Bupropion, a drug taken for smoking cessation and prescribed most often for adults, is yielding only short-lived results in adolescents according to an article in the November issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. Each year 1.5 million adolescents in the U.S. light up for the first time and 416,000 of those go on to make it a daily habit. The numbers are staggering and unfortunately our current cessation treatment methods are showing little success, and even that success is often short-lived.

November 15th marks the thirty-first annual "Great American Smokeout," a campaign initially undertaken by the American Cancer Society, whose goal was to encourage smokers to quit -- even if only for one day -- hoping this would lead to prolonged abstinence from cigarettes.

A November 13, 2007 piece by Jeff Poor quoted ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava on a rather misleading CBS piece about carbon monoxide use in meat packaging:
CBS Early Show correspondent Chip Reid used hamburger meat dated Nov. 26, 2005, to suggest consumers could be hoodwinked by meat packagers that use carbon monoxide in what is known as modified atmosphere packaging (MAP-CO).
"This meat is almost two years old, and it’s still red,” Reid said on the November 13 show.

A new report in today's Journal of the American Medical Association documents the profound decline in vaccine-preventable disease and death for those infections with vaccines approved before 1980. The lifesaving effect of vaccines released subsequent to 1980 has also been dramatic, although somewhat less so than the older vaccines. The diseases eliminated -- or nearly eliminated -- include diphtheria, measles, mumps, pertussis (whooping cough), polio, congenital rubella syndrome (German measles), smallpox, and tetanus.

Are beta-carotene supplements on the way back? In the early 1990s beta-carotene was the darling of supplement purveyors as several observational epidemiologic studies had shown an association between consumption of beta-carotene-rich foods, beta-carotene levels in blood, and reduced risk of some chronic diseases. Mid-decade, though, randomized trials of beta-carotene supplements in smokers not only found no benefit to the pills, but even some slight increases in risk of lung cancer.

Well, it turns out that the adage, "You can never be too rich or too thin," is only half true.
In a study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a team of researchers found that those who were either underweight or obese had higher death rates than those in the normal range. Perhaps that's not such a surprise. But the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) researchers also say overall mortality is reduced if you are a bit overweight.

A November 9, 2007 piece on diet mistakes quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava:
Most Americans, 76 percent in fact, believe they have healthy eating habits, according to a 2004 poll by Ipsos-Insight. Yet 57 percent of the nearly 4,000 adults polled also considered themselves overweight. How can this be? Either the healthy eaters aren't being active enough, or we all have different definitions of "healthy eating."

A November 8, 2007 "Planet in Peril" piece hosted by CNN's Anderson Cooper featured ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan responding to anti-chemical hype:
COOPER: Elizabeth, let's start with you. You think a lot of this is overblown. Most of it -- the presence of chemicals doesn't necessarily mean...

A new study by Belgian researchers found that taking oral contraceptives increases a woman's risk of atherosclerosis. A preliminary report of a study presented at the American Heart Association meeting indicated a small increase in the occurrence of fatty deposits in the arteries of the women studied, as evaluated by sonograms of the carotid and femoral arteries. The authors, led by Dr.

This piece first appeared November 7, 2007 in the Washington Times and was reprinted on November 13 on South Korea's Segye.com: