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FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For approximately a century, industry has been a powerful motivating force in the creation of new technology and the underwriting of scientific research.

For about a century, industry has played an important role in creating new technology and funding scientific research.

This item first appeared in the New York Post.
Congress is poised to pass a massive giveaway to the ambulance-chasing trial attorneys -- under the guise of protecting consumers.

This piece first appeared on March 2, 2008 in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

To the Editor:

This piece originally appeared on March 5, 2008 in the Washington Times.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February that manufacturers of FDA-approved medical devices cannot be held liable for defects in design or malfunction, unless the company lied in their application for approval.

In an apartment building on the Upper West Side of New York, 74th and Broadway, there is yet another controversy surrounding smoking and non-smoking residents.
While most of these issues involve smelling cigarette smoke from one apartment in another adjacent apartment, the debate this time is about the common area by the elevator. A couple doesn't want its four-year-old child to be exposed to the second-hand smoke and wants the smoking residents to stop smoking.

It would be hard to argue against the benefits of pharmaceuticals. Their development and use has led to life-prolonging effects such as lowering many people's blood pressure and cholesterol, boosting the immune system of HIV positive patients, and even the remission of some types of cancer. But what happens when these drugs we have so come to depend on contain ingredients, often made in remote regions of the world, that may actually harm us? We may ask ourselves, who is protecting us? And whose job is it to ensure drug safety: the pharmaceutical companies or the government?

Turns out the truth doesn't matter. The New York City Health Department is standing by TV ads that show children allegedly sickened by exposure to second hand smoke. Only problem is, the deathly-ill kids weren't actually known to be exposed to smoke. They were just stock footage of diseased kids.
But the kids in the pictures have the same diseases caused by second-hand smoke, so that's good enough for the Health Department.
It wouldn't be good enough, though, for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) according to the president of the American Academy of Advertising.

Enjoy a flavorful snack and lose weight at the same time? It may seem too good to be true, but according to an article in the Los Angeles Times, chewing gum might be the weight loss aid that dieters are looking for in a sea of weight loss gimmicks. For some, it may be considered a bad habit, but for the first time, it is being promoted by a gum manufacturer (Wrigley's) as a tool for managing weight.

Everywhere you look in the news this week, there seems to be something about sex. Whether it’s the Spitzer scandal, HPV and oral cancer connection, or the frighteningly high rate of sexually-transmitted disease (STD) among America's teenage girls, sex is on the minds of many. One thing that should be eminently clear is that sex (in all forms) can lead to STD infections, some forms of cancer, and loss of job as governor.

It can be difficult for overweight or obese people to lose weight, yet many do so. What seems to be much harder is maintaining weight loss -- and the health benefits that can accompany it -- for the long term.
Dr. L.P. Svetkey and colleagues (JAMA 299; 1139-1148) compared different strategies for sustaining weight loss in a two-phase trial. They found that having brief, monthly personal contact with a weight loss interventionist offered a slight benefit over either an interactive technology-based intervention (a website) or simply self-directed methods.

Even after all the studies denying any link between vaccines and autism, last week we read an unbelievable headline: "U.S. Government Concedes Vaccines Cause Autism."

We may seem more progressive today than we were fifty years ago, and we are in a lot of ways, but on some issues such as sex we are still old-fashioned at heart. Vital information about the human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer is probably missing from most sex education classes. In addition, kids surely haven't been told about the latest information about HPV. People young or old may have the false impression that oral sex is a relatively safe form of sex, but the truth is that in addition to familiar sexually transmitted diseases, it could be a risk factor for oral cancer.

The New York City Department of Health wants to increase the odds of people getting their flu and pneumonia shots by permitting pharmacists, not just doctors, to administer the inoculations. And the public could use the help: results from the Centers for Disease Control's new National Immunization Survey show that adult Americans arise woefully ignorant of the benefits -- and even of the availability -- of many of the vaccines recommended for them.

Various facets of modern life (e.g., snack foods, television, unbalanced school food selections, etc.) have been blamed for the increasing prevalence of obesity and obesity-linked diseases in the young. A recent study by Leonard H. Epstein and colleagues in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine (vol. 162:239-245) lends credence to the relevance of sedentary activities -- TV and computer use -- in contributing to youthful obesity.

Supplements in one form or another have been around for a long time, with the earliest written account of herbal remedies coming from China in 2800 BC. They can contain a variety of ingredients such as herbs, minerals, and vitamins and can be used for a variety of health reasons. However, sometimes people have blind faith about supplements, a belief that whatever is natural must be beneficial. This blind faith is unwise, as supplements are not closely regulated by the FDA, and false claims of their purported benefits can sometimes be harmful.

Be afraid, be very afraid, if you love to eat prunes or dried pears -- at least if you believe the hype about naturally occurring acrylamide in foods being a real risk to human health. Swiss scientists reported at a symposium held by the American Chemical Society that acrylamide can be found in some dried fruits. Since 2002, when Swedish scientists discovered that acrylamide is formed in carbohydrate-containing food cooked at high temperatures, there has been a concerted effort to scare consumers about foods such as French fries and potato chips.

February 11, 2008: Artificial Jarvik, Troubled Ledger, Fat Twins, Menaced Babies
¢Quote to Note: "I'm confused. The way they do these studies shouldn't the rats have died from cancer or something before they could become obese?" -- Comment by "OceanLover" on Lucianne.com News Forum about a study linking saccharin consumption to obesity in rats.

"Locavore" is a term that was coined in 2005 by a group of four women in San Francisco, who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius. "Locavore" has become such a buzz word, that the New Oxford American Dictionary (the trendy alternative to the traditional Oxford English Dictionary) recently jumped on the "loca"-motive, announcing that it would be the 2007 word of the year.

A press release in the New York Sun caught ACSH off guard with its negative coverage of Swedish smokeless tobacco, also known as snus. Sweden is the only country in the European Union (EU) that is permitted to market smokeless tobacco because it joined after the EU placed a ban on the product, and was given an exemption.

Some parents may be sending their children to school with brown bag lunches this week, and who could blame them? The Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. based in California recently issued a recall of 143 million pounds for all of its raw and frozen beef products since Feb 1, 2006. It is the largest-ever meat recall in the U.S., the previous record being set in 1999 when another company -- Thorn Apple Valley -- recalled 35 million pounds of ground beef.

This piece first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com and is a revised version of an earlier Washington Times piece.

This piece first appeared in the Washington Times.

Finally, looks like saccharin will not only cause cancer (according to high-dose rat studies), it also will make us obese. A study published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience found that the calorie-free artificial sweeteners drove rats to overeat by breaking the physiological connection between sweet tastes and calories.