How ‘Settled Science’ Helped Create A Massive Public Health Crisis

[proverbialwisdom]

http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/how-settled-science-caused-a-massive-public-health-crisis/

COMMENTARY: How ‘Settled Science’ Helped Create A Massive Public Health Crisis

JOHN MERLINE
4/18/2016

Anyone who thinks it’s enough to rest an argument on “settled science” or a “scientific consensus” ought to read about John Yudkin.

Yudkin was a British professor of nutrition who, in 1972, sounded the alarm about sugar in diets, saying that if sugar were treated like any other food additive “that material would be promptly banned.” He said sugar, not fat, was the more likely cause of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

For his efforts, Yudkin was branded a shill for the meat and dairy industries. His work was dismissed as “emotional assertions,” “science fiction” and “a mountain of nonsense.” Journals refused to publish his papers. He was uninvited from nutrition conferences and was ridiculed by the scientific community.

“Prominent nutritionists combined with the food industry to destroy his reputation, and his career never recovered,” writes Ian Leslie in a lengthy piece titled “The Sugar Conspiracy” that was published recently in The Guardian.

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Link via : https://twitter.com/berkeleyprc/status/733343836596887552
More: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin

[proverbialwisdom]

1. Additional disruption in "settled science" (nothing to see here) and the lag in medical education.

http://www.cdc.gov/features/pehsu/

Protecting Kids from Environmental Exposure

Children’s rapid development during the fetal period through early childhood makes them more vulnerable to environmental exposure. Contact the nearest Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit to learn how to protect your child from exposure to health hazards in the environment.

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Doctors Uncomfortable Discussing Environmental Health

Taking an environmental history is essential for healthcare providers to understand patients' exposure risks and help reduce them, but most physicians and other healthcare providers are not taught the importance of an exposure history during their medical education. For example, responses to a survey of members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2014 reported that:2

* Only 1 in 15 physicians have received training on environmental exposures.
* Half of the respondents rarely take an environmental health history.
* Less than 20% counsel patients about environmental exposures common in pregnant women in the United States.
* However, 78% of respondents did agree that counseling patients about environmental health hazards could prevent exposures.

Doctors who don't counsel their patients reported that they did not know enough about environmental exposures and were uncertain about evidence. They were also concerned that patients would be unable to reduce their exposure or that counseling would alarm them.

Another survey in 2015 was sent to pediatric blood and cancer specialists. Most of them indicated that families of children with cancer asked about environmental connections to their children's illnesses, but the doctors were uncomfortable discussing the topic. Over 77% suspected that their cases did have an environmental origin, but their methods of taking environmental histories varied widely.3

The results of both these surveys indicate the need for increased physician education on the relationship between environmental exposures and health effects—in medical school, during residencies, and after beginning practice.

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References

1. Trasande L, Liu Y. Reducing The Staggering Costs Of Environmental Disease In Children, Estimated At $76.6 Billion In 2008. Health Affairs, 30, no.5 (2011):863-870

2. Stotland NE, Sutton P, Trowbridge J, Atchley DS, Conry J, et al. (2014) Counseling Patients on Preventing Prenatal Environmental Exposures - A Mixed Methods Study of Obstetricians. PLoS ONE 9(6): e98771. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0098771

3. Zachek CM, Miller MD, Hsu C, Schiffman JD, Sallan S, et. al. Children's Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices. J Pediatr Hematol Oncol 2015;37:491–497.

More: http://www.pehsu.net

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151001100058.htm