Following the devastation of Japan’s magnitude 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami, the nation is fighting to maintain a semblance of stability and order as ominous newspaper headlines warn of a potential meltdown at the Fukushima plants. While the actual health threat as far as radiation exposure remains unclear, what is certain is that millions of Japanese victims have been injured, suffering lacerations, crush wounds and trauma and are now threatened with the prospect of disease spread by contaminated water.

Following our coverage last week of glorified paralegal and environmental activist Erin Brockovich’s attempts to revive the hexavalent chromium/cancer link in Hinkley, California — despite strong evidence to the contrary, ACSH ally Marjorie Peters sent us a letter of praise:

Last month, we reported on a study by Drs. Donald Roberts and Richard Tren of Africa Fighting Malaria on the life-saving anti-malaria benefits of DDT spraying. Predictably, the study received harsh but misguided criticism from frequent anti-DDT blogger Tim Lambert. Below is an excerpt from Dr. Roberts’ published counter-argument to Lambert’s “outrageous commentary [attempting] to claim our data were wrong:”

A new study may allow breastfeeding mothers who need a stronger pain medication after giving birth to heave a sigh of relief.

On Friday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) officially launched its database for consumer complaints but has already been met with industry concerns. The New York Times interviewed Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas), who argues that the database, called SaferProducts.gov, should be stripped of funding and delayed until certain defects can be ironed out.

In the wake of a back-to-back 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, Japan is working tirelessly to rescue thousands of missing and injured residents and repair its ravaged neighborhoods. Now, many are also worrying over the potential for radiation emission from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant reactors that experienced cooling and pressure problems as a result of the natural disaster.

While speaking to over 30 University of North Carolina Wilmington students, Paul Turner Jr., director of the N.C. Spit Tobacco Education Program and former director of the CDC’s oral health division, haphazardly groups various smokeless nicotine products, including dip, snuff and snus, into one category — harmful to human health — despite each having its own risk profile.

A new meta-analysis concludes that up to 100 million Americans diagnosed with prehypertension do not actually face an increased risk of blood-pressure related health consequences. Published in The Journal of General Internal Medicine, the results were derived from two decades of blood pressure data on 13,792 people from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

It turns out that a morning cup of joe may not only put a pep in your step, but it may also reduce your risk of stroke, according to a new study published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Until recently, patients diagnosed with active, autoantibody-positive lupus, or systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), were treated with decades-old sub-optimal therapies such as aspirin, anti-malarials (Plaquenil), corticosteroids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. But on Wednesday, the FDA approved Human Genome Sciences’ Benlysta, the first new drug on the market to treat lupus in over 50 years.