An October 24, 2005 item by Liz Kowalczyk in the Boston Globe described opposition, started by ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, to the Harvard School of Public Health's award to Erin Brockovich:

We have known and worked with Dr. Gil Ross for various periods of time during his almost eight years at the American Council on Science and Health. Some of us have worked with Gil during his entire tenure, others for shorter periods. We are unanimous in our support for him personally and in our enthusiasm about his performance at ACSH.

Since the publication of the Mother Jones article disparaging Dr. Gilbert Ross, my colleagues and I at the American Council on Science and Health have received a handful of (as of this writing, exactly three) inquiries about the veracity of the article and the circumstances surrounding Dr. Ross's activities.
Although this is hardly a cause celebre, I feel the need to clear the air by offering an overview of ACSH's history with Dr. Ross and his tenure here at ACSH for the past eight years.

Does empirical reality matter? Or, to borrow a term from the title of a folklore journal, do modern minds live in a sort of "mythosphere," concerned only with their own perceptions?

October 19, 2005 -- New York, NY. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) today announces a speaking tour to discuss the threat of an H5N1 influenza outbreak and the status of American preparedness.
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, president of ACSH, will begin this nationwide tour discussing the nature of a potential outbreak of avian influenza, the shortage of anti-viral medicines such as Tamiflu, and the lack of an effective vaccine.

This article appeared on October 14, 2005 on the site MedicalProgressToday.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As has been the case for the last couple of decades, people festooned with pink ribbons will be walking, running, and racing for the cure for breast cancer. We "think pink," but we are led to believe that a cure is something ephemeral, always just out of reach -- although still our goal.

An item in Vol. 310 (October 14, 2005) of Science notes Harvard School of Public Health's award to unscientific activist Erin Brockovich but also notes the reaction of ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and others:

Imagine that you fear you may have a life-threatening disease. Imagine now that this disease is almost always contracted through sexual activity or illicit drug use. Imagine that the stigma attached to this disease is so great that you fear running into someone you know at the doctor's office or wherever you can go to get the test. Would you be more likely to present yourself at a crowded public health clinic to take a diagnostic test, or would you be happier to just take the test in the privacy of your own home?

Results of a two-year study involving over 12,000 women indicate that an experimental vaccine has proven highly effective at preventing cervical cancer and precancerous cervical lesions.

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women -- about 10,000 diagnoses are made each year in the U.S. and about 500,000 worldwide. If cervical cancer were eliminated, approximately 3,700 lives in the U.S. and 250,000 lives worldwide would be saved each year (see http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/results/cervical-cancer-vaccine1102 ). Researchers from two pharmaceutical companies believe that this goal is within reach.