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Recent news stories have cast doubt on the validity of a widely used index Body Mass Index, or BMI as an indicator of overweight, obesity, and associated health risks. It's really kind of fun to read some of these headlines and stories, like the ones that point out how members of leading college basketball teams would qualify as overweight if their BMIs were evaluated according to current government standards. So, if these active, fit, and presumably healthy young men would register as overweight on the Body Mass Index, the index must not be too accurate, right?

"The Quist and Chapela study is a testament to technical incompetence."
That's a description of a study that was retracted by Nature, which had argued that genetically-modified corn was spreading out of control in Mexico. This quote comes from Matthew Metz, one of several scientists who co-authored a critique of the Nature study.

The March 21 New York Times' apt description of Dr. John Graham, risk expert for the Office of Management and Budget:
"Dr. Graham's focus on using strict statistical analysis of risks and benefits to judge where to focus public resources has made him a favorite of industry and a target of private environmental groups, which often rely on public passion to drive campaigns."

You've heard that quote, "The trouble is not what we know, it's what we know that isn't so?"
Well, one of the things I do at the Reason Public Policy Institute is argue for safety, health, and environmental policy that is rooted in the sound use of science, and more often than not "what we don't know" is glossed over in favor of unsupportable statements of certainty. Time after time, we hear that this policy or that policy is based on "sound science," and that the "debate over the science is done, now it's time to implement!" But it's virtually never that simple.

ACSH's Jeff Stier contributed to the debate on the chemical industry scheduled for broadcast April 15 on NPR. You'll also be able to hear it here:
http://www.justicetalking.org/getshow.asp?showid=210
Summary of Stier's remarks:

In October of last year, all Americans got a crash course in bioterrorism. Anthrax-laced letters made postal workers, members of the media, and others sick. Seventeen people fell ill and five died.

This is how CNN (and most other media, including the New York Times, which ran a front-page, above-the-fold story) reported the "kissing cousins" story early in April:
"An unrelated couple has about a 3 percent to 4 percent risk of having a child with [birth defects]. But for close cousins who are married, that risk jumps only 1.7 percent to 2.8 percent, the study said."

Based on a Technical Paper by Clare Hasler, Ph.D.
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Marion Nestle, New York University Professor of Nutrition and Food Studies, is furious at the food industry for making Americans fat and sick. And she has written a book, Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, documenting her charges.

Agricultural literacy is at a low level in the land of plenty. There may be a law that dictates an inverse relationship between abundance and knowledge about the source of the abundance. We do not burden ourselves with factual information about that which we take for granted, namely, food, health, and a comfortable life in a non-threatening world. As long as the fridge is full, the car always starts, and the TV keeps entertaining, why bother to know what makes all that happen?

Compelling scientific evidence shows that cholesterol-lowering drug therapy can reduce the risk of heart attacks by about 30 percent, according to a new report released by scientists associated with the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).

A HealthFactsAndFears.com Interview
HealthFactsAndFears.com: What was the occasion that led you to testify to the Senate Committee on Government Affairs?

The activist writers from TomPaine.com, in one of their bimonthly ads in the New York Times, asserted that President Bush "would rather protect the profits of his political patrons than protect public health or the nation's natural heritage," accused Bush of gutting government program, and said he must hope "voters don't catch on."

Supporters of organic agricultural systems promote their exclusive use for a variety of reasons. These include: a dislike of large agribusiness; fear of health effects from traces of synthetic pesticides, bioengineered material, or irradiated products; concern about the environmental effects of conventional agricultural systems; and finally a belief that organic products are nutritionally superior to conventionally-produced ones.

Last week's Journal of the America Medical Association reported that air pollution, particularly pollution characterized by combustion-related fine particulate matter, causes lung cancer.

The Archer Daniels Midland Company one of the leading producers of soy products asks on their website, "Why do the Japanese have 1/8th the incidence of prostate cancer? And few symptoms of menopause? Is it a diet rich in soy?" With 350 factories worldwide, 23,000 employees, and $18 billion in annual net sales, this agricultural powerhouse wishes good health was as simple as eating soy. However, there is very weak scientific support for the idea that the phytoestrogens in soy products can ease the symptoms of menopause, let alone reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

In January, Robert's American Gourmet, maker of a popular functional snack food line, recalled Pirate's Booty for mislabeling. The Good Housekeeping Institute independently tested the product and found that it contained 147 calories and 8.5 grams of fat per serving quite a difference from the 120 calories and 2.5 grams of fat reported on the label. The company attributed the discrepancy to a manufacturing problem. They needed to purchase new equipment to meet the public's high demand for Pirate's Booty.

A new Harvard School of Public Health study, published in the March 6 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showed a lower risk of prostate cancer in men whose diets were rich in tomatoes and tomato-based products containing the antioxidant lycopene. Results were taken from the Health Professional Follow-Up Study, in which the dietary and health histories of 47,000 men, aged 40 to 75, were tracked for a period of 12 years. It was found that those who ate two or more meals a week containing tomato products reduced their risk of prostate cancer by 24 to 36 percent.

After months of wrangling with Senate Democrats over a nominee for head of the FDA, the Bush administration has appointed an academic, a former federal regulator, to the number two job. Veterinarian Lester Crawford will run the agency as deputy commissioner until a permanent head is nominated and confirmed.

If people on St. John's wort were depressed before, imagine how they'll feel when they realize the supplement is interfering with their contraceptive pills. Recently, two Swedish women and at least seven British women have gotten a little more than they expected when the St. John's wort they were taking for depression interacted with their oral contraceptives, resulting in unwanted pregnancies. Sweden has now made it mandatory that all St. John's wort products carry warning labels, alerting the public to such unfortunate drug-supplement interactions. St.

Dr. Neal D. Barnard, head of the animal rights group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, on the dangers of hot dogs:
"Forget the moderation myth...It applies to healthy foods, not unhealthy ones...moderation does not apply to cigarettes, heroin, or hot dogs. It's easier to make a clean break."
(Boston Globe, March 17, 2002)

"Many of the states that received billions of dollars in the national tobacco settlement have invested some of those funds in the stock market, benefiting the same tobacco firms that were meant to be punished by the settlement, according to a research group."
CNSNews.com, March 12, 2002, reporting the findings of the Investor Responsibility Research Center

Nobel laureate in medicine Sir Paul Nurse (Associated Press, Feb 25, 2002):
"We will always have cancer with us because of natural mistakes in the natural body, so it will never be eliminated, but I think we can do much better than we are doing now...The single most major hit we can get for short-term cancer rates is to eliminate the use of tobacco."

"Obviously, we're disappointed."
Len Selfon, director of benefits programs for Vietnam Veterans of America, upon hearing that in a new study, Agent Orange was not found to have caused cancer in children (from the Associated Press, February 28, 2002).

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Director Christine Todd Whitman tried to be funny at this year's annual Gridiron Dinner for Washington journalists, like the night's other speakers, but one of Whitman's zingers makes me shudder. Indeed, she preceded her comment by suggesting that this joke hits "close to home":
"When you give a Republican a choice between [less] poison and less regulation, we need some time to think about it."