Featured Posts
News Release
GDP report for third quarter indicates strengthened economy: CEI analysis
The GDP report for the third quarter of 2024 shows 2.8 percent growth, indicating a rapidly growing and healthy economy. While there is still…
CNBC
Up to $400 to change a lightbulb? Appliance repair costs are no joke
CNBC quoted CEI’s expert on a sustainable future “These state proposals and state laws could lead to a lose-lose situation in which manufacturers are harmed…
Human Progress
Appliances Contribute to Human Progress—but Regulations Threaten Their Affordability
Summary: Home appliances have drastically improved human life, from preventing heat-related deaths with air conditioning to making household tasks more efficient with washing machines and…
Search Posts
Blog
Experts Question Enormous Cost and Constitutionality of Healthcare Legislation
The health care legislation backed by the president and congressional leaders will increase Americans’ health care costs by more than $200 billion,…
Blog
Gag me. Public health establishment takes credit for mildness of swine flu season
Inevitably when pandemic doom fails to pan out, whether it be heterosexual AIDS, SARS, avian flu, or anything else the public health establishment that panicked…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 99: Salty New Yorkers
New York City is seeking to regulate how much salt is in peoples' food. Enforcement will prove difficult; most food that New Yorkers eat comes…
Blog
“Homer doughnut. Bacon doughnut. Paradise.”
Thus says Morgan Spurlock in The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special. When I first heard that Spurlock, whose most renowned contribution to film is a leftish…
Blog
Flu Watch Jan. 8 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing this week
These things just keep getting briefer and briefer. Infections down, deaths down to only 14, states with widespread activity: just one. Updating you on…
Blog
Nobel Prize Winning Economist Says Obama Policies Delaying Economic Recovery
In the Wall Street Journal, Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker and others explain how President Obama’s policies are delaying and retarding the inevitable economic…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 98: Gastrointestinal Drugs
Did you know that the federal government has a Gastrointestinal Drugs Advisory Committee?…
Blog
Positively bad thinking
“Anybody who ever built an empire, or changed the world, sat where you are now,” says George Clooney’s “termination engineer” to just-fired employees in the…
Blog
“Was Swine Flu a False Pandemic?”
No, that’s not Michael Fumento asking. It’s a pharmaceutical industry blog declaring, “That’s the contention by more than a dozen members of the Parliamentary…
Blog
Flu Watch Dec. 30 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing
It’s a holiday so we’ll make this quick. Infections have somehow managed to drop again as have deaths and hospitalizations. Just 15 deaths reported…
Blog
Florida Attorney General Questions Constitutionality of Healthcare Bills in Congress
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum is questioning whether it is constitutional to force people to buy health insurance, as the health…
Blog
Swine flu also unexceptional in contagiousness
With a massive amount of data indicating swine flu is vastly milder than seasonal flu, a new study in the New England Journal of…
Blog
No, yet again, cell phones do not cause cancer
If you’re getting a headache from spending to much time on your cell phone, it’s probably from yakking too much. But it’s not from brain…
Blog
Is ObamaCare’s “Individual Mandate” Unconstitutional?
The health care bills backed by the President require that individuals buy health insurance if it is not provided by their employer. Is that unconstitutional?…
Blog
Flu Watch Dec. 24 – The U.S. Epidemic is Over
The Big Scare of 2009 is over, folks. The U.S. swine flu epidemic has ended. “The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I)…
Blog
Washington Post Back to Pushing Avian Flu Panic
Remember avian flu? Until swine flu came along, that’s what was going to wipe out mankind.
Blog
Regulation of the Day 82: Veterinarians
Did you know that the federal government is in the veterinary accreditation business? It’s true.
Blog
File this under “Shocked, shocked!”
“Experts predict flu pandemic could be mildest on record” declares the Washington Post headline. Unless, that is, you use the old definition of pandemic…
Blog
“WHO Should Just Give Up on the Flu Scare,” my National Post piece
The folks who dubbed the swine flu piglet a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO), just won’t let up. “It is too early to say…
Blog
Flu Watch Dec. 4 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing this Week
The epidemic has plunged so far that it’s on the borderline of no longer being one. An epidemic, that is. It’s right on the…
Blog
What about a “second wave” of swine flu?
Mr. Fumento, I read your articles religiously. You recently attacked swine flu as hysterical overreaction. Is it really? You talk about a bell curve…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 77: Banning Toys in Happy Meals
Roberto Zabrido, a government official in Spain, is “adamant that the Happy Meal and its ilk pose a risk.” The solution? Legislation!…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 76: Generic Medication for Farm Animals
If you put chlortetracycline powder in your farm animals’ drinking water to prevent disease, please be aware that a new federal rule now allows you…
Blog
“Would ObamaCare Reduce Innovation?”: Health Care Bill Would Cause Preventable Deaths
“Would ObamaCare Kill Medical Innovation?” That’s the question posed by health care expert Michael Cannon. His answer is yes: “President Obama’s…
Blog
Moderates Criticize Health Care Bill As It Advances in Senate; Experts Gave Bill A “Failing Grade”
On Saturday, the Senate voted 60-to-39, along party lines, to press towards passage of a massive health care bill, by blocking a…
Blog
Healthcare Bill Advances in Senate, Despite Receiving Failing Grade from Health Experts; Democrats Block Filibuster in Party-Line Vote
The healthcare bill is on the verge of passing the Senate, despite the fact that it has received a failing grade from healthcare experts like…
Blog
Flu Report Nov. 21 and my piece on the epidemic peak in NRO.
“Swine flu has killed 540 kids, sickened 22 million Americans,” screamed USA Today’s page 1 headline, sub-headed “CDC: Cases, Deaths are Unprecedented.” “Swine flu cases…
Blog
Reid Health Care Bill Adds New Tax Increases, Costs Twice As Much As Promised
The health care “reform” bill drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid adds new tax increases, and costs twice as much as its…
Blog
Not sure what DDT does to birds, but I know how it helps people
There’s been much in the news lately about the brown pelican being delisted as an endangered species since its recovery from the effects of…
Blog
Harvard Medical School Dean Gives ObamaCare a “Failing Grade”
"In discussions with dozens of health-care leaders and economists, I find near unanimity of opinion that the final legislation that will emerge from Congress will…
Blog
Senate Committee Rubberstamps Left-Wing Ideologue to Head Powerful OSHA Agency Despite His Anti-Gun and Pro-Junk-Science Views
David Michaels, a left-wing ideologue who supports junk science and seeks to restrict gun possession, has been approved by the Senate Health Committee…
Blog
Oyster Ban Update: Partial Victory!
The ban, due to take effect in 2011, has not been repealed outright. But, in response to public outcry, it has been delayed.
Blog
Health-Care “Reform” Bills Increase Costs, Endanger Access for Millions, Federal Experts Say
The healthcare “reform” bill backed by Obama “would reduce senior care,” and “could jeopardize access to care for millions,” report healthcare…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 72: Brass Toys, Killer of Children
Toymakers presumably choose brass because it is cheap, durable, and better than alternative materials. Now they will have to turn to those second-best materials despite…
Blog
Yes, I will be posting about the new CDC swine flu estimates
At a glance, though, the estimates look okay it’s the spin and the lack of perspective that I have trouble with. And while the media…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 71: Waistlines
In Japan, it is illegal for men to have a waist larger than 33.5 inches. The limit for women is 35.4 inches. Those in violation…
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
Get more doctors — get rid of H-1B visa cap
CEI’s champion of letter-writing, Alex Nowrasteh, has a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal today advocating removing the cap on H-1B…
Blog
Flu Watch Nov. 7 – What Swine Flu Isn’t Doing This Week
Well, what swine flu isn’t doing this week is apparently less than what it wasn’t doing last week. In other words, it appears to have…
Blog
Swine flu “survivor” speaks out on media hysteria
From a letter to the editor of the Washington Post: It is ridiculous that The Post has dedicated so much of the A section…
Blog
Flu Watch Oct. 31 – What swine flu ISN’T doing this week
It’s Halloween, and the monster at the door is swine flu. Or so we’re told. Yet again. And people respond accordingly. “I’ve never seen it…
Blog
NY Guv orders state of panic over swine flu
Emulating the Obama Administration, New York Gov. David Paterson has “declared a state of emergency, saying a recent rise in swine flu cases has created…
Blog
Why did Obama declared a swine flu “emergency” with no emergency?
As I note in my Investor’s Business Daily article, swine flu cases in the last seven months, according to the CDC, equal about four…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 67: Oysters
A new FDA rule requires oysters harvested between April and October to be sterilized before they are eaten. An unintended consequence is that the state…
Blog
“Public Option” Is a Gimmick That Won’t Improve Healthcare
In the Washington Post, Robert J. Samuelson explains in the “Public Plan Mirage” how the so-called “public option” contained in congressional health-care reform bills…
Blog
Obama’s swine flu “emergency” declaration
It’s a bunch of hog droppings. Watch for my upcoming article. In the meantime, read here on why we should not panic.
Blog
Widening a highway is both an environmental AND civil rights issue?
Was a time when “civil rights” meant things like equal opportunities in employment and schooling for racial and ethnic minorities. And “environmental” meant something affecting…
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
Fumento yells “Sooo-eeeee!” on Liddy
I bent G. Gordon Liddy’s ears back today on his radio show (easy to find them, given his lack of hair) on my current…
Blog
More Hypocrisy Regarding FTC Blog Regulations
Michael Masnick at Techdirt offers up another incidence of government inconsistency in light of the FTC’s blog-watching rules, reminding us that “…