Search results

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.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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."

The following letter from an ACSH Advisor appeared in the March 11, 2002 Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick courted African countries' support for biotechnology-derived crops while on a grand tour of Africa last month. Before the trip, he accused the Europeans of "going around Africa and trying to scare people," and he blasted biotech's adversaries, calling their opposition "equivalent to that period when people were opposed to machines."

A March 15th article in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "In Europe, Prescription-Drug Ads Are Banned and Health Costs Lower" suggests that prescription drug advertising is the reason for high health care costs. With talk of the European Union easing its ban on direct-to-consumer marketing by drug companies, many consumer groups and European officials fear that increased spending on advertising will result in higher prices on prescription drugs, squeezing already tight healthcare budgets. However, a basic economics lesson would teach them that such worries are unfounded.

There are organized marches nationwide to raise money to find a "cure" for breast cancer. Each day, the volume gets turned up on the debate over the usefulness of mammography for finding and "curing" cancer. Even the United States Post Office had a stamp advocating research to "cure" breast cancer.
Ironically, however, the real progress against breast cancer is taking place in another sphere: chemoprevention of this disease.

Very early this morning, San Diego Padres outfielder Mike Darr, age twenty-five, was killed when the vehicle he was riding in rolled over on an interstate highway in Arizona. Another man in the vehicle, twenty-three year-old Duane Johnson, of Reno, Nevada, was also killed in the accident.
It appears Darr was the driver of the vehicle and that the accident was alcohol-related. Darr and Johnson were not wearing seat belts and were ejected and killed. Another passenger in the back seat was wearing a seat belt and was not seriously injured.

The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday examining the latest trend of fortifying foods with extra nutrients. The article quotes ACSH advisor Dr. Adam Drewnowski, a nutrition professor at the University of Washington, who points out that the issue isn t so much whether these calorie-dense functional foods work, but how individuals perceive them: The trend is so new, we re waiting on this data, but because people assume their nutritional needs have been met, there s a chance they ll make poorer choices for the rest of their meal.