Public Health

It’s not hard these days to find stories in the popular media about the presence of various chemical contaminants in our environment.  Included in this genre are stories about trace levels of chemicals in common consumer products, in the air we breathe, and in the water we drink.  Almost inevitably the stories suggest that even minor exposures are harming our health.  Making it worse, the consumer media is famous for producing scare stories that are short on scientific rigor.  If you’re a scientist with a lot of spare time on your hands, you can always conduct your own…

Sitting has been branded the “new smoking” for its supposed public health risks, especially for people with sit-down office jobs. Over the past 15 years or so sitting has been linked with cancer, heart disease and diabetes and even depression. This has led to a surge in media stories on the risks of sitting, even for people who do a lot of exercise. Then there’s the rise in the popularity of standing desks to encourage people to get off their chairs to improve their health. But is sitting really that risky? And do we really need standing desks? What does the evidence say? In our latest study…

On February 9, the International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM) released a declaration on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) in which the association implores the EU Commission to take a very conservative approach to identifying and regulating chemicals. If adopted, this approach would increase costs and reduce consumer choice while providing no commensurate benefits to public health. To support its case for taking action based on the "precautionary principle", AIM makes a number of claims of health effects…

Women who received a health scare in the form of a false positive result from a screening mammogram were more likely to delay or even forgo the next mammogram than women who had a correct negative result. A false positive result from a screening mammogram often leads to emotional, physical, and economic stress, though false positives are an expected part of proper medical care. For this study, the authors obtained data for women who received mammography screening through a large health care organization with multiple facilities in the greater metropolitan Chicago area. Among the 741,150…

If you sip a beer when you are a teenager, are you going to become a raging alcoholic? You are according to the logic of anti-smoking activists who won the war on cigarettes and need a one place to use their army - and their funding. Cigarette smoking has plummeted, which is what we have all wanted, and part of the reason for that is smoking cessation tools, like gums, patches, smokeless tobacco and things like e-cigarettes. Those are also used for harm reduction; smoking is as uncool as can be these days, so from a health point of view every cigarette not smoked is a win. They work because…

Between 2012 and 2015, the number of chemical burns to the eye associated with laundry detergent pods increased more than 30-fold among preschool-aged children in the US, according to a new analysis, but don't fall prey to the scaremongering that will be done by CNN and PBS. Detergent pods are dissolvable pouches containing enough laundry detergent for a single use - they lead to less waste because  the amount used is precise. That's good for the environment. But harried parents are being given one more thing to be terrified about, and academics are blaming "candy-like appearance." The…

A new analysis has found that if you are on Medicare, it's better to get a female internist than a male. Female internists have lower rates of 30-day mortality and hospital readmission than those patients treated by men. Obviously it could be a variety of other factors - modern medicine, and its government control, has created a "teach to the protocol environment", and women are more likely to adhere to guidelines -but the authors postulate that female physicians more likely to adhere to clinical guidelines and provide preventive care more often, meaning that even if their careers are…

On November 29, an op-ed article, co-signed by 94 scientists, and entitled “Let’s Stop the Manipulation of Science” was published in Le Monde.  It makes numerous allegations, most prominent among them that industry is “manufacturing doubt” about the science on endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs).  But as anyone who has followed the issue of endocrine disruptors knows, it is highly controversial and polarized with serious questions raised on both sides about exactly who is, in fact, manipulating the science.  In the following paragraphs, I tackle this allegation and others…

In the United States, legalization of marijuana is happening at a record pace, thanks to governments hoping for new tax streams and public health claims giving it a free pass that literally no other product has ever gotten. However, a few experts and some users agree that package warnings stating the health risks are needed, yet what marijuana smokers think is needed is different from what the medical community believes should be required.  Given the craze, it is no surprise journal publishers are scrambling to push out new places to lend marijuana a veneer of scientific authenticity.…

A recent study from French government researchers reported new results on the exposure of pregnant women to more than 100 substances that might be a concern for the health of a developing fetus.  The study examined exposure to various metals (e.g., lead, mercury, arsenic) and many common organic compounds that we might encounter in our daily lives.  Included in the study was bisphenol A (BPA), which is used primarily as a building block to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins.  Although those names may be unfamiliar to you, the materials are not; both are used in…