When ACSH writes about bloodsucking creatures, you might expect to read an article about plaintiff's attorneys suing over multiple chemical sensitivity. But this time, we are writing about the actual aquatic animal, the leech, which is almost synonymous with pre-modern medicine.

Scientists at a private fertility clinic in Chicago isolated twelve new embryonic stem cell lines from genetically flawed human embryos, the Associated Press recently reported. The embryos, which had a total of seven mutations related to genetic diseases, were donated by couples who underwent prenatal genetic screening at the Reproductive Genetics Institute in Chicago. The embryos likely would never have been chosen for implantation given their genetic conditions.

Last week we cheered the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for challenging the makers of quack weight loss supplements for children.
This week, the FTC's chairman deserves another honorable mention, this time, for standing up to the Center for Science and the Public Interest and its allies who seek to ban television commercials for "junk food" directed at children.

"British Study Sees Scant Value in Alzehimer's Drug Aricept," according the New York Times headline. Indeed, the latest study, which asked whether Aricept is a cost-efficient treatment in the British government-sponsored system, confirms what we already knew: we need better Alzheimer's medicines.

A June 24 article by Daniel Moreau noted that the Naderite NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) is repeating the groundless fears over arsenic-based compounds in playground equipment, but the article quoted ACSH's Jeff Stier for perspective:
[Stier] described the possibility of arsenic poisoning from playgrounds as a "nonissue."
"You can't get AIDS from shaking someone's hand," Mr. Stier said. "Likewise, you can't get cancer from playing on pressure-treated wood -- unless you're eating or sucking the wood.

The June 22nd CBS Evening News item "Vaccines Linked to Autism" by Sharyl Attkisson was a journalistic atrocity. Based on the litany of unsupported claims, and the obvious reliance on anecdotal evidence over sound science, I would guess her information came from an alarmist group still looking to blame thimerosal, a mercury-derived vaccine preservative, for causing autism.

There is never a bad time to quit, no matter how hard it is, considering the deleterious effects smoking has on the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and reproductive systems but some effects of smoking are permanent. Does quitting substantially decrease the damaging, continuing effects that years of smoking have on the body?

We've said it before, and we'll keep saying it: The fact that a food or supplement is "natural," i.e., non-synthetic, doesn't necessarily mean that it is always safe. Such beliefs underlie at least some of the popularity of herbal supplements the market for such products reached an estimated $20 billion plus last year, according to the Wall Street Journal.1 Unfortunately, along with the increasing popularity of these products comes the potential for increasing health risks.

With all the media coverage of alleged "carcinogens," it is no wonder that Americans are confused as they try to distinguish the real from the hypothetical causes of human cancer. Over the past few years alone, the media have reported claims from various so-called "environmental" groups about cancer threats from PCB traces in farmed salmon, acrylamide in French fries, nitrite in hot dogs, PCBs in the Hudson River, dioxin in paper towels, and trace levels of naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water.

This mention of ACSH's survey of magazines' health reporting appeared in the New York Daily News: