Paul Collins, reviewing Bee Wilson's excellent book Swindled, concludes that "our Accums will always be busy" (13 September, p 47). As a public analyst I could lay claim to being a present-day Friedrich Accum: my job is to direct the chemical analysis of food to see whether it is safe, is as described and meets the requirements of the law.

The few of us that remain are very busy, but I'm not sure for how much longer. Every year the local authorities that take samples for enforcement purposes spend less on having food analysed. One London borough has a budget of £7000, which is 2.1 pence per inhabitant per year.

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While testing experimental Parkinson's drugs, biochemist Andrew Holt of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, noticed that measurements of the enzyme MAO-B were all over the place. When his team investigated, they found that water stored in plastic microcentrifuge tubes blocked MAO-B and contained traces of an antimicrobial compound added to the tubes by the manufacturer (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1162395). Plastic pipette tips leached chemicals that block reactions, and plastic plates made MAO-B more active.

"It's inevitable that a lot of data that's in the public domain will be skewed," says Holt, though he has not yet identified erroneous data or conclusions in published work.

© New Scientist 15/11/08

http://www.newscientist.com/

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Nature may be good for health

A bit of greenery near our homes can cut the "health gap" between rich and poor, say researchers from two Scottish universities.

Even small parks in the heart of our cities can protect us from strokes and heart disease, perhaps by cutting stress or boosting exercise.

Their study, in The Lancet, matched data about hundreds of thousands of deaths to green spaces in local areas.

Councils should introduce more greenery to improve wellbeing, they said.

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THIS month, millions of elderly people in the US, Europe and elsewhere are lining up for their annual flu shots. This is widely seen as a hugely effective public health intervention that halves the risk of dying over the winter for those aged 65 or above. For every 200 vaccinations, one life is saved.

Yet there is now overwhelming evidence that this claim is simply too good to be true, and that we should be looking at additional ways to tackle flu.

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IT'S confusing news both for parents and would-be mothers. Paracetamol (tylenol), considered one of the safest painkillers for children, seems to up their risk of developing asthma, while some nutritional supplements taken by pregnant women to reduce birth defects could predispose their offspring to the condition.

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IT'S no secret that a healthy lifestyle might help your body fight cancer. Now it seems this is partly because diet and exercise alter the expression of our genes.

Dean Ornish and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, took prostate biopsies from 30 men with early-stage prostate cancer and got them to eat a low-fat diet of vegetables and whole grains, take moderate exercise, and attend stress management classes. Three months later, a second biopsy revealed changes in the expression of hundreds of genes.

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