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Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


Industries lobby against voluntary nutrition guidelines for food marketed to kids
2011-07-09, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/industries-lobby-against-voluntary-nut...

The food and advertising industries have launched a multi-pronged campaign to squash government efforts to create voluntary nutritional guidelines for foods marketed to children. Calling themselves the Sensible Food Policy Coalition, the nation’s biggest foodmakers, fast-food chains and media companies, including Viacom and Time Warner, are trying to derail standards proposed by four federal agencies. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also lent its lobbying muscle to the effort. The guidelines are designed to encourage foodmakers to reduce salt, added sugars and fats in foods and drinks targeted to children. Public-health experts say children, many of whom may lack the critical-thinking skills to understand advertising, are bombarded daily by television ads, Web sites, toy giveaways and cartoon characters promoting junk food. The food and beverage industry spends about $2 billion a year marketing directly to children. The business community has portrayed the government’s guidelines as job-killing government overreach. “We allow companies into our homes to manipulate children to want food that will make them sick,” said Margo Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Note: The "Sensible Food Policy Coalition" is arguing against voluntary guidelines designed to help our children eat more nutritious food. Is that Orwellian doublespeak or what?


Can you get hooked on diet soda?
2011-03-02, CNN/Health.com
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/01/diet.soda.health/index.html

People who down several diet sodas per day are hardly rare. Government surveys have found that people who drink diet beverages average more than 26 ounces per day (some drink far more) and that 3% of diet-soda drinkers have at least four daily. Are these diet-soda fiends true addicts? And if so, what are they addicted to? Research suggests that the artificial sweeteners in diet soda (such as aspartame) may prompt people to keep refilling their glass because these fake sugars don't satisfy like the real thing. "Your senses tell you there's something sweet that you're tasting, but your brain tells you, 'Actually, it's not as much of a reward as I expected,'" says Martin P. Paulus, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Diego, and one of the authors of the study. "The consequence might be that the brain says, 'Well, I'll have more of this.'" In other words, artificial sweeteners may spur drinkers -- or their brains -- to keep chasing a "high" that diet soda keeps forever just out of reach. It's not clear that this teasing effect can lead to dependence, but it's a possibility, Dr. Paulus says. "Artificial sweeteners have positive reinforcing effects -- meaning humans will work for it, like for other foods, alcohol, and even drugs of abuse," he says. "Whenever you have that, there is a potential that a subgroup of people ... will have a chance of getting addicted."

Note: This article fails to mention the many scientists and brain surgeons who have gone on record describing the incredible dangers of aspartame, the main ingredient in most artificial sweeteners. To educate yourself on the serious health risks of aspartame, watch the very well researched documentary at this link.


Avastin increases fatal side effects in cancer patients
2011-02-02, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/health/medical/cancer/2011-02-02-avastin02_o...

One of the most financially successful cancer drugs in the world appears to cause more fatal side effects than previously realized, a new study says. Avastin, a blockbuster drug with more than $5.5 billion in global sales, increases the rate of fatal side effects by almost 50% when added to traditional chemotherapy, compared with chemo alone. About 2.5% of cancer patients who combine Avastin and chemo die from their treatment — rather than their disease, according to an analysis of 10,217 patients in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. In comparison, 1.7% of cancer patients who received only conventional chemo died as a result of therapy. The most common causes of death were hemorrhages, the loss of infection-fighting white blood cells, and perforations in the stomach or intestines, says Shenhong Wu of Stony Brook University School of Medicine, co-author of the analysis of 10,217 patients.

Note: Sadly, most studies that reveal such results are suppressed by the pharmaceutical industry.


Top Ten Legal Drugs Linked to Violence
2011-01-07, Time Magazine
http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/07/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence/...

When people consider the connections between drugs and violence, what typically comes to mind are illegal drugs like crack cocaine. However, certain medications most notably, some antidepressants like Prozac have also been linked to increase risk for violent, even homicidal behavior. A new study from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices published in the journal PloS One and based on data from the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System has identified 31 drugs that are disproportionately linked with reports of violent behavior towards others. Please note that this does not necessarily mean that these drugs cause violent behavior. Nonetheless, when one particular drug in a class of nonaddictive drugs used to treat the same problem stands out, that suggests caution: unless the drug is being used to treat radically different groups of people, that drug may actually be the problem. Here are the top ten offenders: * 10. Desvenlafaxine (Pristiq) * 9. Venlafaxine (Effexor) * 8. Fluvoxamine (Luvox) * 7. Triazolam (Halcion) * 6. Atomoxetine (Strattera) * 5. Mefoquine (Lariam) * 4. Amphetamines: (Various) * 3. Paroxetine (Paxil) * 2. Fluoxetine (Prozac) * 1. Varenicline (Chantix)

Note: As mentioned in this article, all of these drugs are 8 to 18 times time more likely to be linked to violent acts than other drugs. For excellent reports on health issues from reliable sources, click here.


Could simultaneous vaccines cause autism?
2010-10-02, Fox News
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4357414/vaccines-bad-combination

[Excerpts from transcript of video] Is there a connection between vaccines and autism? Thousands of families with autistic kids think there is. But the Centers for Disease Control has always maintained that no research supports a link. Now one famous pediatrician, who has written a book about vaccines, charges the government's studies on vaccines are woefully inadequate. Dr. Bob Sears is the author of The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child: [Q]: The government says they have studied vaccines and they do not cause autism. But has the government ever studied the amount of vaccines that our children get in one sitting? [Sears]: There is a CDC report that says that ... simultaneous vaccination has not been completely studied for safety and that's what we're worried about. Babies get as many as six or seven vaccines altogether ... and the CDC is admitting that they aren't always researched that way. The prime example is the flu vaccine. They've researched the flu vaccine in great detail when given alone, but the CDC has never researched it when given in conjunction with all the other shots. I think the CDC is just assuming that they are safe. But I want to know that these large combinations are safe. And what I do as a pediatrician, is I spread the vaccines out. I give no more than two vaccines at a time to any babies in my office. It takes longer to vaccinate them that way but I think it's a safer way to go.

Note: For key reports from major media sources on the risks of autism due to vaccines, click here.


Court OKs Hormone-Free Label On Dairy Products In Ohio
2010-10-01, NPR blog
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/10/01/130270131/court-give-hormone-free-...

A federal court yesterday struck down an Ohio ban on dairy products whose labels say they're made from milk that's free of hormones that increase cows' milk production. That means companies that want to say their products are "rbGH free" and "rbST free" and "artificial hormone free" are now free to do so. The ruling challenges the FDA's 17-year-old finding that there's "no significant difference" between the milk of cows given growth hormone and those that aren't. Just that sort of distinction ... is part of the ongoing debate about how to label genetically engineered salmon. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said there is a "compositional difference" between milk from cows given growth hormones and those without. The court gave three reasons they're different: * Increased levels of the hormone IGF-1; * A period of milk with lower nutritional quality during each lactation; and * Increased somatic cell counts (i.e. more pus in the milk). But the FDA concluded in 1993 when it approved the growth hormone that the milk shows "no significant difference" in milk from untreated cows.

Note: To learn more about how your health has been endangered by previous media and government decisions, click here. For a stunning 10-minute video clip showing how crazy this can get, click here.


Invisible Wounds: Mental Health and the Military
2010-08-22, Time magazine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2008886,00.html

U.S. Army specialist Ethan McCord was one of the first on the scene when a group of suspected insurgents was blown up on a Baghdad street in 2007, hit by 30-mm bursts from an Apache helicopter. "The top of one guy's head was completely off," he recalls. "Another guy was ripped open from groin to neck. A third had lost a leg ... Their insides were out and exposed. I'd never seen anything like this before." Then McCord heard a child crying from a black minivan caught in the barrage. Inside, he found a frightened and wounded girl, perhaps 4. Next to her was a boy of 7 or so, soaked in blood. Their father, McCord says, "was slumped over on his side, like he was trying to protect the children, but he was just destroyed." McCord couldn't look away from the kids. "I started seeing images of my own two children back home in Kansas." McCord Pulled the two kids out of the minivan--the boy was still alive--and helped get them to a hospital. The Apache gunship killed a dozen men, including a pair working for the Reuters news agency; the episode became a video sensation after WikiLeaks released footage of it in April. Back at his base, McCord washed the children's blood off his uniform and body armor. That night, he told his staff sergeant he needed help. "Get the sand out of your vagina," McCord says his sergeant responded. "He told me I was being a homo and needed to suck it up." McCord says he never spoke to anyone about it after that because he didn't want to get in trouble and instead did what soldiers have done forever. "I decided to try to push it down and bottle it up," he says.


Obama administration's scientists admit alarm over chemicals
2010-08-03, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/03/gulf-oil-spill-chemicals-epa

The Obama administration is facing internal dissent from its scientists for approving the use of huge quantities of chemical dispersants to tackle the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Guardian has learned. Jeff Ruch, the exective director of the whistleblower support group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said he had heard from five [EPA] scientists and two other officials who had expressed concerns to their superiors about the use of dispersants. "There was one toxicologist who was very concerned about the underwater application particularly," he said. "The concern was the agency appeared to be flying blind and not consulting its own specialists and even the literature that was available." Veterans of the Exxon Valdez spill questioned the wisdom of trying to break up the oil in the deep water at the same time as trying to skim it on the surface. Other EPA experts raised alarm about the effect of dispersants on seafood. Ruch said EPA experts were being excluded from decision-making on the spill. "Other than a few people in the united command, there is no involvement from the rest of the agency," he said. EPA scientists would not go public for fear of retaliation, he added.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on government corruption, click here.


A pill to make you smarter? Drug grows brain cells
2010-07-08, Reuters News
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/08/us-memory-drug-idUSTRE6675GT20100708

Researchers have found a drug that can help the brain grow new cells and said their study may lead to ways to improve experimental Alzheimer's drugs. The researchers' work, done on rodents, builds on findings that all mammals, including humans, make brain cells throughout their lives. Most of these die, but this drug helps more of the baby cells survive and grow to become functioning brain cells. "We make new neurons every day in our brain," Andrew Pieper of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview. "What our compound does is allow more of them to survive." The compound is called P7C3 for now, and the researchers have already started tweaking it to make it more effective. They said it seems safe and appears to work even when taken as a pill. The compound is similar to Medivation Inc and Pfizer Inc's experimental Alzheimer's drug, Dimebon, and may provide ways to improve its effects, Pieper and colleagues reported in the journal Cell. Alzheimer's gradually destroys the brain and affects 26 million people globally. Drugs, such as Pfizer's Aricept, improve symptoms only minimally.

Note: For key reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.


FDA is sued for failing to regulate bisphenol A
2010-06-30, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/30/BABQ1E6TF8.DTL

A top environmental group has sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over its failure to regulate bisphenol A, a ubiquitous chemical linked to reproductive harm, cancer and obesity in studies. The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit [on June 29] in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit arguing that millions of Americans have been unnecessarily exposed to the substance - found in everything from soda bottles and tuna cans to children's sippy cups - in the two years since it first petitioned the agency to outlaw bisphenol A. Under the FDA's own rules, it was required to approve, deny or otherwise respond to the October 2008 petition within 180 days, the lawsuit said. After maintaining for decades that bisphenol A was safe, the FDA reversed position in January, saying exposure to the chemical was of "some concern" for infants and children. The FDA also said it would further study bisphenol A over the next two years. "More research is always welcome and interesting, but at some point you have to say, 'We know enough,' and take action. We've reached that point," said Sarah Janssen, senior scientist at the NRDC's Environment and Public Health program in San Francisco.

Note: For lots more from major media sources on corporate and government corruption, click here and here.


Magnets can improve Alzheimer's symptoms
2010-06-24, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/magne...

Applying magnets to the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers helps them understand what is said to them. The finding by Italian scientsts, who conducted a randomised controlled trial of the treatment, suggests that magnets may alter "cortical activity" in the brain, readjusting unhealthy patterns caused by disease or damage. The study was small, involving just 10 patients, and the results are preliminary. But the scientists from Brescia and Milan say [the results] "hold considerable promise, not only for advancing our understanding of brain plasticity mechanisms, but also for designing new rehabilitation strategies in patients with neurodegenerative disease." Although many may scoff, the capacity of magnets to affect the working of the brain is already well established. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the technique investigated by the Italian scientists, has already been shown in separate experiments by British researchers to temporarily stun the part of the brain which controls speech, rendering volunteers unable to utter familiar words. In a similar way, a magnetic wand waved over the left side of the head, can make the right arm jump involuntarily. The excitation of the neuronal pathways that this demonstrates suggests, according to researchers, that the technique might be useful in the rehabilitation of stroke victims.

Note: For many excellent reports from reliable sources on important health issues, click here.


San Francisco Passes Cellphone Radiation Law
2010-06-16, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/16/us/16cell.html

Imposing roughly the same cautionary standards for cellphones as for fatty food or sugary soda, this city -- never shy about its opinions -- voted on [June 15] to require all retailers to display the amount of radiation each phone emits. The law -- believed to be the first of its kind in the nation -- came ... amid opposition from the wireless telephone industry, which views the labeling ordinance as a potential business-killing precedent. But the administration of Gavin Newsom, the city's ... mayor ... called the vote a major victory for cell phone shoppers' right to know. Under the law, retailers will be required to post materials -- in at least 11-point type -- next to phones, listing their specific absorption rate, which is the amount of radio waves absorbed into the cellphone user's body tissue. These so-called SAR rates can vary from phone to phone, but all phones sold in the United States must have a SAR rate no greater than 1.6 watts per kilogram, according to the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the $190 billion wireless industry.


Safety Rules Can’t Keep Up With Biotech Industry
2010-05-28, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/business/28hazard.html

They are the highly trained, generally well-paid employees in the vanguard of American innovation: people who work in biotechnology labs. But the cutting edge can be a risky place to work. The estimated 232,000 employees in the nation’s most sophisticated biotechnology labs work amid imponderable hazards. And some critics say the modern biolab often has fewer federal safety regulations than a typical blue-collar factory. At least three trends are stoking concern among safety advocates. In the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks, the federal government stepped up research involving biowarfare threats, like anthrax, Ebola and many other of the world’s deadliest pathogens. Another factor is that the new techniques of so-called synthetic biology allow scientists to make wholesale genetic changes in organisms rather than just changing one or two genes, potentially creating new hazards. The third trend involves the shifting focus of the pharmaceuticals industry. Drug makers, responding to competition from cheap generic medications, are moving beyond the traditional business of making pills in chemical factories to focus instead on vaccines and biologic drugs that are made in vats of living cells.


Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades
2009-11-29, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/us/29foodstamps.html

With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children. It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs. Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare. There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times. In more than 750 counties, the program helps feed one in three blacks. In more than 800 counties, it helps feed one in three children. In the Mississippi River cities of St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, half of the children or more receive food stamps. Even in Peoria, Ill. — Everytown, U.S.A. — nearly 40 percent of children receive aid. While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust.

Note: For more from reliable sources on the impacts and realities of the Wall Street financial crisis, click here.


GlaxoSmithKline pulls swine flu vaccines in Canada
2009-11-24, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-11-24-glaxo-flu-vaccine-pull_N.htm

Drug company GlaxoSmithKline has told Canadian doctors to stop using one lot of its H1N1 vaccine until an investigation into a higher-than-expected number of severe allergic reactions is completed. The U.S. vaccine will not be identical to Arepanrix, the GSK H1N1 vaccine used in Canada. Arepanrix contains an adjuvant, a substance designed to boost the immune response, but adjuvants have never been approved for use in U.S. flu vaccines. Almost all of the 172,000 doses in question, distributed the week of Nov. 2 to six Canadian provinces, already have been administered, said Geoffrey Matthews, a spokeswoman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, which, with GSK and Health Canada, is investigating cases of anaphylaxis. Symptoms of anaphylaxis include trouble breathing, chest tightness and swelling of the mouth and throat. Six cases have been reported, Matthews says. In the USA, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System said that as of Nov. 13 it had received 116 reports of serious health events related to the vaccine, including eight deaths – similar to the number in previous years after a similar number of seasonal flu vaccine doses had been shipped.

Note: For lots more on the risks of swine flu vaccines, click here.


LSD's long, strange trip back into the lab
2009-09-27, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/27/MNEN19SNGD.DTL

LSD, the drug that launched the psychedelic era and became one of the resounding symbols of the counterculture movement of the '60s, is back in the labs. Nearly 40 years after widespread fear over recreational abuse of LSD and other hallucinogens forced dozens of scientists to abandon their work, researchers at a handful of major institutions - including UCSF and Harvard University - are reigniting studies. The study at UCSF ... is looking into the mechanisms of LSD and how it works in the brain. The hope is that such research might support further studies into medical applications of LSD - for chronic headaches, for example - or psychiatric uses. "Psychedelics are in labs all over the world and there's a lot of promise," said Rick Doblin, director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in Santa Cruz. Stanislav Grof was one of the last scientists to abandon hallucinogenic research when he shut down several projects at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in 1973 after his funding dried up. He moved to California to work at a research institute in Big Sur, where he turned to studies about how to re-create the effects of those drugs through meditation and breathing techniques. He's pleased to see some of the stigma falling away from drugs like LSD, but it bothers him that the scientific community lost decades of research. "I thought psychiatry and psychology really lost a major opportunity because of the abuse that happened with unsupervised research," Grof said. "These are fascinating substances - and they're very, very powerful, so they should be used with great precaution."


WHO: 3BN swine flu vaccine doses available yearly
2009-09-24, Forbes.com/Associated Press
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/09/24/general-un-who-swine-flu_6927291.html

Pharmaceutical companies will be able to produce about 3 billion doses of swine flu vaccine a year ... the World Health Organization said. The U.N. agency had previously predicted that companies would be able to make up to 5 billion doses each year. The World Health Organization admits that not everyone may need vaccination. "Most people will do well without the vaccine," WHO vaccine chief Marie-Paule Kieny told reporters. She said most people infected with the pandemic strain of the H1N1 virus have a mild illness and recover by themselves. Addressing concerns about the safety of the pandemic vaccine, WHO said trials to date suggest it is as safe as a regular seasonal flu shot. Kieny said large-scale vaccination programs would probably detect some cases of severe reaction following the vaccination, but that those would likely have occurred anyway without vaccination. The agency is urging countries to monitor the vaccination procedure for possible further side effects. Meanwhile WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan repeated Thursday her recommendation that governments keep up their guard against swine flu but refrain from closing borders or restricting trade.

Note: With the cost of a regular flu vaccine dose ranging from about $20 to $30, do you think the pharmaceutical companies have any vested interest in the public being vaccinated? Let's see, 3 billion X $20 = $60 billion. Hmm. For more on the danger of this vaccine and rampant fear mongering, click here and here.


The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate
2009-08-29, Time magazine
http://www.newsweek.com/id/214254

To the credit of opponents of health-care reform, the lies and exaggerations they're spreading are not made up out of whole cloth—which makes the misinformation that much more credible. Instead, because opponents demand that everyone within earshot (or e-mail range) look, say, "at page 425 of the House bill!," the lies take on a patina of credibility. Take the claim in one chain e-mail that the government will have electronic access to everyone's bank account, implying that the Feds will rob you blind. The 1,017-page bill passed by the House Ways and Means Committee does call for electronic fund transfers—but from insurers to doctors and other providers. There is zero provision to include patients in any such system. Five other myths that won't die: [1] You'll have no choice in what health benefits you receive. [2] No chemo for older Medicare patients. A related myth is that health-care reform will be financed through $500 billion in Medicare cuts. This refers to proposed decreases in Medicare increases. [3] Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance. [4] Death panels will decide who lives. [5] The government will set doctors' wages. To be sure, there are also honest and principled objections to health-care reform. Some oppose a requirement that everyone have health insurance as an erosion of individual liberty. And many are simply scared out of their wits about what health-care reform will mean for them. But when fear and loathing hijack the brain, anything becomes believable.

Note: For lots more on health issues from major media sources, click here.


Pandemic flu shows need for pharma incentives: WHO
2009-07-14, Reuters News
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE56D1XM20090714

Pharmaceutical firms need incentives, including lucrative patents, to keep creating drugs and vaccines against emergent threats such as the H1N1 influenza pandemic, the World Health Organization's head said on Tuesday. "Progress in public health depends on innovation. Some of the greatest strides forward for health have followed the development and introduction of new medicines and vaccines," said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said. Chan, who last month declared a full pandemic underway from the H1N1 virus, said that patents can help ensure that companies develop medicines to "stay ahead of the development of drug resistance" in diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. The discovery of isolated H1N1 infections that resist the anti-viral Tamiflu, made by Roche and Gilead, and the global scramble to secure flu vaccines have shown the importance of robust research and development, Chan said. "Innovation is needed to keep pace with the emergence of new diseases, including pandemic influenza caused by the new H1N1 virus," she told a meeting on intellectual property and health, a contentious issue that has divided rich and poor nations.

Note: How much more blatant can it get? The WHO is telling us to pump money into the corrupt pharmaceutical corporations, who make huge profits from fear mongering and health disasters. When profit drives the health industry, which do you think comes first, money or public health? For lots more revealing, reliable information on the fear-mongering around swine flu, click here and here.


Panel Criticizes U.S. Effort on Nanomaterial Risks
2008-12-11, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/science/11nano.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pag...

In a sweeping critique ... an expert panel of the National Research Council said the federal government was not doing enough to identify potential health and environmental risks from engineered nanomaterials. Nanomaterials are engineered on the scale of a billionth of a meter, perhaps 1/10,000 the width of a human hair. They are turning up in a range of items including consumer products like toothpaste and tennis rackets and industrial products like degreasers or adhesives. But some experts say they may pose health or environmental risks. For example, researchers in Scotland reported this year that carbon nanotubes may pose the same health risks as asbestos. “Industry wants to run with it,” said Andrew D. Maynard, chief science adviser to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson Institute, who was the chairman of the panel. But he added, “one of the big barriers at the moment is understanding how to use it safely.” The panel analyzed the risk research strategy of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the program to coordinate federal efforts in nanotechnology research and development. Its report concluded that the initiative’s strategy “does not present a vision, contain a clear set of goals, have a plan of action for how the goals are to be achieved, or describe mechanisms to review and evaluate funded research and assess whether progress has been achieved.” An informal coalition of environmental and business organizations praised the report, saying that for three years they had been urging the federal government to do more to assess potential health and environmental effects of nanomaterials.

Note: For many important articles on health issues from reliable sources, click here.


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