Health

They Don't Need No Sponsored Health Education

Corporate-funded "educational" materials about healthy eating distributed to British schools have been criticized by Britain's Food Standards Agency, the Department of Health and dieticians' groups. "It's bad nutritional advice, which could give children wrong ideas about food at a very impressionable time," said Richard Watts of the Children's Food Campaign. The campaign is "assembling a dossier" on such materials, to prod the government to act.

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Tobacco Companies Hid Information on Radioactive Polonium

Tobacco manufacturers discovered over 40 years ago that radioactive polonium-210 exists in cigarettes and tobacco smoke, and spent decades working to remove it, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

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Merck Makes Science Sell

An analysis of Merck internal documents concluded that the pharmaceutical company carried out a clinical study of Vioxx in 1999, "primarily to support a marketing campaign before the drug's launch." Merck stated that the study was done "to test side effects of the painkiller Vioxx," which was pulled from the market in 2004, after being linked to an increased risk of heart attacks.

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Philip Morris Caught in Second Concert Sponsorship in Philippines

SmokingLast month, when pop singer Alicia Keys protested Philip Morris International's (PMI) sponsorship of her concert in Jakarta, Indonesia, PMI was forced to pull down posters and billboards that promoted the event.

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Toxic Smoke and Mirrors

Overexposure to manganese has caused Parkinson's-like symptoms for thousands of welders, but the makers of manganese-containing welding wire and electrodes are avoiding liability by manipulating science. Jim Morris writes that "the welding companies paid more than $12.5 million to 25 organizations and 33 researchers, virtually all of whom have published papers dismissing connections between welding fumes and workers' ailments. ...

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