Over the past two months a tragedy has been playing out in Europe and the US. Mattel, the world’s largest toymaker, has recalled more than 20 million of their products, including Fisher […]
Obama strikes sour note on consumer protection issues
By Martin Bosworth I’ve been trying to embrace the idea of a Barack Obama presidency. The guy strikes a lot of the right notes–eloquent, charismatic, smart, persuasive, idealistic–and has a lot of […]
You remember me yarping about “e Coli conservatives,” right?
In my series of posts on the whole melamine poisoning issue recently you might recall me breaking off the term “e Coli conservatives” in talking about how our regulatory function has been […]
Melamine, China, and the peril for emerging markets
In 1993 France instituted the European Banana Regime placing quotas on banana imports from outside of their trade preference agreements with Europe’s old colonial trading partners, the African, Caribbean and Pacific nations. […]
Taking a deep breath on melamine
We’ve been hearing a lot in the news about melamine ever since it was directly implicated in the deaths thousands of pets. The latest news is that melamine has apparently entered the […]
Food contamination: do we risk a trade war with China?
[This is a guest entry by Jim Gwyn, a professional chemist and environmental regulator in North Carolina.] ______________ The expert in your earlier post talking about sulfur in proteins was partially right. […]
Your morning Chinese food contamination update: new developments, widening crisis
UPDATE: – BREAKING: Americans ate 3 million melamine-tainted chickens! In a conference call with media this afternoon, USDA Assistant Administrator Kenneth Petersen revealed that as many as 3 million chickens, contaminated with […]
Melamine story gets worse and worse
The melamine-spiking story continues to build, and so far nothing about it offers any reason for comfort. HorsesAss offers a mortifying blow-by-blow here, and after reading it you have to wonder not […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 