Joe Camel and his Big Tobacco crew crash landed in front of the US Judicial Panel on Mul-District Litigation. Big Tobacco had sought to convince the panel that all cases filed or removed to federal court should all be sent to multi-district litigation.
Is the phrase, a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” in the constitution? Popular belief is yes, but it is not actually in the constitution. Rather, this phrase comes from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. It is probably a concept that should have been incorporated into the constitution and certainly Lincoln included it to remind citizens that it is their country. I think politicians, and even some of us, forget that it is OUR government and the politicians are OUR employees; they are supposed to be working in OUR best interests.
Business interests are fond of complaining about the jury system and regularly claim that it is “broken”, it needs to be “fixed”. Perhaps the best word is, in fact, “fixed”; they would like to fix the civil justice system so that it can be better influenced in their direction. Should we hold it against them because they work to achieve an unfair playing field? We should not hate Big Corporations for this, but should we allow them to achieve it? Absolutely not!
I think the jury system our founding fathers borrowed from English common law works just fine in protecting the rights of individual citizens. Frankly, I want six of my fellow citizens sitting and listening to evidence in my case. I want six regular people considering what makes sense and what does not make sense. I do not want a special panel appointed to hear my case, as has been promoted by many business “political parrots”. I do not want the government inserting itself into the civil justice system anymore than they already do. I trust an impartial panel of my fellow citizens to fairly weigh the evidence and reach a decision that makes sense.
With Nearly 47 million Americans or 16 percent of the population without health insurance, many are flocking to health food stores to either supplement or replace expensive prescription medication with herbal medicine. Advertising tells us that “natural” is better and “herbal” is safer. Why put “drugs” in your body when you can use a safe, natural product?
Dr. Saul Green, a biochemist and board member of the nonprofit US National Council against Health Fraud, notes: Natural doesn’t mean safe. You can find a dozen or more poisons that are totally natural. Although natural made from natural ingredients, herbal medicines can cause serious organ damage and their carcinogenicity is comparable to synthetic chemicals.
When does the Chinese calendar change? Soon, I hope. Forget about the Year of the Pig, 2007 is the Year of the Recall.
If you are looking forward to the upcoming holiday season, you’d better plan on doing a lot of standing around staring at your loved ones. The spate of recalls during 2007 may leave all of us with not much to do, no toys for the kids to play with and nothing to eat.
Today’s announcement that nearly five million Totino and Jeno brand pepperoni pizzas were being recalled because of e.coli contamination is just the latest damper on the festivities at year end. The Associated Press article notes that “General Mills voluntarily recalled eight kinds of Totino’s and three types of Jeno’s frozen pizza, which have pepperoni or other meat products” and that the food conglomerate is working with federal and state investigators.
First it was the Engle case. You may remember that this is the case in which the Florida Supreme Court vacated a punitive damage verdict against Big Tobacco in the amount of $145 billion. The Supreme Court, however, also ruled that thousands of Florida smoking victims could file individual lawsuits against Big Tobacco and made some significantly damaging findings. The Florida Supreme Court found as a matter of fact and probably as a matter of law that smoking cigarettes causes:
Concerns about the safety of toys manufactured in China continued to grow today as seven (that’s right - SEVEN) separate recalls were announced today by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the United States. Metal jewelry, puppet theaters, gardening tools and toy trains comprise this week’s “main attractions” at what has become weekly announcements of tens of thousands of affected products.
Although undoubtedly the store shelves will not be empty during the upcoming holiday shopping season, the sheer number of products geared entirely toward children, which have now been deemed unsafe, almost all of whom violate the lead paint standards for U.S. products, may be overwhelming for people trying to make educated, safe decisions when purchasing toys for children.
Today, more than ever, safety sells. And major automakers such as Ford, GM and Honda, have raced to launch safety-for-all ad campaigns or make announcements that a new safety feature will be standard on all models. But one population has been consistently left out of manufacturers’ plans for improved safety: children between the ages of 4 and 8 years old. The safety community calls these youngsters “The Forgotten Child.” But they are not so much forgotten as systematically ignored by industry and regulators alike. In fact, the historical landscape is dotted with missed opportunities to close the safety gap and warnings about the failure to do so.
Today, motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of injury-related unintentional death among children aged 14 and younger; children between the ages of 5 and 14 account for two-thirds of those deaths. In 2005, 585 children ages 5-9 died in motor vehicle crashes; 74,000 suffered injuries. About 8,000 of those injuries were incapacitating-including traumatic brain injuries caused by head trauma and cervical spine and severe abdominal injuries associated with restraint misuse.
In the first case of its kind challenging a state’s rights to regulate pollutants, General Motors and other carmakers lost their attempt to use Federal preemption laws to avoid complying with new vehicle emissions standards in Vermont.U.S. District Judge William Sessions ruled against the automobile manufacturers when ruling that the carmakers cannot block new carbon-reduction rules in Vermont (which mirror those adopted in California).
Despite the industries’ cries of higher prices, layoffs and an inability to comply with the proposed higher standards, Judge Sessions apparently bought none of the automobile manufacturer’s arguments. The court remains unconvinced automakers cannot meet the challenges of Vermont and California’s [regulations],” Sessions said in his ruling.
The AFX News reports that between 1998 and 2005, an analysis of FDA data reveals triple the number of complications and mortality from pharmaceutical, supposedly regulated, drugs. If those statistics are accurate, dangerous side effects and deaths from medicinal drugs are out of control.
So, when the FDA “approves” a drug, it’s safe, right? Not necessarily. In fact, the FDA will, if candid, admit that they have to rely on the pharmaceutical company asking for the approval to submit complete, accurate and candid information. The FDA does try to investigate drug approvals, but they do not possess the resources to conduct independent evaluations of new drugs.
Another week, another recall for Mattel.
This week, when telling Americans that they should expect more recalls in the coming months, an ominous warning was issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission about the safety of toys manufactured in China, “If I were a betting person I’d bet on more lead paint recalls. It’s clear that lead paint on toys is not isolated just to Mattel.”
This recall affected three categories of toys. The smallest percentage of the recall was made up of Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys while 90,000 Geo Trax Locomotive Toys have been removed from the shelves. The largest portion of the Mattel recall is comprised of Barbie accessories, affecting nearly 700,000 toys.
