Opinions
Opinions
| Date | Opinions | Topic |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 24, 2012 |
''Food safety auditors too tied to industry'' "The first hints of trouble came last Sept. 2. Trackers who watch for outbreaks of dangerous diseases noticed that seven people in Colorado had come down with listeriosis, a potentially fatal food-borne illness. Within two weeks, federal authorities had tracked the culprit — contaminated cantaloupe — to Jensen Farms, a small Colorado grower." |
Food Hazards |
| Jan 24, 2012 |
''Food safety is more than about audits'' "Food safety has always been the highest priority for the people who grow, ship and sell our nation's fresh fruits and vegetables. Recognizing there is no one solution, we take a holistic approach to food safety, constantly strengthening best practices, identifying knowledge gaps, creating new guidance on growing, handling and processing, and developing new "field to fork" training programs." |
Food Hazards |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 4, 2011 |
''Congress must maintain funding for food safety'' "My 3 year old daughter Aly ate E. coli contaminated food in the summer of 1999 and died as a result. Her story is proof that deadly pathogens lurk in the foods we eat every day." |
Food Hazards |
| Aug 16, 2011 |
''Putting politics into food safety'' "A civilized, educated nation that embraces lax food safety regulations is a nation willing to accept the consequences of contaminated food. That willingness can be deadly. That’s not the path the United States should take." |
Food Hazards |
| Aug 6, 2011 |
''Our View: Food safety program cuts mindless, shortsighted'' "For the last month we have heard more than we needed to know about the nation's debt, and our government's inability to bring spending under control." |
Food Hazards |
| Jun 26, 2013 |
''Move Forward on Medical Device Tracking'' 'You may not yet depend on a pacemaker, defibrillator, stent, joint implant or any of the other life-changing, potentially lifesaving products made by the medical device industry. But chances are you or a family member will be a patient some day. That’s why it isn’t just the medical device industry that has a stake in the timely rollout of a long-overdue national system to better track the safety and whereabouts of devices once they’re on the market or in use." |
Drugs and Devices at the FDA |
| Jul 16, 2012 |
''Delays and Difficulties in Assessing Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants'' More than 500,000 U.S. patients have received metal-on-metal hip prostheses, most of which were implanted between 2003 and 2010. These prostheses entered the market through the 510(k) pathway at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), whereby manufacturers need only demonstrate substantial equivalence to a device already on the market to gain approval. Unfortunately, there is now compelling evidence that these implants fail at a higher rate than hip prostheses made of other materials. |
Drugs and Devices at the FDA |
| Jul 3, 2012 |
''Drug, device reform gets bipartisan push'' "The U.S. Supreme Court's eagerly awaited Affordable Care Act ruling unfortunately overshadowed the unusually bipartisan work underway at the U.S. Capitol last week, where Congress finalized sweeping legislation crammed with smaller-scale but still vital health reforms." |
Drug Safety, Drugs and Devices at the FDA |
| Mar 23, 2012 |
''Editorial: Crack down on counterfeit drugs'' Strong, national 'track and trace' system is overdue. |
Drug Safety |
| Sep 20, 2011 |
''Safer drug supply requires update to our regulation'' "Americans might expect their prescription drugs to be “Made in the U.S.A.,” but just like clothing or electronics, their medicine is increasingly produced in developing nations. In fact, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, at least 80 percent of the ingredients in U.S. drugs now originate overseas. This could be real cause for concern." |
Drug Safety |
| Aug 29, 2011 |
Distribution System OK, But it Can be Exploited Drug distribution may involve many trading partners, which can make it difficult to determine the products’ sources or authenticity. Medicines are often bought and sold across state lines; moved in whole or partial lots; and repackaged or relabeled. These practices may be appropriate, but bad actors also may exploit vulnerabilities in this system. |
Drug Safety |
| May 7, 2013 |
''The Senate Aims to Clean Up Compounding Pharmacies'' When a doctor sticks a needle in you, you expect that the drugs it carries won’t be tainted. But, possibly owing to a strange gray area in federal law, thousands of patients last October got injections for back pain that contained highly dangerous fungal meningitis, and dozens of them died. Members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are now seeking to fix the government’s oversight of the obscure world of compounding pharmacies. The reforms they want are overdue. |
Drug Manufacturing and Distribution, Drug Safety |
