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Perhaps – as a byproduct of a recent, revealing report by the Government Accountability Office and the economic downturn – the bubble of market growth for the bottled water industry may finally deflate, if not outright burst.  Pop!  The report, released last Wednesday, further debunks the myth that the quality of bottled water is better […]

California has expanded its fish consumption advisory, warning people to curtail or eliminate entirely their consumption of nineteen species of fish caught off the Palos Verdes Peninsula in Los Angeles County.  Among the new advisory’s recommendations is that humans should avoid eating white croaker, topsmelt, or barred sand bass caught in an area extending more […]

On Wednesday, Representative Henry Waxman introduced a comprehensive “Food Safety Enhancement Act” (116-page discussion draft) to repair part of a federal food safety protection regime that has been badly broken for several decades. Waxman was joined by Representatives Diana DeGette, John Dingell, Frank Pallone, Bart Stupak, and Betty Sutton; the House Energy and Commerce Committee […]

While his colleagues (and former colleagues) jockey for the healthcare reform limelight, Rep. Frank Pallone is quietly busy making sure that, regardless of who pays for healthcare, the sick and injured will have safe and effective solutions to their problems. Last Thursday, Rep. Pallone held a hearing to assess FDA’s ability to properly oversee the […]

CPR Member Scholar Thomas McGarity had op-eds over the weekend in three Texas newspapers — the Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman.  His topic is Wyeth vs. Levine, last week’s blockbuster case from the Supreme Court, in which the Court rejected the Bush Administration’s multi-year effort to use the federal regulatory process as […]

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the most maligned and least respected federal agency with responsibility for protecting people’s lives. Now that Hilda Solis has been confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Labor, we can only hope that a new OSHA administrator with a strong stomach, an iron will, and a “yes […]

If you’re a consumer of health and environmental news, you’ve almost certainly heard it said that “children are not just little adults.” The warning comes up a lot in the context of medical research, because children’s bodies metabolize some things differently than do adults. That’s particularly important because somewhere in the vicinity of 80 percent […]

CPR’s Tom McGarity has an op-ed this morning in the Austin American Statesman on Wyeth vs. Levine, the Supreme Court case testing an assertion by pharmaceutical manufacturer Wyeth that FDA approval of its proposed drug label shields the company from tort litigation over harm that drug subsequently causes.  The Court heard oral arguments on the […]