"Study finds possible link between autism and mercury preservative in vaccines," screams the headline of the L.A. Times. It seems like a bad, recurring dream: why won't these people go away?
A little historical overview is in order:

An August 31, 1992 National Review piece by Peter Samuel was reprinted by http://nationalreview.com on June 10, 2004 and contains the following ACSH reference:

A June 9 article by Elizabeth Millard notes ACSH's Stier and Whelan:
The presence of protests at gatherings like Bio 2004 has become fairly standard, said Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health. In an interview with the E-Commerce Times, Stier said that although most demonstrators carry signs about the health effects of genetically modified foods, most often it is the presence of large corporations that really bothers them...

A June 8 article about obesity, eating habits, and McDieter Soso Whaley quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava:
Ruth Kava, director of nutrition for the American Council on Science and Health in New York, is analyzing what Whaley ate at McDonald's during the month of April...
According to Kava, during the first week, Whaley kept her calories right around 1,845 per day...
Kava noted that the meals do not include enough fiber, and lack a variety of vegetables and different kinds of meat needed for a healthy diet.

June 8, 2004 A broad range of groups, from landlords to the non-profit Community Preservation Corp., went to court last week to stop the city's new lead-paint law.
Here's hoping Judge Louis York grants the injunction before the law goes into effect Aug. 2 because the law would make it harder for all New Yorkers to get housing.
It's already deterring investment in affordable housing, a reality that will leave more of New York's 40,000-plus homeless in shelters.
Why would the City Council pass a law to increase homelessness?

The first half of 2004 has brought some weird health news. Whether good, bad, or ambiguous, these items are all worth noting:

Last Thursday, there was wide coverage of the fact that cancer rates have fallen according to a new report. There was extensive coverage in many news and TV broadcasts but not in America's newspaper of record.
There were actually two stories about cancer death and incidence rates, and perceptions about these important items, contained in the New York Times' coverage: one about health statistics and one about how little some in the press care about stories that can't be spun as scary.

It's amazing how many people feel comfortable blaming the food industry for the obesity epidemic in the United States. Less surprising is that having blamed industry, people seek to regulate what types of food can be marketed toward children. But refusal to take personal responsibility for eating misleads us into thinking that Americans are fat because of junk food. It also perpetuates the nonsensical claim that food can be separated into two categories: good and bad.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." So states the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution a statement widely interpreted as specifying the "separation of church and state." Perhaps we need an amendment mandating the separation of church and diet, too. Some advocates of certain vegan and/or "raw" diets claim to garner their authority from the Bible presumably one can gain brownie points in heaven by eating according to "God's plan" (but no brownies would be allowed, unfortunately).