com featured a side-by-side comparison of two recently published books dealing with chemical risks, in which Hoover Institution Fellow and ACSH friend Dr. Henry Miller discusses ACSH’s latest publication Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health. He then goes on to compare it to a contemporary philosophical work by Carl Cranor, who touts a precautionary approach to suspect (all) chemicals.

Appearing on Cleveland s NPR radio show The Sound of Ideas yesterday, ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross spoke to listeners about the Healthy Cleveland Initiative, a partnership between the city and four major hospitals, which seeks to make Northeast Ohioans more fit by promoting better choices. Some of these ideas are valid others, such as banning smoking in more public places and eliminating trans-fats are not.