Concerned that high-fructose corn syrup is getting a bad rap for causing obesity, the Corn Refiners Association yesterday asked the FDA for permission to change the name of their product to corn sugar. Despite people’s fears, most nutrition experts agree that the sweetener is no worse for you than regular sugar. (“cane sugar”).
Following our article in Dispatch yesterday on an award to be named in honor of Dr. Frances Kelsey, the FDA official who kept thalidomide off the market in the U.S., we heard from two of our advisors questioning just how heroic her actions were.
Brad Rodu writes:
National Review Online took some time away from discussing yesterday’s primary results to publish ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan’s review of 3 Billion and Counting, Dr. Rutledge Taylor’s new documentary on how the worldwide ban on DDT has caused countless malaria deaths:
Today s Wall Street Journal reports that over-the-counter herbal supplements are about to undergo increased scrutiny now that the FDA is increasing funding toward evaluating their safety and efficacy.
The FDA today began re-re-reevaluating AAtrex, Syngenta Crop Protection s brand name for the 50-year-old herbicide atrazine, which opponents allege is a potential carcinogen and endocrine disrupter.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg will honor former FDA official Frances Kelsey, MD, PhD, with the first annual Kelsey Award tomorrow the 50th anniversary of Kelsey s refusal to authorize the marketing of thalidomide in the U.S. to pregnant women for the relief of morning-sickness.
It’s enough to give you heartburn. San Francisco legislators — apparently having solved all of the city’s other problems — have decided to target Happy Meals. The Board of Supervisors is debating a proposal to ban toys from the entrées — unless the meal includes a half a cup of fresh fruit or three quarters of a cup of fresh vegetables, and doesn’t contain more than 600 calories.
Americans over the weekend honored the victims killed in the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
ACSH staffers would like to remind our readers that they should take the necessary precautions for terrorism preparedness by reading ACSH’s publication A Citizen's Guide to Terrorism Preparedness and Response.
“The most important thing people can do is to be educated. Knowledge will overcome fear,” ACSH's Jeff Stier reminds us.
Even though alcohol has been denied to the 33 miners trapped underground for over a month in a mine near Chile, their request for cigarettes was finally granted, and the miners will now share a ration of two packs per day. Though they were provided with nicotine patches and gum previously, the miners said it did little to alleviate their tobacco cravings.
“Well then why don’t we send them smokeless tobacco or clean nicotine such as e-cigs?” wonders ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross.
