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Showing 442 results

James Goodwin | March 5, 2010

OSHA HazCom Hearing Today: What We’ll Be Saying

Imagine opening your medicine cabinet, only to find that the warning and information labels on your over-the-counter medications no longer include dosing information. How would you know how much Benadryl to take or how much aspirin to give to your child? A provision in the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) proposed rule modifying its […]

Matt Shudtz | March 4, 2010

Stakeholders Speak, and OSHA Listens

Today the top brass from OSHA opened their doors to the many stakeholders who have something to say about how the agency is doing in its efforts to protect U.S. workers. Of course, they got an earful. The event marks a new path for OSHA, in that the head of the agency and top career […]

Rena Steinzor | March 1, 2010

Toyota: Should Someone Go to Jail?

The congressional hearings so far on “sudden unintended acceleration” (SUA) in Toyota cars should have made two truths obvious to Washington policymakers. First, the strategy of counting on major manufacturers to voluntarily ensure that their consumer products are safe is unworkable in a competitive market, and second, safety agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety […]

Ben Somberg | February 22, 2010

Waxman and Stupak Release Documents on Eve of Toyota / NHTSA Hearing

Representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak have released a batch of documents this afternoon on the day before their committee hearing on the Toyota debacle. Their focus is largely on the issue of the possible role of electronic failures as a cause of sudden unintended acceleration cases. They criticized Toyota’s response to the reports of electronic problems, and in their […]

Ben Somberg | February 9, 2010

The Toyota Debacle and NHTSA’s Role: What Congress Must Investigate

In a letter today, CPR President Rena Steinzor and board member Sidney Shapiro recommend to Congress questions it should investigate to get to the bottom of the Toyota accelerator/recall matter that’s all over the news. The letter focuses in particular on the role of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and examines the agency’s […]

Rena Steinzor | February 2, 2010

The Human Costs of Pander, Take 3: Parents Beware the Incredibly Shrunken Consumer Product Safety Commission

Eighty percent of the toys sold in the United States are manufactured abroad, the vast majority in China. Because China has no effective regulatory structure, these imports are notoriously dangerous for children. The most prominent example is toys coated with lead paint, made that way because in China, lead paint is actually cheaper than the […]

Rena Steinzor | February 1, 2010

The Human Costs of Pander, Take 2: Obama Budget Shortchanges FDA and Food Safety

As we feared, in an effort to save pitiably small amounts of money in the discretionary (non-military) portion of the budget, President Obama’s FY 2011 budget, announced today, shortchanges very real threats to public health. Case in point: the Food and Drug Administration’s ongoing struggle to improve the safety of the American food supply. (FDA […]

Ben Somberg | February 1, 2010

Toyota Says It Has Found Fix; LAT and NYT Articles Raise More Questions

Toyota is on the media offensive this morning, announcing that it has found the problem (sticking pedals, it says) and is fixing it. Some articles indicated NHTSA has signed off or given “clearance” for the plan, but Toyota specifically noted that while NHTSA had reviewed its plan, it has not “signed off” on it, as […]

Sidney A. Shapiro | January 28, 2010

Where is NHTSA? Toyota Recall and the Missing Regulator

When my children were growing up, they loved the “Where’s Waldo” book series. Each page had an illustrated picture chock full of people and objects; hidden somewhere among the mass of detail was a small picture of a cartoon character named Waldo. When the Toyota Motor Corporation announced this week that it was stopping the […]