[Pharmwaste] RE: group names top health hoaxes of 2008

[Pete Pasterz]

For more on ACSH, see                                http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Council_on_Science_and_Health

I wonder, are funding "strings" needed if you have an ideology that donors want to fund?


 Pete Pasterz, NCQRP
Cabarrus County Recycling and HHW
PO BOX 707 
Concord, NC  28026
www.cabarruscounty.us/waste
If you're not for ZERO Waste, how much Waste ARE you for?

-----Original Message-----
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us [mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us] On Behalf Of Tenace, Laurie
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 3:26 PM
To: pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us
Subject: [Pharmwaste] group names top health hoaxes of 2008

"One of the ACSH mantras, in fact, is 'The dose makes the poison.'" 
"The fact that you have chemicals in your body doesn't mean anything,"
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/checkup/2009/01/group_lists_top_health_hoaxe
s.html


Group Names Top Health Hoaxes of 2008
Remember the commotion last year about radioactive granite in our kitchen
counters? 

That story's just one of 10 health stories from 2008 identified as "hoaxes"
by the American Council on Science and Health, a nonprofit group of
scientists and physicians that advocates a common-sense approach to
maintaining good health. 

ACSH insists that claims about the health impact of products, chemicals and
other substances and practices be supported by sound science, preferably
published in peer-reviewed journals. If the science seems shaky -- by dint of
ineffective study design or data failure to establish a cause-and-effect
relationship, for instance -- ACSH is skeptical.

"Don't believe everything you read in newspapers or see on TV about health
threats from this or that" substance, says Gilbert Ross, ACSH's
medical/executive director. (Because someone's sure to bring it up, I include
here a discussion of Dr. Ross's conviction for his participation in a
health-clinic Medicaid scam nearly 20 years ago.) "A lot are based on
ideology or agenda," he adds, and are "trying to scare people."

Among the other top health stories that ACSH lists as hoaxes: fears that
phthalates in soft-plastic toys may harm infants who put such toys in their
mouths, that Bisphenol-A (BPA), a component of hard plastic used in such
items as water bottles and baby bottles, may cause disease in those who drink
from those bottles, that prescription drugs entering our water supply may
adversely affect our health, that cellphones cause brain cancer and that
common childhood vaccines can cause autism. 

ACSH debunks these and more, often on common grounds. In ACSH's reckoning,
rodent studies don't cut the mustard; nor do studies that, while appearing to
establish relationships between exposure to substances and particular health
outcomes, don't demonstrate that those substances actually caused those
outcomes. And ACSH is ever-mindful of quantities: In none of these cases, the
group argues, has the substance in question, at levels to which people are
actually exposed, been shown to do damage to humans. One of the ACSH mantras,
in fact, is "The dose makes the poison." 

Technology today allows us to detect tiny amounts of chemicals in drinking
water, commercial product and in our bodies, Ross notes. "If you're going to
measure amounts down to parts per billion, you can find anything," he says.
"The fact that you have chemicals in your body doesn't mean anything," in the
absence of solid research demonstrating otherwise.

In the case of BPA, the folks at ACSH are unmoved by a study in the September
2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association linking
elevated levels of BPA in adults' urine to heightened risk of cardiovascular
disease and diabetes; the study didn't establish a causal relationship
between BPA and those illnesses, ACSH notes. In any case, should BPA be
banned, ACSH argues, "any replacement chemical will not have been as
thoroughly studied and scrutinized as BPA has been, which may result in
actual safety issues in the future."

The ACSH report implicates the media in promulgating these stories, citing
instances in which reporters -- including those at the Washington Post --
have offered inflammatory and unbalanced accounts of the latest health
threat. (The Checkup has covered the Bisphenol-A story, the vaccine/autism
link, and cellphone cancer risk and radioactive granite counters. But here's
one we somehow missed: A small European study reportedly suggested that
drinking coffee shrinks women's breasts! As ACSH illustrates, that was a
mountain made of a molehill.)

As a reader of science reporting, I take this as a welcome reminder to not be
swayed by sensational news stories. And as a member of the media, I'm a bit
chastened by this reminder to always do due diligence in my reporting while
maintaining my own healthy skepticism.

Of course, we health reporters are part of the process by which science
progresses: Each study, by virtue of its own findings or the subsequent
research it spurs, brings us closer to the truth, and we report as that
process unfolds.

And while I'm all for a healthy give-and-take between research and its
debunkers, I'd feel more at ease with ACSH's stance if the organization would
reveal the names of its funders. Nowhere on its Web site -- including the
annual reports published there -- are ASCH's donors listed. Nor will Ross
name them. "We accept charitable donations from anyone who will donate to
us," he says, noting that donations are only taken from donors who accept the
group's "no strings attached" policy. "Our positions are all based on
peer-reviewed science," he adds. "When we're challenged on our funding, we
always respond, 'If you have a problem with any of our reports as far as the
facts, please address them.'"

Do you appreciate the media's calling attention to potential health threats,
even if science ends up not bearing them out? Or do too many stories fan
fears needlessly?




Laurie Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Waste Reduction Section
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Rd., MS 4555
Tallahassee FL 32399-2400
P: 850.245.8759
F: 850.245.8811

DISCLAIMER:
E-mail correspondence to and from this address may be subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.