A new book from the American Council on Science and Health:
America's War on "Carcinogens": Reassessing the Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk (Go here to order)

What a Fall it's been - in every sense of the word - for drug giant Merck: late September saw its withdrawal of the blockbuster anti-arthritis and pain-relieving drug Vioxx. Then, last week, a new report revealed that a Merck vaccine against the virus that causes almost all cervical cancer was completely effective in a 4-year trial among over two-thousand patients.

To the Editor: Your editorial ("The Merck Case" Nov. 15th) correctly deplores the tactics of tort lawyers in their quest to dismember Merck and get a piece of the billions likely to be re-distributed subsequent to the Vioxx withdrawal. But you are wrong to conflate the needless and unjust assaults on the pharmaceutical industry with the well-justified litigation against the tobacco industry.

A November 13, 2004 Star Tribune article, "Summary of Vice President Dick Cheney's Heart Problems" recently reported that Cheney suffered four heart attacks in 1978, 1984, 1988, and 2000 -- with a history of heart surgery and treatment since the last heart attack. Just this month Cheney was admitted to the hospital because of concerns about his heart due to shortness of breath.

The November 15, 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer article "Scientists Are in Dispute Over Acrylamide" by Virginia A. Smith quoted scaremongers such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Michael Jacobson on fears over acrylamide in foods, then quoted ACSH's Jeff Stier for a different perspective:

Anyone who reads magazines, watches TV, or listens to the radio must have come across ads for a myriad of diet aids that promise effortless weight loss -- sometimes even while one sleeps -- no dieting or exercising required. Although we, and many others, have warned consumers that such products are bound to be scams, there are still plenty of them out there. And with the increasing prevalence of obesity in America, the market for such scams is surely growing.

"Despite all the controversy about diet...a calorie is a calorie is a calorie."
--Dr. Ernst Schaefer of Tufts University in Boston, who led a study that found that restricting certain food groups is not an effective weight loss approach, as quoted November 9 by Reuters.

The way some groups discuss the risk of exposure to mercury one might think that all Americans face a variety of immediate, dire health consequences. In particular, some groups have warned that Americans should avoid all fish likely to contain any mercury. But with mercury, as with any toxic compound, the danger is proportional to the dose to which a person is exposed. The segment of the population that is most likely to be affected by mercury exposure includes young children and women of childbearing age.

To the Editor:
Re the Personal Health column "No Vaccines? You Can Still Fight the Flu" (Nov. 2): I agree with the author's suggestions for hygienic approaches to reducing the spread of influenza, but there is currently no evidence that echinacea helps in the prevention or treatment of flu, and it can have side effects.
Also, if enough vaccine can be produced, immunizing all schoolchildren can prevent many flu-related deaths in the elderly, as demonstrated by Japan in the 1980s.
Dr. Gilbert L. Ross
New York

The Novemeber 3-9, 2004 column "Political Potpourri" by Becky Fenger from SonoranNews.com quoted ACSH's Rivka Weiser:
One can always count on scalawags to exploit the health fear of the hour.