
Years ago people didn’t eat genetically modified foods, they didn’t take antibiotics for every little cough they got and they weren’t obese. What happened? Americans in particular seem to be getting sicker and taking medicine earlier than the rest of the world. Maybe that’s why cancer, heart disease and diabetes thrive in our nation. We put so many medicines in our body when it’s not necessary. Recently voting began a panel assembled by the Food and Drug Administration over recommendations on pulling some acetaminophen drugs like Tylenol and Nyquil from stores.
The panel began voting on the issue in an effort to reduce the risk of serious liver injury that is associated with acetaminophen. One option the panel is considering other than pulling the drugs from store shelves entirely, it to reduce the recommended dosages of the drugs. A 2007 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report estimated that acetaminophen is main contributor to about 1,600 acute liver failures every year.
When reflecting on this news on Tylenol and combining it with the recent reports of Zicam’s negative side effects, it raises questions about whether polluting our bodies with all these prescription and over-the-counter drugs really helps our health in the long run? Maybe going natural and not taking medicine is the real secret to health and longevity.


Despite the fact that H1N1 swine flu, other is now officially considered a global pandemic, is it really as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be? I think not. Even when the swine flu was declared to be a pandemic it got relatively little news coverage. Now, local news reports about the virus are also decreasing despite the fact that cases are still appearing. This doesn’t mean that people are no longer that worried about swine flu, because if they were the news stations would be reporting on it.
The H1N1 virus is really no bigger of a deal than the regular flu. According to the World Health Organization swine flu has only killed 263 people out of the 59,814 people who are affected by it. Compared to the 36,000 deaths the regular flu virus kills each year (in the United States alone), this number is small. Given the recent statistics, you only have a .4% chance of dying from the swine flu! Meanwhile, 36,000 people a year die from the regular influenza and you have a 25% chance of dying from cancer.
Sure it’s possible that swine flu may get a little more common and deadly when the weather gets colder and people are confined to staying indoors. However, by that time a vaccine will likely already be developed and we won’t have to worry about it at all. As it is, vaccines have already been made by Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG, French company Sanofi-Aventis and American company Protein Sciences. So do we really need to worry about the swine flu? No more than we worry about the regular flu.



Many people do not support genetic research because the benefits of knowing your own genetic makeup are insignificant. The complexity, lack of important findings and deficiency of scientific developments concerning genomes provide reasons to eliminate spending on research in genetics.
The human genome is a complex display of 23 chromosomes, billions of DNA base pairs and thousands of genes. It is clinically useless to look through the entire genome for bits of code that may be related to some condition or characteristic. Thus far genes found to be correlated with certain traits only explain a small fraction of the heritable variation in large populations; majority of health conditions like hypertension, diabetes and hypercholesterolemia involve more than a single gene mutation, making them difficult to decode. The complexity of the genome makes genetic testing an insignificant, expensive task with little benefit.
Trying to learn about our genomes is especially wasteful economically because we lack the necessary scientific developments to make sense of the genome. The knowledge and machinery necessary to actually decode the significance of the entire genome will likely never exist! As it stands we do not know enough about polygenetic disorders, gene expression and environmental affects on gene expression to properly make use of genetic profiles. It is ridiculous to waste our valuable time and money on uncovering genetic profiles. We should be trying to find a cure for something more important like cancer.
The current knowledge we have obtained from the billions spent thus far on genetic research is negligible. For example, a recent study of 6,000 children found that the gene with the largest effect on intelligence accounted for less than one-quarter of an I.Q. point. In another study of 16,000 people, the dozen genes found that most correlate with height only accounted for two percent (or less than an inch) of the variation in height. After all that has already been put into genetic research, we should know more than that! Considering the immense amount of money we spend to fund genetic research and the little knowledge we have gained from it, our money, time and resources could be put to better use in a different field.
people have no clue how anyone survived without cell phones. Currently, the evidence linking cell phones to cancer is vague at best. A cell phone, and a household cordless phone, use a low level of microwave radiation to send and receive their signals. Microwaves can pentrate tissue and cause it to heat. Cell phones emit such a small amount of microwave radiation, however, that they cannot be directly linked to cancer and other tumors. The information is too vague and is not well known, cell phone use will not be curbed. Herberman may be content being "better safe than sorry" but most Americans are not. Even if someone were to prove that cell phones do increase the risk of cancer, I doubt every American would give up their cellphone. Hopefully, Herberman is not right and cell phones do not cause cancer. Otherwise, it would cause a national disaster.
he valuable embryonic stem-cells from aborted fetuses go to waste when they can be used for crucial research? I understand where pro-life supporters come from: they do not support stem-cell research because they do not support abortion. But the abortion debate should not decide the stem-cell issue. The fact is that as long as abortion is legal in America, everyone should support stem-cell research. How can anyone be morally opposed to a young child with juvenille diabetes maybe becoming cured from embryonic stem-cells? The reasoning Mr. Kinsley points to is faulty because nothing good came out of Nazi tests on doomed Jewish people in concentration camps. They were doing terrible things to people in an already terrible situation. However, stem cell research is something postitive that comes out of something negative: abortion. Even the most staunch pro-choice supporters would not argue that abortion is a good thing. But, as long as it is legal, stem cell research should be supported fully. 