Ron Bailey wrote an article for the October 2007 issue of Reason magazine derived from his ACSH report on Scrutinizing Industry-Funded Science:
This piece first appeared in the September 28, 2007 New York Post.
It's flu-shot season again. The good news is that we've got plenty of vaccine this year; the bad news is that far too many Americans will skip their shots.
That the tobacco industry is dead set on increasing its appeal to young people should by now be no news to anyone. What seems to surprise Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen (Oct. 1, "Killing the Consumer") is that many magazines are enablers for Big Tobacco.
Yesterday's style section of the New York Times splashed an unappealing picture on its cover: two models backstage at the Prada fashion show in Milan, one on her Blackberry, both smoking cigarettes.
A feature posted in September by ProCon.org on arguments for and against milk consumption notes the positive view of ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava from ACSH's 2001 publication on The Role of Milk in Your Diet:
In this week's New England Journal of Medicine, three separate publications deal with the current status of children's vaccines and the litigation swirling around them. The main article is yet another large study debunking any connection between infants' exposure to mercury in vaccines and autism or any other neurodevelopmental condition. I wonder -- along with thousands of doctors and scientists around the world -- whether there will ever be enough evidence to silence those who continue to make these unfounded assertions?
In an action that will surprise many, the American Dental Association (ADA) has endorsed chewing gum to help prevent cavities. If there's any habit dentists have been warning against for generations, it's chewing gum. So why the apparent U-turn? The difference is that the ADA is espousing the use of sugarless gum, particularly gums sweetened with the sugar alcohols xylitol and sorbitol.
With the flu season fast approaching, it is good to hear that the Food and Drug Administration has approved the nasal influenza vaccine, FluMist, for a larger population -- now including children between the ages of two and five years. Previously, FluMist was only approved for healthy children over five years old and for adults up to the age of forty-nine.
A recent study on Gardasil, a vaccine against the sexually transmitted disease Human Papillomavirus (HPV), has shown that the vaccine is even more effective than originally believed.
A September 20, 2007 piece by Elizabeth Solomont quotes ACSH's Dr. Whelan wondering about the implications of genetic screening for disease risk:
Even those who described themselves as supportive of preventative medicine said there is a question of cost.
"No one really knows where this is going," the president of the American Council on Science and Health, Elizabeth Whelan, said. "It really is going to take a new commitment to spending on prevention."
