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By Eliza Griswold
By Deanne Stillman
$9.66
$18
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Stewart (CC BY 2.0)
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Behold another example of the collapse of U.S. regulatory structure: One of the largest seafood fraud investigations in the world found that one-third of seafood products sold in restaurants and grocery stores across the country were mislabeled according to Food and Drug Administration standards.
Posted on Feb 27, 2013
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me and the sysop (CC BY-ND 2.0)
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Seafood consumed in restaurants like Red Lobster is likely to be imported from foreign factory-style farms, where antibiotics, bacteria and carcinogenic drugs are found in products that often go uninspected by the Food and Drug Administration.
Posted on Jan 24, 2013
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Flickr/Alpha
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The next time you want to enjoy a meal that includes rice—a steaming bowl of it perhaps, or some rice pasta or rice drink—think about this: A study by Consumer Reports says that eating rice once a day can increase the arsenic levels in your body by at least 44 percent.
Posted on Sep 19, 2012
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melloveschallah (CC BY 2.0)
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In a rare victory for the tobacco industry, a U.S. appeals court has ruled against the Food and Drug Administration’s requirement that cigarette manufacturers adorn their products with pictures of dead and diseased smokers, saying the mandate constituted a violation of free speech.
Posted on Aug 25, 2012
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Revelations that the FDA monitored its own scientists in the acts of disclosing alleged wrongdoing marks “the first time [that] we … have a glimpse into what domestic surveillance of whistle-blowers looks like in this country with the modern technological developments,” says attorney Stephen Kohn.
Posted on Jul 17, 2012
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FeatheredTar (CC BY 2.0)
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In an effort to protect its public image, the Food and Drug Administration secretly intercepted thousands of emails sent from disgruntled scientists working at the agency to members of Congress, journalists, labor officials and the White House.
Posted on Jul 15, 2012
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Dirty Bunny (CC-BY)
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We learned back in the mid-1970s that livestock antibiotics increase the presence of drug-resistant bacteria in farmworkers. Since then, meat and poultry production has nearly tripled while business, government and public advocates have battled over industry regulation. ProPublica charts that battle’s history.
Posted on Apr 5, 2012
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Flickr / ben_osteen (CC-BY)
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Public concern about the dangers of BPA, or bisphenol A, hasn’t translated into regulatory measures on the part of the Food and Drug Administration, as the agency isn’t yet cracking down on the chemical, which turns up in a few commonly used products and even in receipts.
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Flickr / ebbandflo_pomomama (CC-BY-SA)
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Here’s a startling, but perhaps not surprising, bit of news for those inclined to put colors on their kissers: The Food and Drug Administration ran some tests on hundreds of lipsticks and found that many made by popular brands such as L’Oreal, Cover Girl and Nars contained a very unsexy ingredient: lead.
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izahorsky (CC-BY)
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By Lena Groeger, ProPublica —
A few weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration hit the American Red Cross with a nearly $10 million fine for safety violations, lax oversight and faulty testing of its blood services. The fine is just the latest of more than a dozen the Red Cross has racked up in the last decade.
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FDA
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The pharmaceutical manufacturer says the million packets of mis-packaged birth control pills it is recalling won’t harm women’s health, but it acknowledges that they could fail to prevent users from becoming pregnant.
Posted on Feb 1, 2012
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Flickr / theunabonger (CC-BY-SA)
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Here’s a fun story involving the USDA, the FDA, the GAO—i.e., the United States Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Government Accountability Office—with the Office of Management and Budget thrown in for good measure.
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Esparta Palma (CC-BY)
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As of late last year, a Fremont, Calif., man had donated his sperm 328 times to would-be parents who found him on the Internet. The Food and Drug Administration has told the donor, whose self-described “service to help the community” has produced 14 children, to stop.
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Flickr / curran.kelleher (CC-BY)
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Tobacco giants, wary of the effect new government-mandated warnings may have on cigarette smokers, filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, claiming that the labels are unconstitutional. (more)
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Flickr / ashley rose
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A serious conversation is under way in the United States on the subject of psychiatric drugs. The debate consists of three fundamental issues: first, whether antidepressants actually treat depression; second, the vast, growing body of evidence that psychotropic medications ... (more)
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Flickr / CLF(CC-BY)
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Soon, Americans won’t be able to hide from the sometimes dismaying nutritional readouts on menus at their favorite chain restaurants—and even on some vending machines—but they still can in the soothing, darkened space of their local movie theater.
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By Amy Goodman — When it comes to food safety, as with airline safety, mine safety, pick an industry: Regulations save lives.
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Flickr / qmnonic (CC-BY)
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The legislation that President Obama signed Tuesday represents the biggest revamp of the country’s food regulation system in decades—that is, if it gets past those congressional Republicans spoiling for a fight as they pledge to crack down on government spending this year.
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Flickr / The Pug Father (CC-BY)
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The overuse of antibiotics can lead to drug-resistant superbugs, so it’s cause for concern to the folks at Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future that the vast majority of bug-killing drugs aren’t even consumed by sick humans.
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Flickr / avlxyz (CC-BY-SA)
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Here’s one form of big government that even some Republicans on Capitol Hill can apparently embrace: On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill designed to crack down on food regulation practices in the U.S. after recent batches of tainted foodstuffs were unleashed on the public.
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phusionprojects.com
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Fans of Four Loko alcoholic “energy drinks” are about to discover that their favored concoction, which blends the downer that is alcohol with the upper that is caffeine, is about to lose that speedy sensation, thanks to the vigilant work of the FDA.
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Flickr / Susan E Adams (CC-BY-SA)
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By Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang —
The tea partyers issue dire warnings of the threat posed by government, but their movement ignores the threat from corporate America: pollution, dangerous products and banking practices that brought us the worst economic crash since the Great Depression.
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Flickr / Bryan Brenner (CC-BY)
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Americans get half of their shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico, but that was before it was contaminated by 190 million gallons of oil and 2 million gallons of chemical dispersant. Shrimp season officially started Monday, but it will be some time before we know whether the ravaged Gulf waters—and American appetites—are up to it.
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Flickr / campusprogress_blog
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A European contraceptive that works as a five-day alternative to the “morning-after” pill may be coming to American shores, but a thorny debate surrounding the drug’s chemical similarity to the RU-486 abortion pill raises some politically charged questions for the FDA.
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myalli.com
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The instances in which a popular weight loss drug, orlistat, has been associated with liver damage may be rare, but said damage can also be severe. That would be Alli, as in “my Alli.” Not so much, apparently.
Posted on May 27, 2010
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Flickr / cancerdotsc
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A new vaccine called Provenge has just been accepted by the FDA, making it the first to be approved by the agency for men fighting advanced prostate cancer. While Provenge is not a cure, it has shown promise in extending the lives of patients.
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Flickr / TheGiantVermin (CC-BY-SA)
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It’s bad enough that Americans eat about twice as much salt as they need—and much more than is healthful—but most don’t even realize it. Reducing sodium in processed foods like cereal and soup and in restaurant meals could save more than 100,000 lives a year, and medical groups are urging the government to take action. (continued)
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White House / Pete Souza
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By David Sirota — Every now and then, an insider inadvertently exposes the hideous rationalizations that run the American political grotesquerie. Such is the case with the president’s flip-flop on drug imports.
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Flickr/mamagrrrl
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According to a consortium of anti-smoking organizations, U.S. state governments are raking in more money than ever from tobacco companies but aren’t spending as much as they had in recent years on preventing their constituents from starting to light up or on helping them quit.
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drinkjoose.com
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News flash: Adding caffeine to alcoholic drinks may lead consumers to underestimate how drunk they are. The Food and Drug Administration is getting to the bottom of this potential health issue by ordering close to 30 manufacturers of caffeinated adult beverages to prove that their drinks are safe—or else.
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Wikimedia Commons / 51fifty
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So many people grind up and inject or snort the powerful painkiller OxyContin that the drug’s maker has had to snap a plastic-like coating around the pill. The FDA says the improvement is marginal at best in reducing abuse of the drug, but better than nothing.
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treehugger.com
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An industry group of organic and natural food producers is attempting to develop a standard for non-genetically modified and organic food. Existing labels declaring food “organic” are based as marketing devices, not on an actual standard of rigorous testing.
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By Ellen Goodman — I don’t know that we will ever have a dramatic moment in the annals of Big Food like the 1994 testimony of tobacco executives before Congress. But I have begun to wonder whether this is the summer when the (groaning) tables have turned on the obesity industry.
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blogs.citypages.com
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As if quitting smoking wasn’t hard enough: The FDA is slapping mental health warnings on varenicline and buproprion, two drugs commonly prescribed to help smokers ditch their “cancer sticks,” as both medications may cause serious neuropsychiatric problems and could even provoke suicidal behavior among users.
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Flickr / TheGiantVermin
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The Food and Drug Administration’s expert panel has recommended the agency ban Vicodin and Percocet. Both drugs contain acetaminophen, which is known to cause liver damage. The panel also recommended reducing the standard doses of over-the-counter acetaminophen products, such as Tylenol.
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By Marie Cocco — It’s all right to be just a bit defensive when you’re the addict in chief, but President Obama happens to be, hands down, the best possible spokesman for the new FDA regulation. He should embrace the role.
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Flickr / NeilsPhotography
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The Food and Drug Administration may soon have control over the tobacco industry, if legislation survives Senate obstacles. The bill passed by a wide margin in the House, where its principal sponsor, Rep. Henry Waxman, said, “It has taken us far too long to get to this point.”
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By Marie Cocco — A court ruling offers a chilling compendium of accounts by doctors and other FDA professionals who were routinely thwarted as they tried to make the “morning after” pill available, especially to teenagers.
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AP photo / Ric Feld
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Uh-oh: Did Peanut Corporation of America knowingly ship out products that had tested positive for salmonella? Yes, says the FDA, which is investigating the plague that has rocked the legume world and caused eight deaths and hundreds of illnesses.
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Flickr / Oop
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The chemical BPA is common in plastic products such as baby bottles and food containers, despite concerns among scientists and environmentalists about its safety. The FDA has defended BPA use and recently turned to an outside panel for backup. That group of scientists, however, ended up criticizing the agency’s guidelines.
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nytimes.com
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The FDA and EPA already warn against pregnant women and children eating canned tuna because of high mercury levels, but The New York Times has discovered even more mercury in a random selection of fresh sushi tuna. And it’s not just those swanky city folk who are at risk. According to one marine scientist: “Mercury levels in bluefin [tuna] are likely to be very high regardless of location [of purchase].”
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advance.uconn.edu
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Using a combination of genetic engineering and cloning, scientists from the U.S. and Japan have successfully eliminated the protein that causes mad cow disease. So far the cows in the lab have proven immune to the illness, which shreds its victims’ brains, driving them mad.
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washingtonpost.com
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The Food and Drug Administration is set to approve food products derived from cloned animals and their offspring. Though eating beef from a cloned cow may seem incredibly creepy, the FDA has decided the manufactured twin is just as safe as the original animal, and requires no special identification once in the food supply.
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Illustration by Peter Scheer
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The FDA has approved the use of a group of viruses as a food additive for ready-to-eat meat products, such as hot dogs and cold cuts. Companies that use the additive will not be required to inform consumers.
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By Molly Ivins — With the Bush administration, it’s important to have in mind the old carnival con game: Keep your eye on the shell with the pea under it.
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Too Soon to Tell: The Case for Hope, Continued
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