Source: Flickr It’s fairly common knowledge that the tobacco industry has engaged in nefarious practices, such as secretly verifying the addictive quality of nicotine and strategizing how best to get kids to smoke. If you take a moment to read some of the actual memos and reports that chronicle these goings on, I think you’ll…
We’ve come a long way in the history of cigarette advertising. Here’s a 1949 commercial for Camels. The “More doctors smoke Camels” campaign was a response to concerns, starting in the 1940s, that smoking caused lung cancer and heart disease. There had been a series of articles on this in the widely read Reader’s Digest….
Smoking causes lung cancer. We’ve known that for 60+ years. But the regulation of tobacco has happened in slow motion, thanks largely to political lobbying by the tobacco industry. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the FDA could not take it upon itself to regulate cigarettes. It would first need legislative approval from Congress….
Roll Call, the daily paper aimed at Washington politicos, gets endorsements such as the following from members of Congress: Former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.): “Roll Call is a critical and indispensable tool for deciphering the day-to-day maneuverings of Capitol Hill. Roll Call has its finger on the pulse of Congress.” Former Sen. John…
Last year it was tomatoes contaminated with Salmonella. Except not really. After the tomato industry lost $200 million, it turned out it wasn’t tomatoes after all, but jalapeno and serrano peppers from Mexico. Tomatoes aren’t off the hook though. There have been 12 Salmonella-contaminated tomato outbreaks since 1990 serious enough to involve multiple states. In…
The talking calorie pedometer We spend a lot of energy on calories — counting them, avoiding them, feeling guilty about them. But what are calories, anyway? Well, they ARE energy. Specifically, calories are the energy we get from the food we consume. And that makes them a good and essential thing. Calories wouldn’t be a…
Among those opposing Obama’s choice of Sanjay Gupta as the next Surgeon General is Adrian Campbell, a Michigan woman who appeared in Michael Moore’s film Sicko. Gupta told his television audience: In Canada, you can be waiting for a long time. A survey of six industrialized nations found that only Canada was worse than the…
