Archive for January, 2012

Is Walmart’s March into Cities Helping or Hurting?

Having saturated the rural landscape, shuttering local stores in small town America along the way, now, in the wake of stagnant sales and increased competition, Walmart desperately needs to expand into urban markets. Read rest at Food Safety News…

Beer Wholesalers Join Public Health to Oppose Four Loko Settlement

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission took public comments on a proposed settlement with the alcohol company Phusion Projects, which makes a beverage line called Four Loko. You might recall in 2010 how that product gained much notoriety for sending scores of college students to the emergency room as a result of its dangerous combination of alcohol with caffeine. In a rare victory of government action in favor of public safety, in November 2010, the Food and Drug Administration forced Phusion and other companies to remove the caffeine. (Read my case study here.) But of course, the story doesn’t end there, as these companies always have another trick up their sleeve to get youth hooked.

Continue reading →

Food Lobby Says EPA’s Dioxin Limits Will “Scare the Crap Out of People”

It doesn’t take much for the food industry to freak-out over potential government action, but this latest corporate outcry is especially galling and self-serving. After more than 20 years of “assessment” the Environmental Protection Agency is finally expected this month to release limits for safe exposure to dioxins, nasty industrial pollutants that cause cancer, among other health harms. You may have heard of dioxin as the military herbicide Agent Orange used in Vietnam, where it earned its distinction as “the most toxic compound synthesized by man.”

Continue reading →

Archives

  • 2016 (4)
  • 2015 (20)
  • 2014 (41)
  • 2013 (67)
  • 2012 (70)
  • 2011 (53)
  • 2010 (49)