An example of how organic agriculture gets hyped by the media:

To the Editor:
At last the truth about water consumption is starting to leak out (Why You're Drinking too Much Water; 5/23/02)! I suspect the exaggeration of the amount of water a person ought to drink each day to stay healthy may have come about through careless transformations of the scientifically valid daily fluid requirement into a daily water requirement.The "fluid" humans require is, of course, water, which can be found in abundance in foods such as milk, juices, fruits, and vegetables, thus decreasing the amount of plain water required.

School officials will face a challenge in defining exactly what foods fall in the "junk" category. Is all food high in fat and calories "junk food"? A serving of potato chips and a half an avocado each have about l5 grams of fat, with about l60 calories. An 8-oz glass of soda and a glass of orange juice each have about 23 grams of sugar and about 100 calories. Will these schools ban avocados and orange juice, too? After all, it's extra calories, no matter what the source, that contribute to obesity. Or is it the paucity of nutrients in potato chips and soda that render them "junk"?

"It's a prescription for panic."
Dr. William Casarella, chairman of the department of radiology at Emory University, on the idea of frequent total-body CAT scans for the general population. Casarella is one of many people who have undergone intrusive surgery to examine ambiguous but benign nodes in his body. (New York Times, May 27, 2002)

To the Editor:
Attempts to ban "junk food" from schools are not the answer to childhood obesity (front page, May 20). How will school officials define junk foods? A serving of potato chips and half an avocado each has about 15 grams of fat and 160 calories. Will schools ban avocados?
It's extra calories, from any source, that contribute to obesity. So is it a lack of nutrients that makes a food "junk"? If so, would vitamin fortification alter the category?

Contrary to popular wisdom, mayonnaise in your summer chicken salad is usually not the cause of food poisoning it is more likely that the source of the problem is improperly handled chicken (undercooked, unrefrigerated or both). Likewise, merely protecting yourself against UVB sunrays will not necessarily prevent skin damage or skin cancer. These tips are among many released today by a panel of scientists from the American Council on Science and Health to help people avoid some of the potential drawbacks of summertime fun.
The safety tips include:

Is bias a problem in science and science reporting? Well, sure. The desire to vindicate one's presuppositions plagues all areas of human knowledge. What makes science special, though, is the lengths to which its practitioners go to avoid letting bias affect their results and the willingness of its practitioners to subject their claims to merciless and thorough critical analysis by others.

For decades, Americans have relied on the American Lung Association (ALA) for reliable information on respiratory health. But in its recent "State of the Air 2002" report, ALA vastly exaggerates air pollution levels and misleads people into believing air pollution is getting worse, when in fact it has been improving for at least twenty years.

The new sugar substitute Splenda is growing in popularity, reported the May 21 Wall Street Journal, in part because of lingering (albeit unjustified) health concerns about older substitutes such as Sweet'N Low and Nutrasweet, and in part because of enthusiastic customers such as Gloria Cross, a retired medical technician, who swears by Splenda. When her friends use other sweeteners, Cross tells them, "No, no, you don't understand. Those are chemicals and Splenda is not a chemical."

What in the world are the folks at the World Health Organization thinking these days? They're supposed to be devoting their energies, expertise, and considerable budget to...world health, I believe. You remember: poverty, famine, disease? Yet only a week ago their director general, Gro Harlem Brundtland, announced that the world's most important health challenges now include "junk food," cholesterol, and alcohol. What happened to malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS? (On the bright side, she also mentioned a previously under-appreciated but looming global threat, tobacco.)