"The ‘Toxic’ Lies Behind Jessica Alba’s Booming Baby Business," by Julie Gunlock. Actress Jessica Alba, co-founder of the ironically named “The Honest Company,” recently declared, “One billion feels like a small number.” Alba was referring to her companies’ profits, made not by being honest with consumers but by spreading lies about her competitors. The Honest Company sells a variety of organic and eco-friendly baby and personal-care products, such as diapers, baby wipes, sunscreen, soap, face … [Read more...]
BPA Lined Cans Still Safe Despite Green Hype
June 15, 2015
"Should You Avoid Canned Food?" By the Center for Accountability in Science. The Environmental Working Group (EWG)—the same group that publishes a scaremongering annual report on sunscreen safety—is now trying to discourage the consumption of canned foods. In a new report, EWG argues that since a large amount of the canned items on consumer shelves use bisphenol A (BPA) in can linings, consumers should “limit or avoid canned food.” EWG claims BPA poses a health risk to consumers, but fails to … [Read more...]
The High Cost of Junk Science
June 15, 2015
"Bad Science Might be Costing Billions," By Center for Accountability in Science. Poor experiment design, accidental contamination, and inadequate data analysis are all major research problems we’ve pointed out on this blog. Now, a new study published in PLOS Biology estimates that problematic research that isn’t easily reproduced may be costing $28 billion per year. Of course, that doesn’t mean all those studies were complete wastes. Some studies included in that figure did find valid results, … [Read more...]
Chemicals and Junk Science
June 15, 2015
"Jack Dini vs. the World of Junk Science (and the Rest of the World)," by American Council on Science and Health. Talk about a big job. Writing for the Canadian Press, Jack Dini’s new piece, “Chemicals—Don’t Trouble Oneself With the Facts,” goes way past the title. Dini, who wrote a book entitled “Challenging Environmental Myths” (Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2003) comes out with guns blazing, and covers far more than chemicals. He writes about the inability of facts to change … [Read more...]
The Bees are Alright
June 15, 2015
"The Bees are Allright! Stop Worrying About Them and Start Worrying about the Science," by American Council on Science and Health. “The bees are ok”– that’s the message Terence Corcoran hammers home in his latest article for the Financial Post. The piece comes on the heels of Canada’s Minister of the Environment, Glen Murray, announcing that the country will start doing more for the “declining” bee populations. However, as Corcoran explains exhaustively with data, this policy is not only … [Read more...]
Save the Bees from Biofuel Mandates
June 8, 2015
"Save the Bees: Eliminate Biofuel Mandates," By Angela Logomasini. The Obama administration made a lofty promise with the launch of its National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and other Pollinators. Over the next five years, the feds will implement an interagency campaign to restore and improve 7 million acres of “pollinator habitat.” That may be a laudable goal. But the strategy fails to address one of the biggest threats to pollinator habitat: federal biofuel mandates. Read … [Read more...]
Fracking No Threat to Drinking Water
June 8, 2015
"EPA Says Fracking Isn’t a Threat to Drinking Water," by American Council on Science and Health. The US government’s most comprehensive examination of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and drinking water, which spanned four years, concluded that fracking, as it is being carried out and regulated, is not a threat to drinking water. “Hydraulic fracturing activities in the U.S. are carried out in a way that have not led to widespread, systematic impact on drinking water resources,” said Thomas … [Read more...]
Common Sense about Pesticides
June 8, 2015
"Some Common Sense About Pesticides. From the Daily Beast of All Places," by American Council on Science and Health. Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 4.15.56 PMKudos to Kent Sepkowitz for his very smart piece in yesterday’s Daily Beast. The title alone—Today’s ADHD Blame Game: Pesticides—suggest critical thinking about chemical toxicity—something that is very rare in these days of one phony scare after another—is being applied. Indeed Sepkowitz uses just that, and does so brilliantly. In addition to … [Read more...]
Popcorn Chemical Scare
June 8, 2015
"Chemicals In Your Popcorn? asks the Times’ Kristof. Yes, There Are," By American Council on Science and Health. We have often taken note of the Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof’s rants expressing his concerns about various chemicals and substances he fears in his (and our) everyday environment. Here are some of the issues with which he and we have disagreed over the past 2-3 years ... He has expressed his deep concerns about the usual paranoid, chemophobia targets: endocrine disruptors, BPA … [Read more...]
Pork-Barrel and the Pollinators “Strategy”
June 1, 2015
"Of Pork-Barrel and Pollinators," By Angela Logomasini, Ph.D. The Obama administration has finally released its long-awaited National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and other Pollinators. It’s the federal government’s answer to the alarming claims that honeybees are disappearing, threatening many crops that rely on the bees for pollination. While it’s not clear what this strategy will achieve for the bees, we can be sure it comes with lots of government handouts, pork-barrel … [Read more...]
Dismiss Junk Science on Autism Causes
June 1, 2015
"Discard the Junk Science on Autism," By Dr. Joseph Perrone. What do Sean Penn and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. have in common? They’re both wealthy celebrities pushing new documentaries that make dangerous, unproven claims about the causes of autism. The rate of autism diagnoses has indeed skyrocketed in the past 20 years from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 68. However, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) points out, a large (though not the only) factor in that dramatic jump is increased … [Read more...]
Colonies Collapsing?
June 1, 2015
"Are bee colonies collapsing? If so, why? If not, why all the hype?," By American Council on Science and Health. Last June, in response to ongoing concerns about the perceived loss of bee colonies, often referred to as “bee colony collapse disorder (BCCD),” President Obama established a multi-agency “Pollinator Task Force.” The panel’s mandate: investigate the various data on the health of bees in the U.S., and if a valid threat was detected, to determine the cause or causes and make … [Read more...]
Grading the Pollinator Strategy
June 1, 2015
"Grading The President's Strategy To Promote Bee Health," By Hank Campbell. In 2006 there was a serious decline in the number of honey bee colonies in parts of Europe and the United States and it brought renewed concern about another Colony Collapse Disorder, which had last occurred in the mid-1990s. Bee colonies rebounded quickly and are higher than ever but the question lingered; what caused these periodic collapses? Answers ranged from pests to viruses and pesticides and studies did nothing … [Read more...]
EWG’s Sunscreen Smoke Screen
May 27, 2015
"Are there ‘Worrisome’ Ingredients in Sunscreens?" By Center for Accountability in Science Staff. Memorial Day is just around the corner, which for many Americans signals the opening of swimming pools and the beginning of beach vacations. For the Environmental Working Group (EWG), it’s the opportunity to release its scary annual report about the “danger” posed by most sunscreens on the market. This year, EWG’s splashy new finding is that “80 percent of 1,700 products we examined this year offer … [Read more...]
Wine Alarmists
May 22, 2015
"Wine Alarmists Should Stick a Cork In It," By Julie Gunlock. I’m a mom of three young kids. That means I like to have a glass of wine with breakfast, lunch, and dinner now and then. And since my kids seem to grow out of their clothes and shoes seconds after I’ve purchased them, I like to get a good deal on a box bottle or two. Luckily for me, there is stiff competition in the wine industry, which means I can get wines from around the world at prices I can afford. Yet with competition comes … [Read more...]
Honeybees and Pork-Barrel Politics
May 21, 2015
"Saving the Bees vs. Pork Barrel Spending," By Angela Logomasini. The Obama administration has finally released its "National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators." It's the federal government's answer to all the hype found in the news related to the health of the nation's honeybee hives. While it's not clear what it will achieve for the bees, we can be sure it comes with lots of pork-barrel spending, government handouts, and shortsighted pesticide polices that … [Read more...]
Honeybee Policy Should Use Facts not Alarmism
May 21, 2015
"U.S. Pollinator Policy Should Focus on Facts Rather than Alarmism," By Angela Logomasini, Ph.D. The House Agriculture Subcommittee on Biotechnology, Horticulture and Research held a a hearing on “pollinator health” on May 13 to discuss a national strategy designed to improve honeybee health. Hopefully, U.S. regulators and legislators will not move too quickly on a strategy that is governed by alarmism; rather, they should take a deliberative approach that is based on science and good … [Read more...]
Honeybee Nonsense
May 21, 2015
"On Bee Enslavement and Other Nonsense," By Angela Logomasini, Ph.D. I’ve seen many crazy headlines about the challenges facing honeybees, but this one takes the cake: “Bee collapse is the result of their enslavement in industrial monocultures.” So now, not only are humans “killing off” bees, we are “enslaving” them! According to this article, “industrial agriculture” is the problem and technological approaches won’t help things. However, the authors don’t offer much of any solution other … [Read more...]
Green Agenda on Bees
May 20, 2015
"Bee Facts Change – Green Agendas Don’t," by Paul Driessen. U.S. Department of Agriculture annual beekeeper surveys reveal that the number of honey-producing hives in the United States has held steady at about 2.5 million since 1995. Indeed, the numbers increased four of the last five years and are actually higher now than when neonics first came on the market in the mid 1990s. Most beehive problems now involve less experienced hobby beekeepers. A similarly hyped issue, “colony collapse … [Read more...]
The Right Chemistry on Teflon
May 18, 2015
"Dr. Joe Schwarcz’ “'The Right Chemistry' on Teflon and Related Chemicals," By American Council on Science and Health. We have lavished well-deserved praise on McGill University’s Dr. Joe Schwarcz on several occasions over the years. Unlike many of his “science-y” colleagues whose news media megaphones take the sensationalist, “sky is falling” approach to trace levels of anything in the environment, he usually presents a voice of reason amidst the clamor. So it was in his column in a recent … [Read more...]
Effects of the Idiotic Governmental Policy on Asthma Inhalers
May 13, 2015
"An Idiotic Governmental Policy That Will Take Your Breath Away—Literally," by American Council on Science and Health. When it comes to government policies regarding health policy, we’ve seen pretty much every type: Meaningless, but mostly harmless, anti-science, money driven, and ill-conceived and harmful. Some of these (the full list would shut down the Internet) include the Hatch DSHEA act of 1994, which allowed untested drugs to be sold under the guise of “food supplements,” state laws that … [Read more...]
Science in Retreat
May 13, 2015
"Chemophobia Rampant, Science In Retreat. It Cannot End Well," By Gil Ross. The baseless, superstitious fear of chemicals has certainly gripped our supposedly advanced population in a haze of inchoate panic akin to the residents of 17th century Salem, or Europeans of the Dark Ages. Sadly, science ignorance pervades our populace, largely because the perception is "Who cares?" or “How do I know what to believe?” And perhaps even more important: "Do I really need to know that?” Yes, you do. Read … [Read more...]
Handmade Soap Under Attack
May 13, 2015
"Big Cosmetic And Sen. Dianne Feinstein Go After Your Handmade Soap," By Hank Campbell. What do you have when someone declares that organic food should be separate from USDA oversight but organic soap should have special oversight if it is not made by a large corporation? A California politician. In this case, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is obeying the wishes of every large cosmetics corporation and siccing the Food and Drug Administration on 300,000 primarily woman-owned handmade … [Read more...]
New Bee “Crisis”
May 13, 2015
"The New Bee Crisis Is Just Like The Old One: Phony," by Henry I. Miller. Never let a good crisis go to waste, Rahm Emanuel famously said. But what do you do if the “crisis” turns out to be a dud? Easy–invent a new one. That’s what we’re seeing currently in Washington and Brussels, where government regulators, deprived of one environmental calamity–by, of all things, data–are scrambling for a new narrative. For years environmentalists have been raising alarms about the “bee-pocalypse”–a … [Read more...]
Lowes and Home Depot Sell Out to Activist Junk Science
May 11, 2015
"Stupid-Strategy Sweepstakes: Home Depot vs. Lowe’s," By Jeff Stier & Henry I. Miller. Both of the nation’s retail hardware behemoths, Home Depot and Lowe’s, recently sold out to activists in ways that are the corporate equivalent of a dog’s putting his tail between his legs and slinking away from a bully. Home Depot announced that by the end of this year it will stop selling vinyl flooring that contains a class of chemicals called phthalates. It described the move as an effort to … [Read more...]
