March 10, 2015
Cristin Kearns, Laura Schmidt, and I just published "Sugar Industry Influence on the Scientific Agenda of the National Institute of Dental Research’s 1971 National Caries Program: A Historical Analysis of Internal Documents" in PLoS Medicine. The full paper is here.
Here is the UCSF press release about the paper:
“Sugar Papers” Reveal Industry Role in 1970s Dental Program
A newly discovered cache of industry documents reveals that the sugar industry worked closely with the National Institutes of Health in the 1960s and ‘70s to develop a federal research program focused on approaches other than sugar reduction to prevent tooth decay in American children.
An analysis of those papers by researchers at UC San Francisco appears March 10, 2015 in the open-source scientific journal, PLoS Medicine.
March 9, 2015
Chelsea Catsburg, Anthony Miller, and Thomas Rohan from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the University of Toronto recently published “Active cigarette smoking and risk of breast cancer,” a large, long-term and very well done longitudinal study of 89,835 women followed forward in time for a mean of 22.1 years. They found:
March 8, 2015
Fred Singer, the tobacco denier tuned global warming denier who is presented in Robbie Kenner's new movie Merchants of Doubt, has written this letter to Robbie. Check out the movie to see who you agree with (and see me wearing a tie talking about Big Tobacco and what we have learned from the tobacco industy documents).
Here's the letter:
Also Sent by Registered Mail to Robert Kenner Films, 134 So. Norton St, Suite A, Los Angeles, CA 90004
Dear Mr. Kenner, March 6, 2015
I am writing this letter on the advice of my attorneys, who suggested that a friendly letter from me to you might avoid having to take legal action.
I’ve been informed that your new documentary “Merchants of Doubt” refers to me as “Liar for Hire”. If correct, that is a very serious accusation which of course cannot be backed up in any way.
The word “Liar” implies not only telling something that is not true, but telling an untruth knowingly. So even people who disagree with me on climate-change science (and such people do exist) would have to prove that I don’t really believe what I say – that I am saying it in order to mislead.
March 8, 2015
E-cigarette interests widely justify the use of food flavorings as safe because they are "Generally Recognized as Safe" (GRAS). GRAS determinants apply to additives in food that are eaten not inhaled. On March 3, 2015, the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers; Association (FEMA) updated its statement. "The Safety Assessment and Regulatory Authority to Use Flavors – Focus on E-Cigarettes;" this document bluntly rejects the claims being made for e-cigarettes. In part it reads:
2. None of the primary safety assessment programs for flavors, including the GRAS program sponsored by the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States (FEMA), evaluate flavor ingredients for use in products other than human food. FEMA GRAS status for the use of a flavor ingredient in food does not provide regulatory authority to use the flavor ingredient in e-cigarettes in the U.S. E-cigarette and flavor manufacturers and marketers should not represent or suggest that the flavor ingredients used in e-cigarettes are safe because they have FEMA GRAS status for use in food because such statements are false and misleading.
March 4, 2015
Amanda Fallin, Maria Roditis, and I just delivered our independent evaluation of the UC Tobacco Free Policy to the UC Office of the President.
Here is the Executive Summary: