The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. HEALTH
Congress considers a law to pre-empt states from requiring food safety warnings more stringent than called for by federal rules.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Food Safety Policy Gregory Conko on the rise of “Big Tofu”:
“You’ve surely heard about the political bogeymen ‘Big Oil’ and ‘Big Tobacco,’ but when it comes to your freedom to choose the foods you eat, there’s no special interest more powerful than ‘Big Tofu.’ From attacks on movie theater popcorn to fast food burgers, Big Tofu wants to keep you from dining on steak, French fries, soda and anything else it deems bad for you. The top priority: protect you from yourself by imposing its vegan-leaning, beans-and-rice, ‘if-it-tastes-good-it-must-be-bad-for-you’ views on what constitutes a proper diet.”
2. LEGAL
Businesses and consumers in California receive a $1.1 billion class action settlement in a Microsoft antitrust case.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Vice President Wayne Crews on the problems with antirust law in the U.S. and around the world:
“Despite the wide success of economic deregulation in the transportation, communications, and banking sectors, there has been no concerted effort to reconsider the moral and economic basis of one of the oldest forms of federal intervention—antitrust. Now, flawed antitrust theories are being ‘exported’ to Europe . A reform campaign based on the insight that antitrust is actually anti-competitive and anti-consumer is long overdue.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
The West Nile virus claims its first victim in California this year.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Risk & Environmental Policy Angela Logomasini on the fight between public health officials and environmental activists over West Nile prevention:
“Mosquito control officials only want to spray for one reason: to save lives. Over the past four years, there were more than 16,000 cases of the West Nile virus and more than 650 deaths. For some of those who survive, the illness can escalate into an excruciatingly painful neuroinvasive disease — one that can cause paralysis. In just the past two years, the Centers for Disease Control documented more than 4,000 cases of West Nile’s neuroinvasive disease. And even the more modest forms of West Nile virus sickness can be quite horrific.”