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•"The Scariest Health Threat You've Never Heard Of: Autoimmune Disease," from the September 2008 issue of Glamour, quoted Jeff Stier saying, "People want to blame chemicals where they don't have another explanation for the cause of a disease. I think we need more psychologists rather than more toxicologists."

•The September 29, 2008 New York Sun piece "Salt Is Next on City's Hit List" quoted Dr. Gilbert Ross likening New York City's anti-salt plans to the trans fat ban.

•The Pediatric Pointers column by Dr. Carolyn Roy-Bornstein of the Haverhill Gazette on September 25, 2008 quoted ACSH's reassurances on phthalates, in a piece entitled "Plasticizers and Children's Health" ( http...

In spite of the unimaginable global transformations described in my blog post yesterday, per capita food production and consumption in many parts of Africa has actually declined. Unless there is a massive infusion of aid (from the Gates Foundation and others) for seeds, fertilizer, and infrastructure, the situation could get worse, since in many regions of Africa, farmers are taking more nutrients out of the soil than they are returning. They are mining the soil and destroying its structure.

This is "organic agriculture" as practiced by the poor who can not afford synthetic fertilizer, improved seeds and pesticides.

It is sustainable in the sense described by C.S. Prakash...

January 7, 2008: A Long Way, Baby, Albeit While Coughing

- Quote to Note: "A man may take out a woman who smokes for a good time, but he won't marry her, and if he does, he won't stay married." --A 1914 Washington Post editorial.

- Did you know that it used to be illegal for women to smoke? Neither did several ACSH staffers. In the early part of the twentieth century, women could get expelled from college for smoking, and policemen would warn a woman if they saw her taking a puff on the side of the road. Smoking cigarettes used to be taboo for women.

So what changed? The advertising and marketing of cigarettes did.

Edward Bernays, in particular, created a campaign to start women smoking -- and it worked wonders. One example...

October 22, 2009

ACS, NY Post, ACIP, Dioxin
By Curtis Porter

Brawley and JAMA Against The World

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS), is catching some heat after his recent statement in an interview with the New York Times conceding that breast and prostate cancer screenings have historically been oversold by physicians and misunderstood by patients and the media.

"The strident response underscores the fact that it was brave of Dr. Brawley of ACS to come forward and admit this even though it wasn't politically correct and caused a backlash among people in his own organization," says ACSH's Jeff Stier.

"One well-known expert on breast cancer was quoted as saying, in effect, that the more screening you have...

I'm not a big fan of essential oils. They are simply complex mixtures of plant-derived chemicals called terpenoids (See Essential Oils - Not What The Name Implies). None of them are especially harmful and, with the exception of having a nice scent, they are not especially helpful either. But I happened upon an interesting paper from 2009, which claims that tea tree oil, the olfactory darling du jour, might be useful in treating herpes.

But before I tell you about why Paul Schnitzler and colleagues at the University of Heidelberg may have something interesting on their hands...

book I won't pretend to be objective about ABC News anchor John Stossel. I worked for him from 1995-2001, as an associate producer on one-hour specials very much like the one airing tonight (10pm Eastern), called Lies, Myths, and Downright Stupidity. Among other illusions, it deflates the environmentalist belief that banning the pesticide DDT was a smart move (in fact, the partial ban on DDT contributes to a death toll of some two million people from...

It's not news that President Trump is having discussions with China's President Xi about getting a handle on fentanyl and "fentanyl-related substances." What is not widely known is that while an agreement between the two countries may be of some help in curbing the surge of opioid overdose deaths that we read about daily (1) there is a power that neither superpower can match - organic synthesis.

Organic synthesis is the science (and also art) of converting one molecule to another by using specific chemical reactions to bring about the desired transformation. Fentanyl itself is the product of organic synthesis; it was first made by chemist Paul Jannsen in 1960. Jannsen would become famous for forming Jannsen Pharmaceuticals, which is now part of Johnson and...

Here are the headlines:

From UPI: Study links soy consumption to breast cancer survival.

From Reuters: Soy tied to longer life after breast cancer

From NPR: New Study Reveals Benefits Of Soy For Breast Cancer Survivors

From NBC: Soy Doesn’t Worsen Breast Cancer and May Prevent It, Study Finds

And from...

MORNING DISPATCH 10/10/08: Tobacco, Infections, HIV, and Rights for Plants

ACSH's harm reduction approach attracts criticism
We received many comments yesterday about our support for R.J. Reynolds' new smokeless tobacco products, some taking issue with our harm reduction approach to quitting smoking. "While, in an ideal world, getting all smokers to simply stop being addicted to nicotine would be an easily attainable goal, this is not likely to happen in the real world," reiterates ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.

New smokeless products, which dissolve in a user's mouth to deliver an...

MORNING DISPATCH 8/15/08: Strokes, Risks, Babies, Cancer

Mice develop cancer after being predisposed to it
A new study alleges that common skin creams cause tumors in mice -- but only mice bred to be prone to skin cancer that were pre-treated with high levels of UV radiation. "They applied the creams after purposely making the mice susceptible to skin cancer," says ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava. "So is it the cream or the pretreatment?"

She agrees with Dr. Karol Sikora, Medical Director of Cancer Partners UK, who said, "This is a pretty artificial situation with the mouse skin primed by a lot of UV light to develop cancer." For now, Dr. Kava...