Posts tagged with ‘FDA’
Today the FDA released its long-awaited—and in some quarters, long feared—proposed new rules for marketing foods from animals that have been genetically engineered to have particular traits.
Milk and meat from cloned animals could be in the U.S. food supply, and the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Department of Agriculture can’t detect it, says an FDA official, despite a USDA “voluntary moratorium.” But products from cloned animals may have been in the food supply for a while.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed a rule that cattle too sick to stand should not be turned into hamburgers. The move raises the opportunity to consider broader issues regarding federal food safety structures, which have been under scrutiny since this summer’s outbreak of
salmonella St. Paul, which was eventually traced to imported serrano peppers.
A quick look at the issues making the rounds on the science blogs this week.
Why did it take almost four months after the first report of a Salmonella St. Paul infection for the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control to find the grower responsible? Two congressional hearings yesterday and today aimed at understanding why this most recent food safety scare took so long to understand.
With the support of cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris USA, the House voted Wednesday to approve legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco.
The House and Senate agreed yesterday to ban three types of phthalates, chemicals that are common in plastics, perfumes, lotions, and shampoos, and that can disrupt normal hormone function.
In response to recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, including salmonella-contaminated tomatoes, the Bush administration has asked Congress to add $275 million to the proposed 2009 budget of $2.4 billion for the Food and Drug Administration. But the patch won’t fix a fractured food safety system.
David Michaels speaks at a Center for American Progress event to discuss his book,
Doubt Is Their Product, explaining the “tricks of the trade” used by cigarette makers, drug companies, and climate change deniers to delay regulation that would make Americans safer.
As food worries grow, so does the appeal of a single federal Food Safety Administration to deliver effective oversight of what America eats.
On Tuesday, the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing on a contaminant in blood thinner heparin that caused 81 deaths. Federal regulators now believe the contamination was deliberate, identifying a Chinese subsidiary of Scientific Protein Laboratories. It is no longer realistic to expect the FDA to make informed decisions if it does not have the resources to undertake foreign inspections.
The latest news on industry obfuscation of scientific research and government complicity is that the Food and Drug Administration relied on studies funded by trade groups in decisions on an unsafe compound in common plastic products.
In Congress there is astonishingly shortsighted opposition to the obvious need for the Food and Drug Administration to police the tobacco industry.
Allegations of professional baseball players abusing human growth hormone have raised the profile of this heavily regulated substance. The House on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing yesterday to sift through misinformation on HGH and get the scientific facts.
India ramps up science and engineering education; the European Commission has more questions for Microsoft; the International Linear Collider may end up in Japan; Supreme Court rules that terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to developmental drugs; FCC could have trouble selling all its wireless licenses.
An FDA study says that milk and meat from cloned animals is safe for human consumption. The news breaks close on the heels of reports that the E.U.’s European Food Safety Authority released similar findings that food from cloned livestock is “very unlikely” to harm consumers.
Three young women scientists make history; arguments over the impact of climate change on global health; how not to get funding from the NSF; John Marburger talks with the National Journal; conflicts of interest at the FDA; the ailing Discovery Corps Fellowship program; and what is Evo-Devo?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is so underfunded and understaffed that it is putting consumers at risk to unsafe foods and drugs, according to a report, “FDA Science and Mission at Risk,” released by an advisory panel to the government agency on November 30th.
The University of Virginia is being accused of encouraging doctors to prescribe Johnson & Johnson’s anti-seizure and migraine drug Topamax “off-label” to treat alcoholism. But is the medicine safe for treating alcoholics without FDA approval?
