An important Oregon consumer safety announcement from the federal government has been passed along by The Oregonian. The newspaper reports that the Food and Drug Administration has ordered the recall of seven different varieties of Annie’s frozen pizza because some of the meals may be “studded with metal fragments.” The…
An article published this week in the online magazine Slate makes a compelling case that the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an organization many of us think of as an important guardian of Americans’ safety and rights, could do a lot more to make its own workings transparent. The article begins…
Now that Thanksgiving is over and Christmas, Hanukkah and the New Year are fast approaching it is a good time to remember that holiday joy should also be tempered with a measure of caution. Earlier this month the US Public Interest Research Group released its annual survey of dangerous toys,…
An article published yesterday in the New York Times raises serious questions about product safety issues concerning bed rails, and is worth our notice here in Oregon. The paper’s reporting is built around the shocking revelation that the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Food and Drug Administration have both…
We’ve all seen the tiny red and yellow bottles in the supermarket. Most of us have seen the TV commercials too: 5-Hour Energy bills itself as an afternoon pick-me-up for flagging office workers, and as time-efficient replacement for a late commuter’s morning coffee. According to an investigation by the New…
Last week the US Chamber of Commerce held its annual Legal Reform Summit – an event designed to scare Americans into believing that our courts are out of control. The American Association of Justice took this opportunity to set the record straight, posting an online slide show designed to educate…
The death of a six month old baby eight years ago, and another closely-averted tragedy two years later, set in motion a chain of events leading to the recall this month of hundreds of thousands of potentially dangerous strollers, according to a report by the Associated Press. The strollers were…
Earlier this month news broke of a head-spinningly large fraud settlement involving the pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline. According to ABC News the company “agreed to an unprecedented $3 billion settlement with the US government over allegations that the company advertised drugs for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.”…
I have written in the past about the importance of window safety. Too many people forget at this time of year that screens are designed to keep bugs out, not to keep children in, and fail to take essential precautions. This reminder is prompted by a recent report in The…
A few weeks ago I posted an item marking National Window Safety Week. This weekend brought a sad reminder of why this issue is so important. As The Oregonian reports, citing Tualatin Valley first responders, “a two-year-old Tigard girl was taken to an area hospital Saturday night after she fell…