Matching the flu vaccine with the exact strain of influenza that is hitting the United States in a particular year is difficult -- and it's amazing how accurate the process usually is. But this year there is a fear the matching isn't entirely accurate, meaning there could be an outbreak of flu even among those who were vaccinated. "It's scary," Dr. Whelan noted. "Especially when we're talking about 30,000 deaths from the flu each year."

This weekend ACSH trustee Dr. Henry Miller had a letter to the editor appear in the New York Times. Dr. Miller's letter called for more FDA reforms, he wrote that the agency's most significant problems are "mismanagement and a culture that is excessively risk-averse." Dr. Miller calls for "competent management, discipline in the ranks, more effective risk-benefit balancing, a commitment to permitting patients to assume more responsibility for the risk of medicines and the banishment of politics from regulatory decisions and policy." Dr.

As ACSH discussed last week, the controversy about the Lipitor Dr. Jarvick advertisements is still heated. ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan said she was at a party this weekend and a man couldn't believe anyone cared about Dr. Jarvick, developer of the artificial heart, using a body-double in the television ads -- Lipitor, after all, is a fantastic drug.
"The point is not that Lipitor is not a fantastic drug," Dr. Whelan noted. "The point is that the ad unnecessarily introduced a level of fiction with the use of a stand-in actor for Dr. Jarvick's alleged rowing scenes."

ACSH applauds the animated sitcom King of the Hill, which last night depicted the town of Arlen, Texas, fighting back against a trans fat ban, which was quickly followed by numerous other food bans. Hank Hill and the other "freedom fighters" in the story (who decide to run a black market food van) explicitly chastised the town's fashionable but unscientific new rules by pointing out they'd do nothing to solve problems like childhood obesity. Eventually the bans were overturned -- and we only wish New York City were as wise as Arlen.

China cannot get a break -- just when talk about how polluted the summer Olympics may be in Bejing is dying down, the New York Times publishes a story on steroids in China's chickens. These steroids would show up in athletes' urine drug tests -- meaning if athletes consume such steroid-contaminated poultry in the weeks or days prior to the games they may be unable to compete.
The article reported that Tyson's is flying in 15,000 pounds of chicken for U.S. athletes, but we wonder what this means for athletes whose countries are unable to fly in their own food source.

The Internet can never be wholly trusted for accuracy, especially when it comes to medical information (remember all of the autism videos on YouTube?). Therefore, ACSH staffers were surprised by the small degree of error found on breast cancer websites according to a study published in the journal Cancer it's only 5%.

February 1, 2008: Brits, Salts, Clots, and Counterfeits
- Quote to Note: "This is one of the most promising breakthroughs in the management of high-risk pregnancies in more than thirty years." --Dr. John Thorp, about the study he co-authored on how magnesium sulfate -- a familiar ingredient of Epsom salts -- reduce the risk of cerebral palsy in premature births by 50%.

Some activist "watchdogs" are again attempting to manipulate parents' natural concerns about their babies, without medical or scientific evidence. A few days ago, the uproar was over baby powder and lotions alleged to be delivering toxic phthalates; today, it's baby bottles and plastic water bottles leaching supposedly-toxic bisphenol-A (BPA). Both of these attacks are false.

This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.

This piece first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com and is a revised version of an earlier Washington Times piece.