Archive for 2003
Faked Environmental Lab Results a Concern
The Environmental Protection Agency is concerned about what it perceives as a rise in the number of individuals and laboratories that it is finding are producing fraudulent results for legally required environmental tests.
David Uhlmann, chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, told the Associated Press in January,
In recent years, what has come to our attention is that outside labs are oftentimes in bed with the people who hired them, and conspired to commit environmental crime.
The sorts of fraudulent tests range from test at Superfund sites to determine the severity of pollution at the site, fraudulent water quality tests, and fake tests designed to show that underground gasoline tank storage tanks are not leaking petroleum when, in fact, they are.
But whether there is an increase in such fraud or whether the Justice Department is simply getting better at discovering and prosecuting it is still an open question. Regardless, such fraud undermines the government’s ability to monitor existing health problems as well as to formulate reasonable regulations to deal with pollution and other problems.
Source:
Private labs fake environmental tests. Associated Press, January 22, 2003.
Tags: Uncategorized
Study Finds No Evidence for an Acrylamide/Cancer Connection
A study conducted by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden found little evidence to back up fears that acrylamide might be increasing the risk of cancer in human beings.
Acrylamide is a compound that is created in many foods when they are baked or fried at high temperatures, including such snack foods as potato chips. In 2002 Swedish researches made a splash by claiming that acrylamide was present in many common foods at unsafe levels.
The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, looked at the dietary habits of 987 people with either colon, bladder, rectum or kidney cancer, as well as 500 cancer-free people.
The study found that there was no link between acrylamide consumption and the risk of bladder or kidney cancer. There was a positive association between consumption of acrylamide and a reduced risk of kidney cancer, though this is likely due to confounding factors (i.e. people who consume high levels of acrylamide are also likely consuming large amounts of dietary fiber).
Paul Nurse, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, told Reuters,
We know that acrylamide can be carcinogenic to animals, but this study suggests that either the levels in food are too low to affect cancer risk, or that the body is able to deactivate the chemical in some way.
This is only the first of many studies that will be published on acrylamide, but at least the news here is encouraging.
Source:
Study doubts acrylamide in food causes cancer. Patricia Reaney, Reuters, January 28, 2003.
Tags: Cancer
Deaths from vCJD Continue Decline in Great Britain
The United Kingdom’s National CJD Surveillance Unit reported in The Lancet that the number of people who died from vCJD continued to fall in 2002.
Last year 17 people in Great Britain died from the disease, compared to 20 in 2001 and 28 in 2000. Since 1995, 122 people have been killed by vCJD and another eight people who are still alive are believe to be infected with the prion disease that is linked to the consumption of meat contaminated with a bovine version of the disease. So far in 2003, one death has been linked to vCJD.
The big question is whether or not vCJD deaths will continue to decline. Dr. Robert Will, who heads up the UK CJD Surveillance Unit told the BBC,
That mortality is no longer increasing exponentially is encouraging. However, to conclude that the epidemic is in permanent decline would be premature.
In animal studies, for example, the incubation rate of vCJD-like diseases varies widely between individuals, so it is possible that the number of cases could begin to increase sometime in the future.
Source:
CJD cases ‘in decline’. The BBC, February 28, 2003.
Tags: Uncategorized
The Wealth/Breast Cancer Link
The San Francisco Chronicle recently ran an excellent article looking at the surprising results of studies that have tried to find why breast cancer rates in places like Marin County are so much higher than the national average. The answer turns out to be that a large part of the difference appears to be due to relative affluence of women in such areas.
In Marin County, 198 of every 100,000 white women was diagnosed with breast cancer between 1995 and 1999. For the nation as a whole, the rate for white women is only 139 cases per 100,000. Studies of the phenomenon find that the factor that most closely correlates with the increased risk of breast cancer is that women in Marin County have a relatively wealthy, upper-middle class lifestyle.
Why would being wealthy increase the rate of breast cancer incidence? There are a number of factors that appear to be behind this phenomenon,
- Such women tend to have their first children later in life. Pregnancy and breast feeding cause cells in the breast to mature and some scientist hypothesize that the sooner this happens, the lower the risk of breast cancer.
- Wealthy women are more likely to have mammograms and other medical attention.
- Drinkning the equivalent of two glasses of wine daily raises the risk of breast cancer in some studies, and the rate of female alcohol consumption in Marin County is more than twice as high as the national average.
- Women from some white ethnic subgroups are more likely to carry genetic mutations that predispose women to breast cancer.
A study of 130,000 California teachers, for example, found that those women had a 51 percent higher rate of breast cancer than the general population.
The idea that it is increasing affluence that leads to higher breast cancer incidence is met with resistance by breast cancer activists who are convinced that the increase must be due to exposure to environmental toxins. As Jean Rizzo, director of the Breast Cancer Fund in San Francisco told the San Francisco Chronicle,
There’s a blame-the-victim aspect to it: ‘You had your kids late, you didn’t breast feed. Bummer. Live with it.’
Apparently anything which might be psychologically discomfiting can immediately be ruled out as a possible cause of cancer.
Source:
Breast cancer amid affluence. Ulysses Torassa, San Francisco Chronicle, January 26, 2003.
Tags: Cancer
Is MMR Hysteria Behind Increase in Ireland’s Measles Cases?
Public health officials in Ireland are blaming anti-measles, mumps and rubella vaccine hysteria for causing an increase in the number of measles cases there.
The MMR vaccination rate has fallen to just 72 percent nationwide in Ireland, and is at only 63 percent in Dublin. To be assured of controlling measles, mumps and rubella, the vaccination rate needs to be 95 percent.
Over a six week period in December and January when 30 cases of measles would normally be seen, 100 cases of the disease were reported. In the following two weeks, another 100 cases were reported.
Ireland last saw a measles epidemic in 2000 when 1,630 children came down with the disease and three died. In the United States, by contrast, only a few cases of the disease are reported annually and most of those cases are contracted by foreigners visiting the country.
Physician Dr. Maurice Gueret disputed the MMR hysteria link, telling the New York Times that the problem “goes back generations; we’ve always had an appalling vaccination rate in Ireland” owing to a substandard health care system and poor tracking of which children have been vaccinated.
Whatever the root cause, Ireland’s example highlights the importance of maintaining high vaccination rates.
Source:
As vaccination rates decline in Ireland, cases of measles soar. Brian Lavery, The New York Times, February 7, 2003.
Tags: Vaccination
Michael Fumento Takes on Anti-ADHD Claims
Michael Fumento has a long piece in the February 2, 2003 issue of The New Republic taking on conservatives who have labeled Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as hoaxes.
According to Fumento,
Many conservative writers, myself included, have criticized the growing tendency to pathologize every undesirable behavior — especially where children are concerned. But, when it comes to ADHD, this skepticism is misplaced. As even a cursory examination of the existing literature or, for that matter, simply talking to the parents and children with ADHD reveals, the condition is real, and it is treatable.
Fumento debunks several myths about ADHD that have appeared in conservative publications, including Francis Fukuyama’s bizarre claim that Prozac is being used to create a more androgynous society, and the nonsense that children on Ritalin and other drugs are “zombies.”
One thing Fumento doesn’t mention in his survey of conservative opinion, is that there is plenty of pseudoscience to go around among people who accept the ADD/ADHD diagnosis. For example, despite any scientific evidence that it actually works, many folks swear up and down by special diets which eliminate sugar or food dyes or any of a number of “food additives of the month.”
Source:
Trick Question: A Liberal Hoax Turns Out to Be True. Michael Fumento, The New Republic, February 2, 2003.
Tags: Michael Fumento
Homeopathic Remedy Found Ineffective at Pain Management
Researchers at the University of Exeter and the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital recently put homeopathic remedy arnica to the test and found it came up lacking.
Arnica tables are widely available in Great Britain and, according to the BBC, are “usually sold to control bruising, reduce swelling and generally help recovery after an injury or operation.”
Researchers studying the efficacy of arnica looked at patients about to have wrist surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome. They divided the patients into three groups: one group received a high dosage of arnica, a second group a low dosage, and the third group received a placebo.
Along with asking patients to keep a diary of pain and monitoring their painkiller usage, the researchers took photos of the patients’ wrist and used a computer to evaluate the extent of bruising and swelling.
The result was there was no significant difference in terms of pain, bruising, swelling, or painkiller usage between the three groups.
Lead researcher professor Edzard Ernst told the BBC, “I hope this research will help people to look for more effective treatments and save money by not buying homeopathic arnica.”
Source:
Homeopathic remedy ‘ineffective’. The BBC, February 3, 2003.
Tags: Homeopathy
AntiPolygraph.Org
AntiPolygraph.Org is an excellent site devoted to just one topic — documenting just how unscientific and unreliable polygraph machines and techniques are.
Along with reports and documents about the polygraph, the site tracks news stories and incidents where polygraphs fail. For example, the site points out that one of the reasons U.S. officials spent so much time searching for 19 alleged terrorists who had supposedly slipped into the country was that the person who perpetrated this hoax was apparently able to pass “extensive” polygraph testing by U.S. and Canadian authorities.
Tags: Uncategorized