Dr. Gilbert Ross in The American, November 20, 2013
Anyone with a modicum of knowledge regarding public health will agree that the most important, devastating, and preventable issue facing America is the human toll of cigarettes. Yet our nation s main...[Read more.]
FDA
In today s you must be kidding news, the FDA, prodded by the Obama administration, told Congress that they were very concerned about the threat of bacteria that are immune to drugs.
You might want to tell the waiter to hold those french fries to cut down on the amount of acrylamide you re consuming. Well at least according to the FDA. Acrylamide is a chemical that forms in foods containing
As Oliver Hardy often said to Stan Laurel, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!
We wonder if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is thinking the same about the FDA. Because in order to protect students at Princeton University from a particular strain of bacterial meningitis, the CDC had to get special permission from the FDA to import Novartis Bexsero from Europe and Australia. Bexsero is the only vaccine that is effective against the strain (serotype B) that is causing trouble at Princeton. Why was this necessary? Because the FDA has not approved the vaccine in the U.S.
The grassroots "vaping community" of e-cigarette users was mainly responsible for avoiding having the EU ban, in effect, e-cigarettes. The NYTimes discussion of this public health victory focuses instead on the so-called "e-cigarette industry" and its manipulation of the EU Parliament. This is false, although some e-cig companies did try to mobilize their customers. Why not?
A new study, reported at a cancer research meeting, shows that the "problem" of teens becoming addicted to nicotine via e-cigarettes is another in a long line of hypothetical, or phony, scares promoted by our public health authorities afraid of anything that resembles a cigarette.
As overused as the expression you can t make this up is, sometimes there is simply no other phrase that can do the trick. You decide.
Yesterday, it was Chinese dietary supplements that were in the news. Today it s spices from India. And if there is a better way to illustrate how badly the FDA s hands are tied while trying to protect people from substances they should not be consuming, it isn t obvious.
Scare-mongering anti-chemical activist groups have pressured the FDA into calling for more stringent oversight of the cosmetics industry. But there is no basis for this concern, and the FDA has many more urgent and important issues on their crowded plate than this nonsense.
Here s a new fad to add to the list along with organic food and drinking unpasteurized milk: Mothers who are not able to breastfeed are now starting to accept breast milk donations from other mothers or paying for breast
A prescription fish-oil capsule, which has been approved for reducing elevated triglycerides, was voted down by an FDA panel to enlarge its indications to include lowering cholesterol due to a lack of data supporting efficacy against cardiovascular outcomes.
Dr. Gilbert Ross in Forbes, October 11, 2013
Any clear-thinking health professional would agree that cigarette smoking is without question the most devastating and preventable public health risk that we need to address in this country. And now, four-plus years after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was given legal authority over tobacco products, the regulatory agency faces arguably its most important public health decision in its history. The time has come to confront their responsibility to smokers trying to quit and their families...[Read more.]
In a surprisingly pro-public-health move, the EU Parliament voted down attempts to restrict or even ban e-cigarettes. Now we hope the FDA follows their lead.