It may have been the best-attended appropriation subcommittee hearing in the history of the House of Representatives. Was it a discussion about how much money will go to education or even homeland defense? No, members of Congress and the media crowded to witness superstar Julia Roberts' request earlier this month for $15 million of research funding for the rare, albeit serious Rett Syndrome. The International Rett Syndrome Association cites 3,000 United States cases of the neurological disorder, which prevents patients from communicating or controlling their body movements.

Click here to see ACSH's Jeff Stier on CNN's American Morning August 10, 2005, discussing how celebrities distort science policy.
Jeff Stier Says Research Money Should Be Allocated on the Merits, not the Quality of Star a Cause Attracts

Recently, Xiaorui Zhang, World Health Organization (WHO) coordinator on traditional medicine policy, noted the difficulty in conducting clinical trials of herbal remedies because of two factors: first, participants can detect a difference in taste between the placebo and the herbal therapy; second, quality control is difficult since many of the herbal products contain multiple ingredients, making it tough to determine which chemicals are responsible for any health outcomes. She added: "Western medicine came to China about a hundred years ago.

"Fast food restaurants" are "a weapon of mass destruction."
Green Party presidential candidate, lawyer, and anti-capitalist Ralph Nader, lamenting rising obesity and the devastation of French culture during a speech in Paris (as reported May 17 by AFP). Further evidence that there is no sense of proportion on the left and no aversion to inflammatory rhetoric.

Pizza can be a source of goodly amounts of a variety of benficial ingredients, according to scientists and physicians associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH). Despite this, the self-styled consumer group, Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is attacking this American favorite because it can also contain substantial amounts of fat and calories.

Last month, a jury rejected arguments by two National Security Agency workers who claimed that their brain diseases were caused by a magnetic tape-erasing system they used in the course of their work. The judge dismissed some of the plaintiffs' arguments as junk science and the jury rejected the rest, to the delight of the defendant, Electro-Matic Products Co., manufacturer of the tape-erasing system. This was a victory for science and the legal system, which have both been abused in recent decades by people stoking fear of electric and magnetic fields.

Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal strongly condemned the Brooklyn Museum of Art recently when that august institution decided to devote a large exhibition space to the art of the Star Wars films. The Journal saw the exhibit as evidence of the decline of civilization while the Times was aghast at the crass commercialization of art. I loved it, and I'd argue that Star Wars movies are more relevant to the real world than they might at first appear.

Imagine working hard your entire life to build a business, establish security for your family, and contribute to the community you live in. Now, imagine that one morning you wake up and it is all in shambles, destroyed because someone doesn't agree with what you do. What you do is perfectly legal, you're honest, customers patronize your business, you pay your taxes, provide jobs in your community, and you raise your family with sound educational and work ethics. But those who don't like what you do destroy it all. Even worse, not many people seem to notice much less care that it happened.

Testimony of Ms. Cassandra Coleman of Chicago, Illinois before the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia, May 14 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chairman.
Chairman Durbin and members of the committee, let me begin by thanking you for holding this hearing and for inviting me to testify today.
My story is also the story of two wonderful children: my thirteen year-old son, Nijell, and my ten year-old daughter, Nzingha, who is with me today.

Each square centimeter of skin harbors around 100,000 bacteria, and a single teaspoon of topsoil contains nearly one billion bacteria. The thought of these tiny creatures permeating every aspect of our daily life makes most of us uneasy, even a little queasy. Consequently, Americans spend $540 million on antibacterial soaps, hand cleaners, and detergents each year, and in the past year, more than three hundred million prescriptions for antibiotics were issued in the United States.