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Editor's note:
Victor Herbert, M.D., an ACSH Advisor, passed away on November 19, just a few days after we posted this item about an amusing stunt Dr. Herbert once pulled. We intend no disrespect by leaving the item up and trust that Dr. Herbert would have been delighted to know that new readers are learning about one of his many efforts to lampoon quackery and pseudo-science.

New York's mayor Mike Bloomberg has joined the list of public officials seeking to import drugs from Canada where even American-made pharmaceuticals are subject to price controls in a quest to provide cheaper drugs for New Yorkers. And not just for government employees, as other civic leaders have planned, but potentially for the millions treated within the huge NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation system.

If he could read Michael Fumento's new book, "Bio- Evolution: How Biotechnology Is Changing Our World," Thomas Robert Malthus would be forced to say, "Never mind."
Malthus (1766-1834), renowned for his pessimistic predictions regarding the future of humanity - particularly about the prospects for having a sufficient food supply for the growing population - would be shell-shocked to learn how very off-base he was.

New York's mayor Mike Bloomberg has joined the list of public officials seeking to import drugs from Canada where even American-made pharmaceuticals are subject to price controls in a quest to provide cheaper drugs for New Yorkers. And not just for government employees, as other civic leaders have planned, but potentially for the millions treated within the huge NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation system.

Your Dec. 8 articles "Health Officials Say Flu Shots Should Go to the Most Vulnerable" and "Lack of Vaccines Goes Beyond Flu Inoculations," dealing with the shortages in influenza (flu) vaccine as well as others, re-inforce two important points:

A 25th Anniversary Commentaryfrom Dr. Elizabeth WhelanPresident, Co-FounderAmerican Council on Science and Health:

[Remarks delivered by ACSH's chairman, John Moore, at ACSH's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration in New York City.]

Mad Cow Disease Hysteria
When tests on a cow slaughtered near Yakima, Washington tested positive earlier this week for what is known in lay terms as "Mad Cow Disease", consumers were understandably bewildered and anxious. What did this mean for their food selection--and health?
Is it safe to eat beef? Is the USDA falling down on the job--and allowing an infectious agent into our food supply?

Remarks delivered at the American Council on Science and Health's twenty-fifth anniversary celebration on the evening of December 4, 2003 in New York City.

In a barely-reported but seismic event in public health history, Britain's esteemed medical journal Lancet this week called on Tony Blair to ban tobacco. That's quite a shift from the days when tobacco companies could still issue propaganda like the so-called "Frank Statement," which flatly denied that cigarette smoking had been shown to cause lung cancer. The fiftieth anniversary of that pronouncement arrives on January 4, 2004.
As ACSH's president, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, put it in her 1984 book A Smoking Gun:

As the American Council on Science and Health prepares to mark its twenty-fifth anniversary with a celebratory dinner on Dec. 4, here's a quick look back at how things have changed over the years.
The world was different but not all that different in 1978, the year that a plucky pro-science non-profit opened its doors, headed by epidemiologist Dr. Elizabeth Whelan and dedicated to informing the public and opinion-makers about the real health science that is so often obscured by scare stories, activists, con artists, and quacks.

A San Francisco Chronicle article by Peter Fimrite noted one of the stranger ballot measures to pass on Nov. 4, in the town of Bolinas, CA:

Iowa State Press describes Thomas R. DeGregori's latest book thusly:
Origins of the Organic Agriculture Debate takes a historical look at two contrasting streams of ideas. The first view comprises the flow of ideas in chemistry and biology that have created the conditions for modern medicine, modern food production, and the biotechnological revolution. The second view is the "vitalist" reaction to the rise of modern science and the resulting rejection of modern agriculture.

...Whelan argues that what Philip Morris really is seeking through regulation is a government seal of approval for a dangerous product. "Philip Morris wants FDA regulation because they want to get the blessing from the FDA when they come up with what they're saying is a safer cigarette," she says...
ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, Reason's Jacob Sullum, and others appear in John Berlau's Insight magazine article on the current battle over subjecting tobacco to FDA regulation:

In the wake of the hepatitis A outbreak that has killed three people and sickened over 500 in the Pennsylvania area in recent weeks, it is important to remember how useful it is to be able to track cases of disease and identify their sources. For a reminder of how not to track disease (that is, in an anecdotal and highly subjective fashion that may confuse coincidence with causality), see ACSH's booklet on Cancer Clusters.

Contaminated scallions linked to a deadly outbreak of hepatitis A shouldn't scare most people away from eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, experts say.
But the only way to ensure total safety is to cook everything.
A quote from an AP article by Juliana Barbassa about the recent hepatitis A outbreak linked to raw scallions (and something that the "raw foods" wing of the organic movement ought to keep in mind)
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Dear Dr. Whelan,
As a member of the ACSH Board of Science and Policy Advisors, I read with great interest the recent A Citizen's Guide to Terrorism and Response book. I found the publication filled with a great deal of good information, well thought out, and comprehensive. Although I think the publication did a good job addressing responses to WMDs, I also believe that the publication may have slighted other aspects of terrorism that might contribute significantly to instilling fear and creating significant health risks for Americans.

A new report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute* supports what we've been saying right along if you want the benefits of the nutrients in foods, you're better off eating the food than popping pills with one or a few selected nutrients.

1. Focus your efforts on things that matter; inform yourself about possible risks.

Most people know that a diet high in saturated fat can increase blood cholesterol and thus increase risk of heart disease. What they don't know is that so-called "banned foods," foods high in fat or cholesterol, including red meat, high fat dairy products, nuts, and eggs have wrongly been indicted as culprits in increased risk for stroke. While a diet high in saturated and trans-unsaturated fatty acids has been shown to be a predictor for heart disease, scientific support is lacking for extrapolating this finding to stroke. New findings from a major study released in the Oct.

An open letter to Center for Science in the Public Interest director Michael Jacobson:
The random mixing of science, politics, agendas, and self-aggrandizing when used against individuals who don't happen to endorse your opinions is a sad commentary on CSPI. Your media event criticizing the USDA-HHS Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is another example of the myopic vision and irrational knee-jerk judgmentalism expected from CSPI.

Jury selection began last week in California in a case where employees will argue that IBM knowingly exposed them to chemicals used in the manufacturing of chips and disc drives that caused a variety of cancers, birth defects and other ailments. If found liable, IBM faces hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.