Opinions
Opinions
| Date | Opinions | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 15, 2013 |
''Putting a Price Tag on Safe Food'' "In addition to the 3,000 deaths it causes each year, contaminated food is very expensive. The cost of food poisoning in this country comes to $14 billion a year, according to a July 2012 study published in the Journal of Food Protection, including the medical expenses of the 128,000 who are hospitalized annually. That figure does not include the millions of dollars that each food recall costs the company involved, the legal expenses from victims' lawsuits or losses incurred by other companies when consumers hear, for example, about contaminated cantaloupes and then avoid all cantaloupes, including those that are perfectly safe." |
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| Jan 11, 2013 |
''Ounces of Prevention: Health Impact Assessments Can Help Improve Public Policy, Health Outcomes''
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| Aug 24, 2012 |
''Tracking a Superbug at the NIH'' "A deadly outbreak of antibiotic-resistant bacteria last year at the Clinical Research Center of the National Institutes of Health offers a fascinating and frightening window on the future of medicine. Fascinating because scientists used whole-genome sequencing to obtain a fine-grained blueprint of the genetic material in the bacteria and to track how it spread. Frightening because the bacteria, resistant to multiple antibiotics, defied efforts to control it in the 234-bed hospital in Bethesda." |
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| Sep 28, 2010 |
''Tougher food safety rules long overdue'' "The House committee hearing last week on the summer's recall of 550 million eggs is exhibit A in the fight for tougher oversight by the Food and Drug Administration." |
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| Aug 24, 2010 |
''The Customer Always Comes Last'' "The credit card industry is working hard to subvert the Credit Card Act of 2009, which banned many of the industry’s most predatory practices. The Federal Reserve Board, which oversees and coddles this industry, needs to ensure that consumers get the protections Congress intended, and Americans so clearly need. The Fed also needs to take a hard look at problems cited last month by the Pew Charitable Trust Safe Credit Cards Project." |
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| Aug 10, 2010 |
"Consumers beware: Credit-card companies already are finding ways around the new law designed to crack down on their tricky fees and hidden charges. The Credit Card Accountability Act of 2009 was intended to stop lenders' unfair practices, such as jacking up a cardholder's interest rate without warning or shortening billing cycles. For the most part, the law is working." |
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| Jun 30, 2010 |
''The Fed and Your Credit Card'' "Congress passed legislation last year banning many of the worst practices of credit card companies and ordered the Federal Reserve to issue new rules to ensure that late charges and all other penalties — a major source of abuse — are 'reasonable and proportional.' That dubious reading is especially troubling given a recent analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Safe Credit Card Project that found that some companies fail to disclose the penalty interest charges in their contracts — a clear violation of banking law." |
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| Mar 14, 2010 |
"Congress passed legislation last year intended to protect consumers from the credit card industry’s most deceptive and unfair practices. The main provisions finally went into effect last month. But the Federal Reserve still has to write new rules intended to stop companies from bleeding customers dry with exorbitant fees for late payments, with charges for exceeding the credit limit, or with “any other penalty fee or charge.” |
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| Oct 22, 2009 |
"Congress blundered badly when it gave the credit card industry as long as 15 months to phase out the deceptive and predatory practices that were outlawed in a new law enacted in May." |
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| Oct 16, 2009 |
''Last Minute Credit Card Tricks'' "The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, signed into law in May, gave credit card companies a leisurely timetable — as long as 15 months — to phase out predatory practices used to bleed consumers. Not surprisingly, the companies have exploited this generosity by driving already outrageous interest rates still higher and imposing fees that are pushing struggling families further into debt. Congress can end this injustice by moving up the deadline, accelerating reform and helping consumers." |
