Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia (general mental deterioration) in the United States today. AD occurs primarily, though not exclusively, in the elderly. Although there currently is no established way to prevent or cure AD, a new report by the American Council on Science and Health(ACSH), Alzheimer's Disease: A Status Report For 2002, points out that the current spate of research into new diagnostic methods and pharmaceutical treatment holds hope for the future.

Some people are deeply moved by the idea that there is a more holistic way of viewing human health, that there is a warm, friendly alternative to cold, institutionalized medicine as I learned while conducting interviews for a new "e-monograph" about unconventional medical practices.

A shorter article derived from this "e-monograph" appears in the September/October 2003 issue of Skeptical Inquirer, with the title "Energy, Homeopathy, and Hypnosis in Santa Fe."

The advance of scientific inquiry over the past two centuries has not gone unchallenged. In his 1976 book, The Occult Establishment, James Webb uses the apt phrase "rejected knowledge" for the ideas that, at a given point in history, prevailed, then were opposed by science, and finally were rejected as false. Though vitalism (the belief in some form of "energy" or "lifeforce" at work in all things) has been rejected by the mainstream of science over the last two centuries, this "rejected knowledge" became central to beliefs such as organic agriculture and alternative medicine.

"I'm OK with it, but it'll be a drag if I don't make it until the next James Bond movie comes out."

Warren Zevon, fifty-five year-old singer of "Werewolves of London," on being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, as reported September 12 by Associated Press, which did not mention Zevon's smoking, and Reuters, which did.

All right, despite their protectionist laws, ludicrous theories about literature, and surrender-prone combat style, even the French occasionally get something right, and what better time to honor them than now, with Bastille Day upon us (even if the Revolution was a tragically misguided eruption of mass murder that threatened the foundations of civilization)?

To political activists though to few scientists ACSH's constant warnings about smoking seem like a non-sequitur. We're opposed to regulations in so many other areas and spend so much of our time reassuring people that they aren't going to be killed by pesticide residues on broccoli or by electric and magnetic fields from power lines, some critics say, why do we wimp out and denounce smoking, making it sound as if it's very bad for you? Why are we, as some put it, "libertarian except for smoking"?

What are we to make of green activists who oppose electricity and want most of humanity to remain poor?
What are we to make of green activists who would rather see Zambia face starvation than let people eat genetically-modified crops?
What are we to make of green activists who promote "voluntary human extinction"?

As a development economist and student of John Dewey who argued that ideas have consequences I do not know of any idea more likely to keep people impoverished than the idea that resources are natural, fixed, and finite. Yet this was the operating assumption of many of the delegates to the World Summit on Sustainable Development held in South Africa and the overriding theme of the protests against the meetings. There may be resource constraints on development at any given time, but resources are not scarce in the sense in which that term is being used by the activists.

Dunkin' Donuts we'll despise: "Cancer! Cancer!" Hileman cries... Deep inside a cave we'll hide, Banishing acrylamide; Agencies we'll have to watch: Next they'll tell us...no more scotch!
from a letter to the editor in Chemical and Engineering News by John A. Church of Princeton Junction, NJ, in response to an article by Bette Hileman on acrylamide in food