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Many vulnerable people who are at risk for heart disease, and even those who are not at risk, routinely take antioxidants to ward off heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. Alternative medicine practitioners and vitamin companies advise people to take antioxidants, such as vitamin A, vitamin E, and vitamin C, both as a preventative nutrient as well as a treatment after heart disease has been diagnosed. The disease-fighting hypothesis is based on the fact that oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL, a.k.a. "bad cholesterol") is taken up by the arteries, leading to plaque formation.

[Editor's note: Little more than an hour after ACSH president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan appeared on the Today show this morning to condemn the idea of a "fat tax" on certain foods, letter writer Aaron Sugarman sent in the following lengthy condemnation. We salute Sugarman's speed and his passion for the issue. TS]
Dr. Whelan,
It is shameful that you would use your position in what I consider to be the pseudo-science, or junk-science, community to attempt to discredit true scientific reality.
You are thoroughly disappointing as a human being.

We're thrilled to see that when Christie Whitman left her post as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, ACSH Director Henry I. Miller, writing for TechCentralStation.com, made the wise suggestion that ACSH head Dr. Elizabeth Whelan would make a good replacement. We agree, though we prefer science to politics. But read what Dr. Miller says:
"Who Should It Be?"

Testimony to the New York City Council on the question of whether to tighten lead regulations, given June 23, 2003:
The ACSH is a public-health consumer-education organization, advised by a panel of 350 scientists and physicians. All of our work is peer-reviewed internally and published in independent, peer-reviewed scientific journals. We are about to celebrate our twenty-fifth year of promoting public health, here in New York and around the U.S.

Saturated fats have been linked to increased blood cholesterol levels, particularly LDL or "bad" cholesterol, which is a risk factor for heart disease. And a recent study has revealed another potential negative effect of elevated saturated fat consumption type 2 diabetes.

Anyone who has ever perused the ads for various dietary supplements online or in magazines must be familiar with claims that the product in question is "clinically proven" or is "scientifically proven" to be safe, effective, and a cure for whatever ails one or at least that "research has shown" this is so. We at ACSH have written in the past about the weakness of the regulatory scheme for dietary supplements. We've noted that supplement manufacturers, unlike producers of pharmaceuticals, don't have to prove their products either safe or effective before marketing them.

New York City had a freak snowstorm on April 7, and as a result of an equally freak accident, Dr. Robert C. Atkins slipped on the sidewalk outside his office, fell, and hit his head. One week later, Dr. Atkins, trained as a cardiologist, world-renowned author of a diet named for him, died from injuries suffered in that fall.

Orange-juice makers claim they can reduce high blood pressure and help prevent stroke. Saw Palmetto herbs boast they can "support prostate health." Dried plums (nee prunes) are touted for cardiovascular benefits. These claims are not backed up by solid scientific evidence, but under federal law they are legal.

On May 29, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released specifications for purchase of irradiated ground beef for use in school lunches, though the decision to order irradiated beef will be made by local school districts. The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a consortium of more than 350 physicians and scientists, urges local school boards and parents to familiarize themselves with the safety benefits of the irradiated ground beef that is now available for the National School Lunch Program.

Over 50 years of scientific research have established that the irradiation of foods to minimize food-borne illness and decrease waste is both safe and effective. Physicians and scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) endorse the use of irradiation to enhance safety and supplement other food protection methods.

The American Council on Science and Health turns 25 this year and its reputation for being one of the most controversial nonprofit groups around is still intact.
It is self-described as a consumer education organization "dedicated to providing the public with mainstream scientific information on issues related to food, nutrition, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, lifestyle, the environment and health."

I applaud FDA Commissioner Dr. Mark McClellan's efforts to help sick patients gain desperately needed access to new cancer-fighting drugs ("FDA Gives Quick Approval to Cancer Drugs," Personal Journal, May 14). His bold initiative to include actual cancer specialists with hands-on patient care expertise in the FDA's deliberations on new drug approvals will save lives and extend the lives of many others who had little hope.

The specter of contagious disease often engenders a primal reaction based on fear, with resultant irrational behavior. SARS is no exception. Only a few weeks ago, New York's bustling Chinatown became a ghost town as a result.

Last week, President Bush signed a bill allocating $15 billion for AIDS drugs in Africa (and funding efforts against tuberculosis and malaria). In his State of the Union address earlier this year, Bush said of the AIDS initiative that "seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many." It's good to hear some cost-benefit analysis being employed even on a grandiose government project, one that could easily be sold with nothing more than a tug at the heartstrings. With luck, it will pay off in millions of saved lives.

It's that time of year again, time, not coincidentally, for spring flowers, pagan fertility rituals, Easter egg hunts, resurrections, Arbor Day, and, yes, Earth Day. The environmentalists will no doubt use Earth Day to reflect upon good and bad environmental developments (but especially the bad) from the past year.

The most frequent complaint about us skeptics is that we're party-poopers. How much more fun the world would be, say the non-skeptics, if only we all believed in unicorns, psychic powers, God, or panhandlers who really just lost their wallets and only need a few cents for bus fare back home.

According to a recent UCLA study, "Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Tobacco-Related Mortality in a Prospective Study of Californians" (reported in the British Medical Journal), environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) is not as harmful as many anti-smoking activists say. The study, which tracked 118,058 individuals over the course of thirty-eight years, found no significant correlation between exposure to secondhand smoke and death due to coronary heart disease or lung cancer.

The front cover of a recent Time magazine announces a big story on women and heart disease inside. What are the main causes? How does the risk compare to that from other diseases facing women, such as breast cancer? What can be done to prevent heart disease?

"Republicans Seek to Protect Vaccine Makers"
headline from the San Francisco Chronicle/New York Times News Service, April 9, 2003
American Council on Science and Health president Dr. Elizabeth Whelan notes that since manufacturers are only being "protected" against scientifically groundless suits brought by people convinced they were made ill by vaccination (and the juries who love such stories), the headline should more accurately read:

The authors also show that concern about some risk factors, such as saccharine, reserpine, coffee, dietary fat, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dichlorodiphenyltrichloro-ethane (DDT), has fallen by the wayside.
A brief quote that speaks volumes about the anti-chemical movement's misguided priorities, from a May 15 New England Journal of Medicine review of Oxford University Press's Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology

Relatively little is known about perfluorinated acids where they are coming from, how they travel, how they get in the human body, or their long-term health effects. "We don't have the data to do more at this point than than to worry," said Dr. Gina Solomon, a physician with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
An apt summary of the default NRDC position on chemicals, in the New York Times, April 15, 2003, in an article with a title that could run in every issue: "EPA Orders Companies to Examine Effects of Chemicals"

We're fond of the year-old New York Sun newspaper and are no fans of intrusive regulations, but when the Sun chose to chronicle how New Yorkers are coping with Mayor Bloomberg's ban on smoking in bars, it was a reminder how little perspective people have on relative risks.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney yesterday announced the latest of numerous bills in Congress aimed at finding environmental causes for breast cancer (in this case, specifically for breast cancer on the East Side of Manhattan), reported today's New York Sun. The Sun went on to quote ACSH Medical Director Dr. Gilbert Ross about why people are so eager to find a mysterious culprit for breast cancer (despite the higher mortality rate from other conditions, such as smoking-induced lung cancer):

First Edition, October 1982
Second Edition (revised and updated), July 1985
Third Edition (revised and updated), December 1988
Fourth Edition (revised and updated), March 1996

Executive Summary