Biodiversity -- the variety of life, ecosystems, species, populations, and genes -- may at first seem like an issue merely for the environmentalists and hippies, far removed from the medical community. But if you think that the recent flurry of deadly emergent diseases such as SARS, Ebola, bird flu, West Nile, and even AIDS are unrelated to environmental issues -- think again.
The loss of biodiversity changes patterns of infectious disease.

Readers of Dr. Baltimore's article may have come away with the wrong impression about the utility of stockpiling the current experimental vaccine against avian influenza (H5N1). While I agree with his general tone -- we at all levels of public health should be ratcheting up our preparedness level against a possible incursion of H5N1 -- his advice on vaccine stockpiling is somewhat misleading.

This article appeared on HealthNewsDigest.com.

In the words of Carl Sagan: "We've arranged a global civilization in which most critical elements depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster."

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (A.L.S.), a fatal neurodegenerative disease for which there is no effective treatment, is something of an orphan disease in America despite the approximately 5,600 cases that are diagnosed each year. But A.L.S., also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, has been garnering some long-overdue attention lately. Project A.L.S., a nonprofit organization dedicated to funding A.L.S.

An October 26, 2005 article from MedPageToday about new nutritional information on McDonald's food wrappers quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava, who applauds the move -- and recognizes that wrappers can't transform American eaters:

New York, NY -- October 26, 2005. Scientists and physicians associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) today applauded the move by fast food giant McDonald's to add nutrition labels to its food packages. According to the company's announcement, in the U.S. and Canada the packaging of most of its food items will carry the information and format consumers are used to seeing on food labels as well as new icons and bar charts indicating what percentages of daily requirements for calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, and sodium are contained in the foods.

The November/December 2005 issue of Mother Jones included a personal attack on ACSH Medical and Executive Director Dr. Gilbert Ross.
Here is a personal response from ACSH President Dr. Elizabeth Whelan:
http://www.acsh.org/news/newsID.1207/news_detail.asp
Here is a statement from members of ACSH's Founders Circle:
http://www.acsh.org/news/newsID.1211/news_detail.asp
The text of both statements follows:

A new report in the current Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) indicates that vaccinating infants and toddlers against a group of pneumonia-causing bacteria has had the unintended effect of reducing the toll of "invasive pneumococcal disease" (IPD) among older Americans as well ("pneumococcus" is the commonly used name for the bacteria whose infections are prevented by the vaccine, which is called PCV-7; the serious diseases caused by the pneumococcus are pneumonia, bacteremia, and meningitis).

The November/December 2005 issue of Mother Jones included a personal attack on ACSH Medical and Executive Director Dr. Gilbert Ross.
Here is a personal response from ACSH President Dr. Elizabeth Whelan:
http://www.acsh.org/news/newsID.1207/news_detail.asp
Here is a statement from members of ACSH's Founders Circle:
http://www.acsh.org/news/newsID.1211/news_detail.asp