News has just broken of a man, apparently a drummer in a band, contracting inhalation anthrax, not from a terror attack (as happened in 2001 shortly after 9/11) but from touching an animal hide, or so initial reports suggest.
For more information on anthrax, from the mundane encounters to nightmare scenarios, please read ACSH's full report on the topic, Anthrax: What You Need to Know.

Pop the bag into the microwave and in two minutes you can be stuffing handfuls of greasy popcorn into your mouth -- along with a dose of perfluorochemicals! Consumers may be quite willing to put up with messy hands when they eat popcorn, but they certainly don't want to see an oil-stained package on the shelf. And that's where perfluorochemicals come in. Added to the packaging material, they impart grease-resistant properties. Unfortunately, they also have a tendency to migrate into the oily goo that is added to the popcorn to simulate butter. So why should we care?

This article appeared in the Washington Times.
A commission of the World Trade Organization has held the European Union's 1998-2004 moratorium on planting and importing genetically-modified food and cotton was not based on science. Hooray.

A February 17, 2006 article by Karen Matthews in The Repository quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava:

A February 12, 2006 article by Kerry Burke in the New York Daily News describes "freegans," a subculture of garbage-eating activists who combat what many of them see as the food waste inherent in a consumer society -- by

The February 2006 (vol. 2, issue 20) Scientist contains a letter to the editor from ACSH Advisor S. Fred Singer, of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, who notes some of the forgotten science in the debate about mandating that industry phase out the fumigant methyl bromide:
¢ About two-thirds of the methyl bromide entering the atmosphere is of natural origin, mainly from the oceans.

A February 8, 2006 letter to the editor by Stephen Helfer of Cambridge, MA denounced the agitation in Utah for smoking bans, citing ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan:
The largest study done to date, peer-reviewed and published in the May 17, 2003, British Medical Journal, found no increased risk of lung cancer or heart disease associated with SHS exposure.

A February 8, 2006 article by Temba Nolutshungu denounces regulations that keep biotech crops from hungry Africans, and ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is mentioned:

Three new studies make the treatment of pregnant women suffering from depression somewhat more complicated.

For years, Americans have been bombarded with dietary advice -- much of it conflicting -- that asserts that diet composition per se has a major impact on health. Claims that high-fiber diets protect against colon cancer haven't been supported by scientific research, for example. Nor have low-carbohydrate diets been shown to be better for weight loss than low-fat diets.