The November 11, 2004 issue of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) celebrated the fifth anniversary of the release by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the monograph To Err is Human.(1) The NEJM editorial by Drew Altman, Ph.D. (Kaiser Family Foundation), Carolyn Clancy, M.D. (U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), and Robert Blendon, Sc.D. (Harvard School of Public Health) repeated the old assertion of a patient safety crisis in which 44,000 to 98,000 patients died in American hospitals each year due to preventable medical errors.(2)

A January 6, 2005 editorial from the board of the New York Sun denounced New York governor George Pataki for ignoring the state's fiscal problems and focusing on non-issues like banning "toxic" cleaning products from state buildings. The piece quoted ACSH's Jeff Stier:

Scientists may have some hope to offer newly elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko in his efforts to combat his reported recent dioxin poisoning. It's not a freshly discovered wonder drug. It's not an all-natural diet of organic fresh fruits and vegetables. Indeed, Yushchenko's relief may come in the form of potato chips.

Tragedies are great teachers, but unfortunately too many people draw the wrong lessons from them. Not too long ago, major tragedies were interpreted as some form of divine retribution for our sins. Now, geology (plate tectonics and volcanology), meteorology, other sciences offer hope for preventative and ameliorative actions.

This 2005 report by the American Council on Science and Health reviews the evidence and finds that low doses of bisphenol A (BPA) aren't a threat to human health.

Executive Summary
The environmental movement cut its eyeteeth on the controversy over polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which first came to public attention in the 1960s. PCBs were once widely used in industrial applications, particularly as electrical insulating and heat-exchange fluids. Concern over possible adverse effects on the environment and human health, however, resulted in the prohibition of PCB production in the U.S. and most other industrialized countries.

A January 3, 2005 column called "Group Lists Top Unfounded Health Scares of 2004" by Andi Atwater on www.News-Press.com recounts ACSH's report The Top Ten Unfounded Health Scares of 2004:

In addition to your nuanced counsel on dealing with the crescendo of dire warnings about various drugs ("The Painkiller Panic", Dec. 23), another factor that should be considered in the precipitous withdrawal of Vioxx and the untoward panic about various pain-relievers is the vast potential of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs) in the chemoprevention of cancer.
Rheumatologists (such as myself) had been aware for many years of preliminary reports of reduced rates of various cancers (notably colorectal cancer) among arthritis patients on long-term NSAIDs.

Michael Crichton -- Michael Crichton, M.D., to be precise -- is of course well known for his techno-thrillers The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, plus more than a dozen other novels and non-fiction works. State of Fear (HarperCollins, 603 pages, $27.95) is a little different. While constructed as a novel, it is also a guide to environmental issues and their advocates, principally the problem of climate change.

In a previous piece, I criticized the science behind some pivotal air pollution studies. In this follow-up, I look at some of the legal consequences of that bad science.