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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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”…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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FDA Should Not Mandate Comparative Effectiveness Trials
AEI resident fellow Scott Gottlieb has a new paper out explaining why the FDA should not force…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…