New film: The Yes Men are Revolting
A new film, The Yes Men are Revolting, shows activists using humor and spoof to fight corporate greed in villages in Uganda, toxic oil fields in Canada, and elsewhere by taking on big oil, lobbyists,...
View ArticleAdded Sugar on the Nutrition Facts Label
The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a new fact sheet summarizing public comments on the FDA proposal to include a line for added sugars on the Nutrition Facts label on food packaging. The...
View ArticleUS Hospitals Distributing Infant Formula Packs to Breastfeeding Mothers declines
A new report in Pediatrics found that the distribution of infant formula discharge packs to breastfeeding mothers declined markedly from 2007 to 2013. The percentage of hospitals distributing infant...
View ArticleLeaked TPP Text Reveals Increased Corporate Control of Access to Medicines
Democracy Now! reports that WikiLeaks has published another section of the secret text of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement — this one about public healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry. The...
View ArticleDanger Behind the Wheel: The Takata Airbag Crisis and How to Fix Our Broken...
A new report from the Democratic members of the Senate Commerce Committee finds that Takata, the manufacturer of defective airbags that have killed several users, was aware, or should have been aware,...
View ArticleHealth Advocates Remake Coke Ad
Center for Science in the Public Interest has remade Coca-Cola’s iconic “Hilltop” ad with a new message. The new video is health advocates’ latest salvo in their campaign to reduce the incidence of...
View ArticleU.S. Chamber of Commerce Works Globally to Fight Antismoking Measures
From Ukraine to Uruguay, reports the New York Times, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its foreign affiliates have become the hammer for the tobacco industry, engaging in a worldwide effort to fight...
View ArticleSpinning Food: How Food Industry Front Groups are Shaping the Story of Food
A new report by Friends of the Earth, “Spinning Food: How Food Industry Front Groups and Covert Communications are Shaping the Story of Food,” documents unprecedented levels of spending from front...
View ArticleNader talks car safety on 50th anniversary of ‘Unsafe at Any Speed’
Without Ralph Nader and his 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, the cars we drive today would be vastly different from the ones we take for granted. The Chicago Tribune interviews Ralph Nader on the book’s...
View ArticleDollars for Docs: How Industry Dollars Reach Your Doctors
An updated analysis of the federal database on pharmaceutical industry payments to doctors by Pro Publica shows that 768 doctors received payments on more than half of the days in 2014. More than...
View ArticleLawsuit Against General Motors Tests Attorney-Client Privilege
Last week, plaintiffs suing G.M. asked a Federal District Court to find that the company and its lawyers engaged in criminal or fraudulent activity by covering up the defect, reports the New York...
View ArticlePharmaceutical Companies which Underreported Prices Paid by Medicaid Reach...
Whistleblower, a blog for attorneys, reports that AstraZeneca and Cephalon have both reached settlements with the US Department of Justice totaling $54 million. The companies were accused of...
View ArticleNestlé/Gerber again caught conning parents
Nestlé has been sued in California state court for shenanigans involving products of its Gerber division, reports Consumer Law and Policy Blog. Nestlé wants to grab the same parents who fed Gerber...
View ArticleU.S. Senate weighs highway bill with modest safety reforms
According to Automotive News, a six-year highway funding bill being considered by the U.S. Senate would provide a path for auto safety regulators to impose bigger fines on automakers that violate the...
View ArticleTaxes on tobacco, alcohol and sugar sweetened beverages: Linkages and lessons...
A review of taxes on tobacco, alcohol and sugary beverages in Social Sciences and Medicine concludes that while “specific taxes based on the volume of beverages are likely to reduce the demand for...
View ArticleExperts support call for lower cancer drug prices
Reuters reports that a group of 118 leading cancer experts have developed a list of proposals designed to reduce the cost of cancer drugs, and support a grassroots patient protest movement to pressure...
View ArticleA Common-Sense Public Health Approach to Gun Violence
Every year, wrote Tim Burgess, the Seattle City Council president, in Capitol Hill Times, taxpayers in Seattle pay for millions of dollars of emergency medical care for people who have been shot. It’s...
View ArticleDrug Manufacturers’ Delayed Disclosure of Serious and Unexpected Adverse...
Federal regulations require drug manufacturers to report previously unknown side effects and complications of their products to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within 15 days of receiving...
View ArticleCourt rules that FDA cannot restrict off-label marketing
BMJ reports that a federal judge in New York has ruled that the Food and Drug Administration cannot restrict off-label marketing information for an approved drug so long as the information is truthful...
View ArticleSeattle passes laws to tax guns and ammo, require report of stolen firearms
The New York Daily News reports that the Seattle City Council unanimously approved two laws designed to curb gun violence and raise hundreds of thousands of dollars each year for the city. The “gun...
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