World Health Organization Denies Influence of Russian Asbestos Industry

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the research arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), is denying allegations by the Lancet medical journal that they have come under the influence of the Russian asbestos industry.
In a February 2 article in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal, the writer questioned whether the IARC has fallen prey to “corporate capture” by the asbestos industry in Russia, even though WHO has been behind a consistent push to end the use of the material worldwide. The article goes on to suggest that the agency might be behind the campaign to keep chrysotile – “white” – asbestos off a list of hazardous substances. The IARC denies the allegations.
In a statement to the Toronto Star, representatives from both agencies called the Lancet article “erroneous.”
“The Lancet report is poorly researched and contains a number of false allegations and unfounded inferences,” the statement said. “The Agency has extensive experience of conducting important research whilst protecting itself from undue influence from a variety of stakeholders with vested interests.”
In the past, Canada has been at the forefront of the campaign to protect the export of chrysotile, primarily because it was once the top exporter of this particular type of asbestos. Now it seems Russia has replaced Canada in that role.
Currently, chrysotile asbestos is the only form of the mineral that’s not included on the UN Rotterdam Convention, a list of controlled hazardous substances. The issue of the inclusion of white asbestos is about to arise again in April, when member states meet to address the list. The decision to include any material on the list must be unanimous and, thus far, Canada has been the dissenting vote. But the asbestos industry in Canada is now defunct, leaving Russia as the world’s largest export of the material. So, it’s natural for that country to assume the position once put forth by Canada, explains the authors.
The continuous blocking of chrysotile from the hazardous substance list has angered many, including some Canadians. “Russia is the world’s leading exporter of asbestos by far and it is the centre of propaganda and corrupt science on asbestos,” said Kathleen Ruff, a senior human rights adviser at the Rideau Institute in Ottawa who was quoted in the Lancet article, expressing her concerns about the issue.
The article notes that concerns about the IARC’s collusion with the Russian asbestos industry were first raised in November, when the agency accepted an invitation to attend a conference in Kiev, Ukraine.
Asbestos is a known carcinogen and researchers have stated that all types of the mineral, including chrysotile, are dangerous and can cause mesothelioma and other serious diseases.

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Tooth Loss Due To Periodontal Disease More Likely In Postmenopausal Women Who Smoked

Postmenopausal women who have smoked are at much higher risk of losing their teeth than women who never smoked, according to a new study published and featured on the cover of the Journal of the American Dental Association by researchers at the University at Buffalo.

The study involved 1,106 women who participated in the Buffalo OsteoPerio Study, an offshoot of the Women's Health Initiative, (WHI), the largest clinical trial and observational study ever undertaken in the U.S., involving more than 162,000 women across the nation, including nearly 4,000 in Buffalo.

The UB study is the first to examine comprehensive smoking histories for participants that allowed the researchers to unravel some of the causes behind tooth loss in postmenopausal women who smoked.

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Modern Diet Is Rotting Our Teeth

A study of the evolution of our teeth over the last 7,500 years shows that humans today have less diverse oral bacteria than historic populations, which scientists believe have contributed to chronic oral diseases in post-industrial lifestyles.

The researchers, from the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), the University of Aberdeen (Dept of Archeology), Scotland, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, England, published their study in Nature Genetics.

The authors say that analyzing the DNA of calcified bacteria on the teeth of humans throughout modern and ancient history "has shed light on the health consequences of the evolving diet and behavior from the Stone Age to modern day".

The scientists explained that there were negative changes in oral bacteria as our diets altered when we moved from being hunter-gatherers to farmers. Further changes were observed when humans started manufacturing food during the Industrial Revolution.

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Implementation Of Fizzy Drinks Tax Is 'Essential', Claims Charity

The British Dental Health Foundation has joined more than 60 organisations backing recommendations for a tax on sugary drinks.

The report, compiled by Sustain entitled 'A Children's Future Fund - How food duties could provide the money to protect children's health and the world they grow up in', makes three main recommendations for Budget 2013 it believes would help to improve children's health. They are:

• Introduce a sugary drinks duty for the UK which, for example at 20p per litre, would raise around £1 billion a year;
• Ring-fence the majority of money raised from a sugary drinks duty for a Children's Future Fund, which could be spent on improving children's health by, for example, providing free school meals, or sustainably produced fruit and vegetable snacks in schools; and
• Give an independent body the responsibility to oversee how the sugary drinks duty is implemented and make sure the revenue is spent effectively.

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Possible Link Between Obesity And Gum Disease

Impacting approximately one-third of the U.S. population, obesity is a significant health concern for Americans. It's a risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain forms of cancer, and now, according to an article published in the January/February 2013 issue of General Dentistry, the peer-reviewed clinical journal of the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD), it also may be a risk factor for gum disease.

"We know that being overweight can affect many aspects of a person's health," says Charlene Krejci, DDS, MSD, lead author of the article. "Now researchers suspect a link exists between obesity and gum disease. Obese individuals' bodies relentlessly produce cytokines, proteins with inflammatory properties. These cytokines may directly injure the gum tissues or reduce blood flow to the gum tissues, thus promoting the development of gum disease."

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Gum Disease Found To Worsen Infection In Animal Model Of AIDS

Texas Biomed scientists in San Antonio have found that moderate gum disease in an animal model exposed to an AIDS- like virus had more viral variants causing infection and greater inflammation. Both of these features have potential negative implications in long term disease progression, including other kinds of infections, the researchers say in a new report.

The public health message from the study is that even mild inflammation in the mouth needs to be controlled because it can lead to more serious consequences, said Luis Giavedoni, Ph. D, a Texas Biomed virologist and first author of the study.

"This is important because moderate gum disease is present in more than 50 percent of the world population. It is known that severe gum disease leads to generalized inflammation and a number of other health complications, but the conditions that we created were moderate and they were mainly localized in the mouth," he added.

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