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." |
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| May 24, 2009 |
''A welcome reform of credit card rules'' "Congress is throwing a rope to credit card users who have been trapped by an industry whose standard operating procedures include deceptive practices, arbitrary rules changes and crippling interest rates. The aid couldn't come at a better time." |
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| May 5, 2009 |
"If you are among the 80 percent of Americans who use credit cards, you probably have your own horror story of interest rates raised without notice or credit lines reduced. A study sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts puts numbers to the anecdotes: Analyzing the practices of more than 400 different credit cards offered by the 12 largest companies, it found that 100 percent of them, every single credit card, has policies that harm consumers." |
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| Apr 30, 2009 |
"A survey last month by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 93 percent of the nation's 663 million cardholder agreements allow the company to raise any interest rate at any time for any reason." |
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| Apr 26, 2008 |
''America's Foreclosure Crisis'' "CNN's Lou Dobbs reports on the foreclosure crisis, including commentary by Susan Urahn, Managing Director of the Pew Center on the States." |
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| Apr 11, 2006 |
''Taking a Hard Look at Student Debt'' "Late last month, Penn president Amy Gutmann and the the university board sent a clear and powerful message to high school graduates from lower-income families:You can afford to go to college." |
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| May 6, 2013 |
''Overused Antibiotics are Becoming Ineffective'' "As a nation, we need to exercise greater care with our use of antibiotics, in both humans and animals, so that these medications remain effective in treating serious bacterial infections." |
Antibiotic Innovation, Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Oct 17, 2012 |
Recent Outbreak Stresses Need for New Antibiotics Following the deadly superbug outbreak in 2011, a recent report published by the NIH indicates new antibiotics could help fight antibiotic resistant bacteria. Senior Officer of Pew's Antibiotics and Innovation Project Nicole Mahoney discusses the new report and the need for a comprehensive strategy to prevent superbug outbreaks.
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Antibiotic Innovation |
| Oct 8, 2012 |
"One of the most urgent global public health problems is the increasing capability of bacteria to resist antibiotic drugs. The crisis of antimicrobial resistance is particularly acute in hospitals, where superbugs able to resist multiple drugs have spawned. More than 70 percent of the bacteria that cause hospital-related infections are already resistant to at least one type of antibacterial drug." |
Antibiotic Innovation, Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Aug 27, 2012 |
''An Uncontrollable Outbreak'' ''The menace posed by germs resistant to powerful antibiotics was all too apparent when a deadly, drug-resistant form of pneumonia bacteria struck the Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health last year. It infected 17 patients and killed 6 of them. This disheartening episode shows again the importance of slowing the development of resistant strains by reducing rampant overuse of antibiotics — and of developing new, more effective antibiotics." |
Antibiotic Innovation |
| Aug 7, 2012 |
''Will Humans Lose the Battle With Microbes?'' Bacteria have become increasingly resistant to the drugs we've come to rely on. Only a concerted effort can avert a public health crisis. |
Antibiotic Innovation, Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Jul 11, 2012 |
''Resistance to antibiotics is becoming a crisis'' In an editorial stressing the need for new antibiotics, the Washington Post cites that some bacteria have become resistant to multiple antibiotics while the pipeline of new drugs is drying up. But a promising step by Congress could give pharmaceutical companies the incentive they need. |
Antibiotic Innovation |
| Oct 22, 2010 |
The U.S. Needs More Weapons in the Fight Against Superbugs Director of Pew Health Group Medical Safety, Allan Coukell, discusses antibiotic resistance and U.S. policy after a Washington Post health piece on resistant superbugs. |
Antibiotic Innovation |
| 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 |
| Apr 3, 2013 |
''Yes, Antibiotic-Resistant Bugs Can Jump from Animals to Humans'' "For decades, the meat industry has denied any problem with its reliance on routine, everyday antibiotic use for the nation's chickens, cows, and pigs. But it's a bit like a drunk denying an alcohol problem while leaning on a barstool for support. Antibiotic use on livestock farms has surged in recent years — from 20 million pounds annually in 2003 to nearly 30 million pounds in 2011." |
Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
| Mar 28, 2013 |
''Antibiotics and the Meat We Eat'' "Scientists at the Food and Drug Administration systematically monitor the meat and poultry sold in supermarkets around the country for the presence of disease-causing bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. These food products are bellwethers that tell us how bad the crisis of antibiotic resistance is getting. And they’re telling us it’s getting worse." |
Antibiotics in Food Animal Production |
