Opinions
Opinions
| Date | Opinions | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Dec 4, 2012 |
''Looking for More Food Regulation Success'' "All Americans, even those who rail about government’s regulatory overreach, would agree it’s critical to keep our food supply safe. That’s why it’s heartening that the Food and Drug Administration for the first time took action to shut down a peanut butter plant in New Mexico after it failed to clean up its act. At least 41 people nationwide have been sickened by the salmonella-tainted organic peanut butter." |
Food Safety |
| Nov 11, 2011 |
''Listeria outbreak cries for changes, not hysteria'' "The cantaloupe-caused outbreak of listeria created a tragedy for those infected by the bacteria and for their families. As of the end of last month, the death toll had risen to 28, the number of reported illnesses had climbed to 133, and one infected woman miscarried." |
Food Safety |
| Oct 10, 2012 |
''Letter: Keep Our Food Supply Safe'' In a letter printed in The Detroit News, Neogen Corp. CEO James Herbert applauded the FDA Safety and Innovation Act and stressed the need for bold leadership to help ensure that the food we put on our tables is safe. Neogen Corp. has been involved in food safety testing for 30 years, developing diagnostic tests and products for food allergies and pathogens. |
Food Safety |
| Nov 3, 2008 |
''Let public see doctors’ ties to drug companies'' "What is the appropriate relationship between the medical profession and the drug industry? Last month, Dr. Charles Nemeroff stepped down as chair of Emory University’s psychiatry department after a Senate investigation exposed his failure to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in industry consulting and speaking fees, including payments from Glaxo-SmithKline, whose drug he was also studying using taxpayer dollars from the National Institutes of Health." |
Conflicts of Interest |
| Sep 30, 2011 |
''Lessons of the Listeria Outbreak'' "The deaths caused by listeria bacteria on cantaloupe is a warning that both the food industry and the government need to do more to protect the public." |
Food Hazards |
| Nov 23, 2011 |
''Learning from listeria outbreak'' "Prosecutors may not end up filing criminal charges against operators of a Colorado farm whose tainted cantaloupes are suspected of killing 29 people." |
Food Safety |
| Nov 12, 2012 |
''Lawmakers face a torrent of delayed decisions'' In recent months, the White House has stalled on a host of pending rules, including implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act. |
Food Hazards |
| 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." |
|
| Sep 16, 2011 |
''Killing Jobs and Making Us Sick'' "'In January, Mr. Obama signed a food safety law that provides broad new authority to the Food and Drug Administration,' wrote Robert Pear in Friday’s Times, in an article about the Congressional appropriations mess. But House Republicans, he added, had voted 'to cut the agency’s budget.' |
Food Hazards |
| Sep 26, 2010 |
''It's enough to make you sick'' "Once again, federal lawmakers failed to take action on much-needed food safety legislation." |
Food Safety |
| Apr 17, 2013 |
''It is Vital That We Monitor Antibiotic Use in Livestock'' It used to be easy to treat healthy children with common bacterial infections; a regimen of antibiotic pills could usually wipe out the disease. Today, patients might need to go home on intravenous antibiotics because oral therapies will no longer work. Antibiotic resistance is to blame. |
Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Oct 14, 2011 |
"Cantaloupe is the latest food contamination scare for American consumers. With at least 23 deaths from listeria linked to Colorado cantaloupes, it is the deadliest U.S. outbreak of foodborne illness in a quarter century." |
Food Hazards |
| Jan 16, 2013 |
''Improving Food Safety Essential'' "The announcement earlier this month of proposed federal food safety regulations certainly took long enough — the authorizing legislation, the Food Safety Modernization Act, was passed two years ago with bipartisan support. Between then and now, the nation has seen a number of incidents (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified 15 multistate outbreaks) in which thousands of people took ill, even died, because of illness carried in contaminated food." |
Food Safety |
| Jun 6, 2012 |
''Ignoring salmonella inexcusable'' "Just when you think the Jack DeCoster egg empire couldn't look more rotten ... well, this just in: Court records managers at one of DeCoster's Iowa egg farms knew its hens were "almost certainly" laying contaminated eggs months before one of the nation's largest outbreaks of food-borne illness." |
Food Safety |
| Mar 13, 2010 |
''Healthy livestock, sick people'' "Year after year, legislation intended to preserve the effectiveness of available antibiotics by limiting their use in livestock is shot down." |
Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| May 1, 2011 |
''Health Impact Assessments Are Needed In Decision Making About Environmental And Land-Use Policy'' "The importance to public health of environmental decisions—including those about land use, transportation, power generation, agriculture, and environmental regulation—is increasingly well documented. Yet many decision makers in fields not traditionally focused on health continue to pay little if any attention to the important health effects of their work." |
Health Impact Assessment |
| Jan 5, 2011 |
''Health Impact Assessment: A Tool That Can Build A Healthier America'' "In December, the Department of Health and Human Services released “Healthy People 2020” — a 10-year blueprint aimed at improving the health of the nation. The plan comes amidst rising rates of many diseases – such as asthma and diabetes — and skyrocketing health care costs." |
Health Impact Assessment |
| Aug 20, 2012 |
''Get Antibiotics Off the Farm'' "Earlier this month, a federal magistrate judge in New York told the Food and Drug Administration to quit dillydallying on its three-decade effort to curb indiscriminate use of antibiotics in farm animals to spur their growth. He set a timetable for the agency to follow in withdrawing two important drugs — penicillin and two forms of tetracycline — from widespread use in animals. The trouble is, that timetable will give the FDA. five more years to complete the process." |
Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Jul 17, 2012 |
"About six years ago my mother-in-law and I were both sickened by E. coli in bagged spinach we had in our home. I survived a painful illness, but my mother-in-law perished eight days after eating the tainted food." |
Food Hazards |
| Oct 18, 2011 |
"Among the hazards that face Americans each day, eating cantaloupe is low on the list for anyone who isn't allergic to it. Yet 23 people across the country died recently, and hundreds of others were sickened from eating cantaloupes contaminated by listeria." |
Food Safety |
| May 13, 2008 |
''Foster Care Should Respect Heritage'' "According to a report by the National Indian Child Welfare Association and Kids Are Waiting, Washington has one of the nation's highest rates of American Indian foster children. While they make up only 2 percent of Washington's child population, American Indians represent 8.4 percent of children in foster care." |
Health Topics |
| Jun 10, 2013 |
''For Our Kids' Sake, Food Safety Must Be a Priority'' As a pediatrician, my No. 1 concern is to keep children safe and healthy. Inside the walls of my office, I can provide services and counseling to help do just that, whether by giving an infant her first childhood vaccine, providing a mental health screening to an adolescent patient or counseling parents about how to keep their homes as safe as possible. Unfortunately, there are some threats to children's health that are beyond my control, including the food they consume. |
Food Safety |
| Sep 7, 2006 |
''For Children Raised by Grandparents, Every Day is Grandparents' Day'' "'I raised my grandchildren. I had to because I had no alternative but to raise them,' Dorothy, age 79, says of her grandchildren. "I had to take my little Social Security and my retirement benefits and take care of these kids. I don't know how I did it."Dorothy is remarkable, but not unusual. Rather than let he |
Health Topics |
| Apr 27, 2012 |
"While the first lady, Michelle Obama, champions the issue of healthy food, the rest of the administration does not seem to have gotten the message." |
Food Hazards |
| Aug 24, 2012 |
''Food safety law is being delayed'' "In 2011, the president signed the Food Safety Modernization Act, the most ambitious overhaul of the nation’s food safety system since the 1930s, which passed Congress with broad bipartisan support and industry backing." |
Food Hazards |