Blog
Democrats’ Drug Price Control Bill Is a Prescription for Disaster
Last Thursday, House Democrats reintroduced a bill from the last Congress, which they claim will protect Medicare from excessive prescription drug prices. Sadly, it…
Blog
Prescription Drug Price Controls are a Trump Legacy Worth Eradicating
During his first month in office, President Biden has seemingly been more interested in eradicating Donald Trump’s legacy than pushing his own proposals, though…
Blog
In Memoriam: Jerry Ellig
I was shocked and deeply saddened to learn yesterday that my friend and one-time teacher, Jerry Ellig, passed away on Wednesday night, the victim of a…
Blog
Trump’s Drug Price Controls are a Lousy Deal for Patients
Prescription drug prices are popular targets for lawmakers—especially in an election year. Still, it came as quite a surprise when President Trump issued an…
Blog
Trump’s Drug Price Control Orders Are Bound to Backfire
At a White House gathering last Friday, President Trump announced four new executive orders intended to restrict the ways pharmaceutical companies set the price of…
Blog
The Man Who Fed the World, And the Film that Condemned Him for It
The first indication that PBS’s new documentary on agronomist Norman Borlaug will not be overly laudatory is its title. Anti-hunger activist Leon Hesser called his…
Blog
Regulation, Confusion, and the Irony of Emergency COVID-19 Testing
By now, readers are aware that testing in the United States for the novel coronavirus COVID-19 has been embarrassingly slow. Less well known is that…
Blog
HHS Price Disclosure Rule Will Not Make Medicines More Affordable
In his State of the Union Address, President Trump renewed his commitment to “lower[ing] the cost of health care and prescription drugs” and “requir[ing] drug…
Blog
New Drug Price Proposal Light on Competition, Heavy on Bureaucracy
Last Friday, Hillary Clinton announced a new plan to “respond to unjustified price hikes” on certain pharmaceutical drugs.
Blog
Letter to Congress: Experts Urged House to Reject Mandatory GMO Labeling Bill
In advance of a House vote on July 14 concerning mandatory GMO labeling, myself and other policy experts on biotechnology, consumer, and agricultural policy sent…
Blog
Nobel Prize Winners Denounce Greenpeace Opposition to GMOs
For decades, the environmental activist group Greenpeace has been among the most vocal, and oftentimes vicious, opponents of biotechnology and genetically engineered crops.
Blog
Welcome Kent Lassman, CEI’s New President
Blog
CEI Looks Ahead to 2016
Blog
A Look Ahead to CEI’s Future
Blog
What Happens an Hour After Drinking Locally Sourced, Sustainable, Organic Kale Juice?
Remember, sugar might rot your teeth, but junk science will rot your brain.
Blog
More Unintelligible Gibberish on GMO Risks from Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A few months ago, statistician and risk analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb, known mostly for his intriguing 2007 book The Black Swan, teamed up with a handful…
Blog
In Memoriam: Elizabeth Whelan
I was very sad to hear last week that Elizabeth Whelan, founder and president of the American Council on Science and Health, had passed…
Blog
GMO Row Comes to Kansas Congressional Race
Blog
California’s Latest Anti-GMO Push
Two years ago, voters in California narrowly defeated Proposition 37 , a ballot initiative that would have required labeling of most --…
Blog
Pompeo-Butterfield Food Labeling Bill: Valuable But Needs Work
Earlier today, Reps. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) introduced a bill in the House that would establish federal standards for the labeling of…
Blog
Vitter Amendment To Ban Drug Patent Settlements Would Raise Pharmaceutical Prices
With time running out for the Senate to act on a continuing budget resolution, members are trying to find some magic pot of money that…
Blog
Obamacare Lives. So, Now What?
Former CEI scholar Tom Miller (now with AEI) has some thoughts on the Obamacare decision in today's…
Blog
Supreme Court Concocts New “Rational (Tax) Basis” Test in Upholding Health Law
In a move that seems to have surprised many observers, the Supreme Court today upheld nearly all of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act…
Blog
Court Rules State Biotech Food Labeling Mandates Preempted By Federal Law
It’s been a few years since biotech foods have been regular front page news. The anti-technology activists cried wolf a few too many times, and…
Blog
Pink Slime and the Slimy Tactics of America’s Food Elitists
Last week, the Media Research Center’s Dan Gainor wrote a nice article examining how the mainstream media has been complicit in smearing…
Blog
Agricultural Innovation in the 21st Century: CEI on Capitol Hill
On Monday, I’ll be speaking at a Capitol Hill event sponsored by Americans for Choice and Competition in Agriculture, which also…
Blog
Consumer Freedom and the Risks of Raw Milk
Earlier today, Nicole Ciandella linked to an essay by the John Locke Foundation's Fergus Hodgson, titled "The Absurdity…
Blog
Congress Seems Intent on Making Drug Shortages Worse
Now that the problem of prescription drug shortages has begun to affect children, members of Congress want to be seen as…
Blog
Global Biotech Crop Acreage Up, Plus Clayton Yeutter on the Miracle of American Agriculture
Global planting of biotech crops grew 8 percent last year, to a record high of 395 million total acres, according to…
Blog
Obama, Scientific Integrity, and the State of the Union
With the State of the Union coming up, I’ve been wondering whether, or how, President Obama might address the Plan B fiasco…
Blog
2011 Brought Lots of Good News for Salt Lovers
With holiday cooking on most of our minds this week, it's worth celebrating some good news about one of the most beleaguered food ingredients: table salt. For…
Blog
FDA Needs to Act on Internet and Social Media Policy
Way back in September 2009, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would begin using the social media site Twitter to share news and other…
Blog
FDA Was Right to Deny Petition to Restrict Animal Antibiotics
I didn't have a chance to write about it then, but a few weeks back the Food and Drug Administration denied a…
Blog
Over-The-Counter Plan B? What Would Jed Bartlet Do?
Back in March 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity to the heads of executive branch agencies and departments.
Blog
Good News/Bad News on Compensating Bone Marrow Donors
By now, there's been plenty of news highlighting last week's decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the National Organ…
Blog
Sen. Hagan Bill Would Expand Accelerated Drug Approval
According to Bloomberg News, North Carolina Democratic Senator Kay Hagan is set to introduce a bill that would create new “progressive”…
Blog
Biotechnology’s 29th Anniversary!
Twenty-nine years ago tomorrow, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Eli Lilly’s and Genentech’s Humulin, making it the first ever fully…
Blog
Beware of Asking FDA to Change Itself
Every five years, Congress must reauthorize a piece of legislation called the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), which gives the…
Blog
White House Involved in FDA Approval of Genetically Engineered Salmon?
A couple of days ago, Talking Points Memo's Jim Kozubek reported that the Food and Drug Administration had finally decided to…
Blog
FDA Approves Device To Help Doctors Detect Skin Cancer
There's an unusual bit of good news out of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In March 2010 and again last November, the…
Blog
Flushing Oral Oncology Drugs Down the Toilet?
An interesting article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (via yesterday's Jerusalem Post) argues that the U.S. Food and…
Blog
Environmental Working Group’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ List Debunked
The Environmental Working Group seems to exist for no other reason than to scare consumers away from the products of modern technology -- and to…
Blog
More Confusion on Breast Cancer Screening
When the federal government's Preventive Services Task Force recommended in November 2009 that most women under age 50 should stop having regular…
Blog
Scientific American Busts Organic Food Myths
Over at the Scientific American magazine blogs, science writer Christie Wilcox takes on some of the mythology surrounding organic foods, including the…
Blog
Sour Attitudes on Raw Milk
In a letter to the Washington Post over this past weekend, a “food safety consultant” in northern Virginia named Thomas L.
Blog
A Peek Inside the Bureaucrat’s Mind
By now, this story about the city of Portland, Oregon, deciding to drain nearly 8 million gallons of water from one…
Blog
FDA Should Not Mandate Comparative Effectiveness Trials
AEI resident fellow Scott Gottlieb has a new paper out explaining why the FDA should not force…
Blog
E. Coli Outbreak Linked to Organic Farming … Again
Although it’s not 100 percent certain at this time, German health officials are becoming increasingly certain that the recent E. coli…
Blog
Avastin and Breast Cancer: The Median is Not the Message
The New York Times ran an op-ed yesterday by oncologist Frederick Tucker urging the Food and Drug Administration to stand by…
Blog
New York Times on “Paternalistic” Government
The Dining section of today’s New York Times has a short piece reporting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has lowered…
Blog
Journalists Say the Darndest Things!
Today's Washington Post has an article about a new study confirming that the lifetime earning power of a college degree in…
Blog
Feds Say “Prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse!”
Who says bureaucrats don’t have a sense of humor? The Wall Street Journal‘s Health Blog points to a…
Blog
USDA’s War on Potatoes
The Wall Street Journal reports today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is proposing to “eliminate the ‘white potato’ — defined…
Blog
Hormones in Milk: They Do a Body Good
Today's Washington Post Food section contains a number of articles following up on the Post's "The Future…
Blog
Prince Charles Says, “Let Them Eat Organic”
HRH the Prince of Wales delivered the keynote address at The Washington Post's "Future of Food" conference yesterday at Georgetown University.
Blog
The GOP and the Health Insurance Mandate
With the health insurance individual purchase mandate looking more vulnerable than ever, Democrats are trying desperately to get some mileage out…
Blog
Four Loko: Just How Potent is the Caffeinated Alcoholic Drink?
Over the past few days, I’ve gotten plenty of angry e-mail from people critical of my defense of caffeinated alcoholic beverages…
Blog
Four Loko Crackdown: FDA Set to Ban Caffeinated-Alcohol Drinks
It looks as though the FDA is now set to ban the small but growing market for so-called alcohol-energy drinks, such as Four Loko and…
Blog
USDA Puts Fox in Charge of Guarding the Hen House
A proposed new rule from the USDA's Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration is one more example of obscure regulatory agencies run amok. What makes…
Blog
Sen. Grassley’s Selective Crusade Against Conflicts of Interest
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) has been on a tear lately, badgering the Food and Drug Administration about whether it's doing enough to crack down on…
Blog
Medical Trial and Error
The Atlantic has an interesting profile of medical researcher John Ioannidis, who famously concluded in a groundbreaking 2005 study that the scientific conclusions of most…
Blog
Antibiotics and Meat DO Mix
Whether you’re talking about human or animal use, banning beneficial uses today can have negative impacts on human and animal health just as surely as…
Blog
Earth Day Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification
What’s the most sustainable way to grow the food we eat? The answer environmentalists give is always "local and organic." But, increasingly, the answer from…
Blog
Food Fight Over a Living Relic of the Past
There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today on a big new…
Blog
Green Thumbs and GMOs
A friend just recommended this op-ed published in the Boston Globe on Sunday. The title and subtitle say it all: "Green Thumbs: Genetically engineered crops…
Blog
Barack Obama and Liberal “Good” vs. Freedom
There's a great op-ed by Shelby Steele in today's Wall Street Journal, called "Barack the Good". In it, Steele argues that "today's liberalism is focused…
Blog
Gene Patents Ruled Invalid
In a pretty remarkable move, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York yesterday held that genes can not be patented…
Blog
Health Care Crisis About to Get a Whole Lot Worse
In just a few hours, the House of Representatives will vote on the $940 billion Senate health care bill, followed by a reconciliation package of…
Blog
Is There No Adult Supervision at the Campaign for Liberty?
My colleagues brought to my attention this grossly misinformed, misleading, and error-laden essay on the Campaign for Liberty’s website. The main thrust of the piece…
Blog
Insurance Industry Stung By Health Care Deal
The CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters has an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal whining that a weak individual purchase mandate is…
Blog
“Cities are probably the greenest thing that humans do.”
Environmental guru and author of the Whole Earth Catalog Stewart Brand has a new book out in which he argues that "My fellow environmentalists have…
Blog
A Cure Worse than the Disease
As I explain in a new CEI paper, which is out today, most of the alleged cost-cutting measures in the Baucus bill merely shift costs…
Blog
Science and the Sustainable Intensification of Agriculture
The UK Royal Society's long-awaited study on improving agricultural productivity and increasing food security was released this morning. it suggests that a healthy concern for…
Blog
Health Insurer Competition and Democratic Saber Rattling
Last week, after the industry association America’s Health Insurance Plans released a study showing that premiums would rise 18 percent under the Senate Finance Committee’s…
Blog
Bill Gates Says Africa Needs GMOs
On Friday, Bill Gates announced at the World Food Summit in Des Moines that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation would be redoubling its efforts…
Blog
Silencing Criticism through Libel Law
The physicist turned science journalist Simon Singh has been sued in a UK court and, this past summer, found liable for libel for an April…
Blog
Senate Finance Passes Health Reform Bill
Earlier today, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Me.) announced that she would vote in favor of the health care reform bill authored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman…
Blog
Senate Finance Committee Rejects Public Option
Liberal Democrats are fuming. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and House Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Cal.) remain committed to a "public option". President Obama…
Blog
Obama Losing Youth on Health Care
The National Journal had an interesting article this week describing the difficulty Democrats have been having getting young adults interested in the health care debate.
Blog
Public Option Is Not The Worst Aspect Of ObamaCare
"If liberal health-care reform is going to make people better off, why does it require "a very harsh, stiff penalty" to make everyone buy it?…
Blog
NYT Love Letter to FDA
New York Times reporter Gardiner Harris has a front page article in today's paper on the head of the Food and Drug Administration's Office of…
Blog
The Man Who Fed the World
Norman Borlaug was an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder whose work sparked what is now known as the Green Revolution. He was recognized with…
Blog
The New Organic and Out-of-the-Box Thinking
Congratulations to Pamela Ronald, a UC Davis plant pathology professor, on winning one of this year's Science in Society Journalism Awards, sponsored by the National…
Blog
‘The Times’ it is a changing
On Saturday, The Times of London published a news article under the headline "Organic food is a waste of money". The hard-0copy print edition of…
Blog
No Savings from Preventive Care
A new study published in the journal Health Affairs calls into question claims by congressional Democrats and President Obama that mandatory coverage of preventive care…
Blog
FDA Regulation of Internet Drug Advertising
Today, CEI filed comments on a draft FDA guidance document advising prescription drug manufacturers on how to comply with regulations requiring the presentation of risk…
Blog
The Antitrust Anachronism
Wall Street Journal columnist Gordon Crovitz has a great column in today's paper on the anachronism that is antitrust law. He writes: "Markets were so…
Blog
Penn and Teller on Organics
The irreverent and hilarious comedians Penn and Teller have produced another episode of their television show Bullshit about organic foods. Friends of CEI, Ron Bailey…
Blog
Food Safety Bills Moving Through Congress
With all out attention diverted to the government's attempted takeover of the half of US health care that isn't already nationalized, the attempted destruction of…
Blog
Food Police Attack Denny’s Over Salt
It seems that the food police at the unconscionably named Center for Science in the Public Interest are at it again. Last week, CSPI filed…
Blog
Getting the Health Care You Pay For
There was a good front page article in yesterday's Washington Post on the history of advances in medical science and technology. The conclusion: Although the…
Blog
Democrats Inconsistent on Senior Death Discount
White House health care policy advisor Ezekiel Emanuel has explicitly endorsed adopting not only comparative-effectiveness and cost-benefit analysis in the health care realm, but also…
Blog
Richard Rahn on “Washingtonosis” — The Most Destructive Disease
"Washingtonosis(n): a disease most often found in people working within three miles of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, ... Those infected tend to lose…
Blog
House Dems Would Ban New Private Health Insurance
"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first…
Blog
Obama Admits, “We’re Out of Money”.
President Obama was in the booth during the bottom of the first inning of last night's Major League Baseball All Star Game in St. Louis.
Blog
Fishy Politics May Harm US Consumers
The various US attempts to hobble the Vietnamese farmed-catfish industry is no less underhanded. And, in order to prevent a trade war with Vietnam, it…
Blog
Igniting Agricultural Innovation
"Biotechnology applied to agriculture has enormous potential to enhance our ability to develop seeds for improved crops and for enhanced livestock to enable us to…
Blog
Jack Dreyfus, FDA Reform Pioneer
My colleague John Berlau wrote a nice obituary of mutual fund pioneer Jack Dreyfus that was published in Investor’s Business Daily earlier this week.
Blog
Virginia Postrel on Her Own Brush with Cost-Effective Drug Research
One letter writer argues that Herceptin was a poor example because "Multiple cost-effectiveness analyses have shown that, despite its high cost, Herceptin is both effective…
Blog
Organic Pesticides Fail EU Safety Review
Ask people who buy organic food what they like about it, and chances are, most will say "they're grown without pesticides." That's not actually true.