Reprinted with permission of The Wall Street Journal © 1992 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

An Epidemic of Nonsense

Asbestos has received much attention in the the media in recent years, leading the American public to fear asbestos as a significant cause of cancer and death. The object of this ACSH report is to examine some of the issues surrounding the health risks from asbestos and to offer a more scientific rationale as to what should be done about the asbestos present in our homes, schools and public buildings.

An ex-smoker, I nevertheless am curious as to the data and source thereof for the statistical cautions about smoking.
Priorities (spring, 1992) contained a reprint of one of Dr. Whelan's editorials against cigarette advertising which stated that cigarette smoking kills 1,300 Americans each day, or about 475,000 people per year.

This report was prepared by Agnes Heinz, Ph.D., a former Director of Nutrition and Biochemistry with the American Council on Science and Health.
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It must come as no small surprise that tobacco, whose current worldwide use as a smoking material kills some three million people every year, "may in time become one of the world's principal sources of protein for human consumption and livestock feed." So stated no less an authority than the World Health Organization's Farm and Agriculture Organization in 1981. Nevertheless, tobacco as a protein source has received so little publicity over the years that most of us are still largely unaware of it's potential to feed a hungry world.
Protein From Tobacco

Historians may record that it was the confluence in time and space of two events the unprecedented success of the "Old Joe" Camel ads and the anticipated U.S. Supreme Court ruling against tobacco companies which triggered the beginning of the end for cigarette advertising in America.

Half a century ago, Orson Welles panicked his radio audience by reporting that Martians had invaded New Jersey on the fictional program War of the Worlds. On December 23, 1990, CBS-TV's 60 Minutes achieved a similar effect by announcing that toxins have invaded the American mouth. There was, however, a big difference. Welles' broadcast was intended to be entertaining. The 60 Minutes broadcast, narrated by veteran reporter Morley Safer, was intended to alarm to persuade its audience that the mercury in dental fillings is poison.

I came of age in the 'sixties and early seventies,' when purchasing "organic foods" was the thing to do among middle class suburbanites enamored by the "back to the earth" movement. In those days, I inspected produce at health food stores with a religious fervor, somehow believing the worse an item looked and the more it cost the better it was for me.

You don't need a perfect stroke to get a lot out of swimming and feel good. The wonderful thing about swimming is that it offers enormous benefits to people regardless of their strength, abilities or disabilities. Second in popularity only to walking, look in any local pool and you'll see pregnant women, cardiac patients, physical fitness buffs, people with muscular dystrophy and streamlined senior citizens.
Buoyancy and Resistance