Yesterday, the EPA officially declared environmental carbon dioxide to be a public health threat.
An increase in the prevalence of cavities in children has prompted dental experts to seek out new ways to fight tooth decay.
"We encourage the development of new technology to address these problems," says ACSH's Jeff Stier. "However, it's also important that we continue to use old technologies that are proven to work, such as water fluoridation."
ACSH staffers were pleased, though not surprised, to learn that cancer rates in the U.S. continue to decline, according to a report from a group of cancer and health organizations including the National Cancer Institute.
Two weeks ago, Dispatch mentioned that Lincoln University in Pennsylvania considered requiring that clinically obese students take a "Fitness for Life" course before they could graduate. According to the Associated Press, "faculty nixed the idea this week amid complaints the so-called 'fat course' undermined a school principle of equal treatment."
"They had good intentions in mind, but apparently that was not the way to handle it," says Dr. Whelan. "If you're going to require obese students to take a health course, why not do the same cigarette smokers?"
A San Francisco-based consumer group has declared the popular "Zhu Zhu Pets" toys to be hazardous because they contain the metalloid antimony in concentrations up to 46 parts per million (ppm) above allowable levels.
"There is no evidence that antimony at these miniscule levels causes harm," says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross, who wrote about overregulation of chemicals for Forbes. "This group only did this to get publicity, and they succeeded. We only address this to say that parents shouldn't be concerned, and the public shouldn't be fooled by these alarmists."
ACSH Trustee Dr. Henry Miller of Stanford's Hoover Institution argues in today's Washington Times that "the H1N1 immunization effort should be a wake-up call to health officials: We are woefully unprepared to deal with a true pandemic of a highly lethal virus. We need to modernize the technology used to make vaccines, so that they can be developed and manufactured more quickly. If large numbers of people were being killed by H1N1, shortages of vaccine would cause riots."
Last week, New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof attended a "fascinating symposium" with notorious alarmist Dr. Philip Landrigan at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Dr. Landrigan's transparent anti-chemical agenda left the impressionable Kristof with many questions. He wrote in Saturday's issue, "What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens?
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports that the rate of smokers twelve to seventeen years old using menthol cigarettes rose to 48 percent in 2008 from 44 percent in 2004.
ACSH staffers are very impressed with the progress of the Red Cross Measles Initiative. Their website reports, "[M]easles deaths worldwide fell by 78% between 2000 and 2008, from an estimated 733,000 in 2000 to 164,000 in 2008. However, global immunization experts warn of a resurgence in measles deaths if vaccination efforts are not sustained."
The National Cancer Institute reports that one- and two-year survival rates for patients with advanced lung cancer have increased slightly over the past twenty years.
"There has been some improvement, but it's quite minimal," says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. "This just emphasizes the seriousness of lung cancer. It's a disease is so severe that we're celebrating even very small improvements in survival rates."
