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A Dec. 12 USA Today article by Anita Manning describes the fear of a flu pandemic but quotes ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross striking a calmer note:
Some people say health experts are being needlessly alarmist.

In addition to your nuanced counsel on dealing with the crescendo of dire warnings about various drugs ("The Painkiller Panic", Dec. 23), another factor that should be considered in the precipitous withdrawal of Vioxx and the untoward panic about various pain-relievers is the vast potential of the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAIDs) in the chemoprevention of cancer.
Rheumatologists (such as myself) had been aware for many years of preliminary reports of reduced rates of various cancers (notably colorectal cancer) among arthritis patients on long-term NSAIDs.

To the Editor:
Re "Winter Is Flu Season, but Maybe It Doesn't Have to Be" (Week in Review, Dec. 26):
You say "it would be nice to know for sure" that immunizing schoolchildren against influenza is the most effective route to prevent flu-related deaths among the vulnerable. There is no need for a new national study, nor do we need to await the analysis of Canadian data.

The November 11, 2004 issue of New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) celebrated the fifth anniversary of the release by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the monograph To Err is Human.(1) The NEJM editorial by Drew Altman, Ph.D. (Kaiser Family Foundation), Carolyn Clancy, M.D. (U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), and Robert Blendon, Sc.D. (Harvard School of Public Health) repeated the old assertion of a patient safety crisis in which 44,000 to 98,000 patients died in American hospitals each year due to preventable medical errors.(2)

Scientists may have some hope to offer newly elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko in his efforts to combat his reported recent dioxin poisoning. It's not a freshly discovered wonder drug. It's not an all-natural diet of organic fresh fruits and vegetables. Indeed, Yushchenko's relief may come in the form of potato chips.

Tragedies are great teachers, but unfortunately too many people draw the wrong lessons from them. Not too long ago, major tragedies were interpreted as some form of divine retribution for our sins. Now, geology (plate tectonics and volcanology), meteorology, other sciences offer hope for preventative and ameliorative actions.

Michael Crichton -- Michael Crichton, M.D., to be precise -- is of course well known for his techno-thrillers The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, plus more than a dozen other novels and non-fiction works. State of Fear (HarperCollins, 603 pages, $27.95) is a little different. While constructed as a novel, it is also a guide to environmental issues and their advocates, principally the problem of climate change.

In a previous piece, I criticized the science behind some pivotal air pollution studies. In this follow-up, I look at some of the legal consequences of that bad science.

Sexual behavior has historically carried moral and ideological import, particularly when it comes to young people. But it also raises issues of health and safety. So deciding what kinds of information sexual education courses should include is a notoriously controversial task. One school of thought supports "comprehensive sexual education," which promotes abstinence but also includes information about condoms and other forms of contraception in order to educate young people about how to protect themselves if they become sexually active.

As the rate of obesity has climbed in the United States over the past few decades, to the point that nearly a third of adults are considered obese, so has the rate at which people are turning to some form of bariatric surgery to help control their weight. These operations are more than cosmetic "tummy tucks" or liposuction. The surgery may involve simply using a band around the stomach or stapling part of it closed to decrease its capacity. More extensive procedures also include bypassing part of the small intestine to decrease nutrient and calorie absorption.

What if I told you that the EPA, to push more stringent air pollution limits, would use bad air pollution research to claim current air pollution kills? What if I told you the research was published by the most prestigious American medical journals without any comment about whether it was funded by the EPA or organizations the EPA sponsors such as the Health Effects Institute and American Lung Association?

Since the American Council on Science and Health often examines health scares, we were glad to see the sensible editorial in last week's British Medical Journal that evaluates how bottled water exploits the public's fears about what affects health (Petrie KJ, Wessely S. Getting well from water. British Medical Journal, 329:1417-1418).

Cadbury Schweppes' new calcium-enriched 7 Up Plus has really shaken up the soda market.
Until now, soda companies have been under pressure not to add nutrients to sodas because of the FDA's so-called "Jelly Bean Rule," which forbids health claims on low-nutrient foods and drinks. The rule doesn't forbid fortification, but it has had that effect.

This 2005 report by the American Council on Science and Health reviews the evidence and finds that low doses of bisphenol A (BPA) aren't a threat to human health.

Executive Summary
The environmental movement cut its eyeteeth on the controversy over polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which first came to public attention in the 1960s. PCBs were once widely used in industrial applications, particularly as electrical insulating and heat-exchange fluids. Concern over possible adverse effects on the environment and human health, however, resulted in the prohibition of PCB production in the U.S. and most other industrialized countries.

"Follow the money," Deep Throat warned Woodward and Bernstein as the two reporters were about to break open the Watergate scandal. Generally, this is good advice for anyone seeking to understand what is happening in a complicated business story. But not always. Former New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) editor-in-chief Jerome Kassirer would have us believe that contemporary medical scientific research is so riddled with financial conflicts of interests as to be all but worthless.

As if vaccine shortages, wars, terrorism and Vioxx weren't scary enough, some folks who should know better are making predictions of worldwide contagion without cure.
Officials from the World Health Organization have sounded the alarm about a "bird flu" pandemic. Spokesmen warned of billions falling sick and millions of deaths. Millions in Southeast Asia have indeed died -- but so far almost all the victims -- except for 32 humans -- have been feathered.

New York, NY -- December 2004. Many women rely on magazines for information about health yet surveys show that popular women's magazines feature little or no coverage of the serious health consequences of smoking, the leading preventable cause of death, even while other health topics, serious and trivial, are covered at great length.

To the Editor:
Re the Personal Health column "No Vaccines? You Can Still Fight the Flu" (Nov. 2): I agree with the author's suggestions for hygienic approaches to reducing the spread of influenza, but there is currently no evidence that echinacea helps in the prevention or treatment of flu, and it can have side effects.
Also, if enough vaccine can be produced, immunizing all schoolchildren can prevent many flu-related deaths in the elderly, as demonstrated by Japan in the 1980s.
Dr. Gilbert L. Ross
New York

The December 8 Associated Press article "Groups to Seek Voluntary Halt to Companies' PVC Use" includes a contrary view from ACSH:
The president of the American Council of Science and Health, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, said there is "no evidence that these chemicals pose any risk to humans."

The November 15, 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer article "Scientists Are in Dispute Over Acrylamide" by Virginia A. Smith quoted scaremongers such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest's Michael Jacobson on fears over acrylamide in foods, then quoted ACSH's Jeff Stier for a different perspective:

A new book from the American Council on Science and Health:
America's War on "Carcinogens": Reassessing the Use of Animal Tests to Predict Human Cancer Risk (Go here to order)

Drug giant Merck pulled its painkiller Vioxx because it increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Now the company may face thousands of lawsuits.
Are lawyers unjustly driving Merck toward bankruptcy?
Like sharks, tort lawyers are circling Merck & Co. of Whitehouse, N.J., one of the oldest, largest and most respected pharmaceutical companies in the world, their greed whetted by the withdrawal of anti-arthritis Vioxx after a study showed increased cardiovascular risk from 18 months of use.

What a Fall it's been - in every sense of the word - for drug giant Merck: late September saw its withdrawal of the blockbuster anti-arthritis and pain-relieving drug Vioxx. Then, last week, a new report revealed that a Merck vaccine against the virus that causes almost all cervical cancer was completely effective in a 4-year trial among over two-thousand patients.

To the Editor: Your editorial ("The Merck Case" Nov. 15th) correctly deplores the tactics of tort lawyers in their quest to dismember Merck and get a piece of the billions likely to be re-distributed subsequent to the Vioxx withdrawal. But you are wrong to conflate the needless and unjust assaults on the pharmaceutical industry with the well-justified litigation against the tobacco industry.