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Obesity forecast is overblown

May 9, 2012  •  Newsday

Take those grim claims about a fat future for America with a grain of salt.

Several grains of salt, in fact. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, shortening, milk, eggs and vanilla. Mix them all together and bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Enjoy the cupcake this will create with the realization that the predictions are only half-baked. But eat in moderation. That's the key to beating obesity.

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FDA Dietary Regs Go Beyond Science and the Law

May 8, 2012  •  Breitbart's Big Government

The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to be the scientific arbiter concerning the safety of dietary supplements. Instead, it is acting arbitrarily, choosing to target one product not because of any actual risk, but as an attempt to justify its own forthcoming regulations.

The FDA issued warning letters late last month to ten makers of popular workout supplements containing the ingredient DMAA. The products are supposed to give users the feel one would get after drinking a few cups of coffee. DMAA is found in geranium plants, but it is more efficiently produced in a lab, just like many vitamins and minerals Americans use every day.

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Anti-Technology Activists Are The Real Slime

April 26, 2012  •  Forbes

The recent controversy over "lean finely textured beef" (LFTB), or "pink slime" as the media and activists love to call it, is reminiscent of the old TV commercial, "Where's the beef?" There just isn't much there there. But the flap is a symptom of something much larger: a kind of puritanical and purist view of food that is based not on science or facts but on intuition — and ignorance.

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How Canada Gets Chemical Regulation Right

April 19, 2012  •  Real Clear Policy

In one sense, the environmental activists have it right: The main law governing chemical regulations in the United States is outdated.

The "Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families" coalition, a group of radical environmental organizations including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), is pushing congress to fundamentally change the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976. But instead of updating it to streamline burdensome regulations using the latest science, they want it modeled on the heavy-handed European Union system called Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals, or REACH.

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Good Housekeeping, Polluted

April 17, 2012  •  Junkscience.com

In the SkyMall catalog on a flight last month, a pitch for "MidNite," a "drug free sleep remedy" caught my eye. The ad boasted that the chewable and all-natural tablets will help you "fall asleep fast, then awake good to go." And of course, then came the small-print disclaimer that the product was not evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This is amusingly consistent with SkyMall's listings for products such as "Go Away Gray" and the $159.99 "Touchless Sensor" toilet Seat which automatically raises and lowers itself. But what struck me about the "MidNite" ad was the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval accompanying it.

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