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What Nanny Doesn’t Want You to Know

by Angela Logomasini on December 16, 2009 · 1 comment

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty

Nanny state regulators got it all wrong back in 1977 when the feds placed a warning label on the sugar substitute saccharine. They said it could cause cancer, but their underlying science was flimsy. It took them more than 20 years to admit to that mistake and remove saccharine from the list of carcinogens.

And federal health officials have long warned us all to cut back on salt because they say it might contribute to heart disease. Most people trust this advice, but it’s most likely not true for everyone. Salt appears to be a problem largely for individuals with hypertension, but not so much for the rest of us. Those of us who like salting our veggies and other things to make them more palatable, probably would like to know the whole story.

Yet Nanny statists at National Institutes of Health (NIH) don’t want to give us the whole story. They apparently refuse to release research that might contradict their warnings. Since 2003, that data has been subject to a Data Quality Act petition–a process that is supposed to ensure that the federal government doesn’t base policy on faulty science. Accordingly, regulators are supposed to release data when petitioned, but they usually don’t comply with the law, which lacks a good enforcement mechanism. The feds have managed to keep this research a secret for a long time. That way they can set whatever policies and recommendations they please–without any accountability.

In this case, they start by urging everyone to cut back on salt. Then local and state governments may start regulating salt based on such specious recommendations. As those laws grow, the feds might even step in. Such is the progression of many nanny state regulations.

The recent Climategate scandal underscores this point. The absence of scientific transparency gives regulators free reign. Then regulators and their collaborators can finesse the science in a way that best suits their regulatory aims while concealing inconvenient findings. Personal liberties and economic freedoms are eventually wiped out along with the facts. Bureaucrats end up more powerful, and life for everyone else is less palatable.

Photo attribution: Duchamp’s photostream on flickr.

LibertyWeek 69: Feeding the World with Property Rights

by Richard Morrison on November 17, 2009

in CEI Projects, Podcast

Richard Morrison throws in with Jeremy Lott and William Yeatman to bring you Episode 69 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start by pigging out on swine flu statistics, putting off action on global warming and wagging our finger at a corrupt judge. We proceed with the fight between Intel and AMD and wrap up with an interview with CEI Senior Fellow Gregory Conko on how to end world hunger.

Cell Phones, Cancer, and Certainty

by Ryan Young on November 10, 2009

in Nanny State, Precaution & Risk, Tech & Telecom, Zeitgeist

CNN reports: “Last summer, Dr. Ronald Herberman, then director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, issued a warning to about 3,000 faculty and staff, listing steps to avoid harmful electromagnetic radiation from cell phones.”

“Electromagnetic radiation” is a fancy way of saying light waves.

Herberman has been on his cell phone crusade for a while now; I diagnosed him with a severe case of The Certainty last year.

Still, let’s assume he’s right that cell phones cause tumors. What actions should be taken? I present the following CDC data on leading causes of death as a way to guide our priorities:

Heart disease: 631,636
Cancer: 559,888
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
Diabetes: 72,449
Alzheimer’s disease: 72,432
Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
Septicemia: 34,234

Deaths from cancer attributable to cell phone use? Zero. There is an important lesson to be learned here.

Think of it like this: every dollar and every hour of researchers’ time spent investigating cancer risks from cell phones is money and time not spent curing heart disease. Or cancer itself. Or stroke. These “big three” combine to end more than a million lives each and every year.

Which is a better use of limited research resources? Herberman, by bringing funding and attention to a non-issue, is quite possibly costing lives that could otherwise be saved.

The Certainty has very high costs. In Herberman’s case, measurable in lives.

LibertyWeek 67: Cash for Kids in Court

by Richard Morrison on November 2, 2009

in CEI Projects, Podcast, Zeitgeist

Your host Richard Morrison and co-hosts William Yeatman and Jeremy Lott conspire to bring you Episode 67 of the LibertyWeek podcast. We start with the looming off-year elections, the unexpected lack of tropical storms and a cash for kids scandal in Pennsylvania. We finish with the fall of a spam king and the swine that didn’t squeal.

Weekly Flu Watch – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing This Week

by Michael Fumento on September 26, 2009 · 3 comments

in Healthcare, Nano & Biotech, Precaution & Risk

Every Friday the CDC website publishes a situation update on swine flu with figures updated through the previous week, though some of the data is newer. And every week the hysteria-minded media ignore it. Statistics get in the way of articles filled with doom and gloom, of body bags and cemetery land set asides.

Anyway, why consult the data when you can offer plenty of anecdotes about people suffering from a “flu-like illness?”

But for those who do care about how our alleged pandemic is progressing, I will begin herewith to provide a weekly summary.

Total deaths since August 30 from “Influenza and Pneumonia-Associated” illness generally are 936, but only 114 of those have been laboratory-confirmed as being flu of any type. And yes, people do die of pneumonia from many causes other than flu.

The CDC no longer separately tracks swine flu cases or deaths. However, the FluTracker website does, and as of today lists 136, 268 confirmed U.S. cases with 644 confirmed fatalities.

By comparison, the CDC estimates 36,000 Americans die annually of seasonal flu, or about 257 per day during the season of approximately 140 days.

The number of positive tests for swine flu is down this week, notwithstanding all those articles you’ve been reading about how swine flu is finally taking off. You can see the data here.

A word of caution, though. Those are reports from a sentinel system of laboratories. It’s possible the laboratories were overwhelmed with specimens and simply couldn’t keep up with the samples doctors forwarded to them.

But, the percentage of samples proving positive barely increased, from 22.55% to 23.87%.

Another way of looking at it is that over three-fourths of samples that even doctors (much less scared patients) suspect may show swine flu do not.

That’s one indicator of hysteria.

Another is that even though the number of actual flu detections tested is down, the percentage of visits to outpatient clinics by people who think they have the flu continues to rise. In fact, if you look at the curve it’s been practically shooting straight up for the past four weeks.

But apparently nobody but me has been looking at the data. Turns out that if you click on the link to take you to the underlying numbers, they’re four weeks behind the figures in the chart. The CDC press office didn’t even know about this until I asked. What does that tell you?

Finally, deaths from influenza and pneumonia are well within the normal bounds for this time of year.

So visits to emergency rooms and other outpatient facilities from people afraid they have the flu are way up while infections are apparently down. I don’t call it “pandemic panic over a piglet” for nothing.