Search

A subtle and probably pernicious trend in the U.S. food supply seems to be occurring virtually unnoticed. If one reads the information on a food package, as it seems few do, one finds that many food in the U.S. today are composed almost entirely of ingredients. The use of ingredients in foods has become so widespread and flagrant that one can hardly guess what will appear next on the growing list of polysyllabic horrors printed on packages. Through insouciance or ineptitude, we have let the situation get quite out of hand.

Labels seem to be intended rather to obfuscate than to inform. Aside from water, which evidently abounds in these products (though who knows where it has been before it goes into the food?), hardly any of the names that appear on these lists are...

The Award for Best "Eco-Mom" Goes to: Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep may not have won at the Oscars last night, but the Natural Resources Defense Council has declared her an "eco mom" and has interviewed her about her green/chemophobic approach to cooking. The irony, as ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan noted last year, is that Streep recently portrayed Julia Child, who hated the mounting paranoia over food ingredients.

Streep is aware of the irony and has denounced both Child and ACSH's take on...

When Senators Play Doctor
As ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross wrote in yesterday's Washington Times, two senators have been attempting to turn criticism of one GlaxoSmithKline diabetes drug into an excuse to create an entire new drug-approval bureaucracy -- even slower than the existing one. "Grassley and Baucus sent this 300-page report to the Senate and the FDA attacking GSK," laments Ross.

The report implies that the diabetes drug Avandia presents serious heart risks compared to another, similar drug. But as...

ACS on PSA

The American Cancer Society (ACS) is urging doctors to talk frankly with their patients about the risks and limitations of the PSA blood test used to screen for prostate cancer.

The problem with PSA screening is that it has the potential to detect all prostate cancers, whether they are harmless, potentially metastatic, or actually metastatic, so you have a lot of men subjected to the negative consequences of biopsies and surgery who don t necessarily need them, says Dr. Whelan. ACS backed off their recommendations of routine PSA tests years ago, but they are stepping further back now. This leaves us with the dilemma: who should get the PSA test? This is not clear. It has...

Mice Soy Bomb

A study published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology concluded that soy-rich diets can lead to infertility in mice.

You will not see any legislators, activists, or politicians calling for a ban or restriction of soy products based on this, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross, but if you were to substitute BPA for soy, or any other synthetic chemical for that matter, you d have people marching in the streets saying, Here s another piece of evidence that these chemicals are...

When Senator Obama stated during the 2008 Presidential campaign that he had quit cold turkey in 2007, we were skeptical. We support so many smoking cessation and harm reduction efforts because we have been trying to end smoking for decades, but we know it is difficult.

As we feared, he had not quit, but he is trying again now, and The Christian Science Monitor asked ACSH for insight into the struggles he will face. As we noted, the first big step he took is going public - external accountability, including to children and the public, is a big motivator.


With Fox and Friends, Who Needs Enemies?

ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan was horrified by Fox News’ Fox and Friends coverage of the latest Mt. Sinai study linking environmental ‘toxins’ to autism: “In all my years of observing coverage of public health issues, I’ve never seen coverage as bad as this Fox and Friends segment. There was no attempt at balance whatsoever. They basically said, ‘Well, autism a terrible disease,’ and then mentioned that chemicals are everywhere.

“They also singled out phthalates as being dangerous to a growing fetus and recommended that pregnant women avoid...

The New Face of the New McCarthyism
ACSH’s Jeff Stier got the last word in the Los Angeles Times’ report on PLoS Medicine’s recent announcement that they will no longer review studies that are funded by the tobacco industry.

“One point I want to make very explicitly clear in the discussion of this is that we are not defending the tobacco industry,” says Stier. “We’re defending the scientific process of peer review. Some are not condemning this move because the tobacco industry is disfavored, and appropriately so, but what’s the next disfavored...

A piece by Thomas A. Maugh II about the journal PLoS Medicine rejecting any studies produced with tobacco money appeared in the Los Angeles Times on February 26, 2010 and quoted ACSH's Jeff Stier on a contrary note (as did an L.A. Times' blog on February 25, 2010):...

This piece first appeared on TheDailyCaller.com.

Studies published in peer-reviewed journals become the basis for everything from the advice your doctor gives you to the very laws that govern us. A journal s ability to tell good science from bad is critical. But some journals have used poor judgment, and even replaced judgment with a bias of their own.

Take the case of the UK medical journal, The Lancet. Back in 1998, they published a study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield, implying a causal relationship between childhood vaccines and autism. The study (on twelve children) was junk -- but it took on a life of its own.

The journal defended it, and...