National Review
It’s Time to Shine a Light on Regulatory ‘Dark Matter’
Regulation is not the only way the federal bureaucracy inhibits innovation. President Donald Trump’s desire to shrink the regulatory state by significantly cutting the number…
Wall Street Journal
Non-GMO Cheerios Add No Value
Alisa Gravitz, responding (letters, Feb. 4) to our " General Mills GIS +0.46% Has a Soggy Idea for Cheerios" (op-ed, Jan. 21), is wrong on…
Wall Street Journal
General Mills Has A Soggy Idea For Cheerios
This month General Mills announced that it would begin labeling its flagship product, the breakfast cereal Cheerios, as containing no ingredients from GMOs (genetically modified…
Forbes
The IRS Fiasco Is Only The Tip Of The Iceberg
You certainly hear some amazing things in congressional testimony. Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS unit that determines whether organizations receive tax-exempt status, claimed…
Orange County Register
Lost lives the real costs of regulator overreach
Every once in a while, one encounters the perfect example of the folly, naivete and hubris of an ivory-tower academic. A case in point was…
Forbes
Bee-ing Smart: Regulators Must Distinguish Activists’ Bad Dreams From Actual Evidence
Important technologies commonly face opposition from various quarters – often from vested interests, societal Chicken Littles or overly precautionary regulators. Examples include vaccination, fluoridation of…
Forbes
Is It Time to Get Rid of the EPA?
When I joined the Food and Drug Administration in 1979, I was essentially apolitical and knew next to nothing about federal regulation. A science nerd,…
Forbes
The EPA’s Lisa Jackson: The Worst Head of the Worst Regulatory Agency, Ever
President Obama and his minions seem to think that freedom is a four-letter word. His administration has imposed an array of intrusive, nanny-state, financial, environmental…
Cato
The Ripple Effects of Flawed Agbiotech Regulation
The modern techniques of genetic engineering—also known as biotechnology, recombinant DNA technology, or genetic modification (GM)—offer plant breeders the tools to make old crop plants…
Hoover Institution
Free Speech for Big Pharma
One of the most important elements of medicine is also among the least well known: the ability of physicians to prescribe approved medicines for purposes…
Hoover Institution
A Lack of Government Transparency: The Devil In The Detailing
Cowritten by Jeff Stier. A House Appropriations subcommittee has voted to move forward legislation that would cut $1.3 billion from the Department of Health and…
Hoover Institution
Europe vs. Scientific Consensus
Co-authored by Drew L. Kershen. The modern techniques for genetic improvement — recombinant DNA, or “genetic modification” (GM) — began to be applied to bacteria…
Orange County Register
A Losing Proposition on Food Labeling
California's initiative process – which allows "propositions" to be placed on the ballot quite easily – can lead to laws that are muddled, intentionally misleading…
Forbes
“Genetically Engineered” In California: A Food Label We Don’t Need
From “food miles” to farmers’ markets, it seems that consumers have never been more interested in the ways their food is grown. That’s one motivation…
Forbes
Labeling Of Genetically Engineered Foods Is A Losing Proposition
As Joe Six-pack munches Fritos and popcorn during the opening games of the NFL season, does he care what variety of corn was used to…
Forbes
ObamaCare’s Killer Device Tax
Much of the political conversation in Washington these days concerns innovation, job creation and competitiveness. But talk is cheap, and elected officials must enact policies…
Forbes
How is the FDA Really Doing?
I read with interest—and mounting skepticism—Patricia Dimond’s Insight & Intelligence™ piece about FDA, “FDA New Drug Approvals in 2011 Outpace…
Forbes
The FDA vs. Commercial Speech
The ability of physicians to prescribe approved medicines for purposes not sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is one of the most important…
Forbes
Labeling Of Biotech Foods Is Unnecessary And Unconstitutional
This piece was co-written with Henry Miller. Should the government require that labels on cans of marinara sauce contain information about whether the tomatoes in…
Forbes
Dying to Grow?
We are constantly bombarded with information about the purported risks or protective effects of one or another food, dietary supplement, chemical, drug, or activity. In…
Forbes
BPA Law Should Be Canned
Advocates on opposing sides of a public policy issue often have honest differences of opinion, with both viewpoints being plausible. It is the stuff of…
Forbes
The USDA’s Anti-Science Activism
Full Document Available in PDF U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack must…
Forbes
Innovation Arrested By The Law Of Unintended Consequences
Wrong-headed regulation often has unintended consequences. A good example is governments’ approach to “genetically engineered” crops. In only 15 years, modern genetic engineering technology —…
Forbes
Frankenfish Fatuity
I’ll say one thing for the most recent New York Times‘ rant about genetically engineered food: They got the headline — “Frankenfish Phobia”…
Forbes
Warning Labels On New York Times Columns
The New York Times was once known as the “newspaper of record.” Now, its reputation is for bias and inaccuracy. And not only about politics.
Forbes
The Rush to Condemn Genetically Modified Crops
In spite of more than twenty years of scientific, humanitarian, and financial successes and an admirable record of health and environmental safety, genetic engineering applied…
Forbes
The FDA Needs Strong Medicine
Christmas came a couple of weeks late to the business sectors regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The greatest threat to the success of…
Forbes
Sack Vilsack!
Something is very wrong at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The secretary, Tom Vilsack, is letting hypothetical claims by organic farmers–who produce less than 1%…
Forbes
A Spoonful of Sugar Will Soon Cost More
Despite many years of success with genetically modified plants, various environmentalists won’t stop trying to obstruct biotech foodstuffs. First they tried to frighten consumers away…
Forbes
The Environmental Impact Subterfuge
Action needs to be taken to prevent anti-biotech activists from co-opting environmental law to derail the planting of transgenic crops that have already received regulatory…
Forbes
Upstream Battle for Genetically Engineered Salmon
Over the last two decades, the use of modern genetic engineering technology to produce pharmaceuticals and new crop plants has given rise to prodigious scientific,…
Forbes
Too safe for our own good?
Myths about the risks of various products and activities can themselves be harmful to your health. They include the belief that greater regulation is synonymous…
Forbes
Off Target On Off-Label Drugs
Americans are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their government, according to opinion polls released in April by the Pew Research Center. The center’s president, Andrew…
Forbes
Will Americans (Literally) Be Dying For ObamaCare?
Remember Harry and Louise, the made-for-television couple whose advertisements helped scuttle the Clinton health care plan 16 years ago? President Barack Obama does. Every…
Op-Eds
Congressional Cures?
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Op-Eds
The Harmful Side Effect We Never Hear About
Editor's note: This is the first of two articles. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> For the second part in this…
Op-Eds
Clone: It’s What’s for Dinner
SAN FRANCISCO — California politics lately seems a parody of itself. Starting in February, San Francisco will become the first city in the country…
Op-Eds
Unhappy Days Are Here Again
“The American people voted for change and they voted for Democrats to take our country in a new direction,” said a triumphant Nancy…
Op-Eds
The Man for All Seasons
Life really can imitate art. Leon Hesser's straightforward yet gripping biography of Norman Borlaug, the plant breeder known as the Father of the…
Op-Eds
Are Bad Drugs Coming to a Pharmacy Near You?
In “The Third Man,” the brilliant, shadowy, 1949 film, Orson Welles' character, Harry Lime, is a morally bankrupt, cynical racketeer and dealer of…
Op-Eds
Drug Testing, Drug Hazards
A clinical trial that went badly awry at London's Northwick Park Hospital in March became the drug-testing community's worst nightmare. Six healthy volunteers ended up…
Op-Eds
Why spurning food biotech has become a liability
Henry I. Miller, MD, Gregory Conko & Drew L. Kershen By rejecting gene-spliced ingredients in their products, some major food companies may be…
Op-Eds
Bad Bugs, Few Drugs
During the late 1960's, my college roommate suffered a seemingly minor skin infection on a finger, which quickly turned into blood poisoning and…
Op-Eds
A Bird Flu Manhattan Project?
Vaccination to prevent viral and bacterial diseases is modern medicine's most cost-effective intervention. Vaccines to prevent the expected avian flu pandemic could save…
Op-Eds
The UN vs. Technology
With diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS ravaging the world's poor—and perhaps a flu pandemic in the offing—the United Nations'…
Op-Eds
New Drug Demagoguery
“New Drugs Hit the Market, but Promised Trials Go Undone” and “FDA: Drug Companies Drop Ball on Studies,” the headlines blared.
Op-Eds
Patients vs. Paternalism
Decisions about drug safety and efficacy are far from easy. Tysabri, a multiple sclerosis (MS) drug that was voluntarily withdrawn from the market last year…
Op-Eds
The Lancet Pricks Itself
The term “medical journals” elicits automatic respect from most people. Not from me: I read them. I've found the editors to be increasingly…
Op-Eds
WTO and Biotech Food: Who Really Won?
The long-awaited World Trade Organization decision on biotechnology applied to agricultural products, finally released earlier this month, elicited a great deal of buzz…
Op-Eds
In the Interests of Stakeholders… and Steakholders
There was good news last month on both sides of our northern border: In response to confirmation of an isolated case of bovine…
Op-Eds
All the news that fits
Newspapers are often criticized for bias in their “news” articles. A prime example was Andrew Pollack's Feb. 14 New York Times piece on…
Op-Eds
We Have It Coming
Americans are about to learn the hard way about the unintended consequences of over-regulation and flawed policy initiatives. Vaccination to prevent viral and bacterial…
Op-Eds
Some Hard Truths About Bird Flu
The issues surrounding the possibility of a pandemic of the H5N1 strain of avian flu are extraordinarily complex, encompassing medicine, epidemiology, virology and even…
Op-Eds
Fill the Moat, Lower the Portcullis
The issues surrounding the possibility of a pandemic of the H5N1 strain of avian flu are extraordinarily complex, encompassing aspects of medicine, epidemiology,…
Op-Eds
Flu pandemic prevention
This month's outbreak of H5N1 avian flu in Turkey—as many as 50 human cases and several deaths—looks very like what we might see…
Op-Eds
Ominous Prospects for Aging
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal described “a growing backlash against the pharmaceutical industry that is already affecting the development and…
Op-Eds
CEOs Should Mind Their Own Business
President Coolidge once said the business of America is business. He might have added that the business of business is to pursue profits,…
Op-Eds
Good Drugs, Bad Rap
These are turbulent times for the pharmaceutical industry and for its regulator, the FDA. Lately, both have focused increasingly on issues of safety.
Op-Eds
The Long REACH of the EU
The European Union's Council of Ministers is expected to vote soon on the proposed chemicals regulation called REACH, an acronym for Registration, Evaluation, and…
Op-Eds
The UN’s War Against Innovation
The leadership of the United Nations is truly the gang that can't shoot straight. Even if the recent incidents of corruption and profiteering—exemplified…
Op-Eds
Making Sense of Drug Safety
Have you ever tried to read the official FDA-approved labeling for a drug? It's tough going even for physicians who are trying to…
Op-Eds
Mad Science
I enjoy a spirited, well-argued political argument as much as anybody, but in “The Republican War on Science,” journalist Chris Mooney offers only a tiresome…
Op-Eds
Ignore Rumors; Teflon Proven to Be Safe
The uncanny ability of President Ronald Reagan to deflect public criticism won him the nickname “The Teflon President.” Ironically, now it is Teflon…
Op-Eds
Are We in a Brave New World of “Personalized” Medicine?
BiDil, a new drug labeled for treatment of blacks with severe heart failure, has begun to arrive in pharmacies. Approved by FDA in…
Op-Eds
More Crop for the Drop
The worst East Central U.S. drought in almost 20 years is decimating harvests of corn and soybeans, threatening farmers’ economic survival and disrupting commercial shipping…
Op-Eds
Noisy Spring: Avoiding the West Nile virus
The six-year-old U.S. outbreak of West Nile virus is a significant threat to public health and shows no signs of abating. Last year, there were…
Op-Eds
REACH and Risk
One of the key reasons the European Union’s proposed constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters is that they dislike having their lives…
Forbes
‘Big Lie’ Enough to Make Drug Industry Ill
Activism can be a good thing. We all benefit from getting to shop in the marketplace of ideas. However, all is not good-faith activism. Take,…
Op-Eds
The UN at 60, by Henry Miller and Gregory Conko
The United Nations, now celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of its charter, is not aging well. Its officials are being accused…
Op-Eds
Kernals of Truth, by Henry Miller
The world is going corn-crazy and maize-mad . . . again. Five years ago, there was near-hysteria over “contamination” of yellow corn and…
Op-Eds
The UN’s Silent Scandal, by Henry Miller and Gregory Conko
The United Nations is being accused of all manner of criminality and corruption these days, ranging from sexual assaults by peacekeepers in <?xml:namespace…
Op-Eds
Infant Formula Ambush by Henry I. Miller
Self-styled public-health activists often pursue issues that are surrogates for their real agenda. One example is the continuing attack on infant formula. Activists'…
Op-Eds
Infant Formula Fanatics Should Stop Milking the Issue, by Henry Miller
Self-styled public health activists often pursue issues that are surrogates for their real agenda. One example is the continuing attack on infant formula. The…
Op-Eds
If Wishes Were Horses, This Would Be the Kentucky Derby
GENEVA, Switzerland—The 58th World Health Assembly (the World Health Organization's policy-making body) under way here brings to mind the cliché about the contestants…
Op-Eds
What Storm-Tossed FDA Needs
President Bush's nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Lester Mr. Crawford, faces daunting challenges. As acting commissioner for most of…
Op-Eds
A Poor Helmsman Navigates FDA’s Perfect Storm
The President's nominee to head the FDA, Lester Crawford, faces daunting challenges. As acting commissioner for most of the past four years, Crawford…
Op-Eds
Bush’s Nominee is Wrong Guy for FDA at this Critical Time
The president's nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration, Lester Crawford, faces daunting challenges. As acting commissioner for most of the past…
Op-Eds
Hysteria over Cosmetics
Europe-envy by Californians may be fine for makers of champagne and foie gras, but it's disastrous for legislators in search of sound regulatory policy.
Op-Eds
Kraft Nod to Gene-Splicing Provides Food for Thought
Full document available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Biotechnology applied to agriculture and…
Op-Eds
California’s Extreme Makeover
If <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />California truly is the bellwether for the rest of the country, get ready for more…
Op-Eds
Bureaucrats upending NIH
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) faces a revolt by its employees over new, draconian conflict-of-interest rules. They ban all consulting (paid or unpaid) for…
Op-Eds
Misnamed Activists Are Thorns In Rose Of Agbiotech Foods
In a spin-dominated world where activists claim—often on the flimsiest of data—that this, that or the other thing causes cancer or threatens the…
Op-Eds
Dying for Regulatory Reform
Full article available in pdf format Congress has a long and ignoble history of exaggerated legislative responses to perceived health…
Op-Eds
Travesties of Regulation: Harmful U.N. policies.
Former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker, who heads the inquiry into corruption in the United Nations' defunct oil-for-food program, has just issued…
Op-Eds
Stopping a Flu Pandemic
During the winter of 1918-19, only months after the end of World War I, much of the world was ravaged again, this time…
Op-Eds
Pew’s Parallel Universe
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> The “new biotechnology,” or gene-splicing, applied to agriculture and food production is here to…
Op-Eds
The Danger of Too Much Caution
Congress has a long and ignoble history of exaggerated legislative responses to perceived health crises. They seem to be at it again.<?xml:namespace prefix…
Op-Eds
How lawsuits can kill
This year's flu-vaccine shortfall is just one of many dangerous shortages of essential vaccines—and it need not have happened. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns…
Op-Eds
The Supermarket’s Unnatural Selections
Agricultural practices have been “unnatural” for 10,000 years. With the exception of wild berries and wild mushrooms, virtually all the grains, fruits and…
Op-Eds
The Curse of Too Much Caution
The FDA is the nation's most ubiquitous regulatory agency. It oversees products that account for 25 cents of every consumer dollar, with a…
Op-Eds
Making the Desert Bloom
There is big news from the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Middle East that is unusual in several ways: It's positive,…
Op-Eds
Vaccine Development Needs a Booster Shot
Every year in this country influenza kills tens of thousands and hospitalizes about a quarter-million. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />…
Op-Eds
The Toxic Politics of Biotech
How far does grass pollen travel? Ask someone who has hay fever, and the response is likely to be “much too far.” But…
Op-Eds
More Crop for the Drop
Your morning espresso at Starbucks will soon be more expensive. Unless, that is, they find a way to make it without water or coffee, both…
Op-Eds
Mr. Rifkin’s Pipe Dream
Professional worrier Jeremy Rifkin's pronouncements always remind me of the characterization by one-time Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas B. Reed of…
Op-Eds
Nauseating Cases of Product Liability
Morning sickness –the nausea and vomiting that afflict more than half of pregnant women –can be debilitating. There once was…
Op-Eds
The Truth About Marcia Angell
I never knew my maternal grandparents. During the nineteen-teens, my maternal grandmother died of a wound infection following a routine gall-bladder operation. A…
Op-Eds
Bookshelf: Fighting Disease Is Only Half the Battle
As a fresh-faced medical intern, a colleague of mine once greeted a new patient with a breezy, “So what’s your problem?” “Oh, just a touch…
Op-Eds
California Wine vs. Two-Legged Pests
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />California is under attack by parasites, of both the six-legged and two-legged variety. The former are…
Op-Eds
There’s a Cure for Frivolous Drug Lawsuits
Morning sickness—the nausea and vomiting that afflicts more than half of all pregnant women—can be debilitating. There used to be an excellent prescription medication to…