Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and Michelle Minton in The Daily Caller, January 28, 2011
Empire State or Nanny State: Suffolk should not ban energy drinks
The FDA may issue stronger health warnings about acrylamide following the release of new toxicological information about the chemical, which is found in many foods when cooked at high temperatures. Because fried potato products are the main source of acrylamide in food, the potato industry is trying to develop new spud varieties that produce lower levels of the compound.
Confused by the story, ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom asks, “How can you ban acrylamide if it’s formed naturally when you cook?”
While visiting the Army’s largest basic training facility in Fort Jackson, S.C., first lady Michelle Obama harped on the importance of reducing childhood obesity by noting that it’s “not just a health issue for children, it’s a national security issue. You have to get the whole country behind this because it’s affecting our ability to protect our freedom.”
As ACSH is preparing to release its new publication Scared to Death: How Chemophobia Threatens Public Health, we were not so surprised to read about three new stories linking chemicals to a multitude of adverse health effects — which is what sadly seems to be a media-fueled national trend these days.
Yo quiero Taco Bell, with 88 percent beef please. That’s the message the chain restaurant delivered today with its full-page print ads featured in prominent newspapers such as The New York Times. Following a lawsuit filed last week in California federal courts that claimed Taco Bell uses a meat mixture in its tacos and burritos that does not meet the U.S.
Due to inclement weather in New York City, ACSH was closed yesterday and was unable to distribute our daily Dispatch. We’re happy to be back on the anti-junk science crusade today with this lineup of great stories.
Yesterday also brought word that the widely-read online journal Salon was deleting a 2005 story by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the purported — but actually non-existent — relationship between autism and childhood vaccination.The son of the former U.S. Attorney General, Kennedy is a lawyer with an undergraduate degree in literature and history.
At a joint press conference yesterday, the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) presented a new labeling system for store-bought food.
A story in yesterday’s Health Day News points out a worrisome trend: increasing rates of head and neck cancer among the middle-aged and even among the young. The article notes that researchers believe this is a direct result of the more common practice of oral sex in the U.S. Through oral sex, the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause these cancers, is transmitted from the genitals to the mouth and larynx.
On average Americans live several years fewer than people in a number of other developed countries like France and Japan. This may seem puzzling as Americans spend more on health care, and American patients do, in fact, live longer following diagnosis of cancer and a number of other serious diseases. Well, a report from the National Research Council released yesterday presents a theory why this might be.
