chemicals

Notorious chemophobes proclaim a doubled risk of brain-damaging chemicals since 2006. Their evidence? Same as before: because they said so!
In the Really Good Timing department, our story on January 21st reported that Johnson and Johnson was removing traces of the formaldehyde preservative from its baby shampoo for absolutely no scientific or health-based reason. At that time, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom noted, In the end it doesn t really matter, because chemical Y will eventually be replaced by chemical Z, and the scientific extortion process will start again. Almost as if on cue, chemical Z hit the news today. The Chemical Z du jour is called 4-methylimidazole (4-MeI), and is part of the caramel coloring that give sodas (especially colas) their color.
This is what happens when you let your health advice column be taken over by an environmental writer. This week s Science section of the New York Times included an advisory about
Nicotine and health
A new "study" purporting to show a link between exposure to common class of chemicals phthalates is a travesty of sound science. The article was clearly written with an outcome in mind, and the authors did an excellent job of getting to that outcome by torturing their data, using multiple study chemicals and multiple analytical tools to get their desired "statistical significance." It's still a load of hooey.
We at ACSH have written countless pieces on the absolute garbage science surrounding BPA a chemical that has been in use for more than 50 years. The primary use of BPA the manufacture numerous plastics. So, it is only natural that we give a huge shout-out to Trevor Butterworth, a journalist and master junk science (especially statistics) debunker, who has an impressive pedigree of editorial and media exposure.
In fear of getting left behind, Walmart the world s largest retailer followed in Procter & Gamble s footsteps last week in deciding to require full disclosure of chemicals used by companies selling cosmetics and cleaning products.
No, that s not a typo. With reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) almost a reality, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has decided that the revised law was itself in need of revision, threatening its very existence.
When the EU adopted the anti-science precautionary principle as its guiding paradigm a decade or more ago, we don t think anyone (except perhaps its anti-progress advocates) had any idea how low the regulatory process would stoop in service of its ideology.