The FDA has assembled a panel to study mentholated cigarettes and advise on how the government should regulate them. The panel’s recommendations are expected by next March.
“The menthol issue is very complex, both economically and medically,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross. “A few months ago, I thought it was a slam dunk that the FDA would ban it because of the members of the committee, but the more I’ve read on the issue, the more I believe that there’s no scientific evidence for banning menthol.”

Paul Flynn, vice chair of the Council of Europe’s health committee, believes that the World Health Organization and other public health bodies have “gambled away” public confidence by overstating the dangers of the H1N1 flu pandemic.

Science News reports, Two chemicals that are becoming widely used replacements for potentially toxic flame retardants in household products such as televisions and furniture have shown up in peregrine falcon eggs in California.

The European Chemicals Agency will expand its list of Substances of Very High Concern from the current 29 to a total of 135 by the year 2012, in accordance with Europe’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulation.

A study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience determined that when rats consume high-fat, high-calorie foods in great quantities, it leads to compulsive eating habits that resemble drug addiction.
In addition to the fact that this is a rat study, it does not reflect the way that humans eat, says ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. In fact, this study doesn t even reflect the eating habits of rats, so there s no way it could be a realistic model of human eating habits.

The FDA is debating whether tanning beds should be more strictly regulated, since they have been linked to skin cancer.

A front-page article in today s Wall Street Journal reports, Confronted with the inexorable decline of cigarette sales, Reynolds is transforming itself into a company that also offers an array of smokeless alternatives -- including strips, lozenges, and snuff. Reynolds push into the products comes amid an intensifying debate among public-health professionals about how oral forms of tobacco should be regulated.

ACSH Trustee and Hoover Institution Fellow Dr. Henry Miller, a former FDA official, argues on Forbes.com that many dietary supplements are “complex, highly variable, and impure,” and that they should be more closely scrutinized.”

A research team at Princeton University demonstrated that rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup [HFCS] gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.
This is contrary to many other studies that show that the metabolism of HFCS is the same as that of sucrose, says Dr. Ross. It isn t even concordant with other animal studies.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that middle-aged women with usual diets who averaged an hour of moderate-intensity exercise per day maintained normal weight (BMI < 25) or gained less than five pounds over a thirteen-year period.