2008

Charlie Trotter: Biotechvs. Henry Miller, M.D. — Molecular Biologist, Hoover Institution-Stanford University

Paul McCartney: Animal Testingvs. Lee Silver, Ph.D. — Molecular Biologist, Princeton University

Carol Alt: Fatvs. Dean Cliver, Ph.D. — Professor, Department of PopulationHealth, University of California-Davis

Sheryl Crow: Microwaved Plasticvs. Michael Kamrin, Ph.D. — Toxicologist, Michigan State University

Ann Coulter: Smokingvs. William O. Robertson, M.D. — Medical Toxicologist, University ofWashington School of Medicine

Arnold Schwarzenegger: Phthalates (Plastic Softeners)vs. F. Peter Guengerich, Ph.D. — Biochemist and Toxicologist,Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Jenny McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy: Vaccinesvs. Paul Offit, M.D. — Pediatrician, Children's Hospital ofPhiladelphia

Diedre Imus: Chemicalsvs. Tom Allems, M.D., M.P.H. — Toxicologist, University of California-San Francisco

Tom Cruise: Mental Illnessvs. Nigel Bark, M.D. — Psychiatrist, Bronx Psychiatric Center

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ACSH accepts unrestricted grants on the condition that it is solely responsible for the conduct of its research and the dissemination ofits work to the public. The organization does not perform proprietary research, nor does it accept support from individual corporationsfor specific research projects. All contributions to ACSH—a publicly funded organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the InternalRevenue Code—are tax deductible.

Copyright © 2007 by American Council on Science and Health, Inc. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeo-graph or any other means, without permission.

It is important thatcitizens let the governmentknow how they feel aboutgenetically engineeredfood. I have concerns thatthis untested technologydiminishes the purity andtaste of food.—Trotter

Chef Trotter’s commentis instructive in severalways. First, food fromgene-spliced plants(mostly corn and soy-beans) have been aroundfor more than a decade,and North American con-sumers have eaten morethan a trillion(1,000,000,000,000)servings without a singleillness or injury. Virtually every American older thanan infant consumes these products often. Second,these food products are extensively, exhaustivelytested and (too) stringently regulated by the govern-ment. Third, in poll after poll, virtually no consumer,unprompted, mentions gene-spliced foods as a con-cern. Finally, even chef Trotter seems to havechanged his mind: “Everybody who’s against geneti-cally modified foods and big corporate food produc-tion, I think they could be a little more open-mindedin how they look at these things,” he said recently.—Dr. Miller

Sometimes peopleplace too much faith inpeople in white lab coatsand assume that there’sa need for animal testingjust because it has beengoing on for so long. I believe this to be aholdover from the darkage of medical science,and more enlightenedscientists nowadaysbelieve they can get more reliable results withmore modern methods.

—McCartney

With the discovery inthe last two decadesthat all mammals shareover 95% of the samegenes, animal researchhas become moreimportant than everbefore in helping scien-tists understand thehereditary influences onnumerous human dis-

eases, including cystic fibrosis, heart disease, var-ious forms of cancer, neurological diseases, andothers. Humanely-performed research on miceand other animals has been essential for mostbiomedical advances of the last several decades,saving the lives of many millions of people. —Dr. Silver

We value movie stars and musicians for their entertainment value, not their scientific expertise, butwhen they weigh in on important issues pertaining to human health and get things wrong, it is impor-tant to set the record straight. Scientists affiliated with the American Council on Science and Health

(see ACSH.org and HealthFactsAndFears.com) do just that, below, responding to one celebrity doozy of acomment at a time.

BiotechCharlie Trotter (chef) vs. Henry Miller, M.D.

Animal TestingPaul McCartney (singer) vs. Lee Silver Ph.D.

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• The inspiration for this ACSH publication was Science for Celebrities, a publication by the UK organization Sense About Science.

It’s just bad in general toheat in a microwave in plastic,to freeze in plastic. It emits car-cinogenic. And just little, smallthings which I feel compelled toeducate people about, like notdrinking out of a water bottle

that’s been in your car. If it gets hot, it’s emittingbyproducts that act as cancer.

—Crow

While it is true that some chemicalsmay leach out of plastics in very tinyamounts, these chemicals have beencarefully studied and do not causecancer even when animals areexposed to them in very largeamounts. This conclusion is support-ed by scientists around the world andis reflected in the confidence that regulatory agencieshave in the safety of using plastics in containers andwraps for food and drink. —Dr. Kamrin

The problem isthat nobody under-stands that whenyou cook fat, youtranshydrogenate it,and your body can’tmolecularly read it.

—Alt

Human bodies havebeen digesting cookedfats for countless gen-erations. Fat is notchanged by cooking,unless it is heatedenough to smoke.Hydrogenation, trans or

otherwise, simply does not happen.Bodies don’t “molecularly read” anything— but if cooked fats were not digestible,they would have no calories, which unfor-tunately is not true. —Dr. Cliver

FatCarol Alt (model) vs. Dean Cliver Ph.D.

Microwaved PlasticSheryl Crow (singer) vs. Michael Kamrin, Ph.D.

Sure smoking calms you down — and for some of us, it peps usup. While some controversy continues about just how that hap-pens, there is no controversy that tobacco causes cancer of thelungs and kills almost half million U.S. citizens every year due tothat and other resulting diseases. Quitting lowers your risks —but never starting is even better. —Dr. Robertson

It’s like a miracle drug. Whenyou’re upset, it calms you down...I keep haranguing doctors,demanding they admit to me thatthis is just another Alar scare.Remember Alar on apples? Thisis going to pass, and then they’lladmit it was never bad.

—Coulter

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Ann Coulter (columnist, author) vs. William O. Robertson, M.D. Smoking

Arnold Schwarzenegger (governor, actor, bodybuilder) vs. F. Peter Guengerich, Ph.D.

Phthalates (Plastic Softeners)

We must take this action to protectour children. These chemicals threatenthe health and safety of our children atcritical stages of their development.

—Schwarzenegger

Gov. Schwarzenegger and the California legislators maymean well, but is there really any science underlying theclaim that chemicals (phthalates) threaten the health andsafety of children? The issue has been studied at length,with more than 1,000 publications available. Both anexpert ACSH committee (headed by former U.S. SurgeonGeneral C. Everett Koop and including myself) and theU.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission have exten-sively reviewed the evidence and concluded that phthalates do not pose a risk to humans, either children or adults. Toxic effects of these compounds are seen only at high doses and only in rats and mice. On the contrary, these plasticizers have had tremen-dous benefits by making possible the use of life-saving medical devices (such as flexible catheters and i.v. bags) by many people, including children, who have not shown any detrimental effects even in these exposures. —Dr. Guengerich

What is going tohappen when our ene-mies around theworld, America’s ene-mies, realize that theUnited States’ mostheralded foreign poli-cy, which is to vacci-nate the children ofthe world, one of the

best things we do, that we are actually usingthat policy to poison the brains of developing-world children? This is a disaster.—Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Thimerosal, an ethylmercury-containingpreservative, has been used in vaccinessince the early 1930s. Recently, inresponse to public concern that theamount of mercury contained in vaccinesmight be unsafe, researchers conducteda series of studies. Five of those studiesexamined whether children receiving thimerosalwere at greater risk of autism, and three exam-ined whether they were at greater risk of mercurypoisoning. All showed the same thing. The smallquantities of mercury contained in vaccinesweren’t harmful. Given that mercury is part of theEarth’s crust, that small quantities of mercury arepresent in water and breast milk, and that thequantities of mercury that children typicallyencounter and manage in the environment areactually greater than those contained in vaccines,the results of these studies weren’t surprising. —Dr. Offit

VaccinesWhat number will it

take for people just tostart listening to whatthe mothers of childrenwho have seen autismhave been saying foryears, which is, ‘We vac-cinated our baby andsomething happened’.—McCarthy

Vaccines are designed to prevent specif-ic infections, not every disorder thatmight appear in the first few years of life.However, temporal associations can bevery powerful. Children are fine, thenthey get a vaccine, then they’re not fine.So, it’s reasonable to ask the question,did the vaccine cause this specific prob-lem? Some parents now believe thatvaccines cause autism. In response to

their concerns, several research groups in theUnited States, the United Kingdom, and continen-tal Europe have now performed studies — five inall — to answer the question. These researcherslooked at hundreds of thousands of children whodid or didn’t receive vaccines. They found thatvaccinated children (who received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine or thimerosal-containingvaccines) were not at greater risk of autism thanchildren who didn’t get those vaccines. Becauseof the strength, consistency, size, and repro-ducibility of these studies, the issue of whethervaccines cause autism is no longer a scientific ormedical controversy. —Dr. Offit

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. vs. Paul Offit, M.D. Jenny McCarthy vs. Paul Offit, M.D.

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Dr. Offit

[Commenting on post-partum diseaseand psychiatry in an interview with MattLauer and prescribing vitamins andexercise for depression:]

Psychiatry is a pseudoscience...Youdon’t know the history of psychiatry. I do...There is no such thing as a chem-ical imbalance in a body...The thing thatI’m saying about Brooke Shields is thatthere’s misinformation, okay? And shedoesn’t understand the history of psy-chiatry.

—Cruise

You can’t keep up with thesetoxins, and less than 2% arebeing tested for safety. Andevery year 2,000 new chemi-cals are being introduced intoour environment.

—Imus

We are exposed to myriad chemi-cals daily — including many fromnatural sources, including the foodwe eat. Virtually all chemicals canbe “toxic” at certain doses andunder certain conditions of expo-sure, but it is the dose that makesthe poison. The mere ability todetect the presence of a chemicaldoes not mean that it presents ahuman health hazard. And, con-trary to what Ms. Imus asserts,many chemicals have been tested — in animal and microbio-logical models — but few pose dangers to humans at thelow levels commonly encountered. —Dr. Allems

Tom Cruise (actor) vs. Nigel Bark, M.D.Mental IllnessVitamins and exercise mayhelp in the treatment ofdepressive illness, but inanything other than milddepression, antidepressantmedication is essential andscience-based. Double-blind studies have repeat-edly demonstrated its effec-tiveness. Cognitive or inter-personal therapy has alsobeen shown to be effective. As regards the historyof psychiatry: it is a history of increasing understand-ing of mental disorders, better treatments, improvedcare of those with psychiatric conditions, and a con-stant battle against the stigma of mental illness thatstill leads to psychiatric patients being less well treat-ed than those with physical illness. Psychiatry aimsto combine the science with caring, understanding,and support for those who suffer from mental illness,human qualities that I hope we can all share —including you, Mr. Cruise. —Dr. Bark

Diedre Imus (activist) vs. Tom Allems, M.D., M.P.H.Chemicals

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A C S H F O U N D E R S C I R C L E

Christine M. Bruhn, Ph.D. University of California, Davis

Taiwo K. Danmola, C.P.A.Ernst & Young

Thomas R. DeGregori, Ph.D.University of Houston

A. Alan Moghissi, Ph.D. Institute for Regulatory Science

Albert G. Nickel Lyonheart

Stephen S. Sternberg, M.D. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Lorraine Thelian Ketchum

Kimberly M. Thompson, Sc.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robert J. White, M.D., Ph.D. Case Western Reserve University

A C S H B O A R D O F T R U S T E E S

Nigel Bark, M.D.Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Elissa P. Benedek, M.D.University of Michigan Medical School

Norman E. Borlaug, Ph.D.Texas A&M University

Michael B. Bracken, Ph.D., M.P.H.Yale University School of Medicine

James E. Enstrom, Ph.D., M.P.H.University of California, Los Angeles

Robert Fauber, M.B.A.Moody’s Corporation

Jack Fisher, M.D.University of California, San Diego

Hon. Bruce S. Gelb New York, NY

Donald A. Henderson, M.D., M.P.H.University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Elizabeth McCaughey, Ph.D. Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths

Henry I. Miller, M.D.The Hoover Institution

Rodney W. NicholsThe New York Academy of Sciences, PresidentEmeritus

George F. OhrstromThe Ohrstrom Foundation

Kenneth M. Prager, M.D.Columbia University Medical Center

Katherine L. Rhyne, Esq.King & Spalding LLP

Lee M. Silver, Ph.D.Princeton University

Thomas P. Stossel, M.D.Harvard Medical School

Harold D. Stratton, Jr., J.D.Dykema

A C S H S T A F F

Eun Hye ChoiArt Director

Judith A. D’Agostino.Executive Assistant to the President

Corrie DriebuschResearch Associate

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Cheryl E. MartinAssociate Director

Kelly McClungDevelopment Assistant

Gilbert L. Ross, M.D.Executive and Medical Director

Todd SeaveyDirector of Publications

Jeff Stier, Esq.Associate Director

Krystal WilsonResearch Associate

John Moore, Ph.D., M.B.A Grove City College, President Emeritus

Thomas Campbell Jackson, M.P.H.Pamela B. Jackson and Thomas C. JacksonCharitable Fund

Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.American Council on Science and Health

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