Public Health

The latest public health panic is over a disease most Americans (even doctors) have never heard of. Zika virus disease (ZVD) is carried by the same mosquito, Aedes aegypti, as other Third World diseases, including dengue and chikungunya.

In Maine, state lawmakers expanded existing bans on tobacco use in private and public spaces to include e-cigarettes. Many cities and states are likewise considering banning e-cigarette use in public and private spaces, and state governments in Delaware and New York have already banned using e-cigarettes in restaurants and other privately owned spaces.

Shouldn’t safety be the ultimate goal for the water we use and drink daily, which local water companies provide for residents in every state in this nation? But can the public be certain that the water provided is all that it’s reported to be?

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Kenneth Artz, managing editor of Health Care News speaks with H. Sterling Burnett. Burnett is a Heartland research fellow and managing editor of Environment & Climate News. Artz and Burnett discuss a new report claiming global warming will negatively effect public health.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, we join the Managing Editor of Budget & Tax News, Jesse Hathaway as he speaks with Dr. Brad Rodu. Rodu is a Senior Fellow for The Heartland Institute as well as a researcher for the University of Louisville. Rodu and Hathaway discuss the FDA’s missing data regarding tobacco harm reductions.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Managing Editor of Environment & Climate News H. Sterling Burnett speaks with Senior Fellow James M. Taylor. Taylor and Burnett discuss the EPA’s proposed updated ozone regulations.

It’s almost baseball season, which means it’s time for anti-tobacco extremists to start grabbing easy headlines. One especially zealous state lawmaker wants to ban smokeless tobacco by players and fans in all California ballparks (here). It’s all based on smoke and mirrors, as illustrated in a woefully inaccurate recent BBC story on smokeless tobacco and baseball.

Two public health officials in Fargo, North Dakota, this week were the source of grossly misleading claims about smokeless tobacco for a local media story.

A Memo released as part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act request examining the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule-making has revealed the EPA using misleading claims to stoke fears of global warming. Big Surprise, huh!

What do Bigfoot and New York’s ban on fracking ban have in common? The evidence supporting the existence of both is equally (un)credible.

Halloween is upon us, and once again opponents of frac sand mining are trying to scare people in Wisconsin and other parts of the Upper Midwest by producing one-sided studies based on unscientific, anecdotal evidence (which is subject to cherry-picking and other biases) to back their claims. Fortunately, the scariest claims these organizations have made about the potential public health impacts of frac sand mining are not supported by the scientific data, and in many cases the data suggest just the opposite.

This week may be a turning point in the food fight that has been taking place in this country for over a decade.

An analysis published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine this week (Sept. 17) found that major food companies exceeded their pledge to Michelle Obama that they’ll reduce the calories they sell to consumers.

For a half century the idea that saturated fat in foods raises cholesterol and, consequently, causes heart attacks was dogma ostensibly justifying government regulation. The attacks on dietary fat have increased in recent years due to the “war on obesity.” But a new book based on nearly ten years of research has fired a devastating salvo in defense of this designated dietary enemy. The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz traces the origin of the fat myth from its faulty scientific beginning to its discrediting.